what is your favorite kind of cereal?
do you, for instance, prefer lucky charms to captain crunch?
my friend once told me about a store
near kalona, iowa that just sells the boxes of marshmallows
“CHARMS”
would vegetarian eat it if there were lucky rabbit’s foot charms?

i really like pirates,
promise, geoffry rush turns me on in that movie
but i also like the roof of my mouth you know what i mean?
and seriously johnny depp isn’t that attractive
dammit he’s playing hunter s. thompson again

literarily speaking,
                           god is cliché
don’t get me wrong i love the works of lovecraft, but we’re moving on
bruce almighty was an okay movie
and i was still a christian when i saw it

poem

everybody is trying to kill me

sometimes i think i like something

but i don’t

understand

everyone wants me dead

everyone hates me, okay

OK?

 

when we look through our books

through our faces

and underpants

what do we learn?

what do we even learn anyway?

please stop beating me

with those

big

really big bits of metal

 

do you know about vin diesel?

he’s a big fan of table top RPGs

particularly

he loves D&D

so why do i like things?

why does vin diesel enjoy dungeoneering?

who even wants to be his dungeon master?

may 4 poems

please, walk slowly and with slack, or disturb the fish
and you will wind up choking
on your tongue,
stretching it, tucking it into your shirt

see the rocks that fall to your knees, your tongue
can’t relax when seeing the fish
hovering above your nose, pissing on your shirt.
do not flinch, do not choke.

it wants your blood to stain your shirt,
hacking away at you with rubber air until you choke
and fall. bending over, the fish
will extend its simian tongue

and rip your flesh from beneath your shirt,
a squelching sucking tongue
from the mouth of the unfish,
feasting, waiting for the last croak.

———————–

turn your eyes to the foresty jellyfish, glowing orange and
ready to slap your face.
cowering from the slap and the rotting pulsing jellyfish
will unleash its needlerain, a flood of orange.
rock against the stammering orange light and
slap down her silly tree
and watch her float up, a frosty, bluer jellyfish

———————

“i am only asking when you, sir, will pay your debt!”
yells that damned doorknob from his mouth of a lock.
you shoot him with your mirror glance and run off from home,
sit beneath a tree and watch and disturb dying foxes and shrubs.
you take to the road, off to mirror lake,
so called because the locals are dumb and pay aesthetics more heed than necessary.

in the lake you sit and stare, watch the lock’s key fall to the bottom,
a shark no doubt will chomp it up, and disturb his digestive tract,
imagine soon paying for his pica*
(an eating disorder characterized by
the eating of non-food objects such as,
for example, keys found by sharks in mirror lake)

——————–

you look at my head and you may say it is gross
turning into a green ball of slime as it does, surging
with transmutable energy failing to be discrete
carrying out its wrapping my entire body in a deluge of the stuff
the suff which is green and glows and makes
a mess on the counters and floors and dusty tops of ceilingfan blades
i can feel it melting my skin, melting my brain, wrapping me in its
fallacious penguin dust.
(as you can see, it is taking its toll
on my already fragile cameras, pretty with their long sulfur nosepieces!

A Pickup

You come over to my place and show me the interior. You say you nicknamed it James Dean, after the actor. It is well worn. There is a hole in the middle seat. You can see the yellow foam that’s under the upholstering. You say that it was probably your dad’s nervous tick when he worked as a site consultant for construction companies in the area.
Your father would stutter whenever I was around. You said it was because he was afraid of you growing up and your having a girlfriend made him nervous.
We go to the memorial by the park downtown and sit on the benches. You say that you want school to start up again. I say I don’t want it to. You look down and then at the trees in front of us. You think so much sometimes. I ask if you are okay and you kiss me on the cheek. I am satisfied and I get up off the bench and kick a twisted stick into the timber. You follow behind, thinking.
Why do you want school to start, I ask.
I don’t know, you say. The corners of your mouth curl up and down.
Then why bring it up?
You look up at the trees, thinking again, and say how much you like me. You walk up to me and hug me. Don’t worry about it, you say, I don’t know what I’m saying.
I kiss you. We hear birds chirping, an audience.

I kick off my shoes and lay down on my bed. I had left the window open and now I can feel the summer escaping up my legs. I reach over and turn on the alarm clock radio. Last fall’s big song is playing, dedicated to those who cannot let go.
I lay in bed for two hours, not sleeping, not thinking, not looking. My father comes home and yells my name from the door, announcing his arrival.
I brought chicken from work, he says.
I move my head so it faces my alarm clock radio. The green numbers are foreign in my apathy.
Are you in here sweetie, he says, lightly knocking on my door, the smell of fried chicken invading my privacy.
Fine, just thinking.
Thinking about what?
Nothing, actually. Not actually thinking. Just – nothing.
Are you okay?
I am okay, Dad.
Do you want to eat, he asks. Food is a sacred tenet for my father. He is roughly 380 pounds, but I’d love him emaciated. I get out of bed and walk with him to the kitchen table, half of which is piled up with papers. There is room enough for the two of us. I eat a leg of chicken while looking at a birdhouse shoved beneath a ream of insurance policies and tax work. I imagine putting the bones into the birdhouse. I imagine the bones transforming into a bluebird. I imagine naming the bluebird Fred and sharing with it a glass of milk. Dad talks about things that I don’t pay attention to. I feign interest with grunts and coos of agreement.

Your parents are out of town for the weekend. I sit on your bed while you read me a news story about some injustices in another country. The story makes me sad. You come over and sit next to me saying it will be okay, that nothing will happen to us in America, that we are safe from bad guys. Your confidence is reassuring so I kiss you.
At six my dad calls to check on me. I say I’m fine and I’m staying the night. He is cheerful but worried. I worry too, I tell him. He tells me that he misses my mother. I say, me too.
You give me a glass tumbler with some wine in it.
I couldn’t find the right glasses, you say.
I say it’s fine and when is the pizza getting here?
You say, soon, and I believe you, your hair so curly and thick, your face a rough baby’s. I cringe at the wine. It’s better than soda, I say to myself. It tastes better, then.
We watch a rental movie about someone who can change time. I get scared when the kids kill a puppy, and I dive into your chest. Your scent reassures me, keeps me from danger. You say that it will be okay.
Why did you pick that movie, I say.
You shrug, try to reassure me.
In bed, you fuck me gentle and quick. I wonder if you are still thinking.

