Most read stories

Giving Birth to the World

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Life's a contradiction.

Let's All Go Down to the Rising River

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As the pastor of a small southern church, I'm often asked by our younger members about this prickly notion of global warming. They herd around me, as adolescents are prone to do, and they ask me, “Dear father, is this something that we should fear, these…

Beowulf in Hell (in Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse)

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They strung him up,…

Have to Find a Way

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I have to find a way To evolve To become To grow into something else To become something else I have to find a way To let go Loosen my firm grasp Watch it all fall away Let myself fall away Drop this act This weight This mess of a life This mess I…

Easter

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Easter the emerald parlor remembered, come yourself to convince me now impose yourself firm to the maroon furrow that is my heart. Interloper, make your mayhem here, where I have been miserable -…

Spin

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...I made the mistake, thinking the point of a maze was to go in one side and out the other.

the longing

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It’s the longing from another life inside that pulls me along by the fine hairs below my navel (at the exposed midriff) and by the short blonde hair at my neck, and by the dense bunch between my legs, if you can imagine. It’s the longing of the love I’v

Writing Prompts

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If you want to be a writer, just write stuff.

Off the Wall

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[...] in the living room above the fire, someone had gouged a letter A on the wall.

Blow Me

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[BEEZLEBUB SAYS, "GO!"]

Return to the Magic Tree House

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“You can't smoke in here, Jack,” his father said. “Your mother will kill me.” Those were the first words spoken as the pair rode in silence from Chester County. Jack pulled the unlit cigarette from his mouth and tucked it above his ear. …

Fifteen

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Lucy entered the open door next; she had been inside the cat litter house before: Brother Fran didn’t bother to cover turds he’d laid. He spoke of the outdoors: lizards he’d separated from their heads, world of work.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Photosynthesis

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Minimalist/realist short-story writer Raymond Carver was fired from his job as an editor of science textbooks because of his inappropriate writing style.

The Fly On Our Pickle

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I think I know that fly That fly followed us from our apartment on W. 11th St When I opened the door he flew right in and when we left, he flew right out again Followed us on the subway to Times Square Took the Shuttle apparently Followed

The Call

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I strolled mindlessly along the concrete pavement, the cool breeze carrying the characteristic scent of the night. I stared at the path ahead, but not really looking. My legs continued their automated operations. I didn't know where I was going, but that was all right - I…

Occupy This!

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Mar

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He will spread peace like wet blood on a sheet.

Hearing the Usual Reports

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In its own defense against what is too concrete the mind allows a magical thought--

Not Everything's Supposed to Make You Think

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you are on a missing boat in the middle Of a fogged out notion of some sort. A no nonsense paddle could be made out Of something as intangible as an Incoming wave. This could also be a Floating thought up map, man. In…

'Danny's Navel Adventure'

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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 plural river

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Like large drops of rain on the active lap of earth, I heard myself falling all around the vacant spaces where you had once been. Emptying myself with dissolution, trying to alter the essence, to begin again where we had left off, as if to wind string b

5th and Washington

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“This horrible street. I hate this neighborhood,” she cursed.

Nesting Code

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scratches

Color

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Red leaves green trees wind chimes tune

Our Handsome Whales

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are speaking clear enough, through their open and bleeding wounds, for you to at least try and understand. Waving their massive arms like living lighthouses, bobbing in and out of the floundering waves, they are splashing out an…

The Third Leading Cause

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I leave the 29 to go after the 1

in that time

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in that time people had gone away and i waited in the inside and looked out on balconies. the ending of the dusk was coming and the details of the railings and brick, the tree branches holding purple plums, the stacked railway ties and a thousand other details became…

At the Farrah Fawcett Wing of the Smithsonian

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I hope some of my students will go on to advanced studies in Charlie’s Angelsology, maybe write a master’s thesis like “Kate Jackson: Third Wheel or Brunette Glue That Held the Angels Together?”

Mesh

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driving and standing in front of the same car

Cakewalk

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She could estimate herself around 30, though this was debatable since she had stopped counting years ago. She looked like a person who would be very pretty if she wore make-up, but she didn’t and therefore wasn’t.