The short fiction of j hardy carroll
A measure of knot complexity is the number of minimum crossings that must occur when a knot is viewed as a two-dimensional projection According to calculation (yours, or anyone’s) there are more tangled states than untangled states. Thousands at least, when you shove your headphones into your pocket ready at last to listen It took…
Know your history: Thomas Jefferson invented the modern plow along with the United States A social man, a friend to Freedom. He kept his slaves secreted behind doors designed, by him, to pivot with barely a whisper: empty walnut shelves suddenly filled with wine, sweetmeats, cheeses as though by magic.…
these children I’m defending innocent and beautiful circle us elder so concerned that we see but rarely ask honestly or just do something. better to ask forgiveness than permission. these children guessed and we, so much wiser told them what was true since down we forgot as up we grew.…
This cruise we were promised boxers: vascular and hungry for victory. These boys would stop at nothing, we were told. The prize was a golden belt marked CHAMPION in genuine rhinestones. When we were awakened and had drinks from a tray, shuffled down staircases to the hold, the newly installed boxing ring, we paid attention…
the window is the window the glass, the same the wall, the same the same old house looks out on the sea, never the same, not for a moment neither the air nor the water. when I close my eyes to look out the window the sea takes everything: my lungs, my hair,…
my grandfather rode up on his motorcycle and tossed me a wrapped canvas toolkit in my dream. Greasy wrenches screwdrivers so old the walnut handles looked like rocks. He knew I was in trouble had been a long time all my old friends had turned against me for reasons of their own and I had…
Your good mood will you mind if it doesn’t last forever? When you get laughing you must know it all has to end sometime spun sugar stays fluffy only as long as it stays dry but sooner or later you find out it’s a rainy climate The Daily Post
The matted grass so dense the fencepost I hammer rings jerking from the peen, waving like a stormborne mast until at last it punches through the clang turned to thud soft and unresisting wounding the hillside Weak now, my hands ache as I stretch them in their rotten gloves twisted and black like river trees…
It is the obvious thing we find may never be understood, a phantom limb that begs to bear weight The last place we look is where we find it. Only a fool would keep looking, then. A bed showing the shape of sleeper is unmade, sloppy. The pea under the mattress is a thing you…
Jamais vu, never seen an odd impression that you see a common thing you’ve seen a thousand times for the first time the face of a relative, say or the face in the mirror But the mirror doesn’t count, does it? Nobody but you knows what that looks like, backwards, with your best expression frozen…