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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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  • Robert Roman
    • Feb 1

My Own Private Ulysses: Dr. Strangebloom



How I learned to stop worrying and love               

The book called Ulysses by Herr Satan.                

I tried to read every guide. Well, sort of.           

But my crooked path would never straighten.           

I joined James Joyce's prayer force: Nabokov,        

Kenner, Hart, Bloom – Harold, not Leopold.            

And prepared for takeoff with this Luftwaffe,         

But the cock-and-pulpit felt remote-controlled.      

When the mind-shaft gap widened toward doomsday,      

I blitzed through the bomb bay doors in time,         

to fall from grace to The Journal of Bloomsday,       

Where I abandoned all reason for rhyme.               

When lost and foundering in abysses,             

Win by finding your own private Ulysses.



Stay tuned for more strangesonnets.

Same strangetime, same strangechannel.

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