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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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My Own Private Ulysses: Bloom is Our Kettle

Robert Roman

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.

1 Comment


kent.gibbons
Feb 05

Poor Dignam!

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© 2016 by Robert Roman - Red Brick Alley
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