Most recent stories

Stableford

521521 views00 comments00 favs

Mike Summer's moustache was perfect. Hard bristle and so symmetrical it looked cut to the angles of a military imperative. He was pretty proud of it, thought the team of beaters, who watched him as he sat on the boot ledge of his sage green Mercedes 123 T, combing…

Dear Credit Card Thief

551551 views44 comments22 favs

Dear Credit Card Thief, I think of you—hunched, green cast, a zombie of the ephemeral, greedily parsing code, stealth hands like a lover's over my plastic doppelgänger, wafer of identity, your key to the internet of things, to me. Did you have a pleasant…

it

584584 views55 comments55 favs

where will we be/ when it happens?

Rock the Rhombi

787787 views1111 comments88 favs

This is the place you need a third hand

Sparrow

671671 views22 comments22 favs

I don't care what my reincarnated self thinks about today. I'm already aware that everything stinks in the end. Well. It's supposed to. But all things must seek travel while they can. Dance while they can. Dream while they can. Laugh while they can.…

Mirror, Handheld

687687 views1414 comments1515 favs

the making by taking away

Up

584584 views22 comments11 fav

See if you can come up with the pattern. There is very little run-up to the theme. I am not making this up...

The Noise

775775 views77 comments55 favs

I'm hearing a noise. I can't see it. It's hiding and seems to be coming from the other side of the creek. With boots on I slowly wade across. The water makes its light lapping sounds. Reaching the bank, I search for the noise. It must have a face, suntanned and warm, that I…

Пушкин и Baudelaire, via странников

777777 views55 comments44 favs

—but night does not reduce me to sleep / the dragging minutes keep awake / the dark that only opens its deep . . .

Drifting

741741 views1212 comments66 favs

it's all a bit like the quiet steam drifting to nowhere off my microwaved hot coffee in the sunflower mug

My Secret Pen Pal

431431 views11 comment11 fav

What if I let it be known that I've been enjoying a heavy correspondence with Queen Elizabeth my entire life? We began the correspondence on the very day she was coronated. February 6th, 1952. I was four years old and working as a bartender in Cheyenne, Wyoming. …

I Can Sacrifice My Self

450450 views00 comments00 favs

The sacrificial tendency is a real ugly one A pound of flesh, because it grows back But gnarled and scarred For you, So you may smile or cry Whatever you need How about an ounce of truth? How about I make a maze And you walk through…

Testosterone

628628 views1010 comments55 favs

"All he wants to do is watch the Hallmark Channel"

Heirloom

460460 views22 comments22 favs

“Have the tomatoes come in yet?”“Dottie…”Mrs. Dorothea Tilden pointed a trembling finger at Harriet.“You promised me tomatoes, Harry.”Harriet put her hands on her hips, a stance Dorothea knew well. One more sharp word meant fight; two…

Snow Angel in the Sand

655655 views44 comments44 favs

"It goes to infinity and back.That is how much I love you".She looked down into the sandplopped down and made a snow angel,Pushing the mudwith her arm and legs,like windshield wipersof a caron a rainy day"Auntie ... Auntie,How much I love you".

Shakespeare's Dark Lady -- John Hudson (review disguised as fiction)

855855 views99 comments44 favs

William Shakespeare (a surname that meant "wanker" back in the day, by the way)

A Journal of the Plague Year: Day 237: A pandemic miscellany

553553 views55 comments44 favs

Wheel turning, round and round again

The Memory

785785 views1414 comments88 favs

The old lady is losing her memory. She forgets people's names yet so familiar to her. A little sheepish, she takes her basket and walks to the village. Just like when her legs were young, suntanned, shapely and attractive. Along the footpath, by the shop windows, over the…

A Special Assignment

762762 views22 comments11 fav

In the graph of life or death, two axes will inevitably meet. Will it be as jarring as two sharp and well-hewn axes colliding?

How to Save a Shell from a Mountain

721721 views33 comments33 favs

"Love is just a word I've heard when things are being said"...--J.T.That thing that is empty now is me. I never thought I'd disappear, so crazily far from being myself. The love key has been thrown away, dropped without much fanfare. I carried…

times out of time

472472 views33 comments22 favs

muse of my heart, with each palace in love: / when Januaries lash with storm and sleet, / their dread dark nights all muffled in bright snows, / will you find coals to warm your purpled feet?

Chemical Assistance

509509 views22 comments11 fav

Through your veins

Existential Weather Report (Election Day 2020)

570570 views77 comments44 favs

Later, at home, on the internet, I assemble fragments of street celebrations from cities one coast to the other. I watch them and listen in the compressed fidelity of computer speakers. How strangely things feel.

Full

724724 views33 comments22 favs

The trash is full. Again. I open the bathroom trash—because the diaper genie is stuffed—but there’s no room. I try the kitchen next. The lid swings open, catapulting carrot shavings onto the floor. I lay the diaper on the counter for later.

Interlude in Trader Joe's Parking Lot

733733 views99 comments88 favs

I'm pulled in by the music like a rogue wave and he has no idea I'm drowning...

What It Took To Be God

512512 views22 comments11 fav

You had to put up with Sunday drivers You had to love children All children, all of them! This is what it took to be God It wasn’t fun You had to be patient, sometimes You had to pretend to look the other way You needed to lose your he

Big Blue

459459 views22 comments22 favs

Standing on the edge of the great shelf

Cheese

765765 views1212 comments77 favs

When exactly does cheese go bad? it simply does not, I say.

Hell We Were American

717717 views1414 comments1212 favs

We danced the pee dance after too much Seven Up and tasted odd Jello dishes.

A dress

937937 views1818 comments1111 favs

My poetry is bare, showing its pink and purplish imperfections and its injuries. I buy it a dress to hide its bruises, to ornate it a little, to make it smile. On its rather ugly and mishaped body, the dress looks comical, ridiculous, clumsy, like a bird with a broken wing.…