Category Archives: Guy Yasko

– Strike three! Some you win, some you lose. Only these days it’s more like “You lose.” Period. – How much? – Eight for the beers and fifty for the bet. I slide three twenties across the bar. – See … Continue reading →

– Bobby! Bobby! I’m home. You call Liston yet? – Bobby? Must be gone. Curtains closed. Sunlight through curtains, like when you’re sick. – oh. No color. White? Blue? Not breathing. What do you do when someone dies? Call 911? … Continue reading →

I am accustomed to sheriff’s deputies, Jehovah’s witnesses and partiers looking for 66 East. This caller is different: – Do you mind if I have a look around? My happiest days were in this apartment. It had such positive energy … Continue reading →

I write naked. It is too hot to do otherwise. Tomorrow will be the same: high skies, relentless sunshine, token clouds. There is no hope for change, not until the monsoon dialectic generates its own destruction. My neighbours take refuge … Continue reading →

– Would you mind turning that down? – In a minute. I’m listening. – 80s pop was all about record company hegemony and falling microchip prices. – I don’t care. I like it. Try the broccoli. – Broccoli, the easy-to-ship … Continue reading →

I wake to the rain on metal roof. I want coffee and breakfast, but i’m not ready to be wet, not yet. I move up to the driver’s seat. Why not? I check the mirrors. There’s nothing to see; too … Continue reading →

I She is drawing the hermit from Led Zepplin IV in the margin of her dictée. The hermit’s lantern illuminates a forest of misplaced and forgotten accents. I stare at her legs. Her toe rise and fall with her pulse. … Continue reading →

I look at her, admiring how she has aged. Better than the sunset. She watches the roses. – Goddamn beetles. – Another gin and tonic? No answer. I want one. I go inside for more ice. When i return she … Continue reading →

He takes a brown bag to the office. Makes him look frugal and he gets to avoid people. Why do it if you have to rub elbows with them? Besides, it’s part of the job description. You can’t do the … Continue reading →

Crumbs of sand fall into the footprint. The wind pushes streams of sun dried grains through its crenels. She can still read it as her own. Tomorrow it will be only ‘footprint’. No matter. There will be today’s prints and … Continue reading →

Another one. She files it with the others, all unopened, all in alphabetical order: AT&T, Bank of America, Clerk of Courts… She closes her eyes, then opens them to the row of eggcups above the desk. Time to rotate? No, … Continue reading →

I a – Eric, you need to get school. – I know, Mom. – Got your books? – Your French homework! Honestly, Eric — and after all that sturm and – drang. Books in hand, door slammed, feet down steps, … Continue reading →

It is the dogshit thaw, with the trees still bare, the grass still dead. Black-ringed snow lines the streets. Head down under grey skies and greyer thoughts: pea soup, shit job… Dirty, dead-green grass offers up a swatch of blue-green. … Continue reading →

I like my cubicle. I have my sunshine, my tea cup and my figurines: Jabba the Hutt, Chewbacca — all the good ones. But what i really like is logging in. Push the button, type, return, enter the circle. I … Continue reading →

People ask me what i think about when i run. They want to hear ‘sex’ or something. I say ‘nothing’. I ran cross country once. Thoughts ran me down. Everytime. Same with them. Bunch of nervous wrecks. Now i run … Continue reading →

We would like to thank Guy Yasko for his painting for this week, Center St. Here is what he had to say: This is a view of my hometown. I wasn’t happy with the way the shadows were working out … Continue reading →

I He wakes with the sun over the dashboard. He checks the mirror: still sleeping. He decides not to pee. He looks across the river. He’s never been. No papers, no money, no reason to go. Just be looking at … Continue reading →

I like my pillowcases and sheets. The colours are like mustard and ketchup. The animals are friendly. The seal balances a beach ball on its nose. The lion is smiling. He waits for orders. The giraffes and elephants march side … Continue reading →

She’s ripped the elastic from all her waistbands. The loose threads wave like anemones. I am paralysed. My eyes are too heavy to roll, my arms too heavy to move. I cannot lift my head. Miriam wants to argue. Worlds … Continue reading →

I missed the significance of the death rattle. I knew Mary was dying — of course — but i missed the signs. “The end is nigh.” I should have known. Birth was the same: a series of steps which i … Continue reading →

 Now that one over there, she’s more my type: little dangerous. See the eyes, the mouth? Stormy — but that’s because there’s passion. Don’t mind if i do. Thanks. Logistics — operations, container shipping. No, you wouldn’t. You really … Continue reading →

The couple exits the lobby and its Christmas music and steps into the grey. They cut across the parking lot and disappear into a row of snow-coated cedars. They follow the path between fields, past empty lodges. The sky darkens. … Continue reading →

The bus slices through the grid, leaving six way intersections in its wake. Inside, the boy holds his hand to the window and looks for a street sign. His sister sits beside him and says nothing, her legs swinging with … Continue reading →

His walk is a catalogue of resentment. The old places are gone. There is no one left to go to them. Josef swings wide to avoid the sidewalk café tables, but not wide enough to miss the conversation: – We … Continue reading →

I I have a K in the palm of my hand. It’s there because the Y-top of a cyclone fence makes Ks in human hands. I can play ninths and tenths with my left hand, but not even an octave … Continue reading →

Return to This Week’s Flash The Editors of 52|250 thank Guy Yasko for his drawing, Apple Branch. Guy likes to work in media that doesn’t allow for reworking such as brush and ink and watercolour.

