part 2 for "Glory to the Astral Kingdom"
The ocean floor is a graveyard. Jagged shards of bone jut up out of the shifting black muck like scimitars as bodies drift down from the surface, clothes in tatters waving like flags of surrender in the current. They pile, bent in abject obeisance at the foot of my girl’s throne. They kiss her feet encrusted with pink and turquoise coral, writhing with sightless white worms with gaping, sucking maws.
Her face is gone, her tongue, eaten. Her cheekbones are pearls under the ebon caves where her bright eyes once were.
Strangely mutated hammerheads (thorns erupting from around their gills and along their undulating sides) circle the convocation spiraling closer and closer, occasionally snatching morsels from the bellies and thighs of the falling pilgrims.
The cold water comes carrying violet jellyfish. Their tentacles entangle with her hair as a white light forms – a glowing sphere that expands slowly from her exposed ribs, twists out like ribbons and reaches toward the jade surface where shadows slide through the shimmering sun shafts cutting through to the depths.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
That Light
Eyes are such lovely treats. Let them age in my head. Pupils like fingerprint whorls count years like rings inside creaking trees. She assumes a languid posture for unfocusing. The slow stun strobes and the soporific burbling stimulate an ache to scratch the itch deep within the spine. Minute fibers braided and frayed encased in bone separated by flexing cartilage wave like purple sea anemone. Succulent rib bone cage bent up and out like great condor wings, a scavenger body in awkward contrapposto. Thin fingers claw tipped and taut for belly depredation. Spindly clacking knee bone rhythm walk on wind shifted dune face. Click-cluck dry tongue behind elegant teeth in wretched gums.
Bloated electronic liver filters television toxins. Distilled for brain pickle.
There must be something wrong with my optic nerve, and surely I have damaged my cerebrum. I cannot remember, I cannot remember, but when I see you there, there floating, fading, it is my brain that is looking at you, no matter how inferior. Yes
there is gray everywhere and it extends out of my body as an urban marrow, radiating from solar farms, thermal fields and synthetic trees.
This is no longer my city, or my body in it. Such realizations always strike me hard like hammer blows the kneecaps.
The last thing I remember was the blood. The blood came onto my thighs as I walked and I pretended it wasn’t happening, not as it collected in the hollows of my knees, or as the wind iced over what was left of my face. I pretended like none of it was happening. I’m down again. That’s for certain. It’s so very hard to get back up, but I do. I rise. I’ve risen like this before. Exactly like this before. Coming up from the surface. Palms on the sidewalk. Palms on my knees. Slowly. I’m up and my hands crawl around my torso and cover my face. A rhythmic humming is coming from all around. The light is strange. Cold season is here. Flat line horizon stirs with a mass like black waves. Flashes of white light strike out like needles through skin. My fingers played across my face, touched bone and came away wet. A shadow moves in front of me.
"What do you think you're trying to do?"
With my right hand I continued to explore the exposed bone structures, the rifts in soft tissue. I tried to see the shadow but it stayed on the edge of my faltering vision like a speck of dust on my eye. When I attempted to focus it slid away.
"What are you doing? What’s happened to your face?”
"Come closer," I said, "I can only see out of one eye. And not very well.” I brushed my fingers across the remnants of my lips. Touched broken teeth that felt like crude knives, arrowheads maybe.
The shadow shifted, seemed to come at me from behind boulders. I could smell something now, a mixture of ash and cologne.
“What happened to your face?”
“I still can’t see you. I can smell you, but I can’t see you.” There was a rush of air, I heard tigers screaming. I was a fountain. Sounds of bodies falling, engines roaring. Still, that hum was there, rhythmic, like a chant. The shadow shifted once more. I saw that it was made up of rags. Filthy rags whipping in the wind like shrapnel torn flags. What was inside the rags? What sort of flagpole would support this inundation?
Colors were coming back to me, still though, only in one eye. I could see beneath me, where my left hand was propping up my body, a line of green grass peeking through the dark gray and white concrete. There was red too, of course. There was red everywhere, but I chose instead to see the green grass. When would it ever be likely for me to see such a thing again?
“I think he’s had it.”
My right hand was fluttering uncontrollably over what I thought was more than likely exposed skull. Why was there no pain? The bones felt like flowers, the skin like leaves.
“I ain’t had it.”
The shadow came closer. “You look like you had it.”
Something was coming out me. A movement at my belly. Long trains, caterpillars, and metal.
“You’re bleeding again.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever stopped.” I gasped, still no pain, though it was getting hard to breathe. “I was born bleeding.”
“You’ve gotta great sense of humor about the whole thing,” the shadow laughed. I think I saw teeth. The flagpole had teeth.
“What happened?”
The shadow receded. I was left there for a while. I saw a circle in the sky or maybe it was the ground. Everything seemed reflective and it was equally possible in my mind to fly on both the ground and the sky. You simply needed the right apparatus. They apparently had it.
“Who are they?” The shadow was back, rags whirling about it.
There must be wind. Was I talking out loud? “Who are they?” I repeated. I didn’t know.
“Who is she?”
Colors were crossed. The green grass was red. I was lying in a puddle of green. It stuck to me. I couldn’t get it off. She?
“You sure that’s a she?”
“Gotta be.”
“How you figure.”
“That’s a tit.”
“That? That don’t look like no tit.”
“That’s a tit.”
“Looks like a, ah, I don’t even wanna say it.”
“Yeah.”
The blood came onto my thighs. What happened before the blood? I was walking. Surely I was walking. There were birds, but then again there are always birds. But they were acting strange, not assuming their normal patterns. Creating quite a ruckus. Wind. There was paper in the sky. White squares, we pointed… we…
“No point in leavin’ it there like that.”
“Right, right.”
“What’s he doin’ now?”
I thought my arm was a column and I was tree growing around it. Sky was my destination, starlight, sunlight, that’s what I was hungry for.
I put both my palms down in the green lake. I pushed up. The columns were structurally unsound. They buckled, but my knees came up. Volcanoes, waterfalls, geysers, I was a steam engine, cracks unsealed, roaring, spilling, gushing. I pushed.
“What does he think he’s doing?”
Light whirled. I saw buildings cracked and burned. White light meant the sun. I would go to it. Ragged shadows surrounded me. A red light turned green. There were screams. At least, I think there were screams. The whirling was distracting. I looked down. So tall. I was so tall, standing in a green lake. Where are these hands coming from?
“I will disintegrate, you will disintegrate, I will disintegrate, you will disintegrate…” The waves were closing in again. I saw the rags spin toward them. They were too late. The horizon was nothing but a hole to let the light in.
“Yeah, I was thinking that might be a good decision.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to go with the cherry one?”
“Huh-uh, it would clash with the curtains.”
“Really?”
“Honestly darling, I’ve always been better with color.”
“Well, yeah, I guess. Hey, finish up that latte and we’ll go get it today.”
“Today? You mean it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re the best!”
“Anything for you.”
“To hell with the rest of this latte, let’s go get it now.”
“Whatever you say darling.”
“What’s that light?”
Bloated electronic liver filters television toxins. Distilled for brain pickle.
There must be something wrong with my optic nerve, and surely I have damaged my cerebrum. I cannot remember, I cannot remember, but when I see you there, there floating, fading, it is my brain that is looking at you, no matter how inferior. Yes
there is gray everywhere and it extends out of my body as an urban marrow, radiating from solar farms, thermal fields and synthetic trees.
This is no longer my city, or my body in it. Such realizations always strike me hard like hammer blows the kneecaps.
The last thing I remember was the blood. The blood came onto my thighs as I walked and I pretended it wasn’t happening, not as it collected in the hollows of my knees, or as the wind iced over what was left of my face. I pretended like none of it was happening. I’m down again. That’s for certain. It’s so very hard to get back up, but I do. I rise. I’ve risen like this before. Exactly like this before. Coming up from the surface. Palms on the sidewalk. Palms on my knees. Slowly. I’m up and my hands crawl around my torso and cover my face. A rhythmic humming is coming from all around. The light is strange. Cold season is here. Flat line horizon stirs with a mass like black waves. Flashes of white light strike out like needles through skin. My fingers played across my face, touched bone and came away wet. A shadow moves in front of me.
"What do you think you're trying to do?"
With my right hand I continued to explore the exposed bone structures, the rifts in soft tissue. I tried to see the shadow but it stayed on the edge of my faltering vision like a speck of dust on my eye. When I attempted to focus it slid away.
"What are you doing? What’s happened to your face?”
"Come closer," I said, "I can only see out of one eye. And not very well.” I brushed my fingers across the remnants of my lips. Touched broken teeth that felt like crude knives, arrowheads maybe.
The shadow shifted, seemed to come at me from behind boulders. I could smell something now, a mixture of ash and cologne.
“What happened to your face?”
“I still can’t see you. I can smell you, but I can’t see you.” There was a rush of air, I heard tigers screaming. I was a fountain. Sounds of bodies falling, engines roaring. Still, that hum was there, rhythmic, like a chant. The shadow shifted once more. I saw that it was made up of rags. Filthy rags whipping in the wind like shrapnel torn flags. What was inside the rags? What sort of flagpole would support this inundation?
Colors were coming back to me, still though, only in one eye. I could see beneath me, where my left hand was propping up my body, a line of green grass peeking through the dark gray and white concrete. There was red too, of course. There was red everywhere, but I chose instead to see the green grass. When would it ever be likely for me to see such a thing again?
“I think he’s had it.”
My right hand was fluttering uncontrollably over what I thought was more than likely exposed skull. Why was there no pain? The bones felt like flowers, the skin like leaves.
“I ain’t had it.”
The shadow came closer. “You look like you had it.”
Something was coming out me. A movement at my belly. Long trains, caterpillars, and metal.
“You’re bleeding again.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever stopped.” I gasped, still no pain, though it was getting hard to breathe. “I was born bleeding.”
“You’ve gotta great sense of humor about the whole thing,” the shadow laughed. I think I saw teeth. The flagpole had teeth.
“What happened?”
The shadow receded. I was left there for a while. I saw a circle in the sky or maybe it was the ground. Everything seemed reflective and it was equally possible in my mind to fly on both the ground and the sky. You simply needed the right apparatus. They apparently had it.
“Who are they?” The shadow was back, rags whirling about it.
There must be wind. Was I talking out loud? “Who are they?” I repeated. I didn’t know.
“Who is she?”
Colors were crossed. The green grass was red. I was lying in a puddle of green. It stuck to me. I couldn’t get it off. She?
“You sure that’s a she?”
“Gotta be.”
“How you figure.”
“That’s a tit.”
“That? That don’t look like no tit.”
“That’s a tit.”
“Looks like a, ah, I don’t even wanna say it.”
“Yeah.”
The blood came onto my thighs. What happened before the blood? I was walking. Surely I was walking. There were birds, but then again there are always birds. But they were acting strange, not assuming their normal patterns. Creating quite a ruckus. Wind. There was paper in the sky. White squares, we pointed… we…
“No point in leavin’ it there like that.”
“Right, right.”
“What’s he doin’ now?”
I thought my arm was a column and I was tree growing around it. Sky was my destination, starlight, sunlight, that’s what I was hungry for.
I put both my palms down in the green lake. I pushed up. The columns were structurally unsound. They buckled, but my knees came up. Volcanoes, waterfalls, geysers, I was a steam engine, cracks unsealed, roaring, spilling, gushing. I pushed.
“What does he think he’s doing?”
Light whirled. I saw buildings cracked and burned. White light meant the sun. I would go to it. Ragged shadows surrounded me. A red light turned green. There were screams. At least, I think there were screams. The whirling was distracting. I looked down. So tall. I was so tall, standing in a green lake. Where are these hands coming from?
“I will disintegrate, you will disintegrate, I will disintegrate, you will disintegrate…” The waves were closing in again. I saw the rags spin toward them. They were too late. The horizon was nothing but a hole to let the light in.
“Yeah, I was thinking that might be a good decision.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to go with the cherry one?”
“Huh-uh, it would clash with the curtains.”
“Really?”
“Honestly darling, I’ve always been better with color.”
“Well, yeah, I guess. Hey, finish up that latte and we’ll go get it today.”
“Today? You mean it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re the best!”
“Anything for you.”
“To hell with the rest of this latte, let’s go get it now.”
“Whatever you say darling.”
“What’s that light?”
Twenty-eight Sentences
1. I will never have to bother mother for another Kit-Kat.
2. This bicycle is inexplicably rickety.
3. I will disarm the megalomaniacs with my tiny arm.
4. It's partly because he smartly disguised the object as detritus and found his way secretly through alleys packed with field operatives that he lives to sing about it to his family clan.
5 .The deadly man with the two-ton hand is slowly eating up the land and leaving piles of dying flowers behind him
6. As an ancient predator, I predate, or come before, the carnivorous green dinosaur.
7. She propels herself through fields of poppies with the tiny golden motors implanted in her spine.
8. Robert can't fit into his old pants because he ate the sun.
9. The copperhead mirage exists to ensure your personal charm
10. Her tender paws were bruised and bloodied after surgically replacing the calloused pads with shining caps of titanium
11. The most intense moment of beauty I have stored in my feeble memory is when your belly was splayed open like an orchid and the baby you had hiding within you tumbled out bloodied and tender like a suffocating eel twitching and convulsing until the hook rips out of its fat purple lip
12. After I drastically reduce your food supply, I will introduce a food packet that is many times more flavorful and shiny.
13. We were not sure about allowing you to be a part of our gang until you proved yourself by selling fake drugs to elderly people, you jerk
14. Dear Marine Life Geniuses, I am a very capable manager of submarine creatures and as such a person, I humbly request you expedite your review process of the Manatee Managerial application form as quickly as possible so that I may know how best to deal with the next few days as I may have other jobs lined up in my specific field
15. One time, in Istanbul, I had a cup of coffee that sort of approached the greatness of the coffee I now hold in my hand but I wasn't quite as pleased with the consistency as I am with this very pleasurable coffee now sitting before me which I consider to be the best damn coffee I’ve ever tasted in the entire fucking world
16. I thought it was really cool that you didn't get a fake hand cause I think that people who get artificial limbs are the same as people who go bald but comb their hair over the tops of their head in some insane attempt to convince others that they are not losing their hair
17. My easily policed avocado somehow outwitted your biogenetically engineered eggplant
18. I thought maybe you could tell me how intelligent viruses bent on destroying the boy who deployed special forces commandos on his video game last week infected the gelled meat.
19. I can't seem to identify myself within this vague program full of blips and places to hide
20. My dimple carver ain't so simple farmer john
21. Hey you crystal gazers in your stardust chambers, how come all your animals are in the polls in last place?
22. My intermittent insect drone emitter is hidden well in a certain anarchic African country
23. I hid the sheep cannon beneath a stack of fresh hay where it will not be sniffed out because their noses will never be able to penetrate the green stack.
24. The neophyte prostitute sanctimoniously dumped her progeny into a canal filled with flesh eating bacteria and cheeseburger wrappers from McDonald’s
25. On the ladder leading to the sliding board I thought I heard a high-pitched word being sucked into my ear and into my other ear
26. Every car I see shaped like a Bentley makes me want to see a Bentley shaped like me.
27. Mister Vietcong did you think you were wrong when you bought that Coca-Cola for fifty-nine cents?
28. Don’t worry; I won't give you the cold shoulder like sweet Al Capone did, honey
2. This bicycle is inexplicably rickety.
3. I will disarm the megalomaniacs with my tiny arm.
4. It's partly because he smartly disguised the object as detritus and found his way secretly through alleys packed with field operatives that he lives to sing about it to his family clan.
5 .The deadly man with the two-ton hand is slowly eating up the land and leaving piles of dying flowers behind him
6. As an ancient predator, I predate, or come before, the carnivorous green dinosaur.
7. She propels herself through fields of poppies with the tiny golden motors implanted in her spine.
8. Robert can't fit into his old pants because he ate the sun.
9. The copperhead mirage exists to ensure your personal charm
10. Her tender paws were bruised and bloodied after surgically replacing the calloused pads with shining caps of titanium
11. The most intense moment of beauty I have stored in my feeble memory is when your belly was splayed open like an orchid and the baby you had hiding within you tumbled out bloodied and tender like a suffocating eel twitching and convulsing until the hook rips out of its fat purple lip
12. After I drastically reduce your food supply, I will introduce a food packet that is many times more flavorful and shiny.
