Friday, December 17, 2010
Time
So, if time is nebulous, instead of linear, then the side-effects of living in the future-- worry, stress, headaches, ulcers-- are for those people that are timetraveling forward in their minds, playing out fears and inconsistencies into new branching universes. The jelly of the body doesn't handle such travel well.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Barthelme
I'd never really considered it, I guess.
It seemed such an idea, she says.
And there, close against the wrought-iron, can you see him? Straining, stumbling, his overcoat pockets various stuffed with crabapples, skeleton keys, sage leaves, clippings, honing stones and feathers?
His mien is plain, she sighs.
And see how he strains to remember, but he's distracted immediously, stupendiipifying.
She reaches out and places an oblong pill into my lip, and I subside.
He'll remember, soon enough, she says. See how he supports his self against the oak-frame now? And ceasing in his rummaging, he now pulls every feather from his pockets various, at last discarding pipe-ends, foil, fresh eggs, and fountain pens to claim each quill; each accent?
And he bundles them so- quills down, I whisper, struggling with the drySwallow of the oblong pill. My voice returning: To make a fine, much-pointed weapon for a downstroke- Thus! he illustrates, in one half-focused step away from the frame and out.
The moonlight through the wrought iron frames him terrible, and loverly, she says.
But framing is this wretch's weight, I say! And should have said yea, long ago, had not the pond'rous weights; mine own dreams plummeting; cast me so adrift beyond the swollen hold of all my memories.
Your 'membered memories, she ill agrees.
I had not all my strength, my compassion, when he had need of me most.
a bit of toast, with peanut butter, she mumberzles, and a cola. ice.
I was suborned, not clear to cleave the clovering fog that--
piece of cheese like a duck egg. poppy seed rye. the toast...
What's that, I ask?
Huhn? Oh... go on, then.
But see now! How he picks a thread-end from his stuffed overcoat, and produces something small from his HatBand.
A needle, wot!
He deftly knits the feathers in a fan, all flick and cartilage, anew! He goes, says I!
And so should you.
It seemed such an idea, she says.
And there, close against the wrought-iron, can you see him? Straining, stumbling, his overcoat pockets various stuffed with crabapples, skeleton keys, sage leaves, clippings, honing stones and feathers?
His mien is plain, she sighs.
And see how he strains to remember, but he's distracted immediously, stupendiipifying.
She reaches out and places an oblong pill into my lip, and I subside.
He'll remember, soon enough, she says. See how he supports his self against the oak-frame now? And ceasing in his rummaging, he now pulls every feather from his pockets various, at last discarding pipe-ends, foil, fresh eggs, and fountain pens to claim each quill; each accent?
And he bundles them so- quills down, I whisper, struggling with the drySwallow of the oblong pill. My voice returning: To make a fine, much-pointed weapon for a downstroke- Thus! he illustrates, in one half-focused step away from the frame and out.
The moonlight through the wrought iron frames him terrible, and loverly, she says.
But framing is this wretch's weight, I say! And should have said yea, long ago, had not the pond'rous weights; mine own dreams plummeting; cast me so adrift beyond the swollen hold of all my memories.
Your 'membered memories, she ill agrees.
I had not all my strength, my compassion, when he had need of me most.
a bit of toast, with peanut butter, she mumberzles, and a cola. ice.
I was suborned, not clear to cleave the clovering fog that--
piece of cheese like a duck egg. poppy seed rye. the toast...
What's that, I ask?
Huhn? Oh... go on, then.
But see now! How he picks a thread-end from his stuffed overcoat, and produces something small from his HatBand.
A needle, wot!
He deftly knits the feathers in a fan, all flick and cartilage, anew! He goes, says I!
And so should you.
Monday, November 29, 2010
The kid/ Southern Utah
Here is a novel prompt I wrote in the passenger seat of our big dirty pearlWhite Cadillac, the Foxwife doing 10 Under, in a snowstorm headed North to Salt Lake City and to home on I-15. It was this afternoon, and now I've varnished red that violin I've wrestled for a month.
Ray and Elroy are acting out stories I heard this Thanksgiving weekend from Foxwife's grandfather, and a few from her dad.
The time period is what's so intriguing for the setting. Southern Utah and Nevada are strange enough now. This is unedited. Just a prompt. A prompt.
