Our home was static. Nothing in it moved--not even us. I wore black dancer's tights. I wrapped plastic tubing around my arms and tried to fit objects in my mouth. First, I lit the humunculus. Then, I made something of an embryo with ferns and rusty bolts. It smelled of metal in my hands. I gave out trinkets because I had made them. My job was to set whatever had been wronged right. I started by reupholstering the chairs. I had learned to do leather work. I did not hide behind the donkey because, today, I had caught my allotment of fish. The other day, I had had to hide because I had not caught enough fish. And what I had caught was much too small to feed an entire schoolhouse of children and mice. I told my darling that I would have to leave because my stomach ailment had worsened such that I forever craved porcelain. I felt cold, so I made a sweater for myself. I did not know how to buy wool so I made my sweater out of plant tendrils. I sought her help but did not find it. Instead, what I found was her veil--one that I had given her--in an empty room that had a For Rent sign in its window. Do not be brattish. You'll get your turn at the machine.
An eelworm. A nematode. The boys on the wrestling team got ringworm on their faces because of the rancid mats on which they gamboled and writhed and dreamt of rope fights. I had brass on my bed. I had nickel on my dress. She wore a dress that, on its hem, had lead trinkets. She wore a hat that had metal charms dangling off its brim. She bought a large container filled with dates and ate most of them before going to whatever was most fashionable that season. I was not ready for anything painful. And yet what I got was painful in the extreme. An outpouring of garbage on my hands. I could not raise my hands above my head because they had so much garbage on them. I found a fan--someone very supportive of what it was I was feigning. I had an outflow of flux. I had a bandage on my arm because I had just given plasma for forty dollars. Now I had enough money for a bike. I wanted a bike because I wanted to put test animals in my tires and ride around. This was a splurge for me. I had never owned such rapid transportation. Once, though, I had sat in the back of a car that had leather seats. They creaked and were a little cracked. I saw that the driver was aglow, so I asked him what made him so pleased. He told me he had caught a tagged fish, and that that catch had made him 500$.
He didn't have faith. He had faithery--it was all fake. A pretense. And what did he have faith in? He believed, full-hearted, that if a dog were to bite him, it would immediately let go. Same with a snake or an eel. A komodo dragon. I was certainly not handsome. Adonic. I was homely. I had scars on my chin. I had hair in the wrong places. The smell that came out of my mouth would not be attractive if I were to go tango dancing. So I hid. I got under a structure and hoped I would not be found. I found a sweaty man in a field at night. I tried to wake him, but he wouldn't. I asked if he was okay. As always, we shared what we had dreamt. She was in it this time. We looked for symbols. The only symbols that counted were ones that had not been made by a building renovated for the surge perceived. Chilly. Wintry. Gelid. Ways to describe a night with me. Here comes the decline. The decline angled down into the ocean and into an ancient trench. The submarine, on a line, trailed a styrofoam cup. The pressure of so many fathoms about it shrank it. Take it to third grade.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
5 MWE Stir the bog
Very little was disappointing. I would degrade myself--but in a way I could tolerate. The road smelled pink. My prescience had left me. My mother has never been called stocky. Though I strained through the morning's exercises, come afternoon, I had a glaze on my face that betrayed my keeping a ten year old secret. I had set chokers on trees. A dangerous job--but I needed the money to put a downpayment on a swimming pool. I wanted to swim with my animals and smell chlorine. The house was on the side of a hillside. It took us days to clean the property. We took days. I had crookback and defacement. I was mutilated, unmackly. I was wrong to look at, but I did such an excellent job. Have me fold a napkin, and, without doubt, I will hide some little present in the creases. He did not understand the meaning of waves. He was not ready to launder his clothes. He had just broken with her, after all, and he wanted to wear what he had worn through it. A canker could have been pleasant. He had yellowish liquid to put on and numb his canker. He had no way of describing the way it tasted. Bricks that are slick.
My body disembodied. Not because of violence--because of discouragement. I sit on a chair that, I myself, had refinished and re-upholstered. Little brass nails. A hammer. Stretching. I had caned a chair. I had done some needlepoint of a parrot. I went to her parents' house because she had invited me to a party. The idea was to press people against the walls and slide down. Writhe on the ground. She showed me the dresses she had been working on in her basement. Then a drive. Some dancing. She asked if she could kiss me, but I wondered what kind of permission would have slid across a room so quick. The drive took us to a building that had once been above ground. On stilts. I became sick from the breakfast she had made me. We had agreed upon an exchange. She would make breakfast, and I would burn our clothes. We had committed a robbery in them. I showed her a river and some rocks on which I had slipped. I showed her a horse that had thrown me and a beautiful woman with an amazingly raised mole on her chin. Her brother did not like me. He did not like that I asked him how he had developed such a strong grip. Once, on the bark of a dog, I saw her brother. He had an odd shadow on his head, and, only later, he told me that he had painted it on. He wanted to be a bit more obscure than I am. Well, look no further than this bucket.
