Most recent stories

Sermon of Lilac

26312631 views2323 comments2121 favs

The night was a lilac bowl of darkness

Home for the Holidays

17761776 views00 comments00 favs

Deployed to Afghanistan for more than half of his two-year marriage, Trent is coming home for the holidays. But which holiday, exactly? And will he make it?

Carmen Scarpino, Pioneering Wise Guy, Dead at 78

13611361 views00 comments00 favs

Breasts were developed after World War II, the result of improved nutrition and the additional muscle mass that “Rosie the Riveter”-types acquired through manual labor in jobs that males abandoned to join the war effort.

Clean

21892189 views1010 comments77 favs

He shows me how lift the windshield wipers up, clean under them, put them down and I follow him around, watch him slap the sham over the van, pull it away, slap again. I do the same, stop every few minutes like Daddy does, hold it out, twist, wring the sh

DRA

14251425 views00 comments00 favs

DRA musical - 1942… Open on the General Jackson crowded with Marines, headed to (Tennessee Base),at the front of the ship, young men laughing, unrealistic military dreams/wordless chatter... LET IT RIDE .. main character is a marine en route to base...Solo verse,…

Wayne Recalls Rocking and the Power of Positive Thinking

17891789 views11 comment11 fav

My mother told me I came out of her screaming and didn’t stop for two years. After that I took up rocking.

show the soul its own beauty

896896 views44 comments11 fav

Go ahead, show the soul its own beauty. But also tell me again about my own, so I may know I lived, and loved you. The one who shows the soul its own touching beauty gets to keep her. Who shows her the golden nightly song that's given us life, is like t

The Moral of This Story Is

17921792 views88 comments77 favs

Always take the train.

Diary of a Bolshoi Potato Dancer

885885 views00 comments00 favs

Today is the audition for “The Bright Stream,” and I believe I am in tip-top shape to win the prize role–potato carrier! To train, I have been hauling rocks up the stairs to my apartment.

Thin Flame

17711771 views77 comments44 favs

It was impossible that you wouldn't love me

Screaming Woman - Excerpt

14561456 views11 comment00 favs

Bree was mean as a bag of snakes and had done laid out most of the eligible bachelors in Culloden County at one time or another to the tune that at this point no man who’d heard of her wanted much truck with her.

Un Americano

14751475 views1818 comments1414 favs

His eyes are wide then narrow and brown. Hers are gray then they look away, toward the back door where a delivery driver has walked in, carrying a tray. Nothing is going to happen today.

Hometown News: Newsprint Jesus (part 2)

14821482 views00 comments00 favs

If Don’s story was one of faith carrying someone through his trials, the story of Randy Slafter is another. It was faith that brought him and his family to Johnstown 15 years ago. The wings of faith protected him from the dark angels of grief and tragedy

the mixture of pleasure and pain

910910 views44 comments00 favs

But Allison was so tight, poor thing, that it was a little like having sex with a virgin every time we did it. I could never understand how she could bear so much pain. I guess it was the mixture of pleasure and pain that kept her going, or maybe she was

Headlines

14911491 views44 comments22 favs

He brought me flowers once, three wilted carnations I put in water, though the sight of them made me uneasy. He brought me pictures once, too, of three sisters—ten, twelve, fourteen—straddling dirt bikes. He touched my shoulder once, as I edited pictures …

Lotus-eaters

15851585 views11 comment11 fav

empty wine bottles, and a single abandoned boot

The Poem

20722072 views66 comments44 favs

Riding in a pick-up-truck, the radio wailing some 'love em and leave em" country song,

Video from Cairo

13821382 views11 comment00 favs

The view from the tenth floor of Ramses Hilton hotel was depressing. A restless crowd undulated between the wrecks of tanks and armored cars. JOURNALIST: Hey! I’m dying here, and you admire the views?

A Day At The Beach

15581558 views22 comments00 favs

Rothko and Stella loved the beach. To Jalapeno it was just one big litter box and for her it held no great appeal. She sprawled sunbathing on the dashboard lifting a lid occasionally to watch Lauren riding a wave. The dogs delirious with freedom romped and chased tight…

THE SONGBIRD AND ME

17561756 views33 comments11 fav

“Tell me again,” you whisper softly, “about the songbird.”

Sex Coma

17421742 views00 comments00 favs

If you were the ozone, I’d want to leave you gaping.

Perfect

15781578 views33 comments33 favs

a perfect afternoon

a little passion among them

10651065 views22 comments11 fav

A reddening? A certain swelling, a little passion among them, is there? What lips would not have given what they could, to speak more boldly, more fondly of you now? But now the country is fastened to arrogance, welded to it in an evil way, wanton with violent…

Never Been Down to Lonely Street

23202320 views1111 comments55 favs

“This is not turning out to be a wholesome project,” my brother hissed into the phone one night. “Yo, Alan, it’s ELVIS. It’s American gothic, and the child needs to know the underbelly of the myth,” I hissed back.“Did you, or did you not, wear makeup to

Traces in the Winter Sky

25332533 views1818 comments1212 favs

Exhaling slowly and deeply, Tyler settled his back in against the saddle of the tree's broad trunk and let it all go.

A Man

13581358 views00 comments00 favs

He was lit up faintly.Standing in a room of golden proportions (which is not saying a lot), he was one stood man (which is). The only lamp, a seemingly old neon, hanging short from its chains, shone darkly above none. None but a five-feeted glass plane, upon which glossy…

Dear Scarlet

18501850 views33 comments11 fav

It’s me walking in on you shooting up in the diner’s cesspool of a shitter, and you trying to conceal the evidence while you’re telling me it’s straight up your first time.

Forewarned

31553155 views77 comments44 favs

He imagined them raining down on her and then, like little radio towers, transmitting the sensation of her skin and warmth to him. He could feel her from the other side of the plastic. She could stay there, and he would feed her Chicken and Stars.

your notorious youth

946946 views00 comments00 favs

By what fictitious rib were you ever pulled out of your notorious youth, ever? Out of the early flower of your flesh, once on fire like a little vibrant reed with pure air, like a flute with wind getting up inside it? But already there’s a lon

Admit Nothing

17831783 views77 comments55 favs

Traveling in half-lit fluorescence, she smiles up at me, pale and strained