Scatterbrain

I had slept for some time when you decided to come by and let me know about a number of things I had forgotten. Your intent seemed kind but you told me a number of things I had forgotten that, when added together with the things you forgot I had forgotten but I remembered I had forgotten, was large. A large number of forgotten things. How large the number was is unknown, but it creates a mass that spins rapidly inside you and threatens to pull down the books from the top shelf. Particularly the volumes pertaining to metallic elements such as tungsten or iron and also indexes of perfumed oil.

You told me these things with such a degree of nonchalance that you didn't notice when I began to resent you. I watched you peeling the candle wax with your fingernails like I did when my brother was being baptized and I was forced to hold a candle that I didn't want to. I peeled the images of lambs with my fingernails and I didn't know why it wasn't lit. I had never held a flame before and I forgot his name for a moment. He was the innominate "brother" figure and you were a fleeting inkling.

When you had told me that your sister was having a birthday, you put the candle wax from under your fingernail in your mouth and you chewed disgustingly. I could hear the bones in your temples cracking as you chewed that pliable wax and I tried to think of a metaphor this could be representing. An allegory for which this was holding the place. But there was nothing except miniscule air pockets and involuntary sucking noises that occurred on the remote sides of your teeth and gums as your thin cheeks and temples flexed like a pink organ and you swallowed candle wax.

I had stopped being drowsy then and I offered you a small cake from my cupboard, from what was our cupboard, but you said you weren't hungry and you gnawed your nail with enough force to bite it off in small, peeling sections. You put those fingers into intimate locations before. Those fingers popped a champagne cork last year. Auld Lang Syne. You kissed my hand and my nose at midnight and my mouth at one after midnight. You touched me nicely and vigorously. We didn't sleep until we were exhausted and clutching nakedly.

When the dog came over, being depressed, you pet the dog. Because you pet the dog, you reinforced the dog's depression and as a result, it lay at your feet, just like you wanted, and it sighed a canine sigh. "Lay down now," you said. And it did, and you gave it a biscuit. Fuck you.

You drank a bit of your seltzer water. Who drinks seltzer water? Not anybody normal, I'll tell you that much.

I wish I had said those things to you after you told me that I forgot my mother's birthday because then it would have seemed like a joke and you would have come to touch my face and put your broken fingernail next to my ear. You would have said something that would redeem you to me and I would have forgotten all of those things I hate in you. But instead, you refused food and I packed a suitcase and pretended to talk down to you like a farmhand or a ruffian. But I didn't do those things. I forgot my luggage in the other room so instead I sat and loathed you until I fell asleep in this armchair. You woke me up by not noticing I was asleep and that I hate you.

But I do, I do, and you eat your oatmeal dry and mealy. When you told me all of the things I had forgotten, I remembered (which in itself is surprising) that we are not different people, and we are not different people, which explains why I hurt so much when I say I hate you. I hate you. Comfort me and my ugly limbs, extremities.

Chyme

The first time you got up in the night
to shamble around your bedroom and knock over
expensive vases I didn't realize you
were not awake and you were never awake
when you kicked off the blanket and fumbled in my jewelery
box, feeling for a gold ring to drop in your mouth
(and I would hear it clink against
your teeth as your lolling tongue swirled
in your head) and, swallowing it, when you crawled
back into bed, your feet (cold from the bare
floor) touched my legs, which were a tactile
form of echolocation that helped you
to fumble up to my stomach, where you smothered
your face (or at least you tried) as you curled
your fingers around my hipbones and dug in with your fingernails.

That gold ring slid down your throat by way of
muscle contractions to rest in your stomach
in much the same fashion it would if
it were in the black of a stone well
and I never said a word.
I never told anyone about that well, that ring,
even you.

