Most read stories

The Sticking Point

11391139 views22 comments22 favs

I felt dark, dark...

Village Life Brochure

11391139 views77 comments77 favs

I live in a small fishing village where small people fish and others gossip or invent bizarre methods by which to irritate each other. During our weekly power cuts I go outside and cross the street, sitting on the pharmacy steps to watch myself not be at home in the…

Youngstown

11381138 views22 comments22 favs

Last night I met a man from the same littleshithole townthat you are fromand I kissed him in the mouth to find out if he tasted like coallike you do.While he slept, I tried to pinpoint on a map I drew on his back exactly how far apart you might have been:how many years…

The Mate

11381138 views11 comment11 fav

It sits there, watching, waiting, multiple cycles over.

Good for the Gander

11381138 views44 comments00 favs

“This isn’t fair!” I rail to my late wife. “It’s all right for you, why not me?” She never answers me directly. Not in whispers, or with knocks, or even dreams.

First Man ~ 1947

11381138 views22 comments22 favs

By the basement washtubs, I watched him skin a squirrel:

picture (im)perfect

11381138 views00 comments00 favs

not

Beach Tale

11381138 views11 comment11 fav

I should have worn shorts.

I Was Supposed to Write This

11381138 views55 comments55 favs

I was supposed to write a history of the old world and expose the selfish ones who use their best kept love for evil against the good little witches of childhood, but it made no sense to me to go after them in that obvious a way. They…

The Wait

11381138 views00 comments00 favs

Transhumanism has always had its malcontents usually derived from some philosophic contestation, but for all their thought experiments, somehow my present situation eluded them.

Resistance

11381138 views99 comments11 fav

I can no longer conjure the sweetness of a plum

Rock the Rhombi

11381138 views1111 comments88 favs

This is the place you need a third hand

Requiem for a Laptop

11371137 views22 comments00 favs

I don’t understand what happened. I keep pushing your buttons but you won’t do anything. You just lie there, cold and dead, staring back at me without any light and I feel like I’m going to cry.

Con Artist

11371137 views11 comment11 fav

The name he was using this time was Paul Sterling.

An excerpt from "Goodbye, Baseball"

11371137 views33 comments22 favs

The boys were his biggest nuisance. The unwashed guttersnipes poured into the park early, all shoeless and half shirtless. He only imagined how thick the fleas must be in their thick tangle of hair, of which only two didn’t have covered with a cap with an

Falling from Grace

11371137 views44 comments22 favs

Royce fell from Grace and landed in the fountain surrounding her pedestal. It wasn't the first time Royce had climbed the statue. It was the first time he'd been sober.

Violent Limb Part 2

11371137 views11 comment11 fav

"Take the other arm, Jonas! Take the other arm," I said, laughing. "Make me a better god!"

Working at a Truck Stop Outside Charlotte

11371137 views1212 comments88 favs

My name's Barbara and don't call me Barbie if you want to be my friend.

Fire

11371137 views77 comments44 favs

I like burning lavender on glowing charcoal and dancing hard, thinking about long futures and deep moments. I want to cry and then scream and I don't feel like cleaning up. If I can keep a rhythm going long enough,I think I can build…

Genesis

11371137 views22 comments00 favs

Nothing came of the dust.

Palinode for a Love That Failed

11371137 views33 comments22 favs

Palinode: A poem written to retract something said in a prior poem.

In This Neo-Liberal Society, We Are All Julia Roberts

11371137 views33 comments33 favs

When he was 24 he ran away with a girl, forgot about his little office job in the city, went with her to the mountains, just the two of them, to live out a life of romance that a chalk box like the metropolis can’t give you—

Something Like the Promise of a Better Life

11371137 views66 comments44 favs

Unhappiness is a necessary boon

nests

11371137 views44 comments22 favs

His wife left behind a mini-muffin tin, a cookie sheet and a gaudy, scratched green metal tray decorated with an artist’s renderings of New Hampshire tourist spots.

With Nothing Here But Me I Begin

11371137 views88 comments77 favs

to unwind looking for the answer.I confess I wasn't so discreetas life demanded, laughing like anowhere poet. Nothing relieved thegod awful boredom. Many times Iconfess I hadn't really takenthe vitamins, crying like a courtjester thrown into a dungeon onmarket day, and felt…

During My Daily Commute

11371137 views44 comments44 favs

in moving cars i am small; in moving cars i am invisible.

A Dream History of Outer Space

11371137 views66 comments66 favs

Look. There's just you and me, that's all that's left. All the rest of them had already given up a long, long time ago. They dropped their precious, colorful dreams like rusted railroad lanterns, like abandoned pumpkins, and littered the Twitching…

Rush Hour

11371137 views11 comment00 favs

All I need is a place to getaway from the rush hour worldThe crazy crazy rush hour worldA place to hide from the rush hour worldMy nerves are shot from the rush hour worldIn need a place to dream from the rush hour worldMy nerves can't take voices of the rush hour worldCars…

Ink on Paper

11361136 views00 comments00 favs

Waves like lovers gather and crest, crash into White uncertainty.

For Linebacker-Poets, Annual Award Ceremony a Jarring Hit

11361136 views33 comments11 fav

Dutton felt thwarted in his literary career, producing only the classic "Here I sit all broken-hearted, paid a nickel to crap and only farted" in a locker room stall at halftime of the 1963 Weedwacker Bowl.