top of page
ghows_gallery_ei-TX-200728959-8238880b-1.jpg.webp

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→

  • Instagram
  • Black Facebook Icon
  • Black Twitter Icon

CONTACT

For any media inquiries, please contact me.

Thanks for submitting!

Join our mailing list

Thanks for subscribing!

  • Robert Roman
    • Sep 30, 2023

My Own Private Ulysses: Buck Mulligan’s Mild Morning Metaphors


"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air."

- Ulysses, James Joyce


Buck Mulligan’s Mild Morning Martello Metaphors


Would the servant’s lookingglass

Be a symbol in Buck’s black mass

If it lacked that crooked crack?

Nope. That’d be too off-the-rack.

Is the bard’s borrowed noserag

Enough to make you gasp and gag

Without that tasty green snot?

Or poet’s new hue? Of course not.

And what of Mulligan’s blade?

Why aren’t any poetics played?

Because unlike tropes prior,

His razor lacks modifier?

Buck’s blade needs an additive,

The almighty adjective.


Stay tuned for more short-lined sonnets.

Same snotgreen time, same cracked channel.


Or if you insist,

Subscribe to the mailing list.

Comments

bottom of page