She had a depression on her head. A dent. My grandfather did not know that I was in his room with him. He had a blanket about him. He was tying rope about his waist. He combed his hair and wrote something on a notecard. He had a pen. In private, he often called me The Waif. He said my eyes had nothing but dopey trombones in them. We went to watch kickboxing and were told about a man in shorts. I could hardly concentrate because a woman had a child that I thought I recognized. I had never seen her before, but I was certain that I had seen her child. I could not tell what sex the thing was, but I knew that sex had produced it. The child was wicked and godless. It did not watch kickboxing. Instead, it looked at me. The mother, I knew, was in a relationship with one of the men fighting. Looking at her face, I couldn't tell which man she wanted to win. I had heard about new knots being tied. I knew how to look in the encyclopedia and find the knots in K. I knew how to tie all those. And I had borrowed books from the library, so I knew how to tie knots. But many new ones have been invented. Certain people are innovators and the rest take their shoes off and cool their ankles in a water fountain.
My body disembodied. Not because of violence--because of discouragement. I sit on a chair that, I myself, had refinished and re-upholstered. Little brass nails. A hammer. Stretching. I had caned a chair. I had done some needlepoint of a parrot. I went to her parents' house because she had invited me to a party. The idea was to press people against the walls and slide down. Writhe on the ground. She showed me the dresses she had been working on in her basement. Then a drive. Some dancing. She asked if she could kiss me, but I wondered what kind of permission would have slid across a room so quick. The drive took us to a building that had once been above ground. On stilts. I became sick from the breakfast she had made me. We had agreed upon an exchange. She would make breakfast, and I would burn our clothes. We had committed a robbery in them. I showed her a river and some rocks on which I had slipped. I showed her a horse that had thrown me and a beautiful woman with an amazingly raised mole on her chin. Her brother did not like me. He did not like that I asked him how he had developed such a strong grip. Once, on the bark of a dog, I saw her brother. He had an odd shadow on his head, and, only later, he told me that he had painted it on. He wanted to be a bit more obscure than I am. Well, look no further than this bucket.
She had a depression on her head. A dent. My grandfather did not know that I was in his room with him. He had a blanket about him. He was tying rope about his waist. He combed his hair and wrote something on a notecard. He had a pen. In private, he often called me The Waif. He said my eyes had nothing but dopey trombones in them. We went to watch kickboxing and were told about a man in shorts. I could hardly concentrate because a woman had a child that I thought I recognized. I had never seen her before, but I was certain that I had seen her child. I could not tell what sex the thing was, but I knew that sex had produced it. The child was wicked and godless. It did not watch kickboxing. Instead, it looked at me. The mother, I knew, was in a relationship with one of the men fighting. Looking at her face, I couldn't tell which man she wanted to win. I had heard about new knots being tied. I knew how to look in the encyclopedia and find the knots in K. I knew how to tie all those. And I had borrowed books from the library, so I knew how to tie knots. But many new ones have been invented. Certain people are innovators and the rest take their shoes off and cool their ankles in a water fountain.
10 MWE
The toy we played on was a metal shoe. We could retreat to courts when we were finished. A woman watched us from a building. The building had been constructed 2,000 years ago--but just yesterday, renovations had been finished. The dog that he had was named Mr. Chubbs. The dog liked to have a cardboard box on its head. Yes, we had a hedge. We could look through it. The neighbor's daughter told me that her father whipped her mother across the face with a chain. She did not lose her teeth, really. What happened was that her teeth were knocked out by great violence. The children were allowed to draw on their walls. The horrible machine was constructed mostly by children. The machine is horrible. Children had made it because their hands are so small--and horrible machines have lots of crevices that are hard to get to. And why are they hard to get to? They are small and not greasy enough. A family stopped near Niagara Falls. They ate a meal and used a restroom. They saw the preserved remains of a mummy. Somehow, this mummy had been left at a restaurant in Niagara Falls. Thirty years later, it will be discovered and placed in a Smithsonian. We had a straight way to go for at least three hours. I had a difficult time going to sleep because my mouth tasted too much of mint. When the reception finished, I found the first tree that I saw. I reached down and touched a root because I wanted to sense what something alone meant. Did it mean to do harm to me? He drank a glass. He placed a letter. He asked a question that had both and easy and a difficult answer. He felt fine going down stairs, but, when he went up them, he felt horrible pains in his head and chest. This all occurred when something inconstant was happening. I did not unhorse myself. What I had to do was undog because I wasn't feeling well. I would touch a pelt and not know it to be such. I would touch skin, and it always felt oily. I did not harm anyone, but I did manage to get mangy. I would like to ask what was it that pulverized your arm. My father told his friends that he would be able to break my arm by squeezing it. He said all he had to do was grab my forearm and squeeze. Certainly, he would break one of the bones in there. He would not sit on benches, and yet he had no trouble sitting on a chair and spitting between his legs. That watery spit. That antique chair. Grass he had seeded and mown. He was a little too eager when it came to watering anything--even me.
