Legally drunk on The Strip I slide anonymous past the break-dancing boys who sell CDs and their phone numbers on the liminal bridge between The Lion and The City.
Blurred, a bronzy man walks in front of me gray skinny suit filled out to six feet, six inches at least almost big enough to be the ancient god’s skeleton found by archaeologists in an unmarked grave somewhere in the backwoods of Greece.
On this night, Caesar’s is the best he can do.
Its plastic emperors, audio-animatronic mythology, and the gray-water fountain Evel Knievel jumped wait to praise him
just north of the newest destructions— about ten blocks shy of the lonely Stratosphere.
I am an essayist and poet. My work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman, among others.. In 2002, I won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University.
For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once won $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors.
When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: PR writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, and telephone psychic, just to name a few.
I am also albino. That's why my psychic gifts are so strong. I traded in my pigment for magical foresight, because that's how it works. It gets all technical. Trust me. That's totally how it works.
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M. N. Ashley 