Not Mine, or Theirs

the mice
come out
when I’m asleep
querying for
something to
eat, I have
no crusts to give
just page upon
page of memories
someone else’s
not mine, or
theirs

Jumping Ship Was the Easier Part

Homer Van Pelt came to town one day in late March, pants cinched round his waist with whaler’s yarn, eyes burnt through with misery and awfulness. Saying so long to his scow-mates he jumped ship, diving headfirst into the torrid waters below. 'You expect too much of me, too little too much' said Homer Van Pelt to no one in particular. ‘Jumping ship was the easier part, it’s the getting past too little too much that’s the real trick, the trick of the cards’. The sky beckoned and then fell silent, not a cloud or a moorhen in sight. ‘This man in the hat you speak of, is he real, I mean is he too little too much too late too soon?’ A ship jumped land and sailed into the blue stillness. ‘I have sailed the 27½ seas and not once have I seen a man in a hat, too little too much, too soon or too late’. The next day in the Shag and Lately a story appeared about a man in a hat who’d jumped ship, jumped and leaped and hoisted overboard, leaving a blue stillness in his miserable awful wake.

Late March days are merciless, bluestone blue skies and hound’s-teeth, its all in the cards, never too soon too late, never too much or too little. A pale ashen testicular sky, not a scrotal-cloud in sight; viva la France la·bret (an ornament made of bone, shell, steel, or other material that is worn pierced through the lower lip or in the skin just below the lower lip. They are worn by some peoples in East Africa and South America and by people elsewhere who engage in body piercing)! Wait for me in the pale ashen testicular sky, Vernon Spanaway, Firth of Fritch et al and so on ad hoc. This does not come easy, as easy as you might think. I put much effort and grease into this, this aberrance and lye. It might stead you well were you to jump ship while you have the chance, as chances come never too soon, nor too late.

Chinese Fans and Newsboys’ Cap

Roland Simms (no relation to Burt Simms) wore his eyeglasses perched on the now-hard part of his once-soft skull. His fontanel took such a long time to harden his ma thought he might forever have a mushy spot where a hard solid spot should be. As with all things solid and soft Roland Simms’ skull hardened closed, what was once soft and mushy became solid and in·ure. His ma’s fears went with the weekly news: into a blue-box marked with a newsboys’ cap and a wink of the eye. ‘It’s a Capital crime’ thought the man in the hat, ‘all this softness and babies’ heads gone awry.’ A corn-crackle crooked across the morning sky, wings folding and unfolding like Chinese fans. (According to the news report a heated debate between two lesbians over whether to eat Chinese-takeout or roasted chicken ended with the dysphonic lesbian being stabbed in the neck by the womanly lesbian. The womanly lesbian claimed she did not mean to stab her dysphonic lover in the neck, but in the abdomen. Both woman were taken to the hospital and submitted to a lengthy forensic examination, the dysphonic lesbian asking for a referral to a sexual-reassignment clinic, her lesbian lover asking for a café latte with extra latte on top)[1]

[1] Excerpted from the Shag and Lately Weekly News, Vernon Spanaway, Firth of Frith.

Bloom Film Trailer

Grant Lee Buffalo

Until the Thought of Thinking is Unthinkable

A boatful of feathers fell from the sky onto the top of the shamble leg man’s head. Stranger things had happened, but strange being what strange is, this was strange indeed. ‘Who would have thought’ thought the shamble leg man, ‘a boatful of feathers falling from such a bountiful blue, blue sky…and onto my head of all things’. Such was how the day began, a bountiful blue sky, a boatful of feathers and a bowlegged man shambling across the sideway sideways, his head festooned with fallen feathers. This was not uncommon, feathers falling from boats, so the shamble leg man thought nothing of it. True, he gave it some thought, a wee smidgen of thought, but just a wee smidgen, nothing more. He had more pressing things to think about, things that required his full attention, like where to place his next footstep or how far it was from one side of the street to the other. He thought and thought, thinking so hard that his face reddened and his eyes turned in on themselves. He thought until the thought of thinking any further was unthinkable, then thought a wee smidgen more and left it at that.

Swiss Pornography and Aquavit

Beirut Beyrouth, Telefonica de Espana, Madrid, Oxford, Oxfordshire, the United Kingdom, Cesis Csu, Latvia, Seoul Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, the Republic of South Korea, Oslo, Bucharest Bucurest, Oceania/Australasia, Christchurch New Zealand, Sofia Grad Sofiya, Bulgaria, Niigata, Japan, Collegeville Pennsylvania, Backa Vastmanlands Lan, Sweden, State College Pennsylvania, Zemst Brabant, Belgium, Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh all have petting-zoos with keepers whose names either sound like or rhyme with Kribbs.

