Clack Click Clack

One day when the sky was so blue it was impossible to take your eyes off it, the shamble leg man bought a cassava melon and a sac of red and black, black and red jujubes. He sat beneath the ticktucking clock in front of the Waymart eying a wee boy with a crew-cut spinning marbles off the cub of a stick. He smiled, frowned, smiled and pinched his cheek, raising a red welt with the hook of his fingernail just below his eye, his twitching eye, the eye that never rested or stopped twitching, his mad crazy twitching eye. The wee marble spinning lad, teeth half in half out of his mouth, clacked the stick against the ground, rousting a fug of asphalt and pebbles. ‘I wish I had a rousting stick’ said the shamble leg man morosely. A bouncing baby boy bounced up down up and down the sideways in front of the Waymart, his weak calved mother trotting angrily behind. ‘Stop that bouncing’ she screeched, her face red with exhaustion. ‘Might I offer you a ripe fat cassava?’ the shamble man said to the red-faced woman. The wee boy stuck out his tongue, his eyes disappearing into the babyfat of his face. ‘Clack click clack…’ he yammered, ‘fuck a duck…’ The red-faced woman turned and smiled, ‘what a strange little cunt you are, all that babyfat and not a tosspot to piss in’. A fissure of golden sunlight fell willy-nilly across the shamble leg man’s brow. ‘Might I offer you a ripe fat cassava?’

Par•tu•ri•tion How’ll

Tosspot miser pisses, brim-side up. A millionth and one melon pickers, snatchers by rote and hither, picking a millionth and two ripe fat juiceless melons, pottage pap issuing from the fornicator’s hole. Not a piss-heel to fitter away, spitting up in the par·tu·ri·tion how’ll, a strange site indeed, indeed, indeed. In everywhichwhere in everywhich place there are a millionth and sum melon pickers, snatchers by rote and hither, poking pappy caudal-sticks into ripe fat juiceless par·tu·ri·tion how’lls. Not a mum’s moment for thither and thon, nary nor nether. The man in the hat felt a cold shiver shinny down the hollow of his backbone. ‘Gad’s aloud’ he gamboled, ‘such a shivering shinny, and so coldly cold’.

When he was a boy he played rummy with the one-handed shovelman who took his lunch behind the gravel-pit Monday through Saturday at exactly 12 o'clock. He let the one-handed shovelman win every third hand. If they played for more than half an hour the shovelman’s hand would start to tremble, the skin tightening like plumb-string. The shovelman ate bologna sandwiches with Gibbs’ hard mustard and Friars’ soft cheese, shoveling into the pit of his mouth with exacting urgency. The man in the hat always brought his own lunch, a ham and cheese sandwich on seedy rye bread, a smallish custard cake and the half-bottle of Spruce Beer his da had left on the table the night before.

Manihot Esculenta

In Alicante Comunidad Valenciana a retired melon picker took a part-time job with the Cableuropa phone company. At exactly the same moment in Wonjungni Ulsan-gwangyoksi a man with a melon-size head took a full-time position with Korea Telecom, knowing full well that he was bound to live out the rest of his life in misery without a tosspot to piss in. People like these live everywhichwhere, everywhere where melons are picked and heads crushed in like cassavas (Manihot esculenta), where bowlegged bawlers yowl and yammer and pick falling stars out of the night sky, where two-bit fowlers pick pickled peppers from the mouths of starving waifs. Every time a waif bawls a melon picker picks a melon-size head of Manihot esculenta and feeds it to his dog.

A Puny Boy with a Slow Eye

A puny boy with a Leporidae-lip and a slow eye told the man in the hat that he saw a man who saw a man with a Pope’s hat smoking harryun. When the man in the hat asked the puny boy what harryun was, he replied, his slow eye slowing even more ‘da brawn shit that kidney looks like crushed up beach pebbles’. ‘Oh’ said the man in the hat ‘oh indeed’. The puny harelipped boy with the slow eye yawned, the back of his throat red as red can be, and said ‘beach pebbles, thebe some good shit, you figyour?’ ‘Yes indeed, good shit indeed’ said the man in the hat slowly, his hatband tightening round his forehead madly. The sun cast a second shadow on the sideways, a blistering pocking sound issuing from the storefront window in front of the Seder grocers. Though the sky hazarded rain, the man in the hat ignored the second shadow and wearied his way across the sideways sideling. The puny boy with the jackolopes-lip hip-heptode it down the sideways, crisscrossing the grassy medium like a grasshopper with a second set of wings.

The legless man lives a cloistered ascetic life, jiggering about on his pegboard cart, waging and caroming in and out of traffic and so. Grindstone grinding, his few remaining teeth cutting crosshatchings into the bevel of his ear joist. The plotline’s in the pudding, roiled orts with creamery cream and a slurry of sanguine blood orange…(risk of a tundra storm, fifty % chancellery of bowers)…He slept on top of the bleatline, clouting sheep with a weary eye on the potted punter swaging swung over his bedstead unsteadily so. Gad souks, a carrion carryall swaging above my head overhead…(blessed be the beastly beast)…It rained upside down, sheets of cold febrile cold rain, a snuff to send a eggnostic into a downward spiral. I’d say he would I would. A cat catapulted into the sky, its furry wet tail feathered with cold febrile cold rainy rain. I’ve seen odder tangs, thought the legless man, odder and wetter.