13. We were not sure about allowing you to be a part of our gang until you proved yourself by selling fake drugs to elderly people, you jerk
14. Dear Marine Life Geniuses, I am a very capable manager of submarine creatures and as such a person, I humbly request you expedite your review process of the Manatee Managerial application form as quickly as possible so that I may know how best to deal with the next few days as I may have other jobs lined up in my specific field
15. One time, in Istanbul, I had a cup of coffee that sort of approached the greatness of the coffee I now hold in my hand but I wasn't quite as pleased with the consistency as I am with this very pleasurable coffee now sitting before me which I consider to be the best damn coffee I’ve ever tasted in the entire fucking world
16. I thought it was really cool that you didn't get a fake hand cause I think that people who get artificial limbs are the same as people who go bald but comb their hair over the tops of their head in some insane attempt to convince others that they are not losing their hair
17. My easily policed avocado somehow outwitted your biogenetically engineered eggplant
18. I thought maybe you could tell me how intelligent viruses bent on destroying the boy who deployed special forces commandos on his video game last week infected the gelled meat.
19. I can't seem to identify myself within this vague program full of blips and places to hide
20. My dimple carver ain't so simple farmer john
21. Hey you crystal gazers in your stardust chambers, how come all your animals are in the polls in last place?
22. My intermittent insect drone emitter is hidden well in a certain anarchic African country
23. I hid the sheep cannon beneath a stack of fresh hay where it will not be sniffed out because their noses will never be able to penetrate the green stack.
24. The neophyte prostitute sanctimoniously dumped her progeny into a canal filled with flesh eating bacteria and cheeseburger wrappers from McDonald’s
25. On the ladder leading to the sliding board I thought I heard a high-pitched word being sucked into my ear and into my other ear
26. Every car I see shaped like a Bentley makes me want to see a Bentley shaped like me.
27. Mister Vietcong did you think you were wrong when you bought that Coca-Cola for fifty-nine cents?
28. Don’t worry; I won't give you the cold shoulder like sweet Al Capone did, honey
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Sometimes
Jelly squinched up her face in an effort to plug her nose without having to remove her hands from her jeans pockets. She hated summer. The sun beat down on the rusted dumpsters and made the streets smell like rotten fruit, sickeningly sweet and black. She was hot. She always wore long sleeves and pants in order to cover up her scars. The scars didn’t bother her so much; she thought they made her look a little dangerous, sexy even. It was the freshly scabbed wounds that made her feel self-conscious. People always stared at her arms, usually with shock, sometimes with pity. Jelly hated pity. She ran her fore and middle finger over her left arm and pressed a little where it was the most tender.
She frowned and looked to her left. Andy was late. She glanced at her watch for the tenth time and shook her small fist at a fly she was too slow to kill. Andy appeared around the corner and walked toward Jelly. He moved slowly, long legs stretched out and seemed to grab the ground and pull his upper body grudgingly forward.
Jelly crossed her arms. “‘Bout time.”
Andy lit a cigarette, inhaled. “Am I late?” Smoke curled out his nostrils and around the corners of his mouth. His eyes were slits. Pupils dilated. He looked straight through her.
Jelly stared.
“You’ll have to forgive me.” Andy’s cigarette hung off his lower lip.
“Why?”
Andy swung at a fly and caught it. “Flies.” He shook it in his hand and let it go. The fly buzzed off in a slow awkwardly oscillating circle. “Let’s walk.”
“Too hot.”
“I wanna show you something.”
“Do we have to walk?”
Andy flicked his ash at Jelly. It landed on her black shirt. She didn’t look at it. She knew it was there, had felt it land through the material. He turned and slouched down the street. She glared after him, cursing underneath her breath, then caught up and walked not quite beside him, but not behind him. She tried to remember how she’d met Andy but couldn’t quite get it clear in her head. She thought maybe it was in a bar, but couldn’t remember which one. Then again, maybe it was a bookshop. Jelly couldn’t think straight. It was like this every time they got together. It wasn’t like she was in love with him; she didn’t think herself capable. She’d never been an emotional person as far back as she could remember. Everything was filtered. Though, sometimes memories did surface.
They would appear in her dreams, garbled yet intense. Day to day sensations would stir up faint recollections of her past, of yesterday. There was a wall. Jelly was aware of this wall because she created it. Sometimes she dreamed about it. It was gray. Sometimes, she dreamed that there were cracks in it. She didn’t enjoy thinking about it. Andy made her feel strange. Maybe he simply amused her; kept her from getting too bored. Jelly stared at his arm. It was like a noodle. There was no muscular definition and he let it swing back and forth limply. The skin was shiny. There was no hair. It reminded her of plastic. She crossed her arms and ran both hands over her elbows, down her forearms, over her wrists, into her palms and snapped her fingertips together. She let her arms fall to her sides.
“Where we going?”
“You’ll see.” He tossed his cigarette into the road and lit another. Jelly hated how much he smoked. It was always one cigarette after another. It made her think of her father. She remembered him sitting at his HAM radio, smoking, speaking to tinny voices with funny accents. She would try to get his attention by shoving her toys in his face, with a “look dad, looky!” He would push the toy down, “That’s nice, dear,” and continue talking to the disembodied voice. She remembered his face when he died. Aneurysm. She was five. He had looked like he always did. Expressionless. Sitting in his chair. His cigarette burned down to his blue tinged flesh.
Andy stopped. She almost ran into him. They were at the big black wrought iron gates of Center Park. She’d never been inside. The city ran out of funds to maintain it, so it had gone wild. The art deco designs were nearly covered by the dead vines that were so dense they seemed to have strangled themselves to death. Suicide.
“How narcissistic of you,” she whispered as she ran her fingers over the dry brown stems. She cracked a small piece off and held it between her fingers, like a cigarette, mimicking Andy. Every time he inhaled, she inhaled. Andy pretended not to notice, or didn’t care.
“Yesterday,” he said slowly through the thick cloud of smoke in his mouth, “I woke up and my mouth was bleeding. I got up and went into the bathroom to rinse my mouth. It was completely dark and I couldn’t see anything at all. I turned on the water and let it run over my fingers until it was cool.” He rubbed his hands together. “When I put my hands to my face I felt something. Then I felt how tight the skin was on my face. When I turned on the light there was blood all over my face. I opened my mouth. There was a wound.” He bent close to Jelly and opened his mouth. She looked into his mouth and saw it, long and jagged, near the back of his mouth on the right side.
“Did it hurt?” Strange things always happened to Andy. Inexplicable bruises. He woke up with a broken finger once and had no idea how it had happened. Jelly found it interesting that he always discovered these things in the morning after sleeping. She wondered if he slept violently.
“I reached my fingers in and touched it, but I couldn’t feel anything. I thought maybe I’d bitten myself while asleep so I tried to remember my dreams. I couldn’t fully recall anything- just lights, colors, movements. That upset me so I decided to take a walk. I found myself at these gates.” He gestured up toward the top of the gate then let his arm fall slowly back to his side. “We’re going inside.”
She watched him climbed over the gates, arms white and flashing in the heat and then followed him over. Jelly felt a chill pass through her. It was distinctly cooler inside in the park. Willow trees cast purple shadows. The park was overgrown with long grasses, briars and wild flowers. Black-eyed susan, violets and dandelions fought thistle, wild rose and onion. Each scent dominated for an instant in the soft breeze then merged together. Jelly closed her eyes and inhaled, savored the scents like a connoisseur of fine wine, sorted them out individually, then let them all crash together and become one.
“It reminds me of you.” Andy pursed his lips and stared at the ground awhile.
“Everything is tangled. Moves slowly.”
“This should be my place.”
“C’mon, I want to show you something else.” They walked down a trail that had, in its heyday, been a series of interconnected blocks of polished marble, but the weeds had crept in over time, grown through the cracks, died, decayed, and created a new layer of moist soil over the old path. Here and there the marble peeked out where small animals had scratched at the surface in a futile attempt to burrow or bury their treasure. The path reminded Jelly of her childhood. There had been woods behind her childhood home. She used to play there. She would climb the trees and pretend to control the wind. She would close her eyes and imagine faces in the atmosphere around her. She commanded them to blow the leaves. Sometimes they would blow her to the tops of the trees and hold her, safely, where she was too afraid to climb and she would look at the other side of the world with her hands positioned in the ‘okay’ sign, connected at the thumbs, pressed against her cheekbones and brow. She called her make-believe binoculars her ‘far-eyes.’
One day she was walking home from playing in the woods and she found her mother on the side of the path just at the edge of the woods. She was crouched by the walnut tree that marked the edge of their property softly swaying back and forth, uttering a plaintive moan. The hem of her plaid dress made the dead leaves rustle on the ground. She crept up to her mother, being careful not to step on any twigs and looked over her shoulder. Her mother pawed at the ground like an animal, fingers stabbed through the crisp leaves and anchored her to the ground saying, “Oh, oh, oh.”
Jelly put her hand on her mom’s shoulder. “Momma?” Her mother moaned louder, raspier. “Momma, stop!” Jelly pushed her mother with all her might. Her mother rolled over easily and Jelly fell on top of her, felt her vibrating, convulsing. Jelly yelled at her, tried to get her attention, grabbed her face and turned it toward her own; tried to look into her mother’s eyes, but they were clenched tight. She put her thumbs on her eyelids and forced them open. Her mother’s eyes were red and swollen from crying. The eyelids were too slippery for her to keep them open. She stood up and just stared at her mother on the ground. She looked like she was sleeping. Jelly turned and ran to the house where she found her father. Sitting. She watched his cigarette extinguish on his flesh.
“It’s just up ahead.” Andy glanced over his shoulder, pushed a thin, purple thorn branch back and held it between his fingertips ‘til Jelly took it by the tip and arched it up. She ducked under it and they continued plodding through the undergrowth that became more and more dense the deeper they plunged into the unkempt parkland. Soon they came to a clearing of sorts. The willow trees and thorns they had been methodically plucking their way through abruptly ceased. They were in a semicircular enclosure. Opposite of where they stood was a twenty-foot sandstone wall that disappeared to the left and right into the vegetation. Jelly wondered if there was graffiti on the other side. To their left was a fountain. There was no water in it. The sculpture in the middle looked like it was once a male figure, but was now only a set of well defined muscular legs with a metal tube sticking out of the middle, bent and rusted at its broken tip. The rest of the sculpture now existed as a collection of debris scattered about the base. Some of the chunks hinted at human form; the curve of some muscle, a shoulder maybe, or perhaps an ear.
Andy looked at Jelly for a while, like he was expecting her to say something.
“Did I ever tell you about my mom?” she asked.
“She’s in a mental hospital, right?”
Jelly nodded. “I just got a letter saying they’ve moved her to another hospital upstate, one where they can watch her more closely. She’s been in eight altogether now. I keep all the letters the doctors send me. I don’t know why they send me letters, I’ve never visited her.”
“Why?”
Jelly shook her head. “I’ve been remembering a bunch of things today. Things.” Jelly crouched down and dug her finger into the dirt. “Things I either decided not to think about, or,” she frowned, pulled a small blue pebble out of the earth, rolled it between her thumb and forefinger then let it rest in her palm. “Or, maybe, I just wanted to forget.” She dropped the pebble. “Do you know how many foster homes I’ve been in?”
Andy shook his head.
“Me neither.”
“So, does this place remind you of you too?”
Jelly looked around, arms crossed. “I dunno. Everything reminds me of me. That’s the problem. I’m inundated by myself at every turn.”
Andy shrugged.
Jelly cocked her head to the side. “Is this it?”
“What?”
“This. Is this what you wanted to show me?” She opened her arms and gestured. “This stupid wall? Those trees? I ripped my shirt back there you know.” She pulled her shirt out and showed him the small jagged hole.
Andy turned around, faced the wall and pulled a cigarette from his pack. He didn’t light it, just tapped the filter end on the back of his palm and stared at the wall. “There’s one more thing,” he walked toward the wall, reached out, touched it with his left hand and turned right. He walked thirty paces, his hand dragging along the coarse sandstone till he came to small fissure in the wall that ran top to bottom. He kneeled in the grass there. “Come here.” He motioned without looking up.
Jelly followed Andy’s path of flattened grass along the wall and looked over his shoulder.
“It’s a mannequin.”
“It’s you.”
“No, it’s a mannequin.”
“Yes, it is a mannequin, but its also you, don’t you see?”
Jelly looked closer at the form. It was lying on its stomach. It had no legs. The left arm was missing. The right arm was stretched out above the head; forefinger extended, pointing, no, its finger was inside the crack in the wall. “No. I don’t”
“Remember the dream you told me about?”
“What dream?”
“The one where you find yourself at a wall? Where you think there is some part of you on the other side?”
“That wall is gray. This one is brown.”
“But it’s a wall.”
“A gray wall.”
“The color doesn’t matter. It’s a symbol.”
“What are you saying?”
“This is a key.” Andy put his hand on the mannequin’s back. “There’s something here for you.” He ran his hand up and down the mannequin’s spine. “I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
Andy flipped the mannequin onto its back. “Give me your knife.” He held out his hand.
“Why?” She fingered the contour of her knife through her jeans.
“Please.”
“It’s mine.”
“I know, trust me.” He stared intensely. His pupils were pinpricks.
Jelly scratched her neck then pulled the knife out of her pocket and put it in his palm.
“Kneel beside me,” he said. “Look at this arm.”
She did. It was mostly smooth with small dirt encrusted abrasions.
“Does it remind you of your arm?”
“No.” Jelly started to stand but he grabbed her by the arm and made her stay.
“Make it look like your arm then.” He held her knife out. “Do it. Cut it like you cut yourself.”
“No.”
He squeezed her arm. “Cut it like you cut yourself,” he said again. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the mannequin, still holding her knife out by the blade. “Do it,” he whispered.
Jelly reached for the knife. Her hand was shaking. She didn’t know exactly why she was doing what he wanted. She felt disembodied. She heard her voice in her head as if it were coming out of a tiny speaker in a cavernous ballroom,
“Fine,” she said.
She took the knife in her right hand and grasped the mannequin’s arm at the elbow with her left. She placed the point of the knife right below her own hand and pushed the tip in. Jelly glanced up at the mannequin’s face. Its pale blue eyes stared vapidly underneath faded brown eyebrows. The lips were the same bland cream color as the rest of the body. Jelly pulled the knife slowly toward her own body, down the mannequin’s forearm and stopped just before the wrist began.
“Again.”
“No.” Jelly felt hungry.
“Again.” Andy squeezed her arm, tighter this time. “This time deeper.”
She did. She kept going this time, carving gashes that flowed into the palm of the hand, tiny little scratches with curlicues on the tip of the pinky. She kept going, created grids, maps, drew the entire world on the mannequin’s arm.
“Are those tears?”
“It’s sweat.”
“And there you are.” He ran his hand up and down her spine while she wiped away her tears. “I want you to do one more thing for me.” He smiled.
“I don’t want to do anything else for you.” Jelly’s head was throbbing. She felt an immense pressure somewhere inside. Her body was trying to remember something. Her brain fought against it.
“Then do it for yourself.”
“I don’t want to do anything.” She held her head between her hands.
“This will help. I know it will.”
“No.”
He squeezed her arm again and leaned close to her ear. He whispered, “You have to.”
Jelly tried to squirm away but could not. “What do you want?”
“Cut off her arm.”
“I don’t-”
“Cut her fucking arm off!”
It took Jelly a while to cut off the mannequin’s arm. When she was done, Andy stood over her.
“Wasn’t that cathartic?”
Jelly pressed the blister that had grown on her palm. She scratched at it until the tender flesh was exposed underneath and pressed that. The little stabs of pain helped her head. The enemy was no longer at the gates. She was exhausted.
“Pick it up and c’mon. Leave the knife.”
She picked up the mutilated arm by the finger and dragged it as she followed Andy back to the entrance of the park. This time she didn’t care about the thorns ripping at her clothing and scratching her flesh, but she still savored the complex smells.
She tossed the arm over the gate and climbed out after Andy. As soon as her shoes hit the broken sidewalk she immediately began to sweat. She wished she could stop breathing. The black air filled her lungs again- sickeningly sweet, made her ribs ache like they were teeth riddled with cavities.
Andy turned to her, smiling a little, put his arm on her shoulder and asked, “Do you remember when we first met?”
Jelly counted how many times the crack in the sidewalk splintered off into smaller cracks. She thought of the smaller cracks as tributaries.
“You were reading on your steps. I walked up and said ‘Do you like dancing?’ And you said-”
“No. I like sitting.” If the tiny cracks are tributaries, and the big crack is a river, the road must be an ocean.
“Yeah, that’s it. And I said ‘me too’”
“Uh-huh.” An ocean. That doesn’t make any sense at all. The grass must be the ocean.
“Well. I was thinking. Maybe we should go dancing.”
“Sure.” The grass moves like an ocean. Roads don’t move.
