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Worlds on Him Like Pearls on a String.

June 26, 2013 by Exangel

by Charles Kraszewski

 

Stepladders have sprouted all over middle America and Mr. Jones,
who bears a name both legitimate and taxonomic,
is busy tempting fate and insurance policy
by strangling his split-level in festive Christmas lights.
“Well, hello there!” booms his tympanous baritone
as if from the depths of a Mercury Theatre Production.
His son followed him to Cornell with faltering tread;
his daughter is overweight and unpopular.
But Mr. Jones can lay the fury of any tempest-tossed surf
by casting thereon the oil of his golden larynx;
he can take any bull by whichever horn in his firm handshake
and wrestle him to the dust with steady, smiling gaze.
When they leave, signed up at rates higher than they budgeted for,
they don’t notice the banderillas sprouting from their bloody shoulders
until the waitress at the coffee shop points them out.
Mr. Jones is not yet a partner at his firm.
But all the partners stand in fear of Mr. Jones.

It is the Christmas season, Black Friday is here, tra la la,
and there are more targets in Mr. Jones’ holiday display
— Six foot snowmen of inch-thick plywood
Modernistic Walmart reindeer that look like origami —
than in any other in this abominable cul-de-sac
that torments the palpitating hillside.
And yet, his fan-fed plastic snow-dome is never punctured,
His hollow baby Jesus unmolested;
stone-cored snowballs drop from the mittens
of local pisspants when spree reaches Orchard Circle.

I have never seen him pout or lose his temper.
I have never heard him gossip or be vulgar.
His attention to the suburban fasti
is both meticulous and detached.

In the blue depths of his soul
dwells the unspeakable
primordial
sagacity of a numen
we profane ones can neither fathom nor defile.

 

 

 

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Summer 2013: Monsters.

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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