Bones in my chest show through skin, hidden by layers of winter drapery. Boots click cement paths – a delicate sound. It’s all part of the show! The audience member heckles, “Are you going to eat that?” and my bones burn in my chest. I say nothing – I’m a vicious thing.
Smoke and Mirrors
The box, decorated with question marks, is alive with sound. Within eight vertices, a harp strums. The rhythm is off, but my curiosity summits. I lift the lid, you jump out of the box, darting – here, there, everywhere. Cannot be caught, except in a lie.
Ban This Book
If I could be anything I’d be a banned book. Simmering with newspaper headlines, (some that didn’t make the front page) crowded with images of people Being And Expressing Themselves (their real selves). If I could be anything I’d be the rainbow in a storm, the tiny sliver of hope found in a truth-telling banned book.
Linda Sacco lives in Australia. Her poetry has been published in Ariel Chart, Bluepepper, Dead Snakes, Dual Coast Magazine, 50 Haikus, Haiku Journal, Haiku Pond, Inwood Indiana, Mad Swirl, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Pacific, Tanka Journal, Three Line Poetry and Track + Signal Magazine.
In 2022, her poem River was nominated for The Pushcart Prize. In 2023 her poem Conversations with Trees was nominated for a Best of the Net award.
She is the author of the Which Is Your Perfect Pet? ebook series with titles on Dog Breeds, Designer Dogs, Cat Breeds and Birds. Rabbits and Rodents is due for release in 2025.
ballast blast in fog rendered Rembrandt grey and brown
bird-girdered bridges, damp with smog and expectation
soaking dream reflects the mirror of endless water
passing in the steel soaked bay
the roar of copper and spidery wire
to an arachnid the web is a fishing line exponentially strung
in the keys of pianos are remains of ivory teeth, black sticks of nightwatch,
strings and hammers
I want to feel your bosom thoughts the humid streets you take at night
there is new blood to be invented there are new words for flight
hills
when the sun breaks clear of its shackles bareback reveries memories of shame hang in blackened frames
we disembark watch the sun glitter on the skirted hills
tetractys
I pound with hollow hands wicked strawmen swirling in the storms gradually clear
mighty oblivion invites me in but I step back and blow down the dark (what?)
I dreamed at my canvas in a dense blue I drew a cloud and from it a thought Grew
Whence A phrase Makes no sense And will not rhyme It’s time to make its meaning in reverse
Play with the words for a while, examine The rise and fall of phrases in your Mind
Putting on the dog was never such fun A mystery of barking in the Night
Day brilliant in its sky shining proudly As the tempest swirls in the blue distance
our septic night comes down like eggplant skin or something fine and easily embraced
it steams its butter in the waxy light the only eye not sleeping under dreams
I behold sleeping moon open iris down the night of smiles to the fierce violet
Doors barely open; sleeping in our greys House of no smiles Wind-drenched streets black sun Blind
Moon In the Fatal skies I saw two clouds walk on green water in the failing dusk: Do I see where I am going? Look sharp – This black curtain, Timeless mask Reveals moon
Landay Land
I thought you were going to pieces But it appears the pieces are all mine to give you.
When the flowers rustle in the night You sneak away to see me; moon in front of my eyes.
Love is never as it appears, love; No shutter-snap can capture its essential tonic.
Phases
New Moon. I am the crater you cannot see I am blind to war, to peace.
Waxing Crescent. My first blade, cut to precision.
Second Quarter. Half is what you want, Half I determine for you.
Waxing Gibbous. My pregnant labors yearn for completion, apotheosis.
Full Moon. I am lone wolf roaring in the sunset.
Disseminating. Return trip; runaround, a brazil nut. Egg.
Last Quarter. Slow motion blink. The second is my first face.
Balsamic. Sitting back, eaten slow
New Moon. I am the eye again that can see only itself.
Steven Stone has been writing for a long time and has worked with many styles. Steven writes about different subjects, but seems to always come back to metaphysical type work with a generous amount of imagery.
You can find more of Steven’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Agent S was sitting in a dingy hotel room staring at his service revolver on the table in front of him. The hotel was in a nondescript part of a town in a tiny, neutral country (Z) that bordered his (X) and another large country (Y), the enemy. His country and the enemy had fought several wars over a long period that dated back to his grandfather’s time as a foot soldier in the Army. The grandfather had died a few weeks after receiving commission in a desolate, cold, high-altitude outpost. His father, who served in the Air Force, had a distinguished career marked by quite a few distinctions for valor shown on the battlefield. In retirement, he often recounted what sounded like embellished versions of the dogfights he had been a part of. Agent S followed the family tradition and joined the Navy and then, after a long stint as a sailor, became part of a special forces team. By the time he joined the special forces team, he had already been through two wars. When his commander heard rumblings of another war, he decided to leave the special forces and join the intelligence services (XII). Agent S followed him. That was where the trouble began.
When Agent S was with the special forces team, he had worked closely with many in XII. The success or failure of the special forces teams’ missions depended on the quality of the intelligence provided by XII officers. They cultivated contacts in the enemy country, identified safe crossing points and plotted the routes to take, once in enemy territory. So, Agent S felt he was making a natural transition into his new role as a spook. After several months of high-pressure training and shadowing veterans, he was finally ready for his special assignment; to oversee the defection of an Air Force pilot from a base not far from the border. The pilot had been corrupted and compromised to the point where there was no likelihood of a double-cross.
The plan was for the pilot’s wife to leave her country on an early morning bus and commence a 10-hour journey to the neutral country where Agent S was supposed to meet her. Once she had crossed the border, he was supposed to alert his air-defense units to stand down, to ensure safe passage for the defector plane. He was then supposed to transmit the Go Code to his undercover operatives in the enemy territory. The pilot’s task was to change the path of a test flight and make a mad dash to the border, flying low to avoid detection by the enemy’s air defense system. It was a plan with so many moving pieces and any single piece out of place could have possibly doomed the entire project. Yet he was confident he was going to be able to pull it off.
When the station chief showed up at his hotel room early that morning (04.42), he felt a gut punch. He knew the news couldn’t be good. The station chief handed him a cryptic message. Decoded, it read, ‘Talks at critical stage. Cease all undercover operations.’ It came from the national security chief. Agent S was crushed. He thought of the poor woman who was on the bus on a strange journey. In a country where most women lived behind a veil, he imagined she was only doing what her husband had asked her to do, not knowing anything about her husband’s convoluted plot. Now, instead of meeting her husband’s ‘friend’ on the other side of the border, she was going to walk into the waiting arms of the military police on her own side. Her husband, in the meanwhile, would soon be either sitting in the stockade, head in his hands, or being whisked to an interrogation room in a special facility.