“Okay. We’ll make plans later.” Andy lit a cigarette turned and walked down the street. Jelly watched him slouch away down the street past the rusted dumpsters filled with black and white and green bags split open like bellies baking in the sun. She watched him stride over rivers and tributaries- flick ashes into the ocean- exhale smoke like a giant machine. She watched his back as he got smaller and smaller then held up her hand, squinted, got him in between her thumb and forefinger and squashed him. Jelly turned the opposite direction and towed her arm behind her a few blocks ‘til she came to a small corner store. She tossed the arm into a dumpster, went inside and bought a pocketknife and a soda.
She frowned and looked to her left. Andy was late. She glanced at her watch for the tenth time and shook her small fist at a fly she was too slow to kill. Andy appeared around the corner and walked toward Jelly. He moved slowly, long legs stretched out and seemed to grab the ground and pull his upper body grudgingly forward.
Jelly crossed her arms. “‘Bout time.”
Andy lit a cigarette, inhaled. “Am I late?” Smoke curled out his nostrils and around the corners of his mouth. His eyes were slits. Pupils dilated. He looked straight through her.
Jelly stared.
“You’ll have to forgive me.” Andy’s cigarette hung off his lower lip.
“Why?”
Andy swung at a fly and caught it. “Flies.” He shook it in his hand and let it go. The fly buzzed off in a slow awkwardly oscillating circle. “Let’s walk.”
“Too hot.”
“I wanna show you something.”
“Do we have to walk?”
Andy flicked his ash at Jelly. It landed on her black shirt. She didn’t look at it. She knew it was there, had felt it land through the material. He turned and slouched down the street. She glared after him, cursing underneath her breath, then caught up and walked not quite beside him, but not behind him. She tried to remember how she’d met Andy but couldn’t quite get it clear in her head. She thought maybe it was in a bar, but couldn’t remember which one. Then again, maybe it was a bookshop. Jelly couldn’t think straight. It was like this every time they got together. It wasn’t like she was in love with him; she didn’t think herself capable. She’d never been an emotional person as far back as she could remember. Everything was filtered. Though, sometimes memories did surface.
They would appear in her dreams, garbled yet intense. Day to day sensations would stir up faint recollections of her past, of yesterday. There was a wall. Jelly was aware of this wall because she created it. Sometimes she dreamed about it. It was gray. Sometimes, she dreamed that there were cracks in it. She didn’t enjoy thinking about it. Andy made her feel strange. Maybe he simply amused her; kept her from getting too bored. Jelly stared at his arm. It was like a noodle. There was no muscular definition and he let it swing back and forth limply. The skin was shiny. There was no hair. It reminded her of plastic. She crossed her arms and ran both hands over her elbows, down her forearms, over her wrists, into her palms and snapped her fingertips together. She let her arms fall to her sides.
“Where we going?”
“You’ll see.” He tossed his cigarette into the road and lit another. Jelly hated how much he smoked. It was always one cigarette after another. It made her think of her father. She remembered him sitting at his HAM radio, smoking, speaking to tinny voices with funny accents. She would try to get his attention by shoving her toys in his face, with a “look dad, looky!” He would push the toy down, “That’s nice, dear,” and continue talking to the disembodied voice. She remembered his face when he died. Aneurysm. She was five. He had looked like he always did. Expressionless. Sitting in his chair. His cigarette burned down to his blue tinged flesh.
Andy stopped. She almost ran into him. They were at the big black wrought iron gates of Center Park. She’d never been inside. The city ran out of funds to maintain it, so it had gone wild. The art deco designs were nearly covered by the dead vines that were so dense they seemed to have strangled themselves to death. Suicide.
“How narcissistic of you,” she whispered as she ran her fingers over the dry brown stems. She cracked a small piece off and held it between her fingers, like a cigarette, mimicking Andy. Every time he inhaled, she inhaled. Andy pretended not to notice, or didn’t care.
“Yesterday,” he said slowly through the thick cloud of smoke in his mouth, “I woke up and my mouth was bleeding. I got up and went into the bathroom to rinse my mouth. It was completely dark and I couldn’t see anything at all. I turned on the water and let it run over my fingers until it was cool.” He rubbed his hands together. “When I put my hands to my face I felt something. Then I felt how tight the skin was on my face. When I turned on the light there was blood all over my face. I opened my mouth. There was a wound.” He bent close to Jelly and opened his mouth. She looked into his mouth and saw it, long and jagged, near the back of his mouth on the right side.
“Did it hurt?” Strange things always happened to Andy. Inexplicable bruises. He woke up with a broken finger once and had no idea how it had happened. Jelly found it interesting that he always discovered these things in the morning after sleeping. She wondered if he slept violently.
“I reached my fingers in and touched it, but I couldn’t feel anything. I thought maybe I’d bitten myself while asleep so I tried to remember my dreams. I couldn’t fully recall anything- just lights, colors, movements. That upset me so I decided to take a walk. I found myself at these gates.” He gestured up toward the top of the gate then let his arm fall slowly back to his side. “We’re going inside.”
She watched him climbed over the gates, arms white and flashing in the heat and then followed him over. Jelly felt a chill pass through her. It was distinctly cooler inside in the park. Willow trees cast purple shadows. The park was overgrown with long grasses, briars and wild flowers. Black-eyed susan, violets and dandelions fought thistle, wild rose and onion. Each scent dominated for an instant in the soft breeze then merged together. Jelly closed her eyes and inhaled, savored the scents like a connoisseur of fine wine, sorted them out individually, then let them all crash together and become one.
“It reminds me of you.” Andy pursed his lips and stared at the ground awhile.
“Everything is tangled. Moves slowly.”
“This should be my place.”
“C’mon, I want to show you something else.” They walked down a trail that had, in its heyday, been a series of interconnected blocks of polished marble, but the weeds had crept in over time, grown through the cracks, died, decayed, and created a new layer of moist soil over the old path. Here and there the marble peeked out where small animals had scratched at the surface in a futile attempt to burrow or bury their treasure. The path reminded Jelly of her childhood. There had been woods behind her childhood home. She used to play there. She would climb the trees and pretend to control the wind. She would close her eyes and imagine faces in the atmosphere around her. She commanded them to blow the leaves. Sometimes they would blow her to the tops of the trees and hold her, safely, where she was too afraid to climb and she would look at the other side of the world with her hands positioned in the ‘okay’ sign, connected at the thumbs, pressed against her cheekbones and brow. She called her make-believe binoculars her ‘far-eyes.’
One day she was walking home from playing in the woods and she found her mother on the side of the path just at the edge of the woods. She was crouched by the walnut tree that marked the edge of their property softly swaying back and forth, uttering a plaintive moan. The hem of her plaid dress made the dead leaves rustle on the ground. She crept up to her mother, being careful not to step on any twigs and looked over her shoulder. Her mother pawed at the ground like an animal, fingers stabbed through the crisp leaves and anchored her to the ground saying, “Oh, oh, oh.”
Jelly put her hand on her mom’s shoulder. “Momma?” Her mother moaned louder, raspier. “Momma, stop!” Jelly pushed her mother with all her might. Her mother rolled over easily and Jelly fell on top of her, felt her vibrating, convulsing. Jelly yelled at her, tried to get her attention, grabbed her face and turned it toward her own; tried to look into her mother’s eyes, but they were clenched tight. She put her thumbs on her eyelids and forced them open. Her mother’s eyes were red and swollen from crying. The eyelids were too slippery for her to keep them open. She stood up and just stared at her mother on the ground. She looked like she was sleeping. Jelly turned and ran to the house where she found her father. Sitting. She watched his cigarette extinguish on his flesh.
“It’s just up ahead.” Andy glanced over his shoulder, pushed a thin, purple thorn branch back and held it between his fingertips ‘til Jelly took it by the tip and arched it up. She ducked under it and they continued plodding through the undergrowth that became more and more dense the deeper they plunged into the unkempt parkland. Soon they came to a clearing of sorts. The willow trees and thorns they had been methodically plucking their way through abruptly ceased. They were in a semicircular enclosure. Opposite of where they stood was a twenty-foot sandstone wall that disappeared to the left and right into the vegetation. Jelly wondered if there was graffiti on the other side. To their left was a fountain. There was no water in it. The sculpture in the middle looked like it was once a male figure, but was now only a set of well defined muscular legs with a metal tube sticking out of the middle, bent and rusted at its broken tip. The rest of the sculpture now existed as a collection of debris scattered about the base. Some of the chunks hinted at human form; the curve of some muscle, a shoulder maybe, or perhaps an ear.
Andy looked at Jelly for a while, like he was expecting her to say something.
“Did I ever tell you about my mom?” she asked.
“She’s in a mental hospital, right?”
Jelly nodded. “I just got a letter saying they’ve moved her to another hospital upstate, one where they can watch her more closely. She’s been in eight altogether now. I keep all the letters the doctors send me. I don’t know why they send me letters, I’ve never visited her.”
“Why?”
Jelly shook her head. “I’ve been remembering a bunch of things today. Things.” Jelly crouched down and dug her finger into the dirt. “Things I either decided not to think about, or,” she frowned, pulled a small blue pebble out of the earth, rolled it between her thumb and forefinger then let it rest in her palm. “Or, maybe, I just wanted to forget.” She dropped the pebble. “Do you know how many foster homes I’ve been in?”
Andy shook his head.
“Me neither.”
“So, does this place remind you of you too?”
Jelly looked around, arms crossed. “I dunno. Everything reminds me of me. That’s the problem. I’m inundated by myself at every turn.”
Andy shrugged.
Jelly cocked her head to the side. “Is this it?”
“What?”
“This. Is this what you wanted to show me?” She opened her arms and gestured. “This stupid wall? Those trees? I ripped my shirt back there you know.” She pulled her shirt out and showed him the small jagged hole.
Andy turned around, faced the wall and pulled a cigarette from his pack. He didn’t light it, just tapped the filter end on the back of his palm and stared at the wall. “There’s one more thing,” he walked toward the wall, reached out, touched it with his left hand and turned right. He walked thirty paces, his hand dragging along the coarse sandstone till he came to small fissure in the wall that ran top to bottom. He kneeled in the grass there. “Come here.” He motioned without looking up.
Jelly followed Andy’s path of flattened grass along the wall and looked over his shoulder.
“It’s a mannequin.”
“It’s you.”
“No, it’s a mannequin.”
“Yes, it is a mannequin, but its also you, don’t you see?”
Jelly looked closer at the form. It was lying on its stomach. It had no legs. The left arm was missing. The right arm was stretched out above the head; forefinger extended, pointing, no, its finger was inside the crack in the wall. “No. I don’t”
“Remember the dream you told me about?”
“What dream?”
“The one where you find yourself at a wall? Where you think there is some part of you on the other side?”
“That wall is gray. This one is brown.”
“But it’s a wall.”
“A gray wall.”
“The color doesn’t matter. It’s a symbol.”
“What are you saying?”
“This is a key.” Andy put his hand on the mannequin’s back. “There’s something here for you.” He ran his hand up and down the mannequin’s spine. “I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
Andy flipped the mannequin onto its back. “Give me your knife.” He held out his hand.
“Why?” She fingered the contour of her knife through her jeans.
“Please.”
“It’s mine.”
“I know, trust me.” He stared intensely. His pupils were pinpricks.
Jelly scratched her neck then pulled the knife out of her pocket and put it in his palm.
“Kneel beside me,” he said. “Look at this arm.”
She did. It was mostly smooth with small dirt encrusted abrasions.
“Does it remind you of your arm?”
“No.” Jelly started to stand but he grabbed her by the arm and made her stay.
“Make it look like your arm then.” He held her knife out. “Do it. Cut it like you cut yourself.”
“No.”
He squeezed her arm. “Cut it like you cut yourself,” he said again. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the mannequin, still holding her knife out by the blade. “Do it,” he whispered.
Jelly reached for the knife. Her hand was shaking. She didn’t know exactly why she was doing what he wanted. She felt disembodied. She heard her voice in her head as if it were coming out of a tiny speaker in a cavernous ballroom,
“Fine,” she said.
She took the knife in her right hand and grasped the mannequin’s arm at the elbow with her left. She placed the point of the knife right below her own hand and pushed the tip in. Jelly glanced up at the mannequin’s face. Its pale blue eyes stared vapidly underneath faded brown eyebrows. The lips were the same bland cream color as the rest of the body. Jelly pulled the knife slowly toward her own body, down the mannequin’s forearm and stopped just before the wrist began.
“Again.”
“No.” Jelly felt hungry.
“Again.” Andy squeezed her arm, tighter this time. “This time deeper.”
She did. She kept going this time, carving gashes that flowed into the palm of the hand, tiny little scratches with curlicues on the tip of the pinky. She kept going, created grids, maps, drew the entire world on the mannequin’s arm.
“Are those tears?”
“It’s sweat.”
“And there you are.” He ran his hand up and down her spine while she wiped away her tears. “I want you to do one more thing for me.” He smiled.
“I don’t want to do anything else for you.” Jelly’s head was throbbing. She felt an immense pressure somewhere inside. Her body was trying to remember something. Her brain fought against it.
“Then do it for yourself.”
“I don’t want to do anything.” She held her head between her hands.
“This will help. I know it will.”
“No.”
He squeezed her arm again and leaned close to her ear. He whispered, “You have to.”
Jelly tried to squirm away but could not. “What do you want?”
“Cut off her arm.”
“I don’t-”
“Cut her fucking arm off!”
It took Jelly a while to cut off the mannequin’s arm. When she was done, Andy stood over her.
“Wasn’t that cathartic?”
Jelly pressed the blister that had grown on her palm. She scratched at it until the tender flesh was exposed underneath and pressed that. The little stabs of pain helped her head. The enemy was no longer at the gates. She was exhausted.
“Pick it up and c’mon. Leave the knife.”
She picked up the mutilated arm by the finger and dragged it as she followed Andy back to the entrance of the park. This time she didn’t care about the thorns ripping at her clothing and scratching her flesh, but she still savored the complex smells.
She tossed the arm over the gate and climbed out after Andy. As soon as her shoes hit the broken sidewalk she immediately began to sweat. She wished she could stop breathing. The black air filled her lungs again- sickeningly sweet, made her ribs ache like they were teeth riddled with cavities.
Andy turned to her, smiling a little, put his arm on her shoulder and asked, “Do you remember when we first met?”
Jelly counted how many times the crack in the sidewalk splintered off into smaller cracks. She thought of the smaller cracks as tributaries.
“You were reading on your steps. I walked up and said ‘Do you like dancing?’ And you said-”
“No. I like sitting.” If the tiny cracks are tributaries, and the big crack is a river, the road must be an ocean.
“Yeah, that’s it. And I said ‘me too’”
“Uh-huh.” An ocean. That doesn’t make any sense at all. The grass must be the ocean.
“Well. I was thinking. Maybe we should go dancing.”
“Sure.” The grass moves like an ocean. Roads don’t move.
“Okay. We’ll make plans later.” Andy lit a cigarette turned and walked down the street. Jelly watched him slouch away down the street past the rusted dumpsters filled with black and white and green bags split open like bellies baking in the sun. She watched him stride over rivers and tributaries- flick ashes into the ocean- exhale smoke like a giant machine. She watched his back as he got smaller and smaller then held up her hand, squinted, got him in between her thumb and forefinger and squashed him. Jelly turned the opposite direction and towed her arm behind her a few blocks ‘til she came to a small corner store. She tossed the arm into a dumpster, went inside and bought a pocketknife and a soda.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Love Story
Stopped for a drink at Mr. Man’s house today, sat and swallowed my vodka in great gulps on his plaid couch stained and frayed with years of abuse, watched the old cracked plaster start to blur. He handed me seven blue pills. I swallowed two and put the rest in my pocket.
“For later,” I said.
He turned and put on a record, jazz. It was warped and so the music came out sounding how I felt. He sat down beside me, pulled out a mirror crisscrossed with scratches from under the couch and put it on the coffee table scarred with cigarette burns. He dumped a pile of cocaine in the middle of the mirror, took a razor blade from his wallet and cut out four lines. He pried a plastic pen out of the metal spiral of a red notebook, removed the ink cartridge and cut the tip of the barrel off with the razor. He snorted two lines, one up one nostril, the other up nostril number two, then held the decapitated pen out to me. I did one.
“Save the rest for later,” I said. “Don’t do this too often, you know.”
Mr. Man grinned, rubbed his chin and slouched back into the couch, which received him and enveloped him like a cloud.
We sat in silence listening to the warbling jazz. I watched Mr. Man’s knee twitch rhythmically. After about sixteen twitches, I did the other line and stood up. My throat was numb. “Gonna go for a ride,” I said. Mr. Man never goes anywhere. He is paler than me, bloodshot eyes, crooked teeth, long, thin legs and arms, kinda spider-like.
