In August 2007, scientists discover an enormous black spot in the universe. It is neither a black hole nor dark matter. There are no stars inside, or planets, or cosmic dust. It is one billion light years across, and it is empty.
*
Seth and I smoke a cigarette on the steps of our apartment in Sunset Park, close to two in the morning, on one of the warmest days in January we can remember.
*
Zimbabwe 1994: it was in the morning of September and we were playing when Elsa said what's that and I turned my head and saw the thing past the playground, where we were not supposed to go. Because there are snakes and spiders and they didn't mow there with the tractors, but everyone went running to see. I didn't want to go but Emily said Come on, and we were both supposed to watch the younger ones but I did anyway. When I got there I saw there were three things, and one of them opened and he came out and started walking in the grass like bouncing on the moon, but not as much. He had eyes like rugby balls. Some of the younger ones started to cry, and I said hush! and the black boys from the village said they're going to eat us and ran back to the schoolhouse. I wanted to run but I felt weird. He was looking at me. When I got home I had a horrible feeling inside and I kept thinking things like how all the trees will go down and there will be no air and people will be dying. It was so bad, like having a dream but I was awake. Mum asked me what's wrong and I told her about the things that came down the the man that came out. She said Isabelle but I couldn't shaking and I said We are making harm on this world and she said Isabelle stop what's wrong but I couldn't stop I just said Something's going to happen It came through my head when he looked at me It came through my conscience Something is going to happen Something is going to happen Something -- and she slapped me. And that's how it happened.
*
"There are four types," Seth says. "There are skeptics. They assume that what you say is wrong, until they get some proof. Bud considers himself a skeptic. He asks his questions, and he has a template he works from, something he considers really reliable, to gauge 'Well, okay, this is the truth. There's nothing to gain here.' Versus, 'This is a lie, this one's crazy.'
"Then there are the Believers. Whatever you say, whatever you show them -- it's all bullshit to them. They know already what the story is, and if you ask them, 'Well, what about this and that, you know, the Rendlesham Forest, or the 60 kids in Zimbabwe...' they said, 'I don't know that.' But they still believe it's all bullshit. They think, 'Oh, these sad people, they just want to be in front of the camera and get out of their insignificant lives for 15 minutes.' You can't shake them.
*
Jim Penniston, Former USAF Staff Sergeant, 81st Security Police Squadron, Joint USAF and RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge, England Air Force Base: "As we got closer, a silhouette of an object was present and I realized at that point, it was not a conventional aircraft, meaning it was not one that was published in Jane's Defense book about aircraft. It was like no aircraft that I had ever seen."
WHAT WAS THE SHAPE?
Triangular.
WHEN YOU SAY TRIANGULAR, WAS IT ABSOLUTELY STRAIGHT ON THREE SIDES? OR WAS IT SWOOPY LIKE A CORVETTE? OR?
No, no, it was triangular, straight on each side.
[Sketch of triangular craft by USAF Staff Sergeant, Jim Penniston, from his December 26, 1980 investigation notes made after midnight while examining the glowing craft of unknown origin in the Rendlesham forest near the joint RAF and USAF Bentwaters AFB in Woodbridge, England.]
WHAT DID IT APPEAR TO BE MADE OUT OF?
Well, I couldn't tell at that point, but obviously I set the other airmen up to complete the radio relay because we were having awful bad static on the radios. I could barely talk to the first patrolman that I had set by the logging road. I could barely hear him. I could not hear our control center at all.
I had my notebook and my camera while I was out there because cameras were carried because of terrorism to take pictures of base encroachments. And it says what I wrote that night:
'Triangular in shape. A small amount of white light is appearing from the bottom of the craft. At the left side is a bluish light. And on the other side is red.'
Then at that time, I started taking photos. I think there were 36 in a roll. They were all B & W, that's what we carried.
WHERE DID THOSE PHOTOGRAPHS GO?
Base photo lab.
AND THE BASE PHOTO LAB PHOTOS WOULD BE IN WHOSE HANDS TODAY?
U. S. Air Force.
DID YOU TOUCH IT?
Yes, as part of the investigation. The size of it was approximately 3 meters wide by 3 meters tall -- that's approximately 9 feet.
AND WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT THE SURFACE THAT YOU TOUCHED?
Well, I think the fabric or the shell was -- I guess the best description would be a very smooth opaque, like black glass. I was pretty confused at that point.
WHAT DID YOU DO NEXT?
That's when it started to -- I backed away. I backed away from it because the light was starting to get brighter. There no sound. That is probably the most incredible part of this. There was absolutely no sound from this craft.
It lifted up a few feet, sort of went through the woods maybe 25 or 30 meters,
hovered momentarily, then lifted up to about 250 feet above the top of the trees and then it was literally in the blink of an eye, gone at that point.
YOU AND JOHN BURROUGHS FILED A REPORT ABOUT EXACTLY WHAT
HAPPENED THEN?
Yeah, we kept a very sanitized -- we reported it to our Security Shift Commander, I think it was Captain Mike Verrano at the time. And we were assured by then the senior officer at Bentwaters that this information would not go outside the United States channels.
DID YOU SAY TO COL. HALT, 'I SAW IT. IT WAS TRIANGULAR. IT
SEEMED TO BE MADE...?
Oh, he was fully briefed.
DID HE SAY TO YOU ORYOU SAY TO HIM, 'WE'RE DEALING WITH AN
EXTRATERRESTRIAL CRAFT HERE?'
No. No.
YOU DIDN'T DISCUSS ENTITIES?
No, never.
*
In Philadelphia I heard it all:
We were playing barbershop so I got scissors and I nicked his head a little bit.
I always kept candy in my pocket and when I went up the stairs he tried to steal it.
My stepdad had these tapes and I watched them when he was out. That's when I started thinking about it.
He was a baby about it. I said, I didn't mean to cut you but then he started to cry. And I got mad.
I said, You can't have any candy, Maurice, but he kept grabbing around my pockets, and at my shorts.
I saw a woman lying on a table and they were strapping her hands down with these metal clamps.
I told him, You're being a big baby and he said, I'm telling Mom. So I said, I'll give you something to cry about.
He kept touching me around there and then I just stopped thinking and I grabbed his hand.
I knew something was about to happen.
*
*
Seth lit another cigarette. "The third type, they're the fanatics. They take anything you give them and say, 'Yes! I knew it.' They form cults and shit." He drags. I noticed Orion's belt, and tried to find his hands. "They're the loudest ones, you always hear them talking and it bothers the skeptics, who are trying to be logical and understand that this is really hard, it's nuanced, you can't say 'Well it's always this way or the other.'
The fourth are regular people. They don't give a shit either way. Bud think they should."
"But why?"
"Because it matters. You know, there are maybe 70% who are just making it up. And then there are the real crazy ones. But the rest -- they're not enjoying this. They aren't looking for a camera to talk to. They were driving somewhere, maybe with a few other friends, and suddenly they're on a different part of the same road and they feel the same, except a few hours are gone. Gone. That's what happened to Barney and Betty, back in the 60s. Something happened, they saw what they saw, felt a vibration and then it was all over. They went home.
"But Betty found powder on her dress, Barney kept checking his genitals. He couldn't explain why. Then the nightmares. Betty was on a table, they checked her teeth, her breast, they told her to lie down. They put a six inch needle in her vagina and said it was a pregnancy exam. She said it hurt until they touched her head and then she felt fine. They showed her a map of the heavens. She woke up and realized that the three hour drive that night took seven.
"The next morning a near perfect circle of warts appeared around Barney's groin."
We finished our cigarettes. We were in spring jackets, Seth's sleeves rolled up. He looked at me. "Did you ever tell those kids, 'No, you weren't raped? You're wrong, it didn't happen, get over with it?' What do you think that would do to someone? Did you know that Barney was black, that they were a mixed race couple? This was 1962. What do you think people thought? Betty became a celebrity in the community, but she didn't stop having nightmares. What would you do if you were driving and suddenly your standing next to your car, it's three hours later, and the radio's playing nothing but static? Who would you tell? And what would you expect them to say?"
*
"This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void," said Minnesota astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick, author of the paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal. "It's not clear that we have the right word yet ... This is too much of a surprise."
Holes in the universe probably occur when the gravity from areas with bigger mass pull matter from less dense areas, Rudnick said. After 13 billion years "they are losing out in the battle to where there are larger concentrations of matter," he said.
Retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran said of the discovery: "This is incredibly important for something where there is nothing to it."
1.10.2008
1.09.2008
Positivism
The investigation lasted seventy-seven hours.
Police Buildings are four stories tall. There are no elevators in Police Buildings. The front doors stand nineteen steps above the sidewalk. There are no ramps. Officers routinely and vigilantly patrol the area immediately surrounding the Police Buildings to ensure the safety of the community. However, as the radius increases (i.e. as the distance away from the police building increases) the level of policing rapidly diminishes. As a result, there are a series of DEAD SPOTS in the city. A DEAD SPOT is a location with no police presence. A DEAD SPOT is not an official term, nor is it open policy to promote DEAD SPOTS. For example, the area between Martin Ave and 55th St is a DEAD SPOT. This too is not public knowledge. This area is forty-seven blocks. There are seventy four Police Buildings in the greater metropolitan area. Each building employs one hundred officers. Each building is twelve miles apart. Ten miles from each building is considered a high radius distance and is rarely patrolled. Eleven miles from any particular Police Building is considered unsafe and foreign territory. In short, all territories outside ten miles are considered DEAD SPOTS to the particular police building in question. If these areas are more than ten miles from any Police Buildings, these areas are not ever patrolled. The investigation in question occurred in a known DEAD SPOT but within range of accepted patrolling territory. The investigation lasted seventy-seven hours. One middle aged man was murdered within sight of Police Van 71 but outside the ten mile radius. Policy demands the reminder that it is not official protocol to abandon patrols outside the ten mile marker. During the night of October 21, Police Van 71 was at its outer marker for only a few minutes. Usual circumstances would require, by unofficial police code and conduct, the officers of Police Van 71 to immediately vacate the premises. However, due to eye witness accounts of Police Van 71, the victim lying in the street one block from police van 71, and a strict political climate in city hall, Officer Howard and Officer Cruz were encouraged to report and to launch investigation 11B-61. Neither Officer Howard nor Officer Cruz reported using narcotic or alcoholic substances during the night in question.
On the night of October 22, one hundred and twenty-seven potential suspects were brought to Police Building 55A in Precinct 11. Due to overcrowding, fifty suspects were eventually housed in Police Building 55B. Captain O’Donnell oversaw the investigation. Each suspect was weighed and measured in a proper and detailed examination that would reveal any and all physical contamination or deformity required for immoral or amoral activity. After twelve hours, seventy-nine suspects were released into the community. After twenty-four hours, forty-two additional suspects were released into the community. On the evening of October 24, seventy-one hours after the launch of the investigation, six suspects remained in police custody at Police Building 55A in Precinct 11. All suspects were disproportionately tall or wide in at least one particular area. Suspect 1 presented with poor posture due to the enormous size of his head. Sergeant J. Smitt reported that the pressure and exhaustion from such a physical state would induce serious and potentially violent fits of rage. Suspects 2, 3, and 6 fit the physical profile of the common aggressor or criminal: excessive muscle mass, petite ears, large and protruding chins, clearly defined cheek and jaw bones, and (most importantly) considerable, even inappropriate, arm length. Suspect 4 refused to co-operate with police procedure and with the physical examination. During the scalp evaluation, Suspect 5 presented with an inordinate amount of indentations and protrusions. Results of examinations were presented to Captain O'Donnell in the seventy-fifth hour. In the seventy-sixth hour, Captain O’Donnell reviewed all the appropriate material and judged, based on 115 unusual signs of indentation and protrusion, that suspect 5 was unequivocally the perpetrator of the murder on October 21. The investigation was closed on the seventy-seventh hour and suspect 5 was summarily let to the electric chair in the basement of Precinct 22. The execution lasted seventeen minutes.
The specifics of evaluations and examinations performed on suspects during detention will be released to public domain at the discretion of the Chairman of the Police and Fire Commission.
Police Buildings are four stories tall. There are no elevators in Police Buildings. The front doors stand nineteen steps above the sidewalk. There are no ramps. Officers routinely and vigilantly patrol the area immediately surrounding the Police Buildings to ensure the safety of the community. However, as the radius increases (i.e. as the distance away from the police building increases) the level of policing rapidly diminishes. As a result, there are a series of DEAD SPOTS in the city. A DEAD SPOT is a location with no police presence. A DEAD SPOT is not an official term, nor is it open policy to promote DEAD SPOTS. For example, the area between Martin Ave and 55th St is a DEAD SPOT. This too is not public knowledge. This area is forty-seven blocks. There are seventy four Police Buildings in the greater metropolitan area. Each building employs one hundred officers. Each building is twelve miles apart. Ten miles from each building is considered a high radius distance and is rarely patrolled. Eleven miles from any particular Police Building is considered unsafe and foreign territory. In short, all territories outside ten miles are considered DEAD SPOTS to the particular police building in question. If these areas are more than ten miles from any Police Buildings, these areas are not ever patrolled. The investigation in question occurred in a known DEAD SPOT but within range of accepted patrolling territory. The investigation lasted seventy-seven hours. One middle aged man was murdered within sight of Police Van 71 but outside the ten mile radius. Policy demands the reminder that it is not official protocol to abandon patrols outside the ten mile marker. During the night of October 21, Police Van 71 was at its outer marker for only a few minutes. Usual circumstances would require, by unofficial police code and conduct, the officers of Police Van 71 to immediately vacate the premises. However, due to eye witness accounts of Police Van 71, the victim lying in the street one block from police van 71, and a strict political climate in city hall, Officer Howard and Officer Cruz were encouraged to report and to launch investigation 11B-61. Neither Officer Howard nor Officer Cruz reported using narcotic or alcoholic substances during the night in question.
On the night of October 22, one hundred and twenty-seven potential suspects were brought to Police Building 55A in Precinct 11. Due to overcrowding, fifty suspects were eventually housed in Police Building 55B. Captain O’Donnell oversaw the investigation. Each suspect was weighed and measured in a proper and detailed examination that would reveal any and all physical contamination or deformity required for immoral or amoral activity. After twelve hours, seventy-nine suspects were released into the community. After twenty-four hours, forty-two additional suspects were released into the community. On the evening of October 24, seventy-one hours after the launch of the investigation, six suspects remained in police custody at Police Building 55A in Precinct 11. All suspects were disproportionately tall or wide in at least one particular area. Suspect 1 presented with poor posture due to the enormous size of his head. Sergeant J. Smitt reported that the pressure and exhaustion from such a physical state would induce serious and potentially violent fits of rage. Suspects 2, 3, and 6 fit the physical profile of the common aggressor or criminal: excessive muscle mass, petite ears, large and protruding chins, clearly defined cheek and jaw bones, and (most importantly) considerable, even inappropriate, arm length. Suspect 4 refused to co-operate with police procedure and with the physical examination. During the scalp evaluation, Suspect 5 presented with an inordinate amount of indentations and protrusions. Results of examinations were presented to Captain O'Donnell in the seventy-fifth hour. In the seventy-sixth hour, Captain O’Donnell reviewed all the appropriate material and judged, based on 115 unusual signs of indentation and protrusion, that suspect 5 was unequivocally the perpetrator of the murder on October 21. The investigation was closed on the seventy-seventh hour and suspect 5 was summarily let to the electric chair in the basement of Precinct 22. The execution lasted seventeen minutes.
The specifics of evaluations and examinations performed on suspects during detention will be released to public domain at the discretion of the Chairman of the Police and Fire Commission.
autobiography
September 2001: I get high for the first time by myself. The space between the minutes was so wide -- how had I never noticed? And when I made it to bed outside a car drove by leaving a sound that resolved into a song as it faded, waves of air pressure swinging back and forth until the room went still and I slept and did not dream.
Incredibly enough Eve got me started. I wanted to fuck her so bad, knowing she was there right through my bedroom wall in her Led Zeppelin tee and eyes becoming more and more bored, the world was boring, smoke a bowel, stay awake for a little while... I told her on the blanket she laid out behind 36th Street and then nothing turned itself inside out and we agreed that was what this was all about. High times, long minutes in a boring world.
*
But we are in the world to love the world. I made a promise to myself, to the trees at Frost Valley. To Maureen. This is not about her. This was before Tiah came and turned trees to enemies who wanted to take her apart and she fought and fought and only after giving up did she see they were on her side from the start; it was a mental thing: to be held vs. taken apart, it was how you made up the meaning, what memories filled you up, and with what kind of feeling.
It's always women trying to take me apart, or else I'm dying to dissemble and my clothes are off and she's got bored eyes on, bored and boring me through and through.
Back on the blanket in the shadow of Hill College House underneath a billion invisible stars we are finally getting really high. Lights go on in rooms and you can trace connections between them like constellations changing as boys and girls go to bed or come back home. The building is a complex labrinyth of college freshmen and faculty and graduate students studying and eating and trying on talks about God, acoustic guitars... instant messengers drop a few words and then are idle... idle hands, touching hands, hands asking questions, hands on private parts, their own, someone else's. "Cold hands warm heart," says Tiah, so I write into a song on acoustic guitar for her when I am far away from 36th Street, lost in myself, after I've stopped making phone calls or opening the mail. Out there I thought: If I lose Tiah, at least I'll still have getting high. Where I counted cars that one night, bad night, first time doing an overnight at ATI and Heather locked herself in her room, reneging on the ride she promised, which meant reneging on everything, without warning, her eyes blue and bored. Tired of handcuffing herself to the couch to get a rise out of me. This is not her story.
