Most read stories

Papa's Parrot

21252125 views33 comments22 favs

He wasn’t there for the beginning or the end. In the beginning, he was still a wild thing. Nothing more than a voice in the chorus of the Dark Continent, back when it was a thing of terrible beauty and attracted people like the old man; people who breathe

Woman

21252125 views1717 comments1414 favs

When you move to the music of a woman

Arcana Magi - c.14: Arrivals

21252125 views11 comment00 favs

Danica saw her hand with the ring lifted up by Oryn. Both of their eyes locked onto the red gem and Danica understood what Oryn offered.

The Loss of a Child

21242124 views2424 comments77 favs

I watched as the light fled from your eyes, No slowly dimming lamp,

The Clock Man's Trouble

21242124 views77 comments22 favs

A lowing cow cracked open the darkened room like the yawn of a gravid alien.

forever

21232123 views2020 comments1515 favs

over tea & saltineshe read melike an obituary

Estranged

21232123 views1010 comments66 favs

He kind of enjoyed living by himself. It was nice and peaceful.

The MacGowans Flee West

21232123 views1212 comments1010 favs

Some believe the Scots were encouraged to emigrate, hired guns as it were, to Ireland to civilize that population. If that's the case, we would see it as another evil English trick. In any case, we MacGowans are Scots Irish and Protestant.

Momo and Me

21232123 views00 comments00 favs

Momo told me not to mind her, but I did. At night, after he'd tucked me in, I could hear him on the phone in the living room, talking for a long time. Early this morning he woke me up and gave me my backpack. ‘Put some clothes in here', he said. ‘We're going on a trip.'

Optical Delusion

21222122 views2424 comments1616 favs

Veiled by tenuous clouds and dirty air,

To Live It Again

21222122 views77 comments44 favs

She began guiding Penny’s arms, whispering movements through her body. Memory and experience sang through every fiber of their being. The song had become her life.

Red

21222122 views66 comments22 favs

Erwin came into the kitchen through the back door and went straight to the sink to clean up. Black mud and dried blood crusted his fingertips and caked the callused whorls of his knuckles.  He used the round of strong-smelling soap he kept for…

Half a Lotus

21222122 views2323 comments1010 favs

An Ayurvedic astrologer tells her that she is a child of India. Is a girl born in Indiana a mistake of just two letters on a Scrabble board?

Lovelies on the Last Shore

21222122 views99 comments66 favs

All of those lovelies, pitched on the ground, ignored and ready to rot.

Good For The Ducks

21212121 views11 comment00 favs

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…

Blowing Up While Fading Out

21212121 views88 comments44 favs

It calmed the guilt in my heart while kids reveled, laughed, and "made time" with the neighborhood girls on that final night of freedom. No one would talk to those girls again.

Turtle Summer

21212121 views1111 comments77 favs

He was her summer fling, the first cock to crow when the sun rose over her tequila smile.

Carrion Flower

21202120 views55 comments44 favs

Jacabo gave the boy a can of beer with oxycontin and rat poison in it. He instructed the boy to drink and talk. Jacabo did this, fully aware that making ghosts was a costly enterprise.

NOVEL EXCERPT: Jimmy Gollihue

21202120 views00 comments11 fav

Jimmy Gollihue awoke to the howling of a bloodhound, a long voice from up the mountain, and the baying of the dog pulled a keening lament from his dream of the highway.

Alluvion

21202120 views77 comments44 favs

.

hair

21202120 views55 comments33 favs

A strange and unexpected shift has occurred.

Why'd You Come Back?

21202120 views00 comments00 favs

But there, up the street, just coming into the corner of the window, someone was in the middle of the road. Walking literally down the middle, dragging one leg like it was heavy or broken, carving a fat line next to the skinny one the good one made.

FREE

21202120 views1313 comments77 favs

hot, hot

Poetry: Bizarro

21202120 views44 comments11 fav

I think theorems and hypotheses but all that comes out is punching and smashing frustrated hate flows where I'd prefer to know love.

Out of the Loop

21202120 views1717 comments1616 favs

Ed wants to watch the last half of the football game. His wife wants him to mow the lawn.

The Field Guide: Olivetti

21202120 views88 comments33 favs

When you last produced writing on a manual typewriter, was it before or after your first sexual experience, or maybe during? Manual or otherwise. Which do you recall with more enthusiasm...

It Takes Three Heartbeats For Me To Fall In Love

21192119 views33 comments22 favs

...and 55 words to tell you about it.

Bring Me His Head

21192119 views2020 comments1616 favs

Just bring me his head, that cerebral kiln of hot, ruddy verbiage and cadence.

Tattooed Hands

21192119 views11 comment11 fav

A 1960’s of walking sugar beet fields to remove the rogue bolters by hand and on other days painting the ironwork of cattle sheds with red oxide. Then a 1970’s when the self-inking explosion of tattoos on his hands and then his body began.

Specimen Subterranean: A Review

21192119 views99 comments55 favs

. . . the greater length of the so-called “Montebaldi Corridor” can still be walked without the least exposure to direct sunlight as long as the traveler is not active from 9 am to 3 pm local time.