Fly Whackers and Jujubes

‘I’m cracking up’ said the legless man to the alms man. ‘No your not’ said the alms man to the legless man. ‘Yes I am’. ‘No your not’. ‘Yes I am I am’. ‘No your not’. ‘I am I am cracking up I am’. ‘No your not’. ‘I’m cracking, cracking up’. ‘Nope’. The sky fell open like a butchered cow, clouds and half-stars falling splash to the ground. In the Quaker parish of Nyregyhza in Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg Hungary a man with a bum leg and a rabbit’s-lip sat thinking of ways to end his life. He said over and over to himself in a soft yowling hum ‘I’m cracking up. No your not. Yes I am I am. No your not. I am I am cracking up I am’…(rabbits’-lips and crisscrossed crisscrosses). Awaking from a snake-oil coma the legless man ate a red russet red apple and turned on his busted television set. On channel 27 ½ was a show on Quakerism, so he sat sitting taking parish-size bites of the red russet red apple, eyes trained on the television screen. He fell into a snake-oil fugue thinking about his grandmamma’s boiled oats and the spoon she used to whack flies off the kitchen curtains. His grandmamma would make him sweep up the dead swatted flies into a dustpan fashioned from a Boil Your Own Oats box, the whacked swatted curtain flies smaller than Sunkissed raisins.

Clermont-Ferrand Auvergne France, Skopje Karpos Macedonia, Sunrise Beach Missouri, Brussels Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest Belgium, Bandung Jawa Barat Indonesia, Cheshunt Herefordshire UK, Bury Saint Edmunds Norfolk UK, Nara Japan, Falkirk UK, Jiddah Makkah Saudi Arabia, Lule Norrbottens Lan Sweden, Vogar Gullbringusysla Iceland, Seraing Liege Belgium, Reigate Surrey, Solingen Nordrhein-Westfalen Germany, Honolulu Hawaii, Ishj Kobenhavn Denmark, Renkum Gelderland Netherlands, New Delhi Delhi Backbone India, Saltillo Coahuila de Zaragoza Mexico, Prague Hlavni Mesto Praha Czech Republic, Chula Vista California California State University, Snderborg Sonderjylland Denmark and Herning Ringkobing Denmark have Quaker Oats shops that sell fly whackers and jujubes, the black ones only.

A Good Clamming Knife

A blue scrotal blue sky swaddled between bloated white globular clouds. No sky no blue sky no blue scrotal blue sky. These things troubled the man in the hat as they counted for nothing, and even were they to count for something, anything, it would surely be something not worth counting for. In this manner he felt he could count on nothing, not even his own thoughts. Were he to count on them, his thoughts, he’d have to satisfy far too many variables, and variables were a nuisance and not worth the bother, even were they to recount themselves and relieve him of counting on counting that was bothersome and tricky. Life is like a potato field, all those black eyes staring at you, a field’s worth of black staring out of focus eyes, a mercenary of them, eyes. Whenever he felt stranger than strange the man in the hat made himself an oyster sandwich. After shucking the oyster, which took some time, patience and a good clamming knife, the man in the hat would pound the shucked oysters flat with a wooden mallet, fold the flattened oysters in quarters and press them between two slices of black pumpernickel bread, thinly sliced and slightly toasted. When he felt odder than odd, which occurred on even days and near the end of the month, he would add a dollop of Gibb’s hard mustard to heavy cream, whisk it into a placental mash and eat it with a fork.

Midways and Middling

The Sibu Brothers of Sarawak banded together with Liepaja Stepbrothers to force the Kista Brothers out of business, figuring they’d have the sole rights over shoes and cobbling and not have to bother with the filthy Swiss any further. They had a notion (as ideas and concepts were too complicated) to manufacture men’s loafers from magpie skin, using the eyes, which were green blue and orangey yellow, and feathers to make uncommonly beautiful wingtips. If this failed, as most notions are ideas that never quite make it to concepts, they would steal as many magpies as they could and hide them in a coop somewhere where no one, not even a magpie, could find them.

(...rotten swine heard her beaming with brim and rigor, holding, as she was, to the rake-side-hilt of a mortise and peddle. Not one to be caught in a kafuffle, maidenhead heady with midways and middling’s. The harridan’s sister assonated every word she spoke, a grammatical jiggery that created its own...).

Syllogistic Tautologies

Blazes Bowman: legs gone palsied re-crossing Liffey, Portmanteaux worn skivvies inward out, woollen under-linen to dress-side; billfold stuffed with Queens Pinot; Irish turbidmoyle bluebells side-grave; bedside manor inexcusable, monks’ chips and suet; surplice worn over shoulder and rector, speyside frowned upon for Mort on salt; Irishman oddment, such calumny and prescience of mind, threadbare homily and Quaker’s roil.

