Aside from apart, once: it was suitable

She is over-spoken, over-fond, of herself -- and in admiration, most dearly of her darling purchase. He is indifferent but present in the manner (only ever, certainly) in which he readjusts the cushions on the sofa, readjusts them so she will be in discomfort and forced to readjust them again, if only to be in comfort. He is unnoticeable beyond that -- and offers, as a simple component to his arbitrarily true indifference a composition of meager worth, noting that it is not even of a timely nor culturally suitable subject matter. In defiance, she admits under heavy medication -- assuming failure and praying, eventually, for hypnosis (but not until Tuesday afternoon at four thirty) -- in defiance, she echoes. This time: hmph. It is rather far from bold interjection or even a purposeful attempt at redirection, completion, or, if ever (oh if ever!) reconciliation. You are angered by him? She had supposed, in reflection, at a later time, that her immediate reaction to such a cleverly stupid comment was dismissive in a far more subconscious way, so dismissive (and in fact so overtly submissive was her self-possessed madness) that she did not even recall a course of action, a logical course of action, that could effectively introduce and explicate the process of beating a therapist close to death with the base of an iron lamp.

He bought the lamp in Lisbon after witnessing a spectacle, indeed a state execution, he should most likely never forget. It is the lamp owned by a religious zealot a socially labeled vagabond, who had suspiciously murdered fifteen children in the back of an alley and set them on fire. He has insisted. She has accepted, eventually. Suspiciously, though? No, she mused, I suppose not. Nevertheless, he wouldn't ever forget a spectacle like that -- and even if there were a course of reality that brought a self-bought lamp to be the lever of his own maiming. But, as matters seemed to transpire, not even the general public felt her actions at a distance from the normal hectic meanderings of those under strict supervision due to mental instability. She couldn't have possibly understood such ramifications, it was illustrated in the daily monitor, but to assume that one who already seeks help has but no wall to protect her from such illness is to assume we are a state of unseemly and crude aliens. I for one am not, she snickered, even in court, pretentious and without veil. The manner in which a man begins to introduce authentic altercation -- yes, yes, the manner in which he begins to offer -- as opposed to simply imply -- a contribution without the threat or disguise of reward is, of course, a manner in which he is seen to know and favor the wells of intimate humanity and not merely enjoy to drink.

This I couldn't possibly describe, she admits -- and even admitted, later. Though, perhaps against the better (urbanely) pleas of her casual acquaintances, assumed romantic bothers, she would acknowledge weakly, maybe to only herself, that it was the other he she meant to kill.

"I can tell you two things:

make sure the top lock and bottom lock are different;
and you have to hide from darkness
with darkness."

by george, they changed the law

"Zounds, by Pete, they are at it again!" Oh, soundless remorse -- the pity, upon the fifth regime was without equal, a particular handicapp, yes, given the natural recourse of action - reaction; consequence after impact. We, alas, the Mistress intoned, are of primary affluent noble descent, yet our unprecedented admission (and dare say act) of such failure will not be attenuated by our simply magnificent reflections. Indeed, ponder to watch Melissa, she is enraged by the chance exclusion of her prized mirror (that is the exclusion in the wagon items, as listed by the general accountant, ahem).

I admit. I exhaustively admit that we were without recourse. Our own fingers, bless their bleeding by my own sight, epitomized failure -- and alcohol. The Countess, so taken to service by our --(sure, yes, regardless of the admitted, the admittedly deplorable and realized legal enslavements of crude and improper populations)-- but this countess, again, so taken to service by our tragic and isolated and defeated image swore an oath, to such a height there must have been a doctrine of angelic mandate, reminded demands of man over angel, serve the un-servable, the indolent indigents! Serve us who have lost our people, our followers, serve us who now have no voice!

