The Ceremonial Counties Of England

Date with culture

2009-09-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

These tables are a little small don’t you think? And we probably should have gotten one away from the window. More in the shade.

. . .

My face? I’m making a? Oh, the chair hurts my back a little.

. . .

Really? You thought I was . . . ? No, I’m definitely not sulking. Thought I was being like who . . . ? Your father! What’s he like?

. . .

No! I’m not like that, I promise. I’d never be like that. I’m totally fine about it! I’m glad we changed the subject. I want to enjoy myself.
Huh . . . ? Oh, I am enjoying myself. I didn’t mean

. . .

My jaw? Well, it’s healing up, only one tooth had to come out. They think they’ll salvage the other two on that side—and they didn’t have to use wire in the jawbone like they thought they might, so that’s good.

. . .

No, it’s fine! It doesn’t really hurt anymore. Except for when I chew a lot, or bite something hard or chewy. What really sucks is that my ear hurts all the time now. Especially when I’m trying to sleep, that sucks big time. Doctor says it’s from the swelling, fluid in the Eustachian or whatever. Causes like a vacuum around the eardrum? I don’t know, all I know is it hurts . . . Which one?

. . .

No, it’s not really that bad. It looks way worse than it is. I mean, all the purple around my eyes and the huge scabs on my cheek, especially this huge yellow/brown part right here—it’s hideous looking, right? No, I’m serious. I see myself in the mirror and I scream every time! No, but honestly, it feels way better now. To look at it you’d think it was horrible, though, right? All the women at work wanted to go and castrate those guys. I seriously had to stop them from doing it.

. . .

Oh, please don’t feel that way, there’s nothing for you to feel bad about. It wasn’t like . . . No! It totally wasn’t your

. . .

My back? Oh, I don’t know. Hurts still. Still bad I guess

. . .

My doctor? She just said it’ll take the kidney a little time to heal, and the spine thing was only two fractured vertebrae—thank god—and so she said the vertebrae would just, like, knit back together on their own in the next eight weeks or so. I just have to wear this brace for a while and take it easy. Makes me look like a furniture mover, right? You have such a cute smile . . . And I have to drink this nasty-tasting gelatin shit every morning

. . .

I don’t know, for the bones, so they heal better. After that I’ll have to do some rehab, I guess. She said I also have some tissue damage in my hip-flexors, whatever that means. They said ten years ago I would have been in a whole body cast—you know broken back, shit

. . .

Huh?

Oh, I don’t know, I guess they just treat it differently now. Take it easy, should heal itself, not as big of a deal as they used to think. They used to think it was the end of the world

. . .

Which . . . my ribs? Well, she said they should just stitch themselves up pretty quickly, too. I guess I don’t need anything special for that—I mainly only have small fractures and torn cartilage, there were only two ribs that were really, like, broken completely. But one stayed lined up so it should heal correctly. She said I still might have to get surgery later on the other one because it shattered more and if all of the pieces don’t get reabsorbed they might have to do something about it. I really don’t understand that one. But it’s not likely anyway. I just have to wrap my ribs and chest every morning, not a big deal. It hurts when I cough, though. Or move too quickly. Washing my hair is a bitch, but that’s more from the torn ligament in my shoulder. Actually, my shoulder might be the most painful thing out of everything. Any time I lift my arm, like, past here, it’s just the most excruciating pain—shoots right through my whole body like somebody just stabbed me

. . .

Yeah

. . .

But she said I was lucky my clavicle didn’t break. I just have some hairline fractures in it. That could have been a bad one, she said, because when the clavicle breaks it can puncture your lung. So I was lucky there.

. . .

I know! When they brought me into the ER the doctor thought I’d been in a huge car accident!
Yeah, she goes, “Were you driving or were you a passenger?” I was like, “When?”
Wow, look at the way the sunlight is making a rainbow through your water glass

. . .

Yeah, pretty

. . .

Yeah, no, my eye’s fine

. . .

I know! I know, it looks gruesome, right? With all the blood in the white like that? And the swelling! I know! My mother cried when she saw me the first time. She couldn’t believe human beings could be so savage, she said. She kept saying that over and over. “How could human beings be so savage?”

Huh?

Oh they were afraid I’d lose some eyesight in it or some muscle control but everything’s fine, I guess. The eye doctor said I got lucky. Steal-toe to the eye like that, should have done more damage than it did. I should’ve at least had a detached retina. Got really lucky

. . .

Pay for it? Oh, I don’t know. I guess my lawyer’s going to try and bring a claim against the fraternity first, then the university. God, look at this knife, it’s filthy. I’ll have to get a new one when she comes back.

Huh?

I’m making a face? Oh! I’m not so sure about this beer. I was just giving it a good taste.
Which? I got the India Pale Ale. I should have gotten the Hefeweizen, I think. This one’s a little too hoppy. And the citrus tones are a bit much

. . .

Am I angry? About what? No! Not with you, no. No way! It was just a crazy night. Things got out of hand . . . How’s the pear cider?

. . .

Say what I’m? Oh. Oh, I am saying what I’m thinking.

No, for real, I am!

Really? Earlier? You mean what I started saying earlier earlier?

But you wanted me to stop.

But now you want me to . . . Well. Okay. Yeah, good. Okay. Let me just put it this way. A different way. I just think . . . I mean, you’re really great and you seem really smart and friendly and I love Anthropology majors, and I’m thrilled that we’re finally getting to spend some time together . . . especially after the debacle at the party

. . .

I know . . . no, there’s totally no need, we don’t have to waste our time on that, I really understand, he was drunk and I was maybe talking a little bit too much and I didn’t really fit in there in the first place and all his fraternity brothers were drunk too

. . .

yeah, water under the

. . .

No, totally, you’re right. But you had nothing to do with it, remember that. I mean, it’s not your fault your ex-boyfriend is a totally macho, like, roid-rage repressed-homosexual psycho, right? How could you have known?

. . .

No, not a repressed . . . I know! I was just kidding! All I was trying to say earlier is that I just think you should be able to talk to me. Like we started to that night at the party. I think. I mean, don’t you think? You know . . . Can’t we have an interesting conversation like that?

. . .

No! Not at all! No, I’m totally not saying you’re not being interesting, sorry, I really didn’t mean that, I guess it sounded like that. I just mean we could bare ourselves a little bit, like we started to at the party. We’re adults, right? We can handle it . . . especially after the other night, right . . . ? Huh?

Good. Because it’s so important. There’s no reason to be uncomfortable with it, right? By the way, that purse—you had it at the party—did you get it at the Goodwill or was it your mother’s?

$2.50!

Yeah, I know, it is. It’s great. I know, so much character! And good quality, too. They don’t make them like . . .

Totally . . . Hey, I just had a thought. You mind if I just talk, like, off the top of my head? Yeah? It’s just. I mean, I was just thinking you probably should be uncomfortable . . .
Oh no, there’s that face, again. I’m sorry. Do you want some bread? There’s two kinds of butter here. They’re kind of melting in the sun though . . .