I wake up shivering. All coverings line the floor, and you must’ve opened the window just a crack. I reach out and touch your back, damp with night’s sweat. My touch releases an essence that hits me, soothing my restless skin. Heat slides up my fingers, arm, and unfolds in me.

The pickup’s windshield has a crack streaking across the left side. Loose gravel, you say after I point at it. It’s what happened when my dad used to take it out into the countryside.
I make a hmmm sound, open the glove compartment and discover it to be empty, save for a wad of gum whose original color could have been any.
You drop me off at my house and say that you’ll see me later.
I take off my flip-flops and walk to the center of the lawn. I sit down and grab hold of the grass, hoping I won’t fall from Earth.

Dad’s sobs leak into my room. I turn up the radio and get out my nail polish. I choose a mint blue and paint over the remnants of orange on my toes. The lady sings through fits of desperation. Every song on the radio stinks of tears and heartache. I remove the red paint from my fingers and choose yellow and pink for either hand. Bright bright nails.
I go into the kitchen. Dad smiles weakly, his eyes red, eating a large bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. His voice cracks as he asks if I want any. I pull a bowl and spoon out of the dishwasher and sit down. He slides the carton over to me and clears his throat.
Thanks, dad.
Is everything okay, honey, he says, voice returning to normality.
I say that I’m fine and that I just painted my nails. I look at his hands, big and rough. The ice cream is already melty, so it goes down easier. Small scars curve around his knuckles. A simple gold ring holds its place on his finger. He chuckles.
Pink and yellow? Couldn’t decide?
More cheerful, I guess.
Well, that’s a good concept to have in your head.
I grin and say thanks for the ice cream.

poem

30 March 2011

you say: “i wanna make ya do”
and wilting, i say: “not through this mind, prick,” so we punch each other.
the floor dusted with our shoes' tension beneath which lived
	oldmaidjohnson who says: “gettin' my shotgun”
if only to end our domestic dispute.

one torn jugular later we fall and in the blood, embrace our last.
shot down by oldmaidjohnson who'd lost her husband in the war
	“he was a good man my ol' wimmy
	died of a heart attack upon seeing
	THE NEWS: “Reagan's war on dr-
	ugs”, he was a heroin dealer you see, my newlydeads”

“sex” “sex” “sex” purveyed by clergy wandering the ten-street block,
a sign condemning,
a sexy sexy sign filled with god-jelly,
condemning our ever-loving bloody stares
met with the barrel of a “witty little knitter” disturbed
her dogs, (soap and water were their names)
	will no doubt enjoy the break from their monotony

The giant minotaur who badly wanted a blowjob.

The minotaur held “tryouts” in his lavish mansion which was located down town. Women from all over would come to his mansion to have the diameters of their open mouths measured. None of the women had mouths large enough to contain his bestial member. When the scientists in town heard of the minotaur’s anguish, they approached him with a proposition. The scientists created a machine that would imitate a woman’s mouth giving head. They made the machine large enough for the minotaur who, upon recieving it, took it into his 2 story bedroom to have his way with her.

The next morning the scientists returned to the mansion. The minotaur had hung himself from the eighth floor balcony. The note said this: “Pity sucks. I am another pathetic monster. We aren’t people too.”

No funeral was held as the minotaur was an abomination of human-animal carnal relations, or so said the town’s pastors, but the mayor did say a few words at a press conference. The scientists kept the body.

story

The frog pipe shakes when Liz bumps against the table. The contents Jordan had been packing into it fall out, so he yells at her.
“Watch it homie, artist at work,” he tells her.
She sticks out her tongue and walks over to Bob. She starts making out with Bob and he farts in excitement and Liz drops her Smirnoff Ice “bitch beer” on the floor. Jordan about yells at her again, but she is already crying so he decides to just finish packing his frog pipe and take a hit before he becomes liable for anything that happens. When he notices that there is a hole in his ceiling and a dead monkey on the floor, he decides that perhaps marijuana is not the best solution for the problems that have only just cropped up.

A naked old man looks down through the hole in his floor and a crying young woman sits down next to a dead monkey. He can smell weed and the stench of teenage sex coming from the apartment below him, and this displeases him. He yells down and introduces himself as “Rocket Spingleton” even though his name is actually (also) Bob. A black kid who calls himself “Jordan” introduces “Liz” and the other “Bob” to Rocket.
“I have shrapnel in my leg. I think the monkey had a hand grenade”, says Rocket, who is lying. Rocket thinks about how much he misses his wife and not being a naked old man in an apartment with a hole in its floor.

Jordan examines the dead monkey and concludes that it is a chimpanzee, not a monkey, but ignores the distinction and yells up at the naked old man that the monkey is too intact to have exploded like that. Rocket says something that Jordan ignores while Jordan thinks about how much Liz is crying. Bob excuses himself to poop, saying he is nervous. Jordan hates Bob and says so while the sounds of defecation echo from down the hall. Liz says nothing to Jordan because she is too busy crying about both her broken beer and the dead ape.
Jordan imagines making love to Liz but then looks at the dead ape and shudders. “Never mind,” he says to Liz who continues to say nothing. “What happened, Mr. Spingleton? This time I want the truth, you dirty naked old lying man.”