We took too long to paint a gate. We didn't know how to do it. We started by sanding it. We took off some rust. Then, with brushes, we painted it. But it took us so long. We shouldn't have sanded or used brushes. We should have just sprayed it. The water was behind the house. It went out into a river. We got into boats, and people on the shore threw rocks at us. This was all before fireworks. Someone was shot with a pistol because he stole limes. I had limes in my pockets, but I had not stolen them. The signage was all handpainted. I walked until dogs followed me. I found houses that were ruins. They crumbled into each other and made a larger structure. This structure did not look made, but it was habitable. When I first went into it, I was impressed by its blue light. Its green light was not as interesting. I had a water pistol, which I used to squirt lightbulbs and sockets. My head was something that people in the neighborhood looked for. My head was full of portent, they believed. They saw things around it. They saw things squinch out of my nose or ears and eyes. These things would predict the future. They either looked for my head or didn't. I had heard of a performance. This performance was not being put on in a hall or a theatre or a space. Instead, it was in someone's home. We, the audience, were to watch by leaning against the walls. Part of the show took place in a half bathroom. We couldn't all watch in there, of course, so we had to send one representative. At intermission, that person had to tell us what had happened in the bathroom. And what had happened? A Roman Style suicide. The child drew a warm bath, got in, and got himself open deep at the insides of his elbows. What was funny, though, was that red did not come out of him. Instead, what came out was bubbles. Soon, the whole bath was filled with bubbles. A real bubble bath. And these things soothed him, convinced him to get out of the bath and seek attention. His problem was that attention was never anything that he sought. Instead, what he looked for was rockets. Rare birds. Anything of value in the gutter. Very often, he thought he saw dollars on the pavement. When he looked a second time, however, these pay dirts always ended up as leaves or bits of newsprint. He saw that a man named Essex appeared in print. This man went into the room of his lover on the pretext that, in her room, he had left his handkerchief. Then, in the room, he killed her.
The nutriment was not sufficient. Instead of using manikins, the department store used skeletons. I was the one who thought adding flesh might be a good idea. The store had been owned for 3,000 years--long before any of us ever wanted to grow plants on the roof. We grew things that were carnivorous, of course. We grew thorned things--or things that had leaves that could slice open a shin. Just a tiny gobbet of food was what I wanted. I had wrapped myself in the sheet I had slept under sick for eight days. I was sick for a while--and all under that sheet. But there I was, the sheet wrapped around me, looking for any small gobbet. I had finally gotten a job at a deadhouse. My job was not in it, though. Instead, I was to manicure all the plant- and rock-life outside. I suggested that we put skeletons in tanks of water. Then we'd run bubbles through them and they would dance. Their jaws would open and close as if speaking. We could make a tape to play with them. We could make them sound as if they were singing. There was a moroseness in the way she turned on the lights in our apartment. She would reach up, but not all of her would lift. She had just bought that red sweater. She had an embarrassing tattoo of a fish. We are just not the correct biology, she told me. She worked with the upper case D deaf. She had invented new signs. We had to watch the movie on my computer. My favorite scene was when they were all in the hospital. It was there that I saw the little boy was the one who had stolen the drugs out of the armoire. Her favorite scene was when a certain man kissed. Then we kissed and her comment was, What is this? A slow dance. I excused myself and built a staircase to a ledge. I bluffed, and she bought it. I had the impassivity of an animal that never knew it was domestic. Here is my apology: a vase of fluid. Here is what I invented: a vase of fluid. I told him that his candles sent off strange scents. He said the reason for that was that they had his skin in them. The daystar. The commencement. I saw the moon in the day that day. The tree had lots of ferns growing at its base. On the undersides of the ferns were lots of grainy red dots.
