Brian Kenneth Swain

Notwithstanding all the tremendously rich and important debates and arguments that take place each day between couples—married or otherwise—about cheating, slovenly relatives, wanting or not wanting children, or whether to work or stay home, I strongly suspect that more relationships fail over one topic than any other, i.e. whether the paper towels and toilet paper should unroll over the top or out from the bottom (hereinafter referred to as the Toilet Paper Issue or TPI). I offer no heuristic data with which to support this assertion[1], relying instead on personal observation and more than a few anecdotal statements provided by relatives and personal associates. Don’t misunderstand me – the premise in what follows is not that ...

Outcome without consequence—that’s what it seems to come down to with some kids, teenagers especially. Or at least that’s how it was for the crowd I hung out with back in high school—if, that is, you can call four adolescent boys a crowd. Group would probably be more like it. We most certainly did not comprise a clique, neither in number of members nor unity of purpose or qualification. And we possessed no particular athletic prowess, academic acumen, or entrepreneurial bent that might suggest a logical institution of any sort. Indeed, we were a group only inasmuch as we lived near each other and had more or less congruent views towards authority, sharing a singular enjoyment in the flouting thereof. By “outcome” I mean only ...

Having frequently stood in wonder before the capacious bookstore shelves that pitch Atkins, Scarsdale, Cambridge, South Beach, etc., I have long fantasized about writing a diet book of my own—to be called, cleverly, The Swain Diet. It seems a road to certain riches, and if that plethora of available selections is any indication, it would appear to require precious little thought, preparation, or special expertise to crank one out, just the ticket for someone with my work ethic. And the beauty of this industry (and rest assured it is an enormous one[1]) is that it is, to all appearances, completely and indisputably arbitrary and capricious, changing both in time and content from one edition to the next. If you don’t believe it, select ...

“I don’t even like animals. Why the hell do I always get the animals?” Gabe whined, walking toward the sink, tugging impatiently on the jammed fly of his black silk slacks. “Shit! Now my shirt’s caught in the zipper. Man, I just got this shirt…Goddamn it!” “Hey, you better watch it with that GD business. The wrong person hears you, and it’s gonna be your ass, you know? Besides, better your shirt than something else getting caught in there, eh?!” “Yeah, I know,” Gabe replied, finally extricating the fabric from the zipper mechanism. “It just pisses me off, getting stuck with animals again. Just once I’d like to prove I can do something else…something bigger, you know?” “Hey, what can I say? I guess you must ...

There comes an unexpected brusque knock at the front door, which really sucks what with Wheel of Fortune just coming out of commercial and Buster having astutely deduced the phrase-in-question to be FLYING FUCK (which if correct would be delightfully refreshing for daytime television and might mean that the correct phrase is in fact FLYING FROG, even though that makes far less apparent sense than his guess, but he supposes it is equally likely at this point being as how neither U, C, K, R, O, or G have been guessed yet by either contestant) besides which he is one hundred and seven Christ-awful years old and how in the hell can’t whoever is at the front door know or at least reasonably infer that it takes him no less than ten tortuous ...

This is my very first actual blog, and even though I’ve been writing poems, stories and novels for years, I find this a bit intimidating, probably because it’s more of a real-time, extemporaneous sort of thing. I will likely just use this capability of the new web site to capture my own thoughts on future projects. We’ll have to see how it goes. For the moment I am just happy that the new site is up and running and I have a great deal more capability than I had on the previous edition. Stay ...

Click play below to listen to a reading of this poem by the author. My America stands outside the nursery at Bath Memorial Hospital, one hand raised to the glass, uncertain which is the one. Already concerned about strained carrots and strollers and college and being needed. My America waits at a New Haven bus stop, shoes moist with early morning dew. Holds tight to the youngest one’s tiny hand, afraid to let her go alone to that first day of kindergarten. My America thrashes and beats rubber on concrete as Newark back lot boys slam-dunk dreams through steel chain hoops that jingle in the August heat like life flying away. My America stands at the corner of Watson Street and Lee. Gazes up at the telephone lines and ...

Leonardo’s Lunchbox Inventor, Painter, Poet, Philosopher. The defining renaissance man. I’m betting he was a bologna and cheese sort of fellow. No squishy formless egg salad for the master geometrician. He would be drawn inexorably to the precisely circular slice of uniform pink meat. Add to this one compellingly orthogonal slice of yellow American, its corners only just touching the bologna’s circumference (like the naked man in that famous sketch) Then punctuate this blessed symmetry with a delicate abstract swirl of bright yellow mustard- perhaps the inspiration for the Mona Lisa’s gracefully curved finger. To then hide such perfection between slices of Wonder Bread would doubtless have disturbed the ...

Excerpt from World Hunger Thursday, June 20th – 10:45 p.m. By the time Hemant Patel had discovered the cutter ant damage in his cornfield four weeks earlier, the colony had already been in residence for more than six months. In fact, the colony’s founder had been originally attracted to the field by the turning of soil in preparation for planting of the test crop. The loose rich earth was prime real estate for a new ant colony, particularly given its close proximity to the wealth of consumable foliage surrounding the outer boundaries of the field. Having two hectares of new, genetically enhanced corn arrive a few month later was an unexpected fringe benefit. The queen had flown into the Vanguard field sometime the ...

Click play below to listen to an interview with Brian and Kate Daniels. KRWM, Bellevue, WA http://briankennethswain.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/KateDanielsInterview.mp3 Click play below to listen to an interview with Brian and Diego Muligan from The Journey Home Radio Show, KSFR 90.7 FM Santa Fe, NM http://briankennethswain.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/DiegoMulliganInterview.mp3 Click play below to listen to an interview with Brian and Dr. Pat Worldwide on the Voice America Network. CHSR – Healthylife.net http://briankennethswain.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/swain1.mp3 Click play below to listen to an interview with Brian and Pat Greer on Eco-ology. KPFT, 90.1 FM – ...