There is a sense of humor in the clockwork of the universe. Once, long ago, there was a man who could not shut up. He was a nice enough man. When he was a boy, his Mother told him that if he had nothing nice to say, he should say nothing at all. He had a lot of nice things to say. He was very positive. Even though, as you can well imagine, everyone hated him soon after being exposed to his constant flourishing of uplifting statements and unwanted flattery. His relatives had no idea what they should do. There were no mental hospitals in the country. There was only a crowded mental asylum where madmen were whipped, dowsed, scorched, and bound. They wanted none of that for him. If they put him in a monestary, he would get sent back for breaking the vow of silence. In the navy, the penalty for talking out of turn was being flogged. In the army, well, it was probably a little worse. They were at a loss for what to do with the man. It wasn't until one day, when his Uncle's gameskeepers Cousin's son mentioned that the Lonely Island Lighthouse needed a keeper urgently. This seemed like a perfect opportunity. The Uncle was sure that when he explained the dire need for a handy, dedicated, man to make sure ships didn't run aground on this deadly rock thrust up from the bottom of the briny deep, the man would agree...and he did.
Soon, they had him bundled into a navy schooner with all the comforts he could take with him for an extended stay. There was a crowd of well wishers, the Postman who was often delayed by the good natured chatter, the shopkeeper who would sometimes lose his train of thought when the man would come in and compliment him on his window displays, the school master who was no fan of idle chatter and clamped down on it whenever it came across his path, the baker's wife, who was unflinchingly ignorant and harbored smouldering resentment for the man ever since he called her pastry whorls "epicurean attainments worthy of Olympian presentation", the list goes on and on.
The sailors were glad to be rid of him when the rowed him ashore to the sparse dock on the lighthouse landing. The trip had taken two weeks. After the first day of being complimented on their seamanship and being lauded for their ability to imbibe huge pewter mugs of grog without falling from the rigging, the sailors were in a froth to have the cat of nine tails taken from its red bag and used on this lubber until he "shut his damned gob". Unfortunately, he was a civilian and they couldn't "let the cat out of the bag" on his account.
They dropped him off with the wind howling and the drizzle on his brow. He was all alone. He trudged up the stony hillside with all his worldly possesions and tended the great lamp of the lighthouse the whole night through. It was on the second day he found out that his provisions were mostly inedible. The kegs containing flour were filled with weevils and sawdust. The freshwater casks were empty. The sugar jars were crammed with beach sand. There was only a crate or two of hardtack and some pickles. It was obvious someone had stolen his supplies and replaced them with trash or not at all. He found himself suddenly transformed into a gardener, fisherman, and inventor. He searched the rocky island for patches of soil and carefully tended and transplanted the remnants of some much prior resident's garden. He fished daily and he was forced into devising methods of collecting rainwater and setting up a still that turned seawater into fresh water.
through all this privation and struggle, he tended his lamp faithfully every night. The first tragedy that befell him was that he lost two fingers to a giant squid while he was fishing. He felt a tug and then a jerk and then a massive pull on the line. Foolishly, he wrapped the line around his hand and pulled with all his might. The boat heeled over and he found himself looking into an eye the size of a dinner plate. Screaming, he flung a fending pole into the beast's eye which only served to enrage it. Seconds later, he felt a sickening pain in his hand and looked down to see his pinky and ring finger on the floor of the boat.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
weak
Two days later and I'm not dead yet. Doc says it was just a viral infection. I feel better. Still, let's all stock up on anti-zombie bullets and water filters.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Paranoia
Hmmmmm. I have a fever and chills and I am all wobbly. ? Como esta, senor Muerte?
Fortunately for me it may tend to kill the young and strong. They die of a "cytokine storm".
This is where their healthy immune systems tear themselves apart. Not pretty.
Just a silly cold right?
99% probablity, still its fun too think
Fortunately for me it may tend to kill the young and strong. They die of a "cytokine storm".
This is where their healthy immune systems tear themselves apart. Not pretty.
Just a silly cold right?
99% probablity, still its fun too think
Friday, April 24, 2009
getting back
Ok. So I finished "Pissville" as a creaking, wobbly, literary exercise. This world of Hades, as a continuation of our own is interesting to me. The idea that life continues is comforting to me on some level. The idea of Heaven is terrifying in its' stark alien unity and purity. Just like the character,Maggie thought, the idea of being united with God in a timeless mass of love etc. is almost as scary as going to Hell. At least in Hell, you are still YOU. In Heaven, you become irreducible. There is no longer anything remaining.