*****************************************
The kid gets picked up by Ray in the desert on his way to pick up Elroy . They’ve arrested him for firing an automatic off in the parking lot behind some bar. Somebody came out and breaks his head with the butt of a pool cue and the Sherriff comes and picks him up.
The kid is with Ray when the ATF agents come and Elroy is let out.
‘Anything you want outta that truck?’ they ask Ray.
‘Why?’
“Because it’s now the property of the US Government.’
The kid is looking for a character that has stolen something from his family, or is responsible for him losing something very valuable to his family-- the lien on their farm, or their car got impounded, and it’s our kid’s fault, but nominally because of the character he is pursuing.
The character is native american, allowing an exploration of the prejudices/ the illegality of Indians drinking in this time frame. This is the late 50’s in Nevada and Southern Utah.
The kid is following tales and rumors of the Indian so he CAN KILL HIM if he doesn’t make recompense for the problem, which really should have been stopped by the kid, if he had been on top of his business, but he wasn’t, and being a kid, he wants revenge rather than looking at himself as the villain.
So they have to get Elroy a ride, because the ATF took his truck. Ray offers him his Jeep, but they have to go get it, and it starts to rain. Flash flood starts up, and when they get to the Jeep, it’s up to it’s wheel hubs in churning, muddy water. They start it, and try to whip it around and up a mineral dune, but the sand collapses, and they mire further in. Elroy says to leave it, that they can’t handle it, that the flood gets to keep the Jeep, after Ray has dried the ignition off- middle of the flood- carefully with a flare.
He cranks the key, it roars to life, and then splutters… dies.
‘Damned… let’s get outta here,’ says Elroy, nursing the caved in bandaged side of his head against the rain.
‘The fan. It pulls the water in same as it would air,’ says the kid.
‘Gimme your belt.’
Ray ties the fan blade to the frame so it can’t spin, starts the Jeep, and drives it across the churn, like a boat, deep brown wake, and Elroy jumps on as it passes, they’re all hooting into the night and waving their arms.
They get back to Ray’s truck, and the kid is soaked, shivering. . Ray gives the kid a racing jacket from the cab with a W on the chest, and the number 12.
THE STORMIN MORMON, says the back, in stitching.
The kid peels his workshirt off, like a sodden bird, and the great butt of a pistol is revealed, sticking out in the middle of his back. Ray darts in and snatches it, cooing at the discovery. The kid yanks his arm into the dry jacket and yelps. He starts toward Ray with crazy eyes, slitted against the sluice.
Elroy grabs him in a nelson.
‘Gonna shoot us, kid, take what we got?’
‘It ain’t for you,’ yells the kid.
‘This is an old gun, kid,’ . Ray says, ‘like as blow your hand off as shoot one of us.’
The kid protests and won’t tell what’s up. ‘Just give it back. It’s my property.’
Elroy grins.
But Ray reaches back into the cab and brings out a fairly new pistol, a .45, and shows the kid there’s no bullet in the chamber, but that the clip is full, and slips the into the kid’s waistband. He tosses the old Peacemaker into the cab of his truck, and starts around to the driver’s side.
‘You handle your business, son, you come see me, and I’ll trade you back if you want. But I won’t let you kill yourself with this old thing. That iron’ll serve you.’
Elroy lets him go.
Elroy agrees to give him a ride to the next town. He goes to gather some money owed to him in St. George, and takes the kid with him, and makes him use his pistol when he goes to collect the money.
Before they leave, the kid stops and looks at the frightened woman and her frightened little brother. 'You seen an Indian name of Peter Two Ghost? Tall, with a birthmark on his neck, up to here?'
The woman shakes her head. The kid gestures at the little brother with Ray's gun.
'The races,' says the little brother. 'Sherriff's deputy ran a Scalp off from the races had a raspberry up his neck. Caught him drinking in a car fulla white women.'
'Where'd he head to from the races?' asks the kid.
'Dunno. Sherriff's deputy busts him a few, runs him off. Next town is Cedar City, North.' He produces an excruciating smile.
Elroy needs the money to buy a backhoe so he can do some work on the land of a woman he is sleeping with who isn’t his wife. He has offered to buy the backhoe twice, and the guy keeps refusing.