It surely, upon my own brow, I swear, it must have been this calling, though Melissa, sour and uncouth, against the better likings of her proper feudal mother, dismissed such aid as inadequate, indeed repellent to the (mind you a woman endlessly inculcated by, again, noble doctrine) skin of such grace, perfection, and ah, the angel. And dare I admit, by Pete, that there was such crude interruption, such crude intrusion into the inner estates of the dear lord and provider that, upon, my head, by which was included notes of treasonous and seductive intent --

"Zounds, by Pete, they shot her dead!"

jebarb and mildren

In a sheer whimper of a storm -- an unconvincing act, pretense, sure -- in a sheer thunderous entrance -- a mild and yet oddly appealing, though half asleep, modernized and adapted on numerous occasions (cliche? -- no, in and of itself, that mere interruption is actually the character and action of the inquisition -- odd and ironic and like a ball) -- in a sheer downright dog-gone hollow of a storm, the most usual and conventional path toward adulthood was momentarily unpassable, though, for certain no one could predict how lengthy the momentary break would indeed last, a final lapse? Oh, my, I would dare venture that I hope not. But, in truth, perhaps. Though the bridge had been rebuilt and even remodeled on countless occasions in the past half century, its usefullness was waning and the more structured and well equiped highway was a much more popular (and really, let us admit, a more suitable) choice for passage. Those, however, a coy Mildren remarked, are not headed toward maturation, not in the strict biological and social sense. An unnecessarily long pause, thereafter, lasting well into the fifth and sixth breaths of the young traveler, ensued. Oh, sure, she smelled quite awful for an elderly woman, lacking in appropriate care, abandoned halfheartedly by willful and drunken grandsons. I opine rather with doubt, Mildren confessed, that you are unlike to attempt the fallen earth? The traveler, by now most confused by the ancient worm, decided, though unagreeable to him at the time (and most unagreeable to him in the near future) to disregard her feverish and rather uninviting disposition, and venture a question in regards to the trail now coined as "muy fea". The damn naturalists. It is by far a better option -- perhaps a far better outcome, though it is without its merits and without its recompense. I think. By now a third member had eagerly, though ever slowly, joined the standing and half snarled half eated duo. It is not completely fallen away, Jebarb motioned, though he himself had aged in such a manner to resemble the grandfather tree and in each gesture it is true his hands began to appear as tattered paper. You are just a sad drawing, the traveler thought, but now thoroughly unamused by the still growling storm and the incomplete directions by an unashamed and stoned innkeeper, remanded his own initial distaste and insisted (for he was a man of great will power and strong cognitive discipline) he must encounter the path back out of the town at the lake and on toward the city. Of course, Jebarb continued, it may but be a monster of a storm and little could we ever expect what to know from either path. Though this one is certain to have fallen. For it is always falling.

she just came in short, black eyed, and bleeding

She is a hooker, I count her money. She comes in here, once or twice, you know, a week, with her stack of ones and fives, and I give her a receipt. She gets it into the bank that way -- so she can have an account. She can't take that money, with all the blood that is usually on it, she can't take that to a teller, she can't walk in all beat up, with her eyes black, smoking, like she does, and hand the teller a stack of bills that are grimy, crunched up, and bleeding. She is a hooker. She gives me her money. I deposit it for her and I tell her, usually, that she isn't living that swell a life, I say that and she sometimes smiles, like she had heard it on tv too, and it was a good memory. But she is living a shit life, you know, and she lets these marks beat the shit out of her and they really beat the shit out of her. But what can I do, I count her money, so at least she isn't squating in some crack house, or running into the basements of the city buildings to get from the weather. You know, this way, she keeps a place, she keeps some food and she makes, it from today until tonight and maybe even til tomorrow. I don't know, you know, she is just walking through this day to that day, thinking, well, hell, not thinking, but getting her money this way and that way and then bringing it here, and I take only a small fee, a modest fee, because I have to clean the money, you know, and make sure its not bleeding anymore, not like it is when she gives it to me, and then I have to be putting in these deposits into an account for her so that she can have the money for the place she has but in an account that they can't find her, because you know, those tax men, they don't really think that hooking is all that proper or legal so even if she could pay her taxes, she can't really pay her taxes, not down and out like she is. So I take a modest fee, a small fee, really, and adjust the account accordingly and we see the results. And she doesn't complain, not after all that, not now that she can walk up to a money machine and take out her money like she is just another woman in the city, just another woman making errands, you know, and paying bills -- but really, she isn't, you know, she's a hooker. And she gets the shit kicked out of her. I'd help her, but you know, its not like she isn't surviving, its not like it really is gonna come down to something that different for me or for her or for anybody even driving down here from the hills, I mean, on that last day, you know, that last day when you think that that sky is gonna be differnt, its just the last day, and she is going on the same boat as everybody else, even though she lived like this, like a rat, in the sewer. So what's the point, what's the point but make it, survive, and let her survive, I'm not trying to not let her survive. But what's the point. So she gets beat up real bad and one day she is gonna be dead and there she'll be, sitting right next to the whole bunch of assholes that thought there wasn't gonna be any room for a whore like her.

