HOOT ONLINE, ISSUE 103, NOVEMBER 2022 – MICRO FICTION, POETRY, MEMOIR, BOOK REVIEWS
Wrong Clocks [Two Postcard Plays]
by Benjamin Niespodziany
art by author
Theater [1]
You attend a play in a fake theater. The
walls are paper. The lights are damp.
Candles ceiling the sky. You ask for a
program but no one exists. To this, two
mannequins smile. You take a seat. It starts
to rain. The stage fills with water. Your hair
grows heavy. The few drops you catch on
your tongue taste like longing. Like gone.
You will stand and you will leave once you
think that it is time.
Theater [2]
On stage, a man in camouflage starts and
restarts his monologue. Flowers sprout out
of his mouth. His shoes turn into toy cars.
He’s bothered by the brightness of sky. The
darkness of dusk. He is determined yet
afraid. A baby falls from the sky. He
catches her. The audience applauds. He is
startled by the audience, by the applause.
They toast. To he, a ghost, and to his
audience, just as alone.
//
LOST & FOUND POSTCARD FROM TRENTON Y. M. C. A.
by M.G. Moscato
–
Benjamin Niespodziany is a Pushcart Prize nominee with work in Fence, Hobart, Peach Mag, Paper Darts, and various others. He works nights in a library in Chicago and interviews artists at [neonpajamas].
M. G. Moscato teaches for Virginia Commonwealth University and has worked as a book editor. Work appears or is forthcoming in Poets.org, Michigan Quarterly Review (Mixtape imprint), Third Coast, Hyperallergic, and Birmingham Poetry Review.