*
This is about me; I am writing so I can see myself. I have heard we orbit our memories, and not vice-versa; so here they are, falling like tea leaves so I can read myself out of the patterns. Because we are in the world to love the world, and I am another limb; I am ready to be taken apart by words so I can be held by time. The women are all gone now. I can hear cars outside my apartment. There are so many songs, and it is not just the pain of things Last week I saw the milky way. I played mandolin with a stranger, we sang, "Hey I got some news for you..." When the chance came, I put my lips to the bowl and inhaled into my mouth, and then out into the stars.
Incredibly enough Eve got me started. I wanted to fuck her so bad, knowing she was there right through my bedroom wall in her Led Zeppelin tee and eyes becoming more and more bored, the world was boring, smoke a bowel, stay awake for a little while... I told her on the blanket she laid out behind 36th Street and then nothing turned itself inside out and we agreed that was what this was all about. High times, long minutes in a boring world.
*
But we are in the world to love the world. I made a promise to myself, to the trees at Frost Valley. To Maureen. This is not about her. This was before Tiah came and turned trees to enemies who wanted to take her apart and she fought and fought and only after giving up did she see they were on her side from the start; it was a mental thing: to be held vs. taken apart, it was how you made up the meaning, what memories filled you up, and with what kind of feeling.
It's always women trying to take me apart, or else I'm dying to dissemble and my clothes are off and she's got bored eyes on, bored and boring me through and through.
Back on the blanket in the shadow of Hill College House underneath a billion invisible stars we are finally getting really high. Lights go on in rooms and you can trace connections between them like constellations changing as boys and girls go to bed or come back home. The building is a complex labrinyth of college freshmen and faculty and graduate students studying and eating and trying on talks about God, acoustic guitars... instant messengers drop a few words and then are idle... idle hands, touching hands, hands asking questions, hands on private parts, their own, someone else's. "Cold hands warm heart," says Tiah, so I write into a song on acoustic guitar for her when I am far away from 36th Street, lost in myself, after I've stopped making phone calls or opening the mail. Out there I thought: If I lose Tiah, at least I'll still have getting high. Where I counted cars that one night, bad night, first time doing an overnight at ATI and Heather locked herself in her room, reneging on the ride she promised, which meant reneging on everything, without warning, her eyes blue and bored. Tired of handcuffing herself to the couch to get a rise out of me. This is not her story.
*
This is about me; I am writing so I can see myself. I have heard we orbit our memories, and not vice-versa; so here they are, falling like tea leaves so I can read myself out of the patterns. Because we are in the world to love the world, and I am another limb; I am ready to be taken apart by words so I can be held by time. The women are all gone now. I can hear cars outside my apartment. There are so many songs, and it is not just the pain of things Last week I saw the milky way. I played mandolin with a stranger, we sang, "Hey I got some news for you..." When the chance came, I put my lips to the bowl and inhaled into my mouth, and then out into the stars.
1.08.2008
tired song
broken down beaten and battered from lack of sleep
I jump the fence and count a thousand sheep:
why there's you, and you, and you and you and you...
and I am a sheep too!
"he wasn't the type of sheep to die...." --
"well, we all the type of sheep who dies, I tell you what. maybe not so young, but now he's gone and gone goes a long way. into the universe. out of the universe. straight through the heart and back."
some sheep die too soon; we all go on
forever
I jump the fence and count a thousand sheep:
why there's you, and you, and you and you and you...
and I am a sheep too!
"he wasn't the type of sheep to die...." --
"well, we all the type of sheep who dies, I tell you what. maybe not so young, but now he's gone and gone goes a long way. into the universe. out of the universe. straight through the heart and back."
some sheep die too soon; we all go on
forever
Tuesday
So it was that early on Tuesday the man in the black coat stared blankly at the wall and listened to the clock in the town strike seven and looked at the empty, very white, page in front of him and concluded that he had nothing to say and that he had not had anything to say for a very long time. And so it was that this man felt very uncomfortable at his usual desk and very uncomfortable in his usual clothes and felt very uncomfortable in his usual house. I am very uncomfortable, said the man. And so it was, on that day, this man, quite young and of quite tremendous potential, set forth into the world a little bit gloomier and, still, a little bit happier all the same. Why there is not anything at all that I need to do anymore, said the man. And there wasn’t anything in the world, not yet, that he knew by name. All the things in the world looked as if they had just come out from the earth and from the trees and from under the rocks. All the things, indeed, looked as if they too were looking upon a strange world and such a strange day. Why, yes, the man in the black coat declared, it is as though the squirrels are even very much uncomfortable in their usual clothes and in their usual homes. It must be a most usual day.
Maureen: An Introduction
ah long day looking down it like a dark hallway, sometimes you rhyme sometimes you don't. it's the rhythm of it, without expectation to let the groove fall where it may. I'm tired of the things I can think about with my mind. the best stuff cannot possibly belong to me. I wrote a poem when I was 16 called The Stuff of Desire. It was two pages -- the first four lines, written about Meghan Smith during one of those sharp lust attacks in the computer lab, of all places, because our hands had touched over the keys. The rest was Mom cooking rice, something stolen from Corso, something else from Maureen. I had her running along the beach, out past Port Jeff. She would get into a rhythm and then I imagine gulls. Light bodies in the air. I call it autumn, make the sea do something memorable or her face. I could put her in running shorts, a nightgown - like I did at 20 for Michael Koch and when she read it she said, "Did I ever do that? Did I come into your room that night dressed in a nightgown?" She was all hysterical, laughing and little something else. The Stuff of Desire. That was her title, her words, even now they keep trying to come up on my screen, her hands meeting mine on the the keys...
This is not it, but at least I found a way in. At least these are mine.
At Frost Valley she held my hand while my head exploded with snow. It was a blizzard. We were orienteering -- finding our way, losing our way. On Shattuck, in Berkeley after the first real fucked up flashback, it was Maureen's line I took comfort in : "Sometimes we must learn to fall behind before we understand how we can go." She would never have understood this. Would she? The white robes she bought me - had made for me! - "because," she said, "you're the purest thing I know" - could she ever believe I needed her poem because my hands keep rotting on me? The first time she asked, it was like dare: I bet you've never had an impure thought in your life. Name one.
1:
When I was 15 I wrote a poem about jerking off against the bathroom floor. I never used my hands. Even then I wanted to be tied up, and lust was something that held me down, and love was someone who would do it to me. In the silence I heard the car spitting muffled frequencies off the road and thought: if you only knew the things I think to get myself to cum. And then I said, "I can't name a single one."
It's boring to ask what if. We are in the world to love the world. I mean this one, the one I am sitting on right now, on the couch with the TV on and muted and the women in the infommerical doing aerobics backwards in the window that is otherwise completely dark. The world where I said "I can't name a single one" and the rest was history. I accepted the robe but never wore it. The snow fell around us in the woods of Frost Valley, NY. I never went back. It is the story of how I said yes to the world, and how the world said yes back. When I killed her off in the piece for Koch she asked, "I wonder if you're trying to tell me something." And 8 months later when I said No More, she asked, "What are you trying to say?" Some days the words are with you, other times the walk down the hall is long and you do it alone. She sent me my diaries in the mail with a card. She was still waiting. So I am. You always do it alone.
This is not it, but at least I found a way in. At least these are mine.
At Frost Valley she held my hand while my head exploded with snow. It was a blizzard. We were orienteering -- finding our way, losing our way. On Shattuck, in Berkeley after the first real fucked up flashback, it was Maureen's line I took comfort in : "Sometimes we must learn to fall behind before we understand how we can go." She would never have understood this. Would she? The white robes she bought me - had made for me! - "because," she said, "you're the purest thing I know" - could she ever believe I needed her poem because my hands keep rotting on me? The first time she asked, it was like dare: I bet you've never had an impure thought in your life. Name one.
1:
When I was 15 I wrote a poem about jerking off against the bathroom floor. I never used my hands. Even then I wanted to be tied up, and lust was something that held me down, and love was someone who would do it to me. In the silence I heard the car spitting muffled frequencies off the road and thought: if you only knew the things I think to get myself to cum. And then I said, "I can't name a single one."
It's boring to ask what if. We are in the world to love the world. I mean this one, the one I am sitting on right now, on the couch with the TV on and muted and the women in the infommerical doing aerobics backwards in the window that is otherwise completely dark. The world where I said "I can't name a single one" and the rest was history. I accepted the robe but never wore it. The snow fell around us in the woods of Frost Valley, NY. I never went back. It is the story of how I said yes to the world, and how the world said yes back. When I killed her off in the piece for Koch she asked, "I wonder if you're trying to tell me something." And 8 months later when I said No More, she asked, "What are you trying to say?" Some days the words are with you, other times the walk down the hall is long and you do it alone. She sent me my diaries in the mail with a card. She was still waiting. So I am. You always do it alone.
1.07.2008
Black
The magnificence is in the darkness in the hills. At first light, once estranged, then launched upon the earth in quick breaths, the dawn erupts, a magnanimous and tender despot, lynched each evening by jealous and haunting cries and rebirthed so soon, so early, in hibernated strength, oh, painless pregnancies--and yet, the setting moon neither, never, aggressor nor coward. Ah still, the magnificence is in the darkness in the hills, between the death and the rebirth, in the strange lone and lengthy shadow against the mountain, the sleeping soldier island, encased in his tomb, breathless, in rest, now not tempted to turn and uncross his celestial embrace of home, sword, god, earth. We raised ourselves amidst the darkness of the island. First occupied and led by duty in yellow sunlight, then unleashed into the wounded graveyard in cold black. I knew not myself apart from the triggers of the island midnight, the sporadic dance of starlight on the bare rock. We had been taught to starve the eye sight, unveil the sense that did not operate in market empires. There is no empire in the sleeping soldier. The somber, mild village, would succumb at last to rest and out of the attics and basements, now fleshed by skin, we rose and raced into the moonlight, up the steep earth path into the heights of the soldier island, a sanctuary for the last breath of man to make, a man who plunged, not once, but twice, into fire and brought back light in the darkness hills. We unclothed at nightfall. Deep into the midnight hour, the skin will tempt to abandon the uniform of cover, brought out to know its shadowless face and undo its habitual awkward crawl. I did allow--at least when I first removed, with great care, my pajama top and placed it by my night stand--I did allow myself to tremble. And, lured erotic by a forbidden deal, I slowly walked out of my pajama bottom, stood in the black of my room and stared at my naked body in the mirror. There was a pause, then, a pause I remember quite well. Ended by a call, a scream into my lungs. The sleeping soldier rises in the darkness in the hills and calls the heart out of the cellar, she whispered, only whispered once, at lunch, and kissed, perhaps, by the feel of the wetness in the air. The uninhibited mind was only once tempted to return and did not. I was outside, below my house, then, this the first time: barefoot, the earth is loose, cold, and my skin is not so protected, my organs are unleashed and my manhood is no longer bartered between futures, failures. The magnificence is in the screams to the precipice of the soldier island, alone, naked, hunting my skin in alleys, streets of a dormant village—there: even the animals have become the day. We are not alone, convinced to blindness, on occasion, in the black, told to let the skin erupt and foil the protectors, the guard. Told to launch the skin into wet air. We are chasing ourselves into the heights of the island we guardians of myth, of legend, of the supernatural. Yes, I am the possessor of new sense, the occupier of virgin soil, ready, within the muscle contortions and the exhibitors of faith, a new promise, in principle, un-readied and explosive. We are found, harbored by the mud, dried across the chests of llama fed pilgrims, dripped. Blinded and un-caught. The sea is a moody man, she says once, smiles, and without sight I am thrown into the whirlwind of an earthquake. I gasp, lynched, the body nailed to its own position, and like a worm split and re-birthed, and returned into the entrance of its father, too a worm, his mother, too a worm, his ancestral patterns, yes, yes, too were worms, now uncloaked in the basement of the sky, the attic of the mountain, ripped into the pieces of adolescence and maturity, remade like a manikin and left to linger, drown, in the waters of the soldier island’s highest peak, the cellar of the ocean. The magnificence is in the darkness in the hills and brought into the completeness of identity, remanded for structure and piety, permitted the excuse to exhale the human, the man, the organ brought into being and owned, encouraged to expansion. From birth, she yells, in each life! For birth, she whispers now, is truly acceptance of expansion. There is no more skin than this skin, she says, later, breathless in sweat and exultation. All this, this here, is acceptance of expansion. And I, in willful disobedience of the daylight protector, climbed unhampered into the midnight black, and there, in jubilation we lived our humble and sweet expanded acceptance. The magnificence is truly in the darkness in the hills. I no longer needed to see, not then, not after that.
Modern Assistance
Couple A:
The Newspaper says we are going to get bombed on Saturday, Hank says to his wife, Sue. They are eating breakfast and watching the television. The television doesn’t say anything about a bombing, Sue says and she stuffs egg and toast into her mouth. Usually she is more graceful, Hank thinks, it must be because of the bombing that is most certainly about to happen. I haven’t been all that reflective lately, Sue thinks, indeed I haven’t been thinking about anything at all. Sue and Hank were married in ’78, after the blizzard that closed the highway. The highway is open today though because there isn’t any snow. I hope I get out of work before five, Hank thinks while he drives to work. He likes it when he gets out of work early because he can go home and watch television. I like the television, Sue says to her friend, Barbara. The two women are knitting and sewing and making cookies and washing clothes. I like to gossip, Barbara says to Sue. Remember when Mary Beth stole the bag of cookies and ate them in the woods. Sue laughs and covers her mouth—and she got so fat, she whispers. She is still fat, Barbara says, I saw her at the grocery store last week. We didn’t sell so much last week, Bill says to Hank. We are going to have to really step it up this week. We need to sell a lot more than we did last week. Of course, Hank agrees. Anything I can do, he says and thinks, I am not going to get out of here early today. Hank counts the days on his calendar. Forty-five days until my next vacation, he mutters. We are going to go to Florida and visit my parents, Sue says. They are getting old and they have many aches and pains and life is very difficult for them. Sue is hanging clothes on the clothesline and Barbara is sitting on the deck and drinking lemonade. We made cookies for Sammy’s class today, Barbara says. We made oatmeal cookies because they are his favorite. Ben hates oatmeal cookies, Sue says. Oh, Barbara says. She made tuna fish salad again, Hank mutters. Didn’t you have tuna fish yesterday, Scott asks. Yes, Scott. She must have forgotten. Did she cut the crust off? No, Scott, she didn’t cut the crusts off. That is too bad, Scott says, it is always better without the crusts. I know, Scott. You know they are talking about a bombing here on Saturday, Barbara says. It is later in the afternoon but it is still not too cold outside. The newspaper said it would start at five in the morning. The television didn’t say anything about a bombing. I know, maybe it isn’t true. Well, Saturday isn’t a bad day for a bombing. I guess I’ll just stay in the house. Me too. My wife made ham and cheese, Scott says. I love ham and cheese. Me too, Hank says. I wish my wife would make me ham and cheese. That is one hour, Bill says, return to work and sell some units. Yes sir, Scott says. Yes sir, Hank says. That’s the spirit, Bill says. I hope Hank gets home early so we can watch television, Sue says. I know, Barbara agrees. I hope he does too. Barbara doesn’t have a television because her husband threw it out the second floor window. Donald was very angry, Barbara admits. Hank still hasn’t shown me how to turn on the television or we could watch it now, Sue says. She would watch television all day, Hank says to Scott. But she would make you ham and cheese sandwiches, Scott says. Really? I hope we don’t get bombed on Saturday, Hank says. Why can’t we get bombed on a work day, Scott says. I haven’t sold any units in two weeks, Hank says. Me neither, Scott says. Bill must be very angry.
I don’t know why you are upset, Stan says to Lucy. It isn’t like they have that much to live for anyway. I still don’t think we should kill them, Lucy says, maybe we should tell them to stop having babies instead. It isn’t like we are wiping out a political rival or an ideological rival. We are simply bombing a population that is too dull to know that they are getting bombed. It still doesn’t seem right, Lucy retorts. Of course it isn’t right, Stan says and smiles. But it’s not like I told them to stay in their homes.