my own sad puppet show

This is what it reads:

"...the tall one says its accustomed to difficult inference -- and manipulated, only slightly, by the disjointed bridge to appropriate, certainly legal and justifiable resources -- it would, it implies, only use generally agreed upon and specified courses of action. In such a situation, while disposing of competitors efficiently (and in an unbiased seemingly random fashion) would greatly benefit the syndicate in legal gambling gains, political contributors, and even in the number of average dull normal conservative check writers (the fucking balls of the abused)..."

She is watering flowers, afterwards, in the garden, in the back. It might rain, she mutters. That would be the fucking day, he thinks. He is reading a napkin:

1. Everybody wants it.
2. It is accessible to everybody.
3. Everybody does it on their own.
4. Only the self is to blame for failure.

I'd rather pour gasoline on myself and ride through town on fire, he says. Then it'd be the hell they'd see, not the hell they'd let themselves walk. You aren't ever gonna ascend beyond the barbershop, dad. Stop yelling at the radio. All they see is that black mud on your face.

You're blocking my sun, she says, and it is about to cloud up. I don't think I'm the one blocking your goddamn sun, he mutters. Recognition is the same fucking goal -- and we'll give up the natural world -- the one that is not in pieces, is not picked apart by the reductionist illusionist -- because it all happens tomorrow.

and she said, you know, I get high

She, you know, well, shit--
she says she suggested a solution
a reasonable solution
to a hyper-allergic drug addicted bond salesman --

she was numerating, you know,
making it happen,
making it happen.

All the while,
she was just making the numbers roll,
you know,
back and forth,
like it wasn't anybody's,

wasn't nobody's business,
not to start the slashing,
the slashing and the cutting,
the bleeding,
the slashing and the cutting --
she didn't even like the dissections

not that she was making them,
not that she was asking him to make,

just a punk bond salesman.
just a punk bond salesman.

poem.txt

1, When I was a boy;
2, I loved computers;
3, I connected with them;
4, My sisters and I;
5, played them all the time;
6, But at thirteen I decided;
7, If I kept loving computers;
8, I would never get a girlfriend;
9, So I stopped;
10, My sisters became a teacher and a veterinarian;
11, and I became a therapist;
12, I took care of people;
13, I told them;
14, We are in the world to love the world;
15, if we can only learn how;
16, But the computers called me back;
17, to paint with them;
18, what I dream;
19, And what I dream is;
20, connecting;
21, everyone;
22, to everything;
23, because everyone;
24, is everything;
25, and everyone I love is everything;
26, and whoever loves anyone;
27, loves everything;

