BSEH: STOMPING AND YELLING

2009-05-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

I looked up tonight: it was all roiling gray, slate granite dryer lint with a here and there silver lining. It's a thing, to be sunk and weighted against all that, here creeping shallow-breathed from hole to hole like we do.

Sorry, Honey

2009-05-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

and here's that shimmering prince in all the yellow trappings of a Swamp Rat.

was a frog, was a prince; were a sore and hay-trimmed cinderella, were the belle of the ball

was some sick-crusted spectre in the throes of your bic-lighter passion (click, click, click), and--look--that jewel in the back of his fever-eyes--

once or twice you caught the glimmer of a Swamp Rat.

and here's the king's amber mane all matted with your lover's sweat

and here's a lazy sun hanging gallows over the Swamp you've built

and here's a scaly tail with the rattle of dead skin over tree branches

it kicks bile into your throat. it slimes into the shelter of scabby lemon trees.

there waiting for an ankle, jewels of his eyes winking gold from the cool underbrush

the fetid home of your shimmering Swamp Rat.

Eight Tenths of a Threat down your Vulturous Neck

2009-03-17T20:58:00.000-07:00

And Fuck Los Angeles?

Two deaf chirpers scream to me:

"All Right, it's All Right".

Comfort, home, warmth, comfort again in the space of five syllables.

But this isn't the Taiga, my adventurous allies.

And this isn't the Life, my too-clever comrades.

It's a new world, it's a new life, it's a new day,

And I'm feeling as though too little has come of a mind too great.

You sentinels of prosperity; this is the mind-punch.

You estimators of worth; this is the heavier scale.

An singular element is a waste if unused,

So I'll again smack, slap, use my element

And there are words, pictures, words yet to crack your hardened visage.

Look here, visage. Here I grasp the void of your expression, to let you know

That I ain't beaten by a mile yet, motherfucker.

Your Urban Legend

2009-02-21T18:19:00.001-08:00

Like a hook hanging on your car door.

Like the car flashing its brights behind you.

Like the pet alligator that you flushed to get rid of.

I'm all of them, gorgeous, baby, darling, and when you hear the stories about the friend of a friend of a friend, make sure you listen close and careful, because you're the friend of a friend of a friend to someone.

And I? I am Urban Legend.

I'm calling from inside the house, precious, and I'm the million tiny spiders nesting cozy in your cheek. And no matter what you chant, doll, don't look for Bloody Mary in the mirror: that's me too. You thought you'd found a hairless dog, but soon enough you'll get bitten. And when the doctor tells you it's nothing but a rat, that boiling you feel creeping, sliding, trickling through your veins isn't rabies: I'm inside of you.

You guessed it, honey, I'm the Viper. And I'll vipe and vash your vindows 'til you see all too clearly what exactly is going on here. When the old man's hand grabs you and you die of fright, I'm the pen-knife you accidentally staked through your skirt.

Let's be clear about this, sweetheart. I'm a fable, I'm a myth, I'm a superstition and a cautionary tale. I'm the crack that broke your mother's back. You're Miss Mary Mack, all dressed in black, and I'm the silver buttons all down your back. I'm the bubblegum, bubblegum in the dish and no matter what piece you wish, what you get is me.

Ashes. Ashes. You're about to fall down:

Late night, somenight, gliding and twisting down the wrenches of a highway in the woods, and here's you, listening to the hollow ghosts on the radio and watching the sleepy wipers struggle with the fog. Here's your headlights, or fog lamps, cutting useless beams through the cold. Look out for the shape on the side of the road. He's been walking, walking and waiting for someone just like you, and he's so grateful and he's so quiet as he settles into shotgun.

Drive on. You're thankful for the company, unexplainably secure in his presence. There's no conversation, but you understand eachother all right. Once or twice you turn to him with that small smile, making sure it's all right, he's all right, you're all right and you're crawling closer to home.

And then he's gone. But, oh, my dove, I am not that man.. You'll find out soon enough he's been dead for a good ten years. That hand in your chest cavity, clenching down tight on your lungs and cracking out across your mind as you turn to the empty passenger's seat: oh, darling, see me; there I am!

Hurtling down Blood Alley, I'm a Green Phantom and I'm the dead girl screaming in the cabin of your truck! I'm at Disneyland, crawling through the ashes of all the mothers who scatter their cremated in the middle of the rides! At the late-night restaurant I'm the silhouette in the rear-view mirror, and out on your favorite coast I'm a blue lady in a white dress who one day walked west into the Ocean and just couldn't stop.

So you could stay out of the sewer if you don't want to get eaten.

And you should let that car flash its brights, but don't look in the back seat.

But wherever you drive, there's still that ghost in your seat. And those spiders in your cheek. And that hook in your door.

Because you are a friend of a friend of a friend to somebody. And for that, honey, baby, sweetie, darling, dear: I will always be your Urban legend.

