obamacare
there’s only one box that will qualify you for the state plan: click itYou look againit’s true just click itSo this is the strategy: if you lose your job you’re bound to the bloated company insurance unless there’s another tragedy that also appliesit applies: click itits just like the first therapy sessionthe question was posed,…
yer ferst
Yer ferst little terdin yer little trainer potty,no bigger than a pea,but you made it with your body!You such lov’d t’play “movin’ bowels,”ye tried three more times ‘fore throw’n in the towel;what a joy for da-da to see,that little terd no bigger than a pea!
kavame, kaptain
weds I have less than $1.50 in total bank assets. Payday is Friday. I could stay in and meditate but I have a revelation: pawn loans. I look up the value of the old PRS knockoff I got when I helped that guy move out and figure I’ll get enough to cover a couple nights…
sora
If a fbleys born and no one complains Well that’s good luck Running through young veins; And if life is a blessing That brushes the tops of the trees, Well it’s a short walk In a sweet breeze. I will need you, feed you, lead you, plead with you— All for the taste of your…
6 mos l8r
2much journaling to write; nothing worth writing about over living; wait til a lawyer tells you to journal, i say. Then you’ll learn. I am now learnt. The livings both bad and good. First, profoundly bad. The robots couldnt fixt it. Ttoo many typos. I gave up the martyrdom. Theres a new unrequited queen; size…
Script: Mr G and Mr Robot #1
Mr Gringo: what is the best way forward for two adults with a 16 month old child who are dealing with the constant conflicts arising from issues of the past, when one person who is the mother of the child has decided not to complete counseling sessions that are focused on resolving and overcoming past…
fourth
Her supremely pleasant nature suddenly arisen in our time together has me wondering if another shoe will drop. We take our girl to visit my friends three quarters hour south, bbq, shootthesheet. Our wives hit it off; she’s pregnant. We play some music in the den. The dogs are raucous, but well enough intentioned. Our…
tickling yourself
when things get better it’s hard to not want to keep the edge all the timebut time gets slower in the evenings humming variations and bass lines too the lullabies on the sound boxtonight she cries and cries until she’s nested comfortably in my forearms,one foot propped specifically in a crookeyes tight shut and is…
deputies at the door
she sees him on the phone after he told her he would call the police. Tired of her sleeping with the baby on the bed. An overreaction sure, but he tells her its just his mother, which it is. She says, you arent supposed to be talking to them, and you woke her up twice,…
4.24.24
At 11:11 PM he recalled:That day things seemed to pivot. Emotional momentum shifting. Palindromic. Fastforward to the night before last: her phone on the ground. What do the neighbors think? was it all numerological phooey? Not sure what to hope any more, she flys away daily for a week to work. He and the babe…
wheelsonthebus
I’m coming back from the grocery store about 9pm when she texts me she needs the car all week. Won’t tell me why. The next time she texts me it’s 1:30am and she had just called me frantically to mess with me, ended the call in a furor. In the text she claims the baby…
what miracle
Each week a new struggle emerging from the constant chaos. something dark in her severe beautiful expression that separates us, keeps her and us from healing.O, bring us back to some place in our hearts when we could see things as if each of us were human:And if it was never good, how did we…
coconut
do you remember back when you first were gone so long i stacked the empty cartons of coconut water in the corner of the ultramarine bedroom til they toppled overhead i sent you a dead butterfly i found preserved with modpodge in an envelope and you loved it in its petrified beauty back before we…
PTI4TMI
Her figure a shadow in the dark of the room behind him: what are you doing? Nothing. Show me your phone. No. She thinks it’s something worse than it is. Lewd videos perhaps. A text to a girlfriend. She grabs the phone. He knows what he’s written won’t please her. He knows in any case…
hellofaday
Started with the solemnity of their dysfunction from overnight: when he brought his swollen member out at first she said ‘stop’ but after the usual rituals he’d grown accustomed to she had exposed herself and rolled over, opened her legs, kissed him back hard, came twice. Only after they were well into the afternoon did the…
Last Resort
No one ever thinks it will come to this one thinks 6000 miles from home crying to one’s parents on the phone— The reassurances the same as they always are but this time something sticks different The sun broils and nights come quick after six— They leave with one’s daughter as if they don’t owe…
Double Vision
The corners of the eyes hade become open ground for apparitions. Figures emergerd out of empty rooms and turned back into hanging linens, furniture, a shelf on the wall. One morning he wakes up, fully alert, hallucinating his wifes voice beside him asking ‘so how’s it going at work?’ He knows shes asleep and not…
Weeping to “While my guitar…”
Dropped you off at the airport for the tenth time this week. Song came on on the ride back to our house. Using these pronouns while I still can. Don’t want the end of this thing we made to be any more imminent than I do any other kind of doom. Do you really think…
bit of a lyric
Playing this game called reality I’m virtually free: From my fingers to my toes feeling things gettin digital…
Angel in blue
A week ago, over the top branches of the trees two blocks away, the flicking linear beeline of a hummingbird out to enjoy the uncommonly warm weather. The darting, pausing path discloses the species even without the need for binoculars. It brings back the times they’ve flown so close as to see their spectacular green…
Angel spec?
