chicken little considers the sky again (a parable for our time)
by Ed Higgins
oh, sure i'm still running around like a heads-up/off/prophet/profit/fit trying to cut off my very own de/(con)instruction and all other sordid a•void•able & available /a-Babel-Trumpish towers of post & toastmodern doom/daze/haze re(altho)guarding our environment in/ex/&/anterior terror too sometimes•always all afrightful with me//henish looking like this diminutive incarnation of Kali only i'm in a bantam suit or else looking all-a-fright in a head&heedless moreorless banshee keen/for/keening shrill before the sky's death knell noi•some or just write-it-off (if you dare) darkest noir over•us•all! or to be exact, that is, of man/woman/chicken too kind-ah-so-dumb. really. so youbetcha any/old/witching/way this omen•amen•ahem•alarm of mine surely assures our sky will will will soon be falling trumptumbling twisting howling hellish or gone rumbling under a black-cloud of ig-nor-even-sense of truly veritas, verily.
ok, eerily too or/and, get this, just-adjust-for-just•ice. back fright/fight dust thrown/throw-up into our frail•fray•feckless•fey faces like dark death//aces of ominous, yup, inspades while attending/to/attempting/to down-daft & de/feet/feat frightmare of immense as in tobe•chickenshit•downer over/under/all-around these scaly-scrambling hen's feet of mine too scratchings caw-clawings while carrying/crying/cravening on in my fumble feeble way past every damned/doomed miscreant justice killer(s)! well, we will not be box(ed) up/ended in disheveled feather-ruffled time-for trumped-up or just down/down to our very own apocalyptic downtheriver•plucked•soooofucked. oh no, i persist/(in)sist.
so as usual i'm still running around here/everywhere rear/guarding this dumbstate of our not making room4doom so trump(et) that always-ever-you-can.
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Author's Note
Up 3/11/17 at Gravel (a lit journal put out by the MFA program at the U of Arkansas at Monticello) my flash/slipstream piece “chicken little considers the sky again (a parable for our time).”
(The piece is an updated revision of a micro-flash from several years ago.)
Other stories by Ed Higgins
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Interesting.*
Hmmmm...looks like someone got into them little long-stem wriggly mushrooms next to the chicken coop. Got any extras?
Yes!
The sky may not be falling but wizards of finance are busy figuring out how to bill us for it.
"get this, just-adjust-for-just•ice. back fright/fight dust thrown/throw-up into our frail•fray•feckless•fey faces like dark death//aces of ominous, yup, inspades while attending/to/attempting/to down-daft & de/feet/feat frightmare of immense as in tobe•chickenshit•downer over/under/all-around these scaly-scrambling hen's feet of mine"
Can't BEAT it!
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Read the latest issue of Gravel and found it. Nice!
"so as usual i'm still running around here/everywhere rear/guarding this dumbstate of our not making room4doom so trump(et) that always-ever-you-can."
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Great form & phrasings. "these scaly-scrambling hen's feet of mine too scratchings caw-clawings while carrying/crying/cravening on in my fumble feeble way past every damned/doomed miscreant justice killer(s)!"
Good piece. I like it.
This is like a Presbyterian version of Tarantula. I like it.
In the context of this site, whether this piece "works" or not is completely beside the point. The point (for me) is that one can always find yet another example of the unending ways a writer can express what it is inside the grey cells. On that basis I say yes to this.
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Reading Jack Kerouac today, and that caused me to revisit your piece. Similar voice. I like that.
"downtheriver.plucked.sooofucked.", yes, this works!