if I can only learn how

Sally and Jim find a way to go north

I am faking it, Sally says. Sally is not crying but she is sad. She has circles around her eyes. You look like a raccoon, Jim says. Don't say that to me, Sally says. I am serious. I am faking it. Jim turns over on his side. They are in bed together. I know, Jim says. Jim is not completely naked. Sally is naked. Sally is not under the sheets. Jim is under some of the sheets. And I don't really care, Jim says. Sally sits up. She sits on the side of the bed. I have to be up in two hours, she says. I have to go and visit my father in New Hampshire. Will you be here when I get back? Sally looks over her shoulder. I'm faking it too, Jim says. Christ, I can't stop. You know they are going to find out sooner or later, Sally says. I guess. So you'll be here when I get back. In the house? Yeah. Jim scratches his upper lip. What time? I don't know, probably before dinner. Yeah, I'll be here. I'll make sure of it. Sally gets up and walks into the bathroom and turns on the water. You shouldn't go see him alone, Jim says. I should come with you. You can't come with me, you have that presentation. I know, but you shouldn't go by yourself. Sally sits on the toilet. She puts her hands in her face. You know your brother stopped by yesterday. I meant to tell you. I know I didn't tell you. Turn off the water, Jim says, I can't hear you. Sally turns off the water. She doesn't get up. The bathroom is still only half finished, she thinks. We were going to put that water color in here. Did you say Jack stopped by? Yeah. What did he want. I don't know. He asked for you and he said he had something important for you. Jim leans over the side of the bed. I'm up, he thinks. I am going to go to New Hampshire with you, he says. Why don't you shower and I'll start driving. We'll get there by breakfast. Jim stretches. Sally? I'll drive. Ok? I don't really want to shower, Sally says. I don't really feel like getting clean. Jim walks around the bed. It is still black out. He looks at her. What are you doing sweetie? You look like a little sad racoon. I can't laugh, she says. I know -- but I am not sure that it is going to be like that all the time. I don't want you driving. But what about your presentation? I was just faking it, Jim mutters. I'll tell you what. Get dressed, get in the car, and I'll buy you breakfast at the border. I don't think I want to get dressed. Jim stands at the sink and stares at himself in the mirror. Jack was asking about that deal in Florida, wasn't he? I don't know, I guess so. I'll bet he looked bad, didn't he. He didn't look good, I don't think so. Do I really have to get dressed? Yes, but that's the only part of your day you have to fake -- I'll take care of the rest.

Oh I, ever so, could be thinking like you, but only in possibility

Macy thought her purpose was quite shocking, over the top really, a tangible vocation that (in all honestly, yes, and given the absolute parameters) had little bearing in the overall outcome of her success. Of my chosen success, Macy noted. This is quite at odds with my chosen and what I imagined to be my acquired success model. This just won't do. Of course, or rather evidently, the selection process and the ensuing dispersement of purposes had, of late, resulted in incredible scrutiny and (in the general and usual absence of logical analysis) quiet calls for re-organization of management. Hers, I assure you, Clyde remarked, is not the first miscalculated and hence misapplied purpose. While I assure you it is in no way reflective of the general tendencies within our official obligations as Link from formal institutional government to prescribed enthusiasm, happiness, contentment, and (ever quietly, I suppose, but still noted in official exchanges between departments) containment. Of course, if there is a complaint, an official complaint, one that cannot be resolved through informal mediation and informal persuasion, Clyde continued methodically but now clearly resolved to either pacify the agitated Macy or extend an institutional costume marked by the cruel yet calm disposition. Yes, the Post Commander had instructed, be firm and calm at onset. But ever gracefully rise to the assumed position and natural exhibition of disappointment, pity. A true condescender, you see. But it just won't do! Macy intoned, yet again, and unwittingly jeopardizing her ever fragile position in the institutional, the formal, lobby. Oh dear, Clyde thought, not yet accustomed to his parental obligations in such interactions. You will have to keep your voice at a level that is appropriate for official interactions, Clyde warned, considering himself a sound pupil, adjusting his jacket in the manner of the videos and again posing as far from delectable as, well, as is just about possible, Macy considered. Indeed, he is so ever far from delectable I would even venture to suppose that I would recall his image when I ever hear such a word voiced again, because he is surely the exact oppostite of that. By now, the merely extended presence of a resident at the official desk of the institution had gained the attention of the entire northern wing and I could not accept another citation, Clyde thought, not this early in what he assumed would be a very long career as an institutional employee but, at the least, there is some concern for my presence here, it must be unusual for such an interaction to take place, hmph, under marble, or on top of marble, Macy, now thoroughly annoyed, considered. This is just improper separation of duties, improper delegation, faulty leadership -- oh, but she wouldn't dare to suggust faulty leadership of the formal institution, a claim that would engage the outer members of the northern court and cause a great deal of disatisfaction, I would certainly, most certainly hate to spend a week in jail, or even a night, Macy thought and considered whether just leaving, just turning on her heel, might just be the best course of action, of course, if she does mumble the slightest slant, I am within my right, moreover I am obligated as such to handle the confrontation with swift and direct action, Clyde considered. Perhaps, he (oh he himself) would engage the two outer officers into an elegant and peaceful capture of this purposeless woman, this intruder, and in fact, assume that the future orders of purposes, of course, will be well suited to owners, no correction could possibly be made in prior distributions (a point clearly evident with consideration of the response to an admission of error by the formal institution). Of course this was, after all, directly contingent upon his purpose, which with ever poor judgement he had failed to open and, at present, lay carelessly on his bedside table.

