Love me as I bald.
In return, my devotion
’til hair do us part.
Your sloppy kisses
remind me I have not fed
my dog in awhile.
Doctor found fungus
on my tongue. Maybe it will
mold us together?
(and one from the perspective of my wife)
An ode to my bear!
I love my sasquatch’s big rear.
If only he’d shear.
Tag: Absurd
Fiction — “The Most Prolific Writer”
Tanner Harby is the most substantial writer of the 21st century, although since the Century has only recently started, that might be presumptuous. But I am already this far in my report of his craft, and if it emerges that there is anyone who has written as extensively and with such detail, I will kill myself. I will put a gun to my temple and blast away, because my life will have become a purposeless ooze.
What makes Harby interesting (abstractly, not in actuality) is his lifelong attempt to document his entire life experience – all of it. Every minute, every moment, every fart, as it occurs in real-time.
Obviously, this project has had its pratfalls. Harby cannot record everything. In fact, his novel (shared with me, and only me, through Google Docs) is abridged. His babyhood, his childhood, are fleeting. The true conceit begins in his dwindling teen years, specifically when he learned how to write at 16, and will end at his death. Most of it is typed, but some parts are scanned napkins, toilet paper scrolls, whatever’s available.
Film Review — Twelve Angry Men
Twelve jurors discuss a murder trial. None of them recognize renown actor Henry Fonda pretending to be an architect.
A Few Valentine’s Day Literary Cards
From Edgar Allan Poe
I’ll keep your heart forevermore
(turn the page)
beneath the floor.
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore –
Nameless here for evermore
(turn the page)
cuz forget dat hoe, u my bae now
ALLAN want for Valentine’s is you!
(turn the page)
A picture of the poet’s sad face with the words: POE-lease be mine?
From Henry David Thoreau
The reason I burned down that forest was because
(turn the page)
I was drunk on your love.
Happy Valentine’s Day to MYSELF.
(turn the page)
I’m self-reliant like that.
If there’s one thing I ask from you this Valentine’s Day
(turn the page)
it’s don’t thoreau away our love.
From Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for death
(turn the page)
I stop for you.
I think you’re quite dashing
(turn the page)
– love – Emily Dickinson –
From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
My last name is Longfellow
(turn the page)
But that’s not the only thing that’s long, fellow.
Fiction — “Seven Days”
Day One
Not having anything to do, or to stave off the heart attack forming in my chest (it turned out to be gas), or to hold off a walk to the gas station for cigarettes, or to creep away from the wife awhile, ornery ever since she noticed a carpet growing on her chin (it happens at this age), I turned on the light in the garage. “That’s better,” I said, maybe to the dust, before I set up my canvas and paints. But I couldn’t think of anything to put to paper, so I went back inside and watched TV.
Day Two
The light was still on when I went in and sat on my stool and tried to think of what I was going to paint. Wasn’t there some guy who looked at a blank canvas for ten thousand hours and sold it for ten thousand dollars? Some postmodern garbage about painting with the eyes, or the meaning behind the effort. But you need to be an associate professor to pull that crap. I thought to myself: simple. Dab the brush in blue. A sky, maybe. No gradation. No atmospheric perspective. No clouds, either. Just blue. Like a Rothko.
It was a relief to be painting again, but I couldn’t think of anything particularly interesting beyond its base color. My wife was on the couch, reading a book about magicians. I kissed her head, and she made a waving motion like she was fanning away a fart. Take-out again.
Fiction — “To Dr. Sterling pertaining his Artist”
Dear Dr. Sterling,
I have a complaint about your advice column, but it’s not about your advice specifically. In fact, I was delighted by your response to my letter on how I should deal with my husband [see Issue 8, 2016]. I was afraid our problems would lead to the dissolution of an unhappy marriage, but ever since I began to act the compliant, chirpy wife, per your suggestion, we not only get along better, but we make decisions quicker.
No, my complaint is about the artwork you feature inside your column, which does not reflect the tone of your advice.