When I touched your face and said you were a sleep
walker, you strode away from the place you were
(the relatives watching your every action)
and you went outside to the in-ground pool, which
was frozen, and you tore back the cover
to stamp on the ice until it broke.
You cut your calf on the shards of ice and
you sat in the chill water, soothing your wounded leg
until someone brought you a glass of wine
(some relative brought you a glass of wine)
and you agreed to come inside and be bandaged.
But I really don't need to remind you of that.

As ether perfumed your veins (by way of your lungs)
and your eyes slid shut your hand went limp
and unconscious,I thought about how I could have
done anything to you that I wanted to do to you,
including reaching into your open throat
to root out the useless chyme and reclaim that gold
ring that, by then, was likely corroded and disfigured
beyond recognition or repair.
If only I had done it sooner.

I used to be a brash young man.

My parents were lowing across the flatness of Indiana. They cut hair. They turned wrenches. They drank beer. They ate pork. That was who they were.
I was rocketing into the sunset, traveling over the plains that had been created a millennium previous by slow and heavy glaciers.

I learned things and I became more important than I used to be, growing from the inside and shedding like a serpent. My old self could have been eaten for nutrients but it would have not been necessary thanks to the amount of prey animals. I wormed into a snake hole and gnawed on my fingernails. They were flaky because of nutrient deficiency.

Vitamin B deficiency caused deep ridges to form horizontally in my nails.
Zinc deficiency caused my cuticles to bleed at random and hangnails became chewable.
Iron deficiency caused me to become winded every time I climbed a staircase.
And every time I drank coffee I went partially insane.
I forgot about my parents and I envisioned myself growing a spine, rigid and straight.

I experienced death, which is unremarkable. I laughed, which was brash.

I invented stories about myself that included me being related to royalty, me being royalty, me being possessed by devils, me being on my last life in the karmic cycle, me being on a train in my dreams, me being an inhabitant of two universes at once connected by the brain stem, medulla, etc.

Even though my corpus callosum is a mass of tissue, like the rest of my brain, it is somehow more powerful. It connects the two hemispheres of my brain and, somehow, bridges the gap between the two. The corpus callosum is liminal. It was here in my brain when I went to France in my dreams.
I don’t hate my brain. Je ne deteste pas le grande gris. In my dreams I spoke perfect French.

Having experienced a degree of success at the hands of travel on the metaphor of a rocket, I decided that travel was necessary for me. This fact did not directly result in a rootless existence, but it contributed somewhat. This fact was a facet, like other facets.
From an early age, I found jigsaw puzzles tedious and infuriating. I enjoyed coloring books, which, from a psychoanalytical standpoint, could be interpreted as a cousin to jigsaw puzzles. This can be seen in the way in which completion of the activity occurs: filling in. Using colors or pieces. Prescribed or inscribed. Standardized tests dominated my existence as a child and this does not leave me feeling bitter.

I was a banal kid. Most kids are secretly banal.

Charlotte, North Carolina: You were never a part of my life.
Tucson, Arizona: You were never a part of my life.
Seattle, Washington: You are a mystery to me.
Idaho: You were never a part of my life.

I came to the city in search of mazes and liminal areas. I liked to walk around and so I did that often. I still do. Large bodies of water call to me. They say my name very quietly.

Sometimes I like to call my parents on the telephone while I look at large bodies of water. Rivers and lakes.
They tell about the goings on of the county and of my different relatives. I look at the water and I think about untilled cornfields and how they are both essentially the same thing. You can’t walk on them but you can swim. If you try to breathe inside, you will die and get lost forever.
The corn in Indiana grows higher than your head and requires large machines to harvest the kernels. They look like huge, mobile oilrigs. Essentially, they are that.

Whenever we finish speaking, I always make a point to say I love you. It is always sincere. I never learned to swim.

But none of these things have to do with the fact that, above all, I enjoy wearing hats. I have only three, but I enjoy them equally. This is not a metaphor for personality. It is a statement about my enjoyment of hats and that I like to wear them.

cont.