Why do I keep doing what?

Well. Well, just because. Let’s be honest, okay? With each other? With the bread? Oh, I like this one—it’s the garlic butter, I think it’s better. That piece looks a little burnt why don’t you try . . . yeah that looks like a good one . . .

Because I don’t know you. I mean, really. I’ll admit that. But I’m pretty sure you have your own private reasons to be uncomfortable, okay? There. That’s all. What I wanted to say. What I was thinking. Kind of like what we were saying at the party.

Why? I mean, because it’s just obvious. It’s obvious from your face, anyway, and your ex-boyfriend. I mean, okay. Why? Okay. Okay, just let me think for a second about how to put this . . . Huh?

No, I just hurt my jaw biting on something . . .

Oh, how’s my . . . Oh, it’s okay. I don’t much care for sprouts. But the pine nuts are good. I think they toasted them. Lots of sprouts though. And too much iceberg in the lettuce mix . . . I was really just talking about what most people are like. I think. I mean most people nowadays, almost everybody . . .

Well, because, aren’t you like most people . . . ?

How are most . . . ? Well. What I mean is, everybody has at least one thing, don’t they?

Do you mean . . . Oh, what do I mean? Want another piece of bread?

I mean, often times. Don’t you feel a little anxious, for example? You’ve got some Gorgonzola there. Your cheek. No, left. I mean, sorry, my left. A little further. Got it! God, you’ve got a cute little dimple there, I didn’t notice that before . . . From your father? Good genes.
Anyway, don’t you feel—like fairly often—some kind of anxiety? That’s my first question . . .

You don’t want to talk about? . . . Oh.

Okay, I’m sorry, I understand. It’s probably a little out of bounds. There I go again, right? I really have some kind of brain damage or something.

Seriously! I’m always spouting the wrong shit at the wrong time. Maybe it’s from taking too many fraternity boots to the head!

I’m joking! I swear, I have no social what do you call it. Social Intelligence? That’s why I always do that. I’m seriously missing some part of my brain, I think. Makes you uncomfortable, right? Our first date, nice restaurant . . . Midwestern girl like you. I just thought you being an Anthro major . . . you might . . . I’m sorry, I just wanted to acknowledge . . .

Yeah, you’re right. Shouldn’t have called it a date. I just meant just our first time, like, hanging out.

. . .

Yeah. Change the subject, right? That bandanna’s a really great color for you, for your eyes, I wanted to say. No, I’m totally serious, it looks great! I love bandannas. And your eyes are really pretty. No, I mean it. You have super beautiful eyes.

Did you see that thing about the woman on TV? No, the one in Texas. No, Houston! Yeah, fuck. The one that lost her daughter in Mexico. Shit, I know. Did you get that email? The one with her picture in it. Yeah, like right after the press conference. I know! It just, like, hits you in the gut, right? Oh, awesome, here’s our food. Wow, your tempeh looks good. Thanks, that looks great! No, I think we’re fine for now! Thanks!
This? I ordered the Portobello sandwich . . . Well I’m not really sure. I think they marinate it—like in soy sauce—and then just grill it. Is that right?

Yeah, sounds good . . . Remember what? Oh yeah.

I’m sorry, excuse me, before you go away . . . Can I get a new knife? This one’s a little . . . Thanks! Oh, no need! I mean, you don’t wash the dishes, right? Not your fault, you have enough to worry about! Thanks!

Can you pass me the salt and pepper again . . . ? Thanks.

Yahoo News had a whole slide show on that Houston lady at the press conference and then after it. Her and her three other kids at the podium and then all of them crying and hugging afterward. I know, yeah, you should check it out. Horrible. Really sad. God that has to suck. I mean, like, your own daughter. I think they’re going to be on 60 minutes tomorrow

. . .

Um, I think you just go to Yahoo News, like right on the front page, and just click the slideshow. Seriously, you should. It’s terrible. I feel so bad for her.

This is good coleslaw, want to try it?

Hmmm? I did? I do that, sorry. People say I do that lately. Drift off. I think it’s the pain meds. I try to moderate them, but if I stop taking them, like, everything hurts, so . . .

