Most read stories

Cookies

12501250 views66 comments33 favs

What was it about the aged and cookies? Here was another one that relished them. Sebastian's grandmother was a specialist. People on the outside thought she was a bird enthusiast. Grandma could be seen refilling the bird feeders at all hours. After the morning…

Cannaregio confrontation

12501250 views00 comments00 favs

I did as I was told, running barefoot down the bare wooden stairs

If Ted Hughes Rewrote Shakespeare

12491249 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!):…

4 Poems in an Avante-Garde Classical Style

12491249 views22 comments00 favs

For Derek, Remembering Odd Jaunts in Overtoun I here remembered how we smoked and swam Under the cadenced pleasure of our under-days, Congealing cross-thoughts under oaken breeze, And watched the Turnered ocean of that swarm Last…

The Babies

12491249 views55 comments55 favs

We jam into the green tent as it begins to rain. His casket is covered with flowers and there is the picture you took of him, the day you climbed the fire tower from where you could see forever, past his smiling face the bars and a million changing leaves.His pregnant girl…

CHINTZ PICKLE

12491249 views44 comments44 favs

What if she doesn't take me seriously? My sweaty testimony wedged tight behind the tragic I used to think was honest? What if, right? What if . . . Isolation Real men feel that, right? They have …

from insomnia

12491249 views66 comments33 favs

soap smells tangy, but/I wouldn’t eat it: scent and/nutrition diverge.

Industrial Revelation

12491249 views33 comments33 favs

I tell my students about a timewhen seniority was told by the number of fingers on a worker's hands No weekends or overtime, children — bare toes dangling — twelve hours on the line I look for…

How We Open Doors

12491249 views44 comments33 favs

-- as if I had / only rung the rusted bell --

Seamus Has the Palsy Now

12491249 views44 comments22 favs

Seamus’ hands are shaking now that once were still as stalking cats.

Cold, Cold Night

12491249 views77 comments55 favs

I thought I heard Follow your heart On the cold, cold Night of the soul I thought I heard Follow your heart, follow your heart On this coldest night Of the soul Leaves on fire, leaves on fire They told me look Into the flames To

Sunday, Brick Lane

12491249 views33 comments22 favs

Held tight during the week, clouds now cast off their burden, flinging down a drag-net of sleet.

9 January

12491249 views00 comments00 favs

Side morning lightthrough hydrangea crab, reachand shine off patio ice

Things being said

12491249 views66 comments55 favs

Things are still being said in a world that sounds like rough bows and straight slicing arrows communicating with (smashing like fists) a poor pool of tired animals. There must also come a time to surprise these same cruel machines…

The Boss

12491249 views22 comments00 favs

When I was eighteenI worked at a convenient storeAnd the owner was from PakistanAnd he dressed well and Smelled of cologneAnd owned two storesAnd was always going back and forthBetween the two of themHe had to make sure we were doingOur jobsAnd whenever some kid…

Fun New Year's Traditions From Around the World

12491249 views00 comments00 favs

When New Guinea's president was a student at UCLA he received an A- in organic chemistry after watching a Joan Rivers Informercial. Each year he tries to re-create the magic of that moment.

Morning Night (2,3,4)

12491249 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 Toilers

12491249 views22 comments22 favs

In the black not dead of night, she gathers them; slowly,diligently placing the cansand bottles into two large plasticbags strung across a long piece of wood; this is her money work. She is small, but her bodyhas the choreography down:sift, search, lift,…

She Looked In the Mirror And Saw Something Different

12481248 views00 comments00 favs

Even raw as she looked coming out of the jail, the woman left echoes.

The Meaning of Salvation

12481248 views66 comments44 favs

I descend to my grave / where I will unbend / until the Coming of Christ

Philip Guston and the Ultimate Mudball

12481248 views55 comments55 favs

The huge mudball has rolled downhill, catching up one of them. Part of a leg sticking up from the surface with its shoe still on, but we can assume the rest of the human, or humanity if you will, is lost somewhere deep inside it.

Second Collage

12481248 views44 comments11 fav

B developed a thick emulsion that he paints onto the pieces of meat on which he prints photographs.

Bell Ringer

12481248 views00 comments00 favs

Zal’s first day on the job they had 16 customers. They took turns crying, “Bring out your dead!”

In the Life

12481248 views66 comments66 favs

You had autumn in your hair I liked the way you sat at a table And drank champagne My past years have carried me To sixteen countries Christ, we have so much to share Listen, I know how the other half lives And we can’t live like that an

Fate

12481248 views99 comments88 favs

decline the prof­fered hand

Let's All Go Down to the Rising River

12481248 views11 comment00 favs

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…

Jeremy's Crane

12481248 views00 comments00 favs

I saw magic for the first time when I was eight, on the day Jeremy Chendo showed me that paper cranes can fly.

Nan Sequiter

12471247 views99 comments77 favs

there was no mess she couldn’t manage, / no chaos she couldn’t tame.

We Are Not Just A Bit of Irrelevant Pollution

12471247 views44 comments22 favs

"It's hard to make a man understand something if his livelihood depends on him not understanding it."--Upton Sinclair I understand what Zappa was saying,about broken hearts and assholes, but, well, reallywhat if yours is already broken and already…

That Does Me Good

12471247 views44 comments00 favs

Your clothes had been burned and your skin washed. They kept your boots at my firm insistence. I saw them write your name on the card. The card was black, and the ink was black. The writing was shallow and scratchy. The box they filed the card into was black and so…