Vices

2009-02-21T18:15:00.000-08:00

Black Bottles on my shelves where pictures should smile and offer up the dead smiles. Those times I am told (and I believe) were good.
Green and clear bottles against my walls, labels and labels and somewhere the labels have been picked, peeled and torn from the binding glue to end in rolls and balls of paper lost in the carpet.
Plastic bottles, their caps scattered over the floor and under piles of papers. They are hockey pucks and technicolor petri dishes, whose purposes are lost on their drained containers.
Inside the closet door is a tiny graveyard of mangled caps. Shrapnel pried from glass bottles by the inner workings of the handle latch, before I traded up to a plastic hand-opener as a matter of sophistication.
Boxes in bags hold empty bottle reminders of quick runs and liquid conversations on late Wednesday nights. Religion and politics are not to be spoken of except here, where we are so built on insult that we are immune.
Start the car and lift the latches. Some of my secrets are buried in there. Four cigarettes full of dust shaking in an angry yellow box, kept company by two lonely books of matches: one black, one white.
Yellow, chipped and blackened, a submarine for my early escapes.
In many colors, sticky and dirty, a newer but better friend.
There in the backseat under the clothes and the shoes and the boxes is a brown paper bag, look in there for a corked jar and a straw. I don't sip that one much anymore.
Give me an hour or three days, I'll open more bottles. Maybe burn more glass. It's what they always said college would be.

Your Move

2009-02-21T18:13:00.000-08:00

There's a triple-word-score on the board set between us,
And I know the space will just serve to defeat us.
'Cause you set down your tiles, aglow, full of pride,
Then I throw out a word that beats yours by a landslide!

In Clue you've no clue, you demand the revolver,
I take secret passages, ever so clever,
By the time you begin to suspect Colonel Mustard,
I've found out Boddy's killer, cuffed and printed the bastard!

And you loved it to death when you first saw my brains,
But you'd quickly resent just how much I contain.
I'm better than you at the games that you love,
You're a chute, I'm a ladder, ten spaces above!

And we're just like a Jenga; our tower's in ruins,
But it's you pulled the last brick, so why should I rue it?
Was it when I blew up your last battleship,
Or when finally I captured your carefully-placed bishop?

I'm sorry to say you're a poor strategist.
It's evident from your Scattergories list.
I score higher than you in Parker Brothers' eyes,
So how'd I come away with the consolation prize?

Now alone with a Ouija, I'm searching for messages.
Ghosts tell me you're happy; I'm left with the vestiges.
In our game of Life, you inexplicably rate:
Though I got all the tiles, you got Millionaire Estates.

Eight Days Late

2009-02-21T18:04:00.000-08:00

Pen, Ink, and Page on a three-thirty thursday,
The gentleman taps out his thoughtful review
Taking some effort and care with his diction
Intending, by writing, a love to imbue

"My dearest" begins it, with no written name
Blank space for his uncertain intake of breath
"I confess that, of late, I have loved you in dreams;
Waking, for me, has become like a death."

The letter flows well, a clever composition
Allusions and similes thoughtfully placed
The Gentleman's hand, in a quick, steady rhythm
Ensures that he matches his words to her grace

Well on into friday the Ink and the Paper,
Inspired by the Gentleman's visions, enmesh
Until with a weary but satisfied smile
He sets down his pen, certain of no regret.

A Ribbon ties all of the pages together
A Rose slipped between to enhance the effect
Ink, Pen, Page, Rose and Ribbon tuck carefully under
The Gentleman's arm, his missive perfect

Then nervously stepping out into the day
The Gentleman muses aloud to the street:
"I'm in love with her, here's my confession in Ink.
I will carry it with me until we should meet."

So the Gentleman and his Ink, Page, Rose and Ribbon
Made five fine companions, all knowing of this:
Somewhere was his love; he had seen her while sleeping
And he will be ready when he learns who she is.

Transcription

2009-02-21T17:59:00.000-08:00

leaning on the counter writing this with another company's blue gel pen because all night it's been slow old jazz, remember that, there's a lot of good lyrics sweet and sentimental thinking on them now they're pretty poor poetry but in the right light powerful verse nonetheless, it's not every kind of music just drips of a person, and it's a fat heavy downpour outside so wherever I go I guess it's thick in the air that I'm not where I should be, and if I don't get there soon something is going to break becasue I only have so much capacity, you know, oh god god what the hell do I do, will you just indicate something please, this is just a circle I keep walking in please grab an arm or something pull me out get me back to me, I don't know how I don't know how

False Prophets

2009-02-21T17:46:00.000-08:00

I'm in a haze before the short drone of my electric insect tells me I've got a message from somewhere. I take a look. I assume a familiar position: three fingers down the left side and my thumb slips in between, propping the communicator open and opening myself for the connection.
It's the Internet speaking: a courier in code, straight to me from somewhere electronic. The message says I got a message. Suspense within suspense. Who, O tiny deliverer, do you come from? What secret, story, strife or star, and wherefrom?

