Most read stories

I heard you were a drinker

959959 views44 comments00 favs

Once we got to my house, Lynda had everything drinkable in the house open and in everybody's hands before I knew it. She tossed down a bottle of my father's beer, then started on a bottle of whiskey that was open. She took a straight mouthful and offe

Illumination,with grace

959959 views11 comment00 favs

Jerry peered out into the dark landscape with no fear left.

The Transportation of Hens

959959 views1212 comments44 favs

Sixteen hundred hens / suffocated / during the collection

Instructions for Assembly

959959 views55 comments44 favs

Please be advised to have at least 2 persons to assemble this unit Although it could take close to a dozen Always include at least 2 kibitzers Another 2 or 3 standing around sipping vodka martinis Be sure to have enough olives to go around And b

Christmas Eve

958958 views00 comments00 favs

It was Christmas Eve. Time for the ghost to visit. Just one ghost in this story. The ghost of a Christmas past. Just one Christmas for just one ghost.He looked out the window. Under the distant streetlight the snow was falling. He turned on his porch light. …

how to find the gold-capped ocean

958958 views33 comments11 fav

I didn’t know how to find the gold-capped ocean. How was I supposed to know where it was? I only knew you did not want or expect me to follow you there, where the orifice to everything withers, including my heart. Openings from the rivers drying in the

Islands

958958 views22 comments11 fav

Off of the northeastern coastline there was a series of islands that won bread and butter through fishing. We walked off the ferry and through various docks while noticing vessels come in slowly boasting sides protected by worn plastic fenders on ropes affixed to…

8 zero+1 scarring digits tic toc glossie phanein and coy constellations or blood by boards avadhoota where no divine mthrs stay

958958 views11 comment00 favs

I am seven and it is in one of those spring stretches where temperatures proceed enough to make walking acceptable if not amicable. Pop cans and chip bags once boasting glossy surfaces and daring hues now faded to match asphalt fields. Other bits of things…

Heartbreaker

958958 views11 comment00 favs

He thought life was easy until he met you.With your vicious ways, your swirling hair and your radiant smile.All a man could want, all he could desire.And just that touch of strangeTo sway his mind like a siren sways a ship.But you refused, his offer didn't lureHis heart was…

Ten For The Devil

958958 views00 comments00 favs

Horses pulled carts loaded with valuables at backbreaking speed. King Street was one of the steepest in the city making the steeds’ task most difficult in deed. Their chest covered in foam and their eyes wild with fear. Their clattering hoofs gripped

Mistaken

958958 views11 comment00 favs

Buzz.

The Train

958958 views11 comment00 favs

On the train, with a bag full of books, All by the same person. That's what writing is. With each shudder bump my Head lags behind, and my eyes follow While the wandering shaky straight line Moves…

Subways are Silver

958958 views00 comments00 favs

Subways are silver Taxis are yellow and Trees are green.

give me a real moment with a living god and I'll go all the way

958958 views00 comments00 favs

I remember, when I was selling real estate, how you could always tell when there'd been a divorce. One room was conspicuously left emptied of its contents, and these rooms were never swept or tidied. Instead they were left just as they were when the par

Where Do You Get Your Poetic Inspiration?

957957 views00 comments00 favs

The only magazine Auden subscribed to was Scientific American, a publication I had previously scorned as the trade journal of pre-med students and Nobel Prize winners.

Reciting Verse on the Toilet

957957 views11 comment11 fav

He is the kind of boy that is so handsome / you already expect there is something wrong with him

Deus Ex Mama

957957 views11 comment11 fav

Charlie is hollering about Rex again. Every dinosaur right now is Rex. Also Rex: every animal with thick-looking skin--elephants, crocodiles. (Yesterday, he pointed to an ant and told me, "Buggy Rex.")

Ice Cream

957957 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."

gravelortian part 20

957957 views00 comments00 favs

Baby who battles with devils

Cocktail Hour

956956 views44 comments00 favs

The bullet went past his right ear and a little star appeared, twinkling in the mirror, a small hole in its middle, before the boom of the shot filled up the bar. He put his straight up Grey Goose martini down on the bar hard enough so th

Texturality

956956 views1414 comments88 favs

A.The poem of rational progression is dulling.Make the leap. Go beyond juxtaposition to collision.We like poetry that does double duty, triple duty, quadruple duty. We like poetry that mixes the grit, poetry that has the texture of complexity.Reason asserts an…

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

956956 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."

Intervention

956956 views00 comments00 favs

I got a call from Fiona last night. She asked that I come down this evening, to meet at Penny's place. "It's an Intervention, Al," she said, which told me everything I needed to know about what the meeting would be about.

The Depth of the Dust

956956 views99 comments33 favs

Can anyone remember what the Great American dream was?

Bat (n.)

956956 views44 comments44 favs

Flying mammal with thin membrane forelimb adaptive wings. Amazing number of species from fruit-eating to insectivores. All capable of landing in your hair at night.

my own image breaking and falling

955955 views22 comments11 fav

What went racing through my mind as Lynda was telling me about the farmer she was seeing out in Western Illinois with his 12 inch dick? She was only 5’2”. “It’s so big I can barely get it all in me,” she said, with her mouth part way open. That old look

A Cuppa

955955 views88 comments55 favs

David: Glad you made it. It’s been ages since we've had a cuppa.

Still

955955 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…

Everyone... out

955955 views22 comments11 fav

The room is cold, like an icy bath. Enough to make Earl's testicles shrivel up in fear. He could hear the angry children outside act out a primeval play, where it sounded like bones were being slammed into rocks with clumsy small hands. The edge of the table…

It's Not Enough

955955 views22 comments11 fav

I'll never forget the way you tasted that last morning that I ever saw you.The blurry eyed look on my face as I searched your bed for my tshirt, and you in a hurry because you were already late for work bending down onto the bed and grabbing my chin the…