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Robert

Roman

Empire

RED BRICK ALLEY STORIES

The Killards Are Coming

Every damn day in Religion Class, Sister Anna Banana yapped about the Soviets revving up to start a nuclear war with the new president, Ronald Reagan. She said after the cities burned to Holy Hell, there’d be something called “nuclear winter” that would kill all... 

Double-Strength Demon Dogs

Fantastic Freddie was the only altar boy from the Red Brick Alley. He was always consecrating Ritz Crackers and trying to make us eat them like communion wafers. He light-fingered incense from the sacristy, and he blessed water from Old Lady Tully’s spigot...

Laser Loop

I couldn’t see over the tall green school bus seat except when we hit a pothole and I bounced up in the air like a Pop-Tart jumping out of a toaster. Nobody at Saint Augie’s could believe I was allowed to go. My first school picnic ever. I was good from the day I handed in my pink...

The Boy Wonder

How the Hell did Jaggerbush get himself up there? He was clawing his way up into the open window above the Science class door like a real-life gargoyle. The blockhead of a wooden mallet stuck out of the back of his Toughskins where his butt crack was. He wore three...

About The Author

Rob.jpg

Robert Roman grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, where he sold newspapers to cars from a concrete island. Read more→

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Wandering Through Used Books

 

Merchants’ Arch has a bookshop down below:

Lenehan links M’Coy by the elbow            

After he calls old Bloom, Leopoldo.              

 

Stephen Dedalus, too, is on the go

Past faded prints in Clohissey’s window.    

Then halts at a bookcart on Bedford Row,    

    

Recalls himself Stephano Dedalo,                 

Pawned school prizes: alumno optimo    

Tattered pages of memory’s echo.                 

 

“How to win a woman’s love,” reads Stephano.     

Say the following thrice, Se el yilo            

Nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo!”              

 

Yo, Jimbo, so what is the dillio?           

Do used books bestow an ultimate O?              

Or do you simply prefer Italiano?           

 

Va bene, Giacomo. Buongiorno!


In the Modernist spirit of improvisation and innovation, not to mention versification and alliteration, we provide the sonnetfication of a previous prose piece. The original essay left the Joyceverse no choice but to pretend it did not exist. Read the suppressed essay here.



“He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout stuck out.”

– Ulysses, James Joyce



Bloom is Our Kettle

 

Bloom’s double is his own kitchen kettle,

“It sat there, dull and squat, its spout stuck out.”

Cast-iron, both made of equal mettle,

Heated, hard-up, throughout the day’s long route.

Bloom’s clad in black, well-dressed for death this day.

But poor Paddy Dignam’s surprise demise

Could never keep Bloom’s blazing gaze at bay.

The femme form he will ever idolize.

But Bloom’s womanly, Doc Dixon maintained.

And Gerty’s flirty flash his seed did spill.

Still, in Bella’s brothel his spout sustained.

Bloom has no need for a little blue pill.

My cracked-glass kettle pouts, limp-wired, and wrecked.

My own double’s spout stands short of erect.

 



Subscribe and stay tuned for more sonnetfications.

Same ignored time, same unadorned channel.


"She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat’s udder. The warmth of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea she poured.

A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.

—Who was the letter from? he asked."

 

— Ulysses, James Joyce



Today’s Ezraku:

 

The Jeer in the Ear of Bloom

 

Jingle of invisible brass under my bed:

Tingle of risible ass-plunder, my dread.

© 2016 by Robert Roman - Red Brick Alley
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