Agent S thought he should feel guilty for thinking that his mission was more important than peace between two war-prone nations. But he didn’t. He told himself he was not going to apologize for thinking what a successful mission would have meant for his career. Maybe it was not the career that he cared about. It was his word. A lot of lives depended on his word: the pilot’s, the pilot’s wife, and those of the undercover operatives. Now they’re all going to be dead because he didn’t hold up his side of the bargain. Should he pick up the gun and blow his head off?
He wondered, what would George Palmer do?
Meanwhile, at Vauxhall Cross, intelligence officers were poring over information they had received on the border situation between countries X and Y. Fresh to arrive that morning was an intercept that read, ‘Talks at critical stage. Cease all undercover operations.’ Alerts went out to MI6 agents in countries X, Y and Z. Within hours they had pieced together details of the defection plot. It turned out that many of the operatives working on the defection plot were also on MI6 pay. The chief wanted to minimize damage all around, but didn’t want any of his agents involved in the mess. He sent for Peter English; said he was golfing that weekend with the PM, so would Peter be a trooper and give it some thought? ‘Have your ideas on my desk by Monday AM. Much appreciated, that’s a good fellow!’
English, somewhat at sixes and sevens, drove his Healey up to Bywater Street, for a rendezvous with his old mentor, George Palmer.
‘Well, George,’ asked English, ‘this is something of a fiasco, I’ll say! Am I allowed to pick your brain for any possible solution?’
‘Well, Peter, this Agent S has found himself in the kind of pickle I experienced in Sofia, Bulgaria, 1953. The whole operation was rolled up by Gala and chums, virtually overnight. Lost a lot of good agents to Moscow Central. Only narrowly escaped myself. Had to rely on the local ju-ju man to get me back through the curtain in one piece. Left by way of the old mole run. Popped up into Greece. Physically fine but dead inside.’
‘I don’t like moles.’
‘Me neither, Peter. Bill Blunt was responsible for the betrayal, though I didn’t suspect him at the time. Nobody did. Like when one crosses the road at Picadilly Circus, my head turned this way and that looking for a culprit.’
‘I once nearly got run over by a bus, there. A big, bloody double-decker! The number 37 to Pall Mall. I’m sure the driver was reading a newspaper at the time.’
‘Hope it was The Times.’
‘Quite. Anyway, what happened next, old chap?’
‘Director kept me at the Big Top for a month or two. Household chores. Light duties. He could see how shook up I was by the whole affair. Gave me a desk in a quiet corner and a bottle of Scotch.’
‘Shame about Director; dying like that at the cricket. Heart failure, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes; but Director wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I kind of envy him; sitting there at Lords, watching the test match with the sun on his face; a glass of Pimm’s in his hand; the sound of leather on willow.’
‘Indeed, if you put it like that, old bean. How would you like to go, George?’
‘With a bullet in the back, of course. What more noble way for a spy to die?’
‘My thoughts, exactly. Say, George, you’re on fire today. It must be this whiskey; dammed fine stuff.’
‘It’s from Angela. Another sorry gift.’
‘Oh, and I’m sorry for asking, George. I didn’t mean to…’
‘No, no Peter. We are both men of the world and then some.’
‘Where is Angela now?’
‘My sources inform me she’s shacked-up with a young Italian army officer in Rome. Speaks fluent Italian, did you know? Clever girl.’
‘She’ll be back. You’ll see. It’s always the case. But returning to the story; continue with the narrative, if you will.’
‘Ah, well, sure enough, not much later, Director invited me for tea and crumpets at Fortnam and Mason. Y’know, to soften me up. In pretty much the same sentence, he said he could see I was my old self again; and that was fortunate because I was needed in the field. Prompto. Berlin. A veritable holiday park in those days. Never a dull moment.’
‘Good old Director. A golden heart below that cold, grey exterior. And did that do the trick; helped you recover from the Bulgarian fiasco?’
‘Yes and no. Being busy kept my mind off things but the hurt remained. Still does; as from other things, too.’
‘Of course, ‘Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.’
‘Yes, ‘The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.’ Empson. ‘Missing Dates’. Very good, Peter. You studied literature at university, didn’t you?’
‘And Arabic.’
‘A double First?’
‘Naturally.’
‘And was Cambridge to your taste?’
‘Stop messing with me George, you old devil. You know we both did our time at Oxford.’
‘Sorry, Peter; one whiskey too many. These cigarettes: strong flavour.’
‘Ukranian. I know they’re a little earthy, but I developed a taste for them whilst out there last summer. Only two packets left, unfortunately. So, what are we to do with this Agent S? By the look of this transcript, he’s feeling somewhat sorry for himself, poor darling. By the way, I hear Agent S is an Anglophile who hates whiskey; whilst his father, a Sandhurst graduate, had a weakness for Johnie Walker. Black label.’
‘Admirable taste for an army man. As for Agent S: fly a Scalphunter over. Persuade him, one way or another, to come work for the Circus asap; before he does something rather silly, such as batting for the other side. After the de-brief, give him a little tea and sympathy; a little R&R at the Circus won’t do any harm. Provide him with one of those mindful people, if need be.’
‘A counsellor?’
‘Yes, that’s the word I’m looking for.’
‘And then?’
‘Send him back out into the garden, of course. Get him to tend the flowers again. Stiff upper-lip and all that. A modest monetary donation from the Reptile Fund might be an incentive.’
‘Will do, George. Another tipple?’
‘Maybe that would be rather unwise. I’m rather on the wain, as they say. A little besotted by the bottle!’
‘Oh, don’t be a stuffed shirt! Hold out your glass.’
‘Okay, if I must.’
‘To the Service, George! Chin-chin!’
‘To the service, Peter. Bottoms-up!’
Balu Swami lives in the US. His works have appeared in Flash Fiction North, Ink Pantry, Short Kid Stories Literary Veganism and others.
You can find more of Balu’s work here on Ink Pantry.
John Caulton is the editor of the website ‘Flash Fiction North’. He is the author of a short story collection entitled ‘The Grass Whistle’.
You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Confession time. Let’s skip the fake remorse and start with the truth: I’m a scammer.
Not some weepy, misunderstood grifter with a tragic backstory. No. I’m a specialist. I provide a premium service. Companionship with emotional flair. For a price. Sex and money. Sometimes one, sometimes both. It depends on the mark.