Here is a rhyming poem. It's totally fuckin' retarded cuz it rhymes. The count is off too.
VULCAN'S DAUGHTER
Her hands are small and strong
They grasp the hammer's handle.
From dawn to dusk she weaves her song
with her bellows and her anvil.
Sparks fly about her coiled locks.
Her eyes reflect the fire.
Her shiny skin covers smooth rocks
of muscle and veins that flow like wires.
Some men look to fame and gold,
to steer them to their bliss,
but those are far to frail and cold
to one who's known her molten kiss.
Here is a rhyming poem. It's totally fuckin' retarded cuz it rhymes. The count is off too.
VULCAN'S DAUGHTER
Her hands are small and strong
They grasp the hammer's handle.
From dawn to dusk she weaves her song
with her bellows and her anvil.
Sparks fly about her coiled locks.
Her eyes reflect the fire.
Her shiny skin covers smooth rocks
of muscle and veins that flow like wires.
Some men look to fame and gold,
to steer them to their bliss,
but those are far to frail and cold
to one who's known her molten kiss.
Monday, April 13, 2009
pissville ok already
(let it go, man)
One day, Maggie was pensive at breakfast. Mike could tell something was bothering her. He asked her what was wrong. It was at that time she told him she was quitting her job because she found a new one at a gallery downtown and that it came with an apartment. Funny thing is that Mike was the last one to know. She had already told Florian and everyone else. He felt himself retreating into his old complacency and numbness. It began to coat him like a deeply thick liquid that would harden like steel. "Well, that's great. Keep in touch. I'll help you move this weekend." The effort to say these things was herculean.
Maggie was sure that he didn't like the change, but she had no idea that he was so wounded. The dubious "good thing" is that he would heal himself almost into forgetting.
To sum it up, as the months went on, the demons got worse. There was often a crew of orcs parked at the end of the street with an old firebird and a primer gray camaro. They would blast death metal and gangster rap at all hours, then they would roar off into the night with their baseball bats and rebel flags. Everywhere he turned was ugliness. He found himself shifting from one activity to another without thinking about it. He would arrive at work. He would look up and notice that it was time to leave. Then, he would find himself parked in front of his house.
He would walk in and set the keys on the table, next thing, he would be getting dressed for work. He was a ghost.
It was on a Tuesday. His last memory was of his contemplating his socks and bare feet and trying to remember how to unite the two. Now, he was sitting at his desk. He held something, a ridiculously large red velvet heart on thick pasteboard. It was a card. there was thick lace all around it. It smelled like cinnamon. There was a downtown phone number on it and an address.
The rest of the day went far too slowly for Mike. When he left work, people who had become used to averting their eyes instinctively when he passed by, could have sworn he was glowing just a little.
He gets home and sees two tickets for the show tonight from the boys upstairs tacked to his door. He calls Maggie who can feel his struggle to break out of the quicksand of his depression.
She shows up early with a big blue box. He opens it up while she looks at his face for a reaction, It is the most lovely pair of cowboy boots in the store. He has to look at them, loves them. Throws his wingtips into the trash. Changes into black jeans and a leather jacket. The boots are the splendid platonic ideal of boots. The leather is jet black like the carapace of a beetle or a scorpion and like that they have hints of deep blue inside. There are little cutouts at the top, delicate red hearts and cacti. At the tips, Armand had insisted that there be spanish silver, mysterious and intricately worked, not too gaudy, but....
And the beauty of boots like these is that they are worn for beauty's sake. The intricate whimsical tops and sides are always hidden under fabric, but we know that it's there.
The only ones who see the whole pair are ourselves and the ones who share our lives etcetera
etcetara.
Now, they're at the show. Jenny and Horace are there too. Horace wears a black rude boy suit and a skinny black tie. Jenny wears a white dress with a red and white polka dot scarf around her neck. Maggie, by the way, is wearing her favorite black dress and a black lace shawl. Her white skin is ivory and so on. The club is vast but everywhere there are pools of light, the bar, the tables, the couches. The stage is lit only with a single red light bulb.
Long ago, the afterlife had lost love, had it taken away because it was too disruptive.
Drinks in hand, they went up to the stage and looked around. Soon, Johnny comes up to the mike and says, "Good evening, thanks for coming, we're "Killed by Einstein"....