He grinned and leaned forward again, long dirty blonde hair dangling over the pile of cocaine, and cut out more lines.
“I may be back, I dunno. I wanna see where I go, you know how I like to do.”
Mr. Man’s head bobbed up and down.
I stepped outside into the stale summer heat and liquid flies dribbled like stars in protoplasmic globs. I shook my head and dug my keys out of my pocket.
“One, two, three,” I counted as I shuffled through them and opened the door. The inside of my car was a furnace already. Sweat trickled down my spine as I slid into the vinyl seat and shoved the key into the ignition. I rolled down the windows as I left his driveway, spraying gravel behind me, raising demons made of dust.
I decided to drive away from civilization, down the bland streets of suburbia, past the perfect houses and the dead dogs rotting in the afternoon sun, stomachs ripped open by children with serrated kitchen knives. They shook like epileptics, were smeared with animal blood, snot, tears and intestines. Tufts of fur blew in the streets, stuck to mounds of fecal matter, attached to hedges and piled in drifts against white picket fences. The children got up as I drove by. They had no eyes. They pointed at me with their knives.
Sycamores, oaks and elms swayed in a sudden breeze. Sunlight filtered through the branches. Birds streaked by and a yellow cat yowled. I realized the houses were gone. I’d been driving for some time, my mind blank. I popped one of the blue pills and turned down the first gravel road I found. There was yew and garlic and cypress. I heard dogs howling as insect sounds filled the air like sirens all around me, wavering and crystalline. The ebb and flow coincided with the movement of the trees as wind played through their upper branches. I stopped beside an open field, grasses extended far into the distance toward a looming cloud mass. Or maybe it was the city. I don’t know.
On the other side of the road was a wooded area approximately fifty yards out. I grabbed a bottle of vodka from under the seat, opened the door and slid to the ground. Here is a place, I thought, where you must remove your shoes. I kneeled down and picked up a handful of dirt, let it fall through my fingers, and decided I didn’t really want to take off my shoes. I stood back up, swaying like the trees and walked away from my car toward the woods. I was struggling to bust open the seal on the bottle when I tripped over a boy lying in the middle of the road. His head was caved in, bones stuck out all over his body. His left foot was attached by a piece of skin, or maybe it was his jeans. I mused on how I might think that this nearly unrecognizable pile of meat was a boy and not a girl, but I just knew. The seal cracked and the lid loosened. I unscrewed it and gulped down about three or four swallows. I wiped my mouth on my wrist and put the cap back on.
I bent over the carcass. He was wearing a watch and it was still working. The time was 2:08 p.m. I tucked the bottle in my back pocket and took the watch. Other than a little bit of blood on the face, which I scraped off with my thumbnail, it was perfect. I put it on and drank more vodka.
As I headed back toward my car I noticed another dead child on the hood, a girl, I think, and one stuck to my front bumper. Most of the bottom half of it was gone and I was not able to ascertain the sex of this former individual. I was starting to feel really weird. I couldn’t feel much of my body and my hands were beginning to glow. I was sweating pretty hard. I suppose I was dehydrated from all the alcohol and heat, but there was nothing I could do about that. I touched my forehead with my glowing fingertips and for the life of me, felt like I was touching a completely different human being.
I glanced up the road from the direction I had come and saw a bit of a dark spot right after a low hill. I wanted to see what it was. Probably only a half a mile away, I thought. I took three great big swallows of the vodka and decided I probably didn’t need much more of that, so threw the bottle to the side where it busted open. Glistening liquid spilled out in subtle fuzzy rainbows on the dusty yellow grass.
I stumbled up the road, weaving, trying to avoid the larger pieces of gravel. I saw a lot grasshoppers and crickets. When they jumped they looked like rockets and I saw them in many places at once. I walked over to the side of the road, picked some daisies and put one behind each ear. Silver mosquitoes came buzzing out of the severed stems and stopped in midair, suspended animation. I watched them try to escape. I could see the struggle in their eyes. It was almost human. My whole body was numb. Maybe even dead, I thought as I found myself down on my knees.
I struggled up and wiped the dust from my corduroys. There was a tear in the knee that I couldn’t remember being there before. Blood dripped from it. There was a rock imbedded in my knee. It was in pretty deep. I used a stick to dig it out then tossed the stick into the ditch. As I stood I saw that there was black clotted blood in the ditch. Whirlwinds of flies covered it, licking it, laying eggs. I was at the dark spot.
I looked up. The dark spot was a massive pile of children twisted and rent. I looked higher. The top of the pile nearly touched the clouds that were drifting in. I walked around it wondering how I had not noticed it before and saw where I had hit it on the side, a glancing blow. There was a trail of viscera.
I shrugged and ate another blue pill. What could I do? I walked back to my car and shoved the body off of my hood, then started kicking at the one on my bumper. It wouldn’t come off so easily. I had to kick at it an awful lot before it detached. It was pretty messy.
I got back in my car wishing I hadn’t thrown out that vodka and counted my keys, “One, two, three,” jammed them into the ignition, started the car and sped off in a cloud of dust. I drove carefully around the child mound and ate another blue pill. The watch on my wrist said 2:41 p.m.
The road blurred and became one with the sky. I liked the sky. I found its particular shade of blue soothing and limitless. The encroaching clouds seemed friendly and curious like dogs or monkeys, white like new teeth or milk. Birds flew by upside down waving at the invisible stars and shit through a crack God was peering through, right on his eye. Fitting, I thought. I saw the white lashes bat and a great gray hand filled with intestines wipe away the shit. He dipped his hand down, picked up something moving, squirming, struggling, squeezed the blood out of it and into his palm and anointed his brow. The corpse fell from the sky.
I pulled out onto the blacktop road once again that crossed the plain and veered left over the center line then back to the right, fishtailing. In the distance I saw a figure walking along the side of the road, or rather, limping. As I got closer he turned and stuck out his thumb so I slowed down and stopped beside him. As he opened the door I noticed there was something strange about his face. The left side was old and worn, full of crags, gullies and gulches. His rheumy eye couldn’t seem to focus on me, or anything. It kept roaming off left and right, never resting. The right side of his face was smooth and young, and I would have to say, even beautiful. It kept shifting though; I couldn’t tell if it was male or female. That eye was crystal clear, seemed to shoot into me. I could feel it inside me. He sat in the seat and put his hands on his knees. They were the same way: Left one old, swollen knuckles, claw like and arthritic. The right was young and maybe even dainty. Sometimes the nails seemed long and painted a pale blue, other times, well, more like a man’s. It was real hard to see and I got self-conscious from staring, so I put the car in gear and drove off. Soon though, I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask.
“This might seem too personal, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t wanna, but I was wonderin’ why your hands and face are like that.” I glanced over at him. He stared straight ahead, the old eyeball oscillating away of its own accord. “Like I said, you don’t have to answer if it’s too personal.”
He turned his head and looked at me, the young androgynous side of his face smiled a bit. He said, “I’m God.”
“That a fact?” I said and tried not to laugh. He just turned his head back and watched the road. “I just seen God, and you don’t look like God.”
“The man in the sky? Back there?”
I nodded. My mouth was real dry and I was having a hard time telling which way the road was going. It looked like a about a hundred different roads at once. Some of them went up so I discounted those straight away.
“That’s God too.”
“Too,” I repeated.
Driving through the plains in late summer is completely different than at any other time of the year. Usually, in winter and into early summer the grasses are pretty short and you can see for a good distance off. This time of the year they’re real tall and when you have your windows rolled down the sound of your car bounces off them and creates a swirling roar inside. I was listening to that, making it change frequency by pressing and depressing the accelerator all the way to the floor and back. My head bobbed back and forth. I couldn’t help it. There was no part of my body in communication with my brain. Sudden sun shafts kept making my hands invisible.
“What do you think is the most important thing in the universe?” He asked me.
I stopped looking at my hands and glanced over at him. His faces were a blur. “Shit, I dunno, love?”
He snorted. “Love,” and laughed.
“Well, shit man, I told you I dunno. What is it?”
He touched his old face with his young hand and said, “Destruction.”
“Destruction?”
“How else can everything start anew?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know. We kept driving for a while. He didn’t seem to want to talk anymore so I kept quiet. There were times when I didn’t know where I was and I had to think real hard. Other times I was distracted by the brilliance of my hands. There were more clouds now. I could see them over the tips of the tall grasses. Maybe there would be storm, I thought. I looked over at him. His young hand was caressing the gnarled knuckles of his old hand.
“So where you goin’?” I said. “I mean, where you want me to take you?”
“I don’t know. No place. I just like riding, you know?”
I nodded and licked my lips. They tasted bitter. Once again I regretted throwing out that bottle.
“Oh, this headache,” He said and put his young palm against his forehead.
“You want,” I start to dig in my pocket.
“A blue pill? No. They don’t work on me.”
“Oh.”
His old hand started shaking. He held it down with his young hand, and then petted it like a dog.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just,” He stopped, staring at my wrist. “That’s a nice watch. Can I have it?”
“Thanks, uh, no, it ain’t mine.” I rubbed the face with my thumb. It said 3:46 p.m.
“Ah, too bad.” He sighed. “You can let me off here.”
“There ain’t nothin’ here.” I said as I pulled over.
“Wasn’t anything back there either,” he replied and opened the door. He grasped the top of the car with his young hand and hauled the decrepit half of his body out, shut the door and leaned on the window. The young face smiled. The old one was starting to drool. The young face said, “Many blessings to you, friend,” while the old face made rude noises. He turned and limped off back the way we had come, laughing. I could hear the old man’s ragged cacophonous laugh together with the high musical laughter of the young androgyne. I ate the last two pills, pressed the accelerator and decided to head back to Mr. Man’s house.
A shudder. A shake. A final vibration and a coughing sputter. I got out of my car and drifted through Mr. Man’s door. It was always open to me. He was still sitting there nearly swallowed by the plaid couch, knee jerking up and down to another record, something classical, pianos and bassoons. It too was warped.
“Never guess what I found, Man.” I sat down beside him and took the watch off. “Something for you. A gift.” I swallowed. “For your friendship.”
He grinned. “Thanks,” he croaked. Mr. Man rarely talked.
“It’s a great watch,” I said. “Real tough.”
He bobbed his head up and down as he clasped it to his wrist.
I swallowed. “You got anything to drink?”
“For later,” I said.
He turned and put on a record, jazz. It was warped and so the music came out sounding how I felt. He sat down beside me, pulled out a mirror crisscrossed with scratches from under the couch and put it on the coffee table scarred with cigarette burns. He dumped a pile of cocaine in the middle of the mirror, took a razor blade from his wallet and cut out four lines. He pried a plastic pen out of the metal spiral of a red notebook, removed the ink cartridge and cut the tip of the barrel off with the razor. He snorted two lines, one up one nostril, the other up nostril number two, then held the decapitated pen out to me. I did one.
“Save the rest for later,” I said. “Don’t do this too often, you know.”
Mr. Man grinned, rubbed his chin and slouched back into the couch, which received him and enveloped him like a cloud.
We sat in silence listening to the warbling jazz. I watched Mr. Man’s knee twitch rhythmically. After about sixteen twitches, I did the other line and stood up. My throat was numb. “Gonna go for a ride,” I said. Mr. Man never goes anywhere. He is paler than me, bloodshot eyes, crooked teeth, long, thin legs and arms, kinda spider-like.
He grinned and leaned forward again, long dirty blonde hair dangling over the pile of cocaine, and cut out more lines.
“I may be back, I dunno. I wanna see where I go, you know how I like to do.”
Mr. Man’s head bobbed up and down.
I stepped outside into the stale summer heat and liquid flies dribbled like stars in protoplasmic globs. I shook my head and dug my keys out of my pocket.
“One, two, three,” I counted as I shuffled through them and opened the door. The inside of my car was a furnace already. Sweat trickled down my spine as I slid into the vinyl seat and shoved the key into the ignition. I rolled down the windows as I left his driveway, spraying gravel behind me, raising demons made of dust.
I decided to drive away from civilization, down the bland streets of suburbia, past the perfect houses and the dead dogs rotting in the afternoon sun, stomachs ripped open by children with serrated kitchen knives. They shook like epileptics, were smeared with animal blood, snot, tears and intestines. Tufts of fur blew in the streets, stuck to mounds of fecal matter, attached to hedges and piled in drifts against white picket fences. The children got up as I drove by. They had no eyes. They pointed at me with their knives.
Sycamores, oaks and elms swayed in a sudden breeze. Sunlight filtered through the branches. Birds streaked by and a yellow cat yowled. I realized the houses were gone. I’d been driving for some time, my mind blank. I popped one of the blue pills and turned down the first gravel road I found. There was yew and garlic and cypress. I heard dogs howling as insect sounds filled the air like sirens all around me, wavering and crystalline. The ebb and flow coincided with the movement of the trees as wind played through their upper branches. I stopped beside an open field, grasses extended far into the distance toward a looming cloud mass. Or maybe it was the city. I don’t know.
On the other side of the road was a wooded area approximately fifty yards out. I grabbed a bottle of vodka from under the seat, opened the door and slid to the ground. Here is a place, I thought, where you must remove your shoes. I kneeled down and picked up a handful of dirt, let it fall through my fingers, and decided I didn’t really want to take off my shoes. I stood back up, swaying like the trees and walked away from my car toward the woods. I was struggling to bust open the seal on the bottle when I tripped over a boy lying in the middle of the road. His head was caved in, bones stuck out all over his body. His left foot was attached by a piece of skin, or maybe it was his jeans. I mused on how I might think that this nearly unrecognizable pile of meat was a boy and not a girl, but I just knew. The seal cracked and the lid loosened. I unscrewed it and gulped down about three or four swallows. I wiped my mouth on my wrist and put the cap back on.
I bent over the carcass. He was wearing a watch and it was still working. The time was 2:08 p.m. I tucked the bottle in my back pocket and took the watch. Other than a little bit of blood on the face, which I scraped off with my thumbnail, it was perfect. I put it on and drank more vodka.
As I headed back toward my car I noticed another dead child on the hood, a girl, I think, and one stuck to my front bumper. Most of the bottom half of it was gone and I was not able to ascertain the sex of this former individual. I was starting to feel really weird. I couldn’t feel much of my body and my hands were beginning to glow. I was sweating pretty hard. I suppose I was dehydrated from all the alcohol and heat, but there was nothing I could do about that. I touched my forehead with my glowing fingertips and for the life of me, felt like I was touching a completely different human being.
I glanced up the road from the direction I had come and saw a bit of a dark spot right after a low hill. I wanted to see what it was. Probably only a half a mile away, I thought. I took three great big swallows of the vodka and decided I probably didn’t need much more of that, so threw the bottle to the side where it busted open. Glistening liquid spilled out in subtle fuzzy rainbows on the dusty yellow grass.
I stumbled up the road, weaving, trying to avoid the larger pieces of gravel. I saw a lot grasshoppers and crickets. When they jumped they looked like rockets and I saw them in many places at once. I walked over to the side of the road, picked some daisies and put one behind each ear. Silver mosquitoes came buzzing out of the severed stems and stopped in midair, suspended animation. I watched them try to escape. I could see the struggle in their eyes. It was almost human. My whole body was numb. Maybe even dead, I thought as I found myself down on my knees.
I struggled up and wiped the dust from my corduroys. There was a tear in the knee that I couldn’t remember being there before. Blood dripped from it. There was a rock imbedded in my knee. It was in pretty deep. I used a stick to dig it out then tossed the stick into the ditch. As I stood I saw that there was black clotted blood in the ditch. Whirlwinds of flies covered it, licking it, laying eggs. I was at the dark spot.
I looked up. The dark spot was a massive pile of children twisted and rent. I looked higher. The top of the pile nearly touched the clouds that were drifting in. I walked around it wondering how I had not noticed it before and saw where I had hit it on the side, a glancing blow. There was a trail of viscera.
I shrugged and ate another blue pill. What could I do? I walked back to my car and shoved the body off of my hood, then started kicking at the one on my bumper. It wouldn’t come off so easily. I had to kick at it an awful lot before it detached. It was pretty messy.
I got back in my car wishing I hadn’t thrown out that vodka and counted my keys, “One, two, three,” jammed them into the ignition, started the car and sped off in a cloud of dust. I drove carefully around the child mound and ate another blue pill. The watch on my wrist said 2:41 p.m.
