Most read stories

To Fill the Hollows

12101210 views55 comments55 favs

most famously, a small/ writhing dog. A thousand casts were made/ before they stopped

The Monster's Other Face

12101210 views00 comments00 favs

The yellowed and peeling posters of men and women with grotesque disfigurements under the slogan, “Know Your Criminals!” that peered down at him from the walls were a familiar sight. Everyone knew that people with faces like that were as monstrous as they looked…

Heart Apart

12101210 views22 comments22 favs

Yes, I had pulled my own heart apart Yes, I had slipped up on time itself In its own backyard behind my memories And scared the crap out of it By not yelling, just sniffing at its neck Longingly, tearing it apart with my teeth Wishing I had

Testament Part 3 of 6

12101210 views66 comments44 favs

Against that, this testament, scratched/ with misshapen styluses, made/ from memory by unskilled hands,/ with a pallid memory of ink.

Op

12101210 views00 comments00 favs

My name is Op. That is what they call me, because everything anyone says, right away I think the opposite and head that way. So I am Op. I spent the War in Georgia, a section of southern Russia near the Black Sea, which is how I survived that whole mes

Bulldozer

12091209 views88 comments77 favs

First the room is blank white and then she is placed there and one by one everything is penciled in. Her, in a loose and flowery dress that conceals her feet; a black and white cat, who wraps her tail around her legs and looks up, head moving trying to interpret;…

boardwalk

12091209 views44 comments44 favs

coast to coast

Award Season

12091209 views11 comment11 fav

I made the List!

Character Witness

12091209 views00 comments00 favs

You will say how easy it was to love him, How he is kind, gentle, Quick to rub your shoulders in the evening And never one to forget an anniversary. They will ask you of his interests, moods, pass-times And you will silently think of…

I Can Sing Like That

12091209 views11 comment00 favs

Here lately Daddy's been talking bout' filling momma full of holes. Not like he would do it cause' he likes talkin' just to hear the words come out even if they don't mean anything to anyone but him. But just to be on the safe side I went and hid them shells cause' he's got…

running naked through your dreams

12091209 views22 comments11 fav

How can you stop a man from running naked through your dreams? I want to know. This ought to be taught, somewhere. In schools, or somewhere. I could never stop you from doing what you wanted with me, and didn’t want to either. You had complete leave of

Box Set

12091209 views44 comments33 favs

Isn’t it funny how a mosaic of neurons in our heads receives sensations from the outer world and grows into postulates and letters?

Another Crumb of Freedom

12091209 views44 comments44 favs

I think I know these pigeons They were once beggars From another life Once I myself was stuck like them I was never Without the thought of food Or sex, or sipping soda pop Off the sidewalk And flying meant next to nothing But then

Job Needed

12091209 views1010 comments66 favs

I have enjoyed three paid teaching days in Minnesota, since my return in 1996. All three paid days were fielded through S.A.S.E., all three at Patrick Henry. I loved it there. I hope never to become certified to teach.

Unguent

12091209 views22 comments22 favs

Spilled milk it is --lactate of common desire;water under the bridge, slow-moving, white. So this is what we feed on: the past and present here for the licking.Sweat is water too,for the hungry, and any past will do. Parched mouths kiss just as well as…

On Tuesday

12091209 views99 comments88 favs

When they talk, they put their hands like a cup around their mouth

Little Ditty Down

12091209 views66 comments44 favs

I got caught writing poems at the paint factory several times before they fired me I got caught in the middle of one of my best lines but can’t remember what I meant to say anymore, but I know, just know it was something real good,

Who's Going To Defend the Love

12081208 views77 comments66 favs

we feel entitled to, so unwanted, afraid for, from the billions of stomping oafs, leaping onto our hearts like squishing jelly sandwiches for fun, bullies in power out there? To be brilliant onits tiny behalf? I forget, exactly whyare you still here anyway? Don't…

The Persistence of Loss

12081208 views00 comments00 favs

"I packed up the rest of his things today. Irony is the fact I'm still picking up after him, despite the fact he's been gone for two weeks."

The Library of the Realm of Dreams

12081208 views11 comment11 fav

I hold down the control-alt-delete keys simultaneously and the screen goes blank, sending Camus into a paroxysm of fear; for a guy who wrote an essay on facing down suicide, he’s kind of jumpy.

The Kid on the Floor

12081208 views00 comments00 favs

The kid on the floor couldn’t handle it...

they are light

12081208 views00 comments00 favs

They are light, their souls, yours among them. And women who seduce you should understand that, and use their bodies carefully, so that you are unharmed by the night that is filled with them. The beautiful youth who would turn their flower as if you wer

Four More Haikus

12081208 views55 comments00 favs

Death is like a warmcup of hot cocoa, steamingup into nothing. The sun rise will bringprison bars of light through thebedroom blinds again. Sorry about thefirst three hours of your deathI thought you were drunk. Across the park thestrange dog looks…

blog - Feb - bad month - 42 cents

12081208 views33 comments22 favs

Let’s see. February. Bad month. Made 42 cents on book sales. Sherry’s mom died. 98 years old. Holocaust survivor. Everybody’s dying all around us, it seems like. Somebody told us a portal has opened and people are making a dash for it. Hmmm. Portals. I wo

The January Oak

12081208 views77 comments44 favs

tiny banners, browned/ and wrinkled by time,

TOUR GUIDES (Granada Studios 1989)

12071207 views00 comments00 favs

Dancers, dunces and brides-to-be

Tending Toward Inertia

12071207 views33 comments00 favs

She meets her old dance instructor, named Ira, in the back of a bus that wheezes & squeaks. The passengers seem to deny the small clouds of white exhaust

Mo Bands

12071207 views22 comments22 favs

Beeswax Just Kill Me Beam Me Up Deep-Fried Twinkie End of Lust Hootchie and the Eye Patch Boy Crazy Instant Success Sleeping Geezers Cyber Shoes

A Political Man

12071207 views22 comments22 favs

There's a potent multimedia declaration Flying eagles starred and striped Mocking cartoon independence Where every promise shines Not every veteran's hero Chequered drug misuse Glorious public relations Concealed a…

WHAT IS PAID FOR

12071207 views11 comment11 fav

The lock came off easy—they only screwed a hinged hasp on the outside—it took a hard shove to get past a chair barricading the door. As I pushed my way in I heard a screeching crash. Lucky nobody was around. It was my first time bidding on a sheriff's sale…