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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: Bloom at the Los Angeles Festival of Books

Apr 21, 2024

Today’s Hemingway Half-Dozen Prose Poem -

Book Festivus.

USC Campus.

Ulysses: Ubiquitous.

My Own Private Ulysses: Bloomsday Radio

Apr 17, 2024

I feel a cold, old wind fondle my ear,

Buck’s words I hear, he’s one bad amigo.

Atop Martello Tower, he’s all jeer.

Tune in, I’m on a Bloomsday Radio.

I feel a tightening in my scrotum,

And my tally whacker yells tallyho.

The Irish Sea is so cold, she shrinks him.

Turned blue, I’m on a Bloomsday Radio.

No comprende, why’s it freezing in June?

My blood has ebbed. Wait, was that an ice floe?

Now my California eggplant’s a prune!

Tapped out, I’m on a Bloomsday Radio.

Next June, I’ll turn the dial to Calypso.

Or cuddle this cold and just go commando.

Stay tuned for more voodoo sonnets.

Same southern time, same border channel.

My Own Private Ulysses: Bloomsday Hero

Apr 10, 2024

Turning pages he could not comprehend,

when he read one book, Joyce’s tour de force.

And that one book never came to an end,

So he snuck into a Joyce honors course.

Then he heard word of a Bloomsday event,

In his hometown, Pittsburgh, he had to go.

From Fort Pitt to Murphy’s Tap Room he went.

Joyce in his mind, he’s a Bloomsday Hero.

And he read and reread, he went all-in.

That book, he had to find what lied behind.

Decades flew, then he did too, to Dublin.

A Bloomsday Hero, got Joyce in his mind.

A foreigner wandering to-and-fro,

Joyce in his mind, he’s a Bloomsday Hero.

Stay tuned for more 80s sonnets.

Same sentimental time, same nostalgic channel.

Robert Roman