The band begins to play the first part of their set, it's rockabilly then it slows down and they begin to play doo wop with saxophones. At this point the couples start dancing. He places his hand on her cheek and looks into her eyes.
then the band starts doing feedback and the amp that ate Mike's TV shows it's dreadful ability. That clears them and a lot of other people off the dance floor.
They find themselves outside. There is an alley. One side of it is formed by the club, the other side is formed by the wall of hell itself.
Love was banished from the afterlife. There were some wispy vestiges of sensualism. There was friendship and camaraderie, but Eros in all its chaotic destructive glory was banished. Now something new was about to take it's place and drive out the damned and demons from the afterlife.
The muffled sounds of killed by Einstein sounding like two garbage trucks mating in the distance. The screams of the damned in hell were faint and more like the ones you hear coming from rollercoasters and theme parks. There were floating wisps of burning paper and plastic soaring through the night air.
Mike felt a string running from the tip of his head down to the ground. That was what it felt like and that string was beginning to vibrate. Maggie felt sadness shake out of her bones.
Jenny had broken one of her high heels in the mad dash to escape the sudden onlslaught of noise. Horace was carrying her. He lost his bemused detachment, staring at her hair and the way it draped over his hand. She looked at him and felt like she was swimming.
embers and ashes were falling around them like snow,
That was when they kissed. kissed kissed kissed k i s s e d
True love was born into the afterlife in all its' shades with touch and warmth and the rebirth of tasting every nectar that there was to distill from it.
A rain began to fall, not affecting the lovers, not at all.
as the cool rain covered lovers all over hades,
the damned began to shout and burst out of the
afterlife and run to hell for they couldn't bear to see
what they had sinned their way out of having.
One day, Maggie was pensive at breakfast. Mike could tell something was bothering her. He asked her what was wrong. It was at that time she told him she was quitting her job because she found a new one at a gallery downtown and that it came with an apartment. Funny thing is that Mike was the last one to know. She had already told Florian and everyone else. He felt himself retreating into his old complacency and numbness. It began to coat him like a deeply thick liquid that would harden like steel. "Well, that's great. Keep in touch. I'll help you move this weekend." The effort to say these things was herculean.
Maggie was sure that he didn't like the change, but she had no idea that he was so wounded. The dubious "good thing" is that he would heal himself almost into forgetting.
To sum it up, as the months went on, the demons got worse. There was often a crew of orcs parked at the end of the street with an old firebird and a primer gray camaro. They would blast death metal and gangster rap at all hours, then they would roar off into the night with their baseball bats and rebel flags. Everywhere he turned was ugliness. He found himself shifting from one activity to another without thinking about it. He would arrive at work. He would look up and notice that it was time to leave. Then, he would find himself parked in front of his house.
He would walk in and set the keys on the table, next thing, he would be getting dressed for work. He was a ghost.
It was on a Tuesday. His last memory was of his contemplating his socks and bare feet and trying to remember how to unite the two. Now, he was sitting at his desk. He held something, a ridiculously large red velvet heart on thick pasteboard. It was a card. there was thick lace all around it. It smelled like cinnamon. There was a downtown phone number on it and an address.
The rest of the day went far too slowly for Mike. When he left work, people who had become used to averting their eyes instinctively when he passed by, could have sworn he was glowing just a little.
He gets home and sees two tickets for the show tonight from the boys upstairs tacked to his door. He calls Maggie who can feel his struggle to break out of the quicksand of his depression.
She shows up early with a big blue box. He opens it up while she looks at his face for a reaction, It is the most lovely pair of cowboy boots in the store. He has to look at them, loves them. Throws his wingtips into the trash. Changes into black jeans and a leather jacket. The boots are the splendid platonic ideal of boots. The leather is jet black like the carapace of a beetle or a scorpion and like that they have hints of deep blue inside. There are little cutouts at the top, delicate red hearts and cacti. At the tips, Armand had insisted that there be spanish silver, mysterious and intricately worked, not too gaudy, but....
And the beauty of boots like these is that they are worn for beauty's sake. The intricate whimsical tops and sides are always hidden under fabric, but we know that it's there.
The only ones who see the whole pair are ourselves and the ones who share our lives etcetera
etcetara.
Now, they're at the show. Jenny and Horace are there too. Horace wears a black rude boy suit and a skinny black tie. Jenny wears a white dress with a red and white polka dot scarf around her neck. Maggie, by the way, is wearing her favorite black dress and a black lace shawl. Her white skin is ivory and so on. The club is vast but everywhere there are pools of light, the bar, the tables, the couches. The stage is lit only with a single red light bulb.
