Drip Drop a Poem Plop

 

Drip Lit Mag published a poem of mine. I fashioned it out of a body of text formed from John Cheever's the Swimmer. I ran it and backwards and forwards, dismantled the whole thing like a moth in a cocoon, and then assembled these lines from the soup of disjointed clauses. 

Trigger Warning: Catholic Gore

 

Got a short story published in Trashlight. It's called Binding and Loosing. Never thought it would find a home because of its rather...unusual nature.

A Superfine Story

 

I wonder how many people think this is the Brooklyn Bridge

Y2K Quarterly a venue dedicated to all things turn-of-the-millennium has published a short tale of mine. I promise it is not too long. It's called the Dandy Ace. Read it and add to the counter numbers at the bottom of the page. 

My First Trigger Warning?

 

Thanks to Finnialla at Pulp Lit Mag for publishing my short story The Glass Palace Chronicle. Half Cheever, half Faulkner, half Dick, it comes with a trigger warning for bigotry. 

A Story to Go with Your Garbage Plate

 

It's something lickin' good

Rundelania, a journal based up in Rochester, NY, published a short story of mine. It is called "Blended Bifocal," It's about dirt, coffee, jogging, pipes, and more dirt. Bonus points if you can spot the Norman Mailer reference.

A Cocktale for St. Patrick's

 

Pictured: not me

Howdy and happy March. Blessed tidings for the Hibernians amongst you as well. Here's a story I published in Dead Booze, called Plumped Into the Reeking Chest. Might not be safe for lunch, but cheers anyway!

Do Geese See God?

 

"Pull a finger, any finger"

Howdy everyone. My short story, The Odor of Sanctity is up at Do Geese See God. 

A Short Story About Eyewear

 

Hey all, Rundelania has put up a short story of mine "Blended Bifocal." Read about the excavation of a gas pipe gone wrong (NSFW?) 

HERMENEUTICS BETWEEN CONSENTING ADULTS

 Apologies for the Caps. A short story of mine with this title has appeared in a Thin Slice of Anxiety, inspired by a sign in my local chinese takeout place.

The Cup of Trembling

Thanks to Katie Winkler over at Teach. Write. for publishing my short story "The Cup of Trembling" on page 90 of the Spring 2023 issue. 

Man Versus Fridge

The epic battle of our times, presented in a short fiction form by me. Well, posted and hoisted onto the internet courtesy of Across the Margin. The origins of this story began with the Collected Letters of John Berryman. One of the entries is not a letter to Saul Bellow or a TMI correspondence with his son Paul, but rather an angry missive to the real estate company managing his apartment in NYC. I thought this might be an interesting kind of tale of woe to work with, and work with it I did. To results deemed satisfactory to Across the Margin. Read and enjoy. Then listen to the humming coming from your fridge. 

Kafka, Asbestos, & Prose

 

Image by Frank Jackdaw

Good news, I won a small writing contest. This one was held to promote the work of Robin Hemley's new novel Oblivion, an "after autobiography" where a recently deceased writer gets to encounter Franz Kafka in the afterlife. Read my entry and enjoy.

A Return to Prose Posts

 As some of you may know I am now studying for an MFA at Long Island University. Is studying the right word? I guess technically I'm a candidate. But not THE Candidate. That remains Robert Redford. Yes, the academic bug finally bit me. Who knows how far it will burrow inside. Classes have been good so far, lots of readings and such as you can imagine. I'm learning about the history of the novel and this little thing called "show don't tell." Oh damn. Did I just violate it? In one of my classes, Crossing Genres, we are exploring different forms of writing. One of our first lessons focused on flash fiction. I haven't written much of it, but since that class I've been trying out the form. It used to be easier for me to write 50,000 words than something restricted to a 1,000. Or at least to be proud of the result. Now I can say I'm making progress on this front. Or, show you with a link to one of the first prose pieces I've published in a while. It's called The Magic Palm and it's in the Bright Flash Literary Review. The picture below (not the one on the website) is what inspired it. For all you prose lovers out there, rejoice.

It's a Prose Day in the Neighborhood

The drought of short fiction is broken folks. Up at Short Story Town there is a piece by me called "Plugged into the Jacket." It's at the top of the page for now. In a week or so you might have to scroll down to find it. It may or may not be based on a time when I wrote essays meant for other people to use for studying purposes. No comment.

