The Joycelin Shrager Story
When people asked what he did, Donald Long’s standard riposte was, “I’m a mechanic of the dream.” Meaning, he was a projectionist.
When people asked what he did, Donald Long’s standard riposte was, “I’m a mechanic of the dream.” Meaning, he was a projectionist.
I can hear him, in the next room but one, typing away. An answer to Pamela’s Special Delivery letter perhaps? Or lists of moneymaking projects. Possibly even a story, or a revised out line forPopcorn, in which he will refute the errors of our age.
Like antelope bounding across
the wide lawns of Africa
are these flames that leap
It's like heaven: you've got to die
To get there. And you can't be sure.
The publisher might go out of business.
Too brief to be called
A song, yet so distinctive:
What bird can it be?
The pie here doesn’t taste
As though it were meant
To be eaten nor can I
Rectangularity controls the setting
Of tables, the organization of paint
On canvas, and the sport of ping-pong.
The raison d’etre of much
Aestheticism, as of
the entire hermetic tradition
I have a feeling that I will not die
For quite some time. Only poets with a kind
Of supererogatory strength of mind,
The Joyful Feelings met you as
Yesterday emerged from the tiny windows
outside Tiffany’s My rough
Tom Disch’s poem “Donna Reed in the Old Scary House” appeared in our Fall 1995 issue. A prolific poet, novelist, science-fiction writer, and author of children’s books—including The Brave Little Toaster: A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances—Disch fre…