Category Archives: Walter Bjorkman

CHILD A dream of eerie, oddly-shaped fish dominated my sleep some nights as a child. Afraid and rapt with wonderment, I could not tear myself away, awaken on will as with other frightful ones. I was slowly suffocating, descending deeper … Continue reading →

Eddie always knew what the time of day, week, month and year it was, but never knew if the right time for anything was now or later or then. Marzy had a hard time getting past knowing the week, but … Continue reading →

No such thing a home when you are an afterthought the runt the grunt the stepson the one lost in the crowd because you do what you do and you never draw attention to yourself because the few times you … Continue reading →

Blue. The first memory or memory of a memory, though it must have been white. He had never seen one before, be it in pictures or real life. This was when the differences were still blurred, the lambs and bunnies … Continue reading →

–after Nighthawks by Edward Hopper “I don’t even know if love exists, has anyone ever had a definition that fully satisfies, or a love that does? If they say so they are liars.” “Something doesn’t have to be defined or … Continue reading →

monk lips bleeding green trees burnt to ash of black shadow No, you will not suffer – my yellow matchbox hands will . Return to This Week’s Flash

There is a fortress not made by man that holds a place where I hid the most, formed by four fallen trees still growing in a place called Bliss. The limbs arch out over a grassy hill hanging over the … Continue reading →

The cupola shadows of the streetlamp were lifted from the figures on the still seedy but now chic lower east side corner. Writers and poets slowly departed the bar where a reading had just been held, where tales of voles … Continue reading →

Stranger vultures of deadening ash-pits climbed vocally to lofty spires of supplication the thin strangled birds heightened to stand atop prayers sent forth by the harried villagers as one by one the weary townspeople filed slowly past the heap of … Continue reading →

I stare out the pain wanting an exit from the loving grip keeping me here keeping my hair tied to your bones my way forever following yours let’s leave, I say our shadows can stay sighing about us without us … Continue reading →

It was a plain white papered bundle, held together by twilled white cord in a cross pattern, square-kotted and slip-bowed, tucked tightly high up under his arm. The train approached the station at quarter to nine, late evening. As the … Continue reading →

Your father was killed in a different war than my past lover. Otherwise, we would feel the same about this personal one that you say we will, must get into — for you feel that you have a noble cause … Continue reading →

all gone, ain’t gots, arreared broke, busted, badda-binged crapped out, crunched, congealed down and out, dead duck, disgusted eat beans, eat dirt, even eat shit flat on your back or face in the gutter? gone-gone, gutted, gazpachioed helpless, homeless, haz-matted … Continue reading →

“Vaughan, Bordagaray or Galan. Arky, Frenchy or Augie, that is better, da.” The guard tower was just ahead and Boris couldn’t have been better prepared for his mission behind enemy lines. The KGB espionage revealed that after all the papers … Continue reading →

Distantly the images of the days fade The door of today is now the dog of your youth transported away The latest scenes remain the longest I was there I am still here My eyes see reflections seen alone by … Continue reading →

The Gowanus. Expressway, not canal, a blue steel turned green turned paint gray turned green paint gray steel elevated road that whisks other people to the pancake streets of manhattan in the morning to return them to their grass-green supper … Continue reading →

How to write a bad flash: 1. Think about the theme, animal behavior 2. Make a mind leap to an obscure phrase about logic and probability that involves animals, to whit: “Put a million monkeys in front of a million … Continue reading →

  Distinguished Classics Professor: “Theseus walked through the maze to the Minotaur’s lair, sent there to slay the beast, saving Athens from having to send 7 virgin men & 7 virgin women as an offering every 9 years, when the … Continue reading →

there I stand brave and tall chest flooded with pride holding the backend of a raft Bobby Lange, I recall holding the otherside on this buttered toast of beach for the public in his poor man’s heaven, my Dad called … Continue reading →

Eddie, standing on the outskirts of SLC, thumb out, getting hot, thirsty, tired and pissed off. “If I see one more damn pair of horn-rimmed glasses go by me with a mannequin-wife in the seat next to him, trying not … Continue reading →

Silent Stream by W. Bjorkman Return to This Week’s Flash

“So it’s at Herbst in Bay Ridge, same place my Dad had his, and even out to Oceanview on Staten, same place too. Wonder how many regular folk here took that final route over the years, three funeral homes a … Continue reading →

Mayflies decided to hatch on that humid day at the bus stop where the bus took forever a frenetic woman, flicking them away tiny, harmless, but yet lightly attaching themselves to our skin At Bottom Dollar, in line behind a … Continue reading →

Onca Ole was a young farmer from Högbobruk, Sweden. One day in 1924 he jumped on a boat headed for America, where he landed in Brooklyn. Brooklyn sounded like it had a brook, perfect for farming. He got on the … Continue reading →

Jesse walked unsteadily out of the wood shop, goggles flittered with sawdust. The fresh cut wood’s odor brought her to the small basement where her grandfather once worked on the same violin over and over, with his now shaky hands … Continue reading →

Nov 20th, Megans Bay Children!! Having so much fun on this 30 day cruise to the Caribbean and South America you gave us for our 25th anniversary. Pops is still wearing his black socks with the sandals, he has become … Continue reading →

