Most read stories

The Bookshelves

11211121 views44 comments33 favs

rows and sections of casually arranged selectionswell crafted but haphazardpretty objets d'art randomly placed as cluesto significant life moments and revealing preferencesmy mother was an interior designershe would have clucked her tongueher head cocked to the sideas she…

Scanner

11211121 views66 comments33 favs

The Bearcat 101 was a police scanner popular with a certain type during in the 1970s. Daddy was that exact type. I found the Bearcat in his apartment after he passed. His illness was a common one, the process gradual, implacable. No red and blue…

where you had me

11211121 views00 comments00 favs

You already had me in all your other paintings. You already had me in every possible position. Underwater, in a car seat, on your back lawn at night with lightning coming from the west, bending over to sniff a rose, with my panties down around my knees.

Outré Souls (WIP)

11211121 views00 comments00 favs

When the lore of the land could no longer hold the minds of men, they turned their eyes to places where they expected to find no other gaze.

Morning Night (2,3,4)

11211121 views00 comments00 favs

Monday MorningI wake slowly. My breath still escapes me. He's asleep on the sofa, legs hanging, hand hanging, lips hanging, a river of saliva somewhere. He tries to be the one that's okay when I'm not, but really he's just as bloody as I am. I wait til he starts to…

The Walk of Shame

11201120 views22 comments22 favs

There it was One abandoned high heel shoe on the sidewalk Could have been Some kind of robbery Though Maybe it was just The beginning of the Walk of shame

If Ted Hughes Rewrote Shakespeare

11201120 views11 comment11 fav

The Phoenix Asks the Turtle-Dove if He Can Get a Drop of Water: After Shakespeare — In the style of Ted Hughes Let the bugling bird come up that burst a big loud lay, On the solitary tree of old Arabia (sound its thunder!):…

Class

11201120 views11 comment00 favs

Before they ever spoke, Linda and Meg had sat next to each other in the cramped lecture hall for three weeks, their thighs touching, while Dr. Laurens showed slides of ancient Japanese art. Meg's eyes never left the screen, but Linda glanced at her as often as she…

Dust Scars

11201120 views00 comments00 favs

A gurgle of sugar on bark-splotch or blips. A mess: blueprints, radar, or wrench. Lips swell neon blood. So much spit, the lunar tremors. Manipulated, blur flutter flicks. To lungs: choke on scraps of metal, lumber, nuclear. Stir the embers. She's a bone bath for…

The Sound of Paper

11201120 views33 comments00 favs

From the earth it erupts Growing longer, stronger, as the sun rises and sets Days and nights pass, bringing the wind, the rain, the moon, the stars A place of shelter it becomes

'Danny's Navel Adventure'

11201120 views00 comments00 favs

Danny is one of life's armchair philosophers, and in a moment of complete absurdity asks himself if he has ever been in love. From that moment on he embarks on a quest to find out. Follow Danny as he searches for the 'Pink Blancmange', gets propositioned

The Stuffy Poet

11201120 views33 comments33 favs

Getting up and reading his poem The stuffy poet sitting back down On the leather couch, which creaks under his weight After adjusting his narrow tie from the 1980’s The stuffy poet clearing his throat, twice, During an enemy’s reading The s

Chresmographion

11201120 views66 comments33 favs

Meeting the past an inevitable outcome (this inside a future fortune cookie). Shame pierces her like a sudden migraine.

dream lives and cancers

11201120 views11 comment00 favs

Around sunset or sometime after, we are on the futon talking about dream lives and cancers. He asks me about my ideal living situation, my ideal career, my ideals in general. I would be a turtle, I say. I would travel and have a home I could always go to, I could always be…

Sycamore Tree

11201120 views11 comment11 fav

I love you, I said. A beautiful smile struggled through the pain. But I love you more.

THE TIDE OF LIFE

11201120 views66 comments44 favs

It was an autumn day, late in the afternoon, a Tuesday, when the last murderer died. There was no official announcement. Indeed, she and her crime had been forgotten. Pancreatitis, her cause of death. Quite treatable, the cancer. Nothing could be done for the gene that…

No Dogs! No Dogs Allowed!

11201120 views22 comments22 favs

the impression I had gotten of him was that he was fifty percent yuppie and fifty percent drug dealer from Marin.

Sunday Evening, 4:23AM

11201120 views22 comments11 fav

The rhythm of my breathing is a litany of regret.

BORDER JUSTICE

11201120 views00 comments00 favs

CHAPTER ONE About nine-thirty P.M. on Friday night, Mary Fowler pushed her grocery cart through the double sliding glass doors. It was three weeks before Christmas. The sun had set and the temperature had begun to cool rapidly in…

Three Small Ekphrastic Objects

11201120 views1212 comments66 favs

Agamemnon and Menelaus were/ complete creeps. Achilles was// a pompous piece of shit.

no caps

11201120 views11 comment11 fav

...

Lower-order Mammals

11201120 views00 comments00 favs

they'd turned into humans overnight

The Rat, His Treadwheel

11201120 views88 comments77 favs

The rat had been informed, assured, cajoled in order to gain his assent—duly lied to, in other words, by the researchers with not one tear of remorse, with no smudge or smear of conscience . . .

Identity

11201120 views11 comment00 favs

We’re forty-three.

Pot or Marijuana

11191119 views55 comments55 favs

Every six weeks or so, he and I would argue. I would argue. He would listen. He raised me twenty-five cents each time. I suppose that is a bad habit for me to have gotten into—to get pissed about rates and to fight to get a raise.

Damien Hirst Burger

11191119 views33 comments11 fav

the Tate Modern is like a dungeon!

The Dance

11191119 views22 comments00 favs

Angelo stood to the side and lit a cigarette.

Dear A. Lien

11191119 views22 comments00 favs

Time is a form of sandwich. Each component of the sandwich is nestled between night and day, which enclose it like slices of bread. There are minutes, hours, and seconds. Seconds are tiny, like sesame seeds. Minutes are a little larger. Think of them as p

Optimum Condition

11191119 views00 comments00 favs

I have hate and it is black not midnight, crisp fresh clear. Unadulterated. It is dirty, poor, gritty solid rough like unripe stone fruit. A peach, mealy and dry. The killing, effete, endures. Silent, my repugnance, sick, eats…

Weather

11191119 views11 comment00 favs

I liked E first because she knew all the words to "Alice's Restaurant." Everybody knows "American Pie," but "Alice's," that's impressive. We used to cut class in high school and drive around listening to it, and I'd try to pretend I knew the words, but I never did, so…