Nathan Leslie

Michael Estabrook

Rich Murphy

Marge Piercy

Ars Prosetica

For stimulation, the grout and tile, the fencepost, the hedge trimmings, the clickings of cardinals in elms. This is the life Flaubert advised. I comb newspaper clippings, News of the Weird, gossip, tabloids, trivia. When business men on fire fling themselves from skyscrapers, words can’t calculate; they coagulate. A movement by Mahler seems emaciated. Cezanne is superfluous.

Shall I eat a peach? Shall I observe pastiche? Shall I climb Kilimanjaro?

I scribble notes in some antiquarian mimicry of the illustrious dead. As if this isn’t redundant. As if anybody reads. As if words carry more than their mere ink.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. A mystery of vast proportions. All that in a kilobyte.

For stimulation, the curtains in the breeze, an approaching hailstorm, moldering azalea blossoms. Then after that, a walk. Connectives. Scribbles in a composition book. Distributed by Blackhawk LLC, Pleasanton, CA. 94538. 100 sheet. Wide rule. And an audience: me myself and I. Repeat all over again.

Nathan Leslie has published five collections of short fiction and his poems, essays, and stories have been published or are forthcoming in over 100 literary magazines including North American Review, Boulevard, Shenandoah, South Carolina Review, and Cimarron Review. He is currently the fiction editor for The Pedestal Magazine and the editor-in-chief of The Potomac. His website is www.nathanleslie.com.