We took too long to paint a gate. We didn't know how to do it. We started by sanding it. We took off some rust. Then, with brushes, we painted it. But it took us so long. We shouldn't have sanded or used brushes. We should have just sprayed it. The water was behind the house. It went out into a river. We got into boats, and people on the shore threw rocks at us. This was all before fireworks. Someone was shot with a pistol because he stole limes. I had limes in my pockets, but I had not stolen them. The signage was all handpainted. I walked until dogs followed me. I found houses that were ruins. They crumbled into each other and made a larger structure. This structure did not look made, but it was habitable. When I first went into it, I was impressed by its blue light. Its green light was not as interesting. I had a water pistol, which I used to squirt lightbulbs and sockets. My head was something that people in the neighborhood looked for. My head was full of portent, they believed. They saw things around it. They saw things squinch out of my nose or ears and eyes. These things would predict the future. They either looked for my head or didn't. I had heard of a performance. This performance was not being put on in a hall or a theatre or a space. Instead, it was in someone's home. We, the audience, were to watch by leaning against the walls. Part of the show took place in a half bathroom. We couldn't all watch in there, of course, so we had to send one representative. At intermission, that person had to tell us what had happened in the bathroom. And what had happened? A Roman Style suicide. The child drew a warm bath, got in, and got himself open deep at the insides of his elbows. What was funny, though, was that red did not come out of him. Instead, what came out was bubbles. Soon, the whole bath was filled with bubbles. A real bubble bath. And these things soothed him, convinced him to get out of the bath and seek attention. His problem was that attention was never anything that he sought. Instead, what he looked for was rockets. Rare birds. Anything of value in the gutter. Very often, he thought he saw dollars on the pavement. When he looked a second time, however, these pay dirts always ended up as leaves or bits of newsprint. He saw that a man named Essex appeared in print. This man went into the room of his lover on the pretext that, in her room, he had left his handkerchief. Then, in the room, he killed her.
The nutriment was not sufficient. Instead of using manikins, the department store used skeletons. I was the one who thought adding flesh might be a good idea. The store had been owned for 3,000 years--long before any of us ever wanted to grow plants on the roof. We grew things that were carnivorous, of course. We grew thorned things--or things that had leaves that could slice open a shin. Just a tiny gobbet of food was what I wanted. I had wrapped myself in the sheet I had slept under sick for eight days. I was sick for a while--and all under that sheet. But there I was, the sheet wrapped around me, looking for any small gobbet. I had finally gotten a job at a deadhouse. My job was not in it, though. Instead, I was to manicure all the plant- and rock-life outside. I suggested that we put skeletons in tanks of water. Then we'd run bubbles through them and they would dance. Their jaws would open and close as if speaking. We could make a tape to play with them. We could make them sound as if they were singing. There was a moroseness in the way she turned on the lights in our apartment. She would reach up, but not all of her would lift. She had just bought that red sweater. She had an embarrassing tattoo of a fish. We are just not the correct biology, she told me. She worked with the upper case D deaf. She had invented new signs. We had to watch the movie on my computer. My favorite scene was when they were all in the hospital. It was there that I saw the little boy was the one who had stolen the drugs out of the armoire. Her favorite scene was when a certain man kissed. Then we kissed and her comment was, What is this? A slow dance. I excused myself and built a staircase to a ledge. I bluffed, and she bought it. I had the impassivity of an animal that never knew it was domestic. Here is my apology: a vase of fluid. Here is what I invented: a vase of fluid. I told him that his candles sent off strange scents. He said the reason for that was that they had his skin in them. The daystar. The commencement. I saw the moon in the day that day. The tree had lots of ferns growing at its base. On the undersides of the ferns were lots of grainy red dots.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
5 MWE Prone Apron
This bothered. It was a bother. I exercised near a road when it was hot in the morning. Never had I drank for a child. Here was a child asking me to drink a glass of something she had colored. This was not a false offering. I asked her what her mother was like. Did her mother have a calculator with plastic buttons? Or with metal? Did her mother have buttons on her blouse? We got into an argument. The road had little on it that I wanted to keep. So what. I didn't maraud, and I didn't penetrate. I had a letter of introduction. I had it for a time before I lost it. I stole a lime, but a man saw. He took me, twisted my arm. A woman leapt upon him, and he took out a pistol. It was now that another man beached a boat. He had animals on the back of it--animals I had no way of naming, but I held my hand out anyway. I remember having watched a monkey eat a strawberry. I remembered being tough with the children who wanted to eat early. There was very little that was useless in the pantry. This was what I was seeing.