The road blurred and became one with the sky. I liked the sky. I found its particular shade of blue soothing and limitless. The encroaching clouds seemed friendly and curious like dogs or monkeys, white like new teeth or milk. Birds flew by upside down waving at the invisible stars and shit through a crack God was peering through, right on his eye. Fitting, I thought. I saw the white lashes bat and a great gray hand filled with intestines wipe away the shit. He dipped his hand down, picked up something moving, squirming, struggling, squeezed the blood out of it and into his palm and anointed his brow. The corpse fell from the sky.
I pulled out onto the blacktop road once again that crossed the plain and veered left over the center line then back to the right, fishtailing. In the distance I saw a figure walking along the side of the road, or rather, limping. As I got closer he turned and stuck out his thumb so I slowed down and stopped beside him. As he opened the door I noticed there was something strange about his face. The left side was old and worn, full of crags, gullies and gulches. His rheumy eye couldn’t seem to focus on me, or anything. It kept roaming off left and right, never resting. The right side of his face was smooth and young, and I would have to say, even beautiful. It kept shifting though; I couldn’t tell if it was male or female. That eye was crystal clear, seemed to shoot into me. I could feel it inside me. He sat in the seat and put his hands on his knees. They were the same way: Left one old, swollen knuckles, claw like and arthritic. The right was young and maybe even dainty. Sometimes the nails seemed long and painted a pale blue, other times, well, more like a man’s. It was real hard to see and I got self-conscious from staring, so I put the car in gear and drove off. Soon though, I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask.
“This might seem too personal, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t wanna, but I was wonderin’ why your hands and face are like that.” I glanced over at him. He stared straight ahead, the old eyeball oscillating away of its own accord. “Like I said, you don’t have to answer if it’s too personal.”
He turned his head and looked at me, the young androgynous side of his face smiled a bit. He said, “I’m God.”
“That a fact?” I said and tried not to laugh. He just turned his head back and watched the road. “I just seen God, and you don’t look like God.”
“The man in the sky? Back there?”
I nodded. My mouth was real dry and I was having a hard time telling which way the road was going. It looked like a about a hundred different roads at once. Some of them went up so I discounted those straight away.
“That’s God too.”
“Too,” I repeated.
Driving through the plains in late summer is completely different than at any other time of the year. Usually, in winter and into early summer the grasses are pretty short and you can see for a good distance off. This time of the year they’re real tall and when you have your windows rolled down the sound of your car bounces off them and creates a swirling roar inside. I was listening to that, making it change frequency by pressing and depressing the accelerator all the way to the floor and back. My head bobbed back and forth. I couldn’t help it. There was no part of my body in communication with my brain. Sudden sun shafts kept making my hands invisible.
“What do you think is the most important thing in the universe?” He asked me.
I stopped looking at my hands and glanced over at him. His faces were a blur. “Shit, I dunno, love?”
He snorted. “Love,” and laughed.
“Well, shit man, I told you I dunno. What is it?”
He touched his old face with his young hand and said, “Destruction.”
“Destruction?”
“How else can everything start anew?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know. We kept driving for a while. He didn’t seem to want to talk anymore so I kept quiet. There were times when I didn’t know where I was and I had to think real hard. Other times I was distracted by the brilliance of my hands. There were more clouds now. I could see them over the tips of the tall grasses. Maybe there would be storm, I thought. I looked over at him. His young hand was caressing the gnarled knuckles of his old hand.
“So where you goin’?” I said. “I mean, where you want me to take you?”
“I don’t know. No place. I just like riding, you know?”
I nodded and licked my lips. They tasted bitter. Once again I regretted throwing out that bottle.
“Oh, this headache,” He said and put his young palm against his forehead.
“You want,” I start to dig in my pocket.
“A blue pill? No. They don’t work on me.”
“Oh.”
His old hand started shaking. He held it down with his young hand, and then petted it like a dog.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just,” He stopped, staring at my wrist. “That’s a nice watch. Can I have it?”
“Thanks, uh, no, it ain’t mine.” I rubbed the face with my thumb. It said 3:46 p.m.
“Ah, too bad.” He sighed. “You can let me off here.”
“There ain’t nothin’ here.” I said as I pulled over.
“Wasn’t anything back there either,” he replied and opened the door. He grasped the top of the car with his young hand and hauled the decrepit half of his body out, shut the door and leaned on the window. The young face smiled. The old one was starting to drool. The young face said, “Many blessings to you, friend,” while the old face made rude noises. He turned and limped off back the way we had come, laughing. I could hear the old man’s ragged cacophonous laugh together with the high musical laughter of the young androgyne. I ate the last two pills, pressed the accelerator and decided to head back to Mr. Man’s house.
A shudder. A shake. A final vibration and a coughing sputter. I got out of my car and drifted through Mr. Man’s door. It was always open to me. He was still sitting there nearly swallowed by the plaid couch, knee jerking up and down to another record, something classical, pianos and bassoons. It too was warped.
“Never guess what I found, Man.” I sat down beside him and took the watch off. “Something for you. A gift.” I swallowed. “For your friendship.”
He grinned. “Thanks,” he croaked. Mr. Man rarely talked.
“It’s a great watch,” I said. “Real tough.”
He bobbed his head up and down as he clasped it to his wrist.
I swallowed. “You got anything to drink?”
Glory to the Astral Kingdom
The thrones of exotic suicides are mountains carved of basalt on the ocean floor. My girl sits on one. Her neck bent at just the right angle, black tongue lolling. She is crowned with angels and primordial chaos. Her robes are curtains of blood undulating with the current, sewn with elephant skulls and the dried eyes of antelope and elk. The supplications of the crustaceans, cephalopods and silver fishes whirl about like dervishes as they eat her toes, her belly and her fingers.
Great Plains
She licks the poison apples like a purple insect after nectar.
Craves a taste of my blood when the drugs don’t affect her.
A white lattice of lace separates
The silver light falling from above
And the black stain across her face.
She eats my blood when I’ve run out of pills,
Riding in an old car out across the Great Plains.
She drinks my blood when I’ve run out of wine,
Riding toward the distant churning thunderheads.
Her eyes are like wet stones, arms thin and fragile
The sharp teeth she hides behind dry lips chatter,
Click together uncontrollably as she hums, staring
At the thick blue vein that runs through my right arm.
“We have to stop at the next gas station and buy some Valium.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Well, certainly then, some bourbon.”
Craves a taste of my blood when the drugs don’t affect her.
A white lattice of lace separates
The silver light falling from above
And the black stain across her face.
She eats my blood when I’ve run out of pills,
Riding in an old car out across the Great Plains.
She drinks my blood when I’ve run out of wine,
Riding toward the distant churning thunderheads.
Her eyes are like wet stones, arms thin and fragile
The sharp teeth she hides behind dry lips chatter,
Click together uncontrollably as she hums, staring
At the thick blue vein that runs through my right arm.
“We have to stop at the next gas station and buy some Valium.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Well, certainly then, some bourbon.”
Water
Now shivering, standing in the waters,
Bathed in the green light of the moon.
Underneath a cracked sky, a yawning mouth.
The desolate swine.
Now floating, blue, down the icy river.
Pale hands upon my body.
The moon turns its back to me.
Black. Shaking. Cancerous.
I take up the sword. I am the sword.
My blood is the alpine stream, clear and cold and fast.
I am filled with tremulous light as i strike the head from the swine.
Its blood is plague cloud. It fills my mouth and I stagger back,
Rushing water pushing at my knees, tugging at my feet.
The blood fills the cosmos, infects the stars.
They wither and die. Glowing red embers.
Helium ash. White dwarfs.
Neutrons. Black Holes.
Now locked in a river of ice, the sun looks like a firefly:
A speck of wavering light in eternal blackness.
Bathed in the green light of the moon.
Underneath a cracked sky, a yawning mouth.
The desolate swine.
Now floating, blue, down the icy river.
Pale hands upon my body.
The moon turns its back to me.
Black. Shaking. Cancerous.
I take up the sword. I am the sword.
My blood is the alpine stream, clear and cold and fast.
I am filled with tremulous light as i strike the head from the swine.
Its blood is plague cloud. It fills my mouth and I stagger back,
Rushing water pushing at my knees, tugging at my feet.
The blood fills the cosmos, infects the stars.
They wither and die. Glowing red embers.
Helium ash. White dwarfs.
Neutrons. Black Holes.
Now locked in a river of ice, the sun looks like a firefly:
A speck of wavering light in eternal blackness.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Mountain
I was found, dead,
High atop a mountain.
My eyes were taken from me.
I was down, low,
Resting in a valley.
Seeing what a blind god sees.
Now surrounded by hungry dogs
Jaws unhinged, wild eyed, howling.
A stone chime hammer far away
Sounds like a bell in my still heart.
A wind from the northwest
Smells like Hyacinth.
I sleep.
In the shadow of the mountain
While they crucify me.
I sleep.
In the shadow of the mountain
Dreaming of harmony/anarchy
I sleep.
In the shadow of the mountain
While they crucify me.
I sleep.
In the shadow of the mountain
Upon which my body died.
High atop a mountain.
My eyes were taken from me.
I was down, low,
Resting in a valley.
Seeing what a blind god sees.
Now surrounded by hungry dogs
Jaws unhinged, wild eyed, howling.
A stone chime hammer far away
Sounds like a bell in my still heart.
A wind from the northwest
Smells like Hyacinth.
I sleep.
In the shadow of the mountain
While they crucify me.
I sleep.
In the shadow of the mountain
Dreaming of harmony/anarchy
I sleep.
In the shadow of the mountain
While they crucify me.
I sleep.
In the shadow of the mountain
Upon which my body died.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Thor, an epic haiku
Okay, this is totally excessive but this is made up of 17 haiku in 5-7-5 of which there are five haiku in the first part, seven in the second part and five in the last part.
Thor, God of thunder,
The son of Odin and Jörd,
Red-Haired and Bearded.
With Mjöllnir you crush
Mountains and your enemies;
Unfailing, always.
With iron gauntlets
You heft the silver hammer;
Chase away the frost.
Your strength is doubled
When you strap about your waist
The belt megingjörð.
In the black skies with
Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder;
Call forth the spring winds.
Once, mighty Thor was
Outwitted by a giant,
Using his magic.
Racing Thought itself
Against his fastest servant;
Nothing can beat thought.
Loki couldn’t win
In a contest to out eat
A wild fire.
Lifting a cat’s paw,
The Midgard Serpent’s disguise;
An impressive deed.
A horn of ocean
Thor was unable to drain;
He started the tides.
Thor wrestled Elli,
The woman who was Old Age
Down to just one knee.
Humiliated:
He had done tremendous deeds;
Worthy warrior-god.
It was he who chased
Away the frost and called forth
Gentle winds, spring rains,
To release the earth
To unclench the fist of snow,
The bondage of ice.
Now come Ragnarök
When the fire giants will
Set aflame the world,
The world tree shudders
The sun becomes black and the
Sea subsumes the earth
Thor will meet his death
Defeating the great serpent;
Dead from the venom.
Thor, God of thunder,
The son of Odin and Jörd,
Red-Haired and Bearded.
With Mjöllnir you crush
Mountains and your enemies;
Unfailing, always.
With iron gauntlets
You heft the silver hammer;
Chase away the frost.
Your strength is doubled
When you strap about your waist
The belt megingjörð.
In the black skies with
Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder;
Call forth the spring winds.
Once, mighty Thor was
Outwitted by a giant,
Using his magic.
Racing Thought itself
Against his fastest servant;
Nothing can beat thought.
Loki couldn’t win
In a contest to out eat
A wild fire.
Lifting a cat’s paw,
The Midgard Serpent’s disguise;
An impressive deed.
A horn of ocean
Thor was unable to drain;
He started the tides.
Thor wrestled Elli,
The woman who was Old Age
Down to just one knee.
Humiliated:
He had done tremendous deeds;
Worthy warrior-god.
It was he who chased
Away the frost and called forth
Gentle winds, spring rains,
To release the earth
To unclench the fist of snow,
The bondage of ice.
Now come Ragnarök
When the fire giants will
Set aflame the world,
The world tree shudders
The sun becomes black and the
Sea subsumes the earth
Thor will meet his death
Defeating the great serpent;
Dead from the venom.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Ragnarök - a five haiku poem
Ride, Valkyrie, the
Aurora Borealis;
Ravens at your side.
Chooser of the slain,
Bear the fallen heroes up
Into Valhalla
To drink with Odin
Mead, and prepare evermore
To fight the last war;
Ragnarök, the end,
The battle of the doomed gods,
Black becomes the sun,
Flames rise to Asgard,
Consume the broken Bifröst,
Tremulous no more.
Aurora Borealis;
Ravens at your side.
Chooser of the slain,
Bear the fallen heroes up
Into Valhalla
To drink with Odin
Mead, and prepare evermore
To fight the last war;
Ragnarök, the end,
The battle of the doomed gods,
Black becomes the sun,
Flames rise to Asgard,
Consume the broken Bifröst,
Tremulous no more.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
haikus are dead. long live haikus
under the red sun
black holes become white fountains
doves turn inside out
Subtle Higgs boson,
come out wherever you are.
Fermilab might win.
Out among the stars
Where comets glide with green tails:
I'm still fucking broke.
In a hot shower,
I washed my dirty laundry.
It smells like shampoo.
I am full of borscht,
but vodka is elusive.
winter crushes me.
Coffee in the morn
In porcelain, sweetly worn,
To rise and conquer.
Hey Albert Einstein!
Procure for me a burger.
Oh, that's right, you're dead.
Hey Archimedes!
Why don't you invent a gun
That brings me summer.
Brain-raping pigeons,
Rockstar and ranch doritos
Made you who you are.
A war by proxy:
Avenues shall run crimson
While I write part two.
part II
Puddles congealing:
An avian holocaust.
What can staunch the flow?
black holes become white fountains
doves turn inside out
Subtle Higgs boson,
come out wherever you are.
Fermilab might win.
Out among the stars
Where comets glide with green tails:
I'm still fucking broke.
In a hot shower,
I washed my dirty laundry.
It smells like shampoo.
I am full of borscht,
but vodka is elusive.
winter crushes me.
Coffee in the morn
In porcelain, sweetly worn,
To rise and conquer.
Hey Albert Einstein!
Procure for me a burger.
Oh, that's right, you're dead.
Hey Archimedes!
Why don't you invent a gun
That brings me summer.
Brain-raping pigeons,
Rockstar and ranch doritos
Made you who you are.
A war by proxy:
Avenues shall run crimson
While I write part two.
part II
Puddles congealing:
An avian holocaust.
What can staunch the flow?
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Houses Haikus
House of the dead arctic hare
Bleeding from its mouth
On carpet you could drown in.
House of the dead gorilla,
Flayed skin like petals
Crown exposed bones and organs.
House of the dead grizzly bear,
Pink tongue lolling
In cold coffee mixed with milk.
House of the dead elephant,
Eyes eaten by snakes
Escaped from calid glass tanks.
House of the dead albatross,
Headless and twisted,
Next to the potbelly stove.
House of the dead lioness,
Teeth bared and throat slit
Sitting at an oak table.
House of the dead antelope,
Covered in egg yolks,
Surrounded by brain matter.
House of the dead buffalo,
Sprawled across the couch
With broken horns and white teeth.
Bleeding from its mouth
On carpet you could drown in.
House of the dead gorilla,
Flayed skin like petals
Crown exposed bones and organs.
House of the dead grizzly bear,
Pink tongue lolling
In cold coffee mixed with milk.
House of the dead elephant,
Eyes eaten by snakes
Escaped from calid glass tanks.
House of the dead albatross,
Headless and twisted,
Next to the potbelly stove.
House of the dead lioness,
Teeth bared and throat slit
Sitting at an oak table.
House of the dead antelope,
Covered in egg yolks,
Surrounded by brain matter.
House of the dead buffalo,
Sprawled across the couch
With broken horns and white teeth.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Pattern Recognition Breaks Down After 5 and a Half Minutes
The crooked building leans toward the water, feverish and weather worn. It dips its facade into the cool water and tries not to inhale. A shuddering grinding whine from deep within the steel structure vibrates out into the water. The fishes hear it. The crabs feel it. They don't know what it means. The building rises slowly. Steam and warm water stream from the windows. The crooked edifice turns from the water and faces the canyon of skyscrapers snagging clouds on spires and antennae. The sun gleams on their silvered windows. The crooked building sighs its sagging infrastructure and meanders back to its little trash strewn plaza.
