Total Oblivion

"A fast-paced, suspenseful dystopian picaresque, part Huck Finn and part bizarro-world Swiss Family Robinson..."

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Skinny Dipping

Long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and finalist for the Crawford Award. Title short story listed for the 2000 O. Henry award.

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Goblin Mercantile Exchange

Futures, Options, and Swaps (the weblog of Alan DeNiro)

In the Vulgate (new poem)

In the Vulgate

I don’t want to be fine.
The desperation
of a presence incites.
the existent secrets in a coffeehouse jam band, in the fundraiser for a child’s cancer (a pancake dinner, a silent
auction) a flyer, and the strip mall will last for a while, maybe
past my life.
Are we to spurn the redeemed verse his exorcism and exactitude?
No, I haven’t
called for that.
The venison
crawls out of the woods, well…it can’t really be called a woods anymore,
mostly brush, thistles sharp,
interspersed with trees too
young to remember the hangings all over. The creek dividing through
with mercury alive in it, cesium
the roadmap of the water. The
wild rings curate instead
of cure.

The venison crawls rubs out of the blackberries, which are fruits,
but also weeds.

And the family, some of them anyway, will come into
the pinnacle. I urinate
homonculi of Zoloft commercials into catfish farms.
purpose of plastic
capsules? Spiritual blessings winter in the holes. Crafted long and short. Walk
away but then…return to hear more and more.
Candles flicker oft in 3 below.
Have you
tried the concierge service to stop this wind? Will
mindful activities dance in
our thoughts while smurfs cake their gums with dishwashing
jobs and try to get the decongestant
out of the gold-leaf? If
I saw say those
faces it would not have been enough. I would have
kept walking inside. “the art of marriage: a six
session video event” on
the bulletin, we
are a strip mall of dogwalking plumbers
phoning it in.
Face me.
The rancor
is mum and the speakers won’t be coming on until we are
gone, I mean really gone, uninsured
against catastrophic injury.

Then herons labor and labor.

Park in the back end, however,
see where they go in and put on hats, aprons, those metal
doors with alphanumeric codes are
the shrines.
Where the trash leaves, the uneaten black bags in concord.
My sneakers caked with salt
from the plows,
I vie with sardines.
The bough came from the swamp
with zero fanfare. It lanced
all in a stark tongue.
Touched by the tadpoles carrying it. I’ll lie down here just
a couple more minutes,
as it turns out.

Sun, January 16 2011 » Poetry

2 Responses

  1. Mary January 20 2011 @ 11:27 am

    Alan, I love this!

  2. Alan January 28 2011 @ 11:07 pm

    thanks Mary, that means a lot to me, coming from you! Hope you are well!

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