The man in the hat met Robert Walser, Bruno Schulz and Witold Gombrowicz one sunny afternoon in May while out walking with the harridan’s sister. The three men were sitting together on a park bench in the park across from the Waymart not far from the Seder’s grocery. The three were in a heated debated about aqueducts and Swiss pastries, Walser shifting his weight uneasily, defending his fondness for cantle and Linie brand aquavit, Gombrowicz ripping into Walser for being such a strange bird, saying that Polish Vodka far outwitted anything Linie or Swiss, and Schulz, who was sitting in a crumple, his greatcoat jawboning his ankles, mumbling something about broken crystal and artists’ chalk. All at once the three men rose, shook hands and walked in an easterly direction, Walser hissing and flapping his arms madly, Gombrowicz muttering on about Swiss pornography and planetary-hiccups, and Schulz, his greatcoat gathered round his waist, feet shuffling, drawing imaginary stick-figures in the air all the while humming a schoolboys’ song about sitting up straight and minding ones’ manners. The man in the hat grabbed the harridan sister’s elbow, cupping it ever so gently, and pushed her westerly, his Corbusier flatcar cap toppling from his head and floating like a feather into the branches of a nearby tree.

Walser, Gombrowicz and Schulz

http://www.schulzian.net/

Brothers Quay - Institute Benjamenta

Brothers Quay: Stop Animation - Street of Crocodiles part 1.

Sitting With the Dead

One Easter, when the man in the hat was seven or eleven, his ma and da took him to the petting-zoo at the Waymart. In a pen the size of a small backyard, there was a veritable coterie of animals, animals to be petted and hand-fed raw pellets of animal-food, animals with shorn off ears and bumps on their heads, animals with dry mottled fur and crossed eyes, animals that could neither jump or hop, animals with pen-sores and hard grainy feces stuck to their backs and bellies. The man in the hat hand-fed the baby lambs as they seemed less likely to jump over the fence and bite his face off, or fall over backwards dead, scuttled in their own feces and urine. The petting-zoo keeper, a man by the name of Kribbs, wore soiled coveralls and a bottle-washers cap, the type worn by Coca Cola bottlers and booze-can proprietors.

The man in the hat’s parents bought him a book called ‘Sitting With the Dead’. He secretly called it ‘Shitting in Bed’, thinking it a better name for a book about diapered dead people. He secretly hoped that the petting-zoo keeper Kribbs ended up in one of those smelly old-folks homes, and that the old-folks attendants fed him animal food and warm Coca Cola. Whenever he thought about Kribbs covered in grainy feces and pen-sores he would laugh until his sides split. Easter’s were a time for remembering and forgetting, a time for garishly painted eggs and cheap paper-hats. The beauty and splendor of painted eggs was plain stupid, even if they were done with melted wax and fruit-dye. Dead diapered dead people were far more intriguing, especially if their name was Kribbs.

The Third and Fourth Flutists

A gray beggar’s sky, a wee, wee sun pushed to one side glaring. ‘I will not take this lightly…nor sitting down’ said the legless man. ‘Well I suppose sitting down, but not lightly’. The lamplighter lit his last lamp and turned for home, a gay jaunt to his stride, his wick-lighter smoldering greyly. A Keizer band set up in front of the library, a cymbal-player, two percussionists, a tuba-player, three violinists, four flutists, one viola-ists, three trumpet players and seven trombonists. The second percussionist’s wife made mincemeat pies with crinkled edges and bird’s-feet tracks scored into the top crust. She sold them at the church bazaar every second Sunday and the week leading up to Lent.

The second percussionist made love to his pie-maker wife behind the Seder’s grocery across from the Waymart not far from the aqueduct where the water ran backwards and never on time. The third trumpet player liked to have sexual relations with birds, hens and pullets, water-fowl and prairie-grouse, Icelandic puffins and Labradorean sea-drakes with colourful tail feathers and twilled beaks. One of the flutists, a slight man with a tic, wore culottes with knee-socks and a red chemise with one button missing. He had sexual relations with himself, unlike the third and fourth flutists who had sexual relations with other flutists and a piccolo-player with a bum leg and a receding hairline.

