Because we want to get a head start on showcasing your best seasonal content, we’re inviting new submissions as FEATURED SEASONAL CONTENT across all categories.
Explore O:JA&L’s Buttonhook Press offerings on Amazon.
Support publication of Erik Harper Klass’s forthcoming novella.
Subscribe to the O:JA&L YouTube channel.
Become an O:JA&L Member through Patreon.
Follow O:JA&L on Facebook.
An O:JA&L Writer’s Portfolio
Featured Writer Jim Meirose
I LIKE THE CEMETERY
To explore more of Jim Meirose’s work,
view or download Experimental Storytelling: The Timeline of Complementary Realities
the free PDF in the 2023 O:JA&L Chapbook Series.
I like the cemetery.
I like the cemetery.
I like the cemetery, yes.
I really do. I like it so much an’, ‘nd ‘lso I like to read. The whole of the place is of little importance, ‘cause; to read, when, yes to read, when the bus, by the cemetery, pulls up, in its cloud of yellow gas, exactly ‘efore the gate of the cemetery, drops me off all loud like that, right by the way straight in, e’, wh’ it’s early and I, dropped off early ‘cross from the cemetery, for school to start later cross o’er the street, bring, while the bus blows away its thick black loud-cloud, leaving me there for school that starts later, myself off, too early for school, a book with me to the gateway into the cemetery. The whole of the place goes t’ nothing when I bring my book right in past the gate, n’, yes, I do daily bring my book and myself ‘lso through that same gate, ‘n hour ‘efore school, which yes, I do daily, unless it’s not really; ‘t mostly do the same ‘xact do every time. Then my books and my bag led me deep into the cemetery. Once there all puts ‘tselves down ‘n one exactly same stone. I then sit down there too, on another, ‘n, then; the book brought in opens. Gets read by me; read. Read, ah ‘nd as the whole of the place’s becomes ‘ven less than not nothing, ‘ll gone. A gone et ‘ne can’t see hear smell ‘r knows nothing ‘tall of, yes. So fine. Fine. Book read’s an hour ‘t-time. So fine, ahhhhhh.
I like the cemetery.
I like the cemetery.
I like the cemetery, yes.
I really do.
About the writer:
Jim Meirose‘s short fiction has appeared in leading journals, and his novels include Sunday Dinner with Father Dwyer (Optional Books), Understanding Franklin Thompson (JEF), Le Overgivers au Club de la Résurrection (Mannequin Haus), and No and Maybe – Maybe and No (Pski’s Porch).
Image: Lesender Mann im Park by August Macke (1887-1914). Copied from an art book. No medium specified. No size specified. By 1914. Public domain.
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprints Buttonhook Press and HOT BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Issues, supports writers and artists worldwide.
Follow O:JA&L on Facebook.
OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) recommends the services of Duotrope.
