Forgetfulness of aghast omelets

July 12, 2026July 11, 2026Delving Yardbarker2 Comments

Reading Ulysses in Montana #307

Avast at last, Agnes entered the shallow realm aghast at the merry crowns of scores of critters leaving the door ajar.

A jar of strawberry preserves reserved the right to party into the very painting that Monet had sold for cost of a veritable feast, the moveable feast having already been cornered by a posthumous Hemingway, calling out from beyond the grave. At some point the bell no longer tolls–for thee or me–and the silence reminds Agnes of the joke about the dead ringer for his brother whose face rings a bell, but she forgot the punchline. Agnes book her trip to the Azores but never arrived due to confusion over whether to have the omelet or the fish sandwich.

From afar, Agnes called out ahoy to those who had ears to hear, but she remains adrift to this day on the shallow realm, aghast and annoyed with overused ploys.

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Rick’s latest book: Beyond Irony

July 5, 2026July 4, 2026Rick Mallery5 Comments

Available now on Amazon.

What is the purpose of irony and how does irony relate to meaning–to meaninglessness? Explore the key features of your existence in this series of poems that begins with the simplest statement, things exist, and end with the definition of the absolute.

This is the first of the 44 poems, each beginning with a general context followed by how that topic relates to you:

I

Things exist.
Things do things.

There are things that do things.
There are things that things do.

The first thing that things that do do is exist.
The things that things do don’t exist, they happen.

Some things exist.
Some things happen.

To exist is a thing that things that do do.
A thing that exists happens.

* * *

You exist.
You do things.

You are a thing that does things.
There are things that you do.

The first thing that you do is exist.
The things that you do happen.

You are a thing that exists.
Existing is a thing that you do.

A thing that exists happens.
You happen.

The Bohemian lyre forfeits the moon

June 30, 2026June 29, 2026Delving Yardbarker2 Comments

Reading Ulysses in Montana #92

Engagements of small mercies say merci to the depending moon, sacrificing holes and east trousers to the dig.

Jugs of your best consent riot in batches of pendants smitten with the small teasings of curdled mockeries. You’d rail against meddling streams of virtues if you could spell the strange senses of double meanings and the divine right of bling. You’d sooner be pursued by a bear while exiting the coast of Bohemia than scorn a humble lack of maladies with lilies, primroses, and oxlips, slipping over the taunted shepherds dancing on the green with a driver and putter to spare. Sparks of gardens rich in folly tune the strings of the lyre half a step too low.

Small quantities of mercies and large qualities of merci dictate the sneezes of swallows that bury the candid moon a month too soon.

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Mistral canticles of wilting heliotropes

June 28, 2026June 27, 2026Delving Yardbarker4 Comments

Reading Ulysses in Montana #333

The book delighted the slight friend of another dozen books on the subject of nights in blight action.

Ginger said why do you always choose me? George said you are my one and only, only I would think so and only you would be so. The fright took hold of the book and looked the other way as a dozen more books frightened Miss Tuffet away. Ginger said but what about my taffeta dress. George said it’s in your ear. Ginger said you don’t know what that means, do you. The curds of words and the whey of all milk fleshed out the rest of the story in George’s mind and maybe Ginger’s ear.

The thirteenth book declared a mistrial of mistral winds and wound down the jewelry box to the wilting strains of “I’ll Be Reading You”.

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Lard, augury, and the extinguished afternoon

June 25, 2026June 24, 2026Delving Yardbarker1 Comment

Reading Ulysses in Montana #423

With bacon and butter, you no longer need to imagine the marginal gain from partial differences in the morning sunshine.

Moonshine is a different story altogether, but then it would be given the historical context you find yourself in every month end or so. Withered withers bespoke the last of its country fairs of fair maidens and clunky knights in the armor of sausages and spiral hams. Detested contestants of ancient mariners took the A’s into extra innings where the albatross fluttered over the outfield as the local eye in the sky, asking why the lights are so dim. You finally breathe a sigh of desire when the eye of the fire unleashes the tiger of destiny.

But whatever you did with the bacon and butter did what needed doing in resolving the partial differences in the evening sunset, the afternoon sunset being so long forgotten.