The closing door chokes off the roar of the party. Interesting. He tries it again. Same effect. He can see his breath in the bedroom. He pulls his sleeves down and considers crawling under the pile of coats on the … Continue reading →

. “I found this object at a marina in Paris, near the Bastille metro stop. I became obsessed with it, and went to the marina every day for a couple weeks trying to capture what was so compelling about it. … Continue reading →

Ladies and gentlemen, i put to you that the runes are intelligent texts. By ‘intelligent’ i mean something more than the physical trace of intelligent beings, but being itself. As you know, opening oneself to the runes brings one to … Continue reading →

I Harry’s cut is a two-step bowl: flat across the bottom straight up the cheek, straight across the eyes, then straight down the other cheek. Harry says it’s from Mussolini’s guards. In truth, it was unconciously inspired by a cut … Continue reading →

I see you start with the pickled vegetables. That probably means one of two things: either you like them or you don’t. Are you trying to get them out of the way, to clear your palate for what you prefer, … Continue reading →

. Child one slumps in his chair; only his head is above the table. Child two hovers behind the diners, giggling with her cousin. – We’re leaving. – Which car are you taking? – We’ll walk. – Come on you … Continue reading →

By 8:20, i’ve made it to exit 307B — good time for a Thursday — but it’s backed up from there. A long line of cars inches down the on ramp. I watch from my lane. Each driver waits for … Continue reading →

She waits for him all day. Where does he go? When will he be home? Why does he leave me? She didn’t think about him when the sun was out. She sat in the window and watched the birds in … Continue reading →

They follow the wolf’s tracks over the dune, past the point’s wind-bent tree. In the fog, the forest’s edge is a wall which hides something larger, some unseen threat. The trees themselves are haunted by mist threading between their branches. … Continue reading →

Alice thought of Dean and Duncan as rivals. She had no idea what they thought. She had never asked. She goaded them because she felt more secure, more herself when they fought. “This is what Alice is supposed to do.” … Continue reading →

I The last time I was in Paris, I slept next to a piano and ate with sopranos. I painted the bridges. (Everyone does.) I sketched in cafés and bars. – May I see it? – Yes, of course. II … Continue reading →

— Let me tell you about e. Now, all the other numbers say e is lucky; they admire her natural-yet-transcendental qualities. But she herself will tell you that having been raised by i and π, she can be a negative … Continue reading →

The wind pushed from the tunnel tells the commuter to close his book and tuck it away. A figure in red bisects the newly vacated block of space and consciousness. The commuter understands immediately: the figure’s speed and trajectory imply … Continue reading →

– I cannot pass this on. You understand why — or don’t you? I don’t know sometimes. I can’t spell it out for you. You know that. Nevertheless, I still need you to understand. And if you can’t or won’t, … Continue reading →

I From behind broken glass the morning sky reads time to go. The Undergraduate pulls himself off his mattress and splashes himself with cold water from the sink above the stairs. On his way down from the attic he steps … Continue reading →

Edith sticks to the barn walls, watching the dancers and asking herself if there is anything, anything at all, to like about this place. Perhaps. She finds warm feelings for the library’s flaking yellow paint and its shabby stuffed chairs … Continue reading →

As his stomach growls and pleads, Mr. Hu holds the peach in his hand. He notes its colour. It isn’t right; it’s too yellow — not surprising for a fruit from the Gold Mountain. This peach has a smell – … Continue reading →

I Only the Nebbish is present when the new Roomer arrives with his bags. The Roomer takes a seat on the sofa in front of the picture window. The Nebbish takes a chair across the room. – You’ll be down … Continue reading →

The dog’s nails tapping across the floor divert her attention from the phone.  She now hears the cartoon voices, the lawn mower, fridge, and central air.  The sound of the lawn mower peaks then quickly returns to its previous buzz. … Continue reading →

A figure in a dirty shirt and pyjamas puts a sandaled foot tentatively through the tobacconist’s broken window. He holds a coffee pot in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He joins a fire-tender in the circle of chairs … Continue reading →

– Why Poughkeepsie? – No one expects you here. Besides, there are more  mushrooms. Especially now, in this economy. – Oh? – People won’t sell unless they need to. Now they do. Up in the  Catskills, they’re selling them to … Continue reading →

– Café? It’s more like a crack house. Think about it. – I – we – spend, what? three to five dollars a day here. – That’s not it. What do you pay, what do you sacrifice to be here, … Continue reading →

A row of headlights shines south into the darkness. Stop! Minuteman sees the three shapes head north against the headlights. He lets them pass. The boys’ll take care of them. That’s what back-up is for. Another two dash back across, … Continue reading →

Jigokudani mon amour by Guy Yasko He watched the snowflakes land in her hair. They lasted just long enough for a layer of snow to collect. A parallel layer was building in his. She had her arms around a rock. … Continue reading →

It’s all lies. All of it. And not just in the laughable inadequacy of school maps with the wheels of cheese, ears of grain, and heaps of coal, not merely in the quaintness of old maps of now unconscious empires … Continue reading →

There are no unintended consequences, no butterfly effect. Each act of destruction is discrete, because each snow globe is discrete. Assuming no increase in the value of n — a dangerous assumption — the smashing of any one snow globe … Continue reading →