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PseudoFables
Collected over the course of the past decade, the following represent the best and most cogent examples of a whole pseudo-genre, unattributed/unattributable bits of wisdom and observation bubbling up from the froth of cyborgian hyper-awareness. This is, possibly, what intelligence will mean when the majority of cognitive processes are outsourced from the frontal lobe. But Continue reading
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PostModernVillage Conference 2023
–EW Wilder This year’s Purewater University PostModernVillage Conference represented, like so many things in 2023, a “return to normal,” reminding all of us of how terrible “normal” actually is. The conference, held as was usual in the Purewater University Student Capital Accumulation (formerly the Student Union, until a wealthy industrialist donor objected), was plagued by Continue reading
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13 Ways a Blue Jay Is Lookin’ at Me
(With a few apologies to Wallace Stevens) 1. The blue jay feels free to stare–there are no blackbirds here. 2. Belly-deep in the birdbath, his gaze betrays no gratefulness. 3. A light strip of stippled mask embeds eyes poised to fight. 4. There is no peace in the blue jay’s forward gait, his attendance to Continue reading
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Voices of Fragrance and Termination
By the summer of 1998, Bean Newton’s life was, by all accounts, in freefall: his relationship with Donna McKnifey was ending in a series of ever more bizarre pagan rituals, his job as a night-shift floor-tech at a major big box retailer had grown unfulfilling, and his ability to communicate in anything other than cryptic Continue reading
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On Being an Idiot
by Lael Ewy I am an idiot. This is not an insult. No denigration of self-esteem is implied in this case; like others, of course, I do have many good reasons to despise myself, but those reasons have little to do with my own idiocy. Because I am an idiot, though, it took me decades Continue reading
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ZB
by S. Oterica Coli Zamboni Buttfinger was named after an ice-surfacing machine, which wasn’t so bad by itself, and so he let it slide, but because he came from a long, proud line of Buttfingers, he found he could not do anything whatsoever about his last name. A combination of paradox, bullying, and lassitude led Continue reading
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Of Men and Monarchs
by E.G. Wonsktein 1. The funeral-goer. On his lapel, an orchid. His suit, agreeably black, the margins of his trim form, from toe to top, cut with awful symmetry. Temples grey, his shave close, the funeral-goer smiles warm and wan, not broadly; shakes hands, just enough firmness to reassure, just long enough to kiss the Continue reading
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America (after Allen Ginsburg)
by Rita D. Costello I, too, sing America –Langston Hughes (after Walt Whitman), “Epilogue” (1926)America why are your libraries full of tears? –Allen Ginsberg, “America” (1956) America, I listen to 1920s/30s/40s folk music and recognize all the same issues. You are still slaying black boysand shorting wages.But I wonder how you slaughtered the unionsthen a source Continue reading
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Fragmentary Genius & [Headline Fragments]
Fragmentary Geniusby E.W. Wilder It was never clear if Bean Newton’s “fragments” were intentional or not. Newton, known for embracing of postmodern pastiche, may have created these works to intentionally appear unfinished, a sort of absurdist nod to the Japanese concept of wabi sabi. It is just as likely, though, that the unfinished work is merely Continue reading
EastWesterly Review
since 1999
Comments & Criticism / Poetry & Prose
EastWesterly Review 