The balcony was above an ocean. The balcony was above brush. She was down there--below the balcony. My aunt had to wrap me up before she took me outside. She left me in the driveway. I did not want anything that had to do with shoving a stick into an animal. I saw very clearly then that I was not intelligent enough to impress my grandfather. When he put me on his shoulders, I made it so that my hand served as a mask that obscured his face. In this manner, we robbed a bank. They were able to identify me, the child, but they were not able to place my grandfather. The haircut he wore he got in France. He had to gall to kill the small pet bird in the lobby. He did not have the appropriate boots. He had teeth in sections. He had a nose replaced. He had parts of himself implanted. Later, he had these implants removed and replaced with whatever was more current or of the season. He sat in a trailer. He sat in an old fire engine. He had won the fire engine at an auction. His idea was that he would be able to drive it in parades. This would be good advertising. I hated it that--every time I threw an amulet up--it got caught in a fir tree. I remember being so worried about escaped horses and spider bites. Very early in the morning. Not enough bread to be made.
He made shackles for cats. Not ready to be a burden to anyone, he ate all that he had grown in his garden. The time was too salty for anyone to remember what happened next. Get ready to take a long time walking to the asylum. Her bedroom was a charnel house. He closet full of poppies. What was it that got her to remember her father's wish? He had wished to be the boss of some men. He never had a complaint. He was compliant for a time that verged on record. We played boardgames to be quiet. We went to most of the zoos in the area but saw a small percentage of animals. When something got caught in a tree, we often decided that it was then we should go to the Jersey Shore. This was when breasts. We did not have the legs to make such jam. We were never ready to eat, though we had clean silverware. My job was to boil our meals. But was it illegal? It was. We stayed in a dorm room that had posters of things we could have never expected. Get ready to be struck was what I had been told by yet another man. This one wore a hat that smelled of salt sweat. I would like the cod. The Blue Fish. My turn to rip the jacket.
The balcony was above an ocean. The balcony was above brush. She was down there--below the balcony. My aunt had to wrap me up before she took me outside. She left me in the driveway. I did not want anything that had to do with shoving a stick into an animal. I saw very clearly then that I was not intelligent enough to impress my grandfather. When he put me on his shoulders, I made it so that my hand served as a mask that obscured his face. In this manner, we robbed a bank. They were able to identify me, the child, but they were not able to place my grandfather. The haircut he wore he got in France. He had to gall to kill the small pet bird in the lobby. He did not have the appropriate boots. He had teeth in sections. He had a nose replaced. He had parts of himself implanted. Later, he had these implants removed and replaced with whatever was more current or of the season. He sat in a trailer. He sat in an old fire engine. He had won the fire engine at an auction. His idea was that he would be able to drive it in parades. This would be good advertising. I hated it that--every time I threw an amulet up--it got caught in a fir tree. I remember being so worried about escaped horses and spider bites. Very early in the morning. Not enough bread to be made.
He made shackles for cats. Not ready to be a burden to anyone, he ate all that he had grown in his garden. The time was too salty for anyone to remember what happened next. Get ready to take a long time walking to the asylum. Her bedroom was a charnel house. He closet full of poppies. What was it that got her to remember her father's wish? He had wished to be the boss of some men. He never had a complaint. He was compliant for a time that verged on record. We played boardgames to be quiet. We went to most of the zoos in the area but saw a small percentage of animals. When something got caught in a tree, we often decided that it was then we should go to the Jersey Shore. This was when breasts. We did not have the legs to make such jam. We were never ready to eat, though we had clean silverware. My job was to boil our meals. But was it illegal? It was. We stayed in a dorm room that had posters of things we could have never expected. Get ready to be struck was what I had been told by yet another man. This one wore a hat that smelled of salt sweat. I would like the cod. The Blue Fish. My turn to rip the jacket.
Friday, June 20, 2008
5 MWE
He lived next to pumpkins, strawberries, and fir trees. He lived where the ground could have been the back of a large animal. Just a short walk would take him to countless abandoned buildings. Abandoned by whom? Who abandoned? He had a stone wall that pranksters often pushed down. They backed their truck into his stone wall for a laugh. Then, he'd have to spend a few days building it again. He didn't want to cheapen any of the things that he hated. He did not want to get a crew together for any adventure. He hoped that any of the growing things near him would be blighted. Blighted by what? By whom? By kids in a truck? He took a stool with him out to a field of mud. He set the stool in the mud. He sat on the stool and slowly sank. Instead of sitting on the stool, he was sitting in mud. He did not dislike animals--especially larger animals. He did not mind that two boys often launched model rockets in one of his fields. He did not mind that they flew line-controlled airplanes. He liked to see them spinning round and round and dipping their airplanes.