Interlude: I got friends like waves on rocks and yin and yang, and you can see us touch but you know there's no connection. I got friends like gloryholes, we find cracks in the walls to meet where we can. I got friends like smoke in the room, twisting and curling with the air until there's no difference and I breathe 'em in all together.

The Internet insists at me. I open. Tap tap click and it's some damn old wave on a rock. Well, says I, I was looking for smoke. But long as you're around and the air is clean, I'll pound a few times and we can pretend we're something solid. It won't be fun but something like it.

Now there's two people kissing in the room and neither one is me, but this guy could be me if I tried a little more or less. I wonder if they're gonna be happy together but I doubt there'll be a sequel. Sometimes you just got to hope for the best.

Am I cooler than I used to be but less happy? Am I happier now that I'm not so damn happy all the time? I guess it's just easier being optimistic when your symbols are a little more relevant. On the other hand, cynics always look cooler when they smoke. And they get all the women. Well I guess I ain't that cynical, looking at it that way.

The world gets a little better every day but only if you're high enough up to see it all, and wouldn't you know it I live in a damn valley

Ah!

2009-02-21T17:43:00.001-08:00

"My dear friend," he smiled pityingly, "Surely you realize that it is you who have left love, and not the reverse?"

"I would not have done so," said she, "But for my love of leaving."

Summit Road

2009-02-21T17:38:00.000-08:00

It's dark as the guts inside where no one sees and thick as whiskey coke number seven, and I'm looking around for God or one of his friends out here but I'm starting to think they ain't up for thumping knuckles tonight, so here's me and here's a great big beautiful road and here's my hands whipping over the wheel like I got something to say to it. I'm going up and around tonight and maybe it's a dumb idea, but my dumb ideas always end up better than the peoples' around me so I don't mind too much. I figure I'll come down the other side some time if I hold out for it. Just one lane now; there's sticky bald tires chewing up some gravel and of course they're mine, I'm getting way up in the mist where there's ghosts in the headlights and it's nice to have the company, I say to them. Nice to be included. There's trees on my left and my right and I guess they probably keep going after that, up one way and down the other where sometimes they open up just right and you can see things that you can just grab with your eyes and turn into secrets, you should try it, I made a few tonight; I figure if I keep going I can pick up a couple more if I just try hard enough.

Briefly

2009-02-21T17:33:00.000-08:00

With a stammer and a grin I found your hip and your hand, and we made an easy circle of things
I never trust myself when I'm like this and nobody taught you how to trust, so we borrowed it from the rest and it worked all right because I caught some eyes that told me they knew, they knew
and I caught a few things from you, or stole them when I could, and I wonder if you could feel them slipping out of your guard
and I've had my drinks and I've done my drugs but you got me intoxicated on a look, how did you do that?
Sway, turn, little steps, laugh like you have to when things get serious because something always dies when another thing gets born
it's an ugly baby, baby, but it's yours and mine

Integrity

2009-02-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

I made a declarative statement to my friends in the past: Regardless of past or present gossip news, Lindsay Lohan is okay in my book.

And I stand by it.

Something I saw

2009-02-21T13:40:00.001-08:00

Picture a hot day in 2006, somewhere on that stretch of the 280 between San Jose and Cupertino that's all dirty concrete and chainlink bridges holding back people and flora. I'm driving lazily down the interstate on our the back from the mall. I'm gazing out at the other cars passing and falling behind us, and one catches my eye.

It's a ford mustang from the sixties or seventies (I don't know cars), the one that looks like a thunderbird but different. It must have been green or brown at some point, but it's so caked in rust and oddly yellow dust, like a faded picture or a windowsill, that now it's just a mottled, sad gray-brown something of what used to be a hot car. Inside, sitting on cracked leather seats, are two men.

The first man looks like an embittered version of Jimmy Corrigan's father. A few of you know what that means. He's an older soul, balding, with wireframe glasses, a slight paunch, and a scowl that's sort of fizzled away into just an uncomfortably indignant look.

He isn't speaking.

Next to him is a younger man, somewhere in his twenties or thirties. He's thin, has long, straight, fine brown hair--almost a hippie look, but a little closer to a guy who just thought that the pony tail is a good look for men. He has thick, black rimmed glasses and a dirty T-shirt, is acne-scarred and sporting a light beard shadow over his freckled face. He doesn't look uncomfortable or comfortable, his face is a complete, almost slackjawed neutral.

He isn't speaking.

And they're heading silently down the 280 on a hot pre-summer day.

HARD TO EXPRESS

2009-02-21T13:32:00.000-08:00

(Lights up on a bus stop. A bench sits center. HALEY, a woman in her twenties, sits at the bench’s stage left end. She is writing on a small notepad. Enter ALEC, a man near Haley’s age, carrying a boom box in one hand. He approaches the bench.)