The Newspaper says we are going to get bombed on Saturday, Hank says to his wife, Sue. They are eating breakfast and watching the television. The television doesn’t say anything about a bombing, Sue says and she stuffs egg and toast into her mouth. Usually she is more graceful, Hank thinks, it must be because of the bombing that is most certainly about to happen. I haven’t been all that reflective lately, Sue thinks, indeed I haven’t been thinking about anything at all. Sue and Hank were married in ’78, after the blizzard that closed the highway. The highway is open today though because there isn’t any snow. I hope I get out of work before five, Hank thinks while he drives to work. He likes it when he gets out of work early because he can go home and watch television. I like the television, Sue says to her friend, Barbara. The two women are knitting and sewing and making cookies and washing clothes. I like to gossip, Barbara says to Sue. Remember when Mary Beth stole the bag of cookies and ate them in the woods. Sue laughs and covers her mouth—and she got so fat, she whispers. She is still fat, Barbara says, I saw her at the grocery store last week. We didn’t sell so much last week, Bill says to Hank. We are going to have to really step it up this week. We need to sell a lot more than we did last week. Of course, Hank agrees. Anything I can do, he says and thinks, I am not going to get out of here early today. Hank counts the days on his calendar. Forty-five days until my next vacation, he mutters. We are going to go to Florida and visit my parents, Sue says. They are getting old and they have many aches and pains and life is very difficult for them. Sue is hanging clothes on the clothesline and Barbara is sitting on the deck and drinking lemonade. We made cookies for Sammy’s class today, Barbara says. We made oatmeal cookies because they are his favorite. Ben hates oatmeal cookies, Sue says. Oh, Barbara says. She made tuna fish salad again, Hank mutters. Didn’t you have tuna fish yesterday, Scott asks. Yes, Scott. She must have forgotten. Did she cut the crust off? No, Scott, she didn’t cut the crusts off. That is too bad, Scott says, it is always better without the crusts. I know, Scott. You know they are talking about a bombing here on Saturday, Barbara says. It is later in the afternoon but it is still not too cold outside. The newspaper said it would start at five in the morning. The television didn’t say anything about a bombing. I know, maybe it isn’t true. Well, Saturday isn’t a bad day for a bombing. I guess I’ll just stay in the house. Me too. My wife made ham and cheese, Scott says. I love ham and cheese. Me too, Hank says. I wish my wife would make me ham and cheese. That is one hour, Bill says, return to work and sell some units. Yes sir, Scott says. Yes sir, Hank says. That’s the spirit, Bill says. I hope Hank gets home early so we can watch television, Sue says. I know, Barbara agrees. I hope he does too. Barbara doesn’t have a television because her husband threw it out the second floor window. Donald was very angry, Barbara admits. Hank still hasn’t shown me how to turn on the television or we could watch it now, Sue says. She would watch television all day, Hank says to Scott. But she would make you ham and cheese sandwiches, Scott says. Really? I hope we don’t get bombed on Saturday, Hank says. Why can’t we get bombed on a work day, Scott says. I haven’t sold any units in two weeks, Hank says. Me neither, Scott says. Bill must be very angry.
I don’t know why you are upset, Stan says to Lucy. It isn’t like they have that much to live for anyway. I still don’t think we should kill them, Lucy says, maybe we should tell them to stop having babies instead. It isn’t like we are wiping out a political rival or an ideological rival. We are simply bombing a population that is too dull to know that they are getting bombed. It still doesn’t seem right, Lucy retorts. Of course it isn’t right, Stan says and smiles. But it’s not like I told them to stay in their homes.
Too Much World
Oh, our depleted and romantic history. And concerning the irony of a physical spiritual icon—or the ability to transcend the evolution of the thinking man: a back porch, an attic. Literal and never metaphoric. Oh this was painful bliss, an invested commencement, a well intentioned arrival, occurrence, emergence. As in, one turn after another, into a spiral of creation. And my skin was in needles, inflamed. There is nothing so painful and removed and lonely as the first full commitment to art. There is no initial solidarity. There is no greeting hall or handshake. It is an isolated entrance, under an extorted, stolen image of the very soul of man. There, it is the unbecoming of the cultural and social self and the becoming of the vast and expendable and expanding single observer. Perhaps, athletically, the baptism is like trying to hold your breath under water with the intent of never returning to the surface. My lungs do not burn. But my skin is inflamed and I am on fire. I am on fire and I am under water. There are always beginnings, simple beginnings. I am not always on fire. But the bleeding events of this weekend, years later, left an acute memory of paralysis: too much world. I was stranded in the turnstile, at first. There have been few moments as embarrassing as the immediate, yes even hasty, return to a social environment after peacefully inhabiting the personal refuge of self-reflection. Next, I stood on the A train for most of the evening, re-adjusting my outfit, patting my hair and asking for, even looking for: Bleeker Street—no, the headquarters for the modern revolution. I have been away for a minute, I explained, only to be ignored, shunned, mocked. Where is the cultural capital of New York City, I asked, by now no longer ashamed but very frightened. I had begun to sweat, as was my custom. It was an absurd question, I gathered, from the responses, the stares—but really? Why? Absurd because the Capital was most assuredly at Bleeker Street or absurd because it most certainly did not exist. No, the latter could not possibly be true. No collective consensus? No hub of intellectual pursuit—the very hunt. Oh, we loved the hunt. Oh, I loved the hunt. The snap into a cultural world after undigging the social phenomena, after seeing principle. Ah, I finally deduced, I was alone. I was always alone. I left the A train in upper Manhattan walked into a Deli in early morning and read the Post. Ah, carnal and incestuous starvation: cannibal starvation. It had started, years earlier, with Nicole. The unethical and inappropriate union, underlining spiritual sex: there are only guidelines in the social order, really. Pretense, coy verbal petting, an engagement of subtle touches. Yes, an infatuation. There is no spiritual survival without extension and I am convinced, still locked in infantile obsession, to achieve extension, expansion. No, it was an amusement, a distraction. I was locked, trained, in meditated attacks: made a pass at me! I have returned to the A train, standing again, no longer hungry—yes, no! I am voracious, I laugh. There is a return in me, finally, a return. I can think, for a moment and see. It did not start with Nicole. The mirrors in the changing room on the fifth floor of Filenes basement—I am this person. It is early morning now, on the train, commuters, readers, activists, some of them, mules, others. Where is the cultural capital, I ask again, a different crowd, not as stranded or strangulated by their own self images, comforted by releases, by the construction and the formulation of idea, principle, evolution. Maybe. It is here, a woman says, mid-thirties, lean, provocative, eager, clever. She points at her breasts or at herself and laughs and exits the train and turns around, looks again, over her shoulder, skirt knee length, coy. Oh, we loved the hunt. I follow her off the train, but not really. I stop on the platform, below ground and wait for another train to run through the city following the endless starvation of a cannibal crowd, an incestuous mantra, a depleted and saturated and uncompromising history.
Synagogue
In synagogue they said my name and the name of my father and my father's father. For hours I heard nothing but Hebrew and now suddenly this, the first family name I ever heard, like a familiar melody in a long strange song. I do not believe. I am in Israel, surrounded by men who I am told have blood that runs like mine in their veins and back through time to Abraham and Adam, my namesake. Blood leading me back to me in the Garden, made from clay, lifted from the God box underneath the wall from which shook out all the mothers and the fathers and that's how the universe was born.
What don't I believe? Above us the women sit in the balcony and and ululate and throw candy when the time is right. The kids down below dart out from their father's legs to take what they can; theirs is a language I understand. My grandfather's niece's son-in-law shows me where we are in the text and he is patient and warm and at first I think sad; but no; he can't express himself to me in English, it is too complicated, he is hopeful that I might come back to into the fold of blood brothers and sisters, family beyond family, I suppose this is all really about home...
...San Francisco, 2002: We are gathered in the living room of our transitional living program for a staff meeting. It is the morning of September 11th, I have my coffee and donut, and Stephen wants to make us a space to process how we are feeling. We try. My thoughts are sad because I believe in the magic of dates, number as doors into the past or the future. If we knew how to the open them then time travel would be as easy as dawn on the morning of your birthday, your death-day's secret date made visible like the moon. Stephen is struggling to articulate his feelings, his eye watery and working towards an answer. I watch Nicole heading down Ashbury outside, her hair pulled back tight, early morning pale of her face, beautiful lips and eyes on the cigarette in front of them. I have glimpsed the ecstatic beauty of certain mathematical relationships, e to the j times theta; and once started a poem that went, "The clock reads 1:07am and I know I love you." I was 15 years old. Olivia's face was the almost too much beauty to bear, but I liked the pain and when the song came on I would sing "You're so fucking special... skin makes me cry" until the hurt felt desperate and endless and wild. Then suddenly all the numbers in the world could not take me out of myself and my poor young body, unloved and touched, virgin, virgin for a long time...
Stephen gives up with a sigh. "We just have to support each other and be mindful of how the residents may need us today to work through the difficult feelings that may come up." He looks around. A year later we would sit together in his apartment, both a little high, and he will tell me that as long as he and I stick together we can make some really special, we have a chemistry, a rare thing... and I think: I've heard this before. I think: Uh-oh. Shortly after that I never saw him again.
*
You can go out west because you need a new frontier. You can go to San Francisco if you have no home, live out on the streets by the park, stay away from the gutterpunk kids in front of Amoeba Records and the undercover cops trying to see if you get high. Find some friends and stick together. Beg a little, play guitar in the BART station and make about ten dollars an hour until they ask you to leave. Change your body with metal and ink, change your sex with hormones; they're free, but the surgery will cost you, start saving up. In the synagogue we face the windows, towards Jerusalem; some men come from their seats to kneel by the windows and pray. When they do I pray, too. My companion takes the tallis and puts it over my head. He places his hand there and asks God for the ultimate blessing on me and my blood and my family. I can't see anything but the light working its way through the cloth, and again there is that strange music but now I feel calm and quiet and loved. There is no transformation, no change but a new story, a date to remember, and a faint burning in my chest I only now recognize must have come from outside my heart, slowly moving in.
What don't I believe? Above us the women sit in the balcony and and ululate and throw candy when the time is right. The kids down below dart out from their father's legs to take what they can; theirs is a language I understand. My grandfather's niece's son-in-law shows me where we are in the text and he is patient and warm and at first I think sad; but no; he can't express himself to me in English, it is too complicated, he is hopeful that I might come back to into the fold of blood brothers and sisters, family beyond family, I suppose this is all really about home...
...San Francisco, 2002: We are gathered in the living room of our transitional living program for a staff meeting. It is the morning of September 11th, I have my coffee and donut, and Stephen wants to make us a space to process how we are feeling. We try. My thoughts are sad because I believe in the magic of dates, number as doors into the past or the future. If we knew how to the open them then time travel would be as easy as dawn on the morning of your birthday, your death-day's secret date made visible like the moon. Stephen is struggling to articulate his feelings, his eye watery and working towards an answer. I watch Nicole heading down Ashbury outside, her hair pulled back tight, early morning pale of her face, beautiful lips and eyes on the cigarette in front of them. I have glimpsed the ecstatic beauty of certain mathematical relationships, e to the j times theta; and once started a poem that went, "The clock reads 1:07am and I know I love you." I was 15 years old. Olivia's face was the almost too much beauty to bear, but I liked the pain and when the song came on I would sing "You're so fucking special... skin makes me cry" until the hurt felt desperate and endless and wild. Then suddenly all the numbers in the world could not take me out of myself and my poor young body, unloved and touched, virgin, virgin for a long time...
Stephen gives up with a sigh. "We just have to support each other and be mindful of how the residents may need us today to work through the difficult feelings that may come up." He looks around. A year later we would sit together in his apartment, both a little high, and he will tell me that as long as he and I stick together we can make some really special, we have a chemistry, a rare thing... and I think: I've heard this before. I think: Uh-oh. Shortly after that I never saw him again.
*
You can go out west because you need a new frontier. You can go to San Francisco if you have no home, live out on the streets by the park, stay away from the gutterpunk kids in front of Amoeba Records and the undercover cops trying to see if you get high. Find some friends and stick together. Beg a little, play guitar in the BART station and make about ten dollars an hour until they ask you to leave. Change your body with metal and ink, change your sex with hormones; they're free, but the surgery will cost you, start saving up. In the synagogue we face the windows, towards Jerusalem; some men come from their seats to kneel by the windows and pray. When they do I pray, too. My companion takes the tallis and puts it over my head. He places his hand there and asks God for the ultimate blessing on me and my blood and my family. I can't see anything but the light working its way through the cloth, and again there is that strange music but now I feel calm and quiet and loved. There is no transformation, no change but a new story, a date to remember, and a faint burning in my chest I only now recognize must have come from outside my heart, slowly moving in.
1.06.2008
Assisted Suicide: American Poverty: 3
The ill frailty of suicide, social suicide, an institutional dismissal of self value—oh, this selfless attack is barbaric, she ponders, muses, at least engages, an active onslaught. A massive run-on sentence, Chet noted, amused, discarded the magazine, exhaled the magazine into the dummy, she is just air and plastic. The clique formed and initially did not intend massacres, no, no: clippings, awkward postings, inappropriate portrayals. Killing is a progressive stance against mutually indolent rival political or ideological parties. Became. It became. It is the third aggressor, the third engager, the man with the pistol, the woman with the pistol, the child with the pistol. I have lost my diction, Steve muttered, mentioned, again, not active, inane. The collapse of the modern idea, put lightly (its crashing destruction into bombs, bombs, bombs), came smooth, tactless, and slinky—yes, he was encouraged to make up words, slow, dumb words. DREGFOTT: to abolish the use of mines. PRIEZTMANPOUR: a well established and sinister military advisor. As in the PRIEZTMANPOUR did not approve, nor recognize, the government’s insistence that it must DREGFOTT. It became worse. The whores were on the street in symphony! Yes, worse and worser. I am dropping bombs on playgrounds, Steve muttered again, muttered, himself, posing as himself, hunched over computer screens in the dark, hung over, vomiting in the shower, pissing his pants, no fucking diction! Chocolate martini—that is the issue, the fucking drink order is killing your brain. No, he ignored it, hung over, dumb, blind, bling-bling, it is all a lengthy dream of disorder, discontentment. I might be awfully incapable, Steve wrote, an entrance into the third paragraph of the essay—for the quick reader, the editor, the man with the glasses who sits in a booth and raises his hand—but the idea is quite enchanting, reminds me of the small of her back—borrowed, or poorly stolen, his editor reminded him, even embarrassingly bad. Yes, yes, I know. I have been bleeding words for the past forty-eight hours, fifty-two if you count the Swedish whore and the Romanian transvestite, but they were fake, fake, fake. Forty-eight, lets stick with forty-eight. Still Steve was making up words, putting himself in misleading positions, next to the camera man, on the couch, in the alley, smoking weed, drinking himself to death. I would die like that, unimaginative, useless, living out a social suicide. That is, is, the death. She ponders, active, the social suicide, the one harboring gangrene in the backyard, my back yard, the cultural plea, undeniable, she, the muse, the muse, she is gone, departed, there is only one more step, Steve thinks, one more step and you are above the crowd, out of the crowd and you can see—see, see. And I walked down two steps and fell into a pisshole of mediocrity, pedestrians, fucking pedestrians. I’ve been needing a new swear word, he mentions, she is casually intrusive, sits too close, smells like lavender, no something else from Latin America, where there is romance, yes, she is intrusive, smells like liquor, yes, new York, liquor and weed and cigarettes, and despair: I don’t know what to wear; I don’t know what to look for; I like green. I am a whore. That was abusive, unnecessary, she is the muse—no she is abusive. In an ultimate protest, the singular most powerful step into a nuclear spring, he enslaves and unslaves himself, against the towering market, to insert, there is no recognition in its finality: do not accept, impose, or infiltrate. Remember her father was a PRIEZTMANPOUR. The financial burden will—borrowed, stolen, poorly stolen for a lifetime concept, object: principle. I have molded my angelic sense, my starved diction (indeed, he was bleeding words on Friday, he lost most of the three syllable words on Broadway and many two syllable words and a box of one syllable words, no, I didn’t see cat or boat in the collection, so tragic). The absence of this fate, enslaved and no longer slaved, to the absence of letters, he supposes, demands then that the only option was, is, indeed the only option ever could be: invent his own precious language and DREGFOTT.
American Poverty: 2
When the time was right, Gary had sex with both of his stepdaughters.
Good. With that out of the way we can move on. Once I saw him drifting through the bright open spaces of 30th Street Station, and I thought: no one here knows this but me. He looked lost, and sad too yes but also certain hardness set about his face I did not know from the Institute. There Gary was a talker, soft & good natured, easy to make fun of...
...when I was young I remember a cartoon like this: a big bulldog walks down the street. he's got this chihuahua sidekick leaping around his feet going on and on with the "are we going to the park, boss? I love the park, boss, I do I do I do-" until a well-timed smack shut the little guy up. I was the same age the stepdaughter when Gary first started. He was like that chihuahua, at the Institute, always prattling at Dr. Ingel's heels. And then the inevitable smack. But now here he was, tight lipped and tough cheeked as the college students rushed to trains to take them away for the holidays; the feeling of Christmas coming up, and days without work or deadlines; I was high and floating through myself, my head up in the vaulted glass ceiling amongst the stray pigeons and the light. He was no chihuahua now. And when Dr. Ingel's interview for the city paper came out -- the one where he called himself a victim-practioner and told the story of what his neighbor had done some thirty years ago -- Gary got there early with the other men, a newspaper under every seat, waiting...
Oh but it's complicated. Abuser and abused. How to document the many ways to cross each others' borders? Once I saw a woman inhabit her secretary. As the weeks went by everything about the manager -- her clothes, her attitude, her weight -- entered in the young woman's being until dressed up fat & angry the secretary was barely recognizable as the baby-faced girl I remember. And the manager did less work than ever.
One time, Mike came in me and tried to fry my brain, though it was my hand that brought the pills to my tongue, my choice to swallow...
Dr. Ingel defended his decision well. Freudian or no there was a time for disclosure, and though I agreed I also smelled blood and it made me nervous, all those men watching him with something singular in their eyes -- they who had fondled cousins and touched daughters; whose mouths has pressed up bare vaginas, who gave with that first strange sensation a shadow that could live for years, a lifetime sometimes of hypervigilance and exaggerated startle response; vaginismus, vagina dentada, frigidity and lovelessness, PTSD, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, talking cures, the ability to keep a secret even when one should not. For Dr. Ingel, it stopped here. He surrendered his secret for a cross and climbed on. These men know naked when they see it, and so they watched, and they laughed when he joked and smiled their congratulations for his bravery, teeth like dull white nails... they know how hard it can be...