I charm. They disarm and are open to my racket. That’s the equation. Simple math..
And let’s get one thing straight right. There’s no wounded crying inner child. No broken home, no shadowy uncle, no addiction in the family tree. I had two stable, loving parents who packed my lunch, kissed me goodnight, and told me I could be anything. I had a golden retriever childhood. Big backyard. Siblings who didn’t hate me. I passed the marshmallow test for delayed gratification. I would have waited five hours for the second marshmallow. Please…. I have it in aces.
School? I did it all: sports, rocket club, debate club, model UN? Check, check, check, and absolutely.
So no, I’m not a broken man looking to fill a hole. I’m a man who sees what women want and give it to them in the exact currency they crave. Attention. Intimacy. The illusion of safety. The hope of everlasting commitment. And I take my fee like a professional.
Romance internet scams were my early portfolio. Sweet messages. Gentle flirting. Tailored promises of forever. Some I bedded. Some I borrowed from. All believed in my sincerity, until I ghosted them. I never felt bad. If anything, I felt noble. Teaching them a lesson: never trust too quickly, never believe in the Wizard of OZ.
But then the amateurs flooded in. Idiots with bad grammar and fake military IDs. They ruined it. Too obvious, too greedy, too soon to snare. The six figures I’d grown used to started evaporating.
So I pivoted.
Christmas dinner lit the match. My brother’s girlfriend mentioned she was in recovery, something about twelve steps and finding serenity. She spoke like it was church and therapy and family all rolled into one. I feigned empathy and extracted everything I needed: meeting formats, the “Big Book,” slogans like “easy does it,” “one day at a time,” and this delightful gem: “normies”—the word they used for people like me.
Except I’m not a normie. I’m their Higher Power.
I’m the First Step they never saw coming.
Alcoholics Anonymous. Goldmine. Women there are raw, cracked open, starving for connection. They’re taught to be honest, to trust, to work the steps, and to confess in front of strangers. They practically hand you their playbook of vulnerabilities.
I infiltrated. Sat in the circle with my most remorseful face. I shared “my story”—all fiction, perfectly paced. A few tears, a fake DUI, the “moment of clarity” sloppy drunk in a parking lot behind a gas station. It worked. They welcomed me like the prodigal son.
Now I’m hunting. Quietly. Respectfully. I tell them they’re beautiful when they don’t feel it. I listen more earnestly than their ex-husbands or partners ever did. I know when to touch a hand, when to back away. I speak their language. I study them. I’m patient before I pounce.
They think I’m their savior. But I’m just collecting payments.
There’s no guilt. No shame. No need for therapy or jail time or a higher purpose. This is a business. My business. And business is good again. I waited patiently for two months.
Then I roped in my first new member. Easy peasy.
She was overweight, eyes red from crying, shoulders permanently slumped like she’d spent years apologizing for existing. Perfect. The kind who’s starved for kindness and hasn’t been truly seen in years.
I sat next to her in three meetings before saying a word. Just long enough to make her wonder if I might. On the fourth, I complimented her sharing, gently, respectfully. She gave me that puppy dog look. Hook set.
I played a long game. Walks after meetings. Long walks on the beach with deep, soulful eye contact. Museums, because they made me look sophisticated. Cozy romantic restaurants. I told her she was fascinating. That I loved how real she was. That her pain made her radiant. She had never been called radiant before.
When we finally had sex, she cried. Said it was the first time it felt like someone wanted her. I made it the best night of her life, slow, attentive, enough to pass for love.
Thirteenth stepping.
It’s an unwritten rule in AA: don’t date new members. Don’t prey on people just finding their footing. It’s not official doctrine, but it’s sacred. The group thrives on safety, trust, shared vulnerability. Break that, and you taint the whole well.
I didn’t break it. I bent it. I asked her to keep our relationship secret, too sacred to share with others.
***
3 Months later
Hooks set and I was reeling them in. The next months I was juggling three relationships. Not in the same group meetings but meetings far enough away not to slip up. I used the old borrowing con. Money was again flowing into my coffers. Sex was a bonus.
I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t count on women blabbing to their sponsors. You may have guessed by now that my perfect scheme unraveled.
I found out too late.
Unbeknownst to me, word had gotten around that a con artist had been preying upon AA members. Women I had previously courted—read: seduced, drained, discarded—compared notes. The pieces clicked, the anger boiled, and they formed a plan. They brought in a ringer, a woman who knew exactly how to play a man like me.
Her name was Delilah.
I know. I know. You can’t make this stuff up. The irony practically sweats off the page. Delilah was a professional actor. Older than she looked, younger than she acted. Gorgeous in that old-school Hollywood way: red lips, perfect posture, and a dynamite figure. She didn’t stumble into AA. She descended like an angel.
At first, she did the rounds like any new member. She sat quietly in the back, clutching her Styrofoam cup. But when it came time for cookies and punch, she stood out. The dress hugged her curves. The room of thirsty men, all dry from booze but parched for something else, circled her like moths.
But she had eyes for me.
After the meeting, she casually strolled over. She tilted her head and smiled just enough.
She said, “Let’s go for coffee. I’m dying for a cigarette.”
Coffee and cigarettes, the standard high for the AA losers.
Over the next few weeks, she let me believe I was running the game. She cried once during a share, about abandonment, about needing protection. I stepped in like a knight. We went on long drives, even a meditation retreat. She never let me touch her, said she was Catholic and saving herself for marriage. I thought it was a quaint boundary; one I could eventually bulldoze.
But here’s the thing: she had already bulldozed me.
While I was busy fantasizing about what would happen when she finally “gave in,” she had already gained access to the one thing that mattered to me: my online banking. She didn’t ask for it—no, she acted like she needed help setting up her own finances. I volunteered. Then she “accidentally” logged in on my phone. I had left it unlocked just long enough.
By the time I realized I’d been had, my accounts were drained. Every cent I had milked from my previous conquests was gone. The withdrawals were all legal. My passwords had been changed.
I still loved her. I tried to call her. Number disconnected.
She wasn’t at my next AA meeting. I looked around the room—sponsors and sponsees chatting, sharing, sipping coffee—and for the first time, I felt what my victims must’ve felt.
Naked. Duped. Powerless.
Delilah played me better than I’d ever played anyone. She didn’t just take my money; she took my delusion of superiority.
But the story doesn’t end there. Not even close.
I was exposed, humiliated, stripped of my pride, and left with barely enough to pay for a bottle. Then I did what most cowards do, I drank.