The man in the hat heard the Keizer band play one afternoon just before Lent when he was out and about shopping for Easter eggs and a package of Wriggle’s Juicy-fruit chewing gum. He found the chewing gum, which he found at the Five & Dime across from the Seder’s grocery, but came up skint for the eggs. As Easter Day was quickly approaching, and with it the first anniversary of his acquaintance with the shamble leg man and the harridan’s sister, the man in the hat ran about willy-nilly in search of Ukrainian party-hats, bendable straws, place-settings and plum brandy.

Me, Aunt Alma and Uncle Jim (Circa 1974)

Laphroaig (læfrɔɪk)

On those cold damp nights when sleep didn’t come easy the man in the hat sipped on a ball of Laphroaig (læfrɔɪk), lolling the peaty smokiness in the rankle of is mouth. A spike of Dunsyre Blue with apricot chutney added a mouthwatering tartness to the smoky char of the Whiskey. The sky broke water like a pregnant sow, rain falling upwards in steel-rails. Dnepropetrovsk Dnipropetrovs'ka Oblast', Arnhem Gelderland, Bad Kreuznach Rheinland-Pfalz, Monmouth Oregon, Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh, Dartford Kent, Augusta Georgia, Aywaille Liege, Belgium, Biglerville Pennsylvania, Formello Lazio, Italy, Dartford Kent, Dublin Ireland, Winchester Ontario, Gembloux Namur, Belgium, Barcelona Cataluna, Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Osaka, Japan, Las Terrenas Samana, the Dominican Republic, Brisbane Queensland, Australia, and somewhere in the forests of Albania, the man in the hat looked for a Budapest short face tumbler. The sow piglets scurried into the aqueduct, dung-scabby tails twisted between their legs. They liked to pillow in the aqueduct amidst the debris and scats left behind by low-men and coherers. The man in the hat collected the cero (a large edible ocean fish that has silvery sides and large spiny fins. Native to: warm western Atlantic waters. Latin name: Scomberomorus regalis) the fishmongers left to dry on the embankments. Wee, wee, wee sniggled the piglets, wee, wee, wee, wee.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig

As far back as he could remember, which was quite far, the man in the hat spent Lá Fhéile Pádraig hooking coal and swilling tankards of Paddy’s Stout and Auger. His ma and da would go down to the local alehouse and hoist the brown to the patron saint of Ireland. That Friday his ma cooked whitefish and cabbage, as potatoes were a curse on the Irish, not a blessing. His da, who waxed and cured his mustache for the occasion, put on his best trousers, a white shirt and his paisley suspenders, saying as he did ‘blackguard cunts’ll get they’re comeuppance, believe you me.’ His da, figuring he had claim to Irish blood, said strange things on Saint Paddy’s Day, thinking, as he did, that he was born in the Bog-side, a clod of peat knuckled into the soft-spot of his wee Lutheran head. As his family was from Bogstown, farmhands with Irish, Scottish and French Canadian blood, not Guinness Erie, the man in the hat knew his da was spinney in the head, and not to be trusted on topics of lineage or geography.

27½ Minutes Past Seven

Thinking it might help him sleep dreamlessly, the man in the hat tried a stool-softener. He took it by-rectum, fingering the suppository deep into the trap of his ass until he felt the hard end of his colon. He pushed until the rocket-end of the suppository stopped up against the tip of his pubic-bone. He sat still for a moment, not wanting to loosen the suppository, then wrapped himself in a wooly blanket and curled up on the divan, his hat pulled down over his brow. He felt a knocking in his stomach, just below his small intestine, a gurgling sound emanating from the portal of his ass. He waited until 27½ minutes past seven, his stomach aching, stitched with pain, and shit out the stool-softener, a beard of shit splashing up against the insides of the toilet-bowl. That night he slept like a suckling child swaddled in the cribbing of his sheets.

Rectorat de l'Academie de Poitiers

The man in the hat had a reoccurring dream where he was trapped on a makeshift raft with 27½ monkeys. One of the 27 ½ monkeys had a face like a pumpkin, orangey and tuberous and carved out with a soup-spoon. The 25th monkey was eating a cottage-ham sandwich-packed between layers of tripe and callow-seed. On the sidebar was written The finest cottage-hams imaginable, Ankara butchery Turkey; 78.176.29.# (Turk Telekom). The 23rd monkey was eating a peapod sandwich slathered with Gibbs’ hard mustard and Jack and Jill jam, the product of the Dill Bros. Compote and Aspic Co., Poitiers, Poitou-Charentes France housed in a small unfurnished carriage-house behind the Rectorat de l'Academie de Poitiers Lycees et Col. The monkey sitting next to the 25th monkey was reading a dogeared copy of Popular Mechanics from Altopascio Toscana 80.183.231.# Italy and drinking a mint julep from a plastic tumbler. This all seemed quite normal to the man in the hat even though he knew he was dreaming, or at least dreaming that he knew he was dreaming that he was in fact dreaming.

