Most read stories

Confessions of a Latter-Day Computerholic

765765 views1010 comments22 favs

Boy, it is weird out there, talking to real people!

The Talking Pillow

765765 views11 comment11 fav

Once, To a crash slumber on my bed, so late, I learned my pillow could communicate. As I lay my head of lead at the head of the bed, My talking pillow said, "Let me be the foundations for the constructions of your dreams...

The Gift

765765 views1111 comments44 favs

There is no need to worry about art. Art in its ideal forms stays safe. Real art resists being the object of attention. It directs your gaze, and it swings in you forever.

Boy In

765765 views00 comments00 favs

If it were certainly troubleThe light would shine through a bubble---I add the s, a “must confess”If I'm blowing you up with anger. Do deliverhigh fives, or two fingers towards the skyThe rest in a depression (the little blues)Will do. To carry you on my arms,…

Tuna Sandwiches

765765 views11 comment11 fav

The tuna fish sandwiches were laid out the way they had always been; they were cut into triangles, with wet paper towels between them. They stayed that way over an hour, untouched, aside from a dimple the size of my cousins finger to test the softness. …

Jasika by the Mountain

765765 views33 comments11 fav

There was the small wooden structure near the base of the mountain. It had weathered many storms and its walls talked about the scars of this. In the hills to the west various cries came out from feral animals that seemed to go linger that autumn. But it had been a…

EQ

765765 views00 comments00 favs

.

Reminders for Myself

765765 views33 comments33 favs

Forgive the earth that’s got a hold on you. Forgive the trees. Forgive yourself, you were damaged goods. Therefore, quit looking for the expected. Look instead at the unknown as a fact. Describe it. Use great detail. And

Leave It To Cleavage

764764 views00 comments00 favs

Thus was Rent-a- Rat, Inc born. At first it was Rent-a-Rugrat, but we changed it so the Army wouldn’t be onto us. Our first headquarters was out of a damned tent on Red Square, but we would get the hell out of there as soon as we could muster the necessar

Music and Books

764764 views33 comments44 favs

You're all I've got to keep me company, but it's a very fine company. So familiar, and warm as any cold digital fireplace. I can tell you've got more in your story, but it doesn't make you happy. I really do not feel well today. Fun I wanted to…

The $275 Root Beer Float

764764 views66 comments00 favs

That was some root beer float. It cost us a grand total of $275. She pulls up in front of Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor and leaves the motor running while I jump out and run into the parlor. It was early evening. We HAD to have a root beer float. You

Which Way to the Vomitorium

764764 views1818 comments1111 favs

When I saw that Chez Panisse was serving crawdaddies (the menu called them crayfish, but I know a crawdaddy when I see it), I relaxed. I didn't eat the ugly creatures when my brother fished them out of irrigation ditches back on our farm near Roswell, and

Voices of the Dying

764764 views2323 comments1212 favs

raging on road and page

A Story from the Diamond

764764 views00 comments00 favs

A sweltering heat sits on the field like a fog failing to move. From the diamond, you were able to see the Chicago skyline poking above the apartment buildings like antennas, sending signals all throughout the world.

News Sequence

764764 views33 comments11 fav

On-air personalities inflate a balloon Trump head to the point of bursting.

The Oscillating Escalator (Excerpt), 2011

764764 views44 comments11 fav

We can imagine an escalator as being a (conveyor) belt between two different states of consciousness. On the one hand (beginning or end, depending on how you see it) the lower (or higher) level, and on the other hand a progression or pro-‘motion’ of the f

Nope

763763 views22 comments11 fav

Can't cope.

Hope and Fear

763763 views00 comments00 favs

She hears me, acknowledges me. She knows I’m bound each day, unable to make my voice heard. “It’s regrettable,” she mumbles...

The Empty Stool

763763 views00 comments00 favs

I walked up to the bar and sat down on the empty stool.“You don't want to sit there,” said the bartender.“Oh? Why not?” I replied.“It's haunted.”I laughed, but then stopped when I saw he was not laughing with me.“You're…

A Small White Cloud

763763 views44 comments00 favs

Has anyone reached inside your eyes lately? Has anyone searched for your soul as it floated near the ceiling of the past? Has anyone told you they needed you to touch them, to lie down beside them and breathe, just breathe, and live wherever it is that ma

Sunday Morning Series- Two: A Tender Faith

763763 views1010 comments11 fav

feeding the lions, tigers

A Day in the Life of a Public Transit Mime

763763 views22 comments11 fav

We got a lotta people ruinin' the public transit experience. Talkin' loud on cell phones, clippin' fingernails, even flossing their teeth.

Sleepwalker

763763 views22 comments22 favs

I may as well have been sleepwalking. Either way, I had no opportunity to admire the moonlight flooding into the long corridors, illuminating the stag heads and painted cheeks of long-dead ancestors.

Ice Cream

763763 views00 comments00 favs

"Great jog today," he said, "But the entire length of the run I'm thinking about ice cream and how good that is going to feel."

Notes

763763 views88 comments44 favs

just want to write a music note rap my hands all over my throat jump into the city to stay afloat gotta build me a damn big boat

actual flesh

763763 views22 comments00 favs

With nipples like those, rose-colored, we could have fed a nation!

Maybe I Was Better At Shaving My Legs Than I Was At Spreading My Wings

763763 views66 comments22 favs

That new rain smell in your backyard, specifically I remember that, with you. And lying in the grass in a park with you on the 4th of July, maybe in Lombard, watching the blue/grey smoke of the fireworks drifting overhead after they went off, and the sm

Pigeons Have Copied Your Brain

762762 views44 comments22 favs

The Pope is too busy shopping for clothes to control your brain.

No Exit: Fantasy Football Edition

762762 views00 comments00 favs

Tony's is just a hole in the wall since most people get their sandwiches to go. There's a skinny counter, which was last wiped down during the second Clinton administration, and three tiny tables crammed into a corner.

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

762762 views44 comments44 favs

Now your dreams are headed for the Rhyme or Reason Convention where they try to convince you you can do this Trying to make sense of everything