No chance she would stop being agog. She was a substitute for a sister. She lived in a shack we had off our house. The shack had a kitchen and shower in it. If we wanted to, it would be easy for us to put the kitchen in a box. And the shower was orange from some growth she never bothered to clean. She went to school, but, on the weekends, she watched me to make sure I didn't drown. It would have been easy for me to drown in a pool, a tub, or even a sink. I had the part of myself I most hated on display. Or it was in a display--but not encased. The three of us children became adults in ten years. We were strict with each other but not with our parents. We did not like to mix concrete. If we had to, we ate our meals outside. Sometimes, one of us would steal away to the basement. And why? To sit very close to the humidifier. I liked to sit next to sweaters as they dried on the wooden rack. What might have been my indifference was actually a pain I had in my thigh. I was not ready to eat grapes. I enjoyed the entire bowl of nectarines. She was agog because she managed to grow her underthings. This was when we were not frightened. When we could smell metal on our hands one day, plant life on another.
I denied having had a foretaste. A lie. There was a fence that prevented an attack for one day. An animal pushed through a barbed wire fence because of a large wave. A wave with a fifteen foot face. A wave with dirt from the prairie in it. A wave with playing cards of flint in it. To have such a wave go over you. The tornado took tiles off the roofs. Shrapnel. What I would like to see is more bodily churning. I would like to hear the insides of people squinching. This is what it was: riotous. There were children in the park. The park had kites tethered to its ground. None of the children were attended by their parents. Their parents were on an airplane. Their parents were test pilots for a new design of airplane. The children found dogs tied to tree branches. So they released the dogs--dozens of dogs. The dogs were thin and thankful to be released. The children, with the thousands of dollars their parents had left them, bought food and toys for the dogs. They went to whatever stores were nearby. The dogs did not want to eat, however. The dogs sought out gutters in the street, and found openings in the curb that would take them underground.
No chance she would stop being agog. She was a substitute for a sister. She lived in a shack we had off our house. The shack had a kitchen and shower in it. If we wanted to, it would be easy for us to put the kitchen in a box. And the shower was orange from some growth she never bothered to clean. She went to school, but, on the weekends, she watched me to make sure I didn't drown. It would have been easy for me to drown in a pool, a tub, or even a sink. I had the part of myself I most hated on display. Or it was in a display--but not encased. The three of us children became adults in ten years. We were strict with each other but not with our parents. We did not like to mix concrete. If we had to, we ate our meals outside. Sometimes, one of us would steal away to the basement. And why? To sit very close to the humidifier. I liked to sit next to sweaters as they dried on the wooden rack. What might have been my indifference was actually a pain I had in my thigh. I was not ready to eat grapes. I enjoyed the entire bowl of nectarines. She was agog because she managed to grow her underthings. This was when we were not frightened. When we could smell metal on our hands one day, plant life on another.
I denied having had a foretaste. A lie. There was a fence that prevented an attack for one day. An animal pushed through a barbed wire fence because of a large wave. A wave with a fifteen foot face. A wave with dirt from the prairie in it. A wave with playing cards of flint in it. To have such a wave go over you. The tornado took tiles off the roofs. Shrapnel. What I would like to see is more bodily churning. I would like to hear the insides of people squinching. This is what it was: riotous. There were children in the park. The park had kites tethered to its ground. None of the children were attended by their parents. Their parents were on an airplane. Their parents were test pilots for a new design of airplane. The children found dogs tied to tree branches. So they released the dogs--dozens of dogs. The dogs were thin and thankful to be released. The children, with the thousands of dollars their parents had left them, bought food and toys for the dogs. They went to whatever stores were nearby. The dogs did not want to eat, however. The dogs sought out gutters in the street, and found openings in the curb that would take them underground.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
5 MEWL
She did not let the height of her stack of silk diminish. She had a face that had once been broken. Imagine the front of her skull a mask--and that mask smashed and broken. The front of her skull had been broken--but it was broken under the skin. The instrument that had been used did not break the skin, but it did smash the front of her skull. Her face. She had a child who loved to take his clay and make noses for skulls. That skulls did not have noses did not bother him. He simply enjoyed to make noses for skulls, and she was always so impressed at how human a skull began to look once it had a nose. Humans are called Homo sapiens, of course, but there are some people who believe that humans, instead, should be called Homo loquens. Humans are really not all that wise. But they can speak, so perhaps loquens is a better fit. She had to have a fake face put in. She was lucky because they were able to make her a fake face to replace all that had bee smashed. All they had to do was take an old mask that she had and break it in a chalet. The chalet had a low price when they first bought it. It was right on the lake, so they knew it would be a good thing to invest in. Birds were what died near them.
