Most read stories

If I Was a Bum

11561156 views55 comments22 favs

If I was a bum I’d risk everything For a drink or a smoke. I would beg and curse and steal If I was a bum. If I was a bum I would cuss out the Pope. I would not vote for anyone Because I would know truly They’d be telling gross lies.

For my Unknown Love

11561156 views33 comments00 favs

I still remember the old times when we were together. I wish I wouldn't have let you go. If you ever thought that we should be together, please come back.

the cold envies whom?

11561156 views55 comments44 favs

cold plunges its lethal chill spade/into the dirt before cold takes the earth/to ossify it stiff with ice/the semblance of cold the semblance of death/said only to be felt this side of the grave.

The Unseen Hand Shuffles the Deck

11561156 views1010 comments66 favs

2008Not a bubble burstbut a trust ruptured.The guilty don't survivebut, rather, thrive. 2011The monied are superior.They game the system well.As we work harder, longer,their paper fortunes swell.2017Marie and Louie were monied once.The Romanovs as well.Fast as blades and…

No Rocks On This End

11561156 views00 comments00 favs

Take a flying leap?Mother would never agreeSo away from the campground we sneakTo show the boy where I was a boySummer day shirtless with swimsuits onOne hundred degrees walking through the treesThe season early with winter runoffWater here still seventy feet deepHoping the…

Words

11561156 views77 comments77 favs

often visit me in my room, so quietly, so suddenly, buzzing my head with wonderful, possible sentences. Sometimes I find they've been there radiating all along, children ready to burst out in a sneaky fit of laughter if I move just slightly…

Have to Find a Way

11561156 views22 comments11 fav

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…

Miss Miriam

11561156 views22 comments00 favs

Miriam smiled as I entered through the old, creaky metal front door of her home. She sat still, face marked of deep wrinkles, tense with the pain only another cancer patient would understand. In that soft, sweet, melodic voice, she greeted me. '"Hello Ms. Monica, I've been…

Things being said

11561156 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 Toilers

11561156 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,…

You Can Look Up Everything on Reality TV

11561156 views44 comments44 favs

Caution, the beer on the shore is lapping at the foam of sanity, and the wind in the trees is speaking thy previous names. Caution, a rise in the ocean will soak your dress above your knees, causing infinite tears, infinite hopes

The Last Cricket of Summer

11551155 views22 comments33 favs

The weather, mid-sixties now, will take its toll on this singular voice.

Optimum Condition

11551155 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

11551155 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…

woke up in 2010//an exercise four years ago

11551155 views33 comments33 favs

I am from slow diagnoses, impatience and parents skeptical of New York City doctors. I am from tall buildings, yogurt shakes, and envy for my brother's asthma machine. I am from here, stay away from there, don't get too close, be careful at the edge, the…

Kitsch Pastiche

11551155 views00 comments00 favs

Once upon a mind-flight Leary with the tripping became weary Of the psychedelic travel Felt the universe unravel

Sycamore Tree

11551155 views11 comment11 fav

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

Mugabe Western

11551155 views66 comments55 favs

They were self-contained, two nymphs in a photo booth. Maria wanted something different—love to spread across her face like a wide smile, a certain grace. Sometimes she had found love like that at parties.

THE PERFECT KIND OF HAPPY

11551155 views11 comment00 favs

I think of particles exploding, coming back together like some physics experiment I don’t know the name for. “Large Hadron Collider,” you say. But that’s not what I mean.

All God's Children

11551155 views22 comments22 favs

Momma wakes us up early while Daddy's still asleep, pulls out white poster boards, markers from the closet, and together, we draw babies...

Final Fantasy

11551155 views00 comments00 favs

That’s where her reputation Wild Cat came from.

Snakes

11551155 views00 comments00 favs

“Gaudy talking, ordination, high finance and politicking won’t save you. Moshaka zumbrala!” screamed Pastor Cleon Wrunk.

Morning Night (2,3,4)

11551155 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…

Beginning, Another Bright Red Day

11541154 views55 comments33 favs

Pick up any stick or stone and you'll find the path again. Pick out any lone star and it will shine just for you. The rascal wind simply enjoys messing about with your serious nature. Listen to its…

I Kissed a Shirelle

11541154 views33 comments11 fav

What do you do when a Shirelle asks you if you’re in the mood to dance?

Take Two Llamas and Call Me in the Morning

11541154 views11 comment11 fav

A nursing home that doesn’t believe in antipsychotic drugs uses alternative methods to calm patients, including a llama named Travis who walks through the halls.

Payments

11541154 views11 comment11 fav

What it was for, didn’t matter. When Susan walked into Fred’s house every few weeks and start talking, he’d just nod and say, “Sure, I know how tough it is out there, baby.” Then they’d drink some wine and put on some music, and he’d give her a little mon

Industrial Revelation

11541154 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…

Our Enormous Fat Man

11541154 views88 comments88 favs

Pity would have been appropriate. Yet, townsfolk whispered behind his back. Shouldn't he do something about it. So lazy. A gluttonous swine. Hadn't his mother kept him too long at tit, breastfeeding ‘til four? Look. Look at him now. A fat man. Our enormou

First Crush

11541154 views22 comments00 favs

I wanted those jelly rolls so bad I could scream