I’ve been reading short stories because I’ve been writing short stories. I’d like to get better at it. Thus: Ray Bradbury. I’ve never “liked” Ray Bradbury. Explaining why requires a painful admission about the reason that I like things to begin with. Maybe it’s a product of my generational position, I don’t know, but when…
i ain’t gonna post on kiwi farms no more
i ain’t gonna post on kiwi farms no moreno, I ain’t gonna post on kiwi farms no morewell I stay up until sunrisereading threads on CWCi’ve got a sonichu amiiboand it’s staring’ right at meit’s a shame the way theylet him out of jaili ain’t gonna post on kiwi farms no more i ain’t gonna…
The Terror Of
I still drive by, sometimes. It’s a spot in a ratty shopping center at the intersection of Ingram and Callahan, a few blocks down from the street I grew up on. Who knows what it is now: the super mercado? The pay-as-you go cell phone shop? The payday loan place with the sign that looks…
Diane
They’re sending a dog to mars. Diane emphasized that. New studies show that ginger root can prevent hair loss. Diane questioned that. I am drowning, Diane, gulping cold mouthfuls of time, and I am trying to tell you that you have hit me like a lungful of air. I am trying to say that your…
Cannibal
Preston was a goober and a fuckhead, but he had money. Because he had money he had a loft apartment north of campus, set back in a tangled copse of cedar trees, and because it was Autumn when I knew him and because the leaves on those trees turned the color of Indian clay and…
Alain Leroy On Susanna Gibson’s Butthole
Why am I watching this? I do not live in Virginia. I have never in my life been interested in the politics of its house of delegates. And yet, the story is right there. They are shoving it in my face. In seconds, I am watching the videos. They are videos of a woman and…
Contact
Not much money in it, after allSo the scientists made doWith ramshackle instruments And Very Small Arrays, They listened in on everything Distant cosmic cathode tubes Took down the sex of pulsars through thin walls It wasn’t long before they found The signal— signals plural, reallyRepetitious, clearly code And for a decade, made their study….
In Praise of Barnes & Noble
Long ago, in the year of the punk, I fell hook-line-and-sinker for a preeminent scam. I decided I was too damn good, too sensitive, too full-up with 100% certified chrome-and-neon American domestic genius to suffer the degradations of the xerox. I didn’t want copies of copies of copies: I wanted genuine originality, truth, authenticity in…
I don’t know — I think it’s sad
Skull’s the wrong size for my brain; that’s my problem. I get blisters. Blisters where I do all my best thinking. Always creeping, that feeling, a jittering wave. Someone told me that all the dimes were silver once and I’ve never forgotten it. Silver dimes! It rained today while the sun was shining. Warm and…
The Question
Oh, they have eyes. Oh yes. Eyes of glass and silicon, ears of wire and plastic. They have bloody hands to do their dirty work. Eloquent mouths to tell their lies. They have all the answers, these men who rape the world. All I have is the question. I ask it again. The look in…