Over the last few days I’ve been thinking a lot about the above Bukowski poem. I think I stumble over microfiction because I keep forgetting that it needs to have the precision, timing, and rhythm of poetry. I haven’t written poetry since I was 17. I keep trying to write microfiction, though, because one day I’d like to be able to tell a story as concisely and brutally as that poem does.

I am working on two pieces of microfiction right now. One is called “Paperback Romance” and the other is called “Mars”.  The first is somewhat satirical, the second is sincere, and both of them are steeped in my usual sort of genre melancholy.

Microfiction is a puzzle I am trying to figure out.  My brain is extending tender new dendrites in its direction.