With that out of the way we can move on. It will be almost 60 degrees tomorrow, unseasonable for January. But this is 2008, and anything is possible. I store all my favorite songs compressed and placed in the inside pocket of my jacket. I don't get high anymore. Soon Bush will be out of the White House and we can hope to understand what we've done to Iraq. No one stays on top for long. The episode ends with a reversal - the chihuahua struts with that oversized sidekick jumping and "yes bossing" him until enough is enough, and the smack comes because it has to. Because he can. And with that out of the way, we can move on.
Good. With that out of the way we can move on. Once I saw him drifting through the bright open spaces of 30th Street Station, and I thought: no one here knows this but me. He looked lost, and sad too yes but also certain hardness set about his face I did not know from the Institute. There Gary was a talker, soft & good natured, easy to make fun of...
...when I was young I remember a cartoon like this: a big bulldog walks down the street. he's got this chihuahua sidekick leaping around his feet going on and on with the "are we going to the park, boss? I love the park, boss, I do I do I do-" until a well-timed smack shut the little guy up. I was the same age the stepdaughter when Gary first started. He was like that chihuahua, at the Institute, always prattling at Dr. Ingel's heels. And then the inevitable smack. But now here he was, tight lipped and tough cheeked as the college students rushed to trains to take them away for the holidays; the feeling of Christmas coming up, and days without work or deadlines; I was high and floating through myself, my head up in the vaulted glass ceiling amongst the stray pigeons and the light. He was no chihuahua now. And when Dr. Ingel's interview for the city paper came out -- the one where he called himself a victim-practioner and told the story of what his neighbor had done some thirty years ago -- Gary got there early with the other men, a newspaper under every seat, waiting...
Oh but it's complicated. Abuser and abused. How to document the many ways to cross each others' borders? Once I saw a woman inhabit her secretary. As the weeks went by everything about the manager -- her clothes, her attitude, her weight -- entered in the young woman's being until dressed up fat & angry the secretary was barely recognizable as the baby-faced girl I remember. And the manager did less work than ever.
One time, Mike came in me and tried to fry my brain, though it was my hand that brought the pills to my tongue, my choice to swallow...
Dr. Ingel defended his decision well. Freudian or no there was a time for disclosure, and though I agreed I also smelled blood and it made me nervous, all those men watching him with something singular in their eyes -- they who had fondled cousins and touched daughters; whose mouths has pressed up bare vaginas, who gave with that first strange sensation a shadow that could live for years, a lifetime sometimes of hypervigilance and exaggerated startle response; vaginismus, vagina dentada, frigidity and lovelessness, PTSD, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, talking cures, the ability to keep a secret even when one should not. For Dr. Ingel, it stopped here. He surrendered his secret for a cross and climbed on. These men know naked when they see it, and so they watched, and they laughed when he joked and smiled their congratulations for his bravery, teeth like dull white nails... they know how hard it can be...
With that out of the way we can move on. It will be almost 60 degrees tomorrow, unseasonable for January. But this is 2008, and anything is possible. I store all my favorite songs compressed and placed in the inside pocket of my jacket. I don't get high anymore. Soon Bush will be out of the White House and we can hope to understand what we've done to Iraq. No one stays on top for long. The episode ends with a reversal - the chihuahua struts with that oversized sidekick jumping and "yes bossing" him until enough is enough, and the smack comes because it has to. Because he can. And with that out of the way, we can move on.
1.05.2008
stream, 1
I've been thinking of different ways to live the rest of my life.
I could be short, rob a bank, ask permission or grow a beard. I could be tall, walk straight, kiss with both lips and fuck everyone I was attracted to, at least I could try.
Go back to college, go back to elementary school, relearn the alphabet and improve my penmanship. Ask more questions, smoke in the back of the class, get sent to detention and shoot hoops instead.
And why not? Time is short, right? There are no bombs (yet!), no shortages of grain or livestock. I eat when I'm hungry and can always ask for more.
But no, they're wrong, time is long. Ask any mountain and it will tell you. The mountains in Alaska, where I stood at the center of the world, are craggly babies compared to the Alps, where I have never been...
That's it -- I should go to the Alps! I can hop a plane, exchange my currency, marry a Swiss woman who loves me for my exotic character, my uniquely un-American openness. Then I will be happy.
Or could I be happy right now? Is it like a vault, to which I have forgotten the combination is 1 2 3? Or a door, and I am pulling and pulling when it says in clear block letters PUSH? Is it better to be happy than alert? Is there a difference?
I could break down, grow up, be my father, never speak to him again. I could make more noise when I walk. Sing songs about God to a 1-6-4-5 progression in 4/4 time. I could be a mountain, eaten by bears, robbed and left for dead. Looking up at the city sky. Feeling how very long is time, how far the stars...
I could be short, rob a bank, ask permission or grow a beard. I could be tall, walk straight, kiss with both lips and fuck everyone I was attracted to, at least I could try.
Go back to college, go back to elementary school, relearn the alphabet and improve my penmanship. Ask more questions, smoke in the back of the class, get sent to detention and shoot hoops instead.
And why not? Time is short, right? There are no bombs (yet!), no shortages of grain or livestock. I eat when I'm hungry and can always ask for more.
But no, they're wrong, time is long. Ask any mountain and it will tell you. The mountains in Alaska, where I stood at the center of the world, are craggly babies compared to the Alps, where I have never been...
That's it -- I should go to the Alps! I can hop a plane, exchange my currency, marry a Swiss woman who loves me for my exotic character, my uniquely un-American openness. Then I will be happy.
Or could I be happy right now? Is it like a vault, to which I have forgotten the combination is 1 2 3? Or a door, and I am pulling and pulling when it says in clear block letters PUSH? Is it better to be happy than alert? Is there a difference?
I could break down, grow up, be my father, never speak to him again. I could make more noise when I walk. Sing songs about God to a 1-6-4-5 progression in 4/4 time. I could be a mountain, eaten by bears, robbed and left for dead. Looking up at the city sky. Feeling how very long is time, how far the stars...
1.03.2008
American Poverty: 1
That the concert was terrible meant nothing to the lost grillers of cheese, vagabond jewelry makers, kids getting stoned... Mike said "Stay with your family" and we did. I trusted him. I was starting to love his wife, too, a little bit more when we left her in the apartment looking for a cartoon on demand. I can't help it; I love children. But here they were, dirty, kid-faced and un-innocent; a cop came up around one and cracked his head down to the dirt. But not before he flung a bag into the air with a whoop. Mike watching me watch him, saying "They don't care about us."
He said this, too, at work; at home; about our bosses, Isabelle, the sick men and women we cared for; and his college friends, his high school friends, the woman behind the counter at a gas station handing us a pack of cigarettes and gum...
We took the ecstasy first thing and by the time we reached the bathroom my pupils were shivering. I had never seen that before and didn't want to know. I felt good, though the words I wanted were falling a little further and further out of reach, and the gum was sweet against my teeth. Mike was flushed and smiling. We were happy. It was that easy.
The band played while it started to rain and I danced toward the stage and looked away, up the slope where men and women kept climbing the trail to disappear somewhere -- "They're doing heroin," Mike shook his head. "The scene is real dirty, no one to take care of us any more..." Needles in the mud, toddlers on shakedown street, they got your ice cold pharmies there and everyone is promising purity, "This shit is pure." The Dutch were here once. Before them the Indians. Now it is skiing in the winter, and in the summer the lot families arrive for shows. It's tent city, me and Mike and gauzy clouds drifting around like serotonin.
Mike convinces me to take another.
The girls around me are dancing in the mud, one has a watermelon, and in a second my eyes go white hot and I am sweating from all the heat the young bodies make, all their hearts pounding at once. Indian bones, marijuana and rolls, Isabelle's face from nowhere hits the soft spot on my brain: "We are in the world to love the world." I try to keep dancing but this girl is bumping into me, she is dancing no they are fighting, there's a muddy watermelon chunk that they are wrestling for down there, pulling dreadlocks and saying what, I can't hear, the drummer is still soloing but these girls are maybe 13 and 14 I can see where her shirt is torn where her breasts are coming in and my cock comes to in agony as I realize I've never loved anyone in my life and that's when Mike grabs me--
Back home. Isabelle brings new socks. The TV is on and mute. Mike brags to his wife about how he saved me from the mud pit. She is looking at me. It is an invitation. But I already fell in. I am still there.
He said this, too, at work; at home; about our bosses, Isabelle, the sick men and women we cared for; and his college friends, his high school friends, the woman behind the counter at a gas station handing us a pack of cigarettes and gum...
We took the ecstasy first thing and by the time we reached the bathroom my pupils were shivering. I had never seen that before and didn't want to know. I felt good, though the words I wanted were falling a little further and further out of reach, and the gum was sweet against my teeth. Mike was flushed and smiling. We were happy. It was that easy.
The band played while it started to rain and I danced toward the stage and looked away, up the slope where men and women kept climbing the trail to disappear somewhere -- "They're doing heroin," Mike shook his head. "The scene is real dirty, no one to take care of us any more..." Needles in the mud, toddlers on shakedown street, they got your ice cold pharmies there and everyone is promising purity, "This shit is pure." The Dutch were here once. Before them the Indians. Now it is skiing in the winter, and in the summer the lot families arrive for shows. It's tent city, me and Mike and gauzy clouds drifting around like serotonin.
Mike convinces me to take another.
The girls around me are dancing in the mud, one has a watermelon, and in a second my eyes go white hot and I am sweating from all the heat the young bodies make, all their hearts pounding at once. Indian bones, marijuana and rolls, Isabelle's face from nowhere hits the soft spot on my brain: "We are in the world to love the world." I try to keep dancing but this girl is bumping into me, she is dancing no they are fighting, there's a muddy watermelon chunk that they are wrestling for down there, pulling dreadlocks and saying what, I can't hear, the drummer is still soloing but these girls are maybe 13 and 14 I can see where her shirt is torn where her breasts are coming in and my cock comes to in agony as I realize I've never loved anyone in my life and that's when Mike grabs me--
Back home. Isabelle brings new socks. The TV is on and mute. Mike brags to his wife about how he saved me from the mud pit. She is looking at me. It is an invitation. But I already fell in. I am still there.
The Box
One Concrete block weighs one ton. Two concrete blocks weigh two tons. The box is on two concrete blocks. The box weighs one half ton plus its contents: string, a chair, a bucket of black paint, a rubber band, and a hose. The box is five feet long and five feet wide. The box is ten feet tall. On one side of the box there is a door. The door is seven feet tall and three feet wide. The door opens into the box. Attached to the bottom of the door is a block of chalk. The chalk makes an arc-like shape on the floor of the box when the door is opened. The chalk is white. The chalk is not included in the weight of the contents. The door will be prevented from fully opening because of one of the five feet walls. The door is brown and the door has nothing written on it to suggest that it is an opening into a box.
Outside the box there is a light bulb. Inside the box there is a socket for the light bulb. There are no windows in the box and there are no shelves in the box. The socket for the light bulb hangs from the ceiling of the box. The socket is included in the weight of the box. The chair is in the corner of the box but does not obstruct the door when the door is opened into the box. The chair is made of wood and metal and plastic. It is a common looking chair though uncommon because it is not only made of wood, or only made of metal, or only made of plastic. Like the door, the chair is brown and the weight of the chair is included in the weight of the box.
Each concrete block is ten feet by ten feet by five feet. The two blocks are placed directly on top of one another. There are no stairs to the top of the second concrete block. There is a ladder against the wall next to the light bulb. Like the light bulb, the ladder is outside the box. The ladder is ten feet tall but can extend to fifteen feet tall. The ladder is made of plastic and metal. The ladder is green.
The proposed action is as follows: the stagehand, Mark, is to pick up the light bulb, place the ladder against the concrete block, climb the ladder, open the door to the box, walk into the box, screw the light bulb into the socket by standing on the chair, and sit in the chair and paint a black window on each of the three walls of the inside of the box that do not contain the door. The weight of Mark will not be included in the weight of the box. Mark is to regard the rubber band and the hose and the string as unnecessary items. Mark has fifteen minutes to complete the task and will be judged on his willingness and ability to follow directions as well as his ability to fully comprehend, and express, the world of the box in each of his actions.
Outside the box there is a light bulb. Inside the box there is a socket for the light bulb. There are no windows in the box and there are no shelves in the box. The socket for the light bulb hangs from the ceiling of the box. The socket is included in the weight of the box. The chair is in the corner of the box but does not obstruct the door when the door is opened into the box. The chair is made of wood and metal and plastic. It is a common looking chair though uncommon because it is not only made of wood, or only made of metal, or only made of plastic. Like the door, the chair is brown and the weight of the chair is included in the weight of the box.
Each concrete block is ten feet by ten feet by five feet. The two blocks are placed directly on top of one another. There are no stairs to the top of the second concrete block. There is a ladder against the wall next to the light bulb. Like the light bulb, the ladder is outside the box. The ladder is ten feet tall but can extend to fifteen feet tall. The ladder is made of plastic and metal. The ladder is green.
The proposed action is as follows: the stagehand, Mark, is to pick up the light bulb, place the ladder against the concrete block, climb the ladder, open the door to the box, walk into the box, screw the light bulb into the socket by standing on the chair, and sit in the chair and paint a black window on each of the three walls of the inside of the box that do not contain the door. The weight of Mark will not be included in the weight of the box. Mark is to regard the rubber band and the hose and the string as unnecessary items. Mark has fifteen minutes to complete the task and will be judged on his willingness and ability to follow directions as well as his ability to fully comprehend, and express, the world of the box in each of his actions.
1.02.2008
She, in the Vacuum, Proposes
Resolved to completeness—resolve: as in, of course, close, bring to a close, allow and permit closure. The fractured space, cut into cultural insecurity, vanishes in the new year, the month, the day, the hour, indeed, perhaps, the minute. Reckless proposals, pseudo scholars, fake—fake intellectuals, postulate, present, propose: it is not arbitrary. It is not ever suggestive. The combatant force, once united in aggressive peace keeping, keeping together unions, peoples, nations, a protector of historical narratives, of the resolutions, the peace resolution. Responders, first responders to inadequate resources. Our inadequacy rebounds, often, quite often, over the course of any period. She is admired, adored. She is made love to. They are apart, distant, rebound: in-compatible. Again, combatants, forced to re-create the re-newal. Culturally, distinctly cultural in perception, the universe is fragmented and re-written succinctly, unkindly, pompous: any excuse would permeate even a lie as this: this is the undoubted denier: the decider. No, business like in manner, astute, attentive, believable, callous? Forgotten, momentarily ignored only, and dis-proportion-ate being, placate the sultan and allow him to re-enter the quarters of the majestic western world: our world: placate: assuage: and assimilate. This is the primal order of cultural invasion. We suicided ourselves, at the earliest chance possible. We conducted the RE: gain/view/cede. We, our wonderful selves, gardens to our only children, we are the feat of uncanny failure. She is proposing, again, proposing, like a witch, like a crude and stagnant witch. The inverse likelihood of success is not the possibility of failure: never attempt to rule on crude opposition, back and forth, black and white: market value, business sense. Cultural void. It was an invasion, and at first, swift, attacks, on the short handed side, backhanded side, hit, return, a place in passion that is excused by the unresolved universe, the vacuum of space left to blink, only to blink at the mere possibility of growth, production, re-run the industrial strength movement, to another creator, builder, founder, mind. It is the un-natural possessor, equipped simply, now, off the park, condos, water, electricity, gas, energy, oil. The natural attracter. In the ultimate show of respect, ultimate indeed, she unleashed an uncut burden: this, I Resolve to begin. This I Resolve to finish. Oh, of course, the universe, in seconds and in minutes, in those seconds and in those minutes, was, is, fractured, beaten, broken. Even from the vacuum, even in the vacuum, it is a clear break: a moment unlike any moment, a moment once a year, the frail animal in victory, in success, my Day: mine. Spinning in rapid succession, it all comes to pass, fruitful future, life time recognition.
No, dear lord, no. It is only the black vacuum and the tiny ball playing back and forth, back and forth. Dear lord, no. It does not occur to resolve itself to become something it is not. That is foolish, deeply foolish, to suppose it could ever be something it is not. I resolve to ignore it, she spouts, convinced, at least once, that it has fractured, broken, and lent itself to pause, to destruction, at the animal will.
No, dear lord, no. It is only the black vacuum and the tiny ball playing back and forth, back and forth. Dear lord, no. It does not occur to resolve itself to become something it is not. That is foolish, deeply foolish, to suppose it could ever be something it is not. I resolve to ignore it, she spouts, convinced, at least once, that it has fractured, broken, and lent itself to pause, to destruction, at the animal will.
Nathaniel
I sailed to America a thousand years ago on a sharkboat, Nathaniel says. He can hear Saddam Husseim speak and he is lonely. Outside dead birds fall from his sky.
I am 25 years old, habitual marijuana smoker, strange dream dreamer, I date the drug dealer down the block and we can stay friends as long as she gets me high. Nathaniel does poorly on his IQ test, and will not take off his hat. I give him no hard time about that, though Dr. Bromburg sees it as a sign of disrespect. I see Dr. Bromburg as a man-child drunk on this tiny sliver of power over the lives of our clientele. When he takes it off we can see Nathaniel's hair is beautiful.