g.

Georgia, god damn you -- that was what it was about, that was its fucking constitution. It began in foul places, like those under the bathroom sink, and in the walls, where the fingers play against themselves, undoing the sealant and making it all -- just jesus, Georgia -- you were instigating the entire entourage, into this collapse, my own fucking head into a pile of pie : my own consistency was muddled and we weren't even fucking -- the other kind, the kind that is for embrace and entanglement and confusion and -- jesus, he was watching too, just watching her rob me, take me into the barn, you know, yeah, like that, she threw me on the hay, as I remember it, the only way I am gonna remember it -- I was out of control, then, I was remembering too much, she wasn't anything like she was now, not like she is now, I couldn't have brought her into the barn, she had to lead me -- and he all watched, he and all of them watched, like it was chickens they were watching -- I didn't fight, no, but I was crying and I think I was almost, maybe, I am not remembering it how it was, not like they tell it from A until D, I am not like that -- but it wasn't different than that, it couldn't have been any different than that -- not as I remember it, she was in her skin that day, really in her skin, she owned it much sooner than I owned mine, it fit her better than mine has ever fit me, she didn't have any of the doubt that it was elastic that maybe it would just melt off one day, especially if it was too hot -- jesus, it was hot all the time, it was hot like that all that summer -- it was too hot -- everything else, on top of that, over her skin wasn't really important, not to her suit, not to the fact that she fitted, she wasn't caring, not as I remember it, as I have been remembering it, she was fitted, usual and accustomed to it -- yeah, I know she must have taken me there, even if they were all watching, she must have taken me to the barn, to the place with the hay, because I know, she didn't even know, she didn't know the difference, you know, between her clothes and her skin and she wasn't touched by herself with her clothes, herself was always just her skin, I couldn't have taken her then, she must have taken me. But it was hot and I think my skin melted -- they were gonna see my bones and all my muscle and I was gonna be an alien to them. They were going to scream and run and pull out their hair. But she didn't stop. She kept moving, onto and over me -- she felt like she was in her skin.

I was in her skin. She wasn't unkind -- but fucking inconsiderate -- I can swear again. Now, I am forgetting, all the time, but there is one other command, just one last command that I need to forget, the contracted purpose of my ambition to conquer them and all of them, especially when I am at dinner parties. I don't want to be inconsiderate either, I just want to forget, she was always forgetting, she was always seeming to forget, I just want to forget about the way to get anywhere -- jesus, I can't take anything off, anymore but I like to put everything on. I need to forget that too.

