Recommended stories

M. Nerveux Chronicles: Toad Suffers a Bad Business

14871487 views77 comments88 favs

Herr Toad smokin'

ORPHANS

12671267 views1515 comments77 favs

They wait for me every morningthese two furry four legged catswhen they hear my car,their eyes open wide and they nuzzle each otherin anticipationof the food I bring them

I'm Not Emilio Estevez

10331033 views1313 comments77 favs

Here was the situation, as I recounted it to myself: somehow, I was trapped in some unearthly dimension where Baltimore, actor Emilio Estevez, and myself had somehow collided in a big cartoon scrum complete with onomatopoeias and clouds of dust.

In the Flesh

22092209 views55 comments55 favs

“Why is it so warm? Do you feel that? I think it’s...pulsing.”

The Black Madonna

14011401 views1212 comments77 favs

They say I am filthy. On this high pillar I perch like a stuffed avian relic, flightless, no prey. The horizon before me is broken by scuff and foreign tongue, by atomized evil. Pleas, and there are many, are answered by the only prayer I know, the one prayer, which…

Lessons from a Pine

18401840 views88 comments44 favs

I awake one morning to find that still, the leaves continue to fall.

Charlie's Travels

14411441 views1010 comments77 favs

Charlie Hancock missed the bus. Started walking.

The Paintings at Lascaux

16621662 views1212 comments77 favs

Essences of bull and bison,// stag and horse, illuminate/ the stony underground.

Ruin

15981598 views1010 comments77 favs

We keep a ruin of a house, but I suppose it's all right.

Precisely

13731373 views99 comments77 favs

Is it my imagination, or is her chair afraid of her?

Pharaoh

18111811 views1111 comments66 favs

Altodog was dressed in filthy chef’s trousers and a long-sleeved purple dress shirt, somewhat dignified by a tattered black vest.

1970

16431643 views88 comments88 favs

deformed or retarded

Seance

13541354 views99 comments77 favs

communication/ with the dead

People Called Our Windows Art

21212121 views55 comments88 favs

Mama hung them everywhere. It started with just a few, in our apartment and outside on the brick. She made walls into windows.

Writing Coach Helps Blocked Women Tap Inner Meanness

18161816 views88 comments77 favs

“Susan,” he says menacingly, as if he’s a husband who’s caught a cheating wife in a discreet liaison with another man. “I thought I made myself clear about this sort of thing.”

War & Peace

18381838 views99 comments77 favs

I stand at the edge of the water naked as a newborn. Tiny ripples lick my toes.

These Words

14701470 views77 comments66 favs

These words are dripping Delaware and these words are eating your eyes.

The Toy Store

25612561 views88 comments33 favs

Figures are a strip tease.

Regarding Bill Yarrow’s Assertion that Herrick Was a Voyeur (Poor Julia: Violated, but Immortal)

21022102 views99 comments77 favs

the observation, at the end, more/ important than the being there—

Tomorrow

11811181 views1212 comments66 favs

On the febrile edge

Thanksgiving

16661666 views99 comments88 favs

When our kids were very young, my wife and I believed it was important to give our children traditions that they could grow up with. One such tradition that we shared each Thanksgiving was to walk down by the cliffs along the ocean. We'd all go, our kids…

Harried or Employed

13911391 views1111 comments66 favs

Irony is written sarcasm. Sarcasm is spoken irony: the opposite of what is meant. Catholic irony in fiction seems deeper and more related to theme. Protestant irony starts with P as do other þing.

The Cuervo Gold and Clorox Blues

12001200 views77 comments66 favs

I try to keep myself from weeping. We are all actors in a bad dream, that doesn’t go away in the morning

I Don't Understand Poets

17301730 views88 comments66 favs

I haven’t read many of them, these poets that they speak of – Whitman and his Leaves Of Grass, Mary Oliver and her wild life

Who's Chasing You?

17191719 views88 comments77 favs

“Who’s chasing you?”. When the answer is ‘no one’, it’s best to drive away, like you would from a forgettable Oregon town or someone who can’t love you more than they hate themselves.

9/11

16591659 views77 comments77 favs

He laughs and runs just like the other boys even though he doesn’t have a father now, just his mom.

The Winter's Too Warm for Bears to Sleep

15231523 views88 comments77 favs

The winter’s too warm for the bears to sleep, and they get up in the middle of the night with insomnia and wander about the streets in their pajamas, knocking over garbage cans, looking for a midnight snack of some kind. They’re getting kind o

Kazooed

19381938 views88 comments77 favs

"I've been on eight blind dates in three days," she tells me. I can't quite work the math out, but somehow the combination of her wildly undulating eyebrows and harsh vocal tone manage to convince me."I can play the kazoo," I tell her. It's my one saving grace--the thing…

A Short Film About Baseball

20752075 views99 comments66 favs

The throw was the last leg of a triple play.

"A bit less hot Tuesday"

15811581 views77 comments66 favs

The faces of the sun remain unaltered across the seven day forecast. I am sweat-glued to a poem, looking up at the wall-mounted TV in a diner in the Valley