I drank until the sound of my own name made me wince. Until mornings came with tremors and nights came with blackouts. Until I found myself slumped behind a gas station dumpster, half-conscious, my pockets empty, and my pants wet. Call it karma, divine payback, or just gravity pulling me to where I belonged.
That was my bottom. And it was darker than anything I’d imagined.
The next morning, I attended the nearest AA meeting. I didn’t say a word that first day. Just listened. I hated everyone in that room. The earnestness. The chipper sobriety slogans on the wall. The way people clapped when someone said they’d gone thirty days without drinking and got a stupid chip, as if it was an Olympic medal.
But I kept going.
Week after week. Something about the rawness in their stories, their pain. They just… spoke it. And they listened. No one flinched when I said I’d manipulated women, stolen from them, lied about love. No one excused it either. They just kept saying, “Keep coming back.”
One of the old-timers who looked like he’d been carved out of a Camel commercial took me aside after a meeting. “You’re not unique,” he said. “Just sick. The good news is sick gets better if you work the steps. But only if.”
I started working them. I went back to school. Social work, of all things. I figured I should do something useful. I should try to help people I once saw as marks. I volunteered at the local domestic violence shelter. At first, the staff wouldn’t let me near anyone. I just filed papers and cleaned bathrooms. Fine. I deserved that.
But it was Step 9 that nearly broke me.
Making amends. Not just saying sorry but doing the work of apology. Owning it without asking for forgiveness. I spent weeks tracking down names I remembered, numbers I wasn’t sure were still good. I made lists. I prepared speeches.
One woman screamed at me before hanging up.
Another called me a sociopath and reported me to her therapist.
Only one agreed to meet me at a diner. She threw a glass of water in my face the moment I sat down. She said, “That’s for who I was when I met you. That girl deserved better.”
Then she got up and walked out. I never saw her again. But something in me changed that day. I didn’t feel vindicated. I didn’t feel punished. I just felt clean for the first time in years.
And now?
I still go to meetings. I still listen more than I talk. I sponsor a few guys who remind me of my old self.
Sobriety hasn’t made me holy. But it’s filled a hole.
Most days that’s enough.
Dr. Weiner has over 40 years’ experience as a clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma recovery and anxiety disorders. He enjoys using stories to help readers harness their resilience within to aid them on their healing journey. He has been published in a variety of professional journals and fiction in magazines. His psychology books include Shattered Innocence and the Curio Shop. Non-psychology publications are Across the Borderline and The Art of Fine Whining. He has a monthly advice column in a Portland Newspaper, AskDr.Neil.
“Don’t answer that,” I told my wife, when the house phone rang for the fifth time early that morning.
When she had answered the first four times, whoever was at the other end waited long enough for her to know someone was on the line, then disconnected. This had been going on for several weeks and had become a growing irritation. Caller I.D. had been blocked, so we couldn’t tell who was harassing us.
“We may as well let the answering machine pick up,” Madeline suggested. “This way we can screen the calls and only answer those we want to.”
It was a sensible, practical solution to the problem and I tried to suppress my anger at this persistent phone intruder. It took another two weeks for the frequency of the calls to diminish, then they became sporadic and we thought the situation was resolved. We started answering the phone again, but a few days later the anonymous calls resumed. We had to be at the office by 8:30 a.m., so we didn’t have much time for our daily routine to be distracted by annoying phone calls.
We both worked at the Outreach Center. Madeline was the executive director and I was the program officer. The Center provided social services to homeless families with children who were placed in temporary shelters, without services. We provided referrals for housing, medical and dental treatment and other needs. Somehow we began giving meals and life skills workshops to several of the family’s children and we needed a social worker to deal with a case load that kept growing.
Madeline and I met at Gotham University, in New York City. We were very different people. She was a dedicated jock who believed in liberal causes. I was a computer and gamer type who believed that child molesters should get the death penalty. My sister had been molested when she was seven years old and it took her a long time to get over it. Madeline was opposed to the death penalty and we argued about it often, never reaching a compromise.
But we found many things in common. She loved poetry and got me to read her favorites, Blake, Emily Dickenson, Whitman, Rimbaud, Rilke and others. I liked them. I introduced her to the world of gaming and she actually got involved in a series of women’s war games and was a fierce competitor. One big quality we had in common was we both wanted to serve the needy.
In our junior year, a close friend, Warren, inherited a huge amount of money from a trust fund when he turned 21. He half jokingly asked our opinion what he should do with his new fortune and Maddie instantly replied:
“When we graduate, fund a program to help the homeless. Charlie and I will run it.”
‘Wait a second! What do you think you’re doing, committing me to some kind of project?’ But I didn’t say it. I only thought it. From that moment on she took charge of our lives, which now included romance and marriage. Warren didn’t know how tenacious Maddie could be. After graduation and our wedding, where he was our best man, she persuaded him to put up $150,000 a year for five years to start a not-for-profit organization to serve homeless families with children. After that we would be on our own.
We rented an office and workshop space in the East 30’s, in an old commercial loft building. Then we reluctantly gave up our dorm rooms that had been so comfortable for the last four years, rented an apartment in an old walk-up tenement building off Third Avenue in the twenties, and began a new life. We quickly got more and more involved with the homeless children, many of whom we discovered were gifted and talented. So we started a computer learning center and more and more kids came to us. A lot of them weren’t in school, so one of our goals was to get them all into classrooms. The problem was we didn’t have enough time or personnel to deal with all the needs and services the kids required.
If we wanted to continue working with the kids, we needed someone capable to help with them. That’s when the complications grew. $150,000 a year may seem like a lot to some people, but after rent, $2,600 per month, Madeline’s executive director salary, $30,000, my $28.,000, we’d have to hire a social worker, at $35,000. All the other expenses, insurance, electricity, the list went on and on. This meant we didn’t have much money for a project coordinator. After some quick grant writing and Mad’s funding efforts we raised $15,000, so we could pay someone $24,000, which would mean our stretching every dollar for the rest of our expenses. But we started interviewing candidates.
The kids were mostly black or hispanic, so we wanted to hire someone who could relate to them. However, the only qualified applicants wouldn’t work for that low salary. And I couldn’t blame them. We finally hired a bright young black woman, a recent college graduate, on a two week trial basis. She seemed to be afraid of the kids and quit after the first week, without explanation. Then we hired a young latino man, but we found out he was bribing the kids to participate in life skills workshops, with trips to McDonalds and promises of new sneakers. Mad fired him. We were getting desperate. I was leading most of the life skills workshops, which I enjoyed immensely, even though I didn’t always know what I was doing. Yet I didn’t have time to do program development, grant writing and outreach to all the agencies and services we needed. Then Michael Donnigan applied for the job.