Someone had tied a dog to the cross at the top of the church. It was the prank that was so often played. I lived on Church Street, and I woke to a dog. Someone had tied a dog to the cross that's on the top of the church. I went to cut down the dog. It was a black lab maybe. Someone had tied it to the cross. It was tied with its belly to the cross. Someone had once tied a pig to the cross. Someone had tied little goat. All sorts of animals tied to the cross. I wondered if the person who did this also shot out the signs on stores. Would this person shoot out lights? I told the child that this is the factory where they make people. This is where they make most of the people in the world. I told the child that, before the people are released, they all have to eat a special meal. If they don't eat that meal, then they become murderers. That's why there are so many murderers in this town. Not enough of them eat the meal that they are supposed to eat after they are made. What is in the meal? What of it? He was told to eat a piece of quartz. He was told to swallow marbles and throw them up. He was told to hide the marbles. He was told to plant something in marbles and make it grow. What I never understood was how a machine could have so much waste in it. I stand next to any machine, and I wonder when it will tell me which way to the round board.
Her bust, in my eye, was unflagging. I saw what was about to happen in a dream. Because I have synaesthesia, I realize that it is not unusual that I am ambidextrous and that I have precognitive dreams. I experience deja vu often, and I have very little sense of direction and have never done well in math. My brother has epilepsy. He was given a choice--that is, whether or not he wanted to have the hemispheres of his brain cut into. That would relieve all that is in the fishtank. We found an empty fishtank--still unbroken--at the dump. So, what we did was grease it with Vaseline and have people strip down and fold themselves into it. Like geeks. We liked to see what a thigh looked like greased and pressed against glass. A breast, maybe. This was when dirt was on the roof. Our father, with a bunch of other men, dug a twenty-foot deep hole. Our father swindled the other men in that he got to keep the best dirt, while they were fooled into hauling the inferior dirt. Our father put all that dirt on the roof of our house. He told us to go inside while, with a high-powered hose, he shot water onto the roof. We watched as it all flopped down.
Someone had tied a dog to the cross at the top of the church. It was the prank that was so often played. I lived on Church Street, and I woke to a dog. Someone had tied a dog to the cross that's on the top of the church. I went to cut down the dog. It was a black lab maybe. Someone had tied it to the cross. It was tied with its belly to the cross. Someone had once tied a pig to the cross. Someone had tied little goat. All sorts of animals tied to the cross. I wondered if the person who did this also shot out the signs on stores. Would this person shoot out lights? I told the child that this is the factory where they make people. This is where they make most of the people in the world. I told the child that, before the people are released, they all have to eat a special meal. If they don't eat that meal, then they become murderers. That's why there are so many murderers in this town. Not enough of them eat the meal that they are supposed to eat after they are made. What is in the meal? What of it? He was told to eat a piece of quartz. He was told to swallow marbles and throw them up. He was told to hide the marbles. He was told to plant something in marbles and make it grow. What I never understood was how a machine could have so much waste in it. I stand next to any machine, and I wonder when it will tell me which way to the round board.
Her bust, in my eye, was unflagging. I saw what was about to happen in a dream. Because I have synaesthesia, I realize that it is not unusual that I am ambidextrous and that I have precognitive dreams. I experience deja vu often, and I have very little sense of direction and have never done well in math. My brother has epilepsy. He was given a choice--that is, whether or not he wanted to have the hemispheres of his brain cut into. That would relieve all that is in the fishtank. We found an empty fishtank--still unbroken--at the dump. So, what we did was grease it with Vaseline and have people strip down and fold themselves into it. Like geeks. We liked to see what a thigh looked like greased and pressed against glass. A breast, maybe. This was when dirt was on the roof. Our father, with a bunch of other men, dug a twenty-foot deep hole. Our father swindled the other men in that he got to keep the best dirt, while they were fooled into hauling the inferior dirt. Our father put all that dirt on the roof of our house. He told us to go inside while, with a high-powered hose, he shot water onto the roof. We watched as it all flopped down.