ALEC
(Indicating the right side of the bench)
Is this seat taken?

HALEY
No.

ALEC
Oh, great. Thanks.

(Alec sits and sets his boom box down. He presses “play” and nods his head along to the song for a few beats, then gets more into it, making small dance-like motions with his shoulders and arms.)

HALEY
Excuse me—excuse me? Would you mind turning that off? It’s a little distracting.

ALEC
Great song.

HALEY
Uh, yeah, it’s super. But I’d like to get my work done.

(Alec shuts off the boom box)

ALEC
Right. You got it.

(Pause)

I love you.

HALEY
Sorry?

ALEC
Said I love you.

HALEY
…Oh. Thanks?

(She goes back to her work. Alec finds another track on his CD and presses “play” again. A soft love song plays.)

ALEC
That’s not the kind of thing I normally say unless I mean it. I believe in meaning what you say. I’m pretty sure I mean it, so I thought I’d just throw it out there so we can work on it together. …Sweetie?

HALEY
I’m really flattered, but I can’t deal with crazy bus stop people today, thanks.

ALEC
That’s the thing: I’m not crazy!

HALEY
God, make the crazy man leave me alone--

ALEC
I am not crazy!

HALEY
--And may the crazy man let me finish my notes—

ALEC
I swear to you--

--And not have to deal with the morning office troll, amen.

ALEC
…All right, so I’m a little crazy.

HALEY
Really? You had me fooled!

ALEC
Crazy for you!

HALEY
Cute.

(She returns to her notes. Alec skips to another CD track. He presses “play”—it is of Tchaikovsky’s first concerto for piano.)

…That’s Tchaikovsky. I love Tchaikovsky.

ALEC
I know!

HALEY
What?

ALEC
I follow you to the library!

(She stands to leave)

HALEY
I think I’ll call a taxi.

ALEC
No, wait!

HALEY
Yeah, I don’t think so.

ALEC
Wait, please! Can I just ask for one thing?

HALEY
Sure. One thing.

ALEC
I need… a piece of paper.

(Haley gives Alec a piece of paper from her notepad. He turns and quickly folds the paper, then turns back and holds it out for Haley to take.)

A poem for my love!

HALEY
…This is blank.

ALEC
Because… because your beauty cannot be expressed in words!

HALEY
(Drops the “poem” back onto the bench)
This is possibly the worst attempt at a pickup ever.

ALEC
I know.

HALEY
I feel a little sorry for you.

ALEC
Sorry enough to stay?

HALEY
…What time does the express—the thirty-seven? Is it coming soon?

ALEC
You can’t ride the thirty-seven.

HALEY
Mm-hm, and why’s that?

ALEC
You don’t have the fare.

(She looks into her purse, flips through her wallet)

HALEY
I don’t even want to know how you knew that.

ALEC
I’ve got some change!

HALEY
Well, I definitely don’t have enough for a taxi…

ALEC
So you’ll stay!

HALEY
Only for the fare.

ALEC
That’s fine.

HALEY
And the music.

ALEC
Sure.

HALEY
I carry mace.

ALEC
I know.

HALEY
That’s really creepy.

ALEC
Yeah… So! What’s your name?

HALEY
What?

ALEC
Your name! I’m Alec.

(He holds out his hand to shake.)

HALEY
You follow me around like some stalker and you don’t know my name?

ALEC
I wanted to wait. Until I could hear it from you.

HALEY
Oh. That’s… sort of sweet in a weird way.

(She takes his hand and shakes)

Haley.

ALEC
How do you spell that?

HALEY
H-A-L-E--Why do you need the spelling?

ALEC
To write that poem!

HALEY
Oh, so now my beauty can be expressed in words!

ALEC
I’ll keep writing it until I have enough words to express it.

HALEY
And how long is that going to take?

ALEC
I think a very long time.

HALEY
Oh.

(The Tchaikovsky track cuts off. Alec shuts off the boom box and begins to write.)

ALEC
…Not much that rhymes with “Haley”.

HALEY
Bailey, Daily, Failey…

ALEC
I’m pretty sure Failey isn’t a word.

HALEY
Oh.

ALEC
But we could make it one!

HALEY
What sort of word would “Failey” be?

ALEC
“Failey”: description meaning one who often fails.

HALEY
Too depressing.

ALEC
“Failey”: Of or relating to… a person named Faye?

HALEY
Too specific.

ALEC
“Failey”: …nonsense word! Rhymes with Haley.

HALEY
Perfect.
(Alec writes for another moment. Haley stands and looks down the street.)
I need that fare please… Alec.

ALEC
Oh. That was fast.

HALEY
Yeah. What a pity. So, some change, please?

ALEC
You’re going to go?

HALEY
I have to.

ALEC
I don’t have any money.

HALEY
What.

ALEC
But there’s a five-dollar bill in your right back pocket!

(Haley finds the bill and stands staring at Alec.)

I love you!