He dreamt he was wearing a coalman’s cap a double-knit seafarer’s sweater and a pair of hobnail boots. He dreamt in his sleep, or so he said. His dreams were full to brimming with well-wishes balls of string and an egg-tray with Beeves’ and Ives handle-ware. He slept in his sleep, dreaming dreams about a world he felt at odds and evens with, dreaming dreamt dreams dreamt while dreaming he was asleep sleeping. He put on his coalman’s cap, his seafarer’s sweater and double-laced his hobnails, all while sleeping and dreaming dreams about wearing a coalman’s cap a double-knit seafarer’s sweater and a pair of hobnail boots. Dreams dreamt are never what they seem, or so he said.

In the swales of his lap he carried a tote-box full of crayons and a stirring-stick for stirring paint thicker than whey and marrow. He bartered and hawked, cajoled and argued, and made a fool of haggling and trade. ‘Who says a man can’t make a nickel from a Hogwarts ear, at a dime a dozen the trade is fair to haggling, and even were it not, the boasts a bogies well worth the bother.’ Imprecations felt sworn ort not, the dimes a nickel in trade, so off with his head and a wee bit off the side for God’s measure dais-ort.

Kitchen Shoes

my grandmother
boiled potatoes and cabbage
in the same pot, ladling the fat from the simmer
with the same spoon she used to lay welts
into the corm of my back

she used the flat
of her hand to pit bulgur mewl
and a gar to well the crusts, the one my father
used to stave apples from the top
of the neighbour’s tree

my grandmother
fed us blood pudding and rice
barrowing cows’ tongue in cheesecloth, and wore
the same black kitchen shoes to church
summer through fall

Magpie Pie

A magpie flew flocking across this crisscross crossly, its tiny misshapen beak wormy with tads and cableways. The hawker, who by this time had opened his wares-table, threw a handful of hooey at the magpie, missing it by a Poe’s wing. A raven black sky, a rare consign in such a havenless place, blew back the handful of hawker’s hooey, the hawker ducking behind his wares-table like a fearful muck. Cacaw cacaw went the magpie impiously, its eyes black with desecration. Wormy worms and cawing caw cawing were too much for the man in the hat, so he turned easterly and made quick. His grandmamma made magpie pie, crimping the edges with a fork, beaks and magpie feet crabbing, his grandmamma tamping them back down with the upside of her wooden spoon. He remembered his grandmamma’s feebleness, and the way she cowered when the rain fell in rainy sheets, the curtains in the kitchen window pillowing, her eyes scorned with yesterday’s bad news and tomorrow’s worries. ‘You will eat this pie, young man, or else..!’ Her mouth curled up at the edges when she scolded him, trench-lines furrowing the trebled skin above her lip. His grandmamma smoked 27½ Chesterfield’s a day, snubbing out the smoldering filter in an empty Chockfull-O-Nuts coffee tin with her thumb. As far back as he could remember, which was far indeed, his grandmamma had a smudge on her cheek, a blemish left behind from the smoldering filter of a spent Chesterfield. When he was old enough to take up smoking (that day coming on his tenth birthday surrounded by unlikable relatives and a dope sick clown with fish breath) he smoked stinky French cigarettes that came in a blue box with a winged helmet on the front.

In Queue for the Hawker

A woodcock scurried sideways across the earthy brown black earth, the ground scuttling beneath its tiny misshapen bird’s feet. At exactly 3:45am the woodcock crippled crossways across the now wet brown black earth, the rainy rain having lain a blemished on the once earthy brown black earth, the once-earth the woodcock scurry-scurried across sideways crippledly. ‘I feel sickly ill’ said the woodcock with a chirp and a twitter, his neb cloistered with wet brown black earthy earth. A blindfolded chessplayer skulked sulkingly across the blacktop black, his hat cupped (like an egg-cup cup) in the outstretched palm of his hand handily. ‘Twitter chirp twitter chirp chirp’ said the woodcock cockily. The blindfolded halfblind chessplayer croaked and moaned, his feet chipping the top of the blacktop black. ‘Oh but how I abhor chirping and twitter, makes a man unaccustomed to the egg and cup feel so fragile and weakly’ said the halfblind blindfolded chessplayer, the kip of his trouser bottoms belling and ponging, the blacktop black scurvy with eggshells and skulking. The man in the hat thought all this up, this nonsense and blather, whilst waiting in queue for the hawker to begin hawking his wares and cups. A slicker of wet rainy rain left a blemish on the once-earthy brown black earth, too slick for tomfoolery and childhood pranks. At this very moment, 4:28am, the woodcock and the blindfolded chessplayer and the man in the hat went their separate ways, each with a bone to pick with the hawker, the rainy rain and a man they had yet to meet.

Karlsruhe Baden-Wurttemberg

The shamble leg man came down with the gout on a Saturday afternoon at exactly 27½ minutes past four. He remember the exact time, to the half-second, as that was when he first notice, and felt, the burning stitch in his big bigger biggest toe.

The preacher’s son wore a friar’s cap and spoke in non-syllabi grunts. The first outbreak of the gout was in a small Amish town in a small Amish community with a small cinderblock church and a friar’s monastery where the preacher’s son lived in a friar’s cell with a friar’s Bible and a wooden mallet for whacking himself upside of the head, an act of contrition and absolution, so he was told.