Michael was in his 40’s, with a history of working for not-for-profit public service organizations. He had a great resume, outstanding references that Mad called and he made a very positive impression. So we hired him. He started his two week trial period on a Monday and spent the first few days going through our records and program guidelines, which seemed to take a lot of time away from the kids. Then somehow he always had a conflict when it was time to do something with the kids. This was disturbing, but I talked to him and he seemed to understand what was required. On Thursday he took the kids to Madison Square Park, then he didn’t come in on Friday. We only found out later that day that while they were in the park he yelled at the kids for making too much noise. Some local parents tried to calm him, but he cursed them and stormed off abandoning the kids.. Of course we decided to fire him.
He didn’t come in Monday. I phoned him, but only got voice mail and left a message asking him to call me. He didn’t. When he didn’t call or show on Tuesday, I phoned him and left a message firing him. I would have preferred to do it face to face, but he didn’t give me any choice. Our good judgment was confirmed when some of the kids told us he ordered them around nastily and treated them disrespectfully. He finally came to the office on Friday and wanted two weeks pay, as well as severance. I told him we’d pay him for the first week, even though he walked off the job on Thursday, but there was no severance, since he wasn’t a regular employee, but was hired on a trial basis. He took his check, told me he’d sue us for wrongful termination and stormed out. We were relieved to see him go.
We hired a young black man who wanted to get children’s services experience and he fit right in from the first day. He liked and respected the kids and they really took to him. We forgot about our previous employee, until we got a subpoena to appear in court. This was a new experience for us. I had never been to court and Mad’s vast experience had been when she paid a traffic ticket once. We did some quick research on the internet, learned we needed a lawyer and Mad contacted a legal referral agency. They told her to ask large law firms for a pro bono attorney who would handle our case. Mad called several firms and one responded, assigning a young associate to meet with us. After a mutually satisfactory meeting, Mary Takagawa took our case.
Mary, a recent Columbia Law School graduate, was barely 5 feet tall, but full of energy and resolve. She had played the cello since childhood, the instrument almost bigger than she, and was sensitive to the plight of her clients. She admitted she knew nothing about labor or wrongful termination law, but researched enthusiastically online. The first hearing was to determine if the plaintiff’s case had sufficient merit to proceed. The judge, actually a lawyer doing court service, an older white woman with an abrupt, almost nasty manner, terrified Mary, who was almost tongue tied. We had hoped for a dismissal, but this was not to be.
The judge scheduled a hearing in a month and Donnigan cordially said goodbye to us, as if this was nothing personal. Mary apologized for her inadequacy, admitting she never appeared in front of a judge before, and vowed to do better next time. Mary was more confident at the next hearing, which had a new judge, a very pleasant, reasonable woman, who stated that not-for-profit public services groups deserved a fair chance to be heard. Mary presented a basic case, outlining the terms of employment and the circumstances that led to termination. Donnigan contradicted those facts, raved about how he was injured on the job and exploited. He presented an alternate scenario and claimed there was no two week trial period. It was our word against his. The judge scheduled a hearing in a month, at which time we could present evidence proving our claims. After abusing us verbally in front of the judge, he bid us a courteous farewell, assuming a lawyer’s persona, which Mary thought was crazy.
At the next hearing we brought letters from former applicants and our current employee, attesting they were told of a two week trial period. Donnigan, citing case law, insisted that the letters didn’t allow cross examination, accused us of forgery, and insisted we were colluding against him. He accused us of nepotism, husband and wife getting government money and exploiting the children. He called us dirty names and when Mary objected to his tirade he told the judge he was being persecuted by a big firm lawyer. Mary’s heartfelt declaration:
“Your honor. This man has more experience then I do,” gave us a laugh, but another hearing was scheduled.
Now that Mary was in an actual courtroom fight, her samurai spirit emerged and she was determined to prevail. She persuaded her supervising attorney at her firm to give her the services of an investigator. The investigator discovered that Donnigan’s employment history and references were false. He had a pattern of either being fired or quitting previous jobs, then suing for wrongful termination. He had worked for the Department of Sanitation, was constantly late, out sick, or walked off the job after disputes with his supervisor. In one ugly incident, he dumped a load of garbage on a supervisor’s lawn and porch. He was dismissed and filed a wrongful termination suit that was still going on. The judge learned these facts, dismissed the case, Donnigan thanked her politely, then said goodbye to us politely, as if this was just a lawyer’s lost battle, not an involved individual.
We promptly forgot about him and went on with our lives and work. Until Mad told me she thought she saw him following her when she left the office to go to a meeting. We talked about it and finally shrugged it off, until she saw him again. And we started getting phone calls at night, just like the earlier ones. Mad started to see him every time she left the office and I knew she wasn’t imagining it. We were playing Pokemon-Go one afternoon in front of Macy’s, at 34th Street and Herald Square, and we both saw him. I decided to confront him and went towards him, but he disappeared into the crowd of shoppers and ‘pokies’.
We decided that this was becoming a problem and went to our local precinct to file a complaint. The sympathetic desk Sergeant informed us that since Donnigan had made no overt threats and we had no evidence that he was making the phone calls, there was nothing the police could do.
“You should file an official complaint, so if he ever crosses the line in any way, we’ll have a record that can be used against him.”
“Thanks, Sergeant Paxton,” Mad said. “Any suggestions how we should deal with this?”
“Yeah. Don’t go anywhere alone for a while. Be more aware of your surroundings and monitor things more carefully. If there’s any kind of incident call 911.”
“Thanks, Sergeant Paxton,” we both said.
This was a new experience for us and we had a long talk about whether or not Donnigen was dangerous. I dismissed him as a nut job, with nothing better to do at the moment.
“As soon as he gets a job and gets on with his life we’ll have seen the last of him.”
“I hope you’re right,” Mad replied. “But there’s something wrong with him. I think he’s mentally disturbed and we should take the cop’s suggestions seriously.”
“Agreed.”
We kept seeing him at a distance, but as soon as he saw that we noticed him, he quickly departed. The phone calls continued at night, sometimes going on for hours. We talked about the problem, but couldn’t figure out what to do. When Mad suggested we get a gun I couldn’t tell if she was kidding, or not. We were playing Pokemon-Go one evening and we went to the subway station at Park Avenue and 23rd Street. We were on the platform and Mad suddenly poked me.
“Look. It’s him.”