HALEY
Yeah… I know.

ALEC
So.

HALEY
So.

(They stand and shake hands, then Alec picks up his boom box and skips to a track of violins playing mournfully. He makes some parting gesture, and then turns and walks away off-left.

Haley watches after, then looks to the coming bus and stands. She begins to walk off-right, then quickly returns to the bench and picks up the blank “poem”.

Alec stands, moves to the bus route map, checks his watch.)

ALEC
“Haley”… Route thirty-seven, express. Southbound. Stops: Central Avenue, five-fifteen PM.

(He takes a seat at the bench, smiling.)

ALEC
I’ll be seeing you.

LIGHTS OUT

THE END

Basically the most ridiculous thing I have ever put to paper

2009-02-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

When people gather at tables and in living rooms and at counters to order the food to make the others ill to eat in the way like beaten dogs, when they slurp and snort and suck and scrape to take it all in before they die, when their faces stretch into greasy rubber of fat and age to smile and hold pleasant conversations, when everyone around makes them weep or scream or clench their fists until they strike blood--

Am I mad when I make myself a ghost? Where is the madness in slipping unnoticed past these bloated, desperate parasites? All of their virulent, fleshy tendrils grope to find my soul and plant some cancerous root. I can find peace, I can live, I can make love and happiness without feeding on theirs. I do not need to steal the tiny flame of elation they kindle until death.

They hammer at my own.

How is it that I am the mad one, for all of this?

I am Christ among Romans. I am a Wolf among Fleas. Each day I run a gauntlet of these predators, I sail without destination in a sea of leeches. Is it madness that I retain strength, that I defy them--deny them their lust to drag me into their wretchedness?

Or is it madness that I think I am capable of any of this? Clairvoyantly I might see myself among them. I might see myself beneath--a lower thing than any of them. It might be my madness to be blind, to presume that I am fateless, to assume that I make myself and my destiny without them. I call myself "alone". I try to be that. Given the power, though, to make that a permanent truth, would I choose to go without them?

Could I destroy them?

They would remember me as mad if I did.

Am I the scion of Attila and Alexander, of Napoleon and Cortez, of countless Pharoahs and Caesars and Kings? Do I continue the legacies of Ghandi or Moses or Lennon? Give peace a chance, or get rid of anyone in peace's way. Am I any of these madmen? Can I adopt their madness without losing my own?

Fuck it.

An Anecdote.

2009-02-21T13:25:00.002-08:00

Okay. So.

The party was, I think, that May. The time had blurred into early hours--two, three, four in the morning. I think. Time to sleep, and wait out our hangovers. The bedrooms were taken. They always were. Well, maybe they weren't, but the doors were closed and we'd heard whispered stories of the times when people opened them to check for vacancy. The last two parties, I’d gotten lucky enough to stretch out on a couch with other early sleepers, not giving so much as an inch for any drunken bodies wandering, searching.

None of those times were worth writing about, though. This time I was with the people who stayed up late, skittering from room to room chatting, searching for a social sanctuary, holding fingers to our lips for fear of waking prone victims of vodka and gin. We ended up in the den. Or parlor. Or whatever you call it. Whatever they, I mean the people that lived there, called it, we were in there, and that’s where we eventually slept.

I’d guess it was an hour later that we snapped out of warm alchohol slumber to a battle cry from the next room, something triumphant and defiant, like the belting of Rossini’s barber. A moment later it was a song, ringing loud throughout the first floor. The next moment it became definite: two voices passionately joined in the first verse of “I, Don Quixote”. The voice of the knight errant sallied quickly in our direction.

Through the bathroom, the TV room, and around through the kitchen and dining room came Patrick and Patrick, our Men of La Mancha, nude and grinning. They finished the first chorus in the den and moved on.

That morning we had breakfast at the Mini-Gourmet. I had a cigarette-smelling five dollar bill; it bought me a plate of hash browns and eight cups of coffee, each with the same definite, unfortunate bottom. They told me it was one bottomless cup, but I had my doubts. The Metro found its way to the table. We took turns reading ‘Something Wild’: eccentric personal ads, hidden in the paper's back section after pages of rent-a-girls. A man headlined his ad "SLIPPERY RECTAL EXAM". I don't remember it all, but I'll summarize: “SWM seeks anything with an asshole. Cargo room preferred.” The real ad was juicier. Maybe that’s a bad word to use in the context.

Since I left them, I’ve picked up the Metro once or twice and flipped to the back. "Something Wild" is gone, but the girls are still around. One of them’s been in there for a year or more now. Patrick had a collection of “Vixen Fyre”'s ads on his fridge, last time I saw him. Every month, Vixen got a new face, a different neck, smaller or larger eyes, a change in ethnicity, but always kept her hair colored and ironed. She sometimes wore glasses to hide bloodshot or blackened eyes.

Someone suggested when we were out once that Vixen was a metaphor for something. I said she was really just a whore, that’s all.

