We’re pleased to share this information, as we have published Alan many times. His poems have always been among the most popular on our site, continually drawing the highest number of views and encouraging the most commentary. If you order his book we’re certain you’ll see why. If you aren’t familiar with his work then take a look around the e-zine and leap on your chance to own this book, […]
I’m 9 and behind the wheel of our green and white ’55 Olds. I start to check the mirrors, but my father tells me not to worry what’s coming from behind– though I know he always does. The Belt curves around to the right near the Bay Parkway exit and I see houses and parks and empty lots in the distance and people walking on Shore Road, dressed for the […]
Leo didn’t want much for the work, but offered the keyboard that lay doused in cellar dust— same shit had wrecked his lungs a lifetime and now caused this clogged, syncopated samba to come from the place his voice box should be—he packed it up, wheezed, Good Night, Ahl, and was gone for good. I call him every day to finish the work, mend the pipe still leaking—no answer, till […]
I got to Millbrook twelve years late, though the horsey set was still sunning itself in the cafes, their Lexuses polished to nubs and tied to the decorative posts at the curb. John had died before we could take up golf, or watch birds with the Audubons dragging their fancy Wellies through the mud, or cash in any of his hoped-for lottery winnings— though plenty well-off already, a bachelor, who […]
I once fell for a woman who liked to say, There are no accidents– Her way of assuring me I’d live and be well without waiting around for her to stumble into my arms. But now the governor, surely wise, — and of a practical bent– assures the public: Sometimes there will be accidents at railroad crossings, and with them will come death and great loss. Hence, we need […]
“There’s no law says we can’t start real and end fake. What are they going to do, put me in movie jail?” –Albert Brooks, Real Life The jailer, played by Anthony Quinn, is a mean son-of-a-bitch, but dumb. In a fit of rage at your failure to respond to his tentative conversation, he tosses the keys at your feet and dares you to come out and take him on. […]
“I find science analytical, pretentious and superficial–largely because it does not address itself to dreams, chance, laughter, feelings, or paradox–in other words, all the things I love the most.” –Luis Buñuel If I’m not mistaken, those guys in orange jumpsuits lean on their shovels and light cigarettes when they ought to be digging my grave. That blowing smoke and confidential talk— Women are all the same.— our brains bathed […]
Call (718) 429-2020 the sign said, and I copied on a scrap of paper meaning to save for a poem I might need later in life. But my current wife found it in my pants, and maybe it seemed too good to be true, for a hundred bucks a kit with instructions and entree to the Divorce Hot Line manned till the wee hours when things always seem most dire. […]
My accountant will kill me for this: I cheat on my taxes. He countersigns back-handed not to jeopardize the firm. But what about us? Don’t we count for something– the halt, infirm, the sick-at-heart? My ancestor signed the Declaration, the part that’s never reproduced. I’m a writer myself. I work strictly at home, not to be spotted on the street and called to account. I’ve made ends meet: A son […]
My mother calls and asks the date. She wants to write a check and doesn’t have it right. The lines jump around and she can’t find her place once she looks up– Wasn’t there an envelope to put the check? What happened to the pen? – then down again. Who’s it for? I ask, a test. She can’t quite recall. Ira, I remind her. I don’t […]
Melancholy Hyperbole 