Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Dog King
The dog king, I wish there were, king of just bent velvet ears and fish muzzles. Called to stand before the dog king to answer for my sins, the dog king. Deep underground, in the cool earth and smooth stones, thick fur and a sea of upturned, black satin noses. Torchlight turning on a crowd of gold and green, his army of watching night. Sighs and bad farts and endless excitement over squirrel dreams here or there. Don't try to pet the dog king. It's too late for that.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Hey Good for me. I found the, chronologically in terms of black pixels on white, the very next bit of nonsense I wrote after the last time I posted here. Not five minutes ago. I mean January. Still thinking of my grandmother's pomegranates jelly:
January 5 or so, 2006
Maybe there should be that clear claret, that Christmas jelly, the blood of Christ, the blood of rabbits and satyrs, of jaguars and suns and lovers. Maybe it should be in the short jars, the rusted bands, the gaudy lids. Maybe that should be the breaking point, the stone of no forgetting, the hairball over which we just will not compromise.
That jelly, that pomegranate jelly. And it was jelly, not some fantastic imagining of mine, not jam, and not syrup. Acid and bright and perfect for buttered, toasted bread. The color as much as the taste. New light! There's no light such as that. The quivering, infinitely faceted, holy grail in--just that, just a jelly jar.
Eleanor would send them at Christmas, along with date bars—though we never grew dates. Date bars are one of those memories I can still taste, but more nostalgic than good. I smell them. The aluminum foil, the plastic wrap, the powdered sugar and there in, the background, the smell of cat boxes and oiled hardwoods and newly cut Christmas trees and dogsbreath. A puff of powdered sugar and then the smell of weight. The smell of sweet weight.
None save my dad was sure if date bars were a good thing, but he loved them. We loved that we got them, we loved the excitement of the doorbell and the cardboard and the mad wild cutting with dull scissors and chewed pencils and thumbnails and butterknives—we loved the opening and the arriving, but not so much the eating. Grant that today I’d give a pinky—and I hope my grandmother wouldn’t be offended but I honestly would save my index fingers—I’d give at least a pinky that she were alive again and interested in making those sweet gravestones, those sacks of lead, those squares of anti-matter, those incredibly dense and deceptively white-dusted date bars. But I'd give my life to live one more day inside that pomegranate light, that light where everyone is living and every moment is just to begin.
January 5 or so, 2006
Maybe there should be that clear claret, that Christmas jelly, the blood of Christ, the blood of rabbits and satyrs, of jaguars and suns and lovers. Maybe it should be in the short jars, the rusted bands, the gaudy lids. Maybe that should be the breaking point, the stone of no forgetting, the hairball over which we just will not compromise.
That jelly, that pomegranate jelly. And it was jelly, not some fantastic imagining of mine, not jam, and not syrup. Acid and bright and perfect for buttered, toasted bread. The color as much as the taste. New light! There's no light such as that. The quivering, infinitely faceted, holy grail in--just that, just a jelly jar.
Eleanor would send them at Christmas, along with date bars—though we never grew dates. Date bars are one of those memories I can still taste, but more nostalgic than good. I smell them. The aluminum foil, the plastic wrap, the powdered sugar and there in, the background, the smell of cat boxes and oiled hardwoods and newly cut Christmas trees and dogsbreath. A puff of powdered sugar and then the smell of weight. The smell of sweet weight.
None save my dad was sure if date bars were a good thing, but he loved them. We loved that we got them, we loved the excitement of the doorbell and the cardboard and the mad wild cutting with dull scissors and chewed pencils and thumbnails and butterknives—we loved the opening and the arriving, but not so much the eating. Grant that today I’d give a pinky—and I hope my grandmother wouldn’t be offended but I honestly would save my index fingers—I’d give at least a pinky that she were alive again and interested in making those sweet gravestones, those sacks of lead, those squares of anti-matter, those incredibly dense and deceptively white-dusted date bars. But I'd give my life to live one more day inside that pomegranate light, that light where everyone is living and every moment is just to begin.
Old friends and new. Salt, eyelids and coffee grounds.
I recently got an email from a good friend whom I've never met. How that internet thing goes. A powerful writer, an oyster, a forge, an extruder of thin, taut, spare, painfully true word, this old friend. Doesn't have a blog that I know of, or I'd link it. Yes, well, she asked, more or less, "What, are you living or dead?"
A new friend, whom I've never met, sends me a similar email. Another writer. Have no idea how she found this three times, at that time, posted to blog, but she did and she asked, more or less, "Why the hell don't you write more?" Wait, this one does have a blog: this stoney planet that we farm .
So, well, hell, I don't know why I don't write.
A paragraph bringing up to date, a sentence maybe. After all, it hasn't even been a year, quite. Finished school with the most useless degree imaginable--philosophy. Got married, beautiful woman with eyes, these eyes. Another cat, maybe two. Fatter, slower, and I think that's it.
So, with a little more nonsense of the past week to follow. I do love hearing from old friends and new. I just have this really horrible awareness of time.
