John Bradley
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OUT OF PRINT

Pavement Saw Press Chapbook Award Series
Winner of the 2001-02 Chapbook Award
ISBN 1-886350-55-8
32 pages, 5.5 by 8.5
$6.00

John Bradley received an MA in English from Colorado State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. His book of poetry Love-In-Idleness won the Washington Prize. He is the editor of Atomic Ghost: Poets Respond to the Nuclear Age and Learning to Glow: A Nuclear Reader. Bradley lives with his wife, Jana, in DeKalb, where he teaches writing at Northern Illinois University. He is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in poetry.

 A chapbook of prose poems. Here are a few samples:

Jared Fogle Lost 245 Lbs. Parable

There he was on national tv, Jared Fogle, claiming it was him, not the shed poundage, who was the real Jared Fogle. Whenever I smell mendacity,I get hungry. Those were the shed poundage's first words. Last seen wearing one black shoe and one brown shoe, armed and slightly dangerous. You can ask Zena, who used to be Serena, until I bought her the Vegas showgirl costume. She took the job at the Indian casino and that was that. Because no one is immune from the verb to shed pounds while you sleep. What did she leave me with? The empty gerbil cage, a jar of jalapeno mustard, a Bipolar-Barbie, with male and female genitalia. Back when she was Serena, we used to make love on the roof, though the roof may say I was a part-time custodian who believed every day was Sunday, the one day we could make love, because rapture, said Serena, creates an electrical charge that builds up in the joints and causes premature arthritis. What's Swiss cheese without the holes, says Zena, who's technically no longer my girlfriend but technically bound to both Jareds and me through the shared blood transfusion. As soon as I saw him on the tv commercial stretching out his trouser waist where he and the other Jared used to live, I called Zena and we talked about the time we ate at the Subway and she lost five pounds right before my eyes just from the rigorous machinations of her jaw on the whole wheat sub. I'm ok with it, I said to Zena about Jared the Subway celebrity, because I am ok with it, because what can a tv commercial like that do for you, really, but leave you with a closet full of empty pants.

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Parable of the Pony Syndrome

Pony, I say to my mother, and then stop, horrified. How could I call my own mother Pony?
I can't apologize, as I don't want to draw attention to the faux pas.
The sun is a byproduct of honey, I tell her, and thus you and I will get sticky if we stay in the sun too long.
Is something wrong, Pony? she asks. Tell your Pony.