I Imagine in 1951 the Noise from that Orange Grove Wasn't as Loud as that Six Lane
You arrive like candy on my tongue. We play drums for a while and the extra pink tongue that you don't mind keeps playing at the corner of your mouth. The street becomes the blue-skinned jewel, the fake blood you keep in the refrigerator, and the fresh blood you keep in your thermos. We take walks and dream at the same time. Caught in the cool dark shadows over your eyes, the deep cave under your brow where we sometimes play together like silver fish. The pulsing is the frequency I use to contact the ovular mothership. As you rotate, your neck sighs. It opens doorways and windows in the sky. Velvet skin upon my teeth holds the secret pleasure under threat of death, but the pink candy breath you use to calm the beasts swaying in the glaze under a canopy of a hundred thousand guitars is our secret weapon.
Deeper then Night. Stronger than Death.
As the animals lay dying,
the sky parts to reveal two red
suns feeding off each other
like cannibals.
A caterpillar weaves a tomb
For the white worm to build a world.
A caterpillar weaves a tomb
For the white worm to build a universe.
the sky parts to reveal two red
suns feeding off each other
like cannibals.
A caterpillar weaves a tomb
For the white worm to build a world.
A caterpillar weaves a tomb
For the white worm to build a universe.
Golden Dirge
Ancient mirrors. Face-to-face. Sing golden dirges.
To the black dog head. With the emerald eyes.
As weeping willows. Throw electric locusts.
Screaming into the sky. Searching for the eyes.
Searching for the mouths. Of God.
Oh, lay me down.
Lay down my body.
On the stones and horns.
Let them into my mouths.
They build cities in my throats.
To the black dog head. With the emerald eyes.
As weeping willows. Throw electric locusts.
Screaming into the sky. Searching for the eyes.
Searching for the mouths. Of God.
Oh, lay me down.
Lay down my body.
On the stones and horns.
Let them into my mouths.
They build cities in my throats.
Atonal Dirge
The doves are moaning again. Atonal dirges for god. And everything fades as the blood seeps from your head, turns into white angels that fly away through the holes we made. The Blue folds in. Lightning strikes the eyes of the silver flower. A shower of sparks, twisted horns, and blind eyes.
One turns red. The other upends, spills broken moons like quartz necklaces eaten by horses made of ash and plastic.
Rivers of blood.
Angels are meat.
One turns red. The other upends, spills broken moons like quartz necklaces eaten by horses made of ash and plastic.
Rivers of blood.
Angels are meat.
Reconfiguration of Sonic Booms and Platinum Sunrises
The red mouth rips wide open in a grin
To let the murky ocean in.
Lap the green water from cupped hands
Yellowed with callouses.
Dandelion roots hide in snake pits between
The cool, soft, breathing, legless
Bodies dreaming of ostrich eggs.
Rusted falcons clasp black centipedes
over jungle covered calderas.
Thrashing in their death throes,
Howling like pipe organs,
The centipedes turn blue and fall through
The verdant canopy.
Released from iron talons,
They die upon the decaying earth.
Eaten by ants.
Eaten by worms.
To let the murky ocean in.
Lap the green water from cupped hands
Yellowed with callouses.
Dandelion roots hide in snake pits between
The cool, soft, breathing, legless
Bodies dreaming of ostrich eggs.
Rusted falcons clasp black centipedes
over jungle covered calderas.
Thrashing in their death throes,
Howling like pipe organs,
The centipedes turn blue and fall through
The verdant canopy.
Released from iron talons,
They die upon the decaying earth.
Eaten by ants.
Eaten by worms.
My Molecular Baby
Through the veils of corruptible sadness
I have seen your eyes light up like red suns,
Swollen and heavy, ancient and insane.
You carry scars with pride and fortitude.
I have seen your eyes light up like red suns,
Swollen and heavy, ancient and insane.
You carry scars with pride and fortitude.
I Get Paid To Write Poems About God
A black sermon of intermittent beeps.
Ten story organs drone deep, resonant,
Concussive waves of ultramer blue light
Straight to the center of animal brains.
Black-red holes open and geysers unfurl
Like dancing flowers entwined in the air.
Ten story organs drone deep, resonant,
Concussive waves of ultramer blue light
Straight to the center of animal brains.
Black-red holes open and geysers unfurl
Like dancing flowers entwined in the air.
10 Second Light
Mother brings the rocks, red insects and bears,
Filling up the shadows beneath her wings.
Liars fill fingers full of dynamite.
Cold lead mirrors face to face sing golden
Dirges to the black dog head with green eyes.
Filling up the shadows beneath her wings.
Liars fill fingers full of dynamite.
Cold lead mirrors face to face sing golden
Dirges to the black dog head with green eyes.
Explosion for a Heart
Slowly splitting open a moldy peach
While planting explosive chargesInside open heart surgery patients
I think about the black mushroom garden
Just at the foot of the spiral staircase
Where I left my finest red fedora
Next to a half eaten box of raisons.
The churning worms near my stomach cancer
Split in two and become beautiful trains
Hanging upside down from ice covered tracks,
Not unlike coal belching ballerinas
Pretending to be shivering black bats.
I touch my belly. The sensation stops.
I put plastique in the left ventricle.
It looks exactly like cholesterol.
I put plastique in the right ventricle
And then I nearly fill the aorta.
I zip the heart up and slip out the door.
Tomorrow, an explosion for a heart
Black Gravitation
In the hundreds of billions of years since
The universe birthed itself with white light,
Photons have raced through curved infinity
Devoured by black gravity masses,
Split open at the seams deep in the heart
Of wildly spiraling galaxies.
The universe birthed itself with white light,
Photons have raced through curved infinity
Devoured by black gravity masses,
Split open at the seams deep in the heart
Of wildly spiraling galaxies.
sick winter meat//alpha relapse//rape wedding//dead puppy orgasm
she lays eggs inside my mouth when i am sleeping.
i can read by the blue light coming from her fingers.
she eats my spinal column as i tense my muscles.
cell by cell dissolution. maggot children in my brain.
i can read by the blue light coming from her fingers.
she eats my spinal column as i tense my muscles.
cell by cell dissolution. maggot children in my brain.
Old Dirge
carry me down from the mountain
back to the place where i was born.
bring my body to the river,
scrape flesh from bone with sharpened stone.
down in the valley of sorrows
lay the corruption that was me
under a scree of broken rock
with sparrows and cherry blossoms.
back to the place where i was born.
bring my body to the river,
scrape flesh from bone with sharpened stone.
down in the valley of sorrows
lay the corruption that was me
under a scree of broken rock
with sparrows and cherry blossoms.
Porcupines Do Not Equal Bees
Her arm loosely dangling hanging baking
in the sun turning red and blistering
blue diamonds eject from her pores
like pods from spaceships. her fingernails
painted red and black flick open like hatches
and out pours Kool-aid and Pepsi and ladybugs.
in the sun turning red and blistering
blue diamonds eject from her pores
like pods from spaceships. her fingernails
painted red and black flick open like hatches
and out pours Kool-aid and Pepsi and ladybugs.
Waves
The incarcerated man rolls his eyes to the back of his head. He takes two of his fingers, sticks them into his mouth, down his throat and into his stomach. Puncturing through the wall, he pulls at the blue bands of light mired in brown ichor. Radiant gossamers and vibrating pink tendrils surround his knuckles. With a quick wrench and rip he withdraws his catch back through the rent in his gut. Up the esophagus. Out his mouth.
With a shiver, he blinks his eyes forward and looks at the things in his fist. His teeth ring in the wave.
With a shiver, he blinks his eyes forward and looks at the things in his fist. His teeth ring in the wave.
Messianic Ultra Gash
Our coming is heralded by the appearance of the _____. Shining heart bathed in white light. Concatenations of blue hands tic, embedded with effulgent teeth, spinning, grinding in swollen holes. In the sea sleeps a serpent, green and crusted with agate inside a broken ship. It's mouth contains lion cages filled with hills and delicate pink cocoons of metamorphic fulminations.
Messengers
fey hermit, gray and deaf
in mouth of cave above sugar
cane fields with one match.
dragonflies with tiny scrolls
bound with silken threads
buzz through the magnetic
distortion and land at his feet.
in mouth of cave above sugar
cane fields with one match.
dragonflies with tiny scrolls
bound with silken threads
buzz through the magnetic
distortion and land at his feet.
Three Silver Snakes
Three silver snakes appear in the air above the spot we planted our flowers. Amber bubbles fall out of their mouths and crack open in the grass. Each crack emits a subtle yellow light. with time, the light dims and the cracks peel of like scabs, soften and curl in the grass and are black licorice in the sun. Moist to the touch. Sticky and sweet.
Alabaster
Rivers eat splintered breasts of the doves piling in our faces.
Listless.
Silver snakes suffocate golden angels aching blue faces.
Listless.
Fingerless, gray and deaf, marching through a field of dead children.
Listless.
Corpses bathed in moonlight erupt alabaster meadowlarks.
Listless
Sun Splitter
Listless.
Silver snakes suffocate golden angels aching blue faces.
Listless.
Fingerless, gray and deaf, marching through a field of dead children.
Listless.
Corpses bathed in moonlight erupt alabaster meadowlarks.
Listless
Sun Splitter
Cairn of Old Eyes
See the girl with the thorn necklace hanging high in the old pines?
her blood smells like honey. her blood is black upon her neck.
Seasons change, cold rain turns to snow
And men from all over converge upon the site to stare at
the corpse high up in the pines. 1000 faces transfigured by time.
Sun Splitter
her blood smells like honey. her blood is black upon her neck.
Seasons change, cold rain turns to snow
And men from all over converge upon the site to stare at
the corpse high up in the pines. 1000 faces transfigured by time.
Sun Splitter
Ponies
The instant of brutalization:
a rise and fall of soft voices, then a crack which causes a spark that dissipates. dying photons crumble like a decadent culture and weeds grow in the cavernous eye sockets of the fallen juggernaut surrounded by insects with luminous carapaces and diaphanous wings. mandibles fold and gnaw, click and grind. voices of the long dead. voices of belly cancers. and the blood saturated ground fertilizes flowers and wild grasses perfect for ponies.
Dead Dragon Mountain
a rise and fall of soft voices, then a crack which causes a spark that dissipates. dying photons crumble like a decadent culture and weeds grow in the cavernous eye sockets of the fallen juggernaut surrounded by insects with luminous carapaces and diaphanous wings. mandibles fold and gnaw, click and grind. voices of the long dead. voices of belly cancers. and the blood saturated ground fertilizes flowers and wild grasses perfect for ponies.
Dead Dragon Mountain
the psychedelic priestess
the psychedelic priestess of the wild wood
leaves black marks
where she walks.
the culling of the psychedelic priestess
leaves black entrails
in the wild wood.
the brown lizard in her mouth.
the small breasts in her hands.
the carotid artery explodes like a sun
in the dawn of the winter,
the black night of spring.
leaves black marks
where she walks.
the culling of the psychedelic priestess
leaves black entrails
in the wild wood.
the brown lizard in her mouth.
the small breasts in her hands.
the carotid artery explodes like a sun
in the dawn of the winter,
the black night of spring.
the splintering wing
sucking breath of the last parade
march boots crushing,
slogging through the musky blood
and mud.
boiled ocean
the rape of Mnemosyne
the cutting of Moneta
barren earth, failing star-
cislunar no-man's land
march boots crushing,
slogging through the musky blood
and mud.
boiled ocean
the rape of Mnemosyne
the cutting of Moneta
barren earth, failing star-
cislunar no-man's land
Black Wail
brethren hear the black-wail choir,
slit-throat guttural missive under
bullet hail.
rivers eat the splintered breasts
of doves piled in our useless flesh.
corpses wreathed with cherry blossoms
glisten like wet candy under lapis sky.
worms unfold and bloom white datura
antennae pumping silver narcotics
for the nation builders.
may your mother rise up from the grave.
may your mother murder you.
slit-throat guttural missive under
bullet hail.
rivers eat the splintered breasts
of doves piled in our useless flesh.
corpses wreathed with cherry blossoms
glisten like wet candy under lapis sky.
worms unfold and bloom white datura
antennae pumping silver narcotics
for the nation builders.
may your mother rise up from the grave.
may your mother murder you.
penetration cavities
staring. backwards. through the holes.
dry tongues unravel. lap rusted water
from decaying fountains. trapped
within the gravity well of a singularity,
breeding. like animals fucking toward omega.
sucking mouths, insensate. riven teeth
headstones, crooked, blurred.
dry tongues unravel. lap rusted water
from decaying fountains. trapped
within the gravity well of a singularity,
breeding. like animals fucking toward omega.
sucking mouths, insensate. riven teeth
headstones, crooked, blurred.
For Ursula K. Leguin
come on down to the fields by the highway
let's listen to the cars scream by and watch
the stars until we sense the earth moving.
let's listen to the cars scream by and watch
the stars until we sense the earth moving.
Probably Something to do with Drugs and/or Death
brittle pills pass grinding molars. massaged
down esophagus to belly. aurora lights play
on the brain, eyes explode like napalm. fire
running down cheeks in rivulets. lips swell
like snakes in the silence of the moment.
heart beats a little slower. ribs expand
to accept the fluids leaking from a million
tiny holes.
down esophagus to belly. aurora lights play
on the brain, eyes explode like napalm. fire
running down cheeks in rivulets. lips swell
like snakes in the silence of the moment.
heart beats a little slower. ribs expand
to accept the fluids leaking from a million
tiny holes.
Solar Leper
From the slow breathing - the rise and fall.
The indentations. The susurrations.
The ribs extend like lepidoptera
With violet filaments and golden strands.
Webbed interstice of bone.
The sun is the eye in the dead man's hand
Plucked at by carrion birds
Out on the paprika dunes. By the ocean.
All the moon's in your throat
And the volcanoes in your breast
Vomit ash and meadowlarks.
The solar leper accretes from the rings
around him the flesh he has lost.
Dead Dragon Mountain
The indentations. The susurrations.
The ribs extend like lepidoptera
With violet filaments and golden strands.
Webbed interstice of bone.
The sun is the eye in the dead man's hand
Plucked at by carrion birds
Out on the paprika dunes. By the ocean.
All the moon's in your throat
And the volcanoes in your breast
Vomit ash and meadowlarks.
The solar leper accretes from the rings
around him the flesh he has lost.
Dead Dragon Mountain
Ablutions
far from the dead eyes you fear will see us yet, you hold your head erect in the subsections of time where red wines spouts from a dead bear's mouth. our throats boast with mountainous sounds of the mastering of auroras and the splitting of the sun - its thermonuclear yolk hurled across vast distances. consuming. ablutionary. holy fire.
The Insensate Hunger of Matter for Matter
bring the white wolves to the coast,
fracture their legs and toss them
into the ocean. Howling through waves.
sinking. dragged by invisible currents.
the silver schools feast upon their crumpled bodies.
fracture their legs and toss them
into the ocean. Howling through waves.
sinking. dragged by invisible currents.
the silver schools feast upon their crumpled bodies.
Plum Blossom Drone
plum blossom in the brackish water under heavy stone
open belly of the sparrow losing songs
quiet like an ocean in a black room
dead foxes, dire wolves in the green light of the moon
always closer, guns bloom like teeth in angel's wounds
lurid voices sing in the poppy fields of Arcadia.
Sun Splitter
open belly of the sparrow losing songs
quiet like an ocean in a black room
dead foxes, dire wolves in the green light of the moon
always closer, guns bloom like teeth in angel's wounds
lurid voices sing in the poppy fields of Arcadia.
Sun Splitter
Solar Nerves
breath fails me like dying horses falling from the sky,
like the last echo in the wild wood.
basil flowers fall onto our hair on the empyrean road
as the myriad knives rotate in my stomach.
looking for holes left by firefly flashes in the night.
a drunken clamor. a clumsy clasping.
i will love you 'til the sun splits open like an egg.
like the last echo in the wild wood.
basil flowers fall onto our hair on the empyrean road
as the myriad knives rotate in my stomach.
looking for holes left by firefly flashes in the night.
a drunken clamor. a clumsy clasping.
i will love you 'til the sun splits open like an egg.
Earth Burner
earth-burner lies hungry, dying,
scoured faceless, blackened body.
machine mouth filled with stars,
blood violets and dandelion leaves.
wracked with gilded rape and excruciation.
ragged edges twist into the sky,
cerise and vermilion pulsar beats
rhythmically and pulls silken
strands from lion throats.
a universe of bared bones
stripped muscle
sinew rope.
Sun Splitter
scoured faceless, blackened body.
machine mouth filled with stars,
blood violets and dandelion leaves.
wracked with gilded rape and excruciation.
ragged edges twist into the sky,
cerise and vermilion pulsar beats
rhythmically and pulls silken
strands from lion throats.
a universe of bared bones
stripped muscle
sinew rope.