I made eye contact with Donnigan and he grinned…. No. He smirked at me, letting me know he was getting to us and it would continue. I started towards him, anger changing to rage, just as the train came in. He waved at me dismissively, turned to melt into the crowd and I don’t know if he tripped, or was jostled, but he fell on the tracks. People started screaming and the train came to a stop. A lot of the crowd left the station realizing the tie up could be for hours. I stood there stunned, then turned to Mad, who didn’t know what happened.
“Donnigan fell in front of the train.”
She was shocked, but said: “Is he dead?”
“I don’t know. Should we stay and find out?”
“No. Let’s go.”
“We could tell the cops who he is.”
“Did you push him?”
“Of course not,” I replied indignantly.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
We left as the cops and emergency personnel came thundering down the stairs.
That night there was a short article on the internet about the man who fell on the subway tracks and was killed, but nothing after that. Someone had been devoured by the ravenous city, quickly forgotten in the throb and pulse of continuity. There were no phone calls that day and none after that, a definite indication that Donnigan was the culprit and could no longer call out from wherever he was.
A few days later we got a call from Sergeant Paxton from the local precinct. He spoke to Mad and I listened in.
“Did you folks know the guy you complained about was killed in the subway?”
“No. When did it happen?”
“A few days ago. He fell on the tracks at the 23rd Street station. Some eyewitnesses said he tripped and no one pushed him. I guess he won’t be bothering you anymore.”
“Those phone calls stopped.”
“Then your complaint will just be filed away somewhere. Funny how things work out sometimes.”
“Isn’t it. Thanks for calling, Sergeant Paxton.”
“You take care,” and he disconnected.
We looked at each other for a few moments, then I said:
“I almost feel sorry for the guy, dying like that.”
“Well I don’t,” Mad responded. “I’m glad he’s gone, before he did anything worse to us.”
“That’s a bit harsh.”
“What if he got crazier and violent and hurt us? How would you feel then?”
I thought about it, then answered:
“I’d never forgive myself if he hurt you.”
“Then forget him. It’s time to get on with our lives.”
“Weird how things work out sometimes,” I mused.
“Yeah. Now come to bed. I want to celebrate being alive.”
“Is that an order or request?”
“Whatever brings you to my arms.”
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction, essays and plays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his traditionally published books include 43 poetry collections, 18 novels, 4 short story collections, 2 collections of essays and 8 books of plays. Gary lives in New York City..
You can find more of Gary’s work here on Ink Panty.
I would have loved thee more I wished thee stay for aye Gripping my arms in breast of yours So dimmed my wits that believed this life But failed to notice its shadow. Now I score thy grave to see thee more And sleep with thee in this dark meadow. My prose for thee have grown into weeds So stiff, so pale… With lifeless views. My blood had shrank in inks of nibs That sketches the ribs of yours. I smell thy hairs I smell thy torcs And kiss it over and over To cry in thee, To be in thee, To fade in thee forever.
Srijit Raha hails from Berhampore, India. He is an English Honours graduate from the University of Calcutta. He is an avid reader of poetry and historical books. He has his previous works published in various international journals and newspapers. His books FALLEN BLOOMS ( Poetry Collection) and CALCUTTA BURNED ALIVE (Historical Read) is available worldwide in the market.
A critical essay examining how short-form video platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok are accelerating the erosion of regional identities, with Kashmir as the backdrop.
The essay dissects how these platforms flatten language, gesture, and identity into reproducible, depthless tropes. Drawing on theorists like Baudrillard (hyperreality) and Bourdieu (cultural capital), I argue that the “Reelocene” epoch—a term I coin to describe our current moment—privileges performative affect over meaning, turning even obscenity into an aesthetic commodity. From literature students who can’t spell Shakespeare but mimic viral catchphrases to influencers exoticising borrowed dialects, the essay reveals how algorithmic mimicry quietly dismantles local idiom in favour of a globalised, disposable vernacular.
The piece balances rigorous critique with satirical bite, exposing the paradox of “viral diversity” masking homogenisation. Why do we reward those who shed their native speech for influencer cadences, yet mock others for failing to code-switch “correctly”? Why does a forced Californian “oh my god” signal clout, while a regional accent often signals lack? I trace this asymmetry to digital capitalism’s demand for frictionless content, where identity becomes a buffet of curated fragments and authenticity is measured in engagement metrics. The reel doesn’t just reflect culture; it rewrites it, one 15-second clip at a time.
This isn’t just about Kashmir, of course—it’s about how digital capitalism commodifies marginalisation.
We are living in what might be termed, with no small irony, the “Reelocene Epoch,” a cultural moment defined by the hegemony of the short-form video. The reel, that flickering dopamine syringe, has become the dominant aesthetic form of our time, colonising attention spans with ruthless efficiency. As Jean Baudrillard might observe, we no longer consume content; we consume the spectacle of consumption itself, a fragmented, accelerated loop of imagery that demands nothing and offers even less (Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation). The reel’s tyranny is absolute: lectures, prayers, even human interaction must now be compressed into digestible, forgettable morsels. In this economy of attention, brevity is not just the soul of wit, it is the death of thought.
As an educator, I perform the obligatory ritual of cautioning students against this “clip-ification” of consciousness, invoking the Frankfurt School’s fear of cultural industrialisation (Adorno & Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment). Reels, I proclaim, erode analytical rigour, replacing sustained engagement with the cheap thrill of the swipe. Yet, like a hypocritical priest preaching temperance, I too am ensnared. My recent obsession? The performative expressions of actors, particularly actresses and influencers, whose exaggerated mannerisms seem less like human affect and more like semiotic ghosts haunting our collective psyche. The content is irrelevant; it is the style that seduces. As Roland Barthes noted in Mythologies, the signifier often eclipses the signified, and here, the how obliterates the what entirely.
What is most unsettling is the cultural seepage of these artificial expressions into everyday life. There is no taxonomy for their absurdity, no critical framework to dismiss them as the hollow theatrics they are. Yet, as Bourdieu (Distinction) would wryly note, the moment one fumbles with cutlery in a “decent hotel,” the cultural gatekeepers descend with their taxonomy of shame: awkward, backward, uncivilised. The irony is exquisite. We welcome the staged grimaces of influencers into our cultural lexicon without scrutiny, yet a misplaced fork becomes a moral failing. The reel, in its infinite democratisation of nonsense, has rendered us all fluent in the language of superficiality, while the old hierarchies of “taste” remain, weaponised as ever.