Listening, the other day, to the Stereophonics, singing about Pier 49, I smelled the Pacific air and cigarettes.

Rambling now past the edges.

Loose grass, mud in the air I can smell it so I know it is there.

S----- I remembered drinking and smoking in the narrow space of the fire escape, and felt unbearably sad that it was gone. But remembered, remembering, I had it all and -- believe it or not -- that helped.

"When are we going to build our empire?"

Every day now. At varying amplitudes, different heights. Spring comes and the ceiling is lifted. Sometimes I am allowed back to places that are eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed off the planet, fatal combination of time and time and time and time...

In some shadows, mud. I saw evil on the wall of a bungalow -- how weird is that? I must have been high, sure, I was, I was tripping balls too but I mean: evil? Last night in a dream A-- said, just to piss off my grandmother, "God has AIDS." And I said, "I mean, sure... only He doesn't *have* it, He *is* AIDS and the mud I keep mentioning and the mentioning and what isn't mentioned and your hair that I coughed up after I went down on you and the whole nine yards and seven years since we were out there," I'm talking to you now, under sky I can almost smell though the fire escape and the cigarettes and the shadows you stood in as you drank the whiskey and the whiskey too are all gone to God now. God of body attacking itself. God of time. I remember, and remembering, close the gaps between Him and me, me and you, and bear everything.

We got robbed.

I am decide to break the bank. You call me, it runs, like a clock. Like clock work.

Put in and punch out. I put it. I took it out.

*

So let's get focused. The mistakes are not my hidden attentions. I am trying to say something very direct. I am tired of tried.

"Citibank, motherfuckers, all those big buildings leased to big companies and no one to blame. Knock one down and then there's a whole nation to blame, doesn't matter if they are women or children or if no one there blew away anything on American soil before (but might, now). Yes it does. It matters. No time for sarcasm. No time for anything but to live in the shadow of the fact that your life is short, and all yours. What will you do? I tell you what I want to do; I want to honor my place on the planet by doing the things I do well, well. Next time, if there is one, I may not be able to do these things; type; relax; lie on a couch with a computer and a talk streaming over the internet from a NY Times columnist. I might be in the sand, bombed; I might not be at all."

so I am vein, and I am blue. I am death star and lightning high in the sky. Count the stars over the countryside, red rocks, martian rocks here on earth and yet most do not see it. Bring me your glasses, Dad, I'll clean them with my shirt. To help you see. So we can see each other, maybe a little more than lately, I know time is short. Our lives last so long and then...

I am circle and green. I am Washington on the dollar paper. The rolling paper on the street. Some things you see with your eyes, others you just have to hear. On the radio, I hear a song like distant thunder, Thunderroad, Bruce, my man, boss, boss, boss, everyone's gotta be a boss sometimes.

I wrote this with my eyes closed.

&

punch out

be still and die

Unremarkable, Thero emerges, no more impressed by the land than this sun by him. The entanglement of the two,though, now, desperate, in tow to the latest defeat of the summoned prince, does grant him mediocre praise from the gathered villagers. We sad and meager few! We have no demands on him! We are but the saddest of the lot! Look at my garden, it is nothing but rag-weeds. I cannot eat those. No! Of course, in the absence of usual clarity, Thero stumbles in pose and offers false praise and even ironic and misunderstood solace to the wimpered and unusually vocal horde:

Be still and Die!

The vantage point from here, beyond the hill, even after the collapsed sun has been murdered and brought out of its pearly estate--brought to bear its own blood hands on the mark of our prince--you will still suffer, plagued by the merest recognition of sallow ineptitude, tragic uncertaintly, but more desperate, more lifelike, is the irrelevence of even if, even if my own hand were to murder that star and take the necks of each of the oppressors still you would have the greatest saddness, the only sadness that is ever your lot--so Die and be still!