Various

2009-02-21T13:25:00.001-08:00

A new life
A new world
Or a mirror
Of one I have known

We are children
Playing at the lives of adults
Waiting for our turn to live

Words, words, wods
Thank-you, Hello, The flash of a smile
A mask without a player

So anyway
what was it you said
When I was gone
Or were you talking to someone else
It's not polite
But you, miss,
Are no lady.

Let's find a place.

2009-02-21T13:10:00.001-08:00

It's night on a cobblestone avenue and our breath is coming out vapors under a gasoline streetlight. It's got a wispy little yellow thing of a flame, but it manages to ward the snow away from its glass. The snow's coming down soft and silent--it'll build and leave a white blanket for the morning, but in the meantime it won't disturb the sleeping world.

Take me to that beautiful cliche, who so desires, and we'll watch the frost creep over dead gutter leaves.

Express Lane

2009-02-21T13:07:00.001-08:00

A sign hangs like a man convicted by two weak chains over a butcherblock counter. Its intent is to inform the ignorant, and its design is cleanly processed to attract the eyes of those unaware: bright red friendly letters across a gently curved white fiberglass frame, partnered with medium-gray drop-shadows and gradient speed-lines that lend the clean art-deco motif of late-nineties service. The Safeway is a museum to that decade of mediocrity, a surgically clean factory of consumer ecstasy, and I’m waiting for my turn to crank the gears of the All-American Everyday. My gaze wanders briefly over the last-minute snack stand. Visual and salivary impulses all question whether an airtight package of five minutes’ indulgence is a fair reward for joining the shuffling ranks of patriotically obese, for whom the nearby automatic doors are more revolving than sliding. The overhead sign is a symbol of their coming epitaphs, a summary of the lives of shoppers in the express lane. It mocks the accomplishments of the ceaseless and faceless passers-under: “FIFTEEN ITEMS”, it commands. The “nevermore” of a plastic raven. In subtitle, a smaller sign hangs by smaller chains beneath, adding in machine-perfect cursive script, “…or less!” The sign’s squandered fast-food aesthetic doesn’t bring much comfort, but it’s all I have right now, and I need it.

Because in front of me is a dick.

I don’t mean my dick. I mean, that’s always there, and I try not to pay attention to it when I’m at the Safeway. The dick in front of me is a man, and this man embodies all of the negative implications of the word “dick”. This man wears a too-small button-down Hawaiian shirt, and is thin enough that at a certain angle you can make out the recess between his sternum and his gut from four wasted years in an ancient time serving body-shots to girls whose affection ran out just before the parking meter. He’s bald, except where jagged black sideburns shaved into lightning bolts cling for dear life, desperately trying not to run down into the frat goatee he never shaved.

The problem, though, is this: in front of me, directly below the damning sign, is this asshole’s shopping cart. In his shopping cart are twenty-seven Butterball and four Foster Farms frozen chickens. The drooling checker sees nothing at all unusual about this, seizing one shrink-wrapped corpse after another, slamming them down on the barcode scanner with a dead thud, and shuffling each in succession with the sad wet gurgle of settling preservative juices toward the bagger. The checker’s fiberglass smile faded after the first hour of wage-slavery. She’s on hour four. Now she’s a part of the machine: conveyor, scanner, register and girl in one convenient unit. And she keeps slamming chickens, one and another and another and another and another.

I wait until fifteen chickens pass to tighten my fists. The conveyor moves in jerks and false starts, spastically closing the gaps between each pair of dead birds. Behind them all, and behind a filthy plastic separator bar advertising a dead dental firm, is my purchase: caffeine in five forms, liquid and solid. It keeps me from the nerves. At first I falter when I notice the potential dragon’s hoard of birdmeat in the cart ahead, wondering if the world has gone mad enough to accept this affront to grocery etiquette. But it’s been at least eight minutes, and four shoppers have come and gone in line before this monstrosity of chicken wheeled up. I’ve come far in this line, and the only block to the killing satisfaction of my caffeine is this test. It’s a test of myself, my spirit, my patience, my inner strength and a thousand identical bullshit concepts that boil down to how patient I can be before I seize a chicken and club anyone in arm’s reach into bloody unconsciousness.

It’s probably better for my criminal record if I pass this test.

So I stare at the sign. “FIFTEEN ITEMS…or less”, the irony hangs in the air over the frozen meatstash like a guillotine. It’s remarkable how your imagination runs when your mind needs the preoccupation. The blade of a guillotine is hanging over the balding motherfucker in front of me, its informational decree a conviction of his crime. I imagine the chains cut, and the blade neatly tracing its grooves straight into the folded neck of the express lane convict. A satisfying rushing sound; air and metal. He splits right down the middle, like a cartoon. I step over the halves and sweep away the remaining chickens to present my addictives.