Inside there was the grey lamb. “And finally, Noe, we meet.” It stepped gingerly toward Noe, picking up a pine bough in its mouth. White moths were covering the lamb’s neck like a wreath. “I suppose you will be wondering what happened to Cyril, but perhaps you won’t be.” The lamb nosed the hole in Noe’s stomach and opened its mouth. A piece of honeycomb fell out onto the floor, oozing honey. “Please, have some if you like.” The old woman scooped it up and put it in a glass jar, placing it onto a shelf next to a jar of curds.
“Oh, Noe. We will eat these later.” She smelled the jar of curds wistfully. “But for now I’ll make some tea.” The lamb sat on the floor and watched. The dog shuffled over to the lamb and laid its head on the lamb’s stomach, sighing.
The old woman opened a cupboard full of small glass jars, each containing some form of dried leaves or flowers. A spice odor wafted to where they were watching. She got out four different jars and set them on the table. The kettle hissed. She made a content noise and turned the burner off. From the cupboard below the counter, she got out a medium-sized nut and a gnarled root, which she also set on the table. She hummed a few random notes as she opened other doors, gathering a large glass bowl, two smaller glass bowls, two teacups, a grater, and a bottle of exotic oil. She arrayed the implements. “Thank you for being so patient with me. I promise that the tea I’m making will be worth your wait.” She crinkled her eyes and reached for a glass jar. Just before she could open it, the lamb interrupted her.
“Do you think it would be beneficial to tell us how you’re making the tea?”
“Oh, yes! Yes, of course.” She opened the jar and smelled it. “Thank you for being so helpful. You are very kind.” She took a pinch of leaves from the jar and crushed them with her fingers. “These are stinging nettles. Whenever you brush by one with your bare skin, it stings you. To heal that burn, you can use jewelweed. But dried like this, nettles are gentle as a lamb.” She laughed airily and picked up the grater. “Ginger root is very good for the digestive system. It is very spicy, but it loves you.” She grated the ginger vigorously over the bowl. She breathed over the bowl deeply. She uttered a faint noise and reached for another jar. “Lavender cleanses your blood and refreshes your spirit.” She placed a small handful of lavender in the large bowl and reached for the next jar. She scooped a handful of dried leaves out of the jar, scattering them in the bowl. “Sassafras. Such a fun word to say.” She grinned. “Sassafras.”
“Sassafras,” said the gray lamb. The old woman laughed.
Suddenly she became very serious. “My water is getting cold, so I must be slightly hurried.” She picked up the last jar. “Raspberry blossoms and leaves.” She sprinkled a small palmful into the bowl and smelled. “Good. Now for nutmeg and cedar oil.” She measured a capful of cedar oil and poured it into the bowl. Again, with the grater, she vigorously grated an indeterminate quantity of nutmeg into the bowl. “Finished.” She stirred the contents with a wooden spoon and gently poured hot water on. The tea smelled sour and medicinal. “We should let it brew for at least ten minutes. What should we talk about in the meantime?” She turned over an egg timer.