Rocket looks down at the black kid accusing him of lying and says that he was too busy watching his television to notice a smelly chimpanzee running around his apartment making monkey noises. Sweat forms in the crevice of his buttocks, which often happens when he lies. He is fine when he plays poker because he rarely plays naked. Somehow the black kid named “Jordan” is reading him. Maybe he’s a mutant lie detecting man.
“Are you with the CIA,” Rocket asks, batting his eyelashes to feign innocence.
The kid says something about how he’s just a stoner and asks him why he asked.
Rocket says, “shush,” and motions towards the monkey and mouths the word, “robot”, but Jordan clearly doesn’t understand so he goes to get a piece of paper.

Liz is glad the chimpanzee is finally dead, but she pretends to cry because otherwise everyone would suspect her. No one will ever know. She asks Jordan if we can bury the chimpanzee and give it a proper funeral so that maybe his little monkey soul will go to heaven. Jordan agrees but when he goes to pick up the monkey a paper airplane hits him in the head. Liz is tired so she goes to the bedroom where Bob is waiting.

the spotted hyena

check this out
it’s my dank-ass carrion,
doesn’t that smell just turn you on?
I am Whoopi Goldberg with a seven foot clit
you cannot deny your lust for this

oh we hyenas have it great
mounting our men is much more pleasurable for both partners
and all that cackling comes from the joy of
constant
sexual
stimulation

oh, boy you really know how to please a girl
i like my men soft
anyone i can dominate is just great
and an injured lion would only become my bitch
Claudius, bend over and take it like a king

poem

rainbows make more sense on television
so do fish tacos
I’ve never even seen a fish taco
for eighteen years I denied their existence
like nickelodeon
if I were to see a fish taco there might be rainbows
like eating a pot-of-gold-shaped-sugar
no one eats tacos for breakfast
only burritos filled with fat and maybe salsa
nobody even likes lettuce anymore

poem

peter parker called me up and we got coffee
his cum is stickier than most men’s
the residual radiation gave me cancer
now spiderman is bankrupt because I have better lawyers
that’s not true
it can’t be
I don’t even have a lawyer
plus, parker knows that one guy with the coin
he’s a lawyer isn’t he?
no that’s DC
I’m talking about zac efron
no, ben affleck played superman and died
he can’t be two superheroes
heat vision, no vision, suicide
that’s retarded
that’s not politically correct
“the Mandarin”?
I mean, come on
that’s what peter did in my mouth

poem

“no alligator no” said no” said the alligator
eating the dragonfly’s wings from its bedpost
all the reeds and the swamp eats my feet and bones
oh but that’s not in the teeth of the claws
“i think there is more to it than that” said the alligator
I looked at him and saw his snout and saw I had no snout
but only a nose
“no” I said to no said the alligator and walked into my corner of the cypress
alligator said “no, there isn’t” he followed me with his feet
in the water and the muck and also feces
there weren’t any dragonflies or wings, gossamer or feather pasted
otherwise why would I be this deadended alligator?
hitched to my truck there was a trailer with the body
scales on the exterior
the alligator eats my nose with his snout and the flies lap up the rest
but not dragons, only dinosaurs

poem

same as keys and the smell of soap
a monster will lick your foot from
beneath the table
youth too much done
minutiae’s burden cannot release us
so instead we wash the dishes
silent and without pause
we leave
between dreams
two coins
only a fool would spend them wisely

A story about Tim

Fog settles over Tim’s driveway. At five in the morning his neighbors still have their front lights on. A raccoon stirs from under his old blue Ford minivan and rushes past him. His shirt is wrinkled and his face is worn. He doesn’t own an iron so he does as best he can without one. The car door bounces after he opens it and his knees pop when he climbs into his seat. He doesn’t check his mirrors but turns on his headlights and backs out of the driveway. He stops at a green light before realizing it is, in fact, green and then continues driving past the intersection. The fog is thick enough to obscure some parts of the road, but Tim manages to drive carefully despite his hangover. A black Jeep with its headlights off passes him rather rapidly. Tim says, “oh shit,” and tries to stay calm. He pulls into a McDonald’s Drive-Thru and orders two breakfast sandwiches and a black coffee. The man at the window is sad and takes his money after saying the total, and then hands the change and food items over to Tim. The man at the window says, “have a good day,” and closes the window.

Tim sits in the parking lot of the building where he works and eats his sandwiches and drinks his coffee. The egg in the first sandwich has a brittle layer of film on its bottom; the second sandwich has bacon on it. He throws the wrappers back into the bag when he is done eating and takes his coffee inside the building. It is five twenty-one. He goes over to the video monitoring station where he works and says hello to the younger kid named Russell who works the graveyard shifts on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Russell doesn’t hear Tim as he is listening to a punk-rock band on his iPod. A can of coke and an empty bag of Doritos are sitting on the console and Russell is shaking his head to the music. The room smells faintly of marijuana and Tim wonders if Russell is “slightly retarded, or just stupid”. Tim taps Russ’s shoulder and he jumps, one earbud falls from his ear. Russell has gum in his mouth and says hello through sticky munches. Tim tells him he can leave now, and Russell leaves.

Tim watches the employees enter the building through the video screens. One bald man is arguing with a taller woman, Tim cannot hear what but he imagines it has something to do with law. Three meek Japanese women come in before being ushered out by the doorman. At nine Tim goes to the break room where he purchases a bag of M&M’s from the vending machines. He throws a green M&M into his mouth while watching an elderly man crying next to a potted tropical plant. Four yellow M&M’s and a red and misshapen brown one enter his mouth as he sees a bicycle courier and a woman in a yellow suit wait for an elevator.

At twelve seventeen a security guard named Chelsea comes in and relieves Tim for his lunch break. Chelsea sniffs and asks if he smells anything. He tells her that he doesn’t smell anything and leaves. Russell’s marijuana could get him into trouble with his boss. Tim finds his friend Geoff standing outside the building smoking a cigarette. He says “hello,” and, “your car today, right?”

