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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...

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: Joycespearean Sonnet 76

5 hours ago

Joycespearean Sonnet 76

Why is the state of my verse plump with pride,

That old original sin of the fiend?

Why do I place my work so far outside,

Where love is lost and I lie unredeemed?

Why choose to live without the books of life,

And run away from your divine domain.

When I was born, within me stirred a strife,

They knew I was blessed with the mark of Cain.

And just in case you look but still can’t tell,

I don’t adore this Heaven that you host.

My place is not your pages, it’s your Hell.

My banishment is what I love the most.

James Joyce was shunned by this same choosy choir,

So, I’ll run The Robert Roman Empire.

My Own Private Ulysses: Joycespearean Sonnet 18 Again

Sep 26

Joycespearean Sonnet 18 Again

Shall I compare all my days to Bloomsday?

June the sixteenth’s one loopy strange affair,

The map and calendar both lose their way,

And all time’s now and here is everywhere:

The streets of Dublin in 1904,

The Greek blue sea three thousand years ago,

The Red Brick Alley outside my back door,

His time warp twirls the world with vertigo.

As measurements and metrics finally fall,

And my own private big bang goes ka-boom,

And ego spins and splats against the wall,

Am I me or am I Leopold Bloom?

Joyce looked through loopholes in modernity,

And booked one strange trip to eternity.

My Own Private Ulysses: Homerotic Joycespearean Sonnet 144

Aug 25

Homerotic Joycespearean Sonnet 144

I love them, Circe and Calypso both.

Unlike those myths these women live for real,

With Molly I sleep soundly, bound by oath,

While Bella’s scary-go-round makes me squeal.

My wife’s a bird who lullabies all day,

And introverts my life within her cage,

While Circe casts me in perverted play,

And keeps me up all night on circus stage.

What’s worse, all this has me beyond confused,

I can’t tell life from myth or wife from witch,

Their bondage and my freedom lie infused.

These words be true, love is life’s greatest glitch.

And when I say greatest, I mean the worst.

See, even words and meanings lie reversed.

Robert Roman