Before living with the friar’s in the friar’s monastery the preacher’s son lived in the following places, some for a short while others for a longer while: Beyrouth Lebanon, Reykjavk Gullbringusysla, Og Vodafone Islandssimi, Iceland, Zgierz Lodz Kaczmarek Poland Gloucester College of Higher Education where he study Latin and Vectors, with little success, Gloucestershire UK, Cracow Malopolskie, the Academic Computer Centre where he drank enough computer cleaning fluid to keel over a large dog, Telefonica de Argentina where he worked as a ham-radio operator, again with little to middling success, Viedma Rio Negro Argentina, Karlsruhe Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, London, City of London, Nuuk Netcafe v/A-Team/Comby ApS, Nuuk Vestgronland, Greenland, Penta College Schiphol, Noord-Holland the Netherlands, Vsters Vastmanlands Lan, Sweden, Koninklijke, Planet Technologies Noord-Holland the Netherlands, where he learned how to play chess blindfolded, with some success, NIB, National Internet Backbone, Lakhnau Uttar Pradesh, India, where he learned of the first outbreak of the gout from a Brahman, and Nocera Superiore, Campania Italy, where it was so hot he felt sickly and small.

The Proprietor’s Wife

The man in the hat wanted to visit places so far, far away that getting there would be half the trip. Places like Nevers Bourgogne, Konya Turkey, Mechelen Antwerpen, Searsport Maine, Sobreda, Setubal Portugal, Upplands-Vsby Stockholms Lan, South Shields South Tyneside, Kefar Habad HaMerkaz, El Palomar Buenos Aires, Argentina, Seoul Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, Punta Umbra Andalucia, Telefonica de Espana, Edinburgh City of Edinburgh, Stevenson College, Trento Trentino-Alto Adige, Universita' di Trento Italy, Fossano Piemonte Italy and one place that he had heard about but couldn’t remember the name of. He overheard that in a small family owned café in El Palomar Buenos Aires the proprietor’s wife made stewed oxtail in a double-boiler, bits and ends of oxtail, skin and flayed meat churning and rising to the top of the boil. She skimmed off the oil and fat, ladling fatty curds of oxtail and sinew into outstretched bowls. The diners ate in silence, the proprietor’s wife lording over them like a matronly school dietician, her eyelids ticking, feet kipping the tiles, her husband watching from behind the wooden bar, his hands making the sign of the cross above his breastplate. He wanted to go there, to the café in El Palomar Buenos Aires, and eat bowlfuls of oily fat oxtail, his lips greasy with oxblood, the proprietor’s wife eying him suspiciously, her feet cloven inwards like hooves.

Calculus Coprophagia

I have started taking a new reuptake inhibitor as the other reuptake inhibitor seems to have become less in·hib·i·tive. The old uptake inhibitor has lost its in·hib·it·a·bleness, meaning it does a poor job in·hib·it·ing, and believe you me I need all the in·hib·it·ing I can get. Fifteen years ago this coming September I was diagnosed with OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or as I so ineloquently refer to it, Turing's Disease, after the inventor of the first calculator, (Alan Mathison Turing, the most famous member of GC&CS, Alan Turing joined Bletchley Park in 1939. He invented the basis of cryptanalytic mathematics and special-purpose analytic machines, making major contributions to the exploitation of Enigma and other German cipher systems. Turing also played a key role in developing Colossus, the world's first programmable computer. After the war, working at Manchester University, he and Max Newman led a team that produced Britain's first general purpose stored programme computer). Being a counter, one 2 three 4 I have good reason to side-by-side with the imminent Mr. Turing. Shit is (as shit is shit, after all) it took me two long hard years to pass grade 10 math, so this counting shit is, well shitty.

Here is a short abridged list of names, or synonyms for OCD: Vectors Disease, Algebraic Savantism, Into’s and Out-of’s Imbecility, Calculus Coprophagia, Turing’s Tourette's, named after the great Swiss neurologist Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss Geometric Aphasia, Les Haricot Noir de la Mathématique, Newton’s Doxological Nostalgias, Popper’s Potpourri, Goldbach's Conjectur, Integers Interruptus, Compulsive Metron Trigonometry, Precalculus Phobia, Function’s Fuckuppedness, Differential Deviance Disease, Indiscrete Mathematica Moronicism and Disambiguation Chaos Theory, commonly referred to as Deterministic Indeterminacy Disease. Now you should have a good idea, an inkling perhaps, of what I must contend with day in and day out. Good night and over and out, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 27½…

La Rue de La Maltese

A beggar with a gamy leg scrabbled inwards across the thruway in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Tel Aviv, a small bird cradled in the palm of his upturned hand. In Rabat, Rabat-Sale a beggar with a gamy leg scrabbled outwards across the expressway, a small bird coddled in the palm of his outturned hand. Unbeknown to one another they started the day in exactly the same manner, a bird in the hand, legs trebled and trilled with gaminess, each crisscrossing across the blacktop, the asphalt hotter than hell itself. ‘I need a bath’ thought the first beggar. ‘I too’, thought the second beggar, neither aware of the other’s need. Things happen in different places at the same time, neither thing or place aware that the other exists at all. One beggar with one bird in one expressway, thruway superhighway at the same time, but in different places. The world is a strange place, strange indeed.