Geoff and Tim get into Tim’s car and go to a Mexican restaurant. The waitress’s name tag says Renee and three curled locks of black hair dangle in front of his face from below her khaki hat. The waitress puts a basket of tortilla chips on the table and a large cup of salsa. Geoff orders a veggie burrito and refried beans. Tim gets two chicken enchiladas and a side of guacamole. The waitress comes back with the guacamole and leaves it on the table. She cannot smile at them because she hates herself. Geoff starts talking about his kid who just broke his arm playing baseball, and how all he wants to do is play video games. Tim says that maybe Geoff could interest his son in something like painting. Geoff says maybe. The waitress comes and brings their food. Tim stares at her ass as she walks away.

poem

you had me by the threads of my neck and burned them
and in the gray and pink glow, the ugly afternoon
shut out from empty bars and
the streets’ pallor resurfaced
to show us that the last yellow lines had been too much effort

the sun had little to do with our days
we only told time by our teeth and the scent of winds
all the manila soccer fields and frozen paw prints we saw
we ran to the tables and sat with your notebooks
a bottle of coffee between us

too shining a face with blotches of dirt
a nose often wet
your breath would ignite any remaining leaves, and
respirate them
but only the dogs could bring snow home

Spiritual Contact and its Potential for Coping Scenarios

Act I

in which our weary protagonist is met with an untimely end

“I’m sick of this,” I tell Adam, “let’s get out of here.”

“No, man, this place is too great,” he says, his ruddy eyes bugging out as an effect of whatever drug cocktail he had consumed over the course of the evening.

“Seriously I’m fucking tired.”

Caroline crashes into me and laughs. “Oh hey you,” she says. She tells me she needs to go to the bathroom.

“Go for it,” I say.

“No please come with me,” she says, lengthening the ‘ee’ sounds in ‘please’ and ‘me’.

Caroline has no trouble relieving herself, but getting off the toilet proves much more of a challenge. The struggle doesn’t really bother anyone. Whoever is in this restroom other than the two of us are either unconscious or experiencing intense orgasms.

I ask Caroline to give me the car keys.

“Hey, baby, I’m fine to drive, don’t you worry about me.” She throws up in the sink and wipes her mouth with a pair of pants hanging from the soap despenser. “Seriously though, girl, it’s fine. You been drinking too, so no mothering from you. Plus who wants to go home? This place is the shit.” Caroline grabs a purse from the floor and drags me out of the bathroom.

Adam stumbles over a homeless man on the sidewalk talking about this great falafel joint he had been to a few weeks back. The man doesn’t move. Caroline puts some money and cocaine in his pocket, saying, “fuck, that shit wasn’t even mine, maybe he can go out like a dream.”

Adam says that his uncle did that three years ago, and that he told him all about it at a party he was at in March.

I ask him how that was even possible.

He says he has to introduce me to Franco Jungman. “The guy is a shaman, and he can conjure the sickest spirit dances,” he says. “He allowed me to step into my mother’s body while she was giving birth to me. Fucking intense.”

After finishing his falafel Adam rests his head on my shoulder. “I love you, Holly. You are the best.”

“Hey what about me?” says Caroline. “Holly ain’t the best, I am,” she says motioning to herself. Her shirt is inside out and there is vodka and tzatziki stains down the front.
Adam tries to defuse the situation by saying we are both the best, but Caroline won’t listen. She grabs her purses and shoes in one hand and drags me out of the falafel joint with the other.

I am in the passenger seat of the car due to caroline’s drunk beligerence and my passive drunkenness.

“Lets just go home,” I say. She agrees and starts the car. We pull out and are immediately hit by a semi. We both fly out the windshield. I slam into the side of a tree. This impact knocks me back into the front of the car. I am on the pavement before I even think “fuck”.

Caroline crawls over to what remains of my body. “I’m so sorry, I thought I’d be okay to drive. I’m gonna call for the ambulance.” She gets out her phone. I cough once. It is a very wet cough. I assume that it is blood.

“I’m so sorry baby darling,” her voice trails off as she starts talking to the emergency service operator.

I am gone by the time the ambulance arrives. They take my body and zip close the bag, and take Caroline along with them. Caroline keeps apologizing. I can’t respond because I am dead.

Act II

in which our hero’s killer is shown the meaning of justice

Caroline stares at her computer as often as she can manage. It isn’t as if she enjoys it, only that this is as close as she has to a friend. Her roommate Adam barely sleeps in his room, and has perhaps moved out without her noticing.

Her computer had nothing too great about it, and pornography often made her nauseous. But sometimes a nice bout of planned boredom was intoxicating. She still didn’t enjoy it in any sense of the word, but it was her own impulsive masturbation. So, she tried her best to let it happen.

Caroline sits in her little green office chair and stares at the computer. For one hour she waits before turning it on. Fifteen minutes later she lays in bed with a cold can of ravioli.

Her boss looks just like Jeffery Tambor. Caroline would find this funny if she knew who Jeffery Tambor was. But she doesn’t, so to her Fred Jones is just a bald moron with all the charm of a pus-filled chimpanzee. Her boss chastises a soon to be former coworker about his inability to treat customers as family members. The soon to be former coworker often commits customer service incest in the family bathrooms between the baggage claim and the Starbucks near the baggage claim.

Caroline eats a sandwich for lunch. It is terrible, however she somehow manages to enjoy it. Masochism is the only thing keeping her in her line of work, that and a lack of college degree and her inability to obtain a job anywhere else in the city.

Her favorite part of her job has been the last two years. Nine-Eleven really made working at an airport even more amazing. Caroline and her soon to be former coworker often made bets on who would set off the metal detectors. Caroline won much more often than her soon to be former coworker. He likes to think of himself as a progressive non-racist, but non native English speakers were Caroline’s favorite to harass. They often don’t even realize when she is screwing with them.

Caroline watches a movie with Morgan Freeman in it. She didn’t know anyone who looked like Morgan Freeman. She had only ever known one black girl personally, but she had committed suicide in the third grade.

That night, Caroline turns over in bed and looks at her wall. She can’t see it very well as the lights are off. She wakes up in the morning and the wall is still in front of her. She doesn’t really notice that fact. Why would she? It is a blank bedroom wall.