ps

with a sick stomach sticky heart she took the last of her weight off the chair and tried to remember a time that was different. the birds landed outside on the fire escape without any sense of urgency, spring was coming, this had all happened before. hadn't it? I thought the birds looked a little unusual, so close behind the glass. their song sounded through the solid wall. this is what they mean by miracle, right? she rolled over and went back to bed, slept to dream of a spinning cube that produced color, woke and said You can see things in dreams that you will never ever see in life...

and the birds flew off for worms, busy making babies, no eyes.

this business of being light

I would like to get down to this business of being light. Tia, Bobby-Dean, Nicole -- we're putting on a play and I'd like you to be the stars. I am playing the sky, and this machine here, yes this one right here, this machine plays the subatomic substances that make us who we are, that governs our relationships to ourselves, and to each other

I mean you, Bobby-Dean. Your belly, the dirt under your nails. I mean you, Tia. I haven't forgotten how your body felt. It was wonderful.

But there is no more time! In the business of being light, we can' stop to differentiate between which body touched whose in the dark, or divide up time between 'back then' and 'tomorrow.' I want to leave that all behind. And if you three want in, then just lie and and let me hook you up and I guarantee that when you return to the streets and are hungry, dirty, or sad, you will remember how it felt and though it won't save you (or you, or you, or me) it will have mattered, yes, that time, not tomorrow, not back then, when you were small enough to sing the world into being--

when we were valuable

the end

And so the story was over and its narrator no longer hovering outside the page turned inside and became a bright blue ball of light; and the actor who was the hero was no longer bound by the narrator's words, and he moved free and fast down the dark city streets, the bright blue ball of light ahead of him, which he chased while kicking up his heels and letting out shouts into the world; he became a dumb animal no longer mute, still preverbal, with great deep guttural sounds shaking his ribs as he cried out with the realization that the narrator that once held him in time and place (to women he loved, things his mother said when and all the work he put his hand to) finally let him go.

So where are we now? It wasn't my story to tell anymore, and I couldn't slow down. As I rose up I felt his hand so close to me, I could feel him breathing hard and realized as much as I knew about what came before -- his words, his scar, his love -- neither of us had any idea what was going to happen next.

for example

the reasons seemed quite simple in the end. in every bag was x number of marbles. we knew they were red, blue, and white. but we didn't know how many there were of each, or how to make them sing. this was a mission of mine, it was personal, you know, so I didn't explain to anyone else why I wanted to do it. I just said,

how can we teach these marbles to sing?

and padro replied,

hold them close to the ears in the side of your head until they see what happens inside. then they will understand, all of them, even if x > 20 or x > 30 or x >= the number of cells in your head, or heart, or limbs, whatever, you see it didn't matter in the end, it was quite simple: take what you need from the thing with no mouth, no way to sing, and put it into your mouth and then open wide. and if it works everyone will hear what you've been needing, what you've been wanting, more than anything else, and no one will know what you had to lose or let go of or break to get it, or how I didn't even know what I wanted except to know what I wanted to want next.

