D. Richard Scannell comes from central New Jersey. Reading the climax of ‘Moby-Dick’ when Ishmael and Ahab fight off the pod of whales with their bare hands was a pivotal moment in his life. He thought he was going to be an electrical engineer for a while, but then he got an opportunity to see what it was really like, and he decided that capacitors and dark basements weren't for him. Instead he studied English and German at Penn State. German possesses a mystical quality, something like unfiltered cigarettes stuffed with aloe leaves—raw, violent, cleansing. He retained a love of computers and programming from his engineering days, skills that come in handy. His current project is ForTheHermits.com, a website that combines flash fiction and illustration. It updates once a week and gives him a consistent relief from the insanity of introspection. Someday, he may do something really exciting, but for now, he's content to scribble down ideas in notebooks.

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MOBY DICK by Herman Melville

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THE STRANGER by Albert Camus

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DEATH OF A SALESMAN by Arthur Miller

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THE SEA by John Banville

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WHITE NOISE by Don DeLillo

Nonfiction for Concord Magazine

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Flash fiction for Problem Child Literary Magazine

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Poetry in forthcoming Zygote in my Coffee Print Edition #3

Leave a message for Dan on the SITE
FORUM

SELECTED POETRY

by
D. Richard Scannell

OPIATES

This afternoon on our bench
In the park, near my home,
I watched a chipmunk worry.
He looked under a bush, by a root,
Poked at a vagrant paper bag,
Sniffed a stray service epistle, created
Myriad small excavations, but never,
During my observations, discovered
Where his nuts were.

You were there.
Leather handbag between us.
You squeezed the smoke
From your cigarette.
You conversed
About last night,
Remembered the beer
You spilled on that kid;
Your friends gave you that memory

This morning you slid
Bed to couch television coffee
Telephone Advil back to coffee.
You couldn't smell the party
Seeped in your flesh.
I remained at the desk, searching
Through my books for a passage
I remembered knowing.

© D. Richard Scannell

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A SUBTLE REMNANT

On the path well-travelled,
A maple, gouged, wounded,
A giant's corpse stuck in the ground;
Buried full from head to ribs,

(way back when silence shook
the oaks into subservience,
enlisted lazy bumblebees
in mandatory servitude)

Limbs all flayed and strewn about,
And solemnly he rusted there
Til creeping bark had rendered
Him benign to those within his shade.

© D. Richard Scannell

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THOSE MOMENTS AT THE BEACH

Dancing singing fleeting songs
Golden gray and blue,
Life rolls off like drops of rain;
Sombre rolling waves,
Red on Black on me on you
Your breath it steals the wind,
Our watercolour dance won't end.
Our watercolour dance won't end…

© D. Richard Scannell

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VET HOUR AT THE COURTESY INN

into the bloodbath,
the courtesy inn at Fairhaven
peeking out of shell -
shocked buzz cuts
hand grenades and cancer sticks
France, the Pacific, and Vietnam meet here
(best whisper—I've seen a gook in a flowerpot)
but the ghosts of the living and the dead,
they're all here: barrel-chested
bravely (this time) braining the bastards

thousands of rounds fired fuelled
on 8oz cups of jo —

these are the soldiers, the protectorate you've seen
them on the plastic diner seat
milking that coffee waitress for hours
but here —

remember Gil
that old bastard
pants round his ankles
jesus…

one helluva butcher

© D. Richard Scannell

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WILDFLOWER

That lusty, earthy face
with cheshire eyes, devious,
not tall nor ascetic,
a gliding bulk
dances
into the chest she preys
upon her hips thrust
forward capturing
with green and brown eyes.

She is delicious—
plate after plate
of hors'deuvres
the filet in
sight eternally near,
her hips are yours,
a handful of breast,
soft belly against you,
gardenwalk legs…

And then she rears,
sensual elephant
snake-eyed,
demanding secrets, anecdotes,
asking, asking, offering
no respite of telling,

until only
crows contemplate
in her grass and
mud shrine.

© D. Richard Scannell

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MY HIGH HORSE, AUSTERE

It's cold up high
On my horse Austere,
But I brandish the goosebumps
On my spitefully
Bare arms, that the bundled
Penniless peasants
Should know I am above
Their worldy woes.

It's lonely inside
My ice castle,
Far out on the ascetic
Permafrost.
I'm not afraid of building
Fire.

Sometimes I bludgeon
The ten foot thick glass
To exasperation. But
I am more cunning
At construction than change,
And the bundled wealthy peasants
Smile pity
And keep strolling.

© D. Richard Scannell