Kid goes with him to offer a third time, and the guy refuses, and so they go back that night and hotwire the damn thing and take off into the desert.
Ray and Elroy are acting out stories I heard this Thanksgiving weekend from Foxwife's grandfather, and a few from her dad.
The time period is what's so intriguing for the setting. Southern Utah and Nevada are strange enough now. This is unedited. Just a prompt. A prompt.
*****************************************
The kid gets picked up by Ray in the desert on his way to pick up Elroy . They’ve arrested him for firing an automatic off in the parking lot behind some bar. Somebody came out and breaks his head with the butt of a pool cue and the Sherriff comes and picks him up.
The kid is with Ray when the ATF agents come and Elroy is let out.
‘Anything you want outta that truck?’ they ask Ray.
‘Why?’
“Because it’s now the property of the US Government.’
The kid is looking for a character that has stolen something from his family, or is responsible for him losing something very valuable to his family-- the lien on their farm, or their car got impounded, and it’s our kid’s fault, but nominally because of the character he is pursuing.
The character is native american, allowing an exploration of the prejudices/ the illegality of Indians drinking in this time frame. This is the late 50’s in Nevada and Southern Utah.
The kid is following tales and rumors of the Indian so he CAN KILL HIM if he doesn’t make recompense for the problem, which really should have been stopped by the kid, if he had been on top of his business, but he wasn’t, and being a kid, he wants revenge rather than looking at himself as the villain.
So they have to get Elroy a ride, because the ATF took his truck. Ray offers him his Jeep, but they have to go get it, and it starts to rain. Flash flood starts up, and when they get to the Jeep, it’s up to it’s wheel hubs in churning, muddy water. They start it, and try to whip it around and up a mineral dune, but the sand collapses, and they mire further in. Elroy says to leave it, that they can’t handle it, that the flood gets to keep the Jeep, after Ray has dried the ignition off- middle of the flood- carefully with a flare.
He cranks the key, it roars to life, and then splutters… dies.
‘Damned… let’s get outta here,’ says Elroy, nursing the caved in bandaged side of his head against the rain.
‘The fan. It pulls the water in same as it would air,’ says the kid.
‘Gimme your belt.’
Ray ties the fan blade to the frame so it can’t spin, starts the Jeep, and drives it across the churn, like a boat, deep brown wake, and Elroy jumps on as it passes, they’re all hooting into the night and waving their arms.
They get back to Ray’s truck, and the kid is soaked, shivering. . Ray gives the kid a racing jacket from the cab with a W on the chest, and the number 12.
THE STORMIN MORMON, says the back, in stitching.
The kid peels his workshirt off, like a sodden bird, and the great butt of a pistol is revealed, sticking out in the middle of his back. Ray darts in and snatches it, cooing at the discovery. The kid yanks his arm into the dry jacket and yelps. He starts toward Ray with crazy eyes, slitted against the sluice.
Elroy grabs him in a nelson.
‘Gonna shoot us, kid, take what we got?’
‘It ain’t for you,’ yells the kid.
‘This is an old gun, kid,’ . Ray says, ‘like as blow your hand off as shoot one of us.’
The kid protests and won’t tell what’s up. ‘Just give it back. It’s my property.’
Elroy grins.
But Ray reaches back into the cab and brings out a fairly new pistol, a .45, and shows the kid there’s no bullet in the chamber, but that the clip is full, and slips the into the kid’s waistband. He tosses the old Peacemaker into the cab of his truck, and starts around to the driver’s side.
‘You handle your business, son, you come see me, and I’ll trade you back if you want. But I won’t let you kill yourself with this old thing. That iron’ll serve you.’
Elroy lets him go.
Elroy agrees to give him a ride to the next town. He goes to gather some money owed to him in St. George, and takes the kid with him, and makes him use his pistol when he goes to collect the money.
Before they leave, the kid stops and looks at the frightened woman and her frightened little brother. 'You seen an Indian name of Peter Two Ghost? Tall, with a birthmark on his neck, up to here?'
The woman shakes her head. The kid gestures at the little brother with Ray's gun.
'The races,' says the little brother. 'Sherriff's deputy ran a Scalp off from the races had a raspberry up his neck. Caught him drinking in a car fulla white women.'
'Where'd he head to from the races?' asks the kid.