She shaves her legs in the shower. She uses lemon scented soap and green colored conditioner. She forgets to use shampoo.

Caroline sits in a gate at the far end of the airport. She watches men in orange jumpsuits running around, using their hands for unspecified tasks, and generally looking busy. Caroline doesn’t like them very much. They make her feel rushed. She picks another seat. This one faces a wall. She nibbles on today’s terrible sandwich and squeezes mayonnaise packets onto the floor in front of her.

Her soon to be former coworker had asked her to drinks somewhere in the city. She accepted, knowing that she wasn’t doing anything. They commit coworker incest. She doesn’t enjoy it. His lips are dry and flaky and they make her itch when they scrape across her skin. Her soon to be former coworker starts to choke on a cherry. It was his fault he had tried to mix food with sex.

A dragonfly lands on her soon to be former coworker’s window. She hits the window. Her soon to be former coworker yells at her and takes a bottle of Windex out of his cabinet. Caroline walks over to the bed and asks her soon to be former coworker if he likes his job. He opens the window and starts cleaning the outside.

“No” he says as he closes the window. He sits down next to Caroline and admits that there really isn’t anything else that he wants to do.

Caroline smiles. She leaves her soon to be former coworker’s apartment without saying anything else. When she arrives at her apartment she threw her computer keyboard out the window and slept on her sofa.

She buys a candy bar at a convenience store and makes heavy breathing noises as she ate it on the bus. When she gets to the airport she hears a gunshot. Her former coworker had shot Fred Jones.

She gets the day off, so she goes to the park. She sits next to an old man on a park bench. The park bench stands silently, though everyone know what it’s thinking. It begins to rain quite heavily. Caroline watches a squirrel run up a tree to try and find shelter. The old man walks away but leaves his umbrella on the bench. Caroline picks it up. The park bench thinks about how much it hates the rain as Caroline walks away.

Caroline’s new boss had been nervous all day, so after work Caroline follows him to his car and gives him a blow job. She asks him if he has a computer. He says that he does not. She smiles and tells him that she likes that. He thanks her and drops her off at her apartment building.

She makes eggs for dinner. The TV news station reports that her former coworker had committed suicide in jail. She sits on her sofa all night and watches reruns of Cheers.

Act III

in which we meet the fabled master of the spirit realm

The light creeps up over the buildings facing Franco’s bedroom windows. He chose his apartment based upon the spiritual energies in the area, the relatively low price, and the fact that his bedroom window faces to the east. He also likes the fact that many buildings between his apartment and the horizon are much taller than his apartment building, the effect of which is that he doesn’t see the sun until around ten in the morning.

He puts three eggs to boil in the previous night’s bong water, not wanting to let it go to waste. He rolls a cigarette and opens his kitchen window. Outside an elderly man is dragging an orange kitten on a leash. Franco feels the kitten’s turmoil, as he too had just been awoken by the state of his world.

Franco lights his cigarette on the stove, and takes off a kettle of reheated herbal tea. Pouring himself a mug, he picks up the city’s monthly nondenominational pagan newsletter and scans some of the headlines. He pauses to sense any disturbances in the local planes, satisfied he puts down the newsletter and walks over to the window again. The man and his kitten have gone from his window view, but he can still sense the kitten’s pain.

Franco meets Adam at the elephant exhibit at the zoo. Franco produces a glass pipe from his pocket and packs the bowl. After taking a long drag, he offers it to Adam. Adam declines, opting instead to take a tablet of LSD. Franco takes another drag before putting the remaining marijuana in a film canister and both items in his pocket. He motions to the park bench. Adam sits down as Franco paces back and forth for some time before joining Adam on the bench.

“Now, my brother, I have called you here to not only witness the immense majesty of Loxodonta africana, easily the most majestic of living elephants, but to offer you an apprenticeship in the shamanistic arts. You have had a rough patch these last few weeks, and because of this the emotional pathways required for initiation.”

Adam opens his mouth to speak but Franco quickly silences him. “We must go immediately, but please remember this sight. This beast in front of you may help you along the process as a spirit guide. Use his rough exterior to burst through the psychic dam that guards your brain against the truths of the spirit realm.”

Adam unlocks the door into his apartment and walks in on Caroline asleep at the foot of the television, which is playing an old Star Trek movie. He goes into his room and brings out a bag hastily packed full of assorted belongings. He opens the cupboards in the kitchen, until he finds what he is looking for: a large vodka bottle full of change. He grabs this and a half eaten jar of peanut butter and stuffs them into his bag. He locks the door as he leaves and Caroline does not wake up until her new boss calls informing her that she is late for work and needs to come in as soon as it is possible.

Adam arrives in front of Franco’s apartment building. He, Franco, and Julia Desinda who works at the nearby health food store all get into Franco’s ancient pickup truck. Most of it is red, from rust and the paint job, except the purple passenger side door. Along the way, Adam is forbidden to speak. The only sound on the trip is the cassette tape of Whipped Cream and Other Delights by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and the occasional passing of other cars.

The Thrilling Conclusion

in which our hero is vindicated

I had been staring at the sky for months, elated that I felt both relaxed and energetic. But now I notice the wind begin to darken, and the sky begin to fade. I become swept away with feelings of nostalgia and dread. I sit up for what seems to be the first time in ages as all color fades from my sight. Everything is white, misshapen and yelling obscene words at me. After a while a naked man wearing a stuffed owl on his head is formed from a white shape that resembles a dolphin and one that looks more like a frog wearing a cape. He steps up to me and says my name.

“Come with me,” he says, offering his hand.

I take his hand, unable to resist. The man is incredibly unattractive, but I am physically compelled to take his hand in mine. As I do, my surroundings become less misshapen and more colorful. The man with a stuffed owl on his head is writhing around on the floor as if in an epileptic fit, even foam is flying from his mouth. The obscenities fade to a low chant of nonsense emitted by the various people surrounding the fire over which I stood. Everyone other than the man with a stuffed owl on his head wore tie-dye or leather. I hear Adam’s voice behind me and then I remember. I spin around and look him in the face.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Hey, girl! I’ve missed you a bunch, thought I’d pop in and say hello. How have you been?”