Sun Splitter
A Notebook Glut - Artifacts Gleaned from an Old Yellow Page
aureate - golden, brilliant, decorated, affected style, grandiloquent, heavily ornamental, excessively rhetorical, employing foreign words.
ambion - greek for pulpit. also means something that has two functions
barren sky. wide open. fist thrust. through ocean crust.
above these bones, a scree of stones. ophidian arms
wave at helicopters with opal eyes and radar screens.
prowess of liars. smokey and velvet.
eat the flowers left at their feet,
squat and unfold at the house of the
soothsayer. telling her stories
brittle and yellow
paper and teeth
milk and ash
ghost hands blur the trash brain.
a sick lump in the corner, dead
to flash in the numb of hypno.
eaten
in the rise of the indeterminate.
-
bones in catacombs fuse together. a cathedral and its radioactive
musky blood slick polluting millenia with christ as the middle finger to reason. are the gutless reanimations eating our brains as we twitch simply a dull occurence like watching t.v. or buying toasters?
-
when the head splits open, that's when the magic starts breathing stars into the open. sheathed in wheat clones and echoed out to blackened drone like some sort of alcoholic priest boy fucking to god on the hyperplane existence of arbitrary trials and simian blood. excessive cosmological archeology. positions in sand written on toes in enamel. when that's not enough, the edges come closer. pinched skin, puckered lips reddened. pacified. browned.
-
ankle bones:
bastard son of black-eyed john
riven throat of sea anemone carcass
ambion - greek for pulpit. also means something that has two functions
barren sky. wide open. fist thrust. through ocean crust.
above these bones, a scree of stones. ophidian arms
wave at helicopters with opal eyes and radar screens.
prowess of liars. smokey and velvet.
eat the flowers left at their feet,
squat and unfold at the house of the
soothsayer. telling her stories
brittle and yellow
paper and teeth
milk and ash
ghost hands blur the trash brain.
a sick lump in the corner, dead
to flash in the numb of hypno.
eaten
in the rise of the indeterminate.
-
bones in catacombs fuse together. a cathedral and its radioactive
musky blood slick polluting millenia with christ as the middle finger to reason. are the gutless reanimations eating our brains as we twitch simply a dull occurence like watching t.v. or buying toasters?
-
when the head splits open, that's when the magic starts breathing stars into the open. sheathed in wheat clones and echoed out to blackened drone like some sort of alcoholic priest boy fucking to god on the hyperplane existence of arbitrary trials and simian blood. excessive cosmological archeology. positions in sand written on toes in enamel. when that's not enough, the edges come closer. pinched skin, puckered lips reddened. pacified. browned.
-
ankle bones:
bastard son of black-eyed john
riven throat of sea anemone carcass
Blessed are the Mouths of God
Ganymede and Thet slither 'long the balustrade, trading orange pork specimens gathered from the heart of the purple quasar in the room with the long windows. Balancing pink Spanish slug lips laterally, avoiding laser moonbeam locators, elegantly. They speak in low whispers. Tongues caressing ear-shapes and chests erupting red flowers and snakes light bites on soft shoulders. Battle scar beauty mark – long ragged road across the eye, pale and hypnotic in soft shadows - Thed of swords and rape, inside out goddess of meat and viscera, teeth clacking like silver tree branches in core of winter peers into Ganymede's amethyst eyes. "What vulture must the great pig pass on his flight to your moon?" Keening, drops razor, axe, and flail, machete and poniard from her black horse mouth, absence of infinity.
"Abasi's vulture. The Inchoate One – the nest of your desiccated womb, automatic, beyond repair – the lyre in the maelstrom. The messenger circles." Rending rotten meat with perfect teeth, Ganymede wiggles his little finger and sighs.
Thed sets her mouth into a grim straight line as her florid cheeks erupt small brown moths splashed with oxblood red patterns. The moths curve up toward the high ceiling near the holes where the moonlight invades, flutter in a chaotic arc and fly back into her skin. "The Byzantines," she coughs, and then, "the Byzantines and their whores. The whores with the flaming red hair that whirl about like tempests with lightning eyes, them and their black sword bearers who ride the tall azure stallions with armored steel plates on their necks like centipede bodies, they will ensnare the messenger with their magic totems and five-fire-nets." She coughs again; a great ragged hacking, moist and smelling of musk and ancient cellars. And with her eyes heavily lidded, she says, "Go, Ganymede. Go to the elephantine mountain peak of Lakshmi mother lotus. Seduce her, exploit her spectral corona and take the five-sided-shield to the Byzantines."
"Abasi's vulture. The Inchoate One – the nest of your desiccated womb, automatic, beyond repair – the lyre in the maelstrom. The messenger circles." Rending rotten meat with perfect teeth, Ganymede wiggles his little finger and sighs.
Thed sets her mouth into a grim straight line as her florid cheeks erupt small brown moths splashed with oxblood red patterns. The moths curve up toward the high ceiling near the holes where the moonlight invades, flutter in a chaotic arc and fly back into her skin. "The Byzantines," she coughs, and then, "the Byzantines and their whores. The whores with the flaming red hair that whirl about like tempests with lightning eyes, them and their black sword bearers who ride the tall azure stallions with armored steel plates on their necks like centipede bodies, they will ensnare the messenger with their magic totems and five-fire-nets." She coughs again; a great ragged hacking, moist and smelling of musk and ancient cellars. And with her eyes heavily lidded, she says, "Go, Ganymede. Go to the elephantine mountain peak of Lakshmi mother lotus. Seduce her, exploit her spectral corona and take the five-sided-shield to the Byzantines."
all the bright tigers in the endless jungle
as i scatter your ashes on the thousand mile plain.
as i erupt red birds from my lacerated chest.
as i ride backwards from predetermined routes.
your bones in my legs trembling with the speed,
your eyes in my brain oscillating like fingers
supercharged with electromagnetic aurora.
a muscle breaks with a cracksnap and tendons
creak like dilapidated air conditioning units
held together with duct tape in housing project
windows blackened by grease fires.
a churning gutlessness prattles endlessly in the
everliving electrical field in the subbasements
of exotic atoms. armed with precision guided
vibrations like poison dart tongues rapidly
disintegrating out on the fringes of the
continent where echoes die abruptly,
the artless shuffle like asthmatic schizophrenics
stuck in the radiating sonic boom of daisies.
as i erupt red birds from my lacerated chest.
as i ride backwards from predetermined routes.
your bones in my legs trembling with the speed,
your eyes in my brain oscillating like fingers
supercharged with electromagnetic aurora.
a muscle breaks with a cracksnap and tendons
creak like dilapidated air conditioning units
held together with duct tape in housing project
windows blackened by grease fires.
a churning gutlessness prattles endlessly in the
everliving electrical field in the subbasements
of exotic atoms. armed with precision guided
vibrations like poison dart tongues rapidly
disintegrating out on the fringes of the
continent where echoes die abruptly,
the artless shuffle like asthmatic schizophrenics
stuck in the radiating sonic boom of daisies.
sliding sideways, westerly.
there. silent. in your little town.
is a wet begonia menstruating
on a capitalist. orange stillbirth
from a split airplane in a pale
blue sky rains down on the
circling crowd.
some are armed with cattleprods
some have come with gasoline
and matches.
is a wet begonia menstruating
on a capitalist. orange stillbirth
from a split airplane in a pale
blue sky rains down on the
circling crowd.
some are armed with cattleprods
some have come with gasoline
and matches.
Desert Songs: And Oh, the Visions We'll Share
Moonrise on the desert floor. Rocky crags in the distance gain a deeper shadow. And our eyeballs rotate. Searching for signs of life in each other. In the deep grooves of our face. In the leathery skin. Search for. Some sort of. Movement. Movement that belies. Or. Movement that confirms. The inside will.
As the stars gently revolve. As the ghost honeybees pollinate our lips. As the delicate stingrays slip through the sky. I, and you, bring our skin closer. Closing in. Closer to you. To me. That’s when the holes open up. And the piglet colonies push their noses out. Hesitate. Suck sibilant first breaths. And. blind, the colonies merge in a swirling pink mass that expands and takes our throats deep to the left of everything and we are left swaying, giddy, slightly sick in the pits of our stomach.
As the stars gently revolve. As the ghost honeybees pollinate our lips. As the delicate stingrays slip through the sky. I, and you, bring our skin closer. Closing in. Closer to you. To me. That’s when the holes open up. And the piglet colonies push their noses out. Hesitate. Suck sibilant first breaths. And. blind, the colonies merge in a swirling pink mass that expands and takes our throats deep to the left of everything and we are left swaying, giddy, slightly sick in the pits of our stomach.
Desert Songs: And A Great Beast Shall Rise from the Sands
Vero needed to be alone. And so she came out into the desert. She took her shirt off and let the sun eat of her skin. She sat in the golden sand and buried her hands. She felt her shoulder skin bubble and pop. Harden and curl. The sun heated her spine column by column. Disk by disk. But her hands were cool underneath the sand. She concentrated on the two distinct sensations. Then searched for the middle point between the burning and the cooling. It was in her stomach. That was where the calm was. She allowed her self to dwell within the tissues. Amongst the acids of her belly. Vero imagined her mind becoming worm. A white worm curled over and around itself inside her skull. A subtle stinking worm. She let it have her head and kept herself inside her belly. And now, inside her belly, she turned her attention to her fingertips. Not because she wanted to, but because she was drawn there by a sensation. And she explored it. She went to the tip of her index finger. Because that was where the sensation began. And was now strongest. She discovered she couldn't go as far as she used to be able to go inside her finger. And realized. She couldn't go any further because there was nothing more there. What could make her fingertip nothing? She wondered. And edged her awareness forward. To the place where she remembered the flesh had been. And encountered. Movements. Life forms. What are these forms? She wondered. And entered the first one she encountered. She explored its little body. Explored its warmth and blood and found its tiny brain. It didn't know what it was. She found. So she accessed its memories. There weren't many. But soon, she realized she must be inside a desert mole. And the desert mole, the entire colony, moisture starved, were eating her fingers and drinking her blood. How holy, she thought. They must be worshiping. She pulled her consciousness back into her belly and allowed the supplications.
Desert Songs: Everybody Sits in this Desert
The white white man has great slabs of teeth filling his mouth in an unsettling jackknifed randomness. He checks his silver watch.
"Two minutes."
He jerks his house shaped head back and his neck bones grind. Cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere slide by. A miserable thing to see in the desert. They never give rain. The white white man scans the horizon with gray marble eyeballs slipping back and forth. He smells like oil. He doesn't see the birds he wishes to see. The vultures. Curious birds that warn.
He looks at his silver watch. Taps it. Inhales.
"One minute."
The sand around him popcorns into the air and a jasmine scent surrounds him. white flowers form for seconds out of the air and disappear.
"Early." he shrugs and looks at his silver watch. Taps it. Removes it and tosses it away.
"Junk."
"Two minutes."
He jerks his house shaped head back and his neck bones grind. Cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere slide by. A miserable thing to see in the desert. They never give rain. The white white man scans the horizon with gray marble eyeballs slipping back and forth. He smells like oil. He doesn't see the birds he wishes to see. The vultures. Curious birds that warn.
He looks at his silver watch. Taps it. Inhales.
"One minute."
The sand around him popcorns into the air and a jasmine scent surrounds him. white flowers form for seconds out of the air and disappear.
"Early." he shrugs and looks at his silver watch. Taps it. Removes it and tosses it away.
"Junk."
Desert Songs : Laser Space Trance/ Sunrise on the Second Side of the Ship/ Super Massive Star, Breathes and Expands
Sitting in the desert:
as the great pig descends toward the head-spirit-opening, the Baron whispers slowly- “Unhooked, unsheathed from the terrorface, I have been imagining greater loves than you.”
Mary, she makes an effort, tries to make him believe that everything she ever wanted, she got, and now she needs nothing, by a casual flick of her eyes up, but instead of communicating this, she sees at last The Great Pig hurtling down. down, and she opens her mouth. Wide. Hoping to distract The Great Pig from its destination and invite it into her.
But The Great Pig is oblivious to her. It knows its home by scent, and pure animal attraction. Open mouths cannot distract the Great Pig.
Mary closes her mouth. She knows The Great Pig will never be hers. And the Baron, he cocks his head to the side, licks his lips with his small purple tongue and says, “You've seen The Great Pig?”
Mary nods somberly.
”You see that he will never come into you?”
Mary nods again and frowns, just a small twitch of the eyebrows, but the Baron sees it, says, “You can't steal The Great Pig. The Great Pig cannot be stolen.”
”How do you know I wish to steal The Great Pig?”
”All who see The Great Pig desire The Great Pig. Once they see that they cannot entice The Great Pig, they scheme to steal The Great Pig. This is the reason cannot love you anymore. The Great Pig has taken you. Your lust corrodes your heart.”
Mary changes shape. Her bleached features blacken. Her cheekbones, obsidian spear tips. Moist feathers jut from her pores. And she hums the duotones, a keening dirge, high pitched and resonant. The flies scatter.
Sunrise on the second side of the ship:
Under the heat from our troubled sun, the baron crunches lamb skulls one by one like popcorn from a greasy bag. Sitting in the desert conversing with Mary. Swatting flies from her nose. Lifting her tattered brown skirt. The plastic bits beneath are glistening like soapy airplanes under the summer sun.
”You can't test me,” she says between flies.
”You can't test me,” she repeats through wing clouds. She pulls a hair lock to the left of her eye but it insinuates itself back across red rimmed green cloud eye like a drugged snake.
”I would never test you,” the Baron says. He blinks and The Great Pig rises from his head with ivory tusks tipped with silver and blood. Out the spirit-head-hole into the great expanse of sky. Shoots toward stars.
”What was that?” Mary asks and her finger flicks the languid serpent hair-lock back again.
”It wasn't much of anything. I don't think.” the Baron rests on his haunches. Great hackles prickle razor mohawk-like down his rigid structures. In anticipation, he decides. But what? But what?
Mary sets her head sideways. A question look. Always unable to hide her intents and emotions. A fidget here. A black look there. Like hungry dying dancing birds paranoid and fragile. “This will end in death,” she says.
”I hate when things end in death,” the baron says, spits, and emits a butterfly from his lip.
”They always end with death. Even if they start with death and the middle is death, they always end with death,” Mary whispers. Flutters fingers. Nervous gesture.
The Baron shrugs.
Super massive Star, Breathes and Expands.
all the black nights were never so dark as this night. all the deep wells, all the murky depths were never so impenetrable.
the Great Pig shut his eyes and pushed his mass forward through the dry air. forward. toward. he couldn't see it. but he knew where it was. it was as though a thousand warm filaments connected its opening and his nose. he knew exactly where it was. the deep black night couldn't keep him away.
he slid across the sky and allowed his body shape to flatten and elongate behind the great head. his nostrils flared and he followed the molecular road before him. it was easy. nothing could keep him away.
soon he felt the subtle shift in gravity and a sharp pitch in incline to a near straight dive bomb. he open his maul, roared into the wind and osmosed through head-spirit-opening of the host.
and everything was red. and bright. and right. he looked out the eyes. he saw the girl.
as the great pig descends toward the head-spirit-opening, the Baron whispers slowly- “Unhooked, unsheathed from the terrorface, I have been imagining greater loves than you.”
Mary, she makes an effort, tries to make him believe that everything she ever wanted, she got, and now she needs nothing, by a casual flick of her eyes up, but instead of communicating this, she sees at last The Great Pig hurtling down. down, and she opens her mouth. Wide. Hoping to distract The Great Pig from its destination and invite it into her.
But The Great Pig is oblivious to her. It knows its home by scent, and pure animal attraction. Open mouths cannot distract the Great Pig.
Mary closes her mouth. She knows The Great Pig will never be hers. And the Baron, he cocks his head to the side, licks his lips with his small purple tongue and says, “You've seen The Great Pig?”
Mary nods somberly.
”You see that he will never come into you?”
Mary nods again and frowns, just a small twitch of the eyebrows, but the Baron sees it, says, “You can't steal The Great Pig. The Great Pig cannot be stolen.”
”How do you know I wish to steal The Great Pig?”
”All who see The Great Pig desire The Great Pig. Once they see that they cannot entice The Great Pig, they scheme to steal The Great Pig. This is the reason cannot love you anymore. The Great Pig has taken you. Your lust corrodes your heart.”
Mary changes shape. Her bleached features blacken. Her cheekbones, obsidian spear tips. Moist feathers jut from her pores. And she hums the duotones, a keening dirge, high pitched and resonant. The flies scatter.
Sunrise on the second side of the ship:
Under the heat from our troubled sun, the baron crunches lamb skulls one by one like popcorn from a greasy bag. Sitting in the desert conversing with Mary. Swatting flies from her nose. Lifting her tattered brown skirt. The plastic bits beneath are glistening like soapy airplanes under the summer sun.