Why do horsis fack? was written on the label of the Jack and Jill jam tin. Scrawled onto the Gibbs’ hard mustard jar was the address for a tinker’s shop in Athens: Attiki 85.74.185.# Greece. Embossed onto the cottage-ham wrapper was the name of Harold Grossmann, a phrenologist from Reykjavk Gullbringusysla 85.220.64.#, who was open for business and accepting new referrals. On the flipside of the label was the address for a podiatrist who lived in Hamme Oost-Vlaanderen 82.174.38.# Belgium, but had his office in Reykjavk Gullbringusysla, not far from the phrenologist Harold Grossmann. And written with crayon on the back cover of the Popular Mechanics magazine were the words carbuncle in nipple, the return address for any and all queries being, Las Pias Rizal 122.2.197.# the Philippines.

Smooth as Double Gravy

‘I like beef turkey’ said the legless man. ‘Don’t you mean jerky?’ said the alms man. ‘That too’. ‘You want a smoke?’ asked the alms man, cigarette pouch at the ready. ‘Don’t mind if I do’. ‘You like those ones?’ said the legless man sniffling. ‘Smooth as gravy’ said the alms man, his cigarette pouch half-open. ‘You ever smoke those flimsy wee ones?’ asked the legless man. ‘Can’t say as I have’. ‘Smooth as double-gravy’ said the legless, tongue calving. A yellow sun pecked at the top of the legless man’s head like a half-starved gull, his brow tightening under the brim of his cap. ‘Had about enough of this damn sun’ said the alms man. ‘And I too’ said the legless man. The alms man struck a match against his trouser-fly, a quarrel of sparks flitting about like crazed fireflies, and lit the end of the legless man’s cigarette. ‘…damn hot scorcher of a day’ said the alms man, his cigarette smoldering. ‘Is that’ said the legless man. ‘Is that’.

Cockeyed Simms the Gunslinger

Morton Salt, by way of Cambridgeshire, restored abandoned Xeroxing machines in a small office behind the Seder’s grocer. He learned how to fix and restore broken Xeroxing machines from flash-cards he bought from the legless man who bought them from a man with no nose and a thread-torn ear. Castelfranco Emilia Emilia-Romagna Italy, Bucharest, Bucuresti Romania, Sutton Coldfield, the West Midlands UK, Lattelekom, Riga on Riga, Ruiselede, West-Vlaanderen Belgium, Chambry, Rhone-Alpes the Republic of France, Aliso Viejo California, the Bound States of America, Magyarorszag, Budapest Hungary, Jelgava, Jelgavas somewhere far away in Europe, Denderleeuw, Oost-Vlaanderen Belgium, Rochefort, Namur Belgium and Seoul, Seoul-t'ukpyolsi the Republic of Korea all had similar shops, all experienced at restoring and repairing old and abandoned Xeroxing machines.

There is no Morton Salt, by way of Cambridgeshire or Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, other than the one you put on you’re front steps to desiccate ice. The man in the hat made him up, desiccating him from old snapshots and magazine articles. Morton Salt is a Xerox of a faint image of a person who looked interesting enough to make a Xerox from, nothing more. There is no place, here or hereto after, called Cambridgeshire, or a dinghy made from Pop-siècle sticks, they too are snapshots and ideas pilfered from a magazine, Xeroxed and passed off as originals.

Dejesus knew a man with a cockeye who was an accomplished gunslinger, having gunslinged almost everyone worthy of gunslinging. His name was Roquefort Simms. Cockeyed Simms the gunslinger lived in a shanty-shack behind the Waymart across from the aqueduct not far from the Seder grocer. He had a dog, a foxhound, with a drag-anchor leg and one ear, the missing ear having been nicked off by a ricochet. The dog, a foxhound with a drag-anchor leg and one ear (the missing ear having been nicked off by a ricochet) learned how to clean and reload his master’s gun, a six-shooter with a hairpin trigger, from a magazine he stole from the barber’s shop when his master, Roquefort Simms, was getting a haircut and a shave. He learned how to read the magazine from a magazine he stole from the library when the alms man was off on a tangent somewhere, or so the legless man said.

