CONNECT WITH MARS
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BOOKS BY JULIAN DARIUS
OTHER FICTION AND POETRY
Magazine Archives for:
2012
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Probationary Period
Upon being hired by the Company, all new employees must serve a ninety (90) calendar day trial period. Your performance will be carefully monitored during this period. They say there’s cameras but they won’t tell… [more]
Pray to Lord I Hope at Least One of My Ears Doesn’t Pop
i. Sarah had seen him many times shedding tears exclusively for film characters. And so when Fred cried at the departure gate, she thought they might be in a documentary. ii. Paul asked Jeannie, over… [more]
Bull
After his tour of duty in Afghanistan, Billy believed he had seen everything. Arm yourself, learn to kill efficiently, develop a nose for IEDs impatient under the sand, pick up severed limbs, embrace a fallen… [more]
Unidentified Photo on the Internet
The seaweed men patrol the icy town with sticks wrapped in bumbergrass their hooked beaks hissing steam, eyes painted open against the twilight. They trudge the streets like shaggy marionettes, boots cracking glazed tarmac, past… [more]
AMYGDALA
Deep in the Eureka, Kansas bunker, there still exists one Memory Replacement protocol, invented by the late Hemispheres scientist Hans Geisser. It is a cryogenic dreaming sequencing process known officially as “Foreground Switching.” The main… [more]
Last Night
I looked in on you last night. That point-five-second draft of penguin’s breath you thought was just a gust outside the window and the birdcall you’d have sworn was from a horse were clues I… [more]
from COUNTRY
Speaking of my Goya: I had it handy when Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” came out: I had read Woody’s fictionalized autobiography, Bound for Glory (E.P. Dutton: 1943): somehow Arlo’s twenty-minute song-story-recitation moves right along with the… [more]
In Amber Gehenna
Behind the bar dangles a ribbon of yellow flypaper covered in glass bees, some of them still wriggling. Wings vibrating, antennae twitching. All to no avail. They’re not the only ones stuck, of course. Here… [more]
Five in the Morning
As I lie sleepless in the semidarkness, the birds warm up their voices, & it occurs to me that only birds know what birds are saying, just as only you know how to make me… [more]
forever tender
my friend really likes to say boom shakalaka she’s french or maybe spanish i like it when she gets excited because she wraps her whole lean powerful body around boom shakalaka it spills out all… [more]
One or the Other
My best good friend Quiddit got the bike off a fifth grader, nice orange and silver Mongoose from the Wal-Mart down in Bowling Green, with pegs and a handlebar rotor for tricks and all that… [more]
Saturday
Today is a Saturday and people either work half day in an unfamiliar branch or they resent their jobs. They put your bowl of chicken noodle on your table without a smile or spoon. You… [more]
What a Difference a Day Makes
Warren Samuels III was cordially invited by the Imaginautical Turbine to attend A Meeting of Fantastic Importance on the 30th of February. The words were lavishly written in thick cursive ink. The invitation was a singular… [more]
Gallery of the Disappeared Men
She had seen that clouded look before, a determined mix of pity and revulsion and something else she could not define. It was there and then gone in an instant, like that first surprising zing… [more]
Michele Bachmann
I want to see this film and I want to read this book. She is the anachronistic subject of the poem, the woman in the oil painting making love to crabs. I’m a little girl… [more]
Dig Doug, Day 3
Doug didn’t bother taking a shower. Instead, he came into work early as usual. As he stood in front of the building, waiting for Kay to unlock it, he noticed that the others stood away… [more]
A Blanket Made with Thistles
A long tongue of highway slithered out ahead of us, the windows kept sticking and the air conditioning didn’t work. I could feel my breath make a wave of lazy lines in front of me… [more]
Pushed
He stood up from his desk and yelled, _____“Nasty-ass bitch motherfucker!” when I told him to leave, perhaps mistaking my nervous, shocked smile for mocking when he thrusted his hands into my chest on his… [more]
In the Junkyards #6
I road rage on fatal attractions side-swipe your hard trim or destroy your front fascia & pillar. Your juke box boys are out of gas. When the sun went corrupt. I disassemble over your Mach-IV body. Can… [more]
Second Coming
In Sunday School today Miss Hooker said that Jesus is coming but she’s not sure when–coming again, she means. He was here once before, a half-a-Bible ago, before there was anything like we know today.… [more]
1978
She lived alone. She lived many lives. Her name was Jenn. She had several cats. They rarely came out. Jenn barely went out either. Her weekly trips to the store. The cherry wine. The Pall… [more]
One: Strain [of] Reflection
Net the tulips with their own wither. (It will fit better as the colors fade.) To black tripping white, pledge pieces of the fallen. Flatten the table’s surface pretending to be Columbus’ demise. We know… [more]
Steven Storky and the Case of the Lost Balls
Steven Storky has lost his balls. His wife, Sandy, may have them, but Steven doesn’t have the balls to ask her. It’ll be a lose-lose situation if he asks her anyway. She certainly won’t give… [more]
Just One Look
She looked like the kind of girl who needed to be smacked around a little before the fucking started. She should have said something before. I got taken in and it was the first time… [more]
Dig Doug, Day 2
Doug woke hungry the next day. His stomach rattled and revolted like a prisoner trying to escape. For the first time ever, he wanted to go to work. Not to work on his blog, but… [more]
