I’ve lived in this coastal town north of Los Angeles for years, because everything moves slow. I can be lazy as shit and still stay ahead of the game. Decades kind of blur into each other here. Half the people are either retired or not working, so it’s easy for a gig economy guy like me to fit right in. Five years ago an ex-girlfriend … Continue reading I’ve Got My Problems by Max DeVoe Talley
In my America The Constitution is a false advertisement Our entitlement to its guarantees Are dealt in measure by the contrast Between our skin color And the Bible upon which We lay our hands for entrance An invisible cardboard Uncle Sam That puts his hand up to his eyeballs Tells me with a speech bubble that “You have to be this rich To get on this ride” And I am constantly told That I don’t qualify By the well-meaning … Continue reading In My America by Imogen Arate
the door is ajar I shut it to let you finally sleepwhile I behind it am swinging alongwith your dormant stag Continue reading Dormant by Serena Piccoli
Of all Beatrix Potter’s many tales, she often said it was The Tailor of Gloucester that proved to be her favorite. She even wrote it right around Christmastime of 1901, especially for the daughter of her former governess (oh the Brits with their governesses). In 1902, she was circulating the story “privately” to friends and, by 1903, it was off to the presses for the … Continue reading If The Beasts Could Talk, This Is What They Would Say…
John le Carré had, for all intents and purposes, “thrown in the towel” after 1990. This was the year when his (supposed) last George Smiley book, The Secret Pilgrim, came out. It was an apt (presumed) coda for someone of le Carré’s distinctive genre predilection to cease releasing new work about this particular spy. After all, these novels were rooted in the espionage category that … Continue reading The Poignancy of John le Carré “Bidding Adieu” Before He Could Witness Brexit At Full Tilt
Times were hardShe was earning a livingThree jobs a dayPaid the rent, school fees and food on the tableNo Easter, summer vacations or Christmas partiesMeals were breakfast in the morningPorridge, homemade bread, water for teaBought charity clothes from the dollar storesLived on friends’ generosity and borrowed moneyBankrupt, the banks refused to give us creditMilk tokens from the government Water was rationedBathed once every two daysWe hardly … Continue reading She Was Earning A Living by Anna Kapungu
{In memory of our assassinated dog} His Achilles’ heel was his very loud barksthat won him the enmity of the entire neighborhood, whose idea of a pet is a silent toy with which one could loiter lethargic afternoons, or flaunt one’s wealth in the ability to buy and feed a very expensive dog. It was only on the day we buried him that we learned the very bitter fact that some … Continue reading Eviction by Susie Gharib
I’ll get back to her, I’m ready to embrace our answers, presentJackie to me now, I have the strength I need to deal with the modern dayadventures we must plan in order to get know one another, the key? I built it from my historical provisions, which mostly consistof gripping stories, that’s how I ascend through the reality of today Jackie is a must-see, am I … Continue reading Jackie at 93% by Ben Nardolilli
1 The more life is given, the more it wants to take away. Its rending always rattles, most insistent for the originalwhen mere replication will not do. You wanted more than sculpture to turn faulty clay into flesh, the earth’s full bounty open to the sky. I had reason to withhold. So your handicap from the start:not apprehending why I halted revelation at the borderline of heartbreak from headlong reason in decline 2 In the … Continue reading Mere Replication by Victor Marrero
When H.G. Wells published The Invisible Man in 1897, there were major changes afoot. The turning wheels of the Industrial Revolution had impacted the lives of civilization as few technological advancements ever had. With this historical background in mind, Wells’ focus on a scientist gone mad in the pursuit of his quest for “progress” is not out of the realm of possibility. Neither in the … Continue reading Of All The Trailblazing Fashionistas, The Invisible Man Has Been The Most Unexpected