The more nonsense part, hot, more or less, from the metaphysical brown star:
Parchment skin and lethargic smells. Old powder and cedar wood, Downy, down down down down. Aromas notwithstanding, the betrayal. What happened to her skin, the fissures and the crepe? The haunting and the haunting. That bow mouth of a child reincarnating with a sweet smile and slicing through the dreamspace, rusted barbed wire.
If life were only as glossy and simple as a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. Maybe it is. Just imagine the women are for sale, but not for their sex, rather for their meat. I know they don’t look very meaty, but extra-lean is hot now. Hot hot hot. Low fat and low cholesterol and think jellied nipples, Brazilian super-aspic, crisp, roasted soles of dainty feet. Specialty market. Pricing exotic, like duck-billed platypus or panda loin.
Which turn of the wheel is this? And if we were bubble jelly, if we walked with our yolk to the sun, bubble jelly, a taut shiny skin turned to the wind, puckered with abscission, if we walked with tender feet tasting stone and leaves, hard leather forming on our backs, between shoulder bones and blond wire hairs, a mantle hardening off, red leather yellow leather, just bubble leather rolling along?
We’ve all got our one obvious abscission scar, that mossy, lint-filled oyster in our bellies. The innies and the outies. The scars they leave, the living in the dead. The unquiet smiles and sleepless nights and sour stomachs that fill our shadows. Moving slower all the time. Progressive constipation, sluggish lymph, and the strained smile of yellow teeth. Worm ridden fruit scared to leave the tree. Purgatory in the tall grass.
Are there angry spirits? Ill-tempered gin and seriously pissed-off peach schnapps?
“I know,” she said. “I don’t know, but we’ve been over this. But, what happened?”
What happened? What with the squirrel paste and the cigar boxes?
“If you must,” she said.
“With beet salad and goldfish toothpaste?”
“I know,” she said. “That even if you’ve been born again you still only have one mother.”
“I know,” I said. “That you have two navels.”
Sunday was spent, as Sundays are, mostly sitting around having compassion for parasites. Even ear mites have mothers.
“All I want to know,” she said, “Is what happened between the beginning and the end.”
“But, but there’s no such thing. Between the alpha and the omega there’s just the alpha and the omega, again and again.”
“For God’s sake,” she asked, “Between a taco and its shell isn’t there some condition of being, some grace of lettuce and cheese, some uncertain potentiality?”
“Not so much, after it’s eaten.”
Ancillary fish paste.
Just walking down Concord Street, loose asphalt marbles and men with stained pants, too much old masking tape and not enough busses, ghosts almost cheerful and bewildered, bobbing along like balloons on a thread, peering into ugly plastic strollers in blue, and just out of nowhere she turns to a man who’s getting out of a shining Camry and cries,
“Pig Fucker!”
It’s not a joke. Said in earnest, loud loud, a little shrill. Bracing for a fight, thinking not again, I look at his face swelling from the vee of black wool, red bumpy neck and clotted whiteness, but there’s no fight. Of all things, he looks guilty, ashamed. But she’s left no space for him to confront his accuser, to defend, to apologize, the beg of forgiveness. Down the way she’s gone, a storm of weeds.
I shrugged at him as the jelly under his skill ticked.
A new friend, whom I've never met, sends me a similar email. Another writer. Have no idea how she found this three times, at that time, posted to blog, but she did and she asked, more or less, "Why the hell don't you write more?" Wait, this one does have a blog: this stoney planet that we farm .
So, well, hell, I don't know why I don't write.
A paragraph bringing up to date, a sentence maybe. After all, it hasn't even been a year, quite. Finished school with the most useless degree imaginable--philosophy. Got married, beautiful woman with eyes, these eyes. Another cat, maybe two. Fatter, slower, and I think that's it.
So, with a little more nonsense of the past week to follow. I do love hearing from old friends and new. I just have this really horrible awareness of time.
The more nonsense part, hot, more or less, from the metaphysical brown star:
Parchment skin and lethargic smells. Old powder and cedar wood, Downy, down down down down. Aromas notwithstanding, the betrayal. What happened to her skin, the fissures and the crepe? The haunting and the haunting. That bow mouth of a child reincarnating with a sweet smile and slicing through the dreamspace, rusted barbed wire.
If life were only as glossy and simple as a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. Maybe it is. Just imagine the women are for sale, but not for their sex, rather for their meat. I know they don’t look very meaty, but extra-lean is hot now. Hot hot hot. Low fat and low cholesterol and think jellied nipples, Brazilian super-aspic, crisp, roasted soles of dainty feet. Specialty market. Pricing exotic, like duck-billed platypus or panda loin.
Which turn of the wheel is this? And if we were bubble jelly, if we walked with our yolk to the sun, bubble jelly, a taut shiny skin turned to the wind, puckered with abscission, if we walked with tender feet tasting stone and leaves, hard leather forming on our backs, between shoulder bones and blond wire hairs, a mantle hardening off, red leather yellow leather, just bubble leather rolling along?