My Shoulder (video of sugery click on link)

http://www.shoulderdoc.co.uk/article.asp?article=64

Bathtub Gin and Xeroxing

The alms man apprehended a book-thief dashing out the front door of the library. He tripped him up with his walking-stick, sending him through the side door and into the mezzanine, the purloined tome catapulting out the front door and landing square in his lap. He picked it up, adjusting the weight of the book with his wrists, and looked at the title, Egger Allen Po, The Purloined Letter and Other Stories. Someone had scribbled over the ‘d’ and ‘a’ and completely removed the ‘e’ at the end of Poe. Scrawled on the book jacket was,

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsman came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

He recalled reading this poem in middle-school, but had forgotten the beginning and the end. ‘Cooping’ he mumbled to himself ‘the poor bastard died from a nasty rash of cooping’. He slid the book under his cardboard padding and went back to almsing. By this time the book-thief had been wrestled to the ground a second time and was blathering on about bathtub gin and Xeroxing.

Bibliophilic Ataxia

The alms man figured it was easier to alms for alms in front of the library than behind the library. Geographically, at least. He unfolded his cardboard padding and placed it next to the front doors to the library, careful not block or impede access to and from the library. He knew from experience that library-patrons did not suffer encumbrances to pleasuring they’re bibliophilic-ataxia (a·tax·i·a: the inability to coordinate the movements of muscles when attempting to enter or make leave of a place; in general a library, bookstore, magazine shop, folio mart, reference depository or place of reading) lightly.

Languedoc-Roussillon, France

‘Hillerstorp, Jonkopings Lan Sweden, Merksplas, Antwerpen Belgium, Urbandale, Iowa, Piffard New York, Poitiers, Poitou-Charentes the Republic of France, Istanbul, Istanbul Turkey, Montpellier, Languedoc-Roussillon the Republic of France, Rochester, Minnesota, Budapest, Budapest Hungary, Casoria, Campania the Republic of Italy, Middelburg, Zeeland the Netherlands, Rezekne, Rzekne Latvia, Bloomfield Hills Michigan, Gewest, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Belgium, Sydney, New South Wales Australia, Montevideo, Montevideo Uruguay, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island the Republic of Canada, Mexico City, Distrito Federal Mexico, Malm, Skane Lan Sweden and Paris, Ile-de-France the Republic of France all have haberdashers that make extraordinary suits, wide-lapelled, double-breasted, single-lapelled, coattailed, coattailedless in gabardine and suede double-stitched and hemmed with gold thread flat-ironed and ironed at an angle, generally at 27½ % and a smidgen to the left, sutured and basted, bound with horsehair and boxing-twine, to exact a perfect fit and reduce shrinkage and delivered to you’re doorstep in seven days or you get you’re second suit at half the wholesale cost’ said the man in the hat listing to one side and a wee off-centred.

The harridan’s sister made a makeshift raft out of clothespins and white paste. After she made the first makeshift raft, which she sold for two songs, she made a second and a third and thought intently about making a fourth. But as she ran out of clothespins and white paste she gave up thinking intently about making a fourth and took a short nap underneath her wares’ table. The harridan’s sister smoked Chesterfield mild’s, and when the tobacconist’s was out of Chesterfields, Woodbine aqua-filter tips that tasted like burnt cupcake paper.

She had never been to Hillerstorp, Jonkopings Lan Sweden, Merksplas, Antwerpen Belgium, Urbandale, Iowa, Piffard New York, Poitiers, Poitou-Charentes the Republic of France, Istanbul, Istanbul Turkey, Montpellier, Languedoc-Roussillon the Republic of France, Rochester, Minnesota, Budapest, Budapest Hungary, Casoria, Campania the Republic of Italy, Middelburg, Zeeland the Netherlands, Rezekne, Rzekne Latvia, Bloomfield Hills Michigan, Gewest, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Belgium, Sydney, New South Wales Australia, Montevideo, Montevideo Uruguay, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island the Republic of Canada, Mexico City, Distrito Federal Mexico, Malm, Skane Lan Sweden and Paris, Ile-de-France the Republic of France or far from home, so had very little interest in haberdashery and men’s clothing.

Great Aunt Alma and Great Uncle Jim

Belle Époque, Fin de Siècle

Orlando Woolf met the man in the hat at the church bazaar on a Thursday. They ran across one another at the harridan’s sister’s nice-knack table (that week the harridan’s sister decided to change the name of her table from knick to nice, thinking it would generate more interest and up her sales) where the man in the hat was haggling over a Pop-siècle dinghy with double-wide gunwales. ‘Belle Époque, Fin de siècle’ he shouted. ‘C’est merde, plus merde!’ Having overheard this, Orlando Woolf, in defense of the harridan’s sister, said ‘Pardon moi, monsoon, ma c’est voids qui et mired.’ Not having a good command of the French language Orlando Woolf did more harm than good, and as a result the man in the hat got the dinghy for a song.