“I’ve been better. Death has been great, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to enjoying it, now.”

“Hey so I told you I’d introduce you to Franco Jungman, that shaman I was telling you about the night you died.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that, I wanted to go home and then we went to eat falafel, and then Caroline crashed the car.”

“Yeah, what a night, huh?”

“I fucking hate falafel, Adam. Don’t wake me up again.”

poem

oh hideous star mouth
chewing the core from beneath the wheel of light
swing most spectrally and
collapse
supermassive and clean
flossing the twinkling from under your own black teeth

poem

Zirconium shines through jealous
footholds, and I reach out
to your unctuous wounds that,
seeing the necessity of the act,
have been slowly administered by the embodiment,
a rolling oath, if ever there were, and slightly
think upon it lest your new spyglass be
completely unhindered

poem

you still beyond my every thought
the ashes can clutter my nasal cavaties
though perhaps through mourning I can
if I knew
but your chances of reassured locked
never again will I look you in the ass
state my thesis and thumb it to the nearest drug store

poem

faceplants and powerholes
the majesty of depression descends upon all of creation
the bars and
alcohols within can only cater to the random souls
in which we walk our bowlegged
and thirsty monologues to the grocer
no more rastafari jealousy can make me tremble below
staunch and newly transsubstantiated ceiling fans
the hands and feet and genitals of
Jesus Christ our lord of heaven and lonesome stallions
lucky south Saharan sighs make their way to our ears
and in our celebrity, answered through a new and improved
Buddhist way of thought,
but the longer we sit and wait, the more the pizza piles upon our beds,
and makeshift rafts find refuge within deep ocean trenches
so please tread lightly across my lampooned puddle,
misshapen and green, too unfamiliar with my face

poem

insects eat away my insides
super beetles and termite kings
loving was repulsive beyond even by the budding of my heart’s laquered valves
made of the finest oak, this new muscle,
though once a ground up meal,
a new forest grows within my chest
a pumping beating home for albino squirrels and mourning doves
the madness of a wooden heart,
the roots spreading across my limbs
and the branches within my head
an epicenter of rotting burning seeds planted beneath my breast,
now thrown to the sky,
scattered by your mollifying wind

Cindy

Cindy stared at her computer as often as she could manage. It isn’t as if she enjoyed it, only that this was as close as she got to having sex in years. Of course she never really enjoyed that when she used to act out her carnal desires. It was often more pressure than desire. Not really rape, though. To her it was more a semi consensual escape from whatever she thought she needed to escape from, whether the imprisonment be real, exaggerated, or imagined.

Her computer had nothing erotic about it, and pornography often made her nauseous. But after hours of annoying customer service, a nice bout of planned boredom was intoxicating. She still didn’t enjoy it in any sense of the word, but it was her own impulsive masturbation. So, she tried her best to let it happen.

Cindy sat in her little green office chair and stared at the computer. For one hour she waited before turning it on. Fifteen minutes later she was in bed with a cold can of ravioli.

Her boss looked just like Jeffery Tambor. Cindy might find this funny if she knew who Jeffery Tambor was. But she didn’t, so to her Fred Jones was just a bald moron with all the charm of a pus filled chimpanzee penis. Her boss was chastising a soon to be former coworker about his inability to treat customers as family members. The soon to be former coworker often committed customer service incest in the family bathrooms between the baggage claim and the starbucks near the baggage claim.

Cindy ate a sandwich for lunch. It was terrible. She enjoyed it. Masochism was the only thing keeping her in her line of work. That and a lack of college degree and the probable inability to obtain a job anywhere else in the city. Also her lack of friends and family kept her dependant on the airport. Her favorite part of her job was the last two years. Nine-Eleven really made working at an airport even more amazing. Cindy and her soon to be former coworker often made bets on who would set off the metal detectors. Cindy won much more often than her soon to be former coworker. Non native English speakers were her favorite to harrass. They often didn’t even realize she was screwing with them.

Cindy watched a movie with Morgan Freeman in it. She didn’t know anyone who looked like Morgan Freeman. She only knew one black girl personally. She had committed suicide in the third grade. Cindy had committed suicide at a much earlier age. She was probably seven or five, I’m not sure. It was definitely an odd number though.

Cindy turned over in bed and looked at her wall. She couldn’t see it; the lights were off. She woke up in the morning and the wall was in front of her. She didn’t really notice. Why would she? It was a blank bedroom wall.

She shaved her legs in the shower. She used lemon scented soap, and green colored conditioner. She forgot to use shampoo.

Cindy sat in a gate at the far end of the airport. She watched men in orange running around, using their hands for unspecified tasks, and generally looking busy. Cindy didn’t like them. They made her feel rushed. She got a seat facing a wall. She nibbled on another terrible sandwich and squeezed mayonnaise packets onto the floor in front of her.

Her soon to be former coworker had asked her to drinks somewhere in the city. She accepted, knowing that she wasn’t doing anything. They committed coworker incest. She didn’t enjoy it. She was mostly thinking about her computer the whole time. Her soon to be former coworker started to choke on a cherry. It was his fault he mixed food with sex.

A dragonfly landed on her soon to be former coworker’s window. She hit the window. Her soon to be former coworker yelled at her and took windex out of his cabinet. Cindy walked over to the bed and asked her soon to be former coworker if he liked his job. He opened the window and started cleaning the outside. No he said as he closed the window. He sat down next to Cindy and admitted that there really wasn’t anything else that he wanted to do.

Cindy smiled and left her soon to be former coworker’s apartment. When she arrived at her apartment she threw her computer keyboard out the window and slept on her sofa.

