Brian Kenneth Swain

Take me to your leader, the alien said. I said what? He repeated it. And I said why? He said it was something he had seen in a movie we broadcast and they thought it would be swell if they greeted us in the way that we expected to be greeted. So I explained the concept of clichés and then we went out for ...

I am guessing her hair is blue. But just a guess for all I see are knuckles, white knuckles that clutch at the wheel like a drowning swimmer clings to flotsam. The left turn signal has been flashing since Charleston, thirty-seven minutes ago. It is conceivable she really is turning but is just very cautious. Or perhaps she is a perfectly sentient old woman with a grim sense of humor. My exit was fifteen minutes ago, only now I must follow her to see how long she can keep it up. This is more entertaining, more poignant than anything I was going to do. There is something real happening here, something pure and natural, and I must see it through to its rightful end. I have come to believe that she will truly turn one day. And when she does I ...

Sponsored by SC Johnson, a family company The morning haze wraps itself around me like an old familiar blanket, or a lover’s fevered embrace. The impending day, pregnant with possibility, tickles my senses like the tang of Cool Ranch Doritos beside a swirling stream. But slowly, inexorably the sun creeps across the day, burning through the haze, shredding it like the patented double mulching action of a Toro Titan Zero-Turn mower. Only then, as the day falls into evening and the sky drifts from gold to purple, I cannot help but be reminded of the full duplex color scan picture on my Samsung 6400-Series wide-screen television, its 1080p resolution and 240 Hz frame rate rendering your radiant smile in true lifelike tones mere reality ...

Young boy bewildered, bereft, alone in center field. So inconsequential he casts no shadow in the late day sun. Uniform too big. Glove too small. Shifts his weight from one cleated foot to the other as teammates taunt the batter with Hey batters and Swing batters. But it is all so far away, and he prays please, God, don’t let it come to me. Or, if it must, if it is your will, let it be so hard hit that I have no chance. And in that entreating moment he pounds one fist into his well-oiled but scarce-used glove, trying desperately to muster whatever it is the others seem to have naturally. But all he feels is out of place, miscast and adrift upon the vast and verdant outfield. The smell of the grass. The distant shouts. He is a fly ...

Searching for Christmas ornaments in the attic, I come across an old battered carton, held fast with browned and aged tape. And drifting in subtle notes around the box, the scent of old electronics. My ancient reel-to-reel tape player, artifact of a day when music moved like the undulating waves of an ocean storm. Now it rests unused, ignored in a corner, next to a box of records, fellow soldiers, laid low in that same bitter conflict. The victor even now taunts from the living room below, tossing its cold unfeeling bits about as though samples could ever truly be the thing itself. As I turn to descend, there comes a faint hiss from within the box. Reminder of imperfection or parting gesture of insolence. Either way, a memory of how things ...

To ascend that vertiginous spire will demand of me a piece rarified and orotund. Obscure of content. Obtuse in structure. Roiling with references. Seething with sententiousness. A normal poem, first dissected into its constituent words. Puréed in a blender. The whole slushy mess Then flung out onto the lawn and run over a few passes with the mower. The tattered remnants piled together and set alight, the ashes drifting upward on the breeze Until the charred fragments float down about me, and I vacuum them up, empty the dust bag into an envelope and mail it off. The resulting poem so damned good it brings tears to their eyes and they spare no expense seeking me out, if only to learn what other-worldly muse allowed such a thing to descend ...

An incident of some consequence in the otherwise banal and occasionally frustrating life of Terry Dickerson It was sheer dumb luck brought that tree limb down directly on top of the air conditioner, and on the hottest damned day of the hottest year in living memory. Cicadas have given up their incessant kazoo playing. Even the mosquitoes, so tumultuous this time of year, have packed it in. But here stands Terry, awash in sweat from the effort of climbing the ladder and cutting the offending branch, whose only crime had been an occasional scritch scritch on the upstairs bedroom window, but whose sharp stout freshly cut end sits now firmly lodged in the compressor fan blade assembly, the motor nonetheless still attempting to turn, said ...

He stands amid the brown withered corn, used up and dusty, bereft of hope, gazing up with cracked shading hand to brow at the lone taunting gray cloud as it floats, hovers, dances, out there to the west, promising nothing, but ecstatic with possibility. The slate waving curtain of rain that hangs beneath, so faint, so far, is enough to keep him standing there, waiting, lest he miss it. It’s not about the corn anymore. That’s history. He just wants to feel the rain. Too taste it on his tongue. To remember what it’s like to have a chance. Yeah, it’s worth the wait, even if it’s just a tear or two, before the cloud slides away forever, off to some other parched and wishful ...

The hearing of this tale will request of you a few fragile moments, dear reader. Best settle yourself neath a wide-arm tree. Purge your mind of all encumbrance. Imagine a place where the sun does not shine so much as bathe. Where the snow does not fall, but envelops like your first baby blanket. Kathmandu is such a place. Or at least it is in the tales our hero weaves. His words will transport you to times and journeys long past. His voice will compel emotions you have never felt or even imagined. His vision will make you wonder what has been wrong with your eyes these many years. But, as you listen, pay special heed as well, for his stories are never quite what they seem. If you have, at some point in your life, seen the novelty plastic ...

Pick up some artichokes too if they’re fresh. And Brussels sprouts. Don’t forget the Brussels sprouts. Scrutinize chicken livers. Squeeze eggplant. Inhale French roast. Carefully poke and prod avocados of varying sizes and shades. Then select one to take home for someone else to eat. Stand perplexed before the yogurt aisle, list in hand. When did Greek become such a big deal? Is Nutrasweet better or worse than sugar? And what of milk and eggs? Good these days? Or bad? Present selections to the teenage cashier for judgment. Gauge the nuances of her expression as she offers up each to the scanner. And then, finally, comes the moment. The question. She stands waiting with silent smile. And I do feel judged. I feel like a bad person But ...