Let us dissect, with the precision of a Barthesian semiotician (Mythologies), the spectacle of a popular celebrity in question—a paragon of “manufactured authenticity.” Her dress, more articulate than her expressions, functioned as what Baudrillard might call a “hyperreal” costume (Simulacra and Simulation), a visual manifesto screaming “Look, but do not think!” Every strand of her hair, inflated to near-architectural grandeur, obeyed the unwritten laws of “reel aesthetics”, where naturalism is the enemy and effort is the unspoken fetish. One does not simply exist in the reel; one must perform existence itself, like a Sisyphus cursed to eternally reapply lip gloss.
The video, a mercilessly truncated snippet, was not a vessel for meaning but a shrine to how meaning is staged. The question she answered was irrelevant, mere background noise to the ballet of her lips, the calculated dilation of her pupils, the precisely calibrated flash of teeth. Here, Goffman’s “Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” collapses into farce: her gestures were not communication but choreography, each movement rehearsed to mimic spontaneity. The hands moved with the eerie precision of a Victorian automaton, the smile erupted on cue, less an emotional response than a Pavlovian concession to algorithmic demand.
And oh, the laughter! A burst of sound so meticulously timed it could have been engineered by Fordist efficiency experts (cf. Gramsci, “Americanism and Fordism”). The triviality of the conversation only heightened the absurdity, proof that in the reel economy, even banality must be gilded with performative ecstasy. Her tone, a surface paint, was less human speech than what Adorno would deride as “the jargon of authenticity”, a veneer of charm lacquered over the void of substance.
What we witness here is not grace, but “gracefulness”, a patented, mass-produced simulacrum of allure, designed for maximum swipe-appeal. The reel does not capture life; it replaces it with a pantomime of affect, leaving us, the viewers, both mesmerised and vaguely nauseated, like children who’ve eaten too much candy and now crave something real, only to forget and reach for another reel.
We are witnessing what Walter Benjamin might call the “mechanical reproduction of affect”, where the mannerisms of influencers, YouTubers, and actors, endlessly proliferated through the digital assembly line of reels and social media, have seeped into the groundwater of popular culture (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction). Their curated tones, exaggerated expressions, and sartorial hyperbole are no longer mere performance; they have become scripts, mimicked with the fervour of a cargo cult, as if adopting the right affect might conjure the same social capital. The younger generation, those unwitting disciples of the algorithm, now speak in the borrowed cadences of influencers, their gestures a patchwork of viral tics, each movement a citation, each expression a plagiarised emotion.
What’s fascinating, in a grimly Bourdieuian sense (Distinction), is how this mimicry is largely confined to a specific class, those enchanted by the spectacle of showbiz, for whom every conversation is an audition and every social interaction a potential reel. The same phrases, delivered in a different context, say, a grocery store or a government office, would sound absurd, yet in the right echo chamber, they are performed with solemn reverence. Not all these gestures are inherently malignant; some are benign, even charming. But when they morph into unrealistic, dross theatrics, a pantomime of “high society” or a fetishised dialect that screams “I do not belong here but wish I did”, they become a cultural pathology.
There is, as Zadie Smith notes, nothing wrong with linguistic multiplicity (Speaking in Tongues). But there is something grotesque about affectation, when a forced accent, an unnatural gesture, or a rehearsed laugh betrays not fluency but cultural desperation, like wearing a costume that doesn’t fit. It’s the difference between speaking another language and performing linguistic tourism, a clumsy, often cringe-inducing pantomime of belonging that only highlights the distance between the self and the desired identity. The reel, in its infinite wisdom, has turned us all into amateur method actors, forever rehearsing a role we weren’t cast in.
And so, we arrive at the great irony of digital culture: the more we imitate, the less we inhabit; the more we perform, the less we are. The reel giveth, and the reel taketh away, leaving us with a generation of expert impersonators who’ve forgotten how to simply speak.
What we are witnessing is nothing short of a Bakhtinian carnival (Rabelais and His World) gone digital, where the exaggerated movements of pupils, the performative arching of eyebrows, the ritualised baring of teeth, and even the fetishised utterance of obscenities are no longer mere expressions but cultural signifiers, meticulously curated and weaponised by the reigning class of reel aristocracy. These gestures, in isolation, are harmless, perhaps even endearing in their absurdity. But when monopolised by the influencer elite, they mutate into hegemonic codes (Gramsci, Prison Notebooks), where even vulgarity is laundered into sophistication, and crassness is rebranded as authenticity.
Consider the irony: in my own classroom, undergraduate literature students, who stumble over the spelling of Shakespeare and for whom metaphor remains as elusive as a coherent thesis statement, nevertheless wield phrases like ouch, shit, and god damn it with the precision of Orwell’s Newspeak (1984). These are not words learned semantically, through the labour of reading or the discipline of discourse; they are cultural viruses, transmitted through the algorithmic ether, bypassing cognition to lodge themselves directly in the performative subconscious.
What makes this particularly grotesque is the class dynamic at play. When the reel bourgeoisie deploys these phrases, they do so with the smug assurance of Pierre Bourdieu’s distinction, turning obscenity into a badge of cosmopolitanism, a way to signal I am above the provincial constraints of your linguistic norms. But when the same words are mimicked by those outside the cultural inner circle, they ring hollow, awkward, forced, a betrayal of native idiom in exchange for borrowed coolness. The result? A generation that can’t define synecdoche but can moan oh my god with the cadence of a Netflix teen drama.
In this post-linguistic dystopia, words are no longer tools of meaning but props in a globalised pantomime, where the more you disclaim your own language, the more you think you belong to some imagined elite. Ouch ceases to be an exclamation of pain; it becomes a performance of cultural surrender. And the reel, that great meritocratic lie, rewards only those who best erase themselves in the service of its endless, empty spectacle.
We find ourselves in the throes of what Guy Debord might diagnose as “the society of the spectacle” in its most insidious form, not through overt propaganda, but through the unconscious osmosis of reel culture’s aesthetic norms. Like Adorno’s “culture industry” (Dialectic of Enlightenment), this phenomenon does not announce its colonisation; it simply embeds itself, naturalising foreign gestures and linguistic tics until they supplant local idiom without resistance. The problem is not merely imitation, but normalisation, the quiet violence by which the imported displaces the indigenous, not through force, but through sheer ubiquity.
Expressions, as Raymond Williams reminds us (Marxism and Literature), are never merely individual acts, they are collective articulations of cultural consciousness. When a generation adopts the vocal fry of American influencers, the exaggerated gasps of K-drama reactions, or the clipped consonants of British prestige accents, not for communication, but for performative sweetness or seduction, they engage in what postcolonial theorists would call linguistic self-exoticization. Homi Bhabha (The Location of Culture) might frame this as mimicry without mastery, where the borrowed dialect does not elevate but diminishes, rendering the speaker neither authentically local nor convincingly foreign, just a ventriloquist’s dummy for globalised affect.
