Most read stories

The words you are known by: To Mitt Romney on the eve of his national convention, a cento

10511051 views22 comments11 fav

I'll tell you what, Rick, ten-thousand bucks? [But] let Detroit go bankrupt. I'm running for office for Pete's sake,

Semiotics For Sale

10511051 views00 comments00 favs

Buy random DNA on the open market and drive a poisoned stake into the heart of darkness.

far outside

10511051 views99 comments55 favs

I'm staying in swinging all night Hell not just all night but every night I can possibly sink my teeth into

fires

10511051 views33 comments22 favs

Fire.Orange.Fire.There were orange and red fires but for the most part they were orange.Before that, I was just standing there in the dark looking at the streetlights and then past them. I was gonna try to stare into infinity and had high hopes. Due to much cloud cover,…

The Big Faith

10511051 views00 comments00 favs

She didn’t want anybody to hear her heaving and crying. She frantically pulled as much toilet paper as possible and stuffed it into her mouth so her sobs would be silenced. Then she slid against the wall next to the toilet and landed on the concrete floor

Sic Transit

10511051 views22 comments00 favs

He was that famous actor—now famously forgotten—most renowned for his exits. He could burst through an in or out door with the best of them. Better than the best of them; he was the best of them. With the subtlety of his often noisy art he could…

Totem Song

10511051 views00 comments00 favs

Will you leave me, you, the one?

The Jewelry of Yaks

10511051 views33 comments33 favs

It’s too early in the morning to play the glockenspiel. I’ll just sit here and knit this tiger.

NOLA's Nightcap

10511051 views00 comments11 fav

I need to be commended, despite the wine glass that threw itself at your sister's head of rollers. Imagine a pear in the deli meat aisle ripening behind glass...

The Old Man (The End)

10501050 views00 comments00 favs

The dark staircase creaked as he crept down to the basement. The even whoosh-whoosh of the washing machine was comforting to him. He reached for the light as he entered the room. A dim bulb blinked on above him. There was a small table across the room f

A Flap and a Flutter from a Belfry

10501050 views11 comment11 fav

After our visit to Phoenix and following our inspection of the Grand Canyon, our seminary octet continued its twelve-thousand mile sojourn across the country as a quintet.

Our Top Hats Blow Off While Yours Only Gets Tipped

10501050 views55 comments66 favs

Our world is a prism floating through its own rainbow smeared shadows in a desperate attempt to get caught. Our lives are in the carpets, the planks, the winds. Whatever has heard us, has not believed in us enough to rescue us from our own …

boardwalk

10501050 views44 comments44 favs

coast to coast

Compression

10501050 views22 comments00 favs

A fabulous compression.

Anaphylaxis

10501050 views2424 comments1111 favs

I remembered our wedding reception. I tasted the crab cake, pulled her from greeting people, said, you have to try. And she did.

Spring Darkness In the Age of Video

10501050 views11 comment33 favs

This spring darkness is winding around my neckin the age of video, how many times I've seen her at the zoowith your eyes, as if seeing for the first timeher early morning breath, tripping your woman, your angelas she arrived on the beach when it was still too dark to see…

Acid Flashback #2

10501050 views22 comments11 fav

I'm transfixed in Tower Records,all the CD covers dancinglike a thousand little TV screens.Your whispers a remote controlchanging those flickering images.When security asks us to leave,you drive my car as I slumpagainst the window.I close my eyes and transport usStar…

Sugar Cookie Season

10501050 views88 comments55 favs

take out the yellowed recipes/ left by mothers and grandmothers—// perhaps the great aunt who never married—

Never

10501050 views00 comments00 favs

When a woman dies too young, Say at 42, Her bones broken, Her body bruised Beyond recognition Much less repair; When she dies Thrashing In the street Amid rainbow-hued pools Of water and gasoline And blood, Anointed on a bed Of broken glass In a…

Jukebox Genesis

10501050 views22 comments11 fav

Once something starts, there is no telling where it will go.

The Fruitless Resuscitation

10501050 views33 comments22 favs

I was sent here to perform the autopsy on the norm, the status quo, the bourgeois.

Bums of the Bird World

10501050 views44 comments44 favs

Yeah, okay, so pigeons are the bums of the bird world So what are a flock of crows working over a wheat field while the artist Vincent is desperately trying to live with his bleeding ear or to sell at least one painting during

The Passing of Odd Fellows ---- Tales From the IV

10501050 views22 comments11 fav

The appointed day came without much fanfare. The day was gloomy, but it would do. They climbed to the roof of the house to a small landing where Smiley placed the tiny piano stool smack dab in the middle. As soon as Ethan sat down Smiley rotated the chair

Dreams That Sorrow Owns

10501050 views33 comments22 favs

Maybe tomorrow someone dreams And maybe someone moans But beware the steam inside the dome It’s just dreams that sorrow owns If it resonates, say so Ho in a raccoon coat Slow bum ahead If it resonates, say so, say so And her man, yo

Thwart

10501050 views00 comments00 favs

Daily, at 3:47 PM, below his office window, a child in an orange windbreaker sits in the last car of the T, in the rear seat, face pressed against glass.

gravelortian part 7

10501050 views11 comment11 fav

suck chew sip

The Tote Bag Song

10501050 views33 comments22 favs

You can ask so many questions Of what’s it all about You can empty out the closets And roll the mothballs out But no one has the answers It’s all a mystery There’s a bigger picture But it’s really hard to see

Syndrome (re-mix)

10501050 views44 comments33 favs

The brain had elected itself Judas, sleazy loud with silver jangling In this grand guignol of new and quickly old concussion Limbs roasted themselves to occult temperatures Yet remained whitely chilled under air that strove to rub, scrape, signify …

Twilight Is Merely A Shade of Color

10501050 views22 comments11 fav

Its edges fluttering in the dull breeze, today's town newspaper lay at my old feet, open to the obituary page.

Sneaker Waves

10491049 views33 comments22 favs

On the way inside, Peter stopped a moment on the deck and scanned the trees for the raven he and Lottie had seen at lunch. It wasn't there. Of course it wasn't there. He scanned the beach, the rocks and broken shells, the damp stinking rafts of seaweed with their rubbery…