The man in the hat turned, placing his sou'wester under his arm and said ‘I bog your pogrom, my dear man…what was that you said?’ By this time Orlando Woolf had hightailed it out the church doors and into the sideways, his feet hitting the hot asphalt like tacking. ‘Belle Époque, Fin de siècle’ he hollered ‘Pop-siècle and a dinghy up the parse!’

Orlando Woolf lived in an impractical lighthouse with 74½ steps and a window without a windowpane. He read cheap detective novels and resold copies of Hello Police. His father, who had once out-posted the lighthouse, died in a horrible car accident, his remains being sent to Iceland for a proper burial. Orlando’s father, Iskar, was born in a small Icelandic village where his father had been the lighthouse keeper, and before him, his father and his father’s father. It was a familial duty that every first son take on the duties of the lighthouse keeper upon his retirement, and if he rebelled, he was shunned and exiled from the family. Orlando rebelled and was set afloat on a makeshift raft with 27½ monkeys, one of which he named Scopes.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socrates.HTM

Daylight Savings Time and God

(March 9/08)

Albert Scrim ate scrod-pies with peas and carrots. Albert Scrim’s mama, Elba Scrim, prepared scrod, haddock, tuna-fish fish, red snapper, halibut, white-fish and off-white fish, smelts and river-eel, salmon and barbet. How one ages: young, medium-young, medium-old, old, the final throw into nothingness.

Daylight Savings Time has reintroduced the Hegelian proof for the nonexistence of God. Allow me to explain. As corporeal agents (agency is a sneaky philosophical term for person) we live, or exist, if you will, in a temporal-spatial world, the coordinates of which are pretty much set in time, ergo Daylight Savings Time. God, on the other hand, exists a-temporal-a-spatial, meaning outside time, or eternally. We as corporeal agents, bound in and by time and space, have knowledge of things, objects, events, propositions, etc., from within a temporal-spatial world. God, who exists eternally, meaning outside space and time, does not acknowledge Daylight Savings Time, as it would go contrary to His a-temporal-a-spatial world or existence. Ergo, yes we do have knowledge of time and space, ergo, Daylight Savings Time, but not of God. We cannot, nor should we, spring (fall) God’s existence forwards or backwards, ergo, some time between 1:59½ Sunday morning and 2:00 we pushed God out of time and space.

(March 8/08)

Shite piss fuck a laree, one 2 three contrary, I wish I wish I wish the snow would stop falling fall falling.

Avoiding John Malkovich

You remember Cabot the bicycle thief, so you do. As bicycle thieves go (peddling like caged mice) he was a poor bicycle thief. He thieved tricycles, bi-tricycles, three-wheelers, four-wheelers, unicycles, tri-unicycles, racing bikes, coasting bikes, mountain bikes, flat tired bicycles, bicycles with no seats, racing bikes that had lost the will to race, bicycles without handlebars, coasting bikes that raced rather than coasted (coasting-racers) unicycles that wanted to be two-wheelers, two-wheelers that wanted to be three-wheelers, tri-unicycles that were made to be badgered with no hands, bicycles without handlebars that wanted them, sadly, old bicycles past they’re prime and bicycles that had no idea they were bicycles but were bicycles just the same.

Cabot the bicycle thief hated John Malkovich. He didn’t hate, despise or abhor many people, or animals and plants, or dustbins and road-graters, but he made an exception for John Malkovich. He disliked his manner, his pomp and circumstance and the way he spoke, so lispingly and annoying. He avoided any movie, television show or PBS documentary that John Malkovich appeared in or had a cameo-appearance in. Were he ever to meet John Malkovich, say while out strolling or in line at the grocer’s, he’d drive the pointed end of his elbow into his side and shout ‘you, John Malkovich, are a most annoying man’ and run willy-nilly in the opposite direction. But as the chances of this happening were sparse, he took to avoiding all and any person or people that resembled John Malkovich in the slightest way, lest he loose his temper and drive the pointed end of his elbow into someone who surely didn’t deserve it.