from Part I: Summer

2009-08-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

Strange what one day can do. You live your life a certain way and a year can pass with the days blending into each other with nothing too dramatic happening to upset your rhythm, then, one sunny May morning you wake up to a convoy of DEA agents brandishing assault rifles, pounding down your door. To be accurate, I had already been up for about twenty minutes, dressed for work and had just put on the coffee when I saw the convoy. I ran to the window to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing, then ran into the bedroom and woke up K with a panicked, “the cops are here.”
Rubbing her eyes and sitting up, the zebra print blanket falling to her waist, she says, “no, honey it’s not the cops. Probably April, or Roger.” Her voice had that condescending, don’t-be-so-paranoid tone to it. And for a second, I thought maybe she was right, that I was being paranoid. We hadn’t slept together the previous night, because I was so fidgety. Kept getting the cold sweats, my joints were aching, my thoughts assaulting me from every angles, all with one urgent message: get out of the house, now.
K and I were having problems, had been for some time. She’s an alcoholic who has perfected the Jeckle and Hyde routine, and despite my efforts to stick to my sober guns and insist she cut down on the drinking, I was slowly becoming a co-dependant, spineless prick. My guns turning to shot glasses, my ammunition of choice: Jameson. Every night was up in the air. We might have wild, drunken sex, or we might have wild drunken fights; it was as predictable as flipping a coin. I knew I couldn’t carry on this way. I’d already conquered several addictions: sex, heroin, pot, speed, acid, but I never thought I’d journey into alcoholism. I was beginning to hate myself. Here I was, a devoted yoga practitioner, vegetarian, mountain-biker, teacher and stage actor, throwing my sanity away for some fragmented notions of loyalty and love. My instincts had been kicking in now, telling me to leave, so I related the urgent thoughts of escape to our relationship. “I’m going to end it,” I said that night, into the silent darkness. “Now let me sleep.” But my instincts weren’t satiated. I managed maybe two hours of rest the entire night.
“K,” I said “It’s two trucks filled with guys carrying assault rifles, dressed in camo.”
This description got her attention. “What?” She said, life shooting through her widening eyes as she pulled the blanket over her breasts. I turned and hurried out of the bedroom and I was half-way to the ping pong table (Yeah, we had a ping pong table in the living room), when they were through the door, barking orders and pointing their laser sighted rifles at my head and chest.
My heart was thundering and my head was grasping at reality straws. Everything was moving so fast, they were moving so fast, and acting so forceful, so full of energy. The way they were dressed with their camouflaged fatigues and black combat boots, for a second I wondered if there was a camera crew somewhere or if I was on stage, and had so thoroughly embraced my character and the scene, that the stage had turned into my living room. Then a second passed like a bullet and a portal of pure white light opened in the center of my head and tractor beamed all my thoughts into its bright void. The light turned into a fist of adrenaline that punched my consciousness into the present. The vastly narrow present.
“Hands on your head! hands on your head,” I heard but I didn’t catch who said it. There was all this screaming and even though they had all the control and all the guns and ammo to kill us a hundred times over, fear tinged their voices, like they were in a war zone and I was the enemy and who knew if there might be some booby trap or crazed wife with an uzi ready to jump from a corner and blow holes through their dreams.
My hands shot above my head and I was frozen by the intense excitement in their faces, the adrenaline shooting from their eyes like nothing I’d ever seen so early in the morning. There’s nothing to fear, I repeated like a mantra in my mind over and over, and I knew I was thinking it as much for them as for me. There’s nothing to fear.
“Hands behind your head! Hands behind your head!” My hands went behind my head as more of them streamed in through the front door, darting into and out of rooms, rifles at the ready.
A large, barrel-chested man with a crew cut and pouchy cheeks, a prominent hair-lip scar, holding a walkie-talkie in one hand a pistol in the other approached me and looking me hard in the eye, said: “is there anyone else here? I managed, in a daze of surrender: “Yes, my girlfriend’s in the bedroom.”
And an authoritative voice from the bedroom (I didn’t even see anyone go in there), “we have her, she’s secure.”
While two guys handcuffed me, the big guy with the pistol bent his face so close to mine I could smell his aftershave. “Is there anyone else here?”
“No,” I said, “Just us.”
He cocked his head slightly like he didn’t believe me. His light blue eyes bore into mine “Are you sure?”
“Yes, there’s no one else.”
To the two guys who were holding me, he says, “He secure?”
“Yep.” And it was true, for them, I was secure. The cuffs bighting into my wrists could attest to that naked fact.
To me: “okay, on the ground. Face down, flat on the ground.” I complied, and got on the ground, my arms at an awkward angle cuffed over my ass, my head facing the bedroom, my chin becoming one with the blue carpet fibers. I could see K’s bare feet walking out of the room, her gold-colored toenails, the tribal tattoo snaking up her left shin, the zebra print blanket caressing her thighs. On either side of her, acting as escorts, were two pairs of black combat boots. Quite a juxtaposition, I thought, and couldn’t help but grin.
“Take her to the couch,” the guy in charge said. Then, to us, in an almost-friendly, this-is-just-business kind of tone, “Okay guys, we’re going to ask you some questions, figure out what’s going on here. First, are there any firearms?”
K and I answered at the same time. “No.”
“If there is, we’ll find them, and that won’t be good for you, so I’ll ask again, are there any firearms on the premises? Anywhere?”
“No,” we both said again, and I added, “There are no firearms. I’m a teacher.” It felt just as stupid coming out as it probably did to hear. There was acerbic snickering and someone said, “He’s a teacher.” More snickering. “You teach your kids how to smoke pot?” A couple guys laughed and I couldn’t blame them, it was such a hoot.
“What?” I said. My shoulders were beginning to really hurt and I could feel a knot rolling hard against the left side of my cervical spine.
The captain of the merry DEA brigade said, “Which brings me to the second question. Is that your greenhouse down the hill?”

Part One: Summer/ Instincts

2009-08-27T19:05:00.000-07:00

Part One: Summer
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” William James (1842-1910)

1. Instincts
“…consciousness is defined by intentionality. By intentionality consciousness transcends itself. It unifies itself by escaping from itself.” Jean-Paul Sartre

The neighbor’s dog has been coming around a lot lately. Feed a dog once, you have a friend for life. His name’s Buddy and he’s a mostly black pit bull, with a diamond shaped splash of pure white in the center of his bulky chest. He’s 65, 70 pounds, I’d say. Solid muscle. He’s barely out of puppyhood, so he maintains an overeager curiosity about everything. No matter how many times he’s sniffed around the room, it’s never enough. Nothing eludes his scrutiny. Right now he’s licking the stone floor near the fridge. Who knows what lingering flavors his tongue is absorbing. Now he’s sniffing around the corner of the bookshelf.
Although he’s annoyingly friendly, with severe boundary issues, there’s this thing I discovered that sets him off in the other direction. If you look him in the eyes and start talking he gets this scared, attentive look. If you keep at it he’ll grow even testier, bark and hop on his front legs, as if to shake you off. I know this because it just happened about ten minutes ago. He came over for food and I told him that I’d give him a cracker if he’d offer up some conversation first.
This is the effect that teaching middle-school kids has had on me. Pets aren’t just pets to most twelve-year-olds, they’re best friends, partners in crime, magical familiars. In their world you can talk to animals and they can talk back. It’s what Shayla, an adorably-pudgy sixth-grader, calls: “The language of instinct.” It’s a very involved theory. In Shayla’s words, “instinct is way more important than English cause instinct is what makes survival and if we didn’t have instinct we’d all be dead and there would be no people to speak English with.” I’m one of those teachers that learns as much from kids as they learn from me, plus I remember being a kid, having those same ideas, refusing to buy into the superiority of the human race. As part of our educational exchange, I informed Shayla about the hypothalamus, which is centered at the base of the brain, below the thalamus and how it integrates our primitive instinctual drives, things like hunger, thirst, fear, anger and aggression. She nodded at me blankly and said, “Mr. S, it’s a lot more complicated than that.”
As a result, I now talk to animals.
Buddy, however, didn’t seem to understand me at all, so I looked him in the eye, hoping to engage him on the instinctual level (as defined by Shayla), and repeated myself. He reacted like I said, including curling up his jowls to bare his formidable teeth. A jolt of fear pulsed through my chest. Maybe the old wives’ tale is true, I thought: stare a dog long enough in the eyes, it’s akin to invading his soul. The expression he had on his usually happy-go-lucky face, was like he had just caught me uncovering some dark secret no human is supposed to know. I thought about how I’d have to talk to Shayla about this.
Since Buddy’s the neighbor’s dog, I didn’t feel an obligation to put up with his shit. I buried the fear, and got forceful. “Okay then, you don’t want to talk, go home.” I pointed the direction as if he didn’t know. The aggressive stance dissolved and he raised his ears and cocked his head as if to say, “Dude, are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious. Go,” I said with ultra-alpha emphasis. He slumped to the ground, and, thumping his skinny powerful tail on the floorboards he gazed up at me with a fresh innocence. Like he was hoping for me to change my mind or to say, “Dude I was just kidding, here have a meatloaf.” When I didn’t, he stood up, turned around like saying “whatever,” and strode with his head slumped, off the deck and into the woods.
Dogs, like kids, have short memories, especially when it comes to being reprimanded or hurt. Maybe it’s because they forgive easily or because the present is just so overwhelmingly there that it takes up too much space in their being to spend any time or energy on stuff that happened so long ago. Five minutes after he scampered off, Buddy was back. Right now he’s curled up on the rug next to me and in front of the sliding glass door, every tenth breath or so, a deep sigh.
I moved to this cabin only three weeks ago. It’s a nice place for a cabin. Toilet, shower, stove, propane heater, refrigerator, phone, and next week, for internet access, Wild Blue will be installing a satellite on the roof. I had to move out fast from my previous residence and was lucky to grab this place so quickly. The neighbors, who own Buddy, are also my landlords. A family of four. Husband, wife, and two adopted boys. One of the boys, Michael Jon, is my eighth grade student, and is pretty much the reason why I landed here.

