Rob Angeli
Bio
sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt
There are tears of things, and mortal objects touch the mind.
-Virgil Aeneid I.462
Stories (160/0)
- Top Story - September 2023
BANG BANG//: Chapter 1) Roll-CallTop Story - September 2023
Watercolor by Halston Williams. PROLOGUE: Brain Painted Is this the setting of the next great American Novel, these corridors peppered with bullet-holes, blackened with shock of powder? Should these hallways, decked with finger-paintings and crayon creations, conceal the gore of these classrooms? a splat from how many children's heads and hearts?
By Rob Angeli8 months ago in Chapters
A Generic Haiku
Touch of willow leaf On the surface of the pond; Something stirs beneath. "Learn about pines from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo. Don't follow in the footsteps of the old poets, seek what they sought. The basis of art is change in the universe. What's still has a changeless form. Moving things change, and because we cannot put a stop to time, it continues unarrested. To stop a thing would be to halve a sight or sound in our heart. Cherry blossoms whirl, leaves fall, and the wind flits them both along the ground. We cannot arrest with our eyes or ears what lies in such things. Were we to gain mastery over them, we would find that the life of each thing had vanished without a trace." Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) From his treatise on poetry, LEARN FROM THE PINE
By Rob Angeli8 months ago in Poets
- Top Story - August 2023
ChardonnayTop Story - August 2023
Grapple with a lil grape amidst the thistle. Peas in a pod not far from the backyard pepper-patches, prickly pompoms along the side-paths of a city park. This vivid color is a good omen if untouched, fertility is their needled warning.
By Rob Angeli9 months ago in Proof
The All-England Summarize Proust Competition
In Search of Lost Time, written between 1910-1920 Childhood darkens somberly mature while 1880 transitions to 1920. Time is only recoverable through the incidental sensation of the moment, reviving past memories. Dissimulation of complex personal secrets. Densest of books, sensitive universally: a psychedelic soap-opera. Nothing is what it seems: not-so-secretly advocates homosexuality. A true Swann Song: politely told.
By Rob Angeli9 months ago in Critique
- Top Story - August 2023
Now, I AM an AxolotlTop Story - August 2023
There was a time when I would think about axolotls a lot. I used to go look at them in the aquarium of the Jardin des Plantes and would stay there hours contemplating them, observing their immobility, their shadowed movements. Now, I am an axolotl. Hubo un tiempo en que yo pensaba mucho en los axolotl. Iba a verlos al acuario del Jardín des Plantes y me quedaba horas mirándolos, observando su inmovilidad, sus oscuros movimientos. Ahora soy un axolotl. JULIO CORTAZAR (1914-1987)
By Rob Angeli9 months ago in BookClub
The Frog Journal
So, it's come to this. You're really going to make me do this, Vocal challengers? I wasn't going to enter this one, thinking I had burned all bridges to that mythical First self-driven scribble. But wait. I knew very well I had that green journal I wrote passionately in for about a week in February when I was nine, buried somewhere. Happened to be in a duffel-bag under my bed, so now I guess we're going to need to muster our patience and let a writer under thirteen Vocalize here. If only in spirit. I will provide a running commentary, not changing names and places, and it can serve as a Getting-to-Know Me piece, for those curious.
By Rob Angeli9 months ago in Writers
- Top Story - August 2023
- Runner-Up Place in Ode to Ordinary Challenge
WHEN PIGS FLY; A Community Story
All the makings of a very boring and unadventurous class field trip, or was it? I knew why we were really here, though. Otherwise, why would the chaperones be wearing chef's hats? Why else would they be unloading boxes full of cutting-boards, knives, saucepans, stock-pans, roasting pans pots, kettles, Dutch-ovens, whisks, and hundreds of spoons to boot? the profusion of culinary paraphernalia could only mean one thing: WAR.
By Rob Angeli9 months ago in Fiction
An Allegory of Inclination: Conclusion
[DISCLAIMER: Violence, artistic nudity, child death.] A candlelit hallway. Enter Artemesia and Tuzia. ARTEMESIA: Tuzia, do you know the story of Judith, from the Good Book? I want to tell you how important this story is as a theme for the art of Italy.
By Rob Angeli9 months ago in Art