What’s even more remarkable than the imagination is the way reality seems to look to it for the occasional cue. I’m pulled back to attention as a rusted link in the real chain gives up its struggle. It happens. The smaller sign, that addendum, snaps from its links and falls. It turns on its end in the air just before the delinquent shopper’s skull breaks its descent. My heart jumps, a little in delight at the coincidence, a little in disappointment: he doesn’t split in two. But there is a neat knocking sound, like an axe into wood, as plastic wedges into bone and the man crumples like an abandoned marionette.

With a sweep of my arm, I bury the fallen in what remains of his bounty. A pile of meat falls onto a pile of meat. With a patronizing smile, I push my items to the checker. She takes them, and, machine of her motions moving ever forward, slides them on to the bagger. She never flinches at the fall of an overeager consumer. Why would she? The girl has seen death before--frozen food section, aisle twelve. She punches the keys in a steady rhythm to ring me up. I hold up a finger to stop her: the process pauses while I find my discount card.

Same Time Tomorrow

2009-02-21T13:06:00.001-08:00

Laughing—or trying not to—she falls. A hand moves to her brow in desperate melodrama. Her eyes flutter once, for just a moment a portrait of life letting slip its grasp. Then they are only milky, dead orbs hidden under delicate lids. Taking that for my cue, I turn my weapon on myself and crumple beside her on the dusty linoleum. Blinking halogen embraces both of us, and an air conditioner hums out an indifferent requiem for two.

Then we rise, but not fully. An elbow, or a knee, props up a face that searches for its counterpart as if to ensure that the illusion wasn’t anything more. We both laugh. Death departs, defeated again by reality. We’ve broken our act, now, but our bodies are uninformed; they sprawl still in imitation of tragic lovers on the filthy floor.

Pseudoku

2009-02-21T13:05:00.001-08:00

Barefoot through the grass
Windless, it stirs no shiver
Listen to the birds!

Wait
Until the sky is dark
Look at it then--and don't say anything.

I need to be more intriguing; mysterious. Maybe a cape?

Obstruction of Justice

2009-02-21T13:04:00.001-08:00

They gave Batman a parking ticket
Because, well, who does he think he is
Leaving the Batmobile in the middle of the street
Well of course the Penguin needed to be stopped
But honestly, it’s blocking traffic
And right in front of the Starbucks

Batman was subpoenaed
For breaking and entering
I mean, sure the Riddler’s not a great guy
But you have to respect his privacy, Batman
He was just taking a nice soak
In his question-mark hot tub

Let Them Go On

2009-02-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

I’ve come to the gathering place
Designated by the community
For beating dead horses
(On any given day).

Violation of code: this is yesterday's horse.
So I tell them that this isn’t right
Clearly they’ve beaten this horse already
And really they’d do better with a new one
That doesn’t have flesh like rotten fruit
Collapsing or exploding
Or bloating with escaping gas

But “No,” they say,
“This one works fine”.
They say probably there’s still some life in it

I decide it’s best to just let them go on
Beating their dead horse
Rather than turn the clubs on themselves.

Friday

2009-02-21T13:01:00.000-08:00

I took some time from a deadline to recieve a rose. All lavender and pulsing dull in a latex vial of life, dressed in baby's breath and subtle matching greens with a coat of diamond cellophane, it had no thorns.

    Pink house. Green windows. Silver-gold headed dame, warm and content with her bustling. I brought the chips.
    All the niceties of 1956 with new age music. We ate things: a christmas tree, a dreidel, cute little hamburgers from a cute little girl. I remember we gave gifts: sonnets and lotions crossed paths on the way to curious minds. I opened a book of bats. Santa Claus wore Slipknot.
    With crumbling ruins of cakes we said our goodbyes, and with blue-eyes Johnson I growled through rain-slicked streets, singing under the stereo. A shaven Moore joined us to belt broadway.

    The man on the reciever called the night off, and invited us to dance. Once more through black asphalt, and we found our way to his string of lights. He met us there with Ashbe Williams and Santa Claus, and the first drinks came down with Guns and Roses.

    Suddenly: Mack Attack.

    The others filed in, in drifts: the Hostess and her people marked the entrance of the party, and in due course they were followed by Borat Sagdiyev, Ms. Suzie Q, and The Reasons. Fashionably late came stately Queen Midas and WeedNinja. Things happened: I made White Russians, and a White Russian made The K. The Hostess and I practiced tradition. I saw a tree of bras, I saw far too few breasts. We met a duck, I asked about the world. We drank smoke from a bottle and squinted through to see the world. Our coats (trench?) became quilts and wrapped us on a mattress on the floor.

    I had a dream of a perfect moment in a lifetime, but I fell asleep before the dream ended.

Winter. Twenty Aught Five.

2009-02-21T13:00:00.001-08:00

The leaves are falling in their seasonal reds and golds, blood and fire, the last blaze of nature's phoenix. Soon they'll all be drawn up tight into ashes, dormant, waiting for a ray of warmth to be born again. I stood on a curb with the rivulets of a midnight shower trickling past, and time held its breath while we watched the lives of trees scatter to the wind. The morning birds sang sweet dirges.

