Chris Kingsley
SOME CHARACTER SKETCHES FOR MY NEXT UNPUBLISHED NOVEL
Jerry smoked
like someone who didn’t
think he was getting away
with smoking.
Without clapping her hands in quick succession she
clapped her hands in quick succession at Charles’
sudden demise.
Yes, Olivia responded as
the ducks landed on the
darkening lake like
a chess move.
It depends on how stewed the
tomatoes are was
I-can’t-remember-his name’s response
to a question I’ve since
forgotten.
What does Our Love Is The New Vinyl
even mean? Jason thought later
on the slow bus ride home,
wondering if he read
the tattoo on her left butt
cheek correctly.
Old Man Carmichael drove
his ‘63 Rambler like
a harpsichord.
You want a fight? Then you got
a fight, pal, the enraged haikuist
said, snapping a dry
rice noodle
crisply.
The fifteen years Cedric dedicated
to acquiring clown paintings was a big
mistake he understood he
was making while he was
making it but could not help
himself the way a tiny
car cannot stop giving up
clowns even when, especially
when, it’s giving up
clowns.
When Trey, a philosophy student, dropped
a tab of acid in a goldfish bowl, either
the fish swam upside down for a week
or Trey, having taken a tab, too,
stood on his head for the same amount
of time. He didn’t know which it was,
he only knew that it couldn’t be
both. That is, until he switched his
major to poetry.
When the IRT 7th Avenue
Uptown Express came bounding from
its hole like some giant worm in
an old Japanese movie, Gerald,
standing on the platform,
imagined taking a ride
on Godzilla’s shoulders instead. Or hopping
on Mothra for a breezy flight to Marble Hill.
The service probably wouldn’t be
better, he thought, but Gerald
liked a monster with
a name.
Why doesn’t it say The End or
Finis anymore at the end of
novels? Ted thought as
he finished the novel. Or
thought he finished
the novel.
FAUXBIA
Uh-oh.
Not to be
authentic but
merely clever is
becoming
a real fear.
Chris Kingsley lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.