"onkle adolf... einige sagen es war anrede: ave maria", besagt fräulein elisabeth.*

we have all lived through a countenance
of inspecting the: actor -
even if we were less obliged,
we deemed it, necessary,
to suggest an opaqueness -
thus let us celebrate:
          opaque rhetoric!
               countered with french
existentialism...
                        we are to deliver what is of
most interest...
       funny to find large
families at providing virtue,
when they in fact also provide
world wars, akin to the first....
                        families, given
******, see, hardly the hard end consequence...
with family being the last:
defended artefact...
        question is:
how sooner the ******
          may collapse?
            dearest claim to crown & king?
i fiddle my fingers pretending they
are apt for a violin, dearest,
           the unearthed tongue
from the graveyard ridden,
if not welcomed by crows and hyenas,...
              the crackling cackle
and the labouring laugh makes due
surfacing against the monarchic
  the orb, the hammer,
  the sceptre, the sickle,
  and donned, the crown,
what is a will of the people...
how humbled the queen must be:
shedding lost airs and the evermore
senses of jane austen sensibilities...
poor thing...
   i'd be the most richest of men,
merely experienced this: "travesty"...
   a famed queen cushioned,
lying, on a bed of rocks...
                    how will i ever
dare to, manage?!
                             at least the russians learnt
what a peasant was...
             the english?
i find that the english didn't learn
the same lesson..
  i feel they obliterated it with the jewish
conception of Kazakh...
            the enbglish only seemed
to learn what a peasant was among
the peasants...
but the english queen learned? hardly.
  the monarchy has just emerged
as solipsistic...
        that's quasi-autistic may i add...
the reason her majesty's people didn't
learn what a peasant was is because:
the english peasant always required
an under-peasant...
                yet you must remember:
the norther english are still
                     usurpers...
                you will not find couriers of
nationhood among the northen counts of slap...
the first wold war was not a world war,
it was merely a family feud...
one family... just one,
that cost so many others a cherished
endeavour into being solidified
with old age... ******?! ****** is the evil?!
vile, ****** concubines of ******!
                cousins versus cousins!
you actually have the goud
to press your measures?!
                 the orb and the hammer,
the sceptre and the sickle,
the crown and: the will of the people...
              to your bidding no bidding be
worth un-bidding or made said as:
an bidding undone?
            with that sort of assumption...
as queen, and country,
you have no honour to stand before
a god, save yourself the grace,
and simply stand before: the common man;
take no to a confession,
  but abide by a compliment of:
having made confession in a confinement
of a sheltered privacy,
  whereupon the public might be
congratulating in what you know to be
the most aghast lesion of truth,
which is obviously a mere,
simpleton of the bereft royal auction of:
said lie, kept beyond hidden -
   by mere exfoliation as recompense:
          riddled.

The Pandemic in Six-Word Memoirs
“The world has never felt smaller.”

By Larry Smith
Mr. Smith is the creator of Six Word Memoirs.

Since 2006, I’ve been challenging people to describe their lives in six words, a form I call the six-word memoir — a personal twist on the legendary six-word story attributed to Ernest Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

I’ve found that some of the most memorable six-word stories arise in the extremes — during our toughest and most joyous moments. So over the past several months, I’ve asked adults and children around the country to use the form to make sense of this moment in history: one person, one story, and six words at a time.

Not a criminal, but running masked.
— Stella Kleinman

Every day’s a bad hair day.
— Leigh Giza

Home ec: rationing butter, bourbon, sanity.
— Christine Triano

Cinemagraph
Can’t smell the campfire on Zoom.
— Melanie Abrams

Deserted crowded Manhattan, my own island …
— Elisa Shevitz

Eighth hour of YouTube. Send Help!
— Leela Chandra

Cinemagraph
Messy hair, messy room, messy thoughts.
— Lily Herman

I regret saying, “I hate school.”
— Riana Heffron

Read every book in the house.
— Francesca Gomez-Novy

Cinemagraph
Never-ending, but boredom doesn’t faze me.
— Lily Gold

Required school supplies: screens, screens, screens.
— Darshana Chandra

Won scrabble; smile breaks through mask.
— Abby Ellin

Cinemagraph
Tuning out parents, under my headphones.
— Lukas Smith

This is what time looks like.
— Sylvia Sichel


Bad time for an open marriage.
— Rachel Lehmann-Haupt

Cinemagraph
Sun-kissed lips? Not kissed this year.
— Twanna Hines

Avoiding death, but certainly not living.
— Sydney Reimann

Social distancing myself from the fridge.
— Maria Leopoldo

Cinemagraph
Dream of: heat, limbs, crowds, concerts.
— Amy Turn Sharp

Teacher finding inspiration through uneasy times.
— April Goodman

Slowly turning into a technological potato.
— Jad Ammar

Cleaned Lysol container with Lysol wipe.
— Alex Wasser

Cinemagraph
Hallway hike, bathtub swim, Pandora concert.
— Susan Evind

Numbers rise, but sun does too.
— Paloma Lenz

Afraid of: snakes, heights, opening schools.
— Michelle Wolff

The world has never felt smaller.
— Maggie Smith

Cinemagraph
How do you make sense of this moment in history?

Share your own six-word memoir in the comments. We’ll feature some of our favorites in a future article.