In the town of Rybnik in the township of Katowice Poland a beggar with two gamy legs crossed the superhighway with his eye pressed closed, a wren’s foot keychain clutched in the palm of his hand. The one-eyed beggar stippled and crimped across the blacktop, the wren’s foot keychain jingle jangling in his hand. In the canton of Helsinki in Southern Finland a beggar with no eyes and a no legs cambered across the slick blacktop, a tiny blue bird’s egg balanced in the unturned palm of his hand. A beggar in Elmhurst New York shot himself in the foot, slowing him down as he crippled across the superthruway backwards crossways, a can of Hero’s Malt Liquor bobbling in his feeble hands.

A feeble man with a feeble stride strode defiantly across La Rue de La Maltese. Without any knowledge or care of where he was going, he headed westerly then easterly, then stopped, thought for a moment, and strode southerly then northerly, his flatcar cap kipped in the lining of his coat pocket. The feeble man with the feeble stride knew the Helsinki beggar and the beggar with two gamy legs from Katowice Poland, having met them both at the church bazaar one Saturday in May. All three men, beggars by trade, were in town on the same day for the inaugural opening of Ships’ Day. They ran into one another at the church bazaar, as all three men (beggars by trade) were in search of a Pop-siècle placemat with a dory sideboard. The legless man watched them from a distance, his scrap of cardboard kitted beneath his stump-ends. He overheard that three strange men, beggars by trade, were due in town this day and was curious to get a glimpse of them.

Epistle-istle, Crackle, Screw-bo

(His portmanteau dragged behind him like a caudal stick. His greatcoat portmanteau tailed behind him like a lazy child. His greatcoat coat dragged behind his portmanteau port like a lazy child swinging a caudal stick. The shamble leg man’s greatcoat was greater than the sum of its parts. Hem, greater than its hem). He, the shamble leg man, liked animal sauce on his boiled potatoes. Animal sauce is rendered from animal flesh, gristle, fat, tendon, hock, epistle-istle, crackle, screw-bone and water. The shamble leg man’s great-grandmamma made animal sauce in the big black skillet she kept on a hinge over the stove. Christmastime Easter Lent Passover Ukrainian Orthodox Christmastime Hanukah Daylight Savings Time, and any other time that was of middling importance, his great-grandmamma made animal sauce in the big black skillet that hung over the stove on a hinge.

His great-grandmamma knew how to make a beggars’ pudding from leftovers, a raw egg and skipjack meringue (Animal pudding with mint jelly). They ate very little during Passover and Daylight Savings Time, a pittance worth of dry toast and bare-cupboard pud·ding. The harridan swore up and down that her family ate next to nothing, and not just during Passover and Daylight Savings Time when there was so little time to save or pass over. His portmanteau dragged behind him like a caudal stick. His greatcoat portmanteau tailed behind him lik…imal flesh, gristle, fat, tendon, hock, epistle-istle, crackle, screw-bo…His great-grandmamma made a mess of the kitchen, tossing tosspot and larder, the nails on her fingers cored and heavy with grim and grime…mastime Easter Lent Passover Ukrainian Orthodox Christmastime Hanukah Daylight…nothing much was saved or passed over, nary a hare’s lolly or a birches’ cuppery.

The day broke unevenly, so much so, so unevenly that the man in the hat could feel the unevenness of the day breaking broken over his head. ‘I dislike these sort of days, these uneven unevenly days’ he said out loud to himself whisperingly. ‘I’d much prefer, much rather an evenly day, an even evenness, so even that it seems evenly even’. The skyward sky was blue cobalt azure Prussia blue, so blue, so blue cobalt azure Prussia blue it seemed impossibly so, impossibly blue. ‘Today I will venture out and see what the day has to offer, this uneven unevenness that passes itself off for a day, any day, this blue cobalt azure Prussia blue skyward sky day’. And with that he pulled up his gaiters and fell head-to-heel into the day.

Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud

http://www.francis-bacon.cx/ http://www.leninimports.com/lucian_freud_bio.html

Winnicott’s Child

Art is destruction, reconstruction and everything in between. Like Winnicott’s child the artist (painter, poet, writer, sculptor, etc) destroys in order to create. Through hatred for the object love is found and restored in the object; it is reconstructed into desire, phantasy and wish, the fulfillment of desire, phantasy and wish. The child must first destroy that which he loves, making the object an imagine, bringing the object into the self, the object and self becoming one and the same, possession of self and object as same. A hated object becomes an object of love, an internalized object that is contained within the child, an object destroyed (deconstructed) then held for and by the child, an object to amuse oneself with. My object, my love, my hatred. Mine.

There’s no time like the future. No, there is no time in the future, only the time we project onto it, the present time abstracted to the future, future time in the present, present time. Time out of mind, mindless time, timeless time abstracted from present time, now, now time, the present. This is what philosophers do to pass the time, play with time timelessness time.