“Acceptez-vous le Seigneur comme votre Créateur?” the driver, wide as the front seat and short as it too, croaked out. “Ah, acceptez-vous, do you accept. Ah, le Seignor, uh the mister. Votre, wait Latin, our, creator” Eddie was translating by … Continue reading →

“There are-a no bad haircuts, justa bad heads” was his favorite saying. Scanio’s dad rose up from his dad’s humble Brooklyn barber shop beginnings to become an officer at the Lincoln Savings bank by day, but still gave haircuts at … Continue reading →

Billy the Bunny never caught a break. It was a tough kindle of rabbits to be brought up in, especially as the last, and runt, of the litter. The eldest, Peter, well none that followed reached his level of belovedness, … Continue reading →

. Why is it that we put the birth & death date on a tombstone? I mean, are these the two highpoints of our life that we want to be memorialized for? The first one you have no recollection of, … Continue reading →

At the top of the subway stairs a line took him down into the depths of the tunnel, musky grays with vile creatures darting out of corners. It proceeded out into a sky of late Autumn sun desperately clinging to … Continue reading →

I’m gettin hungry, I always do after, but he hasta get back to the ship, so instead we walk the two blocks to the pier. I’m holding tight to his arm, I figure he’s back, what better do I have, … Continue reading →

You spin in that downward vortex of your dreams towards the darkness of the edges. Sometimes it is too dark to see anything, other times too bright. Lichen stains on a South Dakota rock and multi-colored algae in a Death … Continue reading →

“I think, in spite of it all, I’d rather be the yellow bug” Sid proclaimed. “I don’t know, Sid, the red one is the mean mother, only the brown one keeps trying to get by her, nobody’s gonna top her, … Continue reading →

“Whhhheeeat” came through her pursed lips as the gentle whoosh of wind from them only accentuated the picture, already formed in Eddie’s imagination, of fields of grain arcing in the Kansas breeze. Professor D. Gale always began her weekly seminars … Continue reading →

“One, two, three, four, five and six. Why not play them?” “You crazy? That’ll never happen.” “Last week’s winning numbers were three, thirteen, eighteen, twenty-six, thirty-nine and fifty-two, how about that?” “Same six numbers twice in a row, what are … Continue reading →

“Acey-deucey, pot it!” The smile changed to fuckit when another Ace popped up. “Sheet, that’s it man, I’m busted.” “Damn stupid game anyway, no sure winning hand in the game. I shouldn’t even be here, I should be back with … Continue reading →

Kat is Haitian and makes the best, never produced one without the required head of sugar-foam and the two headed Caridad-Adriana duo they take turns in my present department but when the going gets tough and Kat’s on a sales … Continue reading →

  In the land of Nosleep the natives are restless. The new neighbor on the block was building an addition to his house, a section about two-hundred sqft jutting out the side. Every house in the land was the same, … Continue reading →

There was no way you were going to let that star fall without catching it, putting in your pocket and never letting it fade away. Kamloops is a town that releases its secrets right in your face, unless you are … Continue reading →

Twenty one of age, watching a health and safety film in the mess tent preparing for his job as assistant waterfront director. Better made film than those old safe sex and don’t smoke pot ones, and that’s what made it … Continue reading →

  Totally uninspired by the theme Red Meat, the writer decides to immerse himself in the equivalent of Method Acting, deciding to eat red meat tonight. And the next. And the next. Fully aware the Method Writer has eaten red … Continue reading →

[after Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Lewti, or the Circassian Love-Chaunt]  The light bright, the amber-glow dream And the glint of a star Flew from Loki, my roomie’s cat’s mien; The just-waxed floor brightest by far. They partly out of my view By … Continue reading →

“OK if I grab a smoke?” “I like to smoke, not with cigarettes, but with chicks, hot chicks.” I inch as close to the door on the right and as far from the driver as I can, have to get … Continue reading →

  Him: “You know, you really aren’t any taller, its more like an optical delusion.” Her: “Illusion, you mean illusion, not ‘delusion.’” Him: “No, I mean delusion. An illusion is a lie from the get-go, an oasis. With a delusion … Continue reading →

I came to the sands to forget the hourglass, tiny droplets of coral casting diamond specks of eternity towards the sun. I came to the dunes to remember the times we laughed, screwed and slept beneath the Van Gogh night … Continue reading →

Big brother was just short of twelve and this was his biggest job yet. “You are the man of the house now” they told him a year ago, in the weeks after the death of their father. Now he was … Continue reading →

The first thing Stephan remembers as being made of gas but seemed at the time more like space was the hole in the middle of one of the granny squares on his favorite blanket, a delicately woven one made from real … Continue reading →

Bow Ties & Brooklyn Dressing by Fancy Me At first we wore them for special occasions, clip-on types to birthday parties communions funerals weddings first day of class Then, the true test of manhood to tie the tie of the name … Continue reading →

Do the Breadfruit Mash, Baby by Walter Bjorkman I had a breadfruit tree in my backyard in Miami. Well, in my new neighbor’s yard, but much of it hung over the fence. Used to be my yard, not really, just … Continue reading →