Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over four hundred fifty stories and poems published so far, and seven books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of eight review editors.
The Biltmore Mirror
More than half a century ago
the Providence Biltmore sold off
furniture perhaps a half-century
older than even that Vietnam era.
I bought an oak framed mirror,
two feet more than half a man tall.
Ten dollars, although I tried for five.
It has faced me, early and late,
For almost half a rueful life.
Half those passing by ignore it,
but I pause at least half the time,
hoping to glimpse back-lit pasts
yet fearing to peek at a future
with the half-life of an old dog.
Mind Swirls
Perverse sainthood
Gluttonous diet
Embroidered scars
Assured ignorance
Appealing ugliness
Honest duplicity
Contradictory truths
Enamored hatred
Meaningless phrases
Persistent emotions
Our Daily Bread
There is a blessed monotony to breakfast,
eating the same foods at the same time,
more stable than anything else in our day,
the capstone satisfaction to our ablutions,
the reassuring and predictable tastes
reinforcing order in the universe before
launching into the day’s changing menus.
Anima Vitae
My soul is not my essence,
nor that which I try to be,
nor what I see reflected
in my observers’ eyes.
It’s just a scabby glowworm
with colors overdreared by
badly living for myself
and choices made for me,
and I will never live to see
the chrysalis as it splits
and spills out the rays
of unimagined shades.
From the Editor:
We hope that readers receive In Parentheses as a medium through which the evolution of human thought can be appreciated, nurtured and precipitated. It will present a dynamo of artistic expression, journalism, informal analysis of our daily world, entertainment of ideas considered lofty and criticism of today’s popular culture. The featured content does not follow any specific ideology except for that of intellectual expansion of the masses.
Founded in late 2011, In Parentheses prides itself upon analysis of the current condition of intelligence in the minds of these young people, and building a hypothesis for one looming question: what comes after Post-Modernism?
The idea for this magazine stems from a simple conversation regarding the aforementioned question, which drew out the need to identify our generation’s place in literary history.
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By In Parentheses in IP Volume 8
64 pages, published 4/16/2024
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