COWBOY JAMBOREE MAGAZINE & PRESS
  • CJ MAGAZINE
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  • Style & Submit
    • About CJ
  • Books
  • Sheldon Lee Compton
    • Oblivion Angels
    • The Orchard Is Full of Sound (excerpt)
    • Our Lord and Savior Christian Slater
    • Dog With a Rabbit's Head
    • By-blow
    • Until the Going Down of the River
    • The Judas Steer
    • Tooling Up
    • DYSPHORIA (excerpt)
  • Interviews, Reviews, & Presses
    • Hard Mountain Clay Review
    • Blake Johnson's Prodigal: An American Parable
  • Jobbers
    • Big Rig by Shaun Jex
    • A Night Out with Big Ricky by Katy Goforth
    • War Eagle by David Barker
    • True Dreams of Wichita by Shaun Jex
    • Doink the Clown Works Birthday Parties by Michael Chin
    • The Ballad of Ethel Bridges by David P. Barker
    • House Show in Badger County High School Gym by Simon Nagel
    • 288 Miles by David P. Barker
    • Corn Dogs by Shaun Jex
    • Getting Ready + Cowboy by Michael Chin
    • American Dream by Robert Libbey
    • Training Partner by A.A. Rubin
    • Finding the von Erichs by Shaun Jex
    • The Making of Big Sandy by Michael Carter
    • Pot Roast from Vance Godbey's by Mark A. Nobles
    • Abdullah the Butcher in Gotham by Mark A. Nobles
    • PWI by Josh Olsen
  • Harry Crews
  • CJ Issues & Authors
  • Our Father's Lit: Western Pulp

By-blow

By-blow

Sheldon Lee Compton
 
 
What can we know about a damaged heart? Not a broken heart, but a damaged heart. Things won’t have gone so far near the beginning. The pain should be broken down in some fundamental way. I soothed myself with guitar sadness. There were echoes in the shadows of my mouth and the bed sheets alphabet-curled around my pretend happiness. To dream was to dream of hell; to hope was a hope of hell; to scream was to scream for hell; to hell was to hell for hell. Pa, Ol’ Man, Pap, Dada, Paw, Senior, Pop, Papa, Vater, Da, Pater, Padre. Acting every hour while the audience trashed their eardrums. But the one who plucked his eye out for now forever for all time and time and nothing, plucked first the right and then the left and still saw nothing until his heart burst with the seeing nothing of it.
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  • CJ MAGAZINE
  • Current Issue
  • Style & Submit
    • About CJ
  • Books
  • Sheldon Lee Compton
    • Oblivion Angels
    • The Orchard Is Full of Sound (excerpt)
    • Our Lord and Savior Christian Slater
    • Dog With a Rabbit's Head
    • By-blow
    • Until the Going Down of the River
    • The Judas Steer
    • Tooling Up
    • DYSPHORIA (excerpt)
  • Interviews, Reviews, & Presses
    • Hard Mountain Clay Review
    • Blake Johnson's Prodigal: An American Parable
  • Jobbers
    • Big Rig by Shaun Jex
    • A Night Out with Big Ricky by Katy Goforth
    • War Eagle by David Barker
    • True Dreams of Wichita by Shaun Jex
    • Doink the Clown Works Birthday Parties by Michael Chin
    • The Ballad of Ethel Bridges by David P. Barker
    • House Show in Badger County High School Gym by Simon Nagel
    • 288 Miles by David P. Barker
    • Corn Dogs by Shaun Jex
    • Getting Ready + Cowboy by Michael Chin
    • American Dream by Robert Libbey
    • Training Partner by A.A. Rubin
    • Finding the von Erichs by Shaun Jex
    • The Making of Big Sandy by Michael Carter
    • Pot Roast from Vance Godbey's by Mark A. Nobles
    • Abdullah the Butcher in Gotham by Mark A. Nobles
    • PWI by Josh Olsen
  • Harry Crews
  • CJ Issues & Authors
  • Our Father's Lit: Western Pulp