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Daniel Romo
Clairvoyance
The blind man is not blind. He walks wayward wiggling his cane not wanting folks to find out the truth. He fails to fool me. The twinkling tin cup tarnishes his credibility. The dark spectacles that serve to solicit sympathy are sensational visions of stereotype. Tomorrow I'll expose him for the fraud he is. Tell him how wrong it is to belittle the handicapped. Then kick his ass in Braille. Him and his deaf girlfriend.
Word Problem #37
Train A departs Duluth at 7 A.M. traveling 20 miles per hour faster than train B, leaving from Sheboygan at 6 A.M. The conductor of train A is drunk. The conductor of train B is asleep. They travel on the same track from opposite directions because X and Y equal bitter saboteurs who've never been able to find their identities. There will be an explosion. Everyone will catch on fire and die. How far with the carnage fly when the trains collide head-on creating algebraic wreckage?
Action
You're stuck somewhere in a spaghetti western. I've been sent to save you; designated deputy for the day. When you first swung into the saloon the bartender hissed, This is no place for a lady. You rolled into town on a tumbleweed, and developed the taste for fire in cheap tequila. But you became one of the bad guys and got burned. Those outlaws found out I'm a fake and want me dead. There's a too-small ten gallon hat and hundred dollar bounty on my head. My five o'clock shadow is drawn on. My chaps are chafing body parts they shouldn't. But this movie isn't about me. I'm not the one tied up. Squirming on train tracks. Frantic piano playing in the back. A locomotive gaining steam.
Zorro as Hairdresser
Zorro can't wait to get his cut on. First to arrive and last to leave the salon. He spent three years in beauty school, and graduated at the top of his class: Summa Cum L'Oreal. Zorro raids the wealthy dons and French braids their wives' long hair. Some women don't want their hair cut by someone so straight. Someone whose life's so reliant on the aid of a bloody blade. But he puts the clients at ease telling stories how he brushed his younger sister's hair every morning after their mom died of the disease.
Daniel Romo is currently an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte. His first book of poetry, Romancing Gravity, is forthcoming from Pecan Grove Press. More of his writing can be found at his website.
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