Long ago, the afterlife had lost love, had it taken away because it was too disruptive.
Drinks in hand, they went up to the stage and looked around. Soon, Johnny comes up to the mike and says, "Good evening, thanks for coming, we're "Killed by Einstein"....
The band begins to play the first part of their set, it's rockabilly then it slows down and they begin to play doo wop with saxophones. At this point the couples start dancing. He places his hand on her cheek and looks into her eyes.
then the band starts doing feedback and the amp that ate Mike's TV shows it's dreadful ability. That clears them and a lot of other people off the dance floor.
They find themselves outside. There is an alley. One side of it is formed by the club, the other side is formed by the wall of hell itself.
Love was banished from the afterlife. There were some wispy vestiges of sensualism. There was friendship and camaraderie, but Eros in all its chaotic destructive glory was banished. Now something new was about to take it's place and drive out the damned and demons from the afterlife.
The muffled sounds of killed by Einstein sounding like two garbage trucks mating in the distance. The screams of the damned in hell were faint and more like the ones you hear coming from rollercoasters and theme parks. There were floating wisps of burning paper and plastic soaring through the night air.
Mike felt a string running from the tip of his head down to the ground. That was what it felt like and that string was beginning to vibrate. Maggie felt sadness shake out of her bones.
Jenny had broken one of her high heels in the mad dash to escape the sudden onlslaught of noise. Horace was carrying her. He lost his bemused detachment, staring at her hair and the way it draped over his hand. She looked at him and felt like she was swimming.
embers and ashes were falling around them like snow,
That was when they kissed. kissed kissed kissed k i s s e d
True love was born into the afterlife in all its' shades with touch and warmth and the rebirth of tasting every nectar that there was to distill from it.
A rain began to fall, not affecting the lovers, not at all.
as the cool rain covered lovers all over hades,
the damned began to shout and burst out of the
afterlife and run to hell for they couldn't bear to see
what they had sinned their way out of having.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
gigantor
Anyway, I have been thinking about poetry and how it's sad in a way that a boxer knows when he's past it when he gets his ass knocked out. Unfortunately, when you write things down and send them off, you always hold out hope that the punch is gonna connect.
It's funny how you can be on the canvas with your bloody mouthpiece next to you and your cauliflower ears ringing and not even know it. I guess that's the genius of the human soul and so on.
Perhaps that's why I'm going to be a teacher. I can be their cornerman for a while and they can get out there and maybe be a contender. I might be able to teach them the art of ducking.
I will keep on numbly punching as so many of my friends are doing.
It's funny how you can be on the canvas with your bloody mouthpiece next to you and your cauliflower ears ringing and not even know it. I guess that's the genius of the human soul and so on.
Perhaps that's why I'm going to be a teacher. I can be their cornerman for a while and they can get out there and maybe be a contender. I might be able to teach them the art of ducking.
I will keep on numbly punching as so many of my friends are doing.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Interlude
In life,
one pair of hands kneads the dough
in a well lit kitchen
It wants to become pizza, having rested
so lazily in the darkness.
not twenty feet away, a young woman
sits not really contemplating her
paperback, but holding it up
anyway as a shield
against the world.
Her slice is cooling on the paper plate
in front of her.
She watches the reflection
in the glass of a window,
He tossess the dough a whirling
galaxy expanding.
Deftly he catches it and sends it away
and her mind catches on delightedly
Alone, watching, but unwatched,
she has a box seat
to a private show.
In life,
one pair of hands kneads the dough
in a well lit kitchen
It wants to become pizza, having rested
so lazily in the darkness.
not twenty feet away, a young woman
sits not really contemplating her
paperback, but holding it up
anyway as a shield
against the world.
Her slice is cooling on the paper plate
in front of her.
She watches the reflection
in the glass of a window,
He tossess the dough a whirling
galaxy expanding.
Deftly he catches it and sends it away
and her mind catches on delightedly
Alone, watching, but unwatched,
she has a box seat
to a private show.
Monday, February 16, 2009
pissville
The next week, they began going to work together. He suddenly became aware of his old blue Skoda and how shabby it must look to her. She, however, found it charming especially the fenders. She asked him what model it was and when he said it was called the "popular", she stifled a laugh and said my, it certainly is.
