Most read stories

The Mid-Life Suburban Strip-Tease Crisis

698698 views44 comments00 favs

Once we’d mellowed from the wine, our little group of friends grew reflective. We started talking about our “bucket lists”–how we were going to spend the remainder of our years before we lapsed into senility.

The Sea at Sea (or Why is There a Question Instead of Not a Question)

697697 views00 comments00 favs

"This above photo by goerte' shows the natural state of a bourgeois subject' - Friedrich Nietzsche "the naked image is more fat then the never naked word, because a pig is an interpretation of a mind, also hog are more green when they worship rationality, because…

walks from to walks to

696696 views66 comments22 favs

hands slide into gloves unseen / eyes disappear behind glass / the crank turns the flywheel spins: / every octave has droppt low / sub-sonic shudders within—

Prayers and Plastic Wrap

692692 views1515 comments1616 favs

The effort involved in making my chocolate chip cookies, do you know? They're not easy. No. Not easy.

Let it Rage Until

692692 views33 comments33 favs

Let it rage. I shall not suppress you. Let your rage speak to you of the sorrow it hides, until your sadness swallows you whole.

My Secret Pen Pal

692692 views11 comment11 fav

What if I let it be known that I've been enjoying a heavy correspondence with Queen Elizabeth my entire life? We began the correspondence on the very day she was coronated. February 6th, 1952. I was four years old and working as a bartender in Cheyenne, Wyoming. …

Flesh Alive

691691 views22 comments11 fav

Rise up, carcass—march! / Naught is new beneath the jaundiced sun: / last of the last of Louis' gold, / light is sliced through clean / beneath flecks and films of time.

Xmas Story

686686 views44 comments22 favs

The conspicuous police car was conspicuously just ahead.

The Third Time my Father Tried to Kill Me

680680 views2121 comments1717 favs

They sang and clapped and stomped shod feet on hardwood floor, the smell of man sweat and bomb-making thick as perfume.

among American gods

680680 views33 comments22 favs

in dark recesses of this morgue of earth / where beauty of the good does not compel, / where evil's horrors seldom do repel— / Americ gods reign o'er from birth to birth.

Morning in Louisiana

677677 views11 comment00 favs

Sunlight slaps the asphalt hard. Steam rises. It looks like thought. The sweet vapors of rumination.

Tales Told near Tsmebrovht-5

677677 views55 comments44 favs

“—but although we've catalogued instances of this on other planets, it seems never to've led to the global outbreak of psycho-phrenias and neuro-pathologies as those that plagued the Tiānxiàns!”

Ron Vara speaks out at last.

669669 views44 comments44 favs

He’s an empty sock

Leftover Author's Notes

662662 views1616 comments77 favs

#281: If you make it to the end on this one, I'll send you $1,000 in cash and a bag of apples. Your choices are Granny Smith and Fuji. I can also pay you in euros if that helps.

Barely Spring

659659 views77 comments55 favs

On a business road

Living In A Novel

659659 views22 comments33 favs

I walked into a novel and sat down on a rock. The language was distressed and full of cyclones and swells. I could smell embalming fluid and folklore. Everywhere I went there were doorknobs, escalators, and clocks. Objects of all genre overflowing with prose. I stood at …

That's All Right

643643 views11 comment11 fav

People are yelling for Little Elvis

We Poor Splendid to Look On

643643 views55 comments33 favs

Leave us to hide our sundials in our caves— / discard our scrolls that guide no more, / to time our nights to learn if we can grieve / —we’ve too much noise or less than we can hear . . .

Christian Bell vs. Sleep

642642 views1111 comments44 favs

Christian Bell can’t sleep in/on the following: airplanes, car trips, couches, first nights in hotels, jury duty holding area, commuter train, work breakroom, tent, park bench, the ground.

pome sequence from an early spring

642642 views33 comments11 fav

Say say say say say say says our I-I-I-me tunes:

The Full Treatment

641641 views11 comment11 fav

She rolled onto her back and spread her hind legs. Her lewd poses were fine on a fat cat, but as I rubbed her belly I wondered if that’s what might have gotten her into trouble as a human. I tried to reassure myself that her indiscretions weren’t my fault

Unconditional Unbroken

627627 views11 comment22 favs

It's house has seen every day and every night From its windows stars are born and die

A Condemnation

626626 views33 comments33 favs

I won't read between the lineswhen the linesI'm daily given are half truthsI will take what you sayas truewhenthe truthsuits me as well as it suits youI heard you yelling at him, you knowyou didn't know I was home yet but I wasI was grabbing a package off the…

Things Inside of Other Things

623623 views1313 comments1010 favs

Determined to make this Thanksgiving more special than the last, she ponders long on how to create a chiduckey.

Through a Sudden Window

623623 views44 comments33 favs

There is someone looking for youfor himself or her. I don't know if they'll keep on looking forever when we live our present lives so far apart from each other. You might as well be behind a glass at all times. But I still would want that lucky…

Second Wave, 1944 (with notes)

617617 views66 comments44 favs

Here were men trying their best to kill other men....

Poof

615615 views77 comments66 favs

Yesterday's protest...

Doubts.

615615 views88 comments44 favs

It's dark outside.

They Didn't Love Their Daughter.

614614 views22 comments11 fav

“But he's going to the University of Chicago!” “I know.” …

Wish I Had

610610 views1919 comments1818 favs

A pet scorpion. A pet scorpion named Chris.(1)