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Heirlooms of lukewarm mirrors

June 23, 2026June 22, 2026Delving Yardbarker4 Comments

Reading Ulysses in Montana #198

Hungry for more, you took less than they deserved and served the curved partita on a plate of banana-encrusted stoneware.

Next up, the founding flounders of Flanders that you heard about as a child on your uncle’s knee, but even then you suspected he was only joking, or simply lying through his teeth. You wouldn’t fall for that now, but you might be perpetuating such silliness in the stillness of the night of nights, longest days and shortest nights notwithstanding. Pins and needles are no match for the vague smiles you throw at the mirror at the close of day, but mirrors have secrets of their own, and begrudge you nothing but uncertain jars of library jam.

Your aunt in Hungary plays the partita on her banana-encrusted piano, and you know the joke’s been on you ever since.

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Catering the errant harbor

June 21, 2026June 20, 2026Delving Yardbarker4 Comments

Reading Ulysses in Montana #363

So you arrive at a place, but not your destination, and you wonder how far you have left to go.

Or to put it another way, having contemplated the cat on the window sill, maybe the place was your destination after all, or would be if you could see your way clearly enough to disengage your vigorous eye and see things as they really are. Refinements in some attributes profess the urgency of moving on to your final destination, but winds of change in scenery bring doldrums from time to time in which you give the cook the night off. Better spirits with heart and noble pratting urge you to put down the sails and your roots.

But no, you still have a destination, and this place is not it, so you join the cat in the window, the cook in the kitchen, and move on down the road, the winding, everlasting road.

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Plagal covenants but pelagic estrangements

June 18, 2026June 17, 2026Delving Yardbarker1 Comment

Reading Ulysses in Montana #656

By starlight, by lamplight, the limelight beaconed the bacon to become one with Annika and the other two who had not dared to leave.

Grieves of iron leaves befalling the wailing night, sieves of conquered bids gilding the copper lily, waves of baffled beavers floating along the sullen waters on a raft of carnal anvils, did nothing to stop the drums along the Troubadour, bass and guitar included. Inflamed with carbuncles of hesitation, glamorous strides befell the wells of creative flights and the force of expressive contours. The entourage would have it no other way.

The bacon closed the too many degrees of separation between Annika and the host of curious onlookers, hooked by the grapples of sullen beavers and incandescent limes.

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Begrudges an inheritance of sediment

June 16, 2026June 16, 2026Delving YardbarkerLeave a comment

Reading Ulysses in Montana #507

A grudge in the declivity in space and time encountered the elastic hope of a dozen more grudges.

Smudges in the windows to her soul taught Ginger to keep an extra set of sills in the basement where her mother’s advice lay smoldering in the night. George would have swept it all up by then, but his proclivity to pause his basement cleaning for two days during the first days of summer kept the basement in a state of states for longer than Ginger would ever dream possible. George said but I didn’t know it meant that much to you. Ginger said have it your way, George. George checked his proclivities and cut short his best tie. On the way to the cemetery, Ginger said I don’t know what that was all about.

George did not answer, being swallowed up by the grudges in the declivity of space and time and Ginger’s mother’s meatloaf.

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Migratory claims ascending in Sarasota

June 14, 2026June 13, 2026Delving Yardbarker3 Comments

Reading Ulysses in Montana #104

The lightest of feathers crumbled in the face of Odette’s flightiest breezes–done too soon.

Noon became ambivalent to the howls of the moon, howls of the swooning black swans of Proust, who never really believed Albertine had died at all and in fact reports still had her living out of a 7-Eleven in Sarasota, according to the last census. A bureau of burros believed it, and that’s good enough for the Prousts of Las Vegas, camping out at Red Rock Canyon well beyond their meaningful means. Mt. Charleston descended on a lark and the poor little thing picked up the mountain once more and set it on its head–the mountain’s head, not the lark’s.

Not the lark was the precursor to Proust, but it was lost in the calamity of feathers that befell the larks of Combray on the first day of Odette’s flighty breezes.

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Faded Houses Green

Almost Meaningful

Forgetfulness of aghast omelets

Reading Ulysses in Montana #307

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