Time passed at home as though they were at sea. There was TV and shopping and losing at bowling. There were strange noises coming from upstairs, only this time he had someone to joke around with. They came up with outlandish band names for the new project Johnny and the boys were working on. Maggie came up with names like BabyWrangler and LL Kool Ranch. Mike added names like the Whiskey Pirates and the royal paint huffers.
Work was as it always had been, but more chafing because he began to have other things that he would rather be doing.
Maggie was working on a different floor. She had been assigned out after a week. Florian said they needed her recent experience with mass media and technology to improve the IT department. This did not bother him as much as he thought it would. He still had someone to talk to at work. Jenny Anyone.
Jenny had been wearing the same style for a month or so before Mike asked her about it. The last style she came to work in was as a 1920's lady golfer in an aggressively plaid outfit and a glossy blue-black page bob.
They had been working on a family file for some time. She was sitting in the chair in front of his desk. Her hair was long and dark brown with waves. Her skin was light bronze which was unusual for her because she typically favored extremes in skin color. Her dress was more of a gown. It was intricately pleated, true, but there were no patterns or hues to it. It was white as snow. It draped off of one shoulder clasped with a simple, pretty brooch of copper with a little
blue stone in the middle. She wore a belt at her waist which brought the dress in and showed some curves that weren't there in her other modes...
Jenny looked up.
"What?"
" I didn't say anything."
" Dude, you're staring at me. What is it?"
"No, no, I just was.."
" Are you checking me out?"
"No, you just look really different. that's all. This is the longest you've kept a look since I've known you. I like it. It's clean and...I guess classical...an' shit."
She smiled. Mike noticed a gap between her front teeth and a birthmark on her neck.
"Is that YOU?"
"Yeah. It is"
When she was alive, her Father used to say that the Gods were so proud of their work when they made his little girl, that they put a little mark on her to show it. She would blush so, even after she'd been wed and had children of her own. Her Husband would kiss her on the neck and walk back from the well with her, carrying her water all the way not caring what the other men in the village might think of him.
She began to blush ever so slightly.
"I like it." Says Mike.
"Oh, Mike..like I give a rat's ass."
They returned to their work.
Maggie had begun working on her sculptures again.
Time passed at home as though they were at sea. There was TV and shopping and losing at bowling. There were strange noises coming from upstairs, only this time he had someone to joke around with. They came up with outlandish band names for the new project Johnny and the boys were working on. Maggie came up with names like BabyWrangler and LL Kool Ranch. Mike added names like the Whiskey Pirates and the royal paint huffers.
Work was as it always had been, but more chafing because he began to have other things that he would rather be doing.
Maggie was working on a different floor. She had been assigned out after a week. Florian said they needed her recent experience with mass media and technology to improve the IT department. This did not bother him as much as he thought it would. He still had someone to talk to at work. Jenny Anyone.
Jenny had been wearing the same style for a month or so before Mike asked her about it. The last style she came to work in was as a 1920's lady golfer in an aggressively plaid outfit and a glossy blue-black page bob.
They had been working on a family file for some time. She was sitting in the chair in front of his desk. Her hair was long and dark brown with waves. Her skin was light bronze which was unusual for her because she typically favored extremes in skin color. Her dress was more of a gown. It was intricately pleated, true, but there were no patterns or hues to it. It was white as snow. It draped off of one shoulder clasped with a simple, pretty brooch of copper with a little
blue stone in the middle. She wore a belt at her waist which brought the dress in and showed some curves that weren't there in her other modes...
Jenny looked up.
"What?"
" I didn't say anything."
" Dude, you're staring at me. What is it?"
"No, no, I just was.."
" Are you checking me out?"
"No, you just look really different. that's all. This is the longest you've kept a look since I've known you. I like it. It's clean and...I guess classical...an' shit."
She smiled. Mike noticed a gap between her front teeth and a birthmark on her neck.
"Is that YOU?"
"Yeah. It is"
When she was alive, her Father used to say that the Gods were so proud of their work when they made his little girl, that they put a little mark on her to show it. She would blush so, even after she'd been wed and had children of her own. Her Husband would kiss her on the neck and walk back from the well with her, carrying her water all the way not caring what the other men in the village might think of him.
She began to blush ever so slightly.
"I like it." Says Mike.
"Oh, Mike..like I give a rat's ass."
They returned to their work.
Maggie had begun working on her sculptures again.
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