It was my turn to clean up. Everyone was so tense with the International stand-off and all, so I was mopping under the launch control panel while the others were on break. The special key was already inserted next to red switches, and I thought, “Oh hell, why not.”
by-Doug Mathewson
So deal with my undergarments and pull up my pants.
Tuck in my shirt tails and do the button.
Fiddle with my belt and I’m done.
That’s enough, I’ve lost interest.
The zipper can be for another day.
by Doug Mathewson
Used to be only Doctors gave out flu shots.
Then couple of years back pharmacies joined in.
How seems you can go most anyplace to be inoculated.
A waitress gave my wife hers while she and the kids waited for pizza.
I got mine at the car wash. The girl who gave me the shot looked
like she knew about needles, in a spoon and candle kind of way.
by Doug Mathewson
He was a private person.
He liked to whistle, and told strange jokes.
Quiet by nature, he was painfully shy.
Just worked hard and kept to himself
People said that he looked like
baseball great “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio”.
Poor dad was so embarrassed
when The Slugger married Marilyn Monroe.
You said your mom was really letting herself go, and had put on a lot of weight. With sneer of distain you added she was now wearing “foundation garments”.
I thought of Asimov and didn’t see what was so bad.
by-Doug Mathewson
My watch stuttered for a week and it didn’t seem like a battery.
The watch repair man said it was solar, just leave it on the car dash for a day. “No charge”, he said. To return the favor I bought a pair of antique cuff-links from him. They are Roman lion heads in gold. Now I need to buy a shirt with French cuffs. Something in blue with a small stripe I think.
It would have been cheaper to buy a watch
by-Doug Mathewson
Blink Ink and Full of Crow Press and Distribution are proud to announce
our 2013 Pushcart Award Nominations.
“Foreign” by Sharon Coleman
“French Exam” by Brad Rose
“The First Snow” by Samantha Sigler
Thanks to everyone who helped Blink Ink this past year.
We have many new and wondrous things coming up for 2014
Our new contact and submissions address is:
blinkinkinfo@gmail.com
Doug Mathewson
Editor Blink Ink
Lynn Alexander
Full of Crow
Finally! Kitty thought. Finally, finally, finally! Something that works for a change.
Since arriving in Brooklyn after a tour of duty, well most of tour of duty, with the Jamaican Space Navy, Kitty hadn’t had much luck. She just couldn’t seem to catch a trendy trend at the right time to make a few bucks.
She was too late for the cup-cake craze, even though peddling them from a rickshaw was cute. She setup her store front as a dance school and called it “The Mambo Academy of Kitty Wang”. It should have worked being both obscure and ironic. Two
sure-fire hipster hits. Maybe the timing was wrong, maybe the place didn’t look DIY enough. Who could say?
In a half hearted effort to make rent she sold artisanal beers out of a cooler, and let her patrons play their own vinyl on her thrift store record player. But the locals who came
in mostly played with their phones and didn’t seem into the concept. As a joke
(or maybe not) she put a sandwich board out front that said:
“Smart-phone night every Saturday”
“All Smart-phones drink for free!”
(people $20)
She even offered a safe rides program. Any phone that had one too many
was given a free ride home from her upstairs neighbor a vegan bicycle messenger (people $20).
When in my fantasies,
my ongoing daydreams
of imagined worlds
consumed with my inner dramas,
did I stop being the hero,
and become the victim!
That’s not how it should go.
Not at all.
News from the front….
As some folks know, and some folks don’t, I run a small print journal of 50 word fiction.
it is called Blink-Ink and is produced with help from Full of Crow Press and Distribution.
Full of Crow is where I hang my hat so to speak. After months of techno problems we have
moved our email. Any of you who write very short fiction please find us online at
blink-ink dot com and submit your work to blinkinkinfo at gmail dot com.
It’s fun and easy. Take a look and see.