Most read stories

LAST CALL: A Memoir

21122112 views22 comments22 favs

We see o­nly the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material . . . when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of things…

The Master of Sleep

21112111 views22 comments00 favs

The Master of Sleep had lived alone for many years, so when his daughters first moved into his house he welcomed them, seemingly glad for their company...

Me. You. Love.

21112111 views66 comments55 favs

In my own case, before Ellen, of course there was someone else. She—well, she was someone who I felt as if I’d always known and always would. And I think she felt the same about me.

The King Provides

21112111 views1919 comments1515 favs

Our sons do nothing but drink and roar

Siam

21112111 views99 comments33 favs

Our city is really two cities, conjoined. One lives during the day, the other at night. Those who live and breathe daytime air call the city by one name, a name which evokes the relative newness of the place, a name with words just barely invented.…

Mostly I Want to be Walking

21112111 views1212 comments1010 favs

by myself next to just one wide-eyed moment of wild blued out ocean. You know the one I mean. I don't want to have to speak to you, or even- alone- to myself. I'd like to be left inside the poem it makes me feel without having to get up and pee every…

Red Left Hand

21112111 views55 comments33 favs

"I see a child's bicycle swarmed by bees. A stolen oil painting of a helicopter...no, no, that ain't it. Wait. A high school basketball coach will hang himself from a bridge you often think about. This man, now, he's a Navajo Indian.

January 1, 2012

21112111 views2121 comments1212 favs

I couldn’t begin to give an account of the latest days.

Tales from the Golden Age II

21102110 views1313 comments44 favs

--How's the wriiting business? How about that thing you' was workin' on..."Gawain's Green Nights?" --Yeah, well, I'm kind of off the soft-core...

Summer Flip Flops

21102110 views88 comments66 favs

Sal, a finder of misplaced objects notices the sunglasses, flip flops and boxers left on the pathway heading to the beach. They are his gifts today, so gallant is he of these ‘strays’ seeking ownership. He tries the glasses on first and feels dizzy.

(5) Forgiveness

21102110 views00 comments11 fav

“Charlie was right about you, Nan,” she said in a voice of pure defeat. “You are a gentle spirit. And probably too good for people like us.”

Trader Joe's, on a Sunday

21092109 views1010 comments99 favs

When you think I'm not looking, I always am. You say it's like nicotine, your best analogy as a non-smoker. The kind of hit that is hard to live without and isn't it human nature, you ponder.

How the Species Began Again, I

21092109 views00 comments00 favs

Tina saw a tear escape from beneath the frame of the man’s broken glasses. It followed the contour of his cheek until it quivered along his jaw line.

Coast to Coast

21092109 views99 comments1010 favs

No one knows that, while the ex-Area 51 guy delivered his rant, Art Bell left the booth for a Diet Coke.

Dig

21092109 views99 comments44 favs

Every morning, the children dig holes for their parents. This is both necessary and beneficial: the kids need to dig and the parents have to be buried.

Warning: Literary Fiction: The One-Dollar Minister

21082108 views88 comments22 favs

It was Warren who introduced me to this bouncer fellow named John O’Toole. Warren met O’Toole and his wife, Angelina, through the dark prison poet Eugene Forcer. Forcer and O’Toole were the best of friends until a riff erupted between them one drunken n

The Fallow Heart

21082108 views2424 comments1616 favs

I stared out the window, the fog creeped up the Avenues like a spectator.

Where Time is Water

21082108 views22 comments11 fav

Dog time is water. Incidents bob near the surface, fall into whirlpools, sink or drift with the flow.

Liebe Grüße

21082108 views22 comments00 favs

Left, I see parkland and cyclists and sun. Right: picnic blankets, naked men and lunchtime assignations.

Ways in Which Looks Deceive

21082108 views1111 comments44 favs

Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.

No Dirt In Common

21082108 views1010 comments44 favs

I feel a strange loneliness for her...I think I will go to the beach, and forgive it for its sharp sand and lack of trees.

We Talk in a Roundabout Way

21082108 views1313 comments66 favs

You are a boy with a birthday bike smiling like our son, standing in a photograph surrounded by other sons, who turn rocks over and over, who keep snakes in plastic bread bags, who find the bones of something wild in the woods. You smile that way still.

The Deli Worker

21072107 views11 comment11 fav

This is the story of my friend, Gil

Pieces

21072107 views88 comments33 favs

I was a whole man once.

Arcana Magi Cross - c.4

21072107 views00 comments00 favs

Ai did not know what to do, nor say. She did not want Manami to suffer anymore than she already has.

Hemingway for Gloria

21072107 views1616 comments88 favs

He disliked intrusion and very specifically innocuous intrusion, nice guys, one might say, who tried to be near him to learn something from him or who admired him but who, as in that passage, came merely to disturb his work.

Turtles Don't Have Hair

21062106 views77 comments33 favs

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Skip says. My husband laughs. He has a high girlish chuckle when he’s truly delighted. He can sing really high like a girl, too. “All right,” I say. I leave my headband

Yes You Can--Buy My Book of Bad Poetry

21062106 views99 comments44 favs

America has given birth to many great poets--Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Muhammad Ali--but why should talented people have all the fun?

4:45pm, Philadelphia

21062106 views1313 comments1313 favs

He stays a couple of yards behind me as we slog uphill. I try to diffuse the tension with a coy toss of head, slip on wet leaves. My ankle rolls and I splat noisily down. From my new angle his beard looks less stylish—bristles straggle all up his neck. He maintains…

A Debt No Honest Man Can Pay

21062106 views1919 comments1414 favs

I'm sitting here listening to Nebraska and it's / breaking my heart