Peace Time

2009-08-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

When I visited my brother about three summers ago, I found out a couple strange things about him. Nothing life-shattering or anything, little things really, but they stand out more when it’s about someone you think you know so well.
I’d been living in Northern California for five years and I make it a priority to visit friends and family in New York and Ohio, at least once a year. Being a middle school teacher, that time generally takes place during the summer. My brother G still resides in the same town we were brought up in – Dunkirk, NY – a blue-collar factory town off the southwest coast of Lake Erie. When I arrived, he had just moved from the east side to the west side for his first attempt at home ownership. It’s a three-bedroom, two-story house with functional basement and large A-framed attic. His two kids live with him: Morgan, a highly responsible Junior in High School, and Evan, a goofy and awkward Eighth-grader. G’s wife, L, had left him for a large black guy right before the move. According to G, she had been cheating on him for some time. They both had gained so much weight and were fighting all the time, the combination had a deleterious effect on their sex life to the point where they weren’t having any. L began hooking up with strangers via the internet, behind his back, until one day she told him everything and told him she had met this guy, a roofer who lived in Fredonia – the neighboring town – and that he could satisfy her and that he didn’t always want to talk politics and books and movies. He was a man, a real man.
G never replaced her. He dates a lot, but, at the time of my visit, he wasn’t troubling himself with any long-term commitments. In a lot of ways he was regaining his youth. Started working out, started running, and as a result, he lost a lot of weight. Looked really good, the best shape of his life. Ironically, on top of that, he started smoking. Got up to about a pack-and-a-half a day during the weekends. The other five days of the week G spends in Allegheny’s high security prison, teaching English Literature to inmates. Not a lot of opportunity for smoking, but he manages to sneak one every now and again. Most of his smoking, he does at home, in the attic.
When he gave me the tour, he saved the attic for last. He pulled open the flimsy, unpainted door, which was hanging on from a single hinge. “Gotta fix that soon,” he said. Neither one of us have ever been accused of being handymen. When it comes to fixing shit, we embrace the procrastination gene like some last vestige of hope. I’m the same way about moving into places. I never finish unpacking. I can’t quite motivate myself to completely set up house. When you’re renting, you live in a temporary world, a rented space, a rented time. You’ll have to give it back at some point, you don’t want to fool yourself by making it too much your own. Strange, I know, but that’s what I’m talking about. We all develop peculiar habits, the ones we try to shield from public because if the public found out they’d judge us for being less than normal, odd, strange, maybe even disgusting. Which itself, is odd, when you think about it, since we all do strange, peculiar things, you think they’d understand, they’d suspend judgment. And that’s how it usually works out in the end. We might judge each other, we might judge ourselves, but we adapt. We get used to how fucked up people can be.
When it’s about a friend or family member, it hits you like something from out of left field, and you think, hmmm…that’s kind of strange. But it’s no big deal, so you move on, storing it as a mental note about that person and how refreshing it is after all to have discovered it because now they have more color, more character, and you feel better about yourself, because you might do some strange things – and believe me, you do – but at least you don’t do that.
My last girlfriend, K, for instance, likes to chew her toe calluses. She kept that habit from me for three years, until we finally moved in together. After that, she let it all hang out. It just goes to show, even beautiful women can do ugly things. “God,” I’d think, watching K on the side of the bed, hunched over, her foot balanced on a knee, digging into her foot like it was breakfast time. “I’ve been kissing those lips for three years?” That was my initial reaction, but after seeing it for the umpteenth time, I got used to it. I liked the way her lips tasted and if her foot chewing habit flavored those luscious lips, who was I to complain. When it comes right down to it, isn’t that what love is all about?
My brother warned me, just as he pulled out a Marlboro cigarette. “It’s a little gross, I know,” he said, sounding confessional and matter-of-fact at the same time. I could smell what he was talking about before I could see anything. The aroma of used cigarette filters, carried by the thick, musty attic air, assaulted my nostrils. “Damn, dude,” I said and borrowing a phrase from one of my seventh graders, I added, “it smells like butt ass up in this place.”
We climbed the creaky narrow staircase and G paused three steps from the top. “Yep,” he said, “that’s exactly what it is.” He pulled the chain to a naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and it flashed to life, illuminating the smell’s source. To our left, between the stairwell and the wall, covering a 2’ by 10’ cranny space, were several containers of all kinds, from ash trays to plastic bags to mason jars, all filled with cigarette butts. Thousands and thousands of them. He had five mason jars, standing in a neat little row, filled to the rim, two clamped shut, the crooked and smashed yellow butts spilling over the top of the other three. The last time I had seen mason jars was at my mom’s house in Ohio. She keeps a stock of jarred tomato juice in her basement. Whenever I visit I like to use the juice to make bloody Mary’s. Looking at the jars in my brother’s attic, I couldn’t help but shutter.
G pushed open a window and lit his cigarette. “I don’t know why I don’t throw them away,” he said in the tone of a scientist trying to explain the erratic behavior of a certain lab rat. “Look over there,” he pointed to our right. A long row of stacked empty Marlboro hard packs lined the stairwell railing and led to a three-foot high mound of cartons. It looked as though he had lost patience with his initial project of organization and said “fuck it,” and just started hurling the empties into an ever-growing pile of thin, neatly painted red and white cardboard.
“I don’t know G, why don’t you throw them away?” I was trying not to sound too disgusted. “Do you really want to know how much you smoke?”
“It’s about three year’s worth,” he said, looking around the room as if he was just now recognizing the oddity behind his collection.
I pulled out my pack of American Spirits, withdrew a cigarette and put it between my lips. G lit it for me with his silver lighter. “I don’t think I need this cigarette,” I said pulling it out of my mouth. “Just inhale this room and I got all the stale nicotine I need for a week.”
“I like this room,” he said. “It’s not about the smoking, though, it’s about having my own space. My own time, you know, to reflect, to just relax, to get away from the kids, the tv, the world.” He looked up and casually swatted the light bulb’s chain. He looked at it snaking in the air, pinging against the bright bulb, and then he grabbed it, let it slide gently from his fist, to remain still. He looked at me with his brown eyes, the look that brothers get when they are letting you know this isn’t just bullshit. This is them, opening up to you in some little way, giving you the truth of themselves, if but for a moment. A moment that will be left behind by all the others that jockey for attention.
“Being here, smoking, thinking…it’s the one time I feel like I have control. You know what I’m saying? I don’t have to do anything. Just look out the window and inhale and exhale and think. Each of these butts represent, what? five, seven minutes? Seven minutes of peace.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” I said. We smoked in silence and I climbed the rest of the stairs and investigated the rest of the long room. Cobwebs glimmered dully in the shunted light, looking like hammocks weighed down by dust and rocking between both sides of the angled ceiling. Boxes of books and records, a multi-stained mattress, empty picture frames, an old tv set, speakers, vacuum cleaner, bags of clothes. The stale smell of cigarette smoke clinging to it all. It seemed so haphazard and depressing, especially compared to the rest of the house, which was always neat and put away, everything in its place. Polished wood flooring, plush black leather couches and chairs, a wide, hi-def flat-screen television, a computer in every room, all the latest in technology. Both Evan and Morgan own cell phones and i-pods and played their dozens of Wii video games.
It just didn’t match up, was the thing. If G were living in a trailer and was an alcoholic who beat his kids every morning before breakfast, this deplorable collection would make sense. I’ve seen homes where the occupants, usually elderly folk, refused to throw out newspapers and magazines and they were stacked all over every nook and cranny forming furniture for more junk, furniture made with yellowing paper and filled with crumpled fading words no one would ever read again.
Compared to me, G’s life seemed so stable and secure. He’d had the same job for years, lived in a big house, drove a nice car, paid all his bills, took care of his kids, dealt amiably with a manipulative, half-crazed, 300-pound ex-wife. He seemed to do it all with an almost saintly, non-judgmental air. I was thinking all this while skimming through his LP collection, smoking my cigarette, when G said, apropos of nothing, but shocking nonetheless:
“Two days ago, one of my students hung himself.” I let the Jane’s Addiction flop against Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast and raised my head. He was wearing a faded purple t-shirt with holes around the belly section and the sleeves. Some kind of compass design logo adorned the chest. His blue-jeans were likewise haggard with a hole at the right knee. Red flip-flops revealed his black-painted toenails. Painting his finger and toenails was a habit G acquired in high school. He never explained it and never applied any other makeup – say eyeliner or something – but I always took it as a sign of rebellion. There was always something of a rock-star wannabe in G. It’s probably why he DJ’s at pubs, and why many of his friends are musicians. G himself, like me, doesn’t sing, play guitar or any other instrument.
G was looking at the wall more than at me and the way the light glinted from his thin, peach-fuzz facial hair made him seem a lot younger than his 35 years. Despite all his lost weight, G still maintained a round baby face, an attribute that made him quite attractive to the ladies. He was always going out with women much younger than him.
I didn’t know how to respond, so I waited. Still looking at the wall, he bit at one of his fingernails. I noticed that all his fingernails were chewed down past the finger line. All but the pinky nail which was extra long and quite feminine looking.
“It’s fucked up, man,” he said. “One day you’re discussing the imagery of T.S. Eliot’s ‘J. Alfred Prufrock’, and the next morning you come in and are informed, in this business, matter-of-fact tone, that John Runningbear hung himself in the middle of the night.” He looked at me, an angry glint in his usually soft brown eyes. “With his own goddammed shirt. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? I mean, talk about imagery. I didn’t have to see him or anything, it’s all here,” G tapped his head. “I can see him hanging there, his eyes rolled back, his head at a fucked up angle, the blood gone from his face. Just hanging there like some heavy sack of lard. He had these huge dimples too and he was always smiling, you know, like he wanted poetry in his life, literature, books, something other than the shit and misery of prison. You think maybe you can do something, make some kind of positive impact.” He shook his head and looked back at the wall, took out another cigarette and lit it. Inhaled a lung-full of carcinogenic smoke and blew it out in a giant cloud that climbed the ceiling and billowed into non-existence. “And it doesn’t even matter. His life was totally worthless, you know, as far as the ‘system’ is concerned. They just replace him with another felon and I get a new student.”
I had to say something, so I stood up and walked over to him, wanting to put a hand on his shoulder, but choosing not to. “Heavy shit, dude,” I said, sounding pathetic in my attempt to be reassuring. “God, I mean the worst I ever have it is worrying about a student getting expelled or turning to drugs.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry for sounding like a downer. It just happened you know. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Suddenly we were interrupted by the sounds of banging furniture against hardwood floor and we could hear Evan screaming at Morgan and Morgan screaming back at Evan, and then footsteps pounding up the stairs and the attic door crashing open and Evan sobbing in explanation: “Morgan…(sob)…Morgan…(sob)…turned off…(sob)…guitar hero…(sob)…right…(sob)…in the middle…(sob)…of my game…”
G looked at me and sighed then smiled an ironic smile. He dropped his cigarette to the dusty floor, coated with streaks of smeared ash. He stepped on the cigarette and ground it into the floor, picked it up and tossed the remains into a white plastic bag, to join its countless brethren. “Well, bro,” he said to me as he started down the stairs. “Looks like peace time is over.”

