Most read stories

Suspended Heart

23702370 views77 comments77 favs

The suspended heart became an oracle of sorts. Hung from a string, immersed in the kind of glass container in which tulips grow, it was located between Bath and Body Works and Kleinfelter's Jewelers at the north entrance of the mall. Someone had lost it,

We Must Be Carefully Taut

23702370 views2121 comments1515 favs

In the dread / of night, navigate by the sliver moon

Steady Keel

23702370 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…

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

23692369 views1414 comments44 favs

One of the women is a brassy blond, and when she takes off her coat, I almost choke on a French fry.

Steve Jobs in Hell

23692369 views11 comment11 fav

Everyone asks that question. The short answer is: he brought it on himself.

The Bond Trader Goes Hunting

23692369 views1616 comments1313 favs

The Bond Trader begins his morning with coffee and a hit of LSD.

Brief Studies of Doomed Females

23682368 views1212 comments77 favs

She is unsure if it will work, despite all her reading of physics and flying carpets and propeller planes. The practicalities of aerodynamics in application remain to be tested.

The several stages of grief

23682368 views22 comments00 favs

Robert was not in any sort of metaphysical or spiritual sense seeing himself, as in the scales falling from his eyes and seeing himself as he was. He was a long way from that kind of insight. He was literally seeing another himself.

Regret

23682368 views11 comment11 fav

Pushing his jeans down around his ankles, he knelt, and pressed his moist dipstick against my hole. “Do you always do this on a first date?” he said

Four Noble Lies

23672367 views1515 comments1616 favs

When Carlotta left me, I cried / into my soup. I shriveled into / harsh mathematics.

All Will Be Well

23672367 views1818 comments99 favs

Jesus will walk on the water. Judas will walk on a technicality.

A sense that something has happened

23652365 views1414 comments88 favs

hunting after dark,/ in the quiet they seemed to appear/ with every new poem I read, each new workshop, some hunting carried on/ by both animals.

Treading Water

23652365 views44 comments33 favs

I was nine when I saw my first dead body.

Love Songs for Kandahar

23652365 views77 comments55 favs

You worry that the mullahs suspect us, but that cannot be. We never touch in public. You weep and I shake when a neighbor knocks on the door.

Leave Off Doves

23652365 views99 comments33 favs

Midway through the fall semester, an unremarkable girl in Professor Woody's Advanced Fiction workshop dyed her hair an unnatural shade of dark, changed her name to Tasmina, and turned in a story filled with made-up words.

Hundred Dollar Hit

23652365 views66 comments11 fav

"My god," Toni said, bending over and tapping her head gently against the counter in fake anguish. "His ass in those jeans. Jesus. I should be young and lucky like you." Toni tapped her cigarette ash into the coin tray.

Lizard Back

23642364 views55 comments66 favs

The lizard is like wearing wings on my back, makes me fly like a dragon in my dreams, which I have all day long, while looking at you, talking to you, right now, having dreams in some part of my head. I'd like to stick out my tongue and lick the part of m

I Confess to God in the Shower

23642364 views99 comments55 favs

During fifth grade, I was called / closeted queer and tall faggot.

The Birdcage

23632363 views55 comments33 favs

He blew out the candle. There was the tang of candle smoke, scattered by a sudden rush of wings, and the immediacy of another breathing thing in the dark. I heard the birdcage open, and the bird fluttering in there without crying out.

RUBYRED AND PARSHOOTER

23632363 views22 comments11 fav

This stage of Junior’s young life was static, moving very little off-center since his graduation from high school five years ago. Treading water both professionally and emotionally never worried him. Not until after what transpired that night when Pr

Hello, My Name Is James, And I Am An Asshole

23632363 views33 comments00 favs

By my calculations, all hell is uncoiling. At the moment, this fact is not really obvious to anyone, but I'm confident that will change soon enough.

Kung Pao Turkey

23632363 views88 comments66 favs

It was my grandmother's idea of a joke, but I never realized she was joking when she repeated it every Thanksgiving. She would sit at the head table just before Uncle Leon would carve the bird and ask, "It's an American holiday. Shouldn't we be roasting an eagle…

Lord of Autumn

23632363 views00 comments11 fav

Gordon He pressed the side of his face to the pillow and waited for the sound of birds. The room was black, the window open; when a breeze came the curtains billowed out against a lighter sky. He heard the clock. He heard the dry sound of Helen breathing;…

Who Will Carry Us?

23622362 views22 comments00 favs

1. People avoided Mac, the Great White Hunter, which was how he liked to think of himself, even though he was not white. Mac was cocoa colored and stalked his prey nearly nude. The city was his…

Three Poems, One for Each Eye

23622362 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…

Fort Stark, New Hampshire

23622362 views88 comments55 favs

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

Buster Keaton

23612361 views1414 comments99 favs

I passed Buster Keaton on the way to work this morning. He was standing, hands in pockets, at the corner of Riverview and Keil. It was the young Buster, handsome and still strong enough to pin down the scars that marked his childhood. This was the Buster

Fake Letters

23612361 views2323 comments1313 favs

Dear Husband,

Contentment

23612361 views1919 comments1313 favs

On the bed he tickled her until she was crying with laughter. And then the tickles became caresses, the fingers, lips.

Here's a five (5) question 'POP QUIZ' about ME!

23612361 views00 comments00 favs

Which well-known Portland celebrity did I at-first-unwittingly accost at the Aug. 2007 Thermals show, hitting them up for $0.50 so I could get a slice of pizza ?