Francis Bacon - Documentary part 1/6

Art of Lucian Freud - Bach Cello Suite

Wien Institute for the Study of Stretching

The Institute for the Psychology of Cuckolding in Riga Latvia, the University of Toronto School for the Study of Perineum Skin Texture, the Wien Institute for the Study of Stretching, the Vastra Gotaland Grammar School for the Study of James Augustine Aloysius Joyce in Bors, the Klamath Falls Billiards Company, the Milton Institute for the Study of Alewifery in Massachusetts, the Adelaide Poker Chip Company, St. Vitas Bagel Company Montreal Quebec, Njar School for the Study of Cangrejos Tatuaje’s, Andalucia Spain.

The shamble leg man had been to Montreal Quebec where he bought steamy hot bagels from the St. Vitas Bagel Company. As for other places he had been to none. In place of these places (none of which he had been to with the exception of Montreal Quebec) he went to places that were closer by, places like the green bench beside the aqueduct across from the Seder grocers, and the topmost top of the steeple atop the Waymart across from the church where the harridan’s sister sold her Pop-siècle knickknacks every second Saturday, and places that were misplaced but places just the same.

‘I have been everywhere and nowhere’ said the shamble leg man. ‘I have been here and there, there and here, over there and over here, far over there and over here, I have been many places but no place at all. I have been at the back of the line and at the front of line, to one side of the street and to the other side of the street, I have been near places and far away from places, I have been in front of a child’s buggy and to the rear, the child tugging at my coattails, I have been boundless and bound, weakly and strong, over there and over here’. The sky broken in two, sunshiny warm, the air thick with bluebottles and chilibits. ‘Today I will go some place’ said the shamble leg man, ‘someplace other than here’.

Reading National Geographic

I wouldn’t say he was a crackpot or nothing, maybe a wee scrambled in the head, but that’s about it as it is and all. The first time I sees him he’s reading the National Geographic on the bus, the number two bus, bus, sitting not too far from me on a seat not too far from this lady with one of those push and pull carryalls. I figure he must be scrambled in the brains as he’s actually reading the National Geographic, something you don’t all see that much of, considering that most people, most people I know at least, just read the stuff under the pictures, that kind of reading, not full-fledged reading like the kind you do in school or from prayer books on Sundays or Saturdays depending on whether you’re a Christian or not. Guys like him, you figure if they haven’t had their brains tampered with a knitting needle, that sort of shit that happens, so I hear, in asylums and crackpot hospitals.

Poor bastard might even have a bump or something on his brain, right underneath the eye socket where they push in a knitting needle, kind of tamp it in there like they’re doing some knitting or crocheting, that kind of shit, shit like that. I even heard that they even goes as far as to cut out pieces of the brain, like coring out an apple or a cantaloupe, that kind of tampering and buggering about, in someone’s brain, for God’s sake. Its no wonder, really, that the sad cunt reads the whole National Geographic and not just the underneath stuff. Really, when you think it over, which you do, cause it is worth thinking, guys like him probably don’t understand a word their reading, not a fucking word of it, really. Sad fucking world we lives in, fucking pathetic if you want my opinion. Then you never know whether you might end up like him, all scrabbled and knit into a fucking sweater, it could happen--it just could, you never know, for sure that is.

I know my opinion isn’t worth much, probably shit, whose is, really, I mean when you get right down to it what most people say is shit, pure shit, me included. So he’s sitting across not far from me and this lady with the fucking carryall who looks pretty dim herself. I mean man the shit you see on the bus, too much to take in at one time, that is, all at once and without a break, a breather, let’s say. If I had it my way, which I never will, I’d take a fucking cab or walk, that is if it weren’t too far, I mean too far or up-hill. But the chances of me having it my way are slim to nil, so I’m pretty well fucked from the get-go, fucking carryalls, not much use when you got to lug the fuckers up-hill or round and round like a merry-go-fucking-round, now is it, just not worth the energy or bother, fuck no. Sleeping now that’s foolish, a waste of time, anyone worth they’re weight in saltpetre knows that. All sleep does is remind you just how much shit you have to do and how much time you wasted sleeping when you could have been doing it. Like reading the National Geographic or knitting a fucking sweater. There just aren’t enough sweaters, at least not enough to go around. I couldn’t think of a homelier way to read than wrapped up in a sweater, all woolly and cinched up round the bobbin of your neck. That cowfish of a lady, the one with the carryall, she’d look exceptional in a sweater, all that wool and dye and lanolin next to her skin, a sight for sore eyes, better yet, an eye for sore sight. I can be pretty magnificent when I want, when I put my noggin to it, like now, like right this fucking minute. Salt-fucking-petre, now that’s some nasty shit, makes what goes up come down, a fucking free-for-all. That sad bastard, sadder than a fucking tumour, sitting close by not far from me and that cowfish lady, the carryall lady, reading the National fucking Geographic, the whole fucking thing, not just the shit under the pictures. Makes you wonder, makes you wonder what the fuck he’s going to read when he finishes the Geographic. Bastard’s sadder than a cowlick on a cow, down right pathetic, really. But my opinion is worth shit, so why listen the fuck to me?