”You can't test me,” she says between flies.
”You can't test me,” she repeats through wing clouds. She pulls a hair lock to the left of her eye but it insinuates itself back across red rimmed green cloud eye like a drugged snake.
”I would never test you,” the Baron says. He blinks and The Great Pig rises from his head with ivory tusks tipped with silver and blood. Out the spirit-head-hole into the great expanse of sky. Shoots toward stars.
”What was that?” Mary asks and her finger flicks the languid serpent hair-lock back again.
”It wasn't much of anything. I don't think.” the Baron rests on his haunches. Great hackles prickle razor mohawk-like down his rigid structures. In anticipation, he decides. But what? But what?
Mary sets her head sideways. A question look. Always unable to hide her intents and emotions. A fidget here. A black look there. Like hungry dying dancing birds paranoid and fragile. “This will end in death,” she says.
”I hate when things end in death,” the baron says, spits, and emits a butterfly from his lip.
”They always end with death. Even if they start with death and the middle is death, they always end with death,” Mary whispers. Flutters fingers. Nervous gesture.
The Baron shrugs.
Super massive Star, Breathes and Expands.
all the black nights were never so dark as this night. all the deep wells, all the murky depths were never so impenetrable.
the Great Pig shut his eyes and pushed his mass forward through the dry air. forward. toward. he couldn't see it. but he knew where it was. it was as though a thousand warm filaments connected its opening and his nose. he knew exactly where it was. the deep black night couldn't keep him away.
he slid across the sky and allowed his body shape to flatten and elongate behind the great head. his nostrils flared and he followed the molecular road before him. it was easy. nothing could keep him away.
soon he felt the subtle shift in gravity and a sharp pitch in incline to a near straight dive bomb. he open his maul, roared into the wind and osmosed through head-spirit-opening of the host.
and everything was red. and bright. and right. he looked out the eyes. he saw the girl.
Desert Songs: All the Tiny Little Holes
Neuroveda is silently twining her fingers, making them dance about between the fine grains of amber sand. In the instances between each passing, minute sparks shiver out like splinters and she draws them up into her mouth. Saves them for her dead lover. Buried beneath her. 1000 feet of shifting sand.
Perfectly good meat. Beneath the waves of sand.
With her knuckles and her fingertips, with her palms and her nails, she coaxes out the white lights. With nimble finger dances around granular sand atoms. exploiting interstitial proximity. The lightning comes out and lunges for her mouth.
Soon I’ll come and get you. Through the mighty weight of sand.
Neuroveda, electricity filled, twists her body. Head down. Follows her hands. They push back the grains of sand, compact them into tunnel walls. Held together. Electro-statically. She swims beneath the surface until she finds him, grabs his ankle and ascends toward the light. On the surface she lays him out. Arms above his head. Legs parted. Her mouth touches his. She forces the electricity through his cold lips and it rips through his body. His toenails and fingernails melt, cloud. His lips and nose blacken. Smoke and the smell of cooked meat waft from his body.
Now you are done.
Neuroveda inhales the smell. Takes it deep within her lungs. And with her sand worn fingers. Plunges deep into the bellymeat and rend intestines with her brilliant white teeth.
Perfectly good meat. Beneath the waves of sand.
With her knuckles and her fingertips, with her palms and her nails, she coaxes out the white lights. With nimble finger dances around granular sand atoms. exploiting interstitial proximity. The lightning comes out and lunges for her mouth.
Soon I’ll come and get you. Through the mighty weight of sand.
Neuroveda, electricity filled, twists her body. Head down. Follows her hands. They push back the grains of sand, compact them into tunnel walls. Held together. Electro-statically. She swims beneath the surface until she finds him, grabs his ankle and ascends toward the light. On the surface she lays him out. Arms above his head. Legs parted. Her mouth touches his. She forces the electricity through his cold lips and it rips through his body. His toenails and fingernails melt, cloud. His lips and nose blacken. Smoke and the smell of cooked meat waft from his body.
Now you are done.
Neuroveda inhales the smell. Takes it deep within her lungs. And with her sand worn fingers. Plunges deep into the bellymeat and rend intestines with her brilliant white teeth.
Desert Songs: The Desiccated Cell
Re watched the horizon. Sunk her teeth into a bologna sandwich. Spicy mustard oozed out the sides. She dug her toes into the hot sand.
Sun goes up. Sun goes down. She thinks.
In the distance. Over the dunes. Black shapes rose. Long, pointed at the ends. So black in the middle it hurt her eyes a little but she didn't look away. Three of them, and they were coming this way. Slowly. And then. In jerks and spasms. Like badly spliced film eating itself. Backward and forward. Blinking out and winking in.
This distortion of motion has something to do with time, she thought. Something to do with time. maybe. these black violations are a manifestation of the opposite of nature.
She didn't like these thoughts. They possessed her in an odd manner. She touched the top of her head. A nervous habit.
Tricky thinking thoughts such as these.
Her attention returned to the black shapes. She still did not know what they were. Re finished her sandwich and rubbed her fingers together. Knocked crumbs off. They disappeared into the sand. She reached into her pocket and took out her watch. Held it in her hand. Put it back in her pocket without looking at it.
The black shapes were in front of her now. Hovering. Undulating. They were extraordinarily long this close up she realized. Re looked left and couldn't see its end. she looked right. Same thing. But when she looked right toward them. She could see them all. in their entirety.
She thought. What a strange vantage point I occupy. She shrugged.
She looked only a little bit to the left. And the thing was close enough to touch. She reached out. Slowly. Couldn’t touch it. But. The middle part of it - right as she achieved the limit of her reach - turned gray. And her hand was gone. Re jerked back her arm. There wasn't anything there. There didn't seem to have been anything there. Ever. She felt as though she were forgetting something. That she lost... what was it?
Never mind. She thought as she rubbed her stump. It was a nervous habit. She stared at the black things. The gray spot was darkening.
Like the sunset in black and white.
And then just as the spot was about to become black again a sound blast erupted from the exact pinpoint of zero within the blackening circle. A high-pitched keening wail like a thousand bagpipes, flutes and mothers mourning. The gray circle matched the black majority and the sound disappeared.
The backward forward jerk spasm motion of the traveling black things began again. And as Re watched them go. She realized. It wasn't temporal fluctuations. They weren't aberrations. That was just how they moved.
Very inefficient. Re allowed a bologna sandwich to slide out of her arm. And took a bite
Sun goes up. Sun goes down. She thinks.
In the distance. Over the dunes. Black shapes rose. Long, pointed at the ends. So black in the middle it hurt her eyes a little but she didn't look away. Three of them, and they were coming this way. Slowly. And then. In jerks and spasms. Like badly spliced film eating itself. Backward and forward. Blinking out and winking in.
This distortion of motion has something to do with time, she thought. Something to do with time. maybe. these black violations are a manifestation of the opposite of nature.
She didn't like these thoughts. They possessed her in an odd manner. She touched the top of her head. A nervous habit.
Tricky thinking thoughts such as these.
Her attention returned to the black shapes. She still did not know what they were. Re finished her sandwich and rubbed her fingers together. Knocked crumbs off. They disappeared into the sand. She reached into her pocket and took out her watch. Held it in her hand. Put it back in her pocket without looking at it.
The black shapes were in front of her now. Hovering. Undulating. They were extraordinarily long this close up she realized. Re looked left and couldn't see its end. she looked right. Same thing. But when she looked right toward them. She could see them all. in their entirety.
She thought. What a strange vantage point I occupy. She shrugged.
She looked only a little bit to the left. And the thing was close enough to touch. She reached out. Slowly. Couldn’t touch it. But. The middle part of it - right as she achieved the limit of her reach - turned gray. And her hand was gone. Re jerked back her arm. There wasn't anything there. There didn't seem to have been anything there. Ever. She felt as though she were forgetting something. That she lost... what was it?
Never mind. She thought as she rubbed her stump. It was a nervous habit. She stared at the black things. The gray spot was darkening.
Like the sunset in black and white.
And then just as the spot was about to become black again a sound blast erupted from the exact pinpoint of zero within the blackening circle. A high-pitched keening wail like a thousand bagpipes, flutes and mothers mourning. The gray circle matched the black majority and the sound disappeared.
The backward forward jerk spasm motion of the traveling black things began again. And as Re watched them go. She realized. It wasn't temporal fluctuations. They weren't aberrations. That was just how they moved.
Very inefficient. Re allowed a bologna sandwich to slide out of her arm. And took a bite
Desert Songs: O, this languid eternity and the caustic breath of a rotting cell
there was. a pulsing, buzzing sound in his ear. and then. a white flash, just off to the left and right in his peripheral. and then. he was blind. and he was floating. he reached out. nothing. nothing. nothing. and then, he could just barely reach it. grains. the sand. he was still where he was before. that was all he knew for sure. but, why was he floating? how was he floating? this, he had no answers for. what was that flash? what was that sound? were they related to his current situation? again. he didn't know. it was useless to ask these questions. so he waited. occasionally. he reached down and touch the sand. took one or two grains and rolled them around between his fingers. it was the only sensation he had there. it was the only thing that reminded him he was still alive. well. still being, anyway.
then, after a time, there was a new sensation. something moving and touching his back. small. soft hands. tiny fingers running up and down his spine. it was then he realized he was not clothed. he didn't know quite how he had missed that before, but right now that didn't matter. these hands. whose hands? and then, like a slow wave, he heard their voices. a low murmuring tone. like the rustling of feathers. getting louder, rising and crashing, echoing as if in a great chamber. but he was outside. he could feel the sun. he could feel the sand. he touched his back. the sensation of his fingers on his back was added to the sensation of the many hands. but he couldn't feel their hands with his hands. but he did feel something else. a smooth, thickening liquid forming droplets and dripping from his back. he couldn't see what it was, but he knew what it was. blood. his blood. were the hands doing this? how long had he been bleeding? why was he bleeding? again, questions he couldn't answer. how could he stop the bleeding? could he? he had nothing. maybe it would stop by itself.
he folded his hands across his chest and waited. it was all he could do. besides, if he didn't allow himself to over think his situation, he could imagine himself in the most comfortable bed receiving a light massage. he floated. and smiled. he fell asleep and dreamed. he dreamed he was in a vast prairie running through grass with some sort of animal that he couldn't quite see. Every time he tried to look at it, it was as if his vision was pushed away like water resisting oil. so he stopped trying to look at it and just bounded away in the grass. jumping higher and higher and laughing. and then in the middle of a jump he felt a sharp pain in his back and he folded over backwards. he woke up. shaking. there was a great pain along the center of his back and neck. he tried to reach back with his hands, but that movement hurt him extraordinarily. and so he lay, floating. hands out to his sides. mouth open. the voices rose and crashed with greater frequency. he salivated uncontrollably. small pops and bone cracks resounded and his body was overcome with seizure. he welcomed the seizure. it negated the pain. and through the cloud he felt his point of view shift through his body and he saw the tiny white hands pull at last his spine from his body, sever nerves and muscle in a fountain spray of red. the white hands shucked the bone from bleached yellow interior of the spinal cord. and as he looked he saw it was moving slowly and had small black eyes near the tip and thin purple line for a mouth. it bend itself toward his consciousness and took him into its mouth. and now. again. he could feel the white hands holding him. warm hands. caressing gently. carrying him. somewhere. it didn't matter. he felt content. and even if he wanted to know where he was, his eyes and mind couldn't comprehend it. his vision slipped around the reality. and his mind simply forgot that anything was really there at all.
then, after a time, there was a new sensation. something moving and touching his back. small. soft hands. tiny fingers running up and down his spine. it was then he realized he was not clothed. he didn't know quite how he had missed that before, but right now that didn't matter. these hands. whose hands? and then, like a slow wave, he heard their voices. a low murmuring tone. like the rustling of feathers. getting louder, rising and crashing, echoing as if in a great chamber. but he was outside. he could feel the sun. he could feel the sand. he touched his back. the sensation of his fingers on his back was added to the sensation of the many hands. but he couldn't feel their hands with his hands. but he did feel something else. a smooth, thickening liquid forming droplets and dripping from his back. he couldn't see what it was, but he knew what it was. blood. his blood. were the hands doing this? how long had he been bleeding? why was he bleeding? again, questions he couldn't answer. how could he stop the bleeding? could he? he had nothing. maybe it would stop by itself.
he folded his hands across his chest and waited. it was all he could do. besides, if he didn't allow himself to over think his situation, he could imagine himself in the most comfortable bed receiving a light massage. he floated. and smiled. he fell asleep and dreamed. he dreamed he was in a vast prairie running through grass with some sort of animal that he couldn't quite see. Every time he tried to look at it, it was as if his vision was pushed away like water resisting oil. so he stopped trying to look at it and just bounded away in the grass. jumping higher and higher and laughing. and then in the middle of a jump he felt a sharp pain in his back and he folded over backwards. he woke up. shaking. there was a great pain along the center of his back and neck. he tried to reach back with his hands, but that movement hurt him extraordinarily. and so he lay, floating. hands out to his sides. mouth open. the voices rose and crashed with greater frequency. he salivated uncontrollably. small pops and bone cracks resounded and his body was overcome with seizure. he welcomed the seizure. it negated the pain. and through the cloud he felt his point of view shift through his body and he saw the tiny white hands pull at last his spine from his body, sever nerves and muscle in a fountain spray of red. the white hands shucked the bone from bleached yellow interior of the spinal cord. and as he looked he saw it was moving slowly and had small black eyes near the tip and thin purple line for a mouth. it bend itself toward his consciousness and took him into its mouth. and now. again. he could feel the white hands holding him. warm hands. caressing gently. carrying him. somewhere. it didn't matter. he felt content. and even if he wanted to know where he was, his eyes and mind couldn't comprehend it. his vision slipped around the reality. and his mind simply forgot that anything was really there at all.
warship settles in under cloud cover: part 1
Judge parted his lips and forced the blood out of his mouth in a great geyser spray that came to rest on the sand before him like a delta.
behind him lay a hulk of a man. broken and battered. skin purpled and rent. jagged bone spires jutting at odd angles through red meat.
The man had to be put down. Who comes upon a man alone in the desert and does not expect violence? the battle had taken its toll on Judge. he wondered if he had the energy left to make the crossing. a black speck on the horizon marked the worn rocks of the mine site. that was his destination.
Judge turned back to the man. searched his broken body. found one energy bar in his pocket. and. there was something in the sand. a few feet away. half buried already by the shifting sand. his pack was almost he color of the sand itself. it contained two bottles of water. and. a plain silver ring. it was too big for any of his fingers. he put on his thumb. put the energy bar and water in his own pack. and started out for the mines.
behind him lay a hulk of a man. broken and battered. skin purpled and rent. jagged bone spires jutting at odd angles through red meat.
The man had to be put down. Who comes upon a man alone in the desert and does not expect violence? the battle had taken its toll on Judge. he wondered if he had the energy left to make the crossing. a black speck on the horizon marked the worn rocks of the mine site. that was his destination.
Judge turned back to the man. searched his broken body. found one energy bar in his pocket. and. there was something in the sand. a few feet away. half buried already by the shifting sand. his pack was almost he color of the sand itself. it contained two bottles of water. and. a plain silver ring. it was too big for any of his fingers. he put on his thumb. put the energy bar and water in his own pack. and started out for the mines.
Awakening
it wasn't the electrical tape around her wrists. or or the layers of tightly wound plastic wrap around her naked body that concerned her. no. no, that wasn't it all. it definitely wasn't the way sun permeated those layers. it wasn't the way the plastic wrap trapped the heat. magnified it. though that was certainly part of it.
the long, green, bent back creatures with tiny fingers sunk their faces into the bellies of the dead folks around her. she didn't know who the dead folks were. didn't feel much for them. it was the wet sound of hands inside bodies. it was the ripping and cracking sounds. it was the teeth. that clack clack clack. their teeth stuck out from their faces. and when they weren't chewing they were just clacking their teeth together and sucking their tiny fingers.
clack clack clack. ssssssssslurpp
clack clack clack. ssssssssslurpp
that's what was driving her crazy.
the long, green, bent back creatures with tiny fingers sunk their faces into the bellies of the dead folks around her. she didn't know who the dead folks were. didn't feel much for them. it was the wet sound of hands inside bodies. it was the ripping and cracking sounds. it was the teeth. that clack clack clack. their teeth stuck out from their faces. and when they weren't chewing they were just clacking their teeth together and sucking their tiny fingers.
clack clack clack. ssssssssslurpp
clack clack clack. ssssssssslurpp
that's what was driving her crazy.
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