Recommended stories

Phyllis Shapely

13111311 views55 comments44 favs

In December of 2003, Daniel Arredondo succumbed to his years long battle with colon cancer. If the name is unfamiliar, you're not alone. He did not answer to the name Daniel Arredondo. For most of his life, from seventeen years old to the end, in fact, he went by the name…

nestled in swirling chaos; pineal pinecone

953953 views55 comments44 favs

Both my Nana and my mother have blond hair…as a child I thought most women of European descent tended towards this color, this particular hue of straw, and threads of gold woven together. I had been somewhere as a nine year old, I…

The Confession

13031303 views55 comments44 favs

I can trust you with my secrets, can’t I?

Mother O'Grady's Last

14661466 views55 comments44 favs

Christmas night was closing in at the Cantrips alehouse in Aberdeen, a firm favourite for riggers and other men and women who lived life close to the horizon. Sometimes, on a Saturday night, things might get a bit rowdy but Mother O'Grady would stand firm and bring out…

All You Wanna do is to Sink (but you stink)

747747 views55 comments55 favs

into another bright vat of boiling over hot lies. It's sick, man, the way you'd rather dig for a supposed (royal) buried treasure than make a new beautiful thing start to happen, breakyour back, break your spirit, over and over, until there's nothing left to…

Location

15411541 views66 comments44 favs

A sunrise over the dark Atlantic, on a perfect beach day, tasting of salt and warmth and powdered sugar; of last, desperate kisses of youth, still shivering from delicious night, is beautiful.A sunrise over the dark ruins of Syria, on hot dusted stones, tasting of lament…

Marilyn in Ottawa

14671467 views44 comments22 favs

I looked away. Why embarrass the Ottawa woman? Why make her uncomfortable? The polite thing is to move on, forget about it. Stare at the sidewalk not yet wet but becoming wet. Be Canadian.

Swimming Lessons

13241324 views55 comments55 favs

We spend our days on the beach, working on our tans. My pale wife hides under a big floppy hat. The water is crystal clear.

How To Write a Poem

15071507 views55 comments44 favs

an EZ How to Guide in 50 simple steps

Patriot Ford

17281728 views1313 comments33 favs

As American as hotdogs and apple pie...

Buddies to the End

11491149 views66 comments55 favs

“Tell me how sad they are.”

She tolled me

18431843 views55 comments22 favs

You’re mad as a hatter she said. Eons, eras of epochal proportions go by before you call me. I said recalibrate your linear thinking, incubator baby. I whispered permutations of wonder, told her secrets only the sufis know. We ate French goat cheese lac

In the Pastel City

16291629 views77 comments44 favs

Then I had / that dream

The Face in the Oatmeal

14631463 views55 comments44 favs

It was uncomfortable to realize people had agendas. That there could be invisible realities.

Odysseus Remembered

12711271 views55 comments55 favs

Years later Polyphemus still remembers the wine-soaked taste of Odysseus’s men. The barley and garlic-flavored Greeks. Their flesh a fibrous, blood-hued hummus. Their crunched bones releasing sweet marrow.

You Don't Have To Put On Your Red Light

15601560 views88 comments33 favs

"She began singing The Police song, 'Roxanne' in a falsetto voice, just like Sting."

Meaning

14611461 views66 comments44 favs

His face was creased with sadness the first time in the room and he danced his tai chi like a young man half his age, and laughed, like headtrippers do, from the neck up.

Mommy Dearest

14461446 views44 comments55 favs

His daddy died in his sleep. Went to bed one might and never got up.

Maxims (Part 1) Taken from Twitter - Iain James Robb

15251525 views1717 comments22 favs

You can tend to recognise the difference between a good and mediocre mind by observing how each reacts to a misfired original idea.The mediocre mind will praise the merely meretricious, but ignore the more interesting bad art. The higher mind will value the misfired…

Bondage, to the rivers that bind

16591659 views55 comments33 favs

Waft­ing wisps of fond­ness twin­kling in time with fairy lights point­ing out lawns in cities

One Story Above the Boy in an Old Car

12631263 views77 comments44 favs

Near dusk today a car backfired on the street beneath my office window

Decades

14811481 views88 comments33 favs

Every ten days, the Decadent Sisters assembled for dinner. Although raised together, they were each very different...

Doubts.

532532 views88 comments44 favs

It's dark outside.

YOU

246246 views66 comments44 favs

.

Shrinking

36553655 views1111 comments44 favs

Lately, while he is upon me, in that way that men are upon women, I imagine him a pornstar with only one clip available for replay. Like I am a loop of a video girl below, taking it, maybe calling out in Russian. When I feel rambunctious, I imagine him a

Drum Naked

18531853 views66 comments44 favs

Where truth is revealed To all, transparency In policy, including The REAL reasons We are at war.

North of Center

15071507 views44 comments55 favs

Paulette lived on the east side on Paulette Avenue. Mama dropped me off when we wanted to play Barbies. Her neighborhood was a little green lily pad in a swamp of blight and disrepair. A ghetto moat ringed around those three fancy blocks like a first line of defense,…

fealty

13651365 views66 comments44 favs

just before my break,/ he came on the line,/ old and slow with computers now/ but wanting a discount/ he'd been told he qualified for.

The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl (Excerpt)

21842184 views88 comments44 favs

“Can I?” Lily asked. I gave her a nod. She tore at the package with greedy fingers. As the paper fell away to reveal yet another self-help volume, Lily cocked her head in a gesture of confusion and curiosity. Following her gaze to the lipstick-red

Two Cinquains

16921692 views88 comments44 favs

SPOT ON OUR LUNG We sense A stillborn dawn. A furtive, lurking gray, A sleight of dusk, eclipse, that follows Us. TITANIC'S LANTERNS Upon My rain-glazed panes Wet lights from neighbors glow Like lantern beams from shipwrecks…