From 1988 to 1991 the guy that used most of the flash fiction I ever wrote was John M Bennett, editor, and publisher of The Lost and Found Times. His backing and support introduced me to a veritable chain gang of writers and artists like Richard Kostelanetz, Sheila E Murphy, Larry Oberc, Blaster Al Ackerman, Bbob Drake, Willie Smith, Effie Mihopoulos, Lyn Lifshin, BZ Niditch, and so many more. I know for a fact that being seen in this company opened other editors to take a good look when I sent stuff in.
There is a lot to be said about the company you keep or, in my case, the people who let you in the door for their own twisted reasons.
Probably very little of what I ever produced goes anywhere without being introduced among the lost and found.
Here are two examples.
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CARTOON MUSIC
the gumwrapper flits in the stink a prayer. The rest of the city as hoops you jump through, as in 1. have animal speak 2. chase animal 3. entire thing becomes ironic. But you pull invisible stocking up the milk of ankle and twist your mouth and shake your head at my bug eyes and cartoon music from the foot of the bed because you know life isn't as if a freak of nature killed all the people and left all the engines humming. Or if the people who whisper this disappear. Or a ratboy with bugeyes, clicker in hand. Or me watching your tail exit, I invoking the food gods all drooling and chants. Or gunshots like shovels turning dirt, as in 1. have guy speak 2. chase guy 3. entire thing becomes a cartoon. Or a complete industry of wise mice eating people in a world without blood or wounds. Or just the hot, three inches behind the forehead speaking.
(These are black. Almost birds too, mute as voles) and all their abused children grow up some time knob haired, doing pig things to pianos. & here they run in front of REPEATING TREES. Just like out the window as shadows strum the phone bones, and a dog howling at pin pricks in the sky that wave and taunt and won't reveal standing, only eyes, and a list of illusions it is Not. A list of Missing Persons; A'la skin history. And motors.
(...the liquid finger waits) The finger teases the rising cusp & if kissed swells a little before it hits the ground running on the wrong road to high water - that's life. There is no definitive excuse for mirrors. But 35 years from now your ambulance will drive past a field, and you will say to the kid w/ his fingers on your wrist "he was struck by lightning in there somewhere" and he says - what color is the air Now?
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CHAPTER TWO from "The Cold Outline of Dreamwalls"
CHAPTER TWO: Sordid explanation and display of how a well-aimed ax would easily open his skull sending all his iridescent dream pictures screaming into the air. In the dream there are 12 men in black robes and green gloves sitting around a waxed table. Each one is wearing a long cone mask similar to the kind doctors wore during the early plagues. They are briefing him on his mission; he is trying to discern which of them has the ax. During a recess, he goes to the bathroom, and five of the Men stand at the doorless doorway, craning their beaked heads at all angles, watching. He realizes the bowl has no water. In fact, it is an open hole leading to the room below where two priests sit at a folding table playing cards. He goes to the mirror to buy time and try to figure out what he should do and finds himself gazing out of the window of his room in the boarding house. "Another work day has begun."
Two Things Lost and Found
Two Things Lost and Found
Two Things Lost and Found
From 1988 to 1991 the guy that used most of the flash fiction I ever wrote was John M Bennett, editor, and publisher of The Lost and Found Times. His backing and support introduced me to a veritable chain gang of writers and artists like Richard Kostelanetz, Sheila E Murphy, Larry Oberc, Blaster Al Ackerman, Bbob Drake, Willie Smith, Effie Mihopoulos, Lyn Lifshin, BZ Niditch, and so many more. I know for a fact that being seen in this company opened other editors to take a good look when I sent stuff in.
There is a lot to be said about the company you keep or, in my case, the people who let you in the door for their own twisted reasons.
Probably very little of what I ever produced goes anywhere without being introduced among the lost and found.
Here are two examples.
_________________________________
CARTOON MUSIC
the gumwrapper flits in the stink a prayer. The rest of the city as hoops you jump through, as in 1. have animal speak 2. chase animal 3. entire thing becomes ironic. But you pull invisible stocking up the milk of ankle and twist your mouth and shake your head at my bug eyes and cartoon music from the foot of the bed because you know life isn't as if a freak of nature killed all the people and left all the engines humming. Or if the people who whisper this disappear. Or a ratboy with bugeyes, clicker in hand. Or me watching your tail exit, I invoking the food gods all drooling and chants. Or gunshots like shovels turning dirt, as in 1. have guy speak 2. chase guy 3. entire thing becomes a cartoon. Or a complete industry of wise mice eating people in a world without blood or wounds. Or just the hot, three inches behind the forehead speaking.
(These are black. Almost birds too, mute as voles) and all their abused children grow up some time knob haired, doing pig things to pianos. & here they run in front of REPEATING TREES. Just like out the window as shadows strum the phone bones, and a dog howling at pin pricks in the sky that wave and taunt and won't reveal standing, only eyes, and a list of illusions it is Not. A list of Missing Persons; A'la skin history. And motors.
(...the liquid finger waits) The finger teases the rising cusp & if kissed swells a little before it hits the ground running on the wrong road to high water - that's life. There is no definitive excuse for mirrors. But 35 years from now your ambulance will drive past a field, and you will say to the kid w/ his fingers on your wrist "he was struck by lightning in there somewhere" and he says - what color is the air Now?
_______________
CHAPTER TWO from "The Cold Outline of Dreamwalls"
CHAPTER TWO: Sordid explanation and display of how a well-aimed ax would easily open his skull sending all his iridescent dream pictures screaming into the air. In the dream there are 12 men in black robes and green gloves sitting around a waxed table. Each one is wearing a long cone mask similar to the kind doctors wore during the early plagues. They are briefing him on his mission; he is trying to discern which of them has the ax. During a recess, he goes to the bathroom, and five of the Men stand at the doorless doorway, craning their beaked heads at all angles, watching. He realizes the bowl has no water. In fact, it is an open hole leading to the room below where two priests sit at a folding table playing cards. He goes to the mirror to buy time and try to figure out what he should do and finds himself gazing out of the window of his room in the boarding house. "Another work day has begun."
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