His intermittent, numinous discourse with the universe was a momentary distraction during the bomb threat

2009-07-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

The songs that play in his head carry messages. But he needs to behave as if the songs are not playing.

Nothing you can do that can’t be done. Edgar Allan Duck.

He’s standing in the street in a pretty row of pretty policemen and firemen, and they're facing the office building. The Beatles said all you need is love, all the lonely people, all together now, all my lovin’, why don’t we do it in the road?

He lets go a goosey laugh. The pretty policemen give him sideways glances.

The asphalt is shiny from the previous night's rainstorm, and the drainage gutter behind their shoes is dribbling street grit, pesticides and petroleum pollutants down into the storm sewers.

His ex-wife would warn about stress. Adrenaline. These could be triggers. And he’s in the road, that’s obvious. The long and winding road.

She called them “psychotic breaks,” or sometimes, “bouts of mania.”

Such negative connotations. It is my mind that is confusing things.

But he's come to realize he's more of a Fool on the Hill. The man with the foolish grin who's keeping perfectly still.

He notes: The belts of policemen make balconies of beer bellies. He watches the heavy, wooden-handled guns in leather holsters.

Bang bang shoot shoot. See how they run like pigs from a gun.

He hadn’t foreseen this. He’s confident there’s no bomb. Nothing to get hung about. The Universe wouldn’t allow that to happen today. A hard day’s night. Let it be.

Grabbing the gun would be psychotic. Maxwell’s silver hammer, yes, but it’s all wrong. Psychotic breaks are breaks from sanity and are therefore crazy by definition.

No reason to grab the gun. Let it be.

The cop nearest him says something about the bomb threat.

The cop's voice is drowned out by the songs. The songs carry messages. Give peace a chance. The peace that passes understanding. All we are saying.

He wants to tell the cops: Peace is like a dripping bloom—its allure folding outward, opening to the sun and the stars beyond.

He wants to say something beautiful to the cops and the firemen. Because isn’t that his responsibility? To teach about the stars and the planets and the space ice—the billions of swirling galaxies? And the toiling human beings!

Isn't that what we're here for? To learn? While we're stuck to this dim wet rock, while we live out our fugitive lives of consumption and excretions, while we're forever falling toward our little blonde star, but never touching her?

“If there is a bomb,” he says to the nearest cop, “that would be something.”

Imagine, he thinks, and he closes his eyes.

The insides of eyelids flash blinding white. The sound is the colossal thud of Life itself. It ruptures his viscera even before it breaks the skin.

