Stories tagged literary-fiction

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 2

829829 views22 comments00 favs

A large crowd of students began to gather around the base of the building that housed the administrative offices, where my hearing was being held. The meeting room was up on the second floor.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 4

13471347 views44 comments00 favs

That night we slept on the floor of Kirk and Maggie’s apartment and listened to them arguing all night about art and life and love. Ah, me, I sighed, the sad soul of America! I thought of Walt Whitman. I thought of Allen Ginsberg.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 5

10181018 views11 comment00 favs

and we got the apartment, which was on a street that backed up on an alley situated, as it turned out, right across the alley from the very first Hari Krishna house, where they would wake up at four every morning and begin their maddening chanting: Hari K

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 6

913913 views55 comments00 favs

When I got word from Mary Jo, she warned me that Mitchell Parkman was out looking for me with a butcher knife. I knew immediately what I had to do. I packed up my things and sold the Pepsi van and moved up to a room on Regent Street in Berkeley, all the w

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 7

956956 views33 comments00 favs

Warren Jeffries had called me on the phone the night before and said, “Listen to this,” as he held the receiver out his bedroom window at the noise coming from the riot on campus. They were spraying gas over People’s Park, trying to get them to disp

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 9

878878 views00 comments00 favs

Warren Jeffries left this girlfriend of his named Karen, who was also a poet, and overnight she announced she’d gone back to being a lesbian, she’d so had it with MEN! She did a reading of her new series of Sappho poems at Cody’s Bookstore,

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 10

875875 views00 comments00 favs

O’Toole signaled again with two fingers. The night was young. Suddenly I had to go home to my lovely Penny. All I knew was I didn’t want to end up drinking at a hole like this with my head down on the bar.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 12

910910 views22 comments11 fav

But Von Rotten was up in Penny’s room right this minute, either banging her or haranguing her, or worse, both. I envisioned him with her, and my guts began twisting and turning, and my insides fell into my shoes. What had I done? She was being held capt

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 13

890890 views11 comment00 favs

Creamcheese straightened out that spectacular yellow dress, tucking a fully exposed nipple back in under the material. She pulled down the hem of the dress, then strolled right into the Savoy like a wooden duck being pulled on a string, and headed straigh

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 17

950950 views55 comments00 favs

So back to Berkeley we went, and started our own commune in a huge rented house on Derby Street where we could tear the fences down in all the neighborhood backyards. We created what we called “The Meadow.”

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 18

888888 views00 comments00 favs

We all ran out of the house into the communal garden without fences. There stood Von Rotten with a smoking rifle in his hands, and our mascot Digger lying on his side, limp. We all looked at each other in disbelief.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 19

11831183 views77 comments33 favs

His wings were down when he got into the truck. It was a used UPS truck we’d bought from someone in Berkeley, and we painted out the letter “S,” so that it just read “UP.”

The Gift of the 12th Congressional District of Michigan

11001100 views22 comments22 favs

Other men looked up and, rather than feeling pleasantly surprised at the sudden sound of ethereal metal crickets in their presence, left the restroom after hastily finishing their silent shaking. Mitch joined them, feeling like a coward for being afraid o

The Birth of Girma Dali

13011301 views11 comment11 fav

Amid the swerve and pulse of hungry bodies Girma Dali picks his spot, a tissue-wide patch of net where's he going to strike. A green-jerseyed defender closes in on him his brute momentum unleashed like a kamikaze pilot swooping into enemy orbit, his lunging body makes…

Ordinary People

15591559 views11 comment33 favs

While I didn’t like to see Courtney swat smokes out of his mouth and admonish him, saying “Cigarettes. Bad. Fire. Bad,” her home was such a beautiful place, with its real wood and two TV and all...