Most read stories

Vernon, Last Seen In Hawaii

19941994 views00 comments00 favs

Dear Bess — I go to the First Assembly of God's church. (a Praising Spirit-Filled Fellowship.) It is in Maui. Dr. James Morocco, Senior Pastor. He has been pastoring the church for over twenty years. My, what a big change I am finding in my new l

Repatriation

19941994 views1717 comments1111 favs

When he woke he carried the body of a cat instead of a man. Next to him his cat dreamed it had a human body.

A Selection From Einstein's Letters

19931993 views22 comments11 fav

My dear Papa: I don't care to join you on holiday. Last summer when I came you and Frau Himmelfarb played "Wildlife Management" so late into the night that I got no rest.

I Saw God in a Wheelchair

19931993 views44 comments22 favs

I saw God sobbing in a wheelchair His legs didn't work and He had no hair I saw God sobbing in a wheelchair Nobody else was there Nobody stopped to stare Nobody seemed to care

Act of Creation

19931993 views22 comments11 fav

Mary ran her cake business in a way she could never have run her marriage. It was by appointment only, full deposit, partial refund (and this purely at her own discretion). Business was terrific and she had to turn down job after job. She only made…

Cream-colored Berets and Big Fish

19931993 views1313 comments1414 favs

Alone on the platform, I waited for a train.

An Old Sweet Song

19931993 views33 comments22 favs

Rob thought he might even make it. He'd stopped off south of Seattle, in Kent, and filled up the tank and went back in the can and topped off again. He got back on the road, to all appearances blase, blase. The montages were muted, at least for…

Freeway Deaths Attributed to Talk Radio

19931993 views66 comments00 favs

"I was just coming home from work listening to Consumer Dave," said Murrietta resident Mick Baylor, through his attorney, "when my eyelids started getting droopy. And he was just talking about how Circuit City was going out of business and I was. . .well,

The Party

19921992 views33 comments33 favs

Mike poured vermouth over his Campari and ice. “Gotta say, you have the most amazing view up here.” “Thanks. It's great when I'm washing dishes.” “Yeah, and the view in your front room isn't bad either. This cocktail …

Brink of Extinction_Chapter Two

19921992 views00 comments00 favs

The year is 2110. The earth is no longer habitual for human beings. The oceans are gone, the sky is red and irradiated and the last vestiges of human civilian are located within the confines of massive barrier cities. For a century mankind has been at war

The Pixie

19921992 views1111 comments77 favs

On the bank of the stream, we take off our clothes and dash into the water.

And We Sell Apples 1977

19921992 views11 comment11 fav

I hear the car door slam. Steve, about to duck daddy-duty: Just gonna take a run to the Quickway. "Rudy," I say, "go get in the car. Tell Papo I said Wait."

Tuscumbia, Alabama

19921992 views1111 comments77 favs

My dad at the wheel, my mother's ulcer inflamed, she puked her way across northern Alabama that summer, from Huntsville and the rusting rockets to Tuscumbia, the farthest any of us had been west. We drove through raw, blistered towns,…

Contract Love

19921992 views55 comments44 favs

“If you guys ever get back together, I’d make him sign a contract.” I smiled, but cautioned, “Not sure that would work.” She answered with emphatic confidence, “You haven’t seen how good I am at writing contracts!"

Frieden

19911991 views2626 comments1414 favs

After each piece cancelled the other the generals folded up their checkerboards,

First Chapter of Rain (novel)

19911991 views22 comments00 favs

Every day she loves me a little less, and justifies it by saying that there is less of me to love. At some crucial, overlooked space in our life together, I used up my compassion and started to spend hers.

Noah's Ark, NYC

19911991 views44 comments22 favs

Two by two they come walking down 7th Ave girl with girl boy and girl boy and boy two pigeons strolling side by side two robins two crows walking stiffly like two pieces of anthracite coal two spiders two dogs sniffing each oth

He Was Slim And His Eyes Were Wrong

19911991 views1414 comments88 favs

Trying to hide, and yet, what continued to permeate was the shiny.

Hands of a City

19911991 views1212 comments88 favs

On the usefulness of hands.

Something Jazzy

19901990 views1414 comments1313 favs

. . . clinging to life in a shroud of winter air. It veered up five flights to a sweltering summer night on the roof . . .

Zen and the Art of Enjoying the Last Laugh

19901990 views66 comments55 favs

What doesn't kill you gives you great material.

july 23

19901990 views88 comments55 favs

I get that drunk feeling right before it starts to rain. The sky is dark and heavy and the clouds break open with a flash and suddenly there is water running down all of the windows like one million pairs of eyes crying hard. The street is suddenly …

Three New Poems

19901990 views99 comments88 favs

Letter(s)The sky set itself on fire, butit really didn't make a whole lot of difference. Birdsknew not to worry any more thanusual. Trees thought and made the mostof their landscapes as a way ofbeing modern and yet timeless. It's onlypeople who suffer from too much…

Jesus Had a Tat

19891989 views88 comments44 favs

Jesus Freaks will go tat head... crowns of thorns for their noggins and so on. Christ had one too...

Migration

19891989 views2020 comments1313 favs

She offers the girl a seat, asks her to stay for a minute, but she can’t, she just came by to say hello, and don’t you like my new raincoat?

The Sky is Simply White

19891989 views1414 comments88 favs

The rain is no terrible epitaph

Breakfast

19891989 views1010 comments88 favs

Wake up, stretch. Check the curtained windows for sunlight or that dreaded grey frame that forces the covers to come back up and the alarm clock to be set to ‘Snooze’.

Gathering

19891989 views1212 comments88 favs

In the office supply store on Union, Jeremy, the stock boy, shelves tubs of rubber bands. Tubs with an easy-access pop-top and a see-through container. If Hendy saw these tubs, she would think these particular rubber bands resembled anorexic gummy-worms,

The Leg

19891989 views3131 comments1111 favs

They all looked for Vic's leg after the accident.

The Waves

19891989 views77 comments66 favs

...some years later I heard that an old friend jumped off that bridge to her death.