Strategies for Sleeping (and More)

Happy end of November. I have two published materials to share with you all.  The first is a story called "Strategies of Sleeping." It is in the November issue of LitterateurRw. Go to page 69 (nice) to read it. 

Also there's a poem, another poem, in the Eunoia Review, "In My Alchemy of the World."

An Interview with the Poet/Writer/Former Actor/Celebrity Pharmacist

 

Thanks to Meagan J. Meehan for asking me some questions, allowing me to answer them, and then publishing said answers. Come read all about me.

Going to the Dogs

Dear readers, I will give you a fair warning. This short story is technically a reprint. However, it was published several years ago, so it's probably new to most of you, right? It was published in Clever Magazine then, and it's published in Clever Magazine now. Of course, back then it was called Apex Prey, now it's called Cat and Mouse Games. It also says I live in Montclair, New Jersey. of course that's not been the case for many years now.

Short Story Time

Bored with too much time on your hands this weekend? Go over to the Potato Soup Journal and read a short story I wrote. It's called "I Mustache You a Question."

An Aberrant Blogpost

Jason Peters and his Aberrant Literature Press have recently published an anthology of short fiction, and a story of mine "The Sick-Alike" is included. You can get a copy of it here at Amazon.

On My Mustache

I have a mustache. I don't hide it, I keep it out in the open. When one has a mustache, one has little choice. From time to time the mustache gets some company in the form of a beard. Usually though, it sits all alone on my upper lip. It's a conversation starter, of sorts. Lately I've been noticing differences in how people talk to me about my follicle creation. For instance, Men like to preface any kind of mustache-related conversation by asking me how long it took me to grow it. Women, as a whole, seem less interested. I suppose men who are in awe of the mustache want to know what kind of effort is need, how patient they have to be. Many of them will admit they wish they had the chops to grow what I have. Perhaps it's one of the few jealousies I inspire in anyone.

For women, it's different. there's little interest in knowing the time it took to grow my whiskers. That's fine, sense I'm not really sure myself. I grew a beard in 2007 and shaved it all off on Halloween, save for the mustache. Philosophically speaking, one could make the argument I never grew a mustache at all, I only grew a beard. This would ignore the original definition of a beard. A person can grow one without have a mustache. Abraham Lincoln is probably the best example of this. These days, it's implied though, that to have a beard means having a mustache. Neckbeards are the exception keeping facial hair originalism alive, I guess.

Women tend to make reference to someone else with a mustache, usually a figure from pop culture. There was a point where a lot of the comparisons involved Ron Burgundy. Inevitably, the specter of 1970s porn stars came up. I never got a Tom Selleck reference, but I used to glean allusions to Daniel Plainview or Bill the Butcher. Around the 2010s, Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec took over and for several years after I couldn't go out to a bar or a party without someone (most of the time, a woman) comparing me to him. I took it in stride, since he's generally considered a fine character on the show, our political disagreements notwithstanding.

So I'd make a reference to Duke Silver, or eating all the bacon and eggs, and that would please people. After Parks and Rec went off the air, mentions of Ron Swanson dropped off. It made sense, he was no longer on television. Thankfully, nobody called me John Bolton, who probably sets his mustache using the blood of dead Iraqis. Or former Trump attorney Ty Cobb . In fact, people generally left me and my mustache alone through most of 2015 to 2017. It was able to exist on its own terms, without inviting a comparison to another famous mustache.

However, that's changed. In the past couple of weeks, I've been getting Ron Swanson references all over again. It's weird and it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Why now? Of all times, would he be making some sort of comeback? Then it hit me. The current political climate (which has also been hitting a lot of people literally lately) explains it. People, especially young women, are binge watching Parks and Rec the way Liberals watched The West Wing during the Bush years. It's a coping mechanism, especially since Leslie Knope and Hilary Clinton are spiritually linked as characters (and Amy Poehler has played both).

Inevitably, watching Parks and Rec for Leslie Knope means seeing a lot of Ron Swanson. Seeing him, makes one think of his mustache. Then seeing me, makes him the easiest reference point. I guess going forward, I can judge the state of the country and its level of despair by how many references I get to Ron. The fewer, the better. Maybe in some far off glorious day, I will be getting compared to Randy Bryce instead of Ron.