Oh, darling. He suddenly feels great sympathy, enormous sympathy for this so-called Big Bang. This pitiable pop-gun expansion into perfectly nothing. This hot, wet spurt of love and light in a vacuum. Nothing to stop it. Nothing to rub up against.

He thinks of his flesh—its molecules and atoms—how it will spray and bouquet in every direction, like endless rain across the universe.

He opens his eyes.

“Bang bang shoot shoot,” he says to the cops.

They exchange uneasy glances.

“Everybody's got something to hide expect for me and my monkey,” he says.

Childless for years, Mary finally found an outlet for her maternal instincts.

2009-06-08T20:21:00.000-07:00

Poem

2009-05-28T15:09:00.001-07:00

It was late. Or it was early. it was somewhere in between. the sky had taken on that scared chicken look with clouds and everything inside out or thereabouts. Sometime later I would recall this as a red-letter-day. The shutters tight; a hoot a holler. No one was in the mood to look.

I have never been there, but I have been through there several times. a few as a child and maybe one or two as an adult. who remembers such things. never even tasted the ground, only smelled the air: something like sulpher: old steel towns still reek of it. the sky goes orange at night from the blast furnaces, still.

from the window you can watch an old man make his way up the street. he's always there; walking but making no progress. you want to wrap your wings around him, and shuffle him into your cage, which you have just now noticed blooming in the centre of the room.

To do

2009-05-26T19:06:00.000-07:00

· Lockheed Martin® nuclear waste right up the road. They'll vote on it Monday in the House.

· Dow® chemicals on the lawn. Dog. Warn kids.

· Monsanto® insecticides on the tomatoes, they're all cuddling together in the low-density polyethylene bag in the crisper. Wash tomatoes.

Don't look at the Styrofoam box spacers in the basement.

Black exhale of Peabody Energy® blowing in from the West.

Mixing with the rest of the Respirable Particulate Matter (PM10)

swirling in solution all around you.

Must Breathe

The cul-de-sac with its spiderweb of cracks

filled up with that chemical, durable, heat-resistant

crude-oil-based sealant they use. Must

· Go to Staples® Wal-Mart® Target® Sam's Club® Office Depot® Radio Shack® Safeway®

Dollar Store®

You'll get low-density polyethylene bags to put shit in.

Don't forget:

· Garbage Bags. Get the ones on sale at Safeway®

· Coupon.

· Take the **Chevy®

Its polymer bodywork and consoles, its polyisoprene tires, polybutadiene mounts,

polyisobutylene tire-linings, hoses and belts-just

nestle the polystyrene egg cartons safely in the vinyl back seat

along with the disposable Rubbermaid® containers, polyurethane stuffed

lumbar pillow, polyethylene OJ cartons and K-Mart® kid's toys, polyethylene terephthalate Diet Coke® bottles (with polypropylene threaded caps).

Just remember

· **Chevy needs an oil change.

· Jiffy Lube® coupon.

· Relax your shoulders.

· Breathe deep.

· Drive relaxed. Relax brow. Unclench teeth.

Relax into polyamide shirt.

Breathe. Look out polycarbonate windows

with their ethylene propylene window channelings

look, mainly

Well,

at other people's cars.

Need to:

· Relax your neck. Let your jaw go slack.

· Meridians, Deepak shockras, Chopra™ chi, flow, let it all flow.

Sweat.

Toes and feet need to sweat into polyester socks

in Nike® trainers

with ethylene vinyl acetate midsoles and styrene butadiene outersoles.

Go ahead and safely operate your tenite propionate gas and brake pedals.

· Breathe deep, tighten abs. Remember:

Straight back.

Drive home

polymethylmethacrylate blender under the sink

polypropylene ketchup bottle on the plastic tray on the door of the fridge

the shampoo and conditioner bottles in the plastic shower

39 Tupperware® containers with 36 tops in the cupboard*

polyvinyl chloride deck chairs out back under the plastic umbrella,

polyamide Sony® TV and AIWA® speakers in the family room

polyvinylidene chloride Saran Wrap® in the kitchen drawer.

*Missing three tuppertops. Why?

Ask Susan.

· Groceries

One thing becomes an other

2009-05-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

Instincts

2009-05-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

The cat is chasing a moth the moth is chasing
the light or circling it and the cat keeps
knocking him off course.
What is it with the hour and me
inside it watching and thinking
about the next and the next and
the next and the empty chair
where the cat was just sitting
before the moth
woke her up,
reminds me that I am not alone.

God made heaven and earth in the dark.

Rational Functions (from Dream Stories)

2009-05-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

1.
Suddenly, he is here, sitting at a table, an uncrumpled piece of paper pinned by his elbows. Chin in hands. A benign hum playing the chambers of his heart.

Nothing seems to mean anything. Like he woke up in a dream and all the familiar things of his life are but holograms to that same benign hum. It looks like his kitchen, with the large round oak table, the silver mermaid painting, the shelving with its series of international cookbooks. His things. But what does that mean, and who is he, anyway?

Something startles him. A fat moth flying around the lamp in the center of the table, bumping into and off of the orange lamp shade, as orange as the setting sun.

He looks down at the paper. A drawing of a raven on a naked branch. A penciled list of names and numbers. A graph highlighted by peaks and valleys and ending with a phrase written in his handwriting. “The asymptote ends here.”

He speaks the phrase out loud, as if to summon an anchor, but he trips over the word “asymptote” and an ancient argument rocks through him like a tide. Slow motion violence against slick glass sand. Inherited footprints dissolving. He looks at his hand and breathes into the palm. “Is this life?” The moth like a soft motor that burns without fire. Humming the air.

“Or is it a trap,” he says suddenly aware of this distinct possibility.

He balls up the paper with a disgust he doesn’t understand.

“Where’s the definition,” he says, as if its buried treasure he’s asking about, or misplaced keys, or a constellation he was taught about in some lost childhood. Things to be found.

He walks over to the wood stove, which has burned down to just a few barely living coals, and tosses the paper inside.

A smoldering. A sly tongue of flame issues from the coals and consumes the paper. He feels a vague something in his chest like an itch followed by a purr and nothing. He looks around the fireplace for wood to add, but there is none, only the crumbs of wood spread out over the carpet like the leftover feast from a passing army of termites.

He hears the phone ringing and wonders if it just started or if it’s always been ringing. He knows himself well enough how his mind can forget about the world around him even as he studies the details of each crack and the hue of every halo. He smiles and the ringing continues and the smile fades upon the feeling like he’s missed an important class, the most important of his life and now because he’s missed it, his life can never really start.

“Don’t stop ringing,” he calls out, searching for the phone. “Where did I leave you?” he says, unable to locate with his ears, it’s direction. He looks on the futon against the wall, under the futon, next to the Conga drums, on the counter with the mason jar filled with quarters and the phone ringing and ringing and ringing…

“The answering machine”, he fumes, throwing pillows, knocking over bookshelves, toppling spice racks “there’s always a machine…” turning over the couch, “that answers…”

2.
Time passes the way time passes in a dream. The invisible phone ringing like the phone is nowhere and everywhere all at once, the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the air.

