Most read stories

Sinister Age of the Draft

21782178 views3939 comments1414 favs

The so-called good, a weak but whiny lot, who actually clung to that abstract of "justice for all," would tattle to Mrs. Pufry...Mzzz Puffy, she hit me...Mzzz Puffy he said the bad word...Mzzz Puffy, I gotta go...Mzzz Puffy, Thomas is hanging in the cloak

Possum Woman

21782178 views33 comments00 favs

They always referred to her as the possum woman back home. She scoured the streets just as the sun fell into deep slumber behind the sentinel, sun tanned shoulders of the mountains encircling small town anywhere.

Cellphone Girl (Part I)

21782178 views00 comments00 favs

The calls were going through her as if her whole head had become a wireless receiver. She absolutely did not understand how or why that was happening, but the physical evidence was impossible to ignore.

A Body Divided, 2

21782178 views33 comments00 favs

I came down with polio on September 15, 1953, a mild, smoky day drawing close to autumn outside of Chicago — which also happened to be the exact date of my parents' twenty-first wedding anniversary. Only six months later the Salk vaccine was already b

Caffeine-Fueled Revelation Machines

21782178 views55 comments33 favs

So she leans over the patio table like that model in that magazine ad and then takes a sip of her blended coffee drink as if a director had said to pretend the straw is a penis. As if this director only just shouted, “And you're a dirty, dirty girl, and

Fort Stark, New Hampshire

21772177 views88 comments55 favs

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get where you need to be.

Riposi in Pace.

21772177 views22 comments11 fav

It was too young to be love. We were 5, a buzz-cut me, and you, plated with babyteeth

Steady Keel

21772177 views55 comments22 favs

He stands. Shoes for dashing, and he could dash, if the audience would stand for it, through one of two exits, beneath one of three wreaths. This year, the year of the Millennium, the wreaths seem dark and Germanic. The stage seems like a Great Hall set for a solitary…

Dear Joe,

21762176 views88 comments77 favs

Walk alone at night, quietly. Pause for eye contact with raccoons and night cats, your drunk self, and lights in the graveyard. Don't apologize for it in the morning. Instead of the shame you feel for one time acting selfishly and chasing a future, say…

Three Ways of the Saw

21752175 views11 comment33 favs

I’m at the kitchen sink washing down pills when they bump up my driveway in a blue Toyota pick up, its bed eaten through with rust so bad I can see past the holes in the body to the frame.

Dead Man Sleeping

21742174 views44 comments11 fav

Joyce Addleberg hated sleeping alone, so when her husband died in his sleep one night, it was only natural that she kept him around.

Three Poems, One for Each Eye

21742174 views1818 comments1010 favs

1. a bone to pick"It seems to be accepted nowadays more than ever that killing,individual and mass killing,is the order of the day;it is accepted."--Henry MillerWhy can't you leave well enough alone just long enough for it to make its own miraculous escape…

Better than Chocolate

21722172 views77 comments44 favs

Teddy laughs like a machine gun. People back away when they hear him. Every time I see him at work, I try to make his skinny body rattle. I would never back away.

Granny's Reform School Weekend Intensive Workshop, Session One

21712171 views55 comments66 favs

Being a grandparent is most joyous when deliberately subversive.

Yalta Pas de Deux

21712171 views2222 comments1010 favs

The Count was used to boredom but he had reached the point where he was even bored with boredom.

A Midsummer's Nightmare

21712171 views33 comments22 favs

"So, is this the datgum exit?" "Grumphfr exit fregerrock." (This response means either yes, it is, I told you that ten miles ago, or, no it's not, I told you that ten miles ago, depending if it’s the right exit or not.)

A Sunday Afternoon in Paris

21712171 views2424 comments1616 favs

He would lean on his window sill in the evening and watch the whores. They wore gaudy clothes and too much makeup.

Old Church Slavonic

21702170 views66 comments55 favs

Because it seems never to be beginning, always picking up in the middle with it’s long resonant tones, which themselves begin as if they’ve always been. Maybe that’s why we love old, sacred music. And by we I, of course, mean my two-year-old Charlie and m

Polite Grafitti

21702170 views1919 comments66 favs

He was entirely guilty of what he had done and wanted that to be acknowledged and understood by the arresting officer.

The Brother

21702170 views99 comments55 favs

I guess it’s extremely difficult to be a decent human being in all aspects of your life.

Working Without a Net

21702170 views00 comments00 favs

The next day, John's kneecaps looked like Tennessee Pride Real Country Sausage. The bandage on his head kept coming loose, having to be tucked in, and he was suffering the Stone Mountain of hangovers.

Chocolate Dog

21692169 views44 comments22 favs

My ghost has already been places I'll never see.

Degree Zero, My Love

21692169 views00 comments00 favs

So we waited for it to get dark. I smelled her there beside me against the tree, and fell asleep and dreamed of an unbombed stone church whose steeple was so high it pierced the clouds. It's time, came a voice from one of the back pews. “It's…

Their Next

21682168 views77 comments55 favs

The base of the monastery before him, he let her go into a warm updraft and she cascaded out and up, never falling as she rode the tiger into her next.

The Big Cross

21672167 views22 comments11 fav

I hope you and asshole are having a good time.

Eight Maids a'Milking

21672167 views00 comments00 favs

“… and that concludes my presentation. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.” Meixu Liao smiled and turned her hands out, palms upwards. Americans typically saw this combination of facial expression and body language as conveyin

Two or Three Late Encounters with Empiricism

21662166 views99 comments66 favs

Schrödinger did not keep cats about just by accident, and were they keeping an eye on him!

Fly the Friendly Skies

21662166 views88 comments88 favs

Lucky bastard, he gets Glamour Puss and I get lady wrestler who's giving off the vibe she'll bludgeon me to death with her Bible if I make one false move.

Feeling Marlene (from OPEN CITY Magazine Number 16)

21662166 views33 comments33 favs

I got your card in the mail via my ex-wife in Saskatoon. On it you wonder where I am, if I am still writing, and if I have any stories I would send for you to look at because you think I should be published, too.

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.6 - c.5

21652165 views33 comments11 fav

Polo could sense the tension with his group. He was unsure what the creatures would do to them.