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Tag: writing

  • The Ballad of Bill and Bud

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in

    Bill lived free in his truck-bed camper.  Every summer he’d roll into town with his wife and two daughters, stock up at the local grocery store, and park under the Ponderosa pines, where he lived free of rent and indoor plumbing in the shadow of the volcano. He was not a tall man, but he…

  • Not Every Riddle (5.4)

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in ,

    But Oedipus could not let it go. Something in the old man’s words… “Send for the servant.” She reached for him again, took his hands, and searched his face. “Let it be. He begged to leave the city.” “The city suffers. I will know.” He turned to his guards. “Bring him to me.” “Not every…

  • The Man You Seek (5.3)

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in , ,

    After entering Thebes, Oedipus learned that the people mourned the loss of their king, and feared who would fill his throne: Laius had left no heir. Then the Sphinx arrived with her riddle, demanding an answer. She killed those who could not provide one, piling at her feet the bones of the bold.

  • The Riddle of the Gate (5.2)

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in ,

    Descending from Mount Parnassus along the Pythian way, Oedipus traveled east toward the sunrise. By midday he had reached the triple meeting of roads. Behind him rose Delphi. Before him two roads diverged. One bent toward Daulia’s quieter fields. The other led to the great city of Thebes.

  • Nine Moons Certain (5.1)

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in ,

    Laius, King of Thebes, went to Delphi seeking counsel about his house. The oracle declared that if he fathered a son, that boy would kill him—and take Jocasta, his wife, as his own. Even so, one evening he lay with her and forged his fate. Nine moons waned, and the news was delivered: Jocasta had…

  • Veni, Vidi, Vaccine

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in

    Siri announced that I had arrived. I turned off NPR, shut down my Subaru Forester, and began fumbling through my documents.  Photo ID? Check.  Kaiser card? Check.  Face mask? Ready.  I put my documents into my wallet, slid it into my right back pocket, stepped out into the parking lot, and strapped on my mask. I checked the…

  • X Marks the Name of The Father

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in , ,

    What follows listens closely to a White House press conference, one year into the administration, January 2026. By the time a word bubbles up to the surface, it’s passed through several subterranean chambers. It arrives as a dream-image arrives—attached to innumerable associations—tangled with roots, not etymological, yet of a perdurable toughness. In our waking hours,…

  • Of ICE and Men: Curley Editon

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in , , ,

    I’ve never told this story. It still makes me blush, even now, though it happened about four decades ago, when I was in seventh grade. “Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to.” — Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil Every so often—working in the garage, mowing the yard, taking out the trash—the memory jumps out from…

  • The Wombstone (4.3)

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in ,

    Cronus swallowed his children. The prophecy had foretold that, just as he had overthrown his own father, Uranus, so one of his own children would overthrow him. This foreknowledge tormented him. Transformed him.

  • An Ontology of Equality

    An Ontology of Equality

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    by

    K. L. Homme
    in , ,

    Orwell warned us that authoritarian governments flatten description and constrict vocabulary in order to maintain control. They repeat words, phrases, and slogans so incessantly that at last these become as familiar as our own voice, and we mistake their rhetoric for truth, and measure all things against it. What does not fit the familiar description…