Most read stories

beginning

10641064 views1515 comments88 favs

time lost in darkness

Rib Songs

10641064 views55 comments33 favs

A thrum of imminent sentience-

gravelortian part 21

10641064 views22 comments22 favs

Happy is a look we are trying to wear better

The lady makes a phone call.

10631063 views00 comments11 fav

Of course it’s because she’s been drinking. Will she regret this? I don’t understand it but maybe it is something she has thought about for some time.

I will miss you

10631063 views00 comments00 favs

I will miss you, sure, let it be known. The memory, and the dream, both. That familiar smell of Old Spice when someone wearing it comes near. And the smell of Coppertone Suntan Lotion on the beaches of our youth in Chicago. And the pressure of your fing

Winter in the Hague

10631063 views22 comments22 favs

There is only me and the crooked pavement that leads to your dim tower.

A heart that is not broken...

10631063 views99 comments88 favs

She'd had every reason to believe he'd be difficult, though he wasn't.

Aging Bikers and Biker Chicks on Vacation

10631063 views55 comments44 favs

Chin beards, flannel shirts, Levis no boots anymore, just loose sandals their chicks with double triple multiple chins falling asleep on their own palms

My Composite Girlfriend

10621062 views00 comments11 fav

Her dad regaled me with stories of his up-from-the-bootstraps climb out of poverty on the hard-scrabble, rough-and-tumble Lower East Side of New York, where he founded the leading supplier of hyphens to writers of purple prose.

I'll find you - A Dedication to Mathew Paust

10621062 views1717 comments1212 favs

Matt was among those rare creatures; an ideal kind of reader ...

The Ghost

10621062 views44 comments33 favs

I stroll out to the front lawn, and find myself against the sea of grass, painted daubs within the frame of a distilled rock. My ears attuned to the starlets warbling on the twisted branches of the lone tree, flock of wings that find subtlety and shine in the rapture…

Downtown

10621062 views00 comments00 favs

From the parking lot to the stadiumdown town waiting for the crossinglightthere are a few others in jerseys but not manywe are too early for that.Desert gravel crunching scuffle of canvas shoeskicking granitehop along wobble steps and I turn to seewho's off the…

gravelortian part 15

10621062 views22 comments22 favs

Eager to please the guards, doctors and preachers

Strange Land

10621062 views00 comments00 favs

I was still18 years old when the plane landed in South Korea. It was 10AM, Friday. Stepping off the jet way, it could have been any airport in America. But it wasn't. As soon as we got in the airport we were hustled to Customs. Filled out a bunch of forms. Asked…

Nothing Beside Remains

10611061 views66 comments55 favs

It was the early 80's My students carried / guns.

A Cloud of Words for Winter

10611061 views1313 comments1515 favs

What I would say

justice in obverse and reverse

10611061 views55 comments44 favs

seriously: let defendants choose their coin, / execute their own calls, make their own coin flips― / attentive referee, no need for a court.

Bloody Toe

10611061 views22 comments11 fav

Owen had never seen his boyfriend cry, but while he was in the bathroom having a cigarette through the open window, he heard Devin sniffling and coughing back tears. A bit shocked, he decided not to confront Devin or acknowledge that he had heard. Italian men could be…

Memoirs from a Book

10611061 views00 comments00 favs

I know you want to hold me. I won't break. I love you. Your hands - when they caress me are soft and gentle. My words speak only to you. They speak of love and of how we spend…

Your party invitation just arrived (guest poem by Carolyn Martin)

10611061 views1010 comments88 favs

"I’d rather move a word around a page than raise a glass or pass a plate or work a room immune to poetry."

Playing Pretend

10611061 views33 comments33 favs

“Can I get apple juice and milk?” “Yes.” “And a chocolate shake?” “Will you finish all that and your food?” “Probably not.” “Still yes. Get whatever you want.” The waitress took the order. Along…

Yesterday

10611061 views1111 comments88 favs

played-out

Numismatics

10611061 views88 comments55 favs

The next/ may be the lucky one,/ undiscovered all these years.

Love Makes the Boundaries Disappear

10611061 views22 comments11 fav

She was asked: “What would it mean to be in a great earthquake to you?” She said: “It would mean that I might never see him again.” Then she panicked. She came to me and said: “Do you mind riding in the other car? I have to ride in the same car wi

Communion

10611061 views33 comments22 favs

I dream empty, the wind blowing benzene blue. Shards of glass. Barbed wire. Bricks crushing flame into notions gone quick, never painless. Is it my blood? In my eyes. On my hands. Is it for you? I'm not sure where I'm walking here. Walking towards what from. Is it…

Perils of Poetry in a Pandemic

10601060 views2020 comments66 favs

...the bulk of poets are amateurs.

Still

10601060 views33 comments00 favs

I wanted only to be still, to become a rustle for a moment of papery fall leaves sighing past one another on their way to the funeral pyre in the front lawn, sweetly fragrant with the scent of death and inevitable decline, fearless in their annihilation, incandescent…

Surf Song

10601060 views00 comments00 favs

Morning. A hot bright sun shines down on the cool dark depths of the deep blue sea.

We Are

10601060 views55 comments55 favs

for Melissa together today. I like that feeling. I want to pound a piano into the ground just for you. To your warmest heartbeat I raise my glass. Thank you. It doesn't really matter if they think that's a velvety Elvis…

Testing, Testing

10601060 views55 comments11 fav

I awoke sweating like a Mormon at an anti-bigamy conference.