Slutfest 05

2009-02-21T12:52:00.000-08:00

I AM LUDICROUSLY DRUNK\

IT TOOK ME AT LEAST 10 BEERS AND GETTING KICKED OUT OF THE HOITEL
TO REALIZE THAT I NEED TO SELECT MY PARTNERS IN DRINKING
MORE CAREUFULLY
IE PEOPLE WHO CAN HOLD A CONVERSATION
I MEAN FUCKINGCHRIST
IF YTOU CANNOT TALK TO ME about anything worthwhilke
i do not know

I THINK I SPOKE LIKE
THE MOST POETICALLY I HAVE EVER DONE
TONIGHT
TO A DRUNK GIRL
WHO FELT UNAPPRECIATED
ON A CONCRETE BALCONY
i wish i had written down the words
eecause god damn theyh were beautiful
as they fell out of my mouth
i wish i had written them down

MOST OF THE TIME I SPENT AVOIDING PEOPLE WHO
WERE STUMBLING AROUND AND FALLING INTO MY LAP
BYUT THEY FOUND ME ANYWAY
UNTIL THE COOL SECURITY DUDE CLOSED OUR HOTEL ROOM
DREW DRIOVE ME HOME

LUCKILYU MY FRONT DOOR WAS OPEN
BECAUSE WHEN I STARTED TO WALK AROUND BACK
I HEARD MY STERPBROTHER AND HIS GIRLDFRIEND
IN THE POOL AT 3 AM
I DID NOT WANT TO WALK INTPO THAT
SO I WENT AROUND FRONT
NOW I AM IN MY ROOM
I WISH ECERTAIN PEOPLE WERE HERE
TO TALK TO
(YOU PROBABLY KNOW IF I MEAN YOU)
BUIT THEYT AREN'T
SO THE INTERNET WILL HAVE TO SUFFICE

hello internet

if you are holding a banaana peel in one hand
and your mother has adidas

UNTITLED

2009-02-21T12:50:00.000-08:00

UNTITLED
By Brennan Holness
(c)2005 Brennan Holness

It's 8:26 on a Saturday Morning and I am
Sitting at the Coffee Bean
Just across from the Beverly Center which
Is not in Beverly Hills
And I am Downwind
of a Gas Flame with Plastic Props
So it looks like it's burning wood,
As if
Anyone for miles cares what's real, and
Gas flames blast my face, and
Every time I think it's going to make me vomit, and
I think all this smog is getting to my throat, so--
If I vomit maybe it's not the flame because
My throat is burning, from
The air that's burning, and
The coffee in my gut is churning, and
Fuck Los Angeles.

It's 2:30 on a Friday afternoon
And we're swerving
From lane to lane, peeling
Onto destruction-derby freeways,
Tearing Through this Treacherous Traffic
And may God help the poor asshole
who's first at the red light
Because he is about to get sodomized by a
Shiny New Hummer in Gunmetal Gray.
I tell my sister she's becoming an L.A. Driver.
"Well,"
She says, plugging digits into her flip-phone and
Pressing the earpiece between
Beach-Blonde hair gone Pale Pollution Brown and
Tendollar Streetvendor Sunglasses--
"Well,"
She says,
"You have to be. Or else you, die."
How do I say
That we can't live
If we're driving to dodge death?
My throat is smogged and my brain is fogged because
I can't find a thought to wrap around
A six-story shopping center
Of Starbucks, Shoes, and Slutty clothes
Where I can't buy a book.
Around the tower's feet drift
Hungry, Tattered, Barefoot things
"I'm really sorry, man,
I don't have anything for you. But take care, all right?"
I've never had the time or reason
To meet this outcast, but I know that
He is the one, the scam, the mercedes owner with a
Change of clothes around the corner.
"I don't have anything for you,"
But I have my last twenty
For this record store, where a
Plastic girl behind a plastic nametag
Can wrinkle her nose from a row
Of tiny plastic gothic people,
Counterculture from the makers of Barbie,
And tell me she's never heard of
Any music I listen to, and
Fuck, Los Angeles.

11:30, Sunday.
The shadow of the tomb of Gregory Peck.
The 405 is a bitch.
I've gone from two lanes to four lanes
In two to four minutes
And I'm waiting in line to get back to two.
There are more cars squeezed into this road
Than there are stupid people on the Santa Monica Promenade
Which is a lot.
I've decided that this car is a male,
If only so I can distract myself from road rage
By making up prices for the handjob of a wheel-jerk
That I have to do to avoid
A shiny new hummer in Gunmetal Gray
Driven by a Plastic girl blasting music I'd never listen to
And
Fuck. Los Angeles.

S&Y2.0

2009-02-21T12:44:00.000-08:00

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF.