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Luther Mishmash stood numbly in the yard, dumbly staring at the soiled pair of underpants flapping lazily in the breeze on the wash line. Grandpa had wet himself again. Tomorrow, at school, he knew he’d hear about it. Luther wasn’t sure which was more
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16461510
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You wanted a love poem written just for you. / Here it is. Don’t look askance.
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1645116
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16452216
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My mother used to say she'll be just like you and you‘ll deserve it. I was a Punk Rocker. A rebel. Emily worries about things like grades and sports. She's on the soccer team. I got stoned under the bleachers. Emily, is a good kid. …
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164542
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We've worked silence over /
Like pros, our best work together.
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the Way that can be mapped leads nowhere.
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16441310
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I try to envision long-haired men riding horses across a vast expanse, their faces blank as those of my students.
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164421
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As I was going into Wal-Mart, a man with a useless arm was coming out. I'd never seen anything like that arm—a dangle-flesh, rubbery thing with no purpose.
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164453
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Hey there little hippie girl, smilin’ to the ears and dripping with scarves,
I cherish our friendship.
However, every time you take off your shoes to dance at a rock show,
hair swingin’ like silk vines in the paradise that is your shaking ass...
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164420
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The women of Bixby, Texas, united in their frustration and general thirst for arson, cheered as Flossie’s Bordello and Bar-B-Q Shack burned to the ground.
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164475
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When I was fifteen and we were moving to Mississippi, my boyfriend in Canada told me I was going to live in the swamp with the alligators. I didn’t understand why my father would pick such a hick place. Rob gave me his cricket bat to hang over my bed, a
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born to be mistreated by beasts in human shapes
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1643910
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I get out of the pitstop at the reststop, wade through parking lot hiphop. Hummers with Jesus Luvs George W bumper stickers, and a subdued slow hurricane of dour obese women in powder blue and tepid brown walking about the place like zombies. And I see t
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16434218
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At the Cimitiere Montparnasse he offers the girl his raincoat. I'm searching for Samuel Beckett, he says, and holds an umbrella over her as she consults her map. We're close, she says, pointing. I'll go with you. Then we can visit Simone de Beauvoir. My name is Scarlet.…
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164383
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"My boy Jake fell in with a bad crowd when he went to college," Coffelt says, shaking his head. "A bunch of accounting majors."
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164363
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Oh, also, had no idea what the whole visit to the Kingdom of the Dead was getting at. Interesting, but seems unrelated to the larger story. I'd cut it. Remember — this is a story about one man's attempt to get home. Stay focused on that.
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164361
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Cold water shocked Ernest's face. The evening with Gracie had his nerves hot and popping. She was his fifth date and the closest to his memory of Sadie in college so far. He looked up at himself in the bathroom mirror with his mouth agape. Redness flooded…
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164271
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It was a sloppy little factory town that could be beautiful, but never bothered trying. Sits on a big lake. More bars than churches, and too many of both. Racist. We hated anybody who didn’t believe in white Jesus
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164272
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I pass the Grief Benches on my way to work. No one is on them today. Last night I saw a couple there, him wet eyed and her with her head down. She scrunched her eyes tight as I passed and I remember thinking she was a fraud. It's alright if you don't want
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164178
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for a handful of weeks/ my father took me to/ the college of art and design/ downtown/ where i took drawing lessons./
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164131
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Dear Mom, You told me the connection between a mother and her son is like no other connection. You carried me for nine months. You scheduled visits with the doctor; you thought and discussed and re-thought and re-discussed with dad what my name would be; you…
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164153
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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.
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Hope wakes starving/
in the storm,/
to off and hunt.
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16401413
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When I was a little boy, I had a thing about women’s behinds.
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164010
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It's dawn. It's quiet on the pond in the Public Garden. The light is calm, the pollution is mild, and everything is still,except for the occasional cruising taxi. It's the beginning of spring-- tulips out, leaves…
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We walk in silence. We water our plants. We don’t eat as well as we should. We try to love. We try to forget.
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163985
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When I feel the sort of longing that sneaks up on me unawares, the sort held for the wrong kind of person that can make a woman clutch her heart in the night and sullies her blood with unwanted dreams in a thinking person's landscape, I hear, too, the deep…
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163976
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"You know what a hobo is, my young friend? Or a tramp? Or a bum? Well, I'll tell ya, 'cuz you'll meet all of 'em in yer life and it's a good thing to know since they are each one of 'em different and the difference is this. Bums sit around and loaf. T
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163954
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I would be reduced to begging on the streets and hoping for a sign of her in soup lines.
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163921
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When I glance at the bedside clock I realize that we have been making love in one way or another for nearly three hours now. I am filled with a certain secret smugness that I am still going strong. It has been a long time since I’ve done anything quite li
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