If I knew anything about anything I’d be the first to speak up, but I don’t. I can speak, I just don’t have anything to say, anything worth saying. Speaking when you should keep shut is what most people do, and I don’t want to be most people. I know people who speak just so they can hear themselves, like a fucking broken record, all cracked up and scratchy. I don’t want to be one of them, most people that is. You’d catch me reading on the bus before you’d catch me talking when I shouldn’t, opening my yap just to hear myself, that’s fucked up, in more ways than one. I suppose there’s lots of fascinating shit in the world; all I’m saying is I could care less about it. Some things seem out of place, for example this guy riding the bus with a dagger tattoo on his forearm, just below the crook in his elbow where guys with dagger tattoos crank heroin or Drano or some shit like that; all that shit is corrosive, shit you find in a janitor’s closet, with the mops and dusters, that kind of shit. I knew this chick that shot up Drano thinking it was crank or crack, the kind of shit that makes your head go all dim and fucked. I mean when you get to that point in life, when you’re shooting up Drano, your life is pretty much over, pretty fucking dim. Not that it makes a difference, but this shit is getting me down.

It’s sort of like the chicken bone that gets stuck in your throat; craw bone is what my granddaddy called it, not a wishbone, cause wishing and hoping are pointless, like a dagger tattoo or cranking drain unclogger. It’s all pretty much pointless, in a dim fucked up kind of way. Life is like a chicken bone, not pretty, but effective. My grandmamma made chicken pot pie with crinkly crust and soap mix. She said the key ingredient was the chicken bones cause they added flavour to the pot-pie. I was the poor sod that always got the chicken bone, or a piece of chicken gristle or skin. One time I half-swallowed a bone, a breastplate or one those finger-like bones that keep the wings from flapping out of control. My granddaddy had to whack me on the back with the heel of his hand; otherwise I would have choked myself to kingdom fucking cum, and that would’ve been shit. For the love of it I can’t stand loud noises, they drive me round the bend, further sometimes. I’m what you’d call sensitive to noises, all sorts and kinds of noise. I’m pretty much deaf in one ear and loosing it in the other, down to a few measly decibels, which are running short real quick. The doctor who looks after my ears said I’d be pretty much stone-deaf by the time I hit fifty, maybe sooner if the world gets noisier and people louder. It’s all pretty much pointless, cause the way I see it the shits going to hit the fan long before I hit fifty, and even if it don’t, they’ll be other shit lined up waiting to take its place, maybe worse shit, shit that’ll make the other shit look measly and small. Most shit is shit anyhow, so there really isn’t any point to worrying about it, really. The way I see it they’re be more people yelling and hollering and acting like dim fucks long before anything changes, and even if it does, changes that is, the shit’ll already have hit the fan, so what’s the point.

I figure its time to start telling a story about something other than pot-pies and pointlessness. Someone said that we all have stories in us, but I figure that guy was a storyteller to start with, so it was no big deal for him to say something, that when you think about it seems rather pointless, stupid even. I figure that storytellers take this sort of stuff pretty much for granted, and others, me for example, don’t have the luxury of taking much of anything for granted, not even anything worth taking for granted, cause in the end it’s all pretty much pointless shit, and isn’t worth a hell of a lot, not really.

Her name is Martha. The lady on the bus with the carryall, I think. I’m not much for names, never have been, but I can tell you all about someone’s face or the shoes they’re wearing. I like to keep things pretty much simple, that ways there isn’t much room for mistaking one thing for another, another thing for another, that sort of mistaking. I guess it comes with age and worsening hearing, cause if you don’t pay attention the first time you’re fucked, then you can’t remember a thing, nothing, nil. Mind you, I could forget the guy reading the National Geographic with the dagger tattoo, but that’s unlikely, really. Once he’s in my mind’s eye, my brain, he’s pretty much there for life, maybe longer. My grandmamma told me that I have what’s called a photographic memory, as in once I see something its there for life. Some people dream in colours, me, I don’t have dreams at all, maybe little ones but that’s it, nothing worth talking about. Anyhow dreams are overrated, mostly nightmares and shit, so why bother. As you might have figured out, by now anyhow, I don’t have a mother or a dad, both of ‘em died when I was a baby, or at least real little. My grandmamma said they died in a house fire, got all burned up and black. Of course I don’t remember, and even if I did it’d be horrible stuff, like burned bodies and black faces and frizzy hair, so I guess I’m better off not remembering, at least that.

I had a sister, but she ran away. After the house fire, the one that burned up my mom and dad, she up and fucked off with a guy who had a Pontiac Firebird and a birthmark on his forehead. The reason I’m telling you this is cause I think the guy on the bus reading the National Geographic was the guy who fucked off with my sister. I know I said that it was the first time I saw him, that time on the bus, but I could be mistaken. I make lots of mistakes, some bigger, and some just little ones that really don’t count as mistakes at all, but are just sort of slips of mind or thought or something. The way I see it if it was him he wasn’t driving a car, and if he was, or even had a car, it most probably wouldn’t be a Firebird, on account of the fact that they fucked them up, made ‘em all round-looking and cheap, and a guy like that, with dagger tattoos, wouldn’t be caught dead in a round cheap-looking car. Come to think of it one a those carryalls wouldn’t likely fit in the back trunk of one of these newer cars, on account of that the trunks are so small you can’t even put a full grocery order in one. I suppose the Japanese buy smaller groceries, and that ways don’t need a bigger back trunk for to put them in. Anyhow she up and fucked off and never did stop long enough to say goodbye or anything like that. Not that I would have expected it, that she say anything, really, but the thought might have been nice, or at least the idea of saying goodbye or something along those lines.

