MONOPOLE

a novel by Bailey Stone Barnard

man on bus

From Monopole [formerly Theodorus in Excelsis] …The bus ride is slow and there are many stops. The time, too, is slow, but Teddy enjoys watching the city-street day go by. A man who is seemingly homeless, or else he just cares very little for his presentability and personal hygiene, boards the bus, pays the fare with twenty or thirty coins (grumbling to himself all the while), sits down beside Teddy, and begins saying things to him, leaning over in his seat so as to place his

the lonely boy slowly slipped away

the lonely boy slowly slipped away against all things refined, awakening then one morning to find the sound of his own breath echoing off the mountains his self-squalor has adorned. such walls the lonely boy had created by sheer hard-headedness and earnestness of will. obliging that which he has for so long forgotten to know, the lonely boy grew into a lonelier young man; though, in spite of himself, he scaled hitherto indivisible bounds. always are the seasons going; alone i

thought 7

What does one say when one sits down to write? He could speak of the sound of somebody outside wheeling the big plastic garbage can to the curb, or cars going down the road, or planes across the sky, or of his incandescent thoughts dancing through his skull. He could speak of everything wrong or of everything right. He could speak his mind or pretend to speak somebody else’s. He could piss and moan—and he undoubtedly will—but of all the things one could say when one sits down

vast silent bedrooms

From the award-winning short story A Vain and Terrible Thing, or Therapy, or Mr. Mitchell’s Cock Charade. I wake this morning to a dream of empty hallways, vast silent bedrooms. I walk past a window and there seems to be a dark brown dust blowing all over everything, covering all of it. I don’t think much of it, so I wander more about the apartment. I walk past the large mirror in my bedroom, only to find two reflections of myself. The one on the left is me in my flourishing

europe

From "the altruistic ending" Here I sit, swallowing the effervescent flow of the open night I watch too many movies and my constant wallowing does nothing for me any longer Europe goes and goes before me eyes van Gogh stares at me Versailles passes by the Venus de Milo has no hands with which to get me off and the brutal sun has set with endless arms my dreams feel like colorless hallucinations and a cleaver cuts through and through the back of my thoughtless skull I am an ab

thought 4

I wonder to myself now if it is possible to be both contented and fulfilled. What need to pursue fulfillment is there if one feels contentment? Can the poet pursue both those ends? Can the poet have both what he wants and what he needs? This poet can only hope. He hopes it is not merely a dream, and he wonders… In the midst of pursuing his one pursuit, Teddy forgot to live. With all his persistence, his drive, his aspirations, Teddy failed to become a complete person. He exis

a thousand shades of saffron

Teddy goes into a bar. Orders a beer, asks for a straw. Has to repeat himself until the server understands. Sucks the beer up through the straw, his head filled with sad, lonely thoughts, as it bobs spastically atop his retard neck. Teddy finishes the beer. Orders another. Spills it accidentally with his clumsy retard hands. Leaves. Heads to the bus stop. The colors all around are changing. Where light becomes into the night there’s a thousand shades of saffron. Like the sun

Welcome to Plight of the Poet

Welcome to Plight of the Poet, the website devoted to my yet-unpublished novel Theodorus in Excelsis [now called Monopole]. Today, the 28th anniversary of my birth, seemed an appropriate day on which to launch this website and introduce my novel to the world. Please peruse these pages, which I designed myself, as they will surely whet your appetite for the novel itself—to appear in print and digital formats as soon as I find a publisher savvy enough to realize its kinetic (da

Featured Posts

thought 53

The Pitch

Introducing Monopole

thought 31

thought 25

thought 23

thought 22

thought 20

shoveling (thought 17)

things and unthings (thought 15)

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