But it does not change the fact Nathaniel taped his cousin to a chair and made him do what someone sometime clearly had done to him, though he won't admit it. He doesn't see how all we need is an explanation, a reason to believe that this was not casual cruelty or genetic predisposition to monsterhood but a ten year old who has just been through too much. There are limits to things; I once took too many mushrooms too late and unprepared, and felt in the shadow of my wall the presence of Absolute Evil. I fled the house and spent the rest of the night chasing what I thought was my roommate's cat. The cat was home all along, and in the morning, tired, sad and strange, I watched Jackass the Movie until I finally felt a little more sane.
Dr. Bromburg makes video games for his stepdaughter, and makes me play them. They are full of fireballs coming her way, one thousand and one ways to die, bonus points and when the game starts she isn't wearing any clothes. Step 1, he says: find your clothes.
But it is not all that bad. I make forty thousand dollars a year, Bromburg makes me mix tapes of rare Dylan recordings and expects full reviews the next morning. It's not that bad. Sometimes I even like Bob Dylan. And when I get high at home the world is mine to cruise around in, slow and lazy, making connections out of smoke and then blowing them away. Nathaniel never tells us the full story. He puts his cap back on as Bromburg leaves the room and we are alone. I don't ask what he wants to be when he grows up. I don't tell him his IQ score, and there is no mom or dad to ask worriedly what do we do about our little son. I ask, Do you feel like Saddam Hussein sometimes? He looks me in the eyes and says this: I was born a thousand years ago. I sailed to America on a sharkboat but they killed us. I just want to be left alone.
I am 25 years old, habitual marijuana smoker, strange dream dreamer, I date the drug dealer down the block and we can stay friends as long as she gets me high. Nathaniel does poorly on his IQ test, and will not take off his hat. I give him no hard time about that, though Dr. Bromburg sees it as a sign of disrespect. I see Dr. Bromburg as a man-child drunk on this tiny sliver of power over the lives of our clientele. When he takes it off we can see Nathaniel's hair is beautiful.
But it does not change the fact Nathaniel taped his cousin to a chair and made him do what someone sometime clearly had done to him, though he won't admit it. He doesn't see how all we need is an explanation, a reason to believe that this was not casual cruelty or genetic predisposition to monsterhood but a ten year old who has just been through too much. There are limits to things; I once took too many mushrooms too late and unprepared, and felt in the shadow of my wall the presence of Absolute Evil. I fled the house and spent the rest of the night chasing what I thought was my roommate's cat. The cat was home all along, and in the morning, tired, sad and strange, I watched Jackass the Movie until I finally felt a little more sane.
Dr. Bromburg makes video games for his stepdaughter, and makes me play them. They are full of fireballs coming her way, one thousand and one ways to die, bonus points and when the game starts she isn't wearing any clothes. Step 1, he says: find your clothes.
But it is not all that bad. I make forty thousand dollars a year, Bromburg makes me mix tapes of rare Dylan recordings and expects full reviews the next morning. It's not that bad. Sometimes I even like Bob Dylan. And when I get high at home the world is mine to cruise around in, slow and lazy, making connections out of smoke and then blowing them away. Nathaniel never tells us the full story. He puts his cap back on as Bromburg leaves the room and we are alone. I don't ask what he wants to be when he grows up. I don't tell him his IQ score, and there is no mom or dad to ask worriedly what do we do about our little son. I ask, Do you feel like Saddam Hussein sometimes? He looks me in the eyes and says this: I was born a thousand years ago. I sailed to America on a sharkboat but they killed us. I just want to be left alone.
resolution
how quickly we train the eye not to see
the ear not to hear the sound of snow
falling on the hard ground
six hours in new york city and already I am deaf dumb and blind
my head hurts
my heart is full of angry bees
how quickly we turn against the ones we love
lashing out how surprised I was
to find it was my cheek
stinging
the ear not to hear the sound of snow
falling on the hard ground
six hours in new york city and already I am deaf dumb and blind
my head hurts
my heart is full of angry bees
how quickly we turn against the ones we love
lashing out how surprised I was
to find it was my cheek
stinging
sorry S----, I was away for New Years
where to go in 2008? where to sing for someone who knows you mean it? I want that new frontier, inner space, but not mine. some mornings I wake up hating the constellations, The Reluctant Lover, the Libra; where I dreamt of being robbed on the streets of Los Angeles and woke up missing my shirt. where they played pool and danced a crazy conga as we sang "we will not let them win" over a major chord progression I wrote three floors up and half a mile from the grounds of greenwood cemetery, final resting place of revolutionaries and 911 victims, headstones, here lies the sons and daughters of the fathers and mothers of the united states of america, the indivisible, one nation under earth. S---- I hope you wrote something good. You see dots and are holding the pencil. What I see: people I want to touch, sunlight teetering and then gone, a resolution to let it all go. It is 2000 and 8 in America and now is our last chance to become what we need to be. where the neighborhoods change and the subway trains are held momentarily and then dispatched into darkness. where the snow makes a sound I cannot hear, my headphones are too loud, clearly I've got something to say but it just comes out da da da. give me a beat and we'll sing da da dowop pah pah! da da dowop pah pah! it's a new frontier. let's be men not apes let's hold our pens with flexible thumbs slow down and love someone its easy as 5 4 321
you know I mean it. happy new year
you know I mean it. happy new year
1.01.2008
The State Face
Coined, conned, re-capped, evolved: progress. As in, we made progress this month. We undug a treasure. We be-Came greater, stronger ( -er), er. She stutters, coy, timid, indifferent—no, playful and insecure, intimate. She is strongest, greatest (-est), est. The pitiful temper, his pitiful temper, was suicide, ended in suicide, had had quite enough, disguised his own blood as a traitor, a player in another wagon, another ear, another era, another county. Them, he trusted them. She is garrulous when she is undressed, not embarrassed, not hidden. Upbeat, congenial, engaging: wonderful. As in, of course, most recently, the dinner was wonderful. Attended by finely dressed bourgeois, against the common threads of indecency, Ho-Ho, (-ist): the elitist was not unwelcome nor conditioned for humble courtship. The seats were at center Court. This, above all, became our Mantra: Long, long, life the kinship between….Etc, beat, beat, etc. We play it at half-time to a magazine of percussion. She is usual, fitting, and fond of her skin. She was not betrayed by one of them. The blueprint stolen from the fifth floor of the Empire State Building (psst: hssh!) was a guideline to cultural success: a metaphoric blueprint, Harrison mutters, a suggestion. A corporate emblem of recognition. Even unstartled, unshocked, there remains, but to a few of the unadulterated populace, a strong faith, an interest, a belief, in the puppeteers, the man who is the man: undeniably, they reside in high rises, off the park, wear suits, drink scotch, do not anger easily or ever and are inhumane, skinless, cold. As in it is cold outside in January (precisely: well). This would resolve itself in scandal, Emma suggests, removed from the country club residence, unkempt—by nineteenth century standard—properly educated and claimed, eventually, by law school and the unsurprising aftermaths. A drive, a frivolous drive, to insignificance. All of them, she marvels (and Us too!). The indecency, however, is not encouraged nor prohibited, allowed, yes, allowed, permitted, permissive and not depressive to the mass of elected pedestrians, more in the middle, farther father: clan, precipitate a familial despot into our founded utopian equanimity, our class of man, our class of life. She, apart from her graceful indifference while exposed, was less inclined to aggressive assault. It is not visually compatible with the educational models of success, the principle behind thematic exposure—not her nudity, not representations of her nudity—history, political science, why the trends (like science and dams and border crossings compare!) are the trends they are. In physics like in sociology, it is a meager and untapped principle, a beauty contest (no, not a beauty contest). The blueprints, harangue, dear harangue. The cultural diagram of popularity, recognition. It is a metaphoric representation, Harrison mutters again, this time disillusioned and in despair, perhaps depressive by nature, but suicidal? Questionable? The repute of such a willful being would be in jeopardy: to make himself un-exist. He would not make himself un-exist, Emma insists. Trained, as usual, as mentioned, in the strictest of classics, the trainer’s path. And yet, impetuous by desire, the man jumps, a man himself the patriarch and founder, jumps, jumps, and in the recognition, she the recognizer, the artist un-recognized in this time, the artist that must go un-recognized for culture to rebound and become itself again: it cannot be the ironic compliment, it cannot be at all. It must go, abide, in nature and in itself, in no heated face of worldly recognition. There are no maps, Harrison yells. He yells at her, at Emma, at the face of this building, at the face of this state. What is a leap, he thinks, and he jumps and doesn’t expect to get anything and doesn’t get anything at all. Her face, of course, is the face on the screen and it is smiling and thinking what a fool! And he is thinking, jumping and jumping and nobody around jumping and jumping, what a leap, what a leap!
12.30.2007
Six times Six--Likelihoods
I am used, she thinks. Hands calloused, burnt—I am used, she thinks again, and coughs, grins, and clenches her teeth. I am clenching my teeth, she thinks. The plate cracks. She is washing dishes. She throws it against the wall, the rest of it. Tighter, she mutters. You can’t put your fucking feet here, she screams suddenly, shrieks, say—she is washing dishes. There ain’t nobody here, she decides, mutters, confused, smoking. Old, thin, pale, malnourished, yellow. I look yellow. The sun is yellow. I don’t look like that. You ugly goat, he says, smiles, laughs, comes in loud, yes, belligerent, classic and unimaginative. He slaps her on the ass. Hard, iron, and weak. Drinking and drinking. She is worthless, he will say later, drunk, exhausted, removed.
He would not consider potential, possibility. Recognize principle or action or quality of worth—coming of worth. Ambitious, quite ambitious. No, the opposite, she proposes, stretching, stretching, in class. A proposal. Angst, meager. I only want to know the odds, the chance, you know, the number. Four, I have four children. Squatting, stretching. There are characters missing, she mentions, but not on purpose, yes, accidental, for a later correction, edit. So intentional? She blushes, coy, cute. Empathize with her, the instructor supposes, intentional? Again, she blushes, perhaps intentional, he decides. How many years? The whole time. Questions vary in difficulty, some much more frequent and common others rare and seldom chosen, presented. Physical violence, sure, yes, of course. Coarse. Yes, of course. Quick. Emotional violence? Do you really know, sure, I suppose, I don’t know, I suppose. Weakening, no longer blushing, undressed. Panting, erect, solid, singular—and solidarity, of course, the union. Forward, subservient. Verbal abuse? Yes, yes, of course, I mean from what it seems. Aroused. Re-crossing and un-crossing, tempted, sneaking, the small built of skin against the sock, perhaps, not only the sock. She fiddles, with herself, occasionally. No, not often, no not often. He is working. Quick, at ease, aggressive, though. Aggressive.
She is preoccupied, suddenly preoccupied. It is black night. The moon is disappeared. She is preoccupied, the moon is disappeared. He slaps her again. She is washing dishes, only washing dishes. Exercises in human mood, arrival and departure, back and forth, up and down, hard, simple, engage, sweat, sweet, exercises in containment, repress. Press close, firm, it is black night. It is black at night. She is washing dishes. I am used, she thinks again. Thinks back, back into teaching, there was a full sentence, all of it, a thought, a person. Tall and thin and proper and well mannered and manicured and warm. Warm and not wet. Thin and proper? The concern?
Of course. The average adjustment period to a predatory lifestyle, an antisocial lifestyle, is not measured by time but by degree of exposure and age of participant. He is six. Six times six equals thirty-six. A formula, an average, it is not a guarantee. Smile, confident, repress. He is suitable, ignorant. Like apples and cinnamon and holiday. A formula, a statistic. Three out of five, even four out of five. Not real participants or real people. No, just a guess. A reasoned guess. Sure. Very little danger. Of course. Red.
You have a 36x chance of being violent and in jail in two years. It is probably even higher now. Consider the other conditions. Loss of electricity, heat, gas. Yes, higher. Mathematics, statistics. A murderer. The likelihood of snow on Friday. The likelihood of snow on a holiday. The farmer’s almanac. It is three out of five or two out of five. It snows on Friday. Yes, of course, it snows on Friday. The likelihood it will snow on Saturday. Three out of five, one out of five. Four out of five. There are only five people here. She is crying. Washing dishes. The plate breaks. Warm, wet, cold, dry.
He would not consider potential, possibility. Recognize principle or action or quality of worth—coming of worth. Ambitious, quite ambitious. No, the opposite, she proposes, stretching, stretching, in class. A proposal. Angst, meager. I only want to know the odds, the chance, you know, the number. Four, I have four children. Squatting, stretching. There are characters missing, she mentions, but not on purpose, yes, accidental, for a later correction, edit. So intentional? She blushes, coy, cute. Empathize with her, the instructor supposes, intentional? Again, she blushes, perhaps intentional, he decides. How many years? The whole time. Questions vary in difficulty, some much more frequent and common others rare and seldom chosen, presented. Physical violence, sure, yes, of course. Coarse. Yes, of course. Quick. Emotional violence? Do you really know, sure, I suppose, I don’t know, I suppose. Weakening, no longer blushing, undressed. Panting, erect, solid, singular—and solidarity, of course, the union. Forward, subservient. Verbal abuse? Yes, yes, of course, I mean from what it seems. Aroused. Re-crossing and un-crossing, tempted, sneaking, the small built of skin against the sock, perhaps, not only the sock. She fiddles, with herself, occasionally. No, not often, no not often. He is working. Quick, at ease, aggressive, though. Aggressive.
She is preoccupied, suddenly preoccupied. It is black night. The moon is disappeared. She is preoccupied, the moon is disappeared. He slaps her again. She is washing dishes, only washing dishes. Exercises in human mood, arrival and departure, back and forth, up and down, hard, simple, engage, sweat, sweet, exercises in containment, repress. Press close, firm, it is black night. It is black at night. She is washing dishes. I am used, she thinks again. Thinks back, back into teaching, there was a full sentence, all of it, a thought, a person. Tall and thin and proper and well mannered and manicured and warm. Warm and not wet. Thin and proper? The concern?
Of course. The average adjustment period to a predatory lifestyle, an antisocial lifestyle, is not measured by time but by degree of exposure and age of participant. He is six. Six times six equals thirty-six. A formula, an average, it is not a guarantee. Smile, confident, repress. He is suitable, ignorant. Like apples and cinnamon and holiday. A formula, a statistic. Three out of five, even four out of five. Not real participants or real people. No, just a guess. A reasoned guess. Sure. Very little danger. Of course. Red.
You have a 36x chance of being violent and in jail in two years. It is probably even higher now. Consider the other conditions. Loss of electricity, heat, gas. Yes, higher. Mathematics, statistics. A murderer. The likelihood of snow on Friday. The likelihood of snow on a holiday. The farmer’s almanac. It is three out of five or two out of five. It snows on Friday. Yes, of course, it snows on Friday. The likelihood it will snow on Saturday. Three out of five, one out of five. Four out of five. There are only five people here. She is crying. Washing dishes. The plate breaks. Warm, wet, cold, dry.
12.27.2007
Tyson Media Inc
The openings were important, practical, imposing: Large. The eggs were white. The smallest river inside the colonial jurisdiction was Prudence. They named a river prudence? Hank: short, balding, typical, forgetting, noticeably forgotten—he asked the question, coy, out of place. The media staged a sit-in, refused to report unless given advance opinions and stories. ESP, Hinton muttered. Fucking ESP. The sports channel? Yeah, the sports channel. The eggs cracked and small rapid dinosaurs appeared, waddled. They had beaks like ducks. No, she whispered, they taped their cameras to the ceiling. This is an advanced story. Not advanced—advance, you know before it happens.
And that was just the end of the world.
The trash agency enlisted local and then national support for their campaign. Volunteers then members then citizens. Citizens decidedly against (anti) the missile defense system, the homeless shelter initiative, and the world education platform. In a sprint, the agency, the trash agency, unlike the hollywood spin-offs, was actually the trash agency. Zealots circling the islands to the north and the south. You see: the earth was flat.
Like a piece of toast.
The earth was flat and burnt? That is ESP, Hannah agreed. Her camera was on the ceiling. She was eaten by dinosaurs, small rapid dinosaurs. No, the agency enlisted volunteers and they found an island, it is the end of the earth. The earth is flat. They are peeling back time and depositing trash, Sal mentioned, casually, awkwardly, un-athletic. A trainer, then a lifter, then, later, agile, a telecommunicator. Sounds important, significant, vital. Large, Henry states. It would be large. A grand opening of a media tycoon’s firm, property, publication. Like a watermelon. She giggled because she is fat and unused and expendable. Written over, Lilly suggests.
No, the investment was wise. It is nothing past the fifth island, Dan noted. Nothing? Well, an edge and then nothing—nothing at all. Peel back the earth and put the trash there then. It wasn’t a question, a pondering insecurity. No, peel back the earth. It is the way to time travel. If the earth is flat. The earth is flat. It erases the time and now it’s being peeled back. Yes, because of the trash. She was dense, too dense. She taped her camera to the ceiling.
ESP isn’t really a gift. Unless the sun is suddenly attracted to the earth and comes spinning and sprinting out of space. The eggs are white. The eggs weren’t ever white. There isn’t anything under the trash and still they are peeling it back. George detaches his camera from the ceiling and tapes the dinosaurs eating the other reporters. The openings were huge and important:
TYSON LAUNCHES NEW WORLD INQUIRY.
And that was just the end of the world.
The trash agency enlisted local and then national support for their campaign. Volunteers then members then citizens. Citizens decidedly against (anti) the missile defense system, the homeless shelter initiative, and the world education platform. In a sprint, the agency, the trash agency, unlike the hollywood spin-offs, was actually the trash agency. Zealots circling the islands to the north and the south. You see: the earth was flat.