She got normal, after it wasn't so normal because it was all fighting

She was just fucking counting, you know, just sitting there and fucking counting, each piece, like he was a goddamn set of marbles. He gets up, stands on the sink, squats. You're going to break the sink, she says. She is looking at her nails and filing them. I'm not gonna break the fucking sink. He spits on his toes. God damn fucking crazy bitch, she is, you know, she's got some nerve to take us out, show us around that entire factory and then come back, as if she didn't know that whole time, as if she wasn't thinking about, oh shit, I have a man blown to pieces in my goddamn office and now I'm going to go pick him up, piece by piece, and put him in a bag and bury him. You don't know she buried him. What you think she ate him? Get a grip, Kelsie. He hops off the sink and stretches his lower back. The sun has come up now, between the buildings at first, and now into the bathroom. He squints. She's gonna have something coming to her, you know, something that she doesn't expect, something that is gonna knock her off this blithely indifferent bullshit. She just watched her best friend get blown to pieces, Pete. What do you think she should do? Act normal? Give me a break. Kelsie sits on the toilet. She is still looking at her nails. I wouldn't for a second think you'd know what to do if Scott got blown up. I don't expect you'd know exactly how to react--Well I sure as shit wouldn't pick him up piece by piece and put him in a goddamn sack. That's for sure. What would you do? Call the police? Call his parents? Jesus, Kelsie, you sound like a fucking nut. Yes, I'd call the cops, I'd call his parents. He is looking at the street. That man is still bugging people, he thinks. The man with the new tennis shoes, clean haircut, begging. Give it a break, asshole, you're obviously not on the brink. Now I have to go back there and see her again and ask her if she's all right, if she got rid of the body all right. He yawns and scratches his stomach. I hate that crazy bitch. She saved your ass more than once. What? You should be glad you have a job, Pete. You should be glad you can walk over there and dick around all day and not worry about it. So she has to exercise a different type of social control. It is her place. And I wouldn't start complaining, not right now. Yelling starts in the other room. Fuck, they are already up. Yeah and they are gonna be asking about their uncle, if not today, then tomorrow and if you go and tell them that he got blown up and Lucy put him in a bag--then what? Well, I'm not gonna like it all that much. I have far too much to do this week, we have the builders coming on Thursday and after that, well, you know, its the holidays and then your parents are coming, and they just don't need this right now. Besides, its not like she blew him up. I wish they'd stop yelling so early and just decide they hate each other. Yeah, me too, then maybe we all wouldn't be picking up pieces of each other and putting them in bags.

quality, hetra

...I thought that just once, you know, just at that one time, when everything was going pretty smooth, that something was gonna work, something was gonna align itself with all that magic out there, you know, all that synthesis out there, that something was gonna definitely gonna follow, I mean, it was gonna happen, it was gonna happen because, after all, I would have spent enough hours, yeah, enough time, putting all those little pieces together, just sticking them together, just making sure, ever so sure, you know, that they were all in the right spots, in the right places, that each one, each one of those things was where it had to be, where it could only be, and that when it was all built up, you know, after all those hours, it was going to stand and look back down, back down at me and everybody around me and it would be there shining about, right there, you know, at all of us, and at me, and it would be that construction of work, you know, a big construction of work, like nothing in it that was asleep or that was trying to fall asleep, like nothing in it that was considering itself foolish, or considering itself out of place, or considering itself, really, at all, it would just be beaming, like all those pieces, each one of those pieces really was in the spot that it was supposed to be, that only spot it could ever be, and then, maybe, I thought, you know at least that once, that it wouldn't really be beaming because it was proud of anything, it wouldn't really be beaming because it had accomplished anything or because it was receiving all this attention, no, it wouldn't really be acting at all, I mean, it, up there, all completed and built in the only way it could ever be built, as the only thing it could ever be, you know, with all those pieces sticking together, just like they had to be sticking together and it standing up there, in its place, it, would be that thing that was completed only in that it was all that it had ever intended to be, and all its parts, you know, each one of its parts, was only there because it was part of that intention, part of the model in presentation, with no utility, with no action, no, it wasn't about to leap out and squash out, you know, some major social problem, or fix something with the taxes, it was a real exhibit, you know, of what it was to be all that was intended, without carrying the rest, without carrying around with it, the rest of the things that weren't intended, the rest of the things that really had nothing to do with intention, place, you know, the stuff that wasn't really important to it, that didn't represent it, that didn't complete that form of intention, were just left aside, you know, never attached in place, didn't really every have a place. Yeah, I suppose, that is what I thought, when it was about to decide how to choose, how to choose anything at all, but I, you know, I just chose the wrong thing, you know, even after all that talk and all that work, you know, even after I had constructed this walking piece of newspaper or whatever, I just thought maybe it wasn't really worth it, maybe it didn't really have all those pieces that it needed and maybe it needed some other pieces, and so, after a while, I started adding a bunch of other pieces until, you know, I have a room full of crap....