The gray lamb was still in the brambles, but Noe was in the clearing in his dream. He sat on the leaves and patted the hole in his stomach. Flowers were growing very plentifully inside. He plucked several and smelled them. They smelled just like raspberry flowers. He ate one. It tasted exactly like a raspberry flower. He waited for something to happen, but he didn’t know what he ought to expect. He clenched a handful of grass in his fist and ripped it out of the ground. The gray lamb bounded in from out of the shadows and nosed his hand. It whispered to him. “Feed me that grass,” it said. Noe did this. “Now follow me, young man.” Noe did this.
They walked together toward the edge of the clearing until the lamb stopped suddenly. “Turn around. What do you see?”
Noe looked at the clearing. There was the mound of leaves, the small bit of grass he tore out of the ground, a circle of petals, the vial. Samara.
“Now, go get the samara and the vial. These are symbolic of things you are clearing out of your consciousness. You are, per usual, asleep, but you won’t wake up just yet.” The lamb opened its mouth. Noe placed some of the pine seeds and the vial in the lamb’s mouth. “Yes,” it said. “Now, walk with me.” They walked into the woods. The lamb disappeared behind a tree. “But, young man with the hole in his stomach, I have not disappeared behind a tree. You won’t be able to see me here. I am only visible in there.” Something near his feet rustled. “I will erase that place.”
Noe was afraid, and the voice of the lamb was not comforting. He indicated his fear with his thoughts. “Hush,” said the lamb. “You see, I have eaten you, but you couldn’t possibly realize it yet. Don’t think yourself a fool for this. You simply couldn’t have known.” The lamb laughed a bit, which caused the woods to tremble. “You are dreaming.” The lamb seemed to whisper in Noe’s ear, “I am also dreaming. We are dreaming together, you having been eaten by me. Now, walk that way.” Light rose in the woods, revealing the moss on the trees. “North,” said the lamb. Noe followed the moss.
He walked for what seemed like hours until he came to a small, odorless flower. It grew slightly as he approached. It was slightly pink with a deep red center. Its petals flexed gingerly against one another and arranged to form some kind of mouth analog. When the flower spoke, it was the voice of the lamb. “This is not what you think.”

Dream scene

In his dreams one night, he saw a gray lamb looking away from him. It lay on a small mound of red and yellow leaves in the center of a clearing. When he approached, it turned its head to look at him. It bent its head toward the ground and opened its mouth. Flower petals fell out of the lamb’s mouth, settling to the ground in a perfect ring. Lastly, a small vial fell out of the lamb’s mouth. The young man knelt to take the lamb’s head in his arms, sensing that it was the most appropriate thing to do. The lamb whispered to the young man in a very deep voice.
“Who are you, young man?”
“I am the young man with a hole in my abdomen,” he replied.
The lamb drew back its head to observe and consider him. “Look at me,” the lamb said. He looked, and the lamb had a wreath of long-needled pine boughs around its neck. “Take the samara from this wreath, please.” He took a pinecone and felt its roughness. The young man was bewildered. The lamb nestled its head in the young man’s lap. When the lamb breathed, it smelled exactly like raspberry blossoms, which the young man had smelled before.
He remembered the vial and glanced at it, lying in the ring of flower petals. The lamb shifted slightly. “The secret is to dry it,” the lamb said. The sky quickly darkened.
The lamb slowly rose from its bed of leaves and walked into the forest. The young man stood but he couldn’t follow. He woke up.

Melons

Before the archer became a famous marksman, he drove heavy wooden stakes into the ground for the utility of his growing melons. He would wrap their vines around the stakes in order to support their weight. Over time, the vines became thick indeed, the fibers becoming useful materials in the making of his bowstrings.

A lady entered his garden one afternoon. "You are the marksman, yes?"
He replied: "Yes. May I ask your business?"
"I was merely passing your garden and I noticed your melons, which are of particular repute, and I decided to declare myself to you." She tossed her hair testily with one hand.
"I see. Forgive me, I meant to be more kind than how I likely had seemed presently."
"Indeed, I was for a moment rather cross," she admitted.
He shuffled his feet, unsure of what he ought to indicate.
She pecked at the ground with the toe of one shoe.
They exchanged pleasant smiles as they parted ways.

The archer went indoors and worked on his spindle for some hours, sucking on hunks of chilled melon in the meantime. His distraction caused him to drip some juice onto the line he was spinning, which frayed slightly. As he was finely braiding the bowstring, he failed to notice the tiny flaw in the line. He strung his bow with that particular bowstring, tugging it to test its tensile properties. It seemed to withstand the normal amount of tension, which resulted in his inability to see the imperfection.
He placed his bow onto its hook and sat at his table, where bread and olive oil were placed prominently. He tore a chunk from the bread with his bare hands (red from the spindle work) and he poured a relatively small portion of oil into a dish. He chewed, musing, and produced pen and paper. He wrote the following poem.