Like a piece of toast.
The earth was flat and burnt? That is ESP, Hannah agreed. Her camera was on the ceiling. She was eaten by dinosaurs, small rapid dinosaurs. No, the agency enlisted volunteers and they found an island, it is the end of the earth. The earth is flat. They are peeling back time and depositing trash, Sal mentioned, casually, awkwardly, un-athletic. A trainer, then a lifter, then, later, agile, a telecommunicator. Sounds important, significant, vital. Large, Henry states. It would be large. A grand opening of a media tycoon’s firm, property, publication. Like a watermelon. She giggled because she is fat and unused and expendable. Written over, Lilly suggests.
No, the investment was wise. It is nothing past the fifth island, Dan noted. Nothing? Well, an edge and then nothing—nothing at all. Peel back the earth and put the trash there then. It wasn’t a question, a pondering insecurity. No, peel back the earth. It is the way to time travel. If the earth is flat. The earth is flat. It erases the time and now it’s being peeled back. Yes, because of the trash. She was dense, too dense. She taped her camera to the ceiling.
ESP isn’t really a gift. Unless the sun is suddenly attracted to the earth and comes spinning and sprinting out of space. The eggs are white. The eggs weren’t ever white. There isn’t anything under the trash and still they are peeling it back. George detaches his camera from the ceiling and tapes the dinosaurs eating the other reporters. The openings were huge and important:
TYSON LAUNCHES NEW WORLD INQUIRY.
family
we rounded up the wind and put it in a coral.
we took turns pushing swings toward the sun, then back.
you bruised your face and it looked like a very beautiful sunrise. you decide you like it better that way, but it won't stay.
"That," said Dad, "is life."
*
we had chores:
-the rotten vegetables go to the compost
-wash and wipe the windows with windex
-write one a story each day
*
Story 1:
The lizard swam back in forth in the bathtub. "Iguana," he corrected, and she made a mental note. They never had pets like this before. Both of them, Sam and Spike, had strange eyes and moved like little dinosaurs. When they died quick and in sucession, the father buried them in the backyard and said, "They weren't good pets."
*
we cleaned up after ourselves and never ate breakfast late. we tried our best to be ourselves but it was hard sometimes, to know how to be. "If I am not myself, who am I?" you asked. We played a game called Pretend and Pretended to be: robots; soldiers; people in space; monsters; families; princes and knights. At night we dreamt of looney tunes and for one week I accurately foresaw which episode they would run next, right there in bed. You said, "What if you only get so much psychic power, and you used yours all up?" We laughed and laughed and maybe it was true.
*
Story 2:
He wished for a toy. He wished for a game to play on his computer. He wished to kiss Kate, Jenny, and Kerrie. He wished to not move away, it was hard enough to find a friend the first time. He was very worried that if he said the wish the wrong way that the universe would interpret his words wrong.
Years later, he saw how the wish, as he worded it, was the problem all along.
*
If Dad had been a writer, owned a laundromat, worked at a pet store, what might have been? He tried all those things, plus selling disposable dental tools, and digital clocks w/letter opener. What if you only get so much time, and then you use it all up? It was hard to be yourself in our house. When we Pretended Sam and Spike were pets, they died and no wishing brought them back. Sometimes Dad spoke and it was like lightning; sometimes we whispered our secrets and they were like a wind, with nowhere to blow but between the four walls he bought for us -- as he changed time to chores for money so we could be warm, watch TV, and dream of who we might be...
we took turns pushing swings toward the sun, then back.
you bruised your face and it looked like a very beautiful sunrise. you decide you like it better that way, but it won't stay.
"That," said Dad, "is life."
*
we had chores:
-the rotten vegetables go to the compost
-wash and wipe the windows with windex
-write one a story each day
*
Story 1:
The lizard swam back in forth in the bathtub. "Iguana," he corrected, and she made a mental note. They never had pets like this before. Both of them, Sam and Spike, had strange eyes and moved like little dinosaurs. When they died quick and in sucession, the father buried them in the backyard and said, "They weren't good pets."
*
we cleaned up after ourselves and never ate breakfast late. we tried our best to be ourselves but it was hard sometimes, to know how to be. "If I am not myself, who am I?" you asked. We played a game called Pretend and Pretended to be: robots; soldiers; people in space; monsters; families; princes and knights. At night we dreamt of looney tunes and for one week I accurately foresaw which episode they would run next, right there in bed. You said, "What if you only get so much psychic power, and you used yours all up?" We laughed and laughed and maybe it was true.
*
Story 2:
He wished for a toy. He wished for a game to play on his computer. He wished to kiss Kate, Jenny, and Kerrie. He wished to not move away, it was hard enough to find a friend the first time. He was very worried that if he said the wish the wrong way that the universe would interpret his words wrong.
Years later, he saw how the wish, as he worded it, was the problem all along.
*
If Dad had been a writer, owned a laundromat, worked at a pet store, what might have been? He tried all those things, plus selling disposable dental tools, and digital clocks w/letter opener. What if you only get so much time, and then you use it all up? It was hard to be yourself in our house. When we Pretended Sam and Spike were pets, they died and no wishing brought them back. Sometimes Dad spoke and it was like lightning; sometimes we whispered our secrets and they were like a wind, with nowhere to blow but between the four walls he bought for us -- as he changed time to chores for money so we could be warm, watch TV, and dream of who we might be...
12.26.2007
The whore of the Horror Plunge
She shows leg. She shows her leg. This is the divorce. Oh, porter! Oh, porter! This is the divorce stage. The early stage. The first time she is engaged in divorce and socially, most appropriately, the last--oh, I apologize, the final. She is american, like the flag is american, like the colors, they too, like they too are american. They are all american. America, Gus mentions, casually: Porter! Porter!
It was a sitcom, the first run through was a sitcom, a love story. She was pretty and short and....no, again: she was pretty and tall and lean and blonde and he was strong and firm and rational....no, again: he was an uncut statue, a human hero, a roman undug congressman. Oh, the Roman's were, yes, were so romantic.
She is on her pill, again, broke, peppered by the whistle, the church bells, anything spiritual at all. Any state leader, moderator, would be encouraged by the moderate music of fidelity. Ah, there is a heroine. She, yes, yes, the she that is completely compelled to be herself is indeed herself!
She shows leg and she attracts attention. There are only three million women in New York City and most of them are not attracted by other women. I am not competing with the other women, Hank insists but the color of the sun, like the color of the earth, is suggesting, perhaps erotically: we were erotic, we were sexual, we were un-crying men, we were loving ourselves, ourselves were so much to be loved--SHE SHOWED HER LEG.
Exposed: finally, exacted, flaunt! flaunt! She has no longer caught our curiousity. There are three million men in New York City and they are not interested in the woman who shows her leg. However, however, simply exhilirated, angered, exasperated, TORN. The whore of the male's animal plunge. The whore of the male and his animal plunge.
The horror of the plunge. I am just a show of my leg anyway, she wrote and she was not upset, not at all.
It was a sitcom, the first run through was a sitcom, a love story. She was pretty and short and....no, again: she was pretty and tall and lean and blonde and he was strong and firm and rational....no, again: he was an uncut statue, a human hero, a roman undug congressman. Oh, the Roman's were, yes, were so romantic.
She is on her pill, again, broke, peppered by the whistle, the church bells, anything spiritual at all. Any state leader, moderator, would be encouraged by the moderate music of fidelity. Ah, there is a heroine. She, yes, yes, the she that is completely compelled to be herself is indeed herself!
She shows leg and she attracts attention. There are only three million women in New York City and most of them are not attracted by other women. I am not competing with the other women, Hank insists but the color of the sun, like the color of the earth, is suggesting, perhaps erotically: we were erotic, we were sexual, we were un-crying men, we were loving ourselves, ourselves were so much to be loved--SHE SHOWED HER LEG.
Exposed: finally, exacted, flaunt! flaunt! She has no longer caught our curiousity. There are three million men in New York City and they are not interested in the woman who shows her leg. However, however, simply exhilirated, angered, exasperated, TORN. The whore of the male's animal plunge. The whore of the male and his animal plunge.
The horror of the plunge. I am just a show of my leg anyway, she wrote and she was not upset, not at all.
Walnuts
The reasons for the seas were lost in long lines coiled and made into the letters A G C T under our skin. "CAT G?" She asked and laughed. "Like a gansta?" But it was only sort of funny. The clouds kept circling the earth, vultures kept to the deserts and eagles were scarcer and scarcer in America. I saw one once, in a small nest, stuffed and waiting for her egg to hatch. "Momma eagle on a Grecian urn, huh?" But it was not funny.
When we were kids she said, "Heaven is like a white line on white paper," and we thought about that for a while before Bob Dylan came on the readio & told us not to think twice. So we kissed, and I walked back home on the empty night roads for the first time in my life. "Click, click," said the traffic lights. Later I would spend many nights on Walnut Street, high and hungover, listening to the lights after a day of school and talking calmly to pedophiles. What was their reason? And what about their victims?
Can you spell evil with four letters?
"L-I-V-E," said Tommy. "I LIVE in a house."
Good job, Tommy. What else can you spell?
"Lots of things!"
Then he would be alright. The ones who worried me were the bad spellers, the kids who didn't know where they lived and couldn't tell you who lived with them anyway. Like Marshall.
"Oh, you're always thinking about Marshall," she said. "Marhsall Marshall Marshall." Then she looked sad. I don't blame her, though. I try to be present, try to stay in the HERE and NOW and not the SOMEWHERE back THEN, or worse, wander off into A LONG TIME AGO...
Can you spell LIVE?
"Nah, I no good at spellin."
What are you good at?
"Rappin."
You want to rap for me?
"Nah."
You sure?
"Mmn, ok." "Freestyle. You write it for me?" Marshall's eyes were very white, and he did not smell very good.
You want me to write down what you say?
"Mmn, yeah. Ready?"
*
MARSHALL's RAP:
All I need in this world is my bitch, my bitch
My glock nine, my fo five
My shotgun, I'll kill you nigga
All I need in this world is my bitch, my bitch
My glock nine, my fo five
My shotgun, I'll kill you nigga
*
"Wait, you wrote that down for him?" She looked worried. I didn't know Marshall was stealing from someone, a grown man who got paid plenty for the rhymes I made him change. When we spelled out the new words togther, Marshall tried his best to sound them out; but he didn't have the same letters in his brain, they weren't hooked up to sound like A is A and G is G. So mostly I did the spelling. Later, you know, later he---
"I know, Adam, I know." And took my hand.
She already knew this story.
*
Sometimes our memories circle round us and we are in the desert; sometimes we circle around them. The egg won't hatch, it's made of plaster, and anyway there is no Momma Eagle, no Grecian Urn, and truth is not the reason for the sea or what one man does to a boy with his body, or through the radio, or in a quiet office 17 floors above a street named for a beautiful tree. "You're nuts about walnuts," she said.
And that, we both agreed, was really funny.
When we were kids she said, "Heaven is like a white line on white paper," and we thought about that for a while before Bob Dylan came on the readio & told us not to think twice. So we kissed, and I walked back home on the empty night roads for the first time in my life. "Click, click," said the traffic lights. Later I would spend many nights on Walnut Street, high and hungover, listening to the lights after a day of school and talking calmly to pedophiles. What was their reason? And what about their victims?
Can you spell evil with four letters?
"L-I-V-E," said Tommy. "I LIVE in a house."
Good job, Tommy. What else can you spell?
"Lots of things!"
Then he would be alright. The ones who worried me were the bad spellers, the kids who didn't know where they lived and couldn't tell you who lived with them anyway. Like Marshall.
"Oh, you're always thinking about Marshall," she said. "Marhsall Marshall Marshall." Then she looked sad. I don't blame her, though. I try to be present, try to stay in the HERE and NOW and not the SOMEWHERE back THEN, or worse, wander off into A LONG TIME AGO...
Can you spell LIVE?
"Nah, I no good at spellin."
What are you good at?
"Rappin."
You want to rap for me?
"Nah."
You sure?
"Mmn, ok." "Freestyle. You write it for me?" Marshall's eyes were very white, and he did not smell very good.
You want me to write down what you say?
"Mmn, yeah. Ready?"
*
MARSHALL's RAP:
All I need in this world is my bitch, my bitch
My glock nine, my fo five
My shotgun, I'll kill you nigga
All I need in this world is my bitch, my bitch
My glock nine, my fo five
My shotgun, I'll kill you nigga
*
"Wait, you wrote that down for him?" She looked worried. I didn't know Marshall was stealing from someone, a grown man who got paid plenty for the rhymes I made him change. When we spelled out the new words togther, Marshall tried his best to sound them out; but he didn't have the same letters in his brain, they weren't hooked up to sound like A is A and G is G. So mostly I did the spelling. Later, you know, later he---
"I know, Adam, I know." And took my hand.
She already knew this story.
*
Sometimes our memories circle round us and we are in the desert; sometimes we circle around them. The egg won't hatch, it's made of plaster, and anyway there is no Momma Eagle, no Grecian Urn, and truth is not the reason for the sea or what one man does to a boy with his body, or through the radio, or in a quiet office 17 floors above a street named for a beautiful tree. "You're nuts about walnuts," she said.
And that, we both agreed, was really funny.
She was Weepy
He is accostomed to drinking, to binging really. "Unequal abilities actually," notes his wife, Lucy, mild, engaging and periodically afraid. Recent nourishments and acts, while not merely alcohol, considerably improved his standing as most likely to be shot in the face while exiting Melvin's Southern Tavern and Restaurant. "He just has a loose tongue," yes, she remarks, unremarkably, his wife, his long standing wife, his companion, his life partner--she is attached, yes it is documented: attached. Lucy, oh Lucy, she was the athletic samaritan, lacrosse practice and then suicide hot-lines, soup kitchens, yes, yes, of course.
He was most likely to be shot in the face after muttering, indeed perhaps exclaiming, some outrageous claim of human evolution, some claim of familial fame. The bushes, the rose bushes, were an excuse, later an error on Lucy's fault. He seemed the gardening type but his disposition would not permit it, no, his daily habit, his routine, his lifestyle would not permit it. They were life partneres, remember and she was likely to console herself in medicines, cabinets, bathrooms. I am so weepy, she would say and indeed, she would think: and it is my birthday!
There are seldom reasons to excuse the nature of a predator. Escalations do not occur. There is no breaking point--it is always breaking. The owner of Melvin's Southern Tavern did not encourage the action of the man. "The engagement, the future engagement, was more like a promise than a dare," he was quoted as saying. Someone overheard him. It was more like a promise.
"What a way for him to exhale," Lucy said later. He was shot in the face coming out of a tavern because of a dare--no it was a promise. He was prone to binges and they were aggressive binges. There is little but personal attacks at the end of binges. "I hate myself," he said before he died. And Lucy was weeping, right there in front of Melvin's Southern Tavern. She was weeping and she felt very weepy.
He was most likely to be shot in the face after muttering, indeed perhaps exclaiming, some outrageous claim of human evolution, some claim of familial fame. The bushes, the rose bushes, were an excuse, later an error on Lucy's fault. He seemed the gardening type but his disposition would not permit it, no, his daily habit, his routine, his lifestyle would not permit it. They were life partneres, remember and she was likely to console herself in medicines, cabinets, bathrooms. I am so weepy, she would say and indeed, she would think: and it is my birthday!
There are seldom reasons to excuse the nature of a predator. Escalations do not occur. There is no breaking point--it is always breaking. The owner of Melvin's Southern Tavern did not encourage the action of the man. "The engagement, the future engagement, was more like a promise than a dare," he was quoted as saying. Someone overheard him. It was more like a promise.
"What a way for him to exhale," Lucy said later. He was shot in the face coming out of a tavern because of a dare--no it was a promise. He was prone to binges and they were aggressive binges. There is little but personal attacks at the end of binges. "I hate myself," he said before he died. And Lucy was weeping, right there in front of Melvin's Southern Tavern. She was weeping and she felt very weepy.
12.21.2007
the just dead
The madness, least of all, even, un-split, unequivocal sexuality. There were, to count, on the various introductions, five, perhaps even six, inappropriate gestures, slang interventions. Cruel to the least of the un-observant. Unquick? Yes, his reply. Unquick? By chance, evening prayers, morning breakfast, state-house reply. Unquick? Yes, his reply—not un-quick? No, sir. Not here, corrected and verbally confirmed. By voice? Again, perhaps. The uneasy, the squirmy, the wobbly protest, meager, feeble, junky—protest! The junky protest, all of them, the addicts, the depth chart five, addicts, unfounded in the undiscovered……Yes….the wraps, by chance, indeed, by chance, find the wraps:
They are buried after they are massacred, slaughtered, murdered—or just dead, correct? Yes, or just dead. Or they are buried, simply buried. Regardless. Yes. But not suicide?
Not suicide?
No, even suicide. It is beginning to assume that the new leadership will conduct a thorough investigation into the nature of suicide, in a very scientific and progressive manner and in which (of course conclusions are not yet obtained nor in any way pretend to be leaked nor coerced in this statement) the full truth of the all apparently assisted suicides will be appropriately assessed. We believe, of course...of course...
The madness, least of all, even, un-split unequivocal sexuality. She was, to name a few, an exceptional woman. In the midst of unnatural confusion, brought on by the surgical error of one senior physician at General Memorial, there was no accurate analysis, no final and conclusive data, on her final—junky! Yes, she was a junky, a split up and torn up junky. And she will remember that, peacefully, but far from suicidal in her intent, far from intending suicide—from wanting suicide.