She bought a candy bar at a convenience store and made heavy breathing noises as she ate it on the bus. When she got to the airport she heard a gunshot. Her former coworker had shot Fred Jones.

She got the day off, so she went to the park. She sat next to an old man on a park bench. The park bench stood silently, though everyone knew what it was thinking. It began to rain quite heavily. Cindy watched a squirrel run up a tree to try and find shelter. The old man walked away but left his umbrella on the bench. Cindy picked it up. The park bench thought about how much it hated the rain.

Cindy’s new boss had been nervous all day, so Cindy followed him to his car and gave him a blow job after work. She asked him if he had a computer. He said no. She smiled and told him that she liked that. He thanked her and dropped her off at her apartment building.

She made eggs for dinner. The TV news station was reporting that her former coworker had committed suicide in jail. She sat on her sofa all night and watched reruns of Cheers.

Holly

“I’m sick of this,” I tell Adam, “let’s blow.”
“No, man, this place is too great,” he says, his ruddy eyes bugging out as an effect of whatever drug coctail he had consumed over the course of the evening.
“Seriously I’m fucking tired.”
Caroline crashes into me and laughs. “Oh hey you,” she says. She tells me she needs to go to the bathroom.
“Go for it,” I say.
“No please come with me,” she says, lengthening the ‘ee’ sounds in ‘please’ and ‘me’.

Caroline has no trouble relieving heself, but getting off the toilet proves much more of a challenge. The struggle doesn’t really bother anyone. Whoever is in this restroom other than the two of us are either unconcious or experiencing intense orgasms.
I ask Caroline to give me the car keys.
“Hey, baby, I’m fine to drive, don’t you worry about me.” She throws up in the sink and wipes her mouth with a pair of pants hanging from the soap despenser.
“Seriously though, girl, it’s fine. You been drinking too, so no mothering from you. Plus who wants to go home? This place is the shit.” Caroline grabs a purse from the floor and drags me out of the bathroom.

Adam stumbles over a homeless man on the sidewalk talking about this great falafel joint he had been to a few weeks back. The man doesn’t move. Caroline puts some money and cocaine in his pocket, saying, “fuck, that shit wasn’t even mine, maybe he can go out like a dream.”
Adam says that his uncle did that three years ago, and that he told him all about it at a party he was at in March.
I ask him how that was even possible.
He says he has to introduce me to Franco Jungman. “The guy is a shaman, and he can conjure the sickest spirit dances,” he says. “He allowed me to step into my mother’s body while she was giving birth to me. Fucking intense.”

Caroline crawls over to what remains of my body.
“I’m so sorry, I thought I’d be okay to drive. I’m gonna call for the ambulance.” She gets out her phone.
I cough once and then I’m floating above a fire in a tent surrounded by Adam and a whole bunch of folks wearing tie-dye and leather jewelry.
I rub my eyes. “What the fuck?”
“Hey, it’s Holly, how you been, girl?” He motions to the guy wearing a stuffed owl on his head, “this is Franco, the shaman dude I was telling you about way back when. What have you been up to lately?”
“I fucking hate falafel,” I say. “Don’t wake me up again.”

Moonstruck

Sometimes I can’t have forks, they say that it is too much for me to handle. I can’t reign myself in, they say. But I can have spaghetti today. George doesn’t know my name. I don’t know it either. It’s too much, that’s what they tell me sometimes. Not about my name. They don’t know it like George does. They always tell me that I never use my napkins, but they stick to my hands. I use a fork today.

The noodles stick to my grizzled face days after we had eaten the spaghetti. They try to take me out to the shower, and I resist them, George says it’s because I’m a slob. It’s just because they want me in that water. The water doesn’t want me anymore though, the water used to need me, it can’t do everything by itself, you see. George didn’t believe me though. But it can’t, I tell him, it is barely corporeal. He asks me how I even know what that means. I say, lacking density.

There are sometimes rabbits. They don’t say much. They aren’t in the showers, though. They are outside. They really like it there. Sometimes they die. I can’t go out to see them. They won’t let me, they say it would be too much for me to handle.

But the water, it takes me back, it takes me back, and it forgets to tell me why. I was there, I saw him. I was with the rabbits, and they just sat in the sky with me. I can’t see the flowers any more. Brightness in my head and I don’t want to leave.

But right now there are no rabbits, there is only the snow. It isn’t many rabbits. I thought it was. George got out a picture, but it was broken. He said we had to put it together. I didn’t want to. The picture made me sad there were flowers, it was pretty and bright, and thats not for here, that’s for the brightness. George told me I’m impossible, sometimes I wonder what he means by that. It can’t mean that I’m not here because I am. So is Charlotte. She came back I knew she would. I missed her when she was gone. George doesn’t like Charlotte, and says she’s not real but she is too, just like me. She’s my friend even if she is kind of a cow.

I am at my window, I tell him, so go away. He says it’s not my window, but it is mine, because I had one and they gave me this one because they took my other one away. I call him bald and I tell him to go eat cement. George keeps telling me about his problems, and I really don’t care sometimes. He is so selfish, I am by my window and all he wants to do is talk about his father. I don’t care what his father put in him. He needs to grow up. I don’t call for my father at night like George does. No, I don’t even call for my father. He’s gone and I know it. He should know where his father is, that’s for sure. I don’t want to even want him to bring it up anymore.

The water won’t talk to me anymore, it just streams down my hairy white back and into the floor indifferent to my pleas. The water is just as fastidious as George. The shower head slows to a dribble, and the water just taunts me with its cold shoulders.

