HOMAGE WEEK #3: Try too hard to be James Joyce

Redoubtable son of the peatstenched bogland Christian Yeoman bent low his back in a gesture of genuflection as ancient as the genus of the meat that lay undigested in his bowel. Placing one unremarkable hand against the other, he lowmurmured Roman syllables through dry lips – an observance which lasted only as long as the abatement of his gastric activity would allow. Finally, in a hot rush of brackish bile which itself was a catechism of sorts, he half-suppressed, half-amplified a belch which was as miasmically potent as it was profane. As if in response, somewhere high and far across the ancient city, an albatross called out.

– And yourself the flyaway scoundrel, said Christian, although to the empty graveyard as much as the bird, he thought. What do you think of the matter? What’s your view?

As quickly as it had downswooped into consciousness though it was gone and away and then came only the wind and the clouds oh the clouds like the souls of those long departed but not yet by their warmbreathed kin forgotten no not yet not yet not yet.