Three weeks ago, maybe four–lying in bed and inbetween sleep and reality…what spectral being descended thru the oblivion of my mind: folding golden flowing forms growing closer, close enough to encounter, a rumination or revelation? Was this the visit I’d been praying for?Yesterday morning in the broken dawn, I heard my name, startled awake, seeked…
Cin’min girl
Driving home I heard the gritting sounds of Neil Young‘s cinnamon girl on the radio. I pondered all the different transitions that made the song so great as I turned onto my street. The radio started to give out, and I almost lost the signal—but the distortion of the interfering airwaves only added to my…
Beatles Bass
When I got my Beatles bass, it was about a year into the pandemic. It struck me that we couldn’t finish the band without a bass. Sure we had five guitars and electric drum kit, tambourines and keys, but without a bass it felt like a bone was missing. I started searching the piece of…
7 W’s
When you heard about the intercepted hypersonics, what did you imagine? Was this the sign the war was turning, or merely propaganda against R/P–“Western defense systems” referenced as the reason the “unstoppable” had been stopped forebodes–Wow, a hundred years ago we had just all gotten out of the first WW–Without realizing the next one was…
feeling asimovian
I was just thinking: It’s about time I bought a real robot.
sumthings
I remember being up each day at 5 and getting the grind on like a real devotee, putting in the hours towards that beacon, finding the energy when it wasn’t there. I thought that was hard. Ha.The prayer was: help us find grace when we feel we are depleted. I had tried to secularize it.…
carmel makiato
5/4/23watching the drip in the automatic espresso makerforms a pool of coffee in the foam-I spin the cup a few times, a twitch-when I pull the mug off the machine, look:Two brown coffee eyes, two nostril holes:What death stare is this in my morning joe? No these days are about life-spoon stir the visage away-…
FULL MS – LIMITED RELEASE
The sun is finally setting on the western edge of the country. Can you believe, 21 years ago today, the towers fell? For a limited time, here is the full manuscript free of charge. Read at your own risk. (c) 2022 Luc Gringo
4/21/22
Looking through the old files and thinking about the invasion. There was a comic I drew back in December of ’20. The point was to show what was happening politically, take a guess at what was really going on back stage. I thought it might be a prophetic kind of satire at the time and…
CH II: Ante Bellum Longissimum
Eddie walks into the office with a leather jacket slung over his shoulder. He sees the shadow of the ten gallon hat on the wall beyond: Busto “the clown” is conducting business.
CH. I: I’m a Soul Man (Repeat 4X)
So the long and short of it when Eddie comes clean is this: I say to him Eddie, when you lied about your mother, I mean about everything before we met, whenev-er that was, it’s just—I mean how do I know now it’s not a lie, too?
CH. VII: He, Don Ism
Farmer is not out in the field behind Sinkers to find Eddie there fumigating his eyewear, he’s just relieving himself against the skeleton of a birch tree with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other…
M.O.M.E.N.T.O.U.S.*
So the long and short of it when Eddie comes clean is this: I say to him Eddie, when you lied about your mother, I mean about everything before we met, whenev-er that was, it’s just—I mean how do I know now it’s not a lie, too?
THE_BYZANTIUM_DIARIES 