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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

My Own Private Ulysses: Happy Bloom Year!



Happy Bloom Year! It’s the same as Leap Year,              

Depending how you define the word ‘same.’                   

Both provide an extra day on our sphere,              

If time-hop-skip-and-jumping is your game.            

One’s a Gregorian rounding error,                      

And one sails backward through the book’s time door,       

Named after Homer’s god-cursed seafarer,              

And lands in June, Nineteen Hundred and Four.              

Bloom’s port calls from a Devil’s Triangle,           

Where one-plus-one-is-two does trip and fall,         

And from the clock’s anchor chain you’ll untangle,         

And free-dive in depths outside of time’s trawl.      

With Bloomsday, every year is a Bloom Year,      

Have faith, read Joyce, leap from the now and here.



Stay tuned for more sometime sonnets.

Same timeless time, same watery channel.

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