The tragedy is not in the borrowing itself (cultures have always hybridised), but in the asymmetrical cultural economy at play. The reel era has turned language into a pick-and-mix identity buffet, where the privileged curate accents like accessories, while the marginalised shed theirs like shameful baggage.
In the end, this is not just about sounding ridiculous, it’s about sounding erased. Every exaggerated uwu or forced vocal fry isn’t just cringe; it’s a small obituary for a linguistic heritage that no longer feels worth keeping. And the algorithm, that great cultural homogeniser, rewards only those willing to auction off their dialects to the highest bidder. The reel giveth clout, and the reel taketh away dignity.
Ghulam Mohammad Khan was born and raised in Sonawari (Bandipora); an outlying town located on the wide shores of the beautiful Wullar Lake. Ghulam Mohammad believes that literature is the most original and enduring repository of human memory. He loves the inherent intricacies of language and the endless possibilities of meaning. In his writing, he mainly focuses on mini-narratives, local practices and small-scale events that could otherwise be lost forever to the oblivion of untold histories. Ghulam Mohammad considers his hometown, faith, and family to be the most important things to him. His short stories have appeared in national and international magazines like Out of Print, Kitaab, Indian Literature, Muse India, Indian Review, Inverse Journal, Mountain Ink and more. His short story collection The Cankered Rose is his forthcoming work. Presently, he teaches as an Assistant Professor at HKM Degree College Bandipora, Kashmir.
You can find more of Ghulam’s work here on Ink Pantry.
There was something about the funeral It was poorly attended. There were three of us; myself, my wife, and her son in all. It took place on Long Island surrounded by the sea. Beth Moses was the cemetery name. The grounds were bare. We did not have a rabbi, so I was given a book to read in English what were Hebrew prayers. I made it short and spoke instead. At the grave I looked. It was freshly dug and I smelled the earth. Softly, I said: “My father was always there for us. He was honest and we were never misled. He was a simple man who will be missed.” As we prepared to leave crows were gathering in the evergreens.
Unnamed
Because we sat down and the lights dimmed the film started. Because we had not seen the film before we were attentive. Had we seen the film before we would have walked out. Because the night was unpredictable, though dangerous, it was interesting. We watched the credits, though we forgot them immediately. We stole a quick glance at one another, even though we knew each other. The man sitting in front of me was tall. I only saw the topmost part of the screen. It was enough to get the gist of the movie. It was a mystery, I think. It was a foreign film with subtitles. I could only read the ends of the dialogue when it passed the tall man’s head. I think it took place during wartime because there were so many shots of planes and the men wore hats. It was a period piece, you understand. I jumped. There was a sound like the backfire of a truck; someone was shot. The audience gave way to sighs. My date pressed my hand in reassurance. The tall man got up and left. I was glad even though someone had to die for it to happen. From then on, the pace quickened. They were Germans, alright, Nazis; you could tell from the haircuts. In the city square, people swarmed in. A man on a platform addressed them, pumped his dominant arm and they cheered him. The tide shifted. It was our turn now. The Nazis ran. They bought tickets to South America. They tore off the thunderbolts from their collars. The square was littered with death heads. The people started dancing. They formed broken lines in circles like the farandole. The camera lens was wide angled. The dancing swelled to the edge. Then off it went. The audience was dancing. We were dancing. We moved in and out and turned in a circle. We danced into the street. There was such laughter, it almost sounded like tears falling, like planes passing, and I wore a hat.
The Arms of Venus
Venus, of the House of Xtravaganza, was a young boy who was a young girl who walked the catwalks of the Ballroom Culture of Harlem. She was sure sinuous, blonde, light- skinned, thin as any model was and as she said, there was nothing masculine about her. She wanted what all girls want: a home of her own, a family, a man who loved her, children. She figured in the documentary Paris Is Burning. It was the highlight of her life before a camera. She was a natural for it. She was 23 when they found her. It was a Christmas morning when the police were called about suspicious circumstances. Venus’s body was shoved under a bed in a seedy hotel room in Manhattan. She had been strangled. Her birth mother and her adopted House Mother are still looking for the killer. No one knows who did it. Another culture, antagonistic to the Ballroom Culture, was responsible. There exists an Executive Order that denies her existence, that scrubs her from the Book of the Living. Poor dear, she was enchanting in all those scenes where she lay in bed even in plastic curlers.
Jack Galmitz was born in 1951 in New York City. He attended the public schools from which he graduated. He holds a Ph.D in American Literature from the University of Buffalo. He has published widely, in print and online journals, including Otoliths, FIxator Journal, Utriculi 2025 issue 2, Offcourse #102, Former People, and others. He lives in New York with his wife.
The statue of Apollo stood in the museum´s hall, in the midst of the sculptures of the brightest antiquity-time. The man visited it with the clearest Arthurian grail, so that Phoebus awoke, with sheen of the first moon and star.
That Apollo was a friend of the museum´s warden,
who knew in moony dreams the petrified tears for ever. Apollo in the dazzling stone meant a whiff of the time. Nobody felt like eternally tender morn – a dream.
However amusing miracle of midnight happened. The Phoebus became like a German-human, the soft man, when Apollo was awakened through the enchantment. And his heartlet was manlike as well as so immortal.
Apollo was able to think and muse such an oracle. And he sent meek sagacity into the gentle spring. The oracle showed only worlds like tenderly made pearls. Apollo and this oracle had the souls from star-wind.
He was in position to dream like eternal dreamer. His dreameries had epiphany of the hot wings-tides. The souls of the divine sweetheart could bewitch hearts and tear, perpetuate thus – softly the spell-like feast for the eyes.
The God could write poetries such night ovidian offspring. He adored the spell of moonlet and tender shooting stars. The enchanted distant night shone dreaming, gleaming, glinting. His soul was close the gracefulness of the benign homeland.
The envoy of Elysium wanted to philosophize. The ontology of miracle became most lovely. The naiads became fair she-friends of the eternal things. The celestial eudemonia became just so dreamy.
Paweł Markiewicz was born 1983 in Siemiatycze in Poland. He is poet who lives in Bielsk Podlaski and writes tender poems, haiku as well as long poems. Paweł has published his poetries in many magazines. He writes in English and German.
You can find more of Paweł’s work here on Ink Pantry.