If you were indeed a star
I would test by pulling on your thread
to see if you were robust enough
for my hands, for my hands so red.

My hands are red from the spindle.
My hands are red from the earth.
My hands are red from the mother's mark
which was given to me upon birth.

The light was failing, and he extinguished his candle, retiring to bed.

The following morning, he woke and walked into town, carrying his bow. It was the day of a competition, and he imagined that he would see her there, the woman from just the day before. He attempted to maintain his usual focus, but was moderately unsuccessful.

Arriving at the competition grounds, he found his nerves a bit jangled. So he asked a man sitting at a table beneath a tent for a draught of something a bit harried. Having drunk it, the archer felt quite at ease.
A horn sounded, and it was time to begin. He hoisted his bow and strode to his place, marked with a "V" for his first name.

He placed his feet a shoulderwidth apart and arranged the bow properly in his hands, pulling from the quiver that he had set on the ground. He aimed, sensing his heartbeat. Between beats, he shot a very straight arrow into the center of the target and received an expected and welcome round of applause. The apples of his cheeks reddened a bit in pride.
Another archer with a yellow hat achieved a similar level of applause tempered with surprise, for no one had thought that the marksman and his melonstrung bow would be bested by a dandy in a yellow hat.
After two or so occasions of similar description, the archer finally noticed the fault in his bowstring. He worried, as the man in the yellow hat was decidedly close to his record. He was worried, but he stilled his heart.

In a moment of brashness, the man in the yellow hat aimed too hastily and missed the target completely. The arrow stuck itself deeply into the earth, standing and quivering slightly. The man in the yellow hat cursed significantly and scoffed at the target and the crowd, who stood aghast.
The archer took aim and felt the creaking bowstring fraying within. The condition of his bowstring was deteriorating rapidly and he sought to end the match as soon as he could so that he could return home to his small house and his melons. He thought of his garden, which also contained various hydrangeas and peonies, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He relaxed his bowstring. Something inside the string snapped, but the string retained its tensity. The crowd grew abnormally silent. He breathed deeply and took aim once again. He did so without opening his eyes. He opened his eyes and saw the target, which loomed. He waited for his heart to calm, stretched his bowstring, and (upon the heartbeat) let an arrow fly. It sailed deep into the target, just to the right of the center. The crowd was excited.
The bowstring snapped, lashing his eye. Silently, the archer returned home. He slept.
Several days later, a trophy arrived at his home, engraved with a feminine hand. He placed the trophy in his garden, filling it with earth and planting a thistle in the center of its cup.

Once, he tasted the thistle's milk. It tasted of rose and honey.

Beast

Yours is the heart.

We have never played together
in all the years that we have been
together, in the baptismal font,
or lounging on the sofa or the
chaise. Yet the beads that we
could have made
could have strung
are sprawled out like a pack
of African beasts are scattered
on the savanna, specifically, and idly at that.

Especially pertaining is the manner in which
you fight against the droves of seagulls or the ugly horseflies
by placing two cigarettes in the heart of a wildebeest and stroking your throat
roughly with one hand, tight as a gibbet's joints.
Your young and creaking arthritis. Your sleep apnea. Joys! Joys!

You chill your bones with a great deal of fruits, dealing
in zen and violence in equal measure and similar explosion.
Convulsing, as you do, as you will, if you would, out of revulsion,
repulsing, spurting maggot zebra.

You have been expelled from the inner sanctum
with zen and violence in equal measure. And,
with zen and violence in equal measure,
you fell beasts and fabricate any number of elaborate carpets.
Listen to your occidental symphonies and thump your breast,
your thumping beast heart. Pounding at that.

The sultan lay in his bedchamber, cooing to his harem.

He called to his favorite concubine, who approached shyly and lay beside him, warming her feet, which were cold from the marble floor.
She whispered a poem very softly to herself. She imagined the artifice in the sultan's bedchamber, wooden animals and silken tapestries gathered. She lay on a feather bed and the sultan lay a bunch of grapes on her face.
"Eat, darling." He spoke milk.
She ate them, and they were very sweet grapes. She rested a moment.
The sultan puckered his lips next to her ear, making kissing sounds. He touched her inner thigh and touched her necklace, inlaid with lapis.

She kissed his earlobe and asked him a question in a moment of intimacy: "What, my liege, do you most fear?"
He pressed the sides of her face with his warm hands, which were slightly damp. He responded calmly. "I cannot tell you what I most fear." He kissed her over and over. "I cannot tell you what I most fear, sweet mistress, because then you will use it to exploit me."
The concubine massaged his chin. "I am certain of the care I may take when thinking of you." She nestled and paused, breathing. "I may tell you what I fear, however."
The sultan did not move. He snorted in mock exasperation. "Perhaps you ought not."
The concubine massaged his chin again. "But I shall now. I fear ruining the moments we share, or sullying the great affection we have for one another."
He clapped his hand over her mouth.
She spoke into it, "I fear this so, every day I live. I cannot move or breathe from this fear."

The sultan rose from his feather bed and ate an apricot, tossing the pit into bed next to her. "You will do well to plant this in the garden. Nurture it and cause it to grow large and fruitful. That is all that remains for it, the stone."
She took the stone and placed it underneath her pillow every night for two years before finally planting it in the countryside on one of her many trips. It was stunted and bore a multitude of minuscule and inedible fruit.

A cockatoo in the cage of the sultan's bedchamber spoke of fear when offered crackers, and this could never be trained out of the bird. It was killed and buried in the garden, next to a rose bush, which bloomed very brightly and fully.

Dream Dream

The season is late winter, with snow still laying around waiting to melt, ice in some places, et cetera.

Walking out of a bar in my cowboy boots in the snow, making it difficult to walk, a female travel companion and I walk toward the park, where the sun is shining. We step into the mud and snow and it is an open field. a wild boar comes running up to me, curious, and then leaves.

My family and I are standing in the field when two large trucks let loose a pair of hummer-sized boars with no faces, tusks, or eyes. They possessed only a single gigantic snout for rooting, eating, and smelling. One comes up to me curiously. I was frightened for my life, but it only smelled me and was completely gentle. Then it signed and lay on the grass. My dad said, “That means it’s going to die. Don’t anybody touch it or else you’re not coming home.” I got the sense that he would have called a bus for us.

There was a picture book story of a number of different dead animals. First, it mentioned the boar-thing. Then it settled on the picture of an emaciated lion. “He has been here for months.” I got the sense that the fur was very well preserved for it being dead so long. There were a profusion of other things, such as an eagle being forcibly relieved of its beak..

Next there was an aquarium of bizarre things. Mostly it was bugs and sponge like things eating one another or combining in some way to cause each to die. For instance: a silverfish swims inside of a gelatinous, predatory tubule, which then rockets into the water out of fear and then turns from green and translucent to white and opaque, drifting down to rest, standing up, next to a number of different similarly rendered tubules. Also, there was a great deal of glowing matter around, which shone very brightly in the dark.

Stairs

I feel compelled to tell this story.

I was in a lecture hall during my first year of college. It was "Classical Mythology" but that is not important.

There was a blind student in the class. One day after class, while the stragglers were at the bottom of the staircase, that blind student got up to leave. in doing this, he fell down the stairs.

He was angry with his seeing eye dog and he refused the help anyone tried to provide him. The professor rushed up the staircase and said something to the effect of, "we are here to help you."

The blind student yelped angrily, which is understandable.

If then you were to murmur

You stain your bedclothes and
several duvets with tea leaves and animal
milk when you wake in the
night and the clock has turned off.
Then you stumble around in the dark
of your chamber and you clutch and knock
over any number of valuable objects suck as
Faberge eggs.

If then you were to murmur
unintelligible words, I would not
hear you and I would not
care to hear you mumble.
I would stop to watch you only flash
boil. To evaporate instantly from
the folds of my medulla, from
the tunnels in my bones, from
the valves in my arteries, form
the folds of my dermis, from
my scalp, from my hands, from
the knuckles I crack.

You knock over an oil lamb
and cut your hands on broken glass.
Suck the wound till it
hurts no more.

Dear Satskatchewan,

I am sick of your ephemera.

Given especially that you exist as a province in Canada at this moment in time, I am rather taken by the notion of your obsolescence, of your youthful and unabashed desire to be territory, to be a pioneer breeding ground. To be wilderness, unexplored, suburban.

Get out of Iraq, get out of Iraq.

I wonder what you are doing when you sit alone in the hallway and listen to music on your record player. Jot in your own goddamned notebook.

Go away, go away.

Come away from the hall and put down the radiation headset for just a moment. A millisecond. Come look at the event horizon and let's bask in a forest somewhere.

Look at me. Look at me.

Death drives a seafoam green station wagon and thinks about life.

I am so bored with driving a car in a single direction.

There is always a car and there is always a highway.
Absolutes are disruptive and drudgery at its most heightened state of awareness. Still, I drive because I don’t know how to stop.

I roll down the windows and let your steam roll out the window lazily and gradually. You are clouds when you turn into steam, you are clouds of the dead.

But literally, you are dead and you are a cloud.

I’m not lost, I’m just constant. I go like a runner or a jet stream. A jest.
Nobody pours over me like books or waterfalls. Nobody looks in the reflections of reflective surfaces to try to find me. I go, I go, like bones in the garden.

Death is an item like perfume. It sits on your skin and it wafts away in layers,
notes of scent. Its residue will always be there but its presence will be undetected by the nose, the organ that is made for sensing its presence.

Death is a pretense.
Death is not a pretense.

Come sit in my car and I’ll drive you around in my automobile until you flash boil, until you waft out
like a scentless fog. I will have forgotten who you are by the time you have left the window open.
Bring yourself to me and we will forget your problems together. Wander out onto
the highway
and we will crash softly into one another like two storm fronts or onions.

Jesus and John Wayne will twang away on a ukulele and sing folk tunes and hymns in turns.

Goodbye goodbye. Go under the earth.
Goodbye goodbye. Go out the window like a house fire.

I am a furnace

into which one could throw any amount of fuel in order to produce a flame. I blast heat, I blast heat.

I am a furnace into which one could instantly incinerate anything and turn it to dust. Metal shavings, pace maker pieces, dust dust ash ash.

To baby, upon birth

Once you’ve finished crying from the intensity of the light, I will tell you what you need to hear, things about life that you’ll learn from experience. I will tell you ahead of time so that your road will not be any rougher than it has to be.
I will place this pink hat on your head and stroke your new face with the back of my finger as I sing you the first lullaby you will remember, soft and low, as you suckle and drowse in my arms, then gasp for breath because breathing is novel. You’ll hear your first lullaby and I will sing it to you at night every night for years.
When we come home you will be safe and warm. I will quiet the dog when it tries to bark. Go to sleep.
Go to sleep. Eat plenty of vegetables. Don’t hit other kids on the playground. Once more on the slide and then we will go home. Keep away from hot things. Pet the kitty nicely. I will have your inhaler. Don’t tease the boys. Or girls. Share you toys. Spend a little money on yourself. Save a little money. Don’t worry too much about money. Bring warm clothes. Dress in layers. Sing if you want to. Draw if you want to. Come to me if you need to cry. Come to me if you want to talk. Come to me, come to me. I don’t know yet if I can make it better for you, but I can promise to do my best.
Sleep here on my shoulder until the sun comes up and I’ll whisper your name.

Great Strides

"We venture into
the vast forgetting."
Were your last words
before you stormed
out indignantly.

I shouted poems after you:
"I take four great strides
into the nothingness.
Then I turn back and
see what I have done,
what I have done.