You may need to speak to your artist, Ms. Josie Aurelio, about her visual direction. For example, in your response to my letter, Ms. Aurelio created a diorama (the images constructed out of magazine cuttings) depicting a nude Barbie doll in a wheelchair, her head cut open with a pink, gummy brain floating above her. Jumper cables connect the brain to a 2017 Jeep Wrangler (snipped from a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles ad), in the driver’s seat of which sits a Ken doll, who I can only infer is revving the engine. I found this image to be disturbing and insulting and possibly misandristic. Would you have a talk with the young lady?
Sincerely,
Victoria Greene
* * *
Dear Dr. Sterling
Again, I have good and bad news.
Fiction — “Once there was an empty classroom”
During the day, the door remains unlocked—the lights flicked on by a sleepy department head and flicked off by a custodian whose back vac makes her a ghostbuster.
A general lack of students keeps the air icy and free of the muck-must of human bodies, a scent corrupted by cheetos and the cheese of feet, although the room occasionally feeds on students looking for a place to study, romantic couples with forged hall passes, and, once, a red-nosed assistant principal who napped by the cabinets.
Some grease and wet spray still lies on the carpet.
Since classrooms have no natural predator, the room sits, and sits, like a forgotten box of baking soda in the fridge. Its stomach grew between Science classes and a weedwork of wires and pink-feather insulation. Feeding on rats.
Now the stomach sits, hungry.
There was a man once. The first pang of its profession came with the appearance of a bearded teacher. Shaggy, shortsighted as a bear with spectacles, the creature lumbered through the door and fell on the desk.
The room waited, hoping the teacher would attract others.
But the teach hid there, received his paycheck, watched for enemies at the door, put up posters that read, “You never fail until you stop trying,” and “It’s okay to not know but it’s not okay to not try.” Perhaps he operated under that mantra of bibles and baseball movies—if you build it, they will come.
No one came. The room ate the man, absorbed his funky odors. And life returned to the humdrum of air-conditioned lungs.
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Fiction — “The Immortal Dr. Bysshe”
“It doesn’t matter” was his mantra.
“It doesn’t matter.”
In the bar, Dr. Bysshe clung to the utter frivolity and therefore futility of human life — its meaninglessness, its atoms, its empty spaces. He would witness a woman pulling gum off her shoe or a video of a school shooter offing himself after offing his class with the same perplexity, the same inquiry of who cares?
Every name, he argued, would be erased. No love, sorrow, contact, or conflict could endure the eternal siege of Time and Entropy.
So we have remembered him. It is our one countermeasure, or consolation.
Although Dr. Bysshe lived a hundred years ago, we remember, and we transmit his crushing spirit forward across state lines and timelines.
We will immortalize his shattered visage, his wrinkled lip, his frown, and his philosophic vision that so neatly suspends us over the Pit, so that all may look on his Works and Laugh, before completing their flight and lying down to sleep in lonesome sands.
Who said it? Donald Trump or a Disney Villain? A Special Presidential Post
I’m surrounded by idiots.
Was this Donald Trump speaking in a rally about the White House, or Donald Trump speaking to the White House about one of his rallies, or Scar from The Lion King?
The most beautiful girl in town, that makes her the best! And don’t I deserve the best?
Insensitive remarks from Donald Trump’s conversation with Billy Bush or Gaston in Beauty & the Beast?
They’re not like you and me, which means they must be evil.
Also
Off with their heads!
Donald Trump riffing on Mexicans or Ratcliffe riffing on Native Americans in Pocahontas or the Queen of Hearts ripping up her citizens?
You are deformed, and you are ugly, and these are things for which the world shows little pity.
Trump texting Tiffany or Frollo twittering at Quasimodo?
I killed Mufasa!
Probably Trump.
You poor, simple fools. Thinking you could defeat me. ME!
Maleficent or the 2016 inaugural address?
You’re speechless, I see. A fine quality in a wife.
Jaffar or Trump proposing to his third wife?
Triton’s daughter will be mine and then I’ll make him writhe. I’ll see him wriggle like a worm on a hook.
Trump.
Desmond, Write 