Latin Name: Orbignya Cohune

(March 7/08)

I sit here awaiting the big snow, the snow to end all snow, the big Cohune (a palm with feathery leaves that produces a nut that yields an oil similar to coconut oil. Native to: Central America. Latin name: Orbignya cohune Use: soaps and cosmetics) snow, the world gone snow white with snowy snow. I dare say we’ve had our unfair share of snow, dare I. What if it began to snow soya beans instead of snow, what if, what if? What if instead of icy-sleety-frozen-white-snow, snow so deep you can’t leave the warmth and gander of you’re home snow began to fall and never stopped, not an inch? (What if what then?) Fucking icy-sleety-frozen-white-snow, snow, never a moments’ rest, nary a respite in sight.

Hoofdstedelijk Gewest Brussels

When the alms man shared his disagreement with the legless man, the legless man threw his arms up into the air and said ‘flat is as flat does’ and turned the other way, the stumps of his missing legs wobbling like pigs’ noses. ‘I have never been to Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Caracas, Distrito Federal, Venezuela’ said the legless man. ‘But had I, I surely would have fallen off the edges of the world’. ‘Ngelholm, Skane Lan Narn, Galicia, Luton Luton, Athens Attiki Greece, Viedma, Rio Negro Argentina, West Orange New Jersey, Huntington Station New York, Brisbane Queensland, Dubai Dubayy (Syrian Arab Republic) Tengah Sulawesi Tengah, Riverside California and over there’ said the alms man ‘I’ve been there’. ‘In a cantilena in el Distrito Federal Mexico I ate a deviled dog’s tail, bone and all, and drank a dirty glassful of Tic-Tac with a worm at the bottom’ ‘I’ said the legless man ‘ate a dog’s gall stones mixed with tripe and fennel topped off with a hipflaskfull of boiled stinkweed gin’. ‘Where?’ inquired the alms man quizzically. ‘Toledo Ohio’ said the legless man ‘Toledo City Toledo Ohio’.

A Cracker Jack moon swung like a soiled diaper in the night sky. A hedging of stars, pinpricked with tiny perforations, scattering across the blacktop like scurrying mice, tails quarried between dung-coddled legs. ‘I met a man in Toledo who had three legs’ said the alms man to the legless man. ‘Where?’ asked the legless man. ‘Toledo City Toledo Ohio’ answered the alms man. ‘Between West Orange New Jersey and Huntington Station’ answered the alms man. ‘I ate a deviled dog’s tail, bone and all, and drank a dirty glassful of Tic-Tac with a worm at the bottom’ said the legless man. ‘Rightly so’ said the alms man. ‘Rightly so’. ‘In Rio Negro I had dinner with a dwarf and his wife, who was full-size, not small like her husband’ ‘Oh, I see’ said the legless man ‘full-size not pintsize like her husband’. ‘Toledo City Toledo Ohio, a dog’s gall stone the size of a hailstone’. ‘With a good rasher of stinkweed gin’ said the alms man. ‘A Toledo’s worth, yes’ said the legless man. ‘Smells like snow’ said the alms man, his nose quizzing and puffing out. ‘Yes, a Toledo City Toledo’s worth of snow’ said the legless man.

Little Puddles and Holes

The alms man had a disagreement with himself: he agreed that the world was ¾ water but disagreed that it was round. The disagreement arose when he tried to reconcile the ¾ water with flatness, knowing intuitively that that much water would surely roll off a flat world, to where he hadn’t the foggiest, and that a spherical world made more sense, as it could accommodate that much water, at least collecting it in pools and rivers and oceans and little puddles and holes in the ground, he still had a gnawing feeling that the world was flat, not round. This disagreement with himself caused him a great deal of needless consternation, resulting in such an eye-searing headache he had to sit in a dark room with his knees pulled into his chest and his ears battened with cotton.

Gyula Krúdy (1878-1933)

(March 5/08)

A fenswag of snow, a veritable giant snowman snowfall of snow. I was bullied into this world on such a day, a day flagstaffed with snowman snow. When I was a boy I raved for snowy days, days of snow and swine. I would pull-up my snow-pants, cinching the elastic-band round my waist, slip-on my mukluks, double-knotted, wrap my toque-scarf round my face and vault into the fenswaggart day.

Today I purchased a copy of Gyula Krúdy's (born in Nyíregyháza, Hungary. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a maid working for the aristocratic Krúdy family. His parents did not marry until Gyula was 17 years old. In his teens, Gyula published newspaper pieces and began writing short stories. Although his father wanted him to become a lawyer, Gyula worked as an editor at a newspaper for several years, then moved to Budapest. He was disinherited, but supported his wife (also a writer) and children through the publication of two collections of short stories. Sinbad's Youth, published in 1911, proved a success, and Krudy used the character, a man who shared the name of the hero of the Arabian Nights, many times throughout his career) novel Sunflower, to be read and savored like a fine single-malt Scotch whisky.