"I take four great
strides into the nothingness.
And I rub your nose in it."

The start of something.

Bobo the chimp was born in a zoo. This was fairly unremarkable because Bobo the chimp's mother was, in fact, born in a zoo. When the zoo at which Bobo and his mother lived faced hard economic times, Bobo and his mother were grated refugee status. They were placed in a group home with other displaced primates. The home was run by an aging Jewish couple who, as their last mitzfah, decided to set up this group home for primates.
Bobo liked to read chapter books for young adults. He read the scary ones most, but he liked the books about the kids who could turn into animals best. The aging Jewish couple made sure to give Bobo plenty of books because he had trouble socializing with the other primates.
When Bobo's mother died, Bobo became very sad.

I was a drunken soothsayer in the wilderness.
I was a distressed swamp master in the desert.
I was a fetid miser out to sea.
I was a tired goat in the field.
I was a limp ocelot on a branch.
I was a Great Red Spot.
I was a clanging drawer of silverware in the sideboard.
I was a dish on the stair.
I was a banquet of many different cheeses and fruit.
I was dry and dusty.
I was a road or an alley.
I was a chute.
I was a blood transfusion and a thirsty throat.
I was just a thirsty throat.
I was a mouth, a limb, a chimpanzee.
I was a child with autism peeing in the toy aisle.
I ravished.
I was a blinking pea pod on a vine on a stake.
I was a medium rare fillet.
I was a dry article on politics in the thick lecture hall.
I was a bottle of hand lotion positioned suggestively on the back of a toilet.
I was a little blood in the urine.
I was a springtime outbreak of cholera.
I was a stinging fever in the wet bed.
I was a disaster in the crowded spaces.
I was the despair of stretch marks.
I was a deck of cards wrapped in cellophane or tissue.
I lined the walls of your sarcophagus.
I wore down the lining of my esophagus.
I ate my children, I ate my children.
I was a dubious cable on the spine of a crane.
I was a span of time in the vacuum.
I was a god, I was never a god.

I bask underground.
I bask underground.

Builder

I am a whip

I glisten with pomp and blood

When you see me, I ought to be a tumult.
Large and in charge.

Bullish.
Brute.
Dastardly and masculine.


I would defy you if you dared to rise up against my loins.
My muscled neck and jawbone. My back.


If I had four bolts of lightning I would strike down eight men with machine guns.
I am great.

Storming.
I bend into distinct shapes, indicating my prowess.
It ripples, venous.
I ripple.
I drown you out with my immaculate voice.
Pure white and silken. A boulder, I am a boulder.

I was on the CTA this morning. I've kept taking the train because there are no direct buses from Belmont to Evanston.

On the purple line, there was a gentleman with a very offensive smell. It made me salivate thickly.

When I thought of cows, it was bearable. I thought of large, adorable dairy cows.

Infections.

Ear infections are the most naive infection.
Bronchitis is the most petulant.
UTIs are the most lonely.
Viruses are the most stately.
Athlete's foot drinks Keystone Light.
Gangrene drinks Newcastle.
Leprosy drinks 15-year scotch neat.
Ebola is suffering from culture shock.
Cholera misses his family.
Malaria came from a broken home.
Lyme disease was stranded on an island for two years.
Polio thinks fondly of your grandmother.
Cancer's father had a muscle car in the garage.
Dengue fever joined the communist party in college but now regrets it because it was a rash decision.
Pneumonia wears gray shirts.

Journal

dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary.

I had a dream last night that involved apricots and a fog machine in the bathroom.

dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary dear diary

6/9 haikus

1.
the cable stretches
an iterative statement
between two places

2.
in gentle twanging
there is a distant language
above the landscape

3.
and noiseless cirrus
go by and make no noises
whispering nothing

4.
and noiseless cirrus
an iterative statement
above the landscape

5.
in gentle twanging
go by and make no noises
between two places

6.
the cable stretches
there is a distant language
whispering nothing