We’ve all got our one obvious abscission scar, that mossy, lint-filled oyster in our bellies. The innies and the outies. The scars they leave, the living in the dead. The unquiet smiles and sleepless nights and sour stomachs that fill our shadows. Moving slower all the time. Progressive constipation, sluggish lymph, and the strained smile of yellow teeth. Worm ridden fruit scared to leave the tree. Purgatory in the tall grass.
Are there angry spirits? Ill-tempered gin and seriously pissed-off peach schnapps?
“I know,” she said. “I don’t know, but we’ve been over this. But, what happened?”
What happened? What with the squirrel paste and the cigar boxes?
“If you must,” she said.
“With beet salad and goldfish toothpaste?”
“I know,” she said. “That even if you’ve been born again you still only have one mother.”
“I know,” I said. “That you have two navels.”
Sunday was spent, as Sundays are, mostly sitting around having compassion for parasites. Even ear mites have mothers.
“All I want to know,” she said, “Is what happened between the beginning and the end.”
“But, but there’s no such thing. Between the alpha and the omega there’s just the alpha and the omega, again and again.”
“For God’s sake,” she asked, “Between a taco and its shell isn’t there some condition of being, some grace of lettuce and cheese, some uncertain potentiality?”
“Not so much, after it’s eaten.”
Ancillary fish paste.
Just walking down Concord Street, loose asphalt marbles and men with stained pants, too much old masking tape and not enough busses, ghosts almost cheerful and bewildered, bobbing along like balloons on a thread, peering into ugly plastic strollers in blue, and just out of nowhere she turns to a man who’s getting out of a shining Camry and cries,
“Pig Fucker!”
It’s not a joke. Said in earnest, loud loud, a little shrill. Bracing for a fight, thinking not again, I look at his face swelling from the vee of black wool, red bumpy neck and clotted whiteness, but there’s no fight. Of all things, he looks guilty, ashamed. But she’s left no space for him to confront his accuser, to defend, to apologize, the beg of forgiveness. Down the way she’s gone, a storm of weeds.
I shrugged at him as the jelly under his skill ticked.
November 12 Instant nonsense
And the,
what is there to say again?
And the steam from her shower comes stealing down the stairs.
I smell London I smell France--I smell, I smell,
Enough to think I exist.
Blue veins and memories, ghosts of a blue spark.
What gets you up in the morning? What keeps you awake at night? Not the cats, not the dog, but the churning passion and desperate regrets, the guilt and the shame, bacon and coffee and the leftover smell of yesterday's oil crisping in sun-filled kitchens, bringing comfort from days-gone-by fried chicken. The warm, the aerosol, the tinny hand bag leading eventually to hair spray and clitoris. I remember the old leather, the purple leather.
Bright pink and bubblegum panties. I liked the eighties--Reagan was comforting to hate. Suddenly, Ortega's back and Reagan's in the ground and Bush, Bush has almost admitted he was wrong. Some other kid might grow up soon, which gives me hope, but not for me. Duran Duran is on tour. Living in a revolving shoe box, with priviledges, outside and in, this aging thing. And strange people keep throwing their pictures on me, love letters and cheap broken bracelets and premature dreams.
Mostly, she said, mostly it's the dreams of peeing. I hate that, she said. I pee and I pee and I pee, but nothing ever changes. There's the shit on the walls dream and the line too long dream and she won't stop talking dream and all I have to do is pee, but there's shit everywhere, on the seat and on the paper, on the rack of magazines. Doesn't that seem like a waste of dreaming, she said.
what is there to say again?
And the steam from her shower comes stealing down the stairs.
I smell London I smell France--I smell, I smell,
Enough to think I exist.
Blue veins and memories, ghosts of a blue spark.
What gets you up in the morning? What keeps you awake at night? Not the cats, not the dog, but the churning passion and desperate regrets, the guilt and the shame, bacon and coffee and the leftover smell of yesterday's oil crisping in sun-filled kitchens, bringing comfort from days-gone-by fried chicken. The warm, the aerosol, the tinny hand bag leading eventually to hair spray and clitoris. I remember the old leather, the purple leather.
Bright pink and bubblegum panties. I liked the eighties--Reagan was comforting to hate. Suddenly, Ortega's back and Reagan's in the ground and Bush, Bush has almost admitted he was wrong. Some other kid might grow up soon, which gives me hope, but not for me. Duran Duran is on tour. Living in a revolving shoe box, with priviledges, outside and in, this aging thing. And strange people keep throwing their pictures on me, love letters and cheap broken bracelets and premature dreams.
Mostly, she said, mostly it's the dreams of peeing. I hate that, she said. I pee and I pee and I pee, but nothing ever changes. There's the shit on the walls dream and the line too long dream and she won't stop talking dream and all I have to do is pee, but there's shit everywhere, on the seat and on the paper, on the rack of magazines. Doesn't that seem like a waste of dreaming, she said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