5 MWE
He was a hardydardy, he was. He was under a tent. The tent. Outside, the eight peaks of the big tent looked like teats. The circus put its belly to the night sky. In it, was him--a hardydardy ready to do something we had not seen. We were not intelligent. We wanted to rent an apartment. I found a suitable apartment--that is, one exceedingly cheap. I called the man who had placed the ad. He said he was in a forest--two states away--and that, if I wanted to see the apartment, I could show it to myself. He told me to go into the backyard of the house neighboring the apartment. He told me to slip under a fence. He told me to find a back screened-in porch and to let myself in. He said I could find a key above the porch door. He told me to let myself in. What I saw was filthy and spacious. I could not tell what smelled of natural gas and what of cat urine. One toilet seat had a seatbelt bolted into it. The ceiling tiles looked ready to fall--some of them were held in place by nailed-up boards. I found the heads of figurines all over the place--on top of the thermostat and on bookshelves. I wondered which animals came by at night. I wondered what it would take me to sit down and eat a meal.
The dance was boring. The tree, we learned, was sick. Someone had painted the windows on the outside. At night, someone had played that prank on us--they painted all our windows from the outside. What do do then? I mixed cement that afternoon and paved over the grass we had. I paved over our lawn. The place where we recycled was a vast structure--maybe something like a complex spaceship that had landed. And the creatures who worked there! They were all very strange and so helpful that they got in the way. I went through a tunnel because I wanted to feel as though I were in a throat. And what a throat. It led me to an ocean. This part of the ocean had no beach. There was a gate I had to climb over since I had no key. I had not been invited, but I made friends quickly, and, soon, the hosts were apologizing that they had not invited me. The stand was closed for the winter. Not profitable. We played a game but did not expect any of us to get injured so severely. The courts had a forest near them. A river near them. A man would fetch balls for us so long as we left him beer cans. We were not ready to lose eyeballs. We were not ready to get into car accidents and donate the interns of our bodies.
As I bought milk, someone on the other side of the refrigeration unit in the supermarket stocked the milk. I walked down a road. I saw buildings that had not been lived in in a long time--and what is it to live in a building? So. I bought milk that I knew would be ready for me. I shook it to my ear and immediately knew some plastic treat was inside. A milk company started to put plastic treats in its milk. Whoever stocked the milk had something wrong with this hands. The tips of his fingers looked too white, too pale. When we walked the eighty acres with the ranger, we found marijuana. He pulled it up, and we helped him. We told him that a renter must have done this. Or someone who knew we were just Summer People--people who came to swim and to walk. The Naturists were naked people we rented the farm to in the summer. All the Naturists walked around with towels. They did not wear the towels, but they did use the towels to spread on chairs before they sat down. How polite. When I was a child, they gave me a sheet rock knife. I bought milk but not one that had just been touched. A piece of plastic inside it. What I would most like to know is a child stuck somewhere. The feeling of tryiing to get a metal bracelet off your wrist. What I would like to know is how often can you ride a horse without wondering what that horse feels like.
The dance was boring. The tree, we learned, was sick. Someone had painted the windows on the outside. At night, someone had played that prank on us--they painted all our windows from the outside. What do do then? I mixed cement that afternoon and paved over the grass we had. I paved over our lawn. The place where we recycled was a vast structure--maybe something like a complex spaceship that had landed. And the creatures who worked there! They were all very strange and so helpful that they got in the way. I went through a tunnel because I wanted to feel as though I were in a throat. And what a throat. It led me to an ocean. This part of the ocean had no beach. There was a gate I had to climb over since I had no key. I had not been invited, but I made friends quickly, and, soon, the hosts were apologizing that they had not invited me. The stand was closed for the winter. Not profitable. We played a game but did not expect any of us to get injured so severely. The courts had a forest near them. A river near them. A man would fetch balls for us so long as we left him beer cans. We were not ready to lose eyeballs. We were not ready to get into car accidents and donate the interns of our bodies.
As I bought milk, someone on the other side of the refrigeration unit in the supermarket stocked the milk. I walked down a road. I saw buildings that had not been lived in in a long time--and what is it to live in a building? So. I bought milk that I knew would be ready for me. I shook it to my ear and immediately knew some plastic treat was inside. A milk company started to put plastic treats in its milk. Whoever stocked the milk had something wrong with this hands. The tips of his fingers looked too white, too pale. When we walked the eighty acres with the ranger, we found marijuana. He pulled it up, and we helped him. We told him that a renter must have done this. Or someone who knew we were just Summer People--people who came to swim and to walk. The Naturists were naked people we rented the farm to in the summer. All the Naturists walked around with towels. They did not wear the towels, but they did use the towels to spread on chairs before they sat down. How polite. When I was a child, they gave me a sheet rock knife. I bought milk but not one that had just been touched. A piece of plastic inside it. What I would most like to know is a child stuck somewhere. The feeling of tryiing to get a metal bracelet off your wrist. What I would like to know is how often can you ride a horse without wondering what that horse feels like.
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