Most read stories

Cavafy's Double Helix

20222022 views1111 comments77 favs

The store was closing for good, and so I purchased a book of poems by Cavafy, that poet of ruins and tombstones, and fragments from disintegration.

The Case For Foreign Independent Flicks

20222022 views1414 comments77 favs

I cannot make love to a woman who looks like David Byrne.

The Birds (2)

20212021 views1010 comments77 favs

The birds were stacked up in the branches of a pine tree behind the feeder. Several were sitting on the fence. “They’re massing,” she said.

House Rabbit

20212021 views1717 comments1111 favs

I would be proud to be your house rabbit. I make this case: I will listen flop-eared close to your every concern and exhultation. If I doze off nudge me. I wake quickly.

Night Visitor

20212021 views22 comments11 fav

The tapping of hard soles moves slowly but forcefully away from the front door and toward the kitchen. Johnny looks at his dinosaur as if its spiked tail and plates of armor will protect him. Clip clop. Clip clop. The footsteps circle the kitchen. The bac

That Godot Guy Again - a True-Life Story

20212021 views33 comments22 favs

This is what happened today.

Open Orchidae

20202020 views33 comments22 favs

But Jana insisted to see this miracle, this antidote for the mundanity of existence.

This Rubbery, Unsure Thing

20202020 views77 comments55 favs

The sea is transparent rubber, and peering down into it I recognize the shiny fish in suspended animation, their partially exploded bodies obscured by their own blood.

Unintended Consequences

20202020 views2121 comments1212 favs

...you pile into your Mercury and barrel down the street, the air smells like sea, the night goes forever...

'Introduction' to LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT

20202020 views00 comments00 favs

Was Sligo an unfeeling privacy-violator or an uncannily-feeling empath, privy to the deepest longings of those whose lives he came in contact with? [...] Sligo's grave is as silent as these pages ultimately would be if they were left unread.

Salome Danced

20202020 views22 comments22 favs

After we'd been on the highway about an hour, it started to snow. Sammy leaned down to pick up the roach he'd dropped, and we skidded off the highway

Saw Her

20192019 views66 comments11 fav

Just like that. He heard her words clearly from the top floor of the five story apartment building. The unexpected change in weather made it mandatory for him to open his window.

Him and his Father

20192019 views55 comments11 fav

Snow was falling. People passed by the window and wore large coats. Inside, Alex stood in front of the window and watched.

In Dreams

20192019 views2121 comments1616 favs

I always wanted to head on up to New York City and be taught by a decent painter, but as time kept on trucking, it became clear that that was just a big dream that would not shake out and I'd never be a real artist because I was shy of the money I'd need to stay up there in…

Sorbet in the Luminous Capsule

20182018 views33 comments22 favs

Even in the brief flickers where your eyes and nose are visible you look gelatinous. Like a forgotten traveler suctioned to the side of an immersion tank. Am I sick because this bizarre spectacle is irresistible to me?

Live Sacrifice

20182018 views1818 comments99 favs

I don’t name the dog but the fish requires a name. Animals that do not get eaten must be named. The dog is still on the menu.

Thicket

20182018 views1010 comments33 favs

Through the window, I see the police. Lots of them, trampling down the blackberry brambles. Something reeks.

And We Are Laid To Waste

20182018 views00 comments00 favs

August 14 I remember the smell of fresh air. The feeling of clean air in your lungs. I haven't had that feeling in quite some time now. I guess few people have.

To the prostitutes on Boracay

20182018 views22 comments00 favs

. . . not if I have anything to do with it.

Hazel - alt.punk excerpt

20182018 views22 comments11 fav

This is why people go into work one day with a shotgun. This is why people turn to the masses and drink Kool-Aid. This is one of the reasons behind Chuck Palahnuik’s conceptualization of Project Mayhem.

The Planet Will Be Fine without Us

20172017 views2424 comments1616 favs

The planet will be fine without us as it was/ when the Permian extinction made the goo/ that made the Rockefellers wealthy.

Boredom & Ennui

20172017 views00 comments00 favs

I had a weird feeling I had just validated his behavior — provided another tile in the mosaic of his ego and self-esteem — by doing nothing more than entering this hall of mirrors, and reflecting.

Eat Drink Grow

20172017 views2020 comments1818 favs

Can you see me dying? 'Not quite', Said Mummy, 'because it happens Very slowly all the time.

End of Chapter Questions for an Imaginary Textbook

20172017 views33 comments33 favs

Describe how like or unlike a vagina a peach pit is, using no anatomical words.

The Pocahontas Forgiveness Goes Viral

20172017 views1313 comments99 favs

You generated coal light from your gait as easily as the new sun crawls through a sleepy forest, without worry over hot spillage, or who might be horribly blinded or grossly revealed or given visions in that rare moment of wet earth and…

The Wind in the Woods

20172017 views00 comments00 favs

Ralph Simpson looked as though he wouldn't last through the weekend. His skin, yellowing from the cirrhosis, covered his hands tightly enough so that the veins looked like they would burst from the pressure.

The Unknown Substance

20162016 views2525 comments1414 favs

Mama's good at finding things, but hardly ever what she's looking for.

City Crossing

20162016 views1010 comments66 favs

Maybe we all met, somewhere, in between streets.

Almighty Pink Slip

20152015 views1717 comments1111 favs

I fired God today. He wasn't showing up for work, slept through meetings, wrote ambiguous memos and killed too many innocents. Things just weren't working out.

Morir Soñando

20152015 views00 comments00 favs

While Erik rubs my back, I fall asleep. I'm not lying on my bed in Florida - I'm face down on the pavement outside Brooklyn Pharmacy. And it's not Erik's hand smoothing oil of cassis into my skin, but that Officer Green's meaty one gripping me . . .