I am inexpressively drawn to outsiders, sots, gadflies and creative geniuses, so it stands to reason, unreason if you like, that I was drawn to Gyula Krúdy. Like Bruno Schulz and the inimitable Robert Walser, two writers I adore beyond words, Gyula Krúdy will be a welcomed addition to my small, though well-appointed library.

http://www.elib.hu/02000/02042/html/37.html

Tendon and Pap Cartilage

(March 4/08)

She suckled skin spiced with tallow, her eyes pressed into the furrow of her brow. Gristle and tinder-bone and bone that looks like grackle and recapped kneecaps and ankle-chards and bony spurs of bone that go on and on forever and millennium, spaycord and tendon and pap-cartilage and sheeting and cast-iron struts and joists and crossbeams that meet at each opposing end, by God did she suck the hellfire out of that chicken thigh.

Lager and Bowery

Some mornings I awaken back to front, knees kippered to my breastplate, feet curled into perfect couplets. Kippered copulated and crannied into me I me. (She didn’t care all that much for hockey, or other sports like running or vaulting).

I am running-over with arthritis today, overrun with today’s arthritis today. I believe in nothing, well a few paltry things like the likelihood of the sun rising again tomorrow and the moon cresting across the harrow of the night-sky, other than that, these paltry things, I believe in very little, nothing worth believing or trusting in. Am I an unbelieving heathen with a fondness for lager and bowery? Time will tell, nothing more or less.

Counter Transference

Pete Peters’ Little Sister

(March 3/08)

Pete Peters’ sister had a rabbit’s-lip and small squinty eyes. Pete Peters played goals for the Junior B hockey team and wore socks with his summer sandals. His sister had a hamster with muddy brown fur and a crossed eye, the other one was almost crossed. Pete Peters’ little sister fed her hamster cut up radish heads, and sometimes when her mother let her, parsnips and yellow beans. She didn’t care all that much for hockey, or other sports like running or vaulting, so stayed home when her parents went to watch her brother play goals. Peter Peters grew up and became a plumber’s assistant, his sister moved into one of those group-homes for slow adults where they didn’t allow any pets, not even crossed eyed hamsters.

Ten House Down From My House

(March 2/08)

Rupert’s little brother lived ten house down from my house and seven houses away from the outdoor rink. Rupert’s little brother’s name was Cecil. Cecil had one tiny arm with three tinier fingers and a brace on his leg. Rupert’s mama got sick when she was carrying his little brother so the doctor gave her these medium-size pills to take away the nausea and cramps she had all the time in her belly. She thought maybe her kidneys were getting crushed up against Cecil’s head, or that she was too small, so she took the medium-size pills the doctor gave her. The pills the doctor gave Rupert’s mama took the cramps and nausea away, that and the dizziness in her head, but in the end Cecil got born with one tiny arm with three tinier fingers and a bent leg. Rupert lived a few houses down from the little girl with the hearing-box strapped round her chest.

Sir Francis Bacon on Rye

(March 1/08)

A cattle-drive of dung-white snow, 27½ methadone-midges left unaccounted for, poor loopy-eyed slogs. Flat-skiff swollen glands, free bonnets for Mary on Pike, wooly woolens and a wee haberdasher’s tat-on-lye. (March snow, what a lion’s farce and skittle). I am very tired, exhausted, and well past my bedtime time. Second Hypothesis: the world is all appearance, anything that isn’t or hasn’t already been revealed does not exist, nada.

Hypothesis thrice: there is nothing more insufferable than needless suffering, nada. Flat-skiff swollen glands and free bonnets for Mary on Pike, the Bard was the bastard-child of Sir Francis Bacon on Rye…and then some. My ass is a Dantean trumpet trumpeting to beat the band (such is such and such). I hate the blues, azures and Prussian’s. A wee haberdasher’s tat-on-lye, a pick-me-up for those cold febrile days, the days left in between, the other, other days.

(February 29/08 anon)

Hypothesis one: the world is a random series of reoccurring events, the trick is knowing what random series will reoccur and when. Cowboys wear two-gallon cowboy hats. My ass is a Dantean trumpet, my ass belongs to the world, the world is made up of facts, the facts are the world, the world is rife with Dantean trumpeting asses (such as mine).