Most read stories

The Pit and Philip Guston

10991099 views44 comments22 favs

Above the chasm of life burn two fires at either side of the framed painting that stands on the pink and red plain. And inside the painting itself an orange rain falls, accumulating in a sea of red. Rocks can’t stand their small shadows anymore

Get More Protein From Your Music

10991099 views00 comments11 fav

“Kids,” I say, commiserating with my partner Bink. “You can’t live with ‘em, but you can live without ‘em.”

Fried Architecture

10991099 views11 comment11 fav

In the morning that same girl I’d seen gave me a tangerine...

Head Eloquence

10991099 views88 comments66 favs

You know I'm living in the past...

The Passing of Great Dreams

10991099 views55 comments33 favs

I think someone’s Got their foot On my foot Not holding me down But maybe helping to ground me It’s almost like they’re Tapping the top of my foot Now and then While listening to some kind of Internal music Tell me What part

I Heard You Like the Back Seat Too, Honey: Song

10991099 views11 comment11 fav

They met at a bar They didn’t get far They went to her car Then back to the bar He played guitar She was a rock star They met at a bar They didn’t get far Well, I heard you liked the back seat too, Honey I heard that you liked to h

Not today, you crab!

10991099 views11 comment11 fav

My single sculling boat was not made to take the impact of a pickup.

my own image breaking and falling

10981098 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

Christmas Eve

10981098 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. …

Woods

10981098 views00 comments00 favs

We went to the woods to escape the failures that suck out your breath.

The Lies You Tell Yourself

10981098 views22 comments00 favs

I am skinniest in the morning. My belly forgets the previous day’s sins, and I wake up looking taut like a model. Then it starts.

Housewives and Ladders

10981098 views00 comments00 favs

In the upstairs bedroom, the faucet runs wide open, overflowing the garden tub, shoving water to the white tile floor where she lays in a pool of blood. A white package of forty watt bulbs rests beside her sink. A three step ladder lays on its side. The…

Epicure

10981098 views22 comments00 favs

Edwin was the last thing I bought. With his uneven eyes and curious leg stumps, he was a must-have. When I showed Edwin to my housemates he was hugged many times, and praised as though he was real. Knowing my housemates, Edwin may have saved some lives…

Mistaken

10981098 views11 comment00 favs

Buzz.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 4

10981098 views11 comment11 fav

“So, vot you think?” Vladimir asked us. “You want to come see these paintings? This is once in lifetime chance. Not many left who know about these. And I know where they are.” All the while he kept looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdroppin

The Soup You're Served

10981098 views66 comments66 favs

He said hopping trains don't get you out the pot, it only gets you to the other side. But whatever soup you're swimming in, you'll still be swimming in it.

I Think You Know That

10971097 views44 comments33 favs

you've swallowed a whale bone and not a whole chicken. It's not about being surrounded by very nice stuff. We always thought there was much, much more than haunted walls inside cold castles. People connect the dots like collecting stamps. Things get…

No Exit: Fantasy Football Edition

10971097 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.

clouded

10971097 views1414 comments88 favs

a current forecast

86.

10971097 views99 comments00 favs

It was late and Manhattan wasn't going to wait for us to wake up. We stumbled off the train — a few puffs of smoke left in our lungs and perfectly disheveled hair that made us look like we were comfortable with our anxiety.Steps weren't getting any easier…

Poem for January 1st, Feast of Christ's Circumcision

10971097 views55 comments11 fav

Who has the child’s foreskin The mohel has removed? Who took the bleeding piece of flesh His human nature proved?

Let's Do It In the Mud

10971097 views44 comments11 fav

Then I got another letter, but this time it was from my friend Andy, warning me that he’d seen Miller riding around with Lynda, driving her grandparent’s Dodge with Lynda sitting right up against his side, and his arm was around her. I saw red. I went

Shots Below the Brow

10971097 views1010 comments77 favs

His self-assurance says/ he’s practiced in the art/ of self-deception

Kitchen Consciousness

10971097 views00 comments00 favs

she's bent over and reaching into the oven to pour fat over a chicken. I just want to tug those pants down and thrust.

Rise, Awake and Sing

10971097 views00 comments00 favs

Rise, Awake and Sing“Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise; awake and sing, you who lie in the dust”(Isaiah 26:19)A medieval town where nothing stands straight,where Kafka sat, slept, ate. Where timereads backwards on a Hebrew clock and a Golemwaits in…

The lyre bird

10961096 views1111 comments55 favs

When silence makes his way next to me on the narrow path, I let his arm brush mine, and I stop singing with the birds. So, in the vast forest filled with songs and rustling, silence and I follow our path to the edge. Two tranquil strollers, meditating on the ancient voices…

Intervention

10961096 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 Transportation of Hens

10961096 views1212 comments44 favs

Sixteen hundred hens / suffocated / during the collection

Back Story

10961096 views66 comments44 favs

I wanted you in the worst way but that's not how I got you.

Nope

10951095 views22 comments11 fav

Can't cope.