'Dunno. Sherriff's deputy busts him a few, runs him off. Next town is Cedar City, North.' He produces an excruciating smile.
Elroy needs the money to buy a backhoe so he can do some work on the land of a woman he is sleeping with who isn’t his wife. He has offered to buy the backhoe twice, and the guy keeps refusing.
Kid goes with him to offer a third time, and the guy refuses, and so they go back that night and hotwire the damn thing and take off into the desert.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Carolina Fug
Carolina Fug dribs in, all bubble thick, the vegetation incubating Carolina Fug until it crawls the hills and dribs out nasty all over your town. Your classroom, bus stop, even in your room with the grease smudged box fan blowing air on HI, that Carolina Fug.It drops just like a drug.
Try and get your oil changed by that afternoon, or get something notarized. Try to get a plumber to check your leak.
Carolina Fug, drib drib, you're lucky just to get a fishing partner.
Carolina Fug, splud splud, they look at you all half-a-slugged, and darken their cuffs with the endless well of sweating brows around you.
All around you, settling into meat from hair to feet.
Carolina Fug dribs in, all bubble thick.
Try and get your oil changed by that afternoon, or get something notarized. Try to get a plumber to check your leak.
Carolina Fug, drib drib, you're lucky just to get a fishing partner.
Carolina Fug, splud splud, they look at you all half-a-slugged, and darken their cuffs with the endless well of sweating brows around you.
All around you, settling into meat from hair to feet.
Carolina Fug dribs in, all bubble thick.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Yaar.
She stooped to thumb the silver dollar from out the plank like a real rube, her knees vised to keep the candyWrapper she had on for skirts real taut- immune to pranks.
Old Forstner did his bit, and whistled like a channelLipped mule at the sight, and we all guffawed and flapped our arms and legs. The nerve!
A real rube.
The silver dollar made a SNAP when it left the plank- hidden in the floorboard entire- invisible- before Dale had commenced fucking with the rolling trestle that supported the organ on the dais to their left.
Dale managed to break a caster, and the whole damn cabinet, keyboards and stops, careened slowly up and tipped off the dais, crushing hell out of the floorPlanks and two chairs beneath the stained glass window of Mark, or Luke, or some such bastard.
It was a gas, breaking the cabinet apart and generally thrashing about. We bobbed our heads and zagged our legs- our elbows up, our hipbones pegged.
And then she stooped to thumb the silver dollar from out the plank.
It wasn't a silver dollar. Not really. It was a silver piece minted from bouillon by some Spanish bastard on the Keys in the 18th century. Having melted all his shit down and barred it up for burying, this old Spanish bastard didn't have any currency small enough for the quotidiana. The little things in life.
He was Puff Daddy in a Kwik E Mart that took no hundred dollar bills.
So he struck 218 silver marks, three grams each, and just that morning, after skewering the blacksmith and his page with his sword-thingie, this old Spanish bastard took the first silver mark his fingers touched and hammered it into a crack in a cedar with the butt of his great silly pistol.
He pressed his lips against the shredding cedar bark and left the Keys forever, by boat, in another story. That story, incidentally, is much more interesting, and has some cannon fire and a lot of excellent singing.
So when this rube comes out from hiding from the big kee-RASH of organs crushing lesser things, what does she see but a grimy coin revealed with gleaming scratched new surface standing proudly out amid a solid prison of old cedar-Wood, a swamp-Plank cut in 1973 to build the Presbyterians their crazy sideways church.
Hidden! age on age inside the tree, that old Spanish bastard's first-Struck coin reveals itself to plunderers New in centuries Bold
She stoops to thumb the silver dollar from out the plank and SNAP and
She drops dead; the rube.
Never touch a motherfucking pirate's booty.
Old Forstner did his bit, and whistled like a channelLipped mule at the sight, and we all guffawed and flapped our arms and legs. The nerve!
A real rube.
The silver dollar made a SNAP when it left the plank- hidden in the floorboard entire- invisible- before Dale had commenced fucking with the rolling trestle that supported the organ on the dais to their left.
Dale managed to break a caster, and the whole damn cabinet, keyboards and stops, careened slowly up and tipped off the dais, crushing hell out of the floorPlanks and two chairs beneath the stained glass window of Mark, or Luke, or some such bastard.