They are massacred, slaughtered, murdered—no, they are just dead.
They are buried after they are massacred, slaughtered, murdered—or just dead, correct? Yes, or just dead. Or they are buried, simply buried. Regardless. Yes. But not suicide?
Not suicide?
No, even suicide. It is beginning to assume that the new leadership will conduct a thorough investigation into the nature of suicide, in a very scientific and progressive manner and in which (of course conclusions are not yet obtained nor in any way pretend to be leaked nor coerced in this statement) the full truth of the all apparently assisted suicides will be appropriately assessed. We believe, of course...of course...
The madness, least of all, even, un-split unequivocal sexuality. She was, to name a few, an exceptional woman. In the midst of unnatural confusion, brought on by the surgical error of one senior physician at General Memorial, there was no accurate analysis, no final and conclusive data, on her final—junky! Yes, she was a junky, a split up and torn up junky. And she will remember that, peacefully, but far from suicidal in her intent, far from intending suicide—from wanting suicide.
They are massacred, slaughtered, murdered—no, they are just dead.
11.24.2007
Property Values Appear To be Ok
The buildings are still only paper but they are arguing over property value and crime rates. Possible crime rates—potential crime rates. There were fifteen assaults in the neighborhood most like this one last week alone, Mark insists. He is barely out of breath, sweating—and studying, the papers, the new buildings. The new buildings are only on paper. They are just drawings, sketches, for the other side of town. Projections of what the city will pay and what the buildings will pay the city. It is not a neighborhood like that one, Ruth scoffs. That one was full of—
The criminals are plotting underground now, Seth whispers.
—the improperly educated, Ruth corrects herself. She is apologetic for the slur, the inappropriate slur. The mis-use of the language. We shall applaud the construction. But it is only paper. Only now is it paper. Mark is bending, at the knees and he is staring at the buildings on the paper and imagining them climbing, climbing out off the desk and into the ceiling and through the floor above this floor, into the fifty-seventh floor. Yes, right into Mr. Clayton’s office. Between the sculpture of the naked Madonna, the cheap naked Madonna, taste—
I suppose, eventually, I am permitted tastes that neither suggest over-indulgence nor gaudy and class-less inspiration nor, of course, impoverished histories, social justice orientation, Seth concludes. They hired me to act as a kill then, as I was permitted. He discloses, unworried by the flashing lights, the skin, the human female skin. It is carved into the mold of this purely perfected oasis…ah, that was the quote they allowed me to keep, Seth remembers. Of course. Until she called me—
I am permitted one fire arm and one pack of chewing gum, standard chewing gum, store bought, bodega bought, nothing flashy, fancy. Those weren’t criminals plotting. You were a killer, she flashes skin again. No, he says, I was taught to kill, more likely, they had me to act as I would if I were a kill. They have not legalized it, not yet. The buildings were still on paper, for Christ sake, on the bloody paper, they hadn’t finalized the capital initiatives, the oversight, the policing, the detentions, nothing. It was on paper—
We have ten assaults on this block, Mark notes. Those weren’t assaults, Ruth interrupts again, those were purely fabricated misunderstandings. So they were misunderstandings? Yes. Then they are not fabricated. No, they were invented, not real, no actors—a response team was sent to investigate, to hypothesize, to venture an estimate. Where will we build? Here and here—
And then it lit up. The tree through the floor, through the naked Madonna—the tasteless, cliché, naked Madonna in Mr. Clayton’s office. And they had you to act as a kill? The others were weak, unfed. But it was on paper. The buildings were on paper? Of course the buildings were on paper—you think anybody actually ever lived there. So you were a kill to inhabitants that were not there—
They weren’t there, the criminal minds were below, in the cellar, soiled. No, but there were kills, too many kills, ten, fifteen. In buildings that did not exist yet, did not have infrastructure to house, to be, to act as, a community. So who are you killing anyway, really. It was all on a piece of paper.
I think we should build over here, Mark suggests. He points to a place on the corner of the desk. It is safer over there, he says. Jesus Christ, Ruth spits, it’s a goddamn piece of paper in an office on a desk. No, you could assume, Mr. Clayton didn’t like the naked Madonna either.
[s]
The criminals are plotting underground now, Seth whispers.
—the improperly educated, Ruth corrects herself. She is apologetic for the slur, the inappropriate slur. The mis-use of the language. We shall applaud the construction. But it is only paper. Only now is it paper. Mark is bending, at the knees and he is staring at the buildings on the paper and imagining them climbing, climbing out off the desk and into the ceiling and through the floor above this floor, into the fifty-seventh floor. Yes, right into Mr. Clayton’s office. Between the sculpture of the naked Madonna, the cheap naked Madonna, taste—
I suppose, eventually, I am permitted tastes that neither suggest over-indulgence nor gaudy and class-less inspiration nor, of course, impoverished histories, social justice orientation, Seth concludes. They hired me to act as a kill then, as I was permitted. He discloses, unworried by the flashing lights, the skin, the human female skin. It is carved into the mold of this purely perfected oasis…ah, that was the quote they allowed me to keep, Seth remembers. Of course. Until she called me—
I am permitted one fire arm and one pack of chewing gum, standard chewing gum, store bought, bodega bought, nothing flashy, fancy. Those weren’t criminals plotting. You were a killer, she flashes skin again. No, he says, I was taught to kill, more likely, they had me to act as I would if I were a kill. They have not legalized it, not yet. The buildings were still on paper, for Christ sake, on the bloody paper, they hadn’t finalized the capital initiatives, the oversight, the policing, the detentions, nothing. It was on paper—
We have ten assaults on this block, Mark notes. Those weren’t assaults, Ruth interrupts again, those were purely fabricated misunderstandings. So they were misunderstandings? Yes. Then they are not fabricated. No, they were invented, not real, no actors—a response team was sent to investigate, to hypothesize, to venture an estimate. Where will we build? Here and here—
And then it lit up. The tree through the floor, through the naked Madonna—the tasteless, cliché, naked Madonna in Mr. Clayton’s office. And they had you to act as a kill? The others were weak, unfed. But it was on paper. The buildings were on paper? Of course the buildings were on paper—you think anybody actually ever lived there. So you were a kill to inhabitants that were not there—
They weren’t there, the criminal minds were below, in the cellar, soiled. No, but there were kills, too many kills, ten, fifteen. In buildings that did not exist yet, did not have infrastructure to house, to be, to act as, a community. So who are you killing anyway, really. It was all on a piece of paper.
I think we should build over here, Mark suggests. He points to a place on the corner of the desk. It is safer over there, he says. Jesus Christ, Ruth spits, it’s a goddamn piece of paper in an office on a desk. No, you could assume, Mr. Clayton didn’t like the naked Madonna either.
[s]
11.10.2007
no, not any of us is unfed
The dim and realized failure, far from ignored or neglected, resolves itself to complete and entitled success--capitalized, determined. The man, himself, is unnoticeable, uneager, resigned. It was, at last, then, removed and insignificantly hyped, turned into an opera, a posted and reviewed one man suggestion. He is, of course, a single man, harbored by his insecurity, a cove of sorts. The usual back and forth discourse concerning the relationships of objects of animals and indeed (at least lately) of furniture has required a modern approach to lifestyle. He may no longer, so coyly as his presentation permits, act studiously uninterested.
Further insight into the depressive state, as dictated by the imaginative and spiritually homeless man, is useless, vague. She is a woman of character and wealth and promise. A woman of property, of renewed vigor. A fictitious widow. There is but the lingering denial, so aptly cornered in her skirt, in her manner of astute address. Yes, she is to be sought and un-ignored while her counterpart and deceased yet ably mobile partner is loosely morbid, depressed. He is depressed, my dear. The early state, of which he would later mock as overwhelmingly simplified and exaggerated, was morning cocktails and afternoon naps. Later, as justified by the Star, he was neither malingering in his love for puppets nor manipulative in his abuse. Both were straight forward, given, granted, stated and never modified nor justified.
It is never decidedly inclusive to casually suppose the martyr, the woman of property so eagerly consumed by the spiritual indigent. Her romance and her disposition demand necessity in the communal survival, indeed the collective church: the social configuration of this state. Oh, she exclaims, heartily, eagerly, modestly, this is most exclusive. No, no, he was not ever truly unsettled or discomforted. No, not any longer--you see, there are no friends any longer.
Further insight into the depressive state, as dictated by the imaginative and spiritually homeless man, is useless, vague. She is a woman of character and wealth and promise. A woman of property, of renewed vigor. A fictitious widow. There is but the lingering denial, so aptly cornered in her skirt, in her manner of astute address. Yes, she is to be sought and un-ignored while her counterpart and deceased yet ably mobile partner is loosely morbid, depressed. He is depressed, my dear. The early state, of which he would later mock as overwhelmingly simplified and exaggerated, was morning cocktails and afternoon naps. Later, as justified by the Star, he was neither malingering in his love for puppets nor manipulative in his abuse. Both were straight forward, given, granted, stated and never modified nor justified.
It is never decidedly inclusive to casually suppose the martyr, the woman of property so eagerly consumed by the spiritual indigent. Her romance and her disposition demand necessity in the communal survival, indeed the collective church: the social configuration of this state. Oh, she exclaims, heartily, eagerly, modestly, this is most exclusive. No, no, he was not ever truly unsettled or discomforted. No, not any longer--you see, there are no friends any longer.
9.21.2007
we welcome back, the un-back
again, as supposed, as perhaps seen, as again. the progress has finally become un-ceased. there are moments, untitled moments. so, as detailed, as demanded, as the dictation requires: we welcome back the un-back.
8.23.2006
Just Make Yourself Look Pretty, Sally
a.
It is an hour walk to the well and there are children and women and old men at the well. The sun is hot and yellow and I have turned dark and callous in the afternoon. The end of the wellborn child, against the sand, struts into a leadership role and plagues himself with nude walks.
Fuck off.
b.
He is red, she says and she is spent and she is a hooker. We are tired of hookers in the backyard. They aren’t using the toilets. That is Garrison. He is the banker and he makes $4.25 an hour because it is no longer 1950. I only have twenties and fifties, Garrison says. The hag needs to make it to the store so she can buy eggs.
Get the fuck out of my store.
c.
There is sound in the other room, there is music there, and people are playing instruments and the instruments are the guitar, the cello, the saxophone, and the drums. They are pretty talented and energized and there is good music.
But I don’t fucking care.
d.
In the morning of the fourth day that I quit trying to have sex with the fat girl that liked to sit at the bar, my hand turned yellow and I began to vomit because I had bad fucking karma. Jesus didn’t help me either and I told him as much.
I bought a piece of shit motorcycle and it broke down on 101.
e.
It is fifty-three miles across the southern part of the state. Troy biked it in four hours because there were a lot of hills. He ate a hamburger and he drank a milkshake and he told the waitress that he didn’t want fucking mayonnaise on his hamburger.
I don’t fucking care what you want, she said.
f.
The end of the year came and it wouldn’t have really mattered what happened in January. The goddamn children were still at the well and I still had to wait in line and it was hot as fuck.
g.
Everyone else, all of them, is just mutes.
[s]
It is an hour walk to the well and there are children and women and old men at the well. The sun is hot and yellow and I have turned dark and callous in the afternoon. The end of the wellborn child, against the sand, struts into a leadership role and plagues himself with nude walks.
Fuck off.
b.
He is red, she says and she is spent and she is a hooker. We are tired of hookers in the backyard. They aren’t using the toilets. That is Garrison. He is the banker and he makes $4.25 an hour because it is no longer 1950. I only have twenties and fifties, Garrison says. The hag needs to make it to the store so she can buy eggs.
Get the fuck out of my store.
c.
There is sound in the other room, there is music there, and people are playing instruments and the instruments are the guitar, the cello, the saxophone, and the drums. They are pretty talented and energized and there is good music.
But I don’t fucking care.
d.
In the morning of the fourth day that I quit trying to have sex with the fat girl that liked to sit at the bar, my hand turned yellow and I began to vomit because I had bad fucking karma. Jesus didn’t help me either and I told him as much.
I bought a piece of shit motorcycle and it broke down on 101.
e.
It is fifty-three miles across the southern part of the state. Troy biked it in four hours because there were a lot of hills. He ate a hamburger and he drank a milkshake and he told the waitress that he didn’t want fucking mayonnaise on his hamburger.
I don’t fucking care what you want, she said.
f.
The end of the year came and it wouldn’t have really mattered what happened in January. The goddamn children were still at the well and I still had to wait in line and it was hot as fuck.
g.
Everyone else, all of them, is just mutes.
[s]
8.11.2006
we aren't going to let anybody survive in those tunnels
I gave him a rifle and he took it into the hole in the ground and he started shooting and I think he was shooting with his eyes closed. At first, there was some shrieking, little person shrieking, and then there was a whole bunch of shrieking. Later, he came up all bloody and dirty and his eyes were like little lanterns. It was a good first shooting for the boy and I thought that he had come out a lot older and a lot more mature. It’s about time he learned how to defend himself.
His teacher taught him to multiply four’s the next morning and the next afternoon he learned a new word and the word was stoic: The four men shot little pigeons in the garage and then the four men went into the house and ate and then the four men came out of the house and went into the army and the whole time the men were silent and stoic.
That’s an awfully long sentence but it sure is good. The only problem is that it might be too good and soon Mrs. Teacher is going to be calling the trailer and spouting some bullshit about college and after school tutoring and hell, that is just a little bit too much attention. Attention will probably get you shot.
I have tried to tell the little bugger that a bunch of times and I think he is just starting to get it.
The plan at the beginning of the school year was to be as normal as possible—to sit and not make any noise to not bother anybody and to not get any attention. Any attention is bad, I told him when he was seven. He had been caught shoplifting from Dave’s Fish ‘N Tackle and they had arrested him right away and taken him in the back and beaten him with a blackjack.
He deserved it and I told him as much.
Besides, there is something incredibly wrong with trying to make the teacher smile when she looks at you or trying to make the teacher look at you at all. I used to try to do that but that was before I knew anything about my nature and about my purpose. About ten years ago, though, my guidance counselor set me all straight. He said that I would probably lead an immobile and unvarying existence and that it would probably afford me the ability to avoid all inconvenient responsibility. I thought he gave me a pretty good and sound evaluation. And that was when I started the no-attention getting philosophy.
Since then, things have worked pretty well, for the most part.
The friggin little boy, though, the one that lives next door keeps getting himself in a bunch of fits and struggles and the police keep coming into the neighborhood and asking all sorts of questions about our fences and our storage areas. One of these days I am going to have to send my boy over there and straighten that little boy out.
Beyond all the no-attention teachings, I keep my boy up to speed on all the important happenings in the neighborhood and in our country. I tell my boy the truth about the world. I don’t hide from the boy and that is why I gave him the shotgun, or maybe it was just a rifle. Those people in those tunnels, they come from another country, I tell him. Those people come here because their own country is bad and has no jobs or food or good places to live. Those people are an inconvenience and a nuisance in our country, and probably in their own no-good country too. So they come into this country, all sneaky, and they try to plant themselves here like they always been here. But it's always been just us here and nobody else. All that talk got him pretty excited and he had to get into that tunnel. And I let him go.
And the first time he came up from the tunnels I noticed that he had sort of accidentally pissed himself and he was a little bit frightened. I figured the next time he went down in that tunnel he should take a shotgun because then the little escapees won’t be bleeding and rolling in the mud after they are shot. Hell, they’ll probably be dead right away.
Besides, the boy is done real good this year at keeping out of sight. I haven't gotten any phone calls from Mrs. Teacher or any of those other whores. In the end, all the good behavior makes for a mighty good summer and we indeed celebrate.
On the fourth of July, my wife gives me a gas grill and we cook burgers and celebrate the great land that has always been America and we celebrate about how good we are at keeping those stupid bastards out of our country. Later that night some man in an American flag t-shirt says that there are some silly men on the news who think they can blow us up. I’ll blow them right back up after, my son says and my wife is happy to know that I have raised the boy right in the ways of protection.
[s]
His teacher taught him to multiply four’s the next morning and the next afternoon he learned a new word and the word was stoic: The four men shot little pigeons in the garage and then the four men went into the house and ate and then the four men came out of the house and went into the army and the whole time the men were silent and stoic.
That’s an awfully long sentence but it sure is good. The only problem is that it might be too good and soon Mrs. Teacher is going to be calling the trailer and spouting some bullshit about college and after school tutoring and hell, that is just a little bit too much attention. Attention will probably get you shot.
I have tried to tell the little bugger that a bunch of times and I think he is just starting to get it.
The plan at the beginning of the school year was to be as normal as possible—to sit and not make any noise to not bother anybody and to not get any attention. Any attention is bad, I told him when he was seven. He had been caught shoplifting from Dave’s Fish ‘N Tackle and they had arrested him right away and taken him in the back and beaten him with a blackjack.
He deserved it and I told him as much.
Besides, there is something incredibly wrong with trying to make the teacher smile when she looks at you or trying to make the teacher look at you at all. I used to try to do that but that was before I knew anything about my nature and about my purpose. About ten years ago, though, my guidance counselor set me all straight. He said that I would probably lead an immobile and unvarying existence and that it would probably afford me the ability to avoid all inconvenient responsibility. I thought he gave me a pretty good and sound evaluation. And that was when I started the no-attention getting philosophy.
Since then, things have worked pretty well, for the most part.