Like everything is a hologram of the ringing.

Furniture reduced to rubble and kindling, the television caved in, the stereo beaten to a pile of metal shards. Sawdust in his haggard beard, his knuckles bruised and scabbed over, his breathing like a clogged vacuum tube.

He returns at last to the wood stove, remembering the paper with its graph of peaks and valleys. The raven, the names and numbers.

“If only I hadn't thrown it into the fire, if only I had learned to read it, I might have been able to… ”

But there is nothing more to say. He climbs inside the stove, rear-end first, enduring with a grown through clenched teeth, the cracking of his spine, the sharp light of effort bursting through his back and spidering through his entire body. The x and y axis bending at the waist, to almost join as one.

“There are no rational functions,” he groans at the merciless ringing, and closes the iron door.

Order 9 Travesty (Spam edition)

2008-08-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

 Unless you want to demonstrate your love for her by killing her? Sometimes
that happens. It's the one that always tastes the best, believe me — even
better than the one that always tastes the best, believe me — even better
than the one that always tastes the best, believe me — even better than
the one that always tastes the best, believe me — even better than the
one you have after a really fine meal. He had purposely turned the top
sheet around so she could read this:Above this sopping pile of paper Paul's
swollen right hand hovered, and held between the thumb and first finger
was a single burning match. Caraway 2 routines. It was time to go, he thought
wildly. The hell with Bur- bridge, stick--a minesweeper. In those days
many stalkers used mine sweepers, buying people. It seems the Visitation
caught them here, and they mutated .... the way I wanted to, fool, and
all the time you were egging me on and to him. Noonan had already adjusted
to the new situation. It was time to go, he thought wildly. The hell with
Bur- bridge, stick--a minesweeper. In those days many stalkers used mine
sweepers, buying people. It seems the Visitation caught them here, and
they mutated .... the way I wanted to, fool, and all the time you were
egging me on and to him. Noonan had already adjusted to the new situation.
It was time to go, he thought wildly. The hell with Bur- bridge, stick--a
minesweeper. In those days many stalkers used mine sweepers, buying people.
It seems the Visitation caught them here, and they mutated .... the way
I wanted to, fool, and all the time you were egging me on and to him. Noonan
had already adjusted to the new situation. It was time to go, he thought
wildly. The hell with Bur- bridge, stick--a minesweeper. In those days
many stalkers used mine sweepers, buying people. It seems the Visitation
caught them here, and they mutated .... the way I wanted to, fool, and
all the time you were egging me on and to him. Noonan had already adjusted
to the new situation. It was a game, "We'll see when we get there." Redrick
kept looking at the map. There He really was interested in what such a
young boy, a schoolboy just they never tied up the loose ends, never found
out where the lab had gotten started thinking about money? It allows you
not to do things you dislike!  Unless you want to crash through a window
and crawl. anatole astoria This was in Bakersfield, California, where I
grew up. "Ian drove his bloody fist into Geoffrey's face again and again
— his friend for whom, in his right»mind, he would have died. Normal air
had never tasted so fine. A "Do you want to demonstrate your love for her
by killing her? Sometimes that happens. It's the one that always tastes
the best, believe me — even better than the one you have after a really
fine meal. He had purposely turned the top sheet around so she could read
this:Above this sopping pile of paper Paul's swollen right hand hovered,
and held between the thumb and first finger was a single burning match.
Caraway 2 routines. It was time to go, he thought wildly. The hell with
Bur- bridge, stick--a minesweeper. In those days many stalkers used mine
sweepers, buying people. It seems the Visitation caught them here, and
they mutated .... the way I wanted to, fool, and all the time you were
egging me on and to him. Noonan had already adjusted to the new situation.
It was time to go, he thought wildly. The hell with Bur- bridge, stick--a
minesweeper. In those days many stalkers used mine sweepers, buying people.
It seems the Visitation caught them here, and they mutated .... the way
I wanted to, fool, and all the time you were egging me on and to him. Noonan
had already adjusted to the new situation. It was time to go, he thought
wildly. The hell with Bur- bridge, stick--a minesweeper. In those days
many stalkers used mine sweepers, buying people. It seems the Visitation
caught them here, and they mutated .... the way I wanted to, fool, and
all the time you were egging me on and to him. Noonan had already adjusted
to the new situation. It was a game, "We'll see when we get there." Redrick
kept looking at the map. There He really was interested in what such a
young boy, a schoolboy just they never tied up the loose ends, never found
out where the lab had gotten started thinking about money? It allows you
not to do things you dislike!  Unless you want to demonstrate your love
for her by killing her? Sometimes that happens. It's the one that always
tastes the best, believe me — even better than the one that always tastes
the best, believe me — even better than the one that always tastes the
best, believe me — even better than the one that always tastes the best,
believe me — even better than the one you have after a really fine meal.
He had purposely turned the top sheet around so she could read this:Above
this sopping pile of paper Paul's swollen right hand hovered, and held
between the thumb and first finger was a single burning match. Caraway
2 routines. It was time to go, he thought wildly.

Some Notes on the Life of Wernher von Braun

2008-06-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

Wernher was the first to theorize the existence of Tang.

For a few short weeks in 1944 Wernher personally added 10% more love to each V-2 rocket launched toward London.

Wernher had the second largest collection of used human skulls in the western hemisphere.

Wernher enjoyed the occasional wine spritzer.

As a child Wernher dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, but at the age of 8 his dreams were dashed when his fingers were mangled in a beer hall putsch.

Wernher Von Braun's real name was a state secret from 1945 until 1968.

Gospel Accordingly

2008-06-07T11:34:00.000-07:00

1. Put my sins behind your back, saving one for the sleeve.
Death cannot sing your praise.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but do not be afraid.
The flesh cannot count the sheep of your worry.
Save your manna for the dogs,
eat my words oh prisoners of trust.

The stock market rises and falls but the interest lasts forever.

Traverse the eye of the needle head first,
listen for the present’s eternal bellow.
Watch the fool pick ocean glass for the sky fish
born from all this ferocious change.

God haunts the simplest questions:
What time is it? How are you doing?
When will it stop raining?

2. God haunts military idioms:
Death count.
tactical maneuvers.
Private. General.
Yes sir, no sir. Right away sir.

The general calls for a surge, but he is a private man.
He has spiritual experiences. He appreciates the joy or randomly satisfying
bowel movements. He prays for lower taxes, for his daughter’s Harvard admittance.
He bemoaned the demotion of Pluto to the lower ranks of planetoid.
Is there no justice, indeed.

3. The air strikes your fancy. Your fancy car,
your extensive digital music collection.
It’s in the atmosphere, the blood of your fancy.

Play poker with my sins. The ante will be low, like smoking in front of a baby.
The stakes, dramatic: like losing your soul to Wal Mart.
Bluff death at your own peril. Fold to beauty for beauty’s sake.
Stack my sins in neat columns, but don’t count them.
Better yet, lose all count.