It was a gas, breaking the cabinet apart and generally thrashing about. We bobbed our heads and zagged our legs- our elbows up, our hipbones pegged.
And then she stooped to thumb the silver dollar from out the plank.
It wasn't a silver dollar. Not really. It was a silver piece minted from bouillon by some Spanish bastard on the Keys in the 18th century. Having melted all his shit down and barred it up for burying, this old Spanish bastard didn't have any currency small enough for the quotidiana. The little things in life.
He was Puff Daddy in a Kwik E Mart that took no hundred dollar bills.
So he struck 218 silver marks, three grams each, and just that morning, after skewering the blacksmith and his page with his sword-thingie, this old Spanish bastard took the first silver mark his fingers touched and hammered it into a crack in a cedar with the butt of his great silly pistol.
He pressed his lips against the shredding cedar bark and left the Keys forever, by boat, in another story. That story, incidentally, is much more interesting, and has some cannon fire and a lot of excellent singing.
So when this rube comes out from hiding from the big kee-RASH of organs crushing lesser things, what does she see but a grimy coin revealed with gleaming scratched new surface standing proudly out amid a solid prison of old cedar-Wood, a swamp-Plank cut in 1973 to build the Presbyterians their crazy sideways church.
Hidden! age on age inside the tree, that old Spanish bastard's first-Struck coin reveals itself to plunderers New in centuries Bold
She stoops to thumb the silver dollar from out the plank and SNAP and
She drops dead; the rube.
Never touch a motherfucking pirate's booty.
Hot Bath
Wildman! Wooly heart and forth,
disposed to knocking over things around you in the street.
He's neat of foot but not discrete.
I've a broken, rotting tooth, right in front of my missing Wisdom, right behind my Silvered Cap. Mandible drill. Indubitably.
It's hard to think about what I am changing. The switch was a reStart, a shade popped, and it's so overwhelming that I can't focus on details. There are too many details. Think About Every Selfish Nasty Atrocious Thing You've Ever Done. Figure out why you're angry and lying and pushy and entitled.
Live for what's worth living for. Post engorged dramatics on the internet and embarrass thyself.
disposed to knocking over things around you in the street.
He's neat of foot but not discrete.
I've a broken, rotting tooth, right in front of my missing Wisdom, right behind my Silvered Cap. Mandible drill. Indubitably.
It's hard to think about what I am changing. The switch was a reStart, a shade popped, and it's so overwhelming that I can't focus on details. There are too many details. Think About Every Selfish Nasty Atrocious Thing You've Ever Done. Figure out why you're angry and lying and pushy and entitled.
Live for what's worth living for. Post engorged dramatics on the internet and embarrass thyself.
Gallery Night
So that's what the black line represents, he says, tweaking his mustache. The announcement of our pregnancy while I was slaving over the canvas- a big black strrripe through my green.
He gestures in a practiced manner without looking at the painting, hand cupped like a bird.
His hand turns over, spreading feathers, cricks and belches, shaky stands up on his wrist and looks back down at his exposed socks.
Caw, caw.
He gestures in a practiced manner without looking at the painting, hand cupped like a bird.
His hand turns over, spreading feathers, cricks and belches, shaky stands up on his wrist and looks back down at his exposed socks.
Caw, caw.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Well...
I need to write again. I've put alcohol out of my life. Four days sober, I don't want a drink. Not like that.
I don't know what to DO with myself.
Foxwife says it's probably best to let a vice go if you're pursuing it out of boredom.
I follow a compulsion. It might be easier to do it like Sampinos- switch my burning passion to something new every few weeks. But violin making is going to take over drinking, and my shoulders get exhausted before I am sated.
So back to writing, eh?
Write in the evenings. Make instruments in the mornings. Drink carrot juice and tea and all that nonToxic type of shit.
I don't know what to DO with myself.
Foxwife says it's probably best to let a vice go if you're pursuing it out of boredom.
I follow a compulsion. It might be easier to do it like Sampinos- switch my burning passion to something new every few weeks. But violin making is going to take over drinking, and my shoulders get exhausted before I am sated.
So back to writing, eh?
Write in the evenings. Make instruments in the mornings. Drink carrot juice and tea and all that nonToxic type of shit.
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