The friggin little boy, though, the one that lives next door keeps getting himself in a bunch of fits and struggles and the police keep coming into the neighborhood and asking all sorts of questions about our fences and our storage areas. One of these days I am going to have to send my boy over there and straighten that little boy out.
Beyond all the no-attention teachings, I keep my boy up to speed on all the important happenings in the neighborhood and in our country. I tell my boy the truth about the world. I don’t hide from the boy and that is why I gave him the shotgun, or maybe it was just a rifle. Those people in those tunnels, they come from another country, I tell him. Those people come here because their own country is bad and has no jobs or food or good places to live. Those people are an inconvenience and a nuisance in our country, and probably in their own no-good country too. So they come into this country, all sneaky, and they try to plant themselves here like they always been here. But it's always been just us here and nobody else. All that talk got him pretty excited and he had to get into that tunnel. And I let him go.
And the first time he came up from the tunnels I noticed that he had sort of accidentally pissed himself and he was a little bit frightened. I figured the next time he went down in that tunnel he should take a shotgun because then the little escapees won’t be bleeding and rolling in the mud after they are shot. Hell, they’ll probably be dead right away.
Besides, the boy is done real good this year at keeping out of sight. I haven't gotten any phone calls from Mrs. Teacher or any of those other whores. In the end, all the good behavior makes for a mighty good summer and we indeed celebrate.
On the fourth of July, my wife gives me a gas grill and we cook burgers and celebrate the great land that has always been America and we celebrate about how good we are at keeping those stupid bastards out of our country. Later that night some man in an American flag t-shirt says that there are some silly men on the news who think they can blow us up. I’ll blow them right back up after, my son says and my wife is happy to know that I have raised the boy right in the ways of protection.
[s]
8.09.2006
His heart is going to stop and he is soon to be dead
A.
The cardiology department is on the fifth floor, the nurse says. The nurse is tall and thin and the nurse looks like an athlete. I bet she is a good athlete, George thinks and he walks to the elevator and presses the button that says five.
There is a man on the floor of the hospital lobby. The man has a hole in his chest and he is bleeding and he is asking the nurse for a glass of water. There are missiles outside and the missiles are going off on the street and there are loud explosions and some of the children, the small children, are crying. George stands in the elevator and watches the numbers light up: one, two, three, four, five.
George gets off the elevator.
B.
There are signs for the cardiology department on the fifth floor. The signs point to the left. The sings are made of cardboard. George follows the signs. There are a considerable amount of people on this floor, George thinks.
Most of the people are old. They have hearts that have lasted a very long time.
My grandmother reads Life Magazine because it makes her happy, George says. Life is a magazine about other people. There are pictures of other people in Life Magazine. At least she has a heart that is very strong and has been able to last a long time, Mary says.
Oh yeah, George thinks, Mary did come with me.
George doesn’t smile at first but a bag of a woman with a blue wool hat smiles and waves. Maybe this visit will be quite humorous, George thinks. Just this one visit. The woman is sitting on a bench and she has a really large smile. She waves again. She is not quite well. Yes, George decides, this visit will be quite humorous. George is not decidedly upset anymore.
You know Mary, George says, I wouldn’t generally smile. I would be agitated and nervous and I would be fidgeting—you know how I fidget when these things come around. I wouldn’t be in a good mood, I wouldn’t be in a good mood at all. But I suppose there isn’t really that much that you can do when you know that your heart is going to go out like a cheap balloon.
It will just go—pop.
C.
The doctor is whispering and George sits in his hospital robe and he stares at a machine that has many buttons and dials. An ultra sound image of George’s heart is frozen on the screen. George looks at his heart on the screen. His humor has lessened over the past few minutes but he is not quite morose.
There are holes in his heart, the doctor says to Mary. It is going to be quite difficult for him to breathe and he is going to take many short breaths all day long and he might go black in the eyes sometimes.
He is going to faint?
Sure, I imagine that he will. He will likely collapse a couple of times. But those are just the strokes. And the strokes are really just getting the clots out. The doctor is a good doctor and he drives a Mercedes and he has two daughters. He is from the mainland, from a small village on the mainland. He eats brown rice and he works on the exercise machines because it is good for his heart.
Mary is sweating and she is noticeably nervous. She wore her white blouse and her straight black pants today. She wanted to act professional and her professional clothes usually make her act proper and, indeed, professional. She does the same thing when she is ill. She wears clothes that are professional and she feels less ill.
It is almost as though you aren’t supposed to feel ill in certain clothes.
But now she is terribly upset and her make-up begins to make her look like she is a clown and she is crying because it is really rather sad that George is not doing all that well. Actually, it doesn’t fucking matter that she is wearing her black pants.
The doctor says hello to George. George says hello to the doctor.
The doctor plays with the machine and the doctor talks to another doctor. The other doctor is a woman doctor and both doctors nod their heads and point at the screen and they seem to be talking about something very serious, very grave. He didn’t take care of that at all, the woman doctor says. No he didn’t, the doctor says and he agrees.
I didn’t, George says and sighs. I think I saw them laugh a bit though, George thinks. But maybe it was just a doctor laugh. Maybe it was a bit of a he’s dead so let’s move on laugh. But that is clearly not true because George is still sitting in the hospital and George is definitely not dead.
D.
To tell the truth, though, there aren’t really any missiles outside and there aren’t really any explosions either. But the cardiology department is on the fifth floor.
[s]
The cardiology department is on the fifth floor, the nurse says. The nurse is tall and thin and the nurse looks like an athlete. I bet she is a good athlete, George thinks and he walks to the elevator and presses the button that says five.
There is a man on the floor of the hospital lobby. The man has a hole in his chest and he is bleeding and he is asking the nurse for a glass of water. There are missiles outside and the missiles are going off on the street and there are loud explosions and some of the children, the small children, are crying. George stands in the elevator and watches the numbers light up: one, two, three, four, five.
George gets off the elevator.
B.
There are signs for the cardiology department on the fifth floor. The signs point to the left. The sings are made of cardboard. George follows the signs. There are a considerable amount of people on this floor, George thinks.
Most of the people are old. They have hearts that have lasted a very long time.
My grandmother reads Life Magazine because it makes her happy, George says. Life is a magazine about other people. There are pictures of other people in Life Magazine. At least she has a heart that is very strong and has been able to last a long time, Mary says.
Oh yeah, George thinks, Mary did come with me.
George doesn’t smile at first but a bag of a woman with a blue wool hat smiles and waves. Maybe this visit will be quite humorous, George thinks. Just this one visit. The woman is sitting on a bench and she has a really large smile. She waves again. She is not quite well. Yes, George decides, this visit will be quite humorous. George is not decidedly upset anymore.
You know Mary, George says, I wouldn’t generally smile. I would be agitated and nervous and I would be fidgeting—you know how I fidget when these things come around. I wouldn’t be in a good mood, I wouldn’t be in a good mood at all. But I suppose there isn’t really that much that you can do when you know that your heart is going to go out like a cheap balloon.
It will just go—pop.
C.
The doctor is whispering and George sits in his hospital robe and he stares at a machine that has many buttons and dials. An ultra sound image of George’s heart is frozen on the screen. George looks at his heart on the screen. His humor has lessened over the past few minutes but he is not quite morose.
There are holes in his heart, the doctor says to Mary. It is going to be quite difficult for him to breathe and he is going to take many short breaths all day long and he might go black in the eyes sometimes.
He is going to faint?
Sure, I imagine that he will. He will likely collapse a couple of times. But those are just the strokes. And the strokes are really just getting the clots out. The doctor is a good doctor and he drives a Mercedes and he has two daughters. He is from the mainland, from a small village on the mainland. He eats brown rice and he works on the exercise machines because it is good for his heart.
Mary is sweating and she is noticeably nervous. She wore her white blouse and her straight black pants today. She wanted to act professional and her professional clothes usually make her act proper and, indeed, professional. She does the same thing when she is ill. She wears clothes that are professional and she feels less ill.
It is almost as though you aren’t supposed to feel ill in certain clothes.
But now she is terribly upset and her make-up begins to make her look like she is a clown and she is crying because it is really rather sad that George is not doing all that well. Actually, it doesn’t fucking matter that she is wearing her black pants.
The doctor says hello to George. George says hello to the doctor.
The doctor plays with the machine and the doctor talks to another doctor. The other doctor is a woman doctor and both doctors nod their heads and point at the screen and they seem to be talking about something very serious, very grave. He didn’t take care of that at all, the woman doctor says. No he didn’t, the doctor says and he agrees.
I didn’t, George says and sighs. I think I saw them laugh a bit though, George thinks. But maybe it was just a doctor laugh. Maybe it was a bit of a he’s dead so let’s move on laugh. But that is clearly not true because George is still sitting in the hospital and George is definitely not dead.
D.
To tell the truth, though, there aren’t really any missiles outside and there aren’t really any explosions either. But the cardiology department is on the fifth floor.
[s]
8.04.2006
The extremists in the north want to murder our babies
There is a howl and the women with babies are in a well and the babies are screaming and the women are asking for help. This, perhaps, is the result of one idea that arose at the end of the last century. There were others, of course, but the other ideas were eventually and eagerly disregarded.
After a considerable amount of debate, it was decided that the one idea would be granted permission to secede all other designs presented by foundations, institutions, and faith based organizations. You see, the men had horses then, and the horses were fast. Quite simply, the men rode their horses throughout the countryside and the countryside was rolling hills and stone farmhouses and small brooks and nested fields.
There was, in fact, no faster way to spread the idea (nor implement the idea) since there weren’t any things in the sky any longer and there weren't any things flying around the earth any longer. And I must admit there was quite some promise at the beginning. The execution was remarkably swift. At the end of the first week, the picnic areas were filled with eaters and the eaters were hungry. The volunteers were well dressed and easily disposed to find comfort in their neighbor and in the safety and honor in the idea. But, after a while, a few disputes broke out and it did not seem that the idea was as good as it was initially perceived.
So we went back to the table on the south side of Bell Island and we began to draw up another idea. The first idea had been to put all the women with babies in the bottom of a well. The women with babies were vulnerable and since the dawning of the new war manuals—they were enemy targets. We were concerned, rightly so, that a successful massacre of these helpless and hopeless women and children would leave us embarrassingly crippled and descendent-less.
That was out-right foolish on our part.
Really, it is quite impossible to become descendent-less. We all agreed on that after some time and the women with the babies were brought out of the wells and we shook hands with the women and the babies were covered in dust and ash and some of the babies died when they came back up to the surface because it was a difficult adjustment. There are some unfortunate casualties in the implications of ideas and, as thoroughly and professionally as the idea was put in place and administered there were still some people that were not able to follow directions or were unfortunate victims of circumstance.
At the time of the drawing of the second idea, there were seventeen members in our cabinet and each member of the cabinet was responsible for writing one thoroughly plausible and appropriate idea. The best idea from the group of seventeen was to be administered. In retrospect, our second chosen idea was probably not the best either. It is remarkably amazing that a group of well-educated and wealthy men could choose the wrong idea. However, there is great merit in the grace and dignity with which we led our nation against the extremists and hardliners of the north.
[s]
After a considerable amount of debate, it was decided that the one idea would be granted permission to secede all other designs presented by foundations, institutions, and faith based organizations. You see, the men had horses then, and the horses were fast. Quite simply, the men rode their horses throughout the countryside and the countryside was rolling hills and stone farmhouses and small brooks and nested fields.
There was, in fact, no faster way to spread the idea (nor implement the idea) since there weren’t any things in the sky any longer and there weren't any things flying around the earth any longer. And I must admit there was quite some promise at the beginning. The execution was remarkably swift. At the end of the first week, the picnic areas were filled with eaters and the eaters were hungry. The volunteers were well dressed and easily disposed to find comfort in their neighbor and in the safety and honor in the idea. But, after a while, a few disputes broke out and it did not seem that the idea was as good as it was initially perceived.
So we went back to the table on the south side of Bell Island and we began to draw up another idea. The first idea had been to put all the women with babies in the bottom of a well. The women with babies were vulnerable and since the dawning of the new war manuals—they were enemy targets. We were concerned, rightly so, that a successful massacre of these helpless and hopeless women and children would leave us embarrassingly crippled and descendent-less.
That was out-right foolish on our part.
Really, it is quite impossible to become descendent-less. We all agreed on that after some time and the women with the babies were brought out of the wells and we shook hands with the women and the babies were covered in dust and ash and some of the babies died when they came back up to the surface because it was a difficult adjustment. There are some unfortunate casualties in the implications of ideas and, as thoroughly and professionally as the idea was put in place and administered there were still some people that were not able to follow directions or were unfortunate victims of circumstance.
At the time of the drawing of the second idea, there were seventeen members in our cabinet and each member of the cabinet was responsible for writing one thoroughly plausible and appropriate idea. The best idea from the group of seventeen was to be administered. In retrospect, our second chosen idea was probably not the best either. It is remarkably amazing that a group of well-educated and wealthy men could choose the wrong idea. However, there is great merit in the grace and dignity with which we led our nation against the extremists and hardliners of the north.
[s]
8.03.2006
The man with the gun is famous and he is a foster father
a.
The bank robbing men shoot the workingmen and the bank robbing men steal the jewelry and the money.
b.
Sheila is six and she cannot read the headline. Sheila makes cow noises at the dinner table and Sheila gets slapped in the face and Sheila starts to bleed and now Sheila is a foster child. She is case number 114310-A.
c.
The lobby has fluorescent lights. I had my money in that fucking bank, Dale says. You should be a car racer then you would make more money, the teller says. Fuck you, Dale says. It is seventy-seven degrees at nine a.m.
I hope it doesn’t rain, Stewart says to Martha. Stewart and Martha are newly-weds. It would really be too bad if it rained on their honeymoon.
d.
The headline says that the mobsters are in the city again, Martin says to Sheila. Last time the mobsters were in the city I couldn’t go to the town pool, Sheila says. That is because there were dead people floating in the pool and I didn’t think that it would be appropriate for you to swim with dead people now finish your toast.
e.
Martin works at the bank. Banks have money. Martin wears a hairpiece. Martin hides coconut rum in his office drawer. It is like the Caribbean without the sunburn, he says. You poor sucker, Michelle says. Michelle has a snicker that sounds like a pig and Michelle is fat and Michelle is also a sucker.
f.
The mobsters are in the bank when Martin arrives at the bank and the mobsters are stealing money from the bank. Who is in charge, Martin asks the mobsters and the mobsters point at a man that has a black hat.
g.
The city is more beautiful at night but there are more people shot when the city is beautiful and Sheila is in the 22nd precinct waiting for her foster father. The mobsters only want money from the safe, Jack says to Martin. Jack is the regional manager. Jack has sex twice a week: on Sunday afternoons and Friday mornings. Jack’s wife is a vegetarian and she wears leather pants.
Jack’s wife wants to be in a rock and roll band because then people will point and say: I want to be Jack’s wife. That would be odd, Jack thinks. Jack’s wife is usually asleep on Friday mornings. Jack has sex once a week. Jack makes elephant noises.
h.
Poor sucker.
i.
I used to drink banana rum but that gave me bad indigestion, Martin says. Do you want twenties or fifties, Martin asks the man in the black hat. Jack tried out for the circus when he was seventeen but the circus man said that he looked like a lamb.
j.
Go piss yourself.
[s]
The bank robbing men shoot the workingmen and the bank robbing men steal the jewelry and the money.
b.
Sheila is six and she cannot read the headline. Sheila makes cow noises at the dinner table and Sheila gets slapped in the face and Sheila starts to bleed and now Sheila is a foster child. She is case number 114310-A.
c.
The lobby has fluorescent lights. I had my money in that fucking bank, Dale says. You should be a car racer then you would make more money, the teller says. Fuck you, Dale says. It is seventy-seven degrees at nine a.m.
I hope it doesn’t rain, Stewart says to Martha. Stewart and Martha are newly-weds. It would really be too bad if it rained on their honeymoon.
d.
The headline says that the mobsters are in the city again, Martin says to Sheila. Last time the mobsters were in the city I couldn’t go to the town pool, Sheila says. That is because there were dead people floating in the pool and I didn’t think that it would be appropriate for you to swim with dead people now finish your toast.
e.
Martin works at the bank. Banks have money. Martin wears a hairpiece. Martin hides coconut rum in his office drawer. It is like the Caribbean without the sunburn, he says. You poor sucker, Michelle says. Michelle has a snicker that sounds like a pig and Michelle is fat and Michelle is also a sucker.
f.
The mobsters are in the bank when Martin arrives at the bank and the mobsters are stealing money from the bank. Who is in charge, Martin asks the mobsters and the mobsters point at a man that has a black hat.
g.
The city is more beautiful at night but there are more people shot when the city is beautiful and Sheila is in the 22nd precinct waiting for her foster father. The mobsters only want money from the safe, Jack says to Martin. Jack is the regional manager. Jack has sex twice a week: on Sunday afternoons and Friday mornings. Jack’s wife is a vegetarian and she wears leather pants.
Jack’s wife wants to be in a rock and roll band because then people will point and say: I want to be Jack’s wife. That would be odd, Jack thinks. Jack’s wife is usually asleep on Friday mornings. Jack has sex once a week. Jack makes elephant noises.
h.
Poor sucker.
i.
I used to drink banana rum but that gave me bad indigestion, Martin says. Do you want twenties or fifties, Martin asks the man in the black hat. Jack tried out for the circus when he was seventeen but the circus man said that he looked like a lamb.
j.
Go piss yourself.
[s]
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