Later they take me to their leader, a balding Hindi monkey with the most dramatic comb-over that could ever be seen. He smelled of fish and wet urine, and I didn’t like him at all. He starts to tell me about my “behavior” but I won’t listen to his stupid mockery. He just wants my name, he calls me John, but that’s not me. I ask him why the water is so quiet, what did he do?
He writes something down and asks me why I thought the water wasn’t talking anymore. He already knew I suspected him, he was trying to deflect me from the issue, no no no no, it won’t work it won’t work. I told him that I didn’t care that the water no longer spoke to me, I was getting tired of working for it anyway, and it burns sometimes, and I cry. No one cares.
He tells me that I will see him again tomorrow, but I don’t want that, no no no no, I don’t want that at all. I tell him to catch on fire and die in the snow. They drag me out of his smelly little room and into the quiet place, where I can only go to the brightness. I am consumed by the quiet, and in the dark forgotten gods whisper about senators and sports stars. I am left alone, but I am not being here. Here is the waiting, I am the only one left, but here they keep me gone.

That stupid scrawny monkey looks at me and adjusts his glasses. Freudian mantras line his walls, along with screen printed images of seven armed gods. He asks me how I am doing and I just laugh. I seem fine to me, I say. I ask the monkey if he has seen my name. He tells me I was found without identification. I tell him he’s right, I don’t have one. He keeps calling me John, and I keep looking over my shoulder when he does. There is no one behind me, but I know that.

I am sitting by my window laughing at the falling snow. George has his hands on his ears rolling his head around. I tell him to stop and just enjoy nature. He screams and stomps right up to me. He intends to scold me, and I stick my tongue out and tell him I’m leaving. He says, me too, and he storms off in a fit of god-hath-no-fury-like-a-Georgy-porgy and begins to mumble and frown at his broken picture of flowers. I continue breathing on the window drawing pictures of Charlotte and rabbits. My pictures are better than George’s flowers, at least mine aren’t broken.

I help George with his puzzle a little bit. He mumbles under his breath all day. I throw peas at him during dinner. They kind of look like him, the peas do.

I stop moving. I won’t talk. The monkey doctor stares at me waiting for me to say things. Silence until time’s up, that’s how I’m playing this. Only ticking, breathing, and beating. I feel his heart beating through my feet. I want to crush his intrusion, but I know he’s not here, only me, and I’m gone. I could crush his face onto the cold concrete and take out his stupid hindi heart and chew it to a pulp. I just smile at him as they take me out of the room.

I’ve given up on the water. I won’t move. They have to bathe me. I don’t say anything as they scrub my pasty arms.

I sit and sway above my sheets. Tonight I see a different brightness; I will not go into mine. I recognize this new brightness. The moon hits me and gives me her name. She looks into me. My nose quivers in her glow. The snow whispers softly. Incomprehensible but I feel its noise. I still miss the rabbits.

George tries to get me to talk. I just take apart his puzzle. He begins to scream and wipe the sweat from his shiny head. He tries to stop my hands, but I’m too fast. He says, put them back you lunatic, you crazy psycho put them back. I stand up and look down at him. He stops and looks into my eyes. I smile and go to my window. He yells at me as I rock on my chair, you’re not supposed to do that he says. It’s dangerous you could fall he says. He says he’ll tell the monkey doctor and the nurses and the big boys on me. I smile and rock back and forth in the chair. George pushes the table into me as I am rocking back. I fall into the brightness.

A nurse is shining a light in my eyes. Behind her George stands, looking on, his hands never staying still. His eyes are red and covered in salt. He says he is sorry. I continue to say nothing. He says he understands. He doesn’t. Two big boys take me with the nurse to my room. I hear George screaming, no I didn’t mean it, it was an accident, I’m sorry. They are taking him to the quiet place. I am placed on my bed. The nurse tells me to get some rest, and that the doctor will be back tomorrow.

Tommy the Fox Meets Frank the Pig

“Now, I understand your fear, Frank. You failed to pay what was owed. But when I heard this, I was not angered, and I am still not angered. I am very very sad.” Tommy the fox looked around the dark living room for his old friend, Frank the pig. Tommy’s ears stiffened at the sound of a muffled squeal resonating from upstairs.
“I was sad because I felt betrayed by a friend of mine,” said Tommy as he cautiously placed a paw on the first step. “What saddened me even more was the thought of what I now have to do to you. The pain you’ve caused me will last a lifetime, but I, being a noble soul, will not let you suffer too long. It is not necessary to be vindictive.” Another squeal and Tommy smiled. Sniffing the bottom of the bathroom door, he had found his mark.
“Now, Frank, here is your chance, you either give me the money, or, well, I’m just hoping, for both our sakes, that you will do just that.” Tommy began to count down from ten, and at about seven, Tommy heard scuffling from inside the bathroom. He leaped into a nearby room as the swine emerged from its hiding place. Frank looked around, hysterical, with a shotgun in tow. Tommy tossed a marble into the darkened hallway.
What happened happened very quickly, a clack, a bang, a couple of thunks and a loud squeal. Tommy had pinned the pig to the floor, his left hind paw placed directly on Frank’s testicles.
“Now Frank, you didn’t want to add an injury to my already quite insulted self, did you? I am going to assume that the weapon was in the bathroom in case you would slip in the shower, and not, as it would seem, to kill me.”
“Please, please don’t kill me, Tommy, I’m sorry, I’ll have your money, I just don’t have it right now.”
“Now you are insulting further by insinuating that I have a learning disability.”
“No, no, no, no, no plea–” Frank was cut off as Tommy placed a paw on his snout.
“Shh shh hush, you. Now if I were to let you go, what would that say about me to my boys on the streets? They would think that I am as soft as, oh say, the belly of a pig. People would think that they could walk all over me, and that’s just bad for my reputation. No, I must do what I came here to do, either get the money, or punish you for inconveniencing me. I don’t like getting blood on my snout, I’m the type who loves a cooked meal, but if I must defend my honor, then a bloody snout is something I must endure. Now quiet yourself, I am going to try my best to not enjoy this.”
Tommy very much enjoyed his meal.

you ugly muckling!

you ugly muckling!
give me your shoes and your well worn ear muffs
your threadbare bottom sticks out like a lamp
and you use your cold earnings to buy us good meat
so now every time you go slowly into the dawn
we know that no seekers will give us great threat
but sandy and murky
and every so lonely
you will make us hate you yet