If you find yourself wandering through the valley of Hamon Gog,
you know you’ve lost. You’ll have to listen for my voice
shaking the lupin that cover the countless graves.
This is what I’ll say:
“As you go through the land, if you see a human bone,
set up a marker beside it until gravediggers have buried it.
There you will eat the flesh of mighty men
and drink the blood of princes of the earth
as if they were the rams and lambs, goats and bulls –
all of them fattened animals from Washington.”

4. You are helpless, pigeonholed by a rival deity;
dear friends let us love one another.
Dear friends, keep yourselves from idols.
Rahab, the prostitute is here to set you free.

What good is voting when her tongue
has a much more selective imagination?
What good are words when her moans call the moon
to shine through your ceiling?
Like the breeze in a forgotten painting,
You will become her masterpiece.

Love her, love her, love her…
Even as the bread is leavened and the Romans raise another cross.

Finish Me

2008-05-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

For reasons that may or may not become clear all the participants in this poem have been named Bill. This, like all things, both clarifies and conceals. After wasting enough time on language one begins to grow hungry, as if giving birth to a train on an unhappy occasion. First get yourself some fireworks and a bonfire-- something approaching a calamity, but without all the trappings of emotion-- and make sure it is big enough to reach all the places you have concealed...

The Saint

2008-05-26T12:19:00.001-07:00

(This was forwarded to me, writer unknown)

President George W. Bush was scheduled to visit the
Episcopal Church outside Washington as part of his
campaign to restore his pathetic poll standings.
His image handler made a visit to the Bishop and said, 'We've been getting a lot of bad publicity
because of the president's position on stem cell
research, the Iraq war, hurricane Katrina, and the
Veterans Administration. We'll make a $100,000
contribution to your church if during your sermon
you will say that the President is a saint.'

The Bishop thought it over for a few moments and
finally said, 'The Church is desperate for funding -
I'll do it.'

Bush showed up for the sermon, and the Bishop
began: 'I'd like to speak to you all this morning about
our President who is a liar, a cheat, and a
low-intelligence numb -nuts who can't put a compound
sentence together. He bugged out of combat service during the Vietnam
war and went AWOL to avoid a drug test, then had all
reports on the sordid event destroyed. He is the spawn of a Nazi loving great grandfather
who smuggled anti-Americans into this country on
his shipping line. He took the tragedy of September 11 and used it to
frighten and manipulate the American people.
He lied about weapons of mass destruction and
invaded Iraq for oil and money,causing the deaths of
tens of thousands and making the United States the
most hated country on earth. It is a three-trillion
dollar folly. He appointed fund-raiser cronies to positions of
power and influence, leading to widespread death
and destruction due to government paralysis after
Hurricane Katrina. He awarded no-bid cost-plus contracts and tax cuts
to his rich friends so that we now have more
poverty in this country and a greater gap between rich
and poor than we've had since the Depression.
He has headed the most corrupt, bribe-inducing
political party since Teapot Dome. The national surplus has turned into a staggering
national debt of 7.6 trillion Dollars.
Oil rose from $18 to over a hundred per barrel,
leading to transportation costs which the people
of America cannot afford, with low minimum wages,
part time jobs, no health insurance, and outsourcing.
Vital research into global warming and stem cells
is stifled because he's afraid to lose votes from
religious kooks. He is the worst example of a true Christian I've
ever known, but compared to Dick Cheney...
George W. Bush is a saint.

How to Write a Novel

2008-05-22T12:00:00.001-07:00

Hide the title. Give them a reason
To find it.

2 Haikus

2008-05-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

English Major Haiku
Albetross fell from
the sky In mariner’s poem
Bad shit happened

Reality Haiku
Albetross flies into
wifi tower In starbucks
You tube happens.

Evolution

2008-05-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

Great parody of life, I am here to honor you
throw me a bone you fool,
don’t insult the baboon by calling me one:
he climbs magnificent trees.
I watch CNN.

Saturn Returns

2008-05-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

Saturn returns with some rings to hand out
this color that color
the blood will wash out: ignore all screams
and wails.
It’s just a song someone chose for a ring tone.

Burning

2008-05-15T12:58:00.001-07:00

She returned from Burning Man with news:
“on the first day the dust overwhelms you. On the second day you become one with the dust. On the third day you are the dust. On the fourth day you look for people to cover.”
She went on like this, including: “I lost my fear like I lost my virginity. It will never come back.”
I said: “Get thee to a nunnery.”
She said, “Yeah, whatever…you look kind of whacked, or are you just stoned?”
I was chopping an onion and was at that point where the spirit of the onion was driving a wet cloud of needles into my eyes. But I didn’t care, I loved it, I loved the needles.
“Clean my eyes with pain!” I screamed, and this got her attention, and she looked over and saw what I was doing.
“Oh. It’s the onion.” Then, “you know if you only breath through your nose and don’t open your mouth while you’re cutting it, you’ll be okay.” She got really close to me, latching her eyes to mine, then winked. “That’s the lesson of the onion.”

2008-05-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Promotion

2008-05-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

Promotion

1.

Later that night he licks the sarcasm from the rim of the toilet. He brushes his teeth with gasoline. He lights his breath on fire, burning down the house, where his wife and children sleep. Throwing a blanket over his shoulders like a cape, he dives through the window.

2.

Because he followed the directions by the letter, he is more than disappointed that he didn’t fly. His cell phone, he left inside the burning house; he cannot call the company to issue his complaint. His wife is trapped and screaming, so she can’t help, and anyway she never believed in his dreams. His kids are burnt to crisps by now, and he is ambling around the side lawn, his lips burned form his mouth, shards of glass stuck into his shoulders and neck, earthbound and naked, the towel around his ankles collecting blood.

3.

For killing his family and destroying all his possessions, he gets a raise, the boss honors him with a speech to the company about faith and sacrifice. “I’m sorry the flying thing didn’t work out,” the boss says to him later over by the water cooler, which is empty of water but filled with spider webs and the wrapped up bodies of moths. He doesn’t respond, just looks up, licks his teeth where his upper lip used to be and sighs. His boss unzips his pants and inserts his erect penis in the water cooler spout. The boss wraps his arms around the water cooler and mutters the latin alphabet as he thrusts in and out of the spout at an ever increasing rate. When he comes, sunflower seeds shoot from the head of his penis in slow motion and as they shoot up the seeds metamorphose into the nine planets of our solar system.

4.

The planets are immediately caught in the spider webs and the boss turns to our hero and says, nearly out of breath, “Okay, now, it’s up to you to deliver the sun. Don’t let me down. Without a sun we don’t have an orbit, without an orbit, those fucking spiders will suck everything dry.” The boss, exits the spout, zips up his slacks, puts a meaty paw on our heroes shoulder, bringing him nose to nose with the breath of coffee and time steaming like a volcanic fissure from every pore. “Tell me Johnson, do you have the balls to make a sun?”