to flash or not to flash

I have a short piece up at Matchbook called Buchenwald. Such things are often called flash, or flash fiction, or micro-fiction. I don't like the word flash. It reminds me of 'flash in the pan,' or Flash Gordon, or a flasher. And mine's a story, though not a fictional one. I wish there were another label for it. Matchbook's subhead is "stories quite short," which I can live with.

New Pages says of Buchenwald, "If you were thinking the story would be light subject matter, YOU THOUGHT WRONG. It's super short, intense, sad, and somehow humorous."

I can live with that, too. Germany isn't much of a tourist destination, but there are some places and things worth seeing. And a concentration camp really is worth anyone's time, depressing and horrid as it may be.

High Heeled

I always want more:
more Everest, more starshine,
something in the department of vertical.

That’s why I’m up here.
It’s better than smog,
better than settling.

Since coaching myself to one-up
the utmost, my dreams
only know the Amazonian. 

Could you say that again?
At these heights, I hardly
hear you. Sometimes from 

my perch on the umpteenth
floor, I feel the distant pinch
of the finite. You’ll see 

others like me, pumped
up, outrageous in altitude.
In the ascendent, 

the hitch remains poise,
attaining cliff stillness, 

and nerve enough not to topple.

Go fly a kite

I am not at all into Harper Lee. I read “To Kill a Mockingbird” as a teenager, possibly for school. I re-read it as an adult some years ago, and it struck me as a black-and-white YA novel. People like that, I get it. For those who want a soothing, unnuanced look at good vs. evil in competent prose, it’s a good place to tank up. I'm not dissing it, just don't think it deserves the unbounded praise it's received.

But with the whole “Go Set a Watchman” mania raging now all I can say is go away. I wouldn’t even think of reading it. (Ok, for a thousand dollars.) I don’t even care what a Watchman is. Is it a wearable gadget? I don't know. And I’m not going to spend another 2 minutes thinking about it. 

For me the best thing about “To Kill a Mockingbird” is that internet meme with the adorable grey cat looking at the book and exclaiming “WTF ... this book has absolutely no information on killing birds.” Exactly. 

In fact, cat and dog and other animal videos pretty much do for me what Harper Lee does for people, only more economically.

First, identify

XYZ is a runic chant.
XIX is a fresh gust of wind.
XLX is a kind of claustrophobic flipbook.
XSY is a book of bridges.

XWZ is Joyce-like rabbit hole of loss.
XKY is a brave oddity.
XZC is an unusual specimen.
XCK is consistently smart.
XKC is a masterpiece of human hysterics.

(First lines of selected book reviews at the Pank blog.)

3-5-3

scorching sun,
the corner winos
switch to white