The social worker, the one that came after my mom and dad burned up in the house fire, asked me if I wanted to live with my aunt, my mom’s sister, or my granddaddy and grandmamma. On account of the fact I didn’t know how to play pinochle, which is all my aunt did, I picked my grandparents, and on account of the fact your grandparents tend to treat you better than your aunt does. My grandmamma played Gin, my granddad Hearts, so I figured they’d be easier to learn, maybe that’s why, but I could be mixed up I guess. My grandmamma cheated, my granddad played blind, like a dog on a bone. Anyhow our dog burned up in the house fire, under the couch next to the television that was always on. I think that hurt my feelings almost more than my mom and dad burning, cause at least the dog liked me and didn’t call me fatter than a house. It’s odd, in a weird sort of way, how the house burns down without me in it, me being fatter than a house and all. It always stymied me that gip-rock would burn brighter than a 4th of July fireworks. That’s what I was told; anyhow our house was crappy, one a those stucco ones with a shitty yard in a shitty neighbourhood. I don’t figure most people missed it when it burned, all clapboard and shingles and our television still on.

‘Cats in a hotbox’, is what my granddad used to say. That’s the way he used to talk when he wanted to get my attention, even if it didn’t make a lick of sense. Of course I’d listen, even though I knew he was making fun of me, which was better than being called fatter than a house or dumber than horse sense. I can’t well at all remember exactly when he’d say it, but when he did I’d prick up my ears and pay heed. You see he liked his Triple Star Whisky, from a kitchen glass, a green one with a paler green label on it. My grandmamma didn’t all at all like it when he said dumb stupid stuff like ‘cats in a hotbox’, but put up with his shenanigans cause he was getting blinder and deafer by the day, and probably wasn’t aware of what he was saying. She used to tug on the strings of her apron whenever he said something improper or dumb, or simply screw up her eyes and say something herself under her breath. The way I saw it, it was better than playing pinochle, even if she played honest and didn’t bend any of the rules. My aunt had these tiny little vials of medicine she took with juniper water, something to do with having rickets when she was young and never getting proper medical help. I guess back then there wasn’t much medical help at all, and that that there was, was probably more harm than good. You’d see kids with wooden logs between they’re legs buckled at the hips with straps and hinge-screws. It was on account of the fact that they’re legs hadn’t grown properly, either they was all bendy and frail, or twisted round like willow branches. Either way, they had to scrabble and chip they’re way down the street, some using wooden crutches, others holding onto the arms of they’re mothers or a school friend.

I saw a Brahman, a monk or something, riding the bus; he was chewing, chewing gum and listening to a Walkman or an I-Pod or something. He was in the customary orange thing, a smock I think it’s called, and wearing a woollen toque. I figured monks, Buddhist one’s at least, aren’t allowed to read on the bus, but are allowed to listen to inspirational tapes, maybe music, but it was hard to tell on account of it was too low or my hearing’s getting worse. Orange is an odd colour for someone like a monk, figuring that they don’t want to draw attention to themselves, cause they’re always meditating or praying or something, and orange is a pretty really bright colour. He was really quite small, almost like a dwarf, but not quite that small; maybe a premmy or one of those people whose bodies don’t grow according to plan, like they’re bones are too little or the muscles don’t form properly. As I haven’t seen too many monks up close, far away even, I could be mixed up.

So I’ve been wondering lately what all the fuss is about the Catholics and Protestants and the like. Not that I know much about religion, nothing actually, but people tell me that the Catholics and the Protestants don’t get along, see eye to eye, so to speak. I never seen them fighting, or throwing fits, but then again I’m not round churches and places like that very much, not at all actually. This one kid I knew who lived on our street, before our house burned, was one of those altar boys, the guys who carry the Bible and hand out leaflets and prayer books. He said that one day the priest asked him to go get the sacrament stuff, the wafers or biscuits or whatever there called, from the refrigerator in the rectory. When he opened the fridge door he found bags and bags of these wafer things, the body of Christ I guess is what they’re called, with numbers printed on them. When he looked closer he saw that the numbers were dates, like February or June or something, with those lines what’re suppose to be codes or something. When he brought the sacraments back to the priest and asked him what the numbers were for, the priest said, ‘they’re expiry dates, my son, so we can know if the Host is still good and fresh’.

At don’t think the orange monks eat wafers and stuff; I think they’re more passive then that, then the Catholics I mean. They’re more into praying and keeping quiet and doing things with those long bamboo sticks, the ones they play fight with, those ones. I wonder if that fellow with the crab tattoo knows anything at all about bamboo sticks? He was sitting next to the monk reading the newspaper. He was reading the newspaper, the guy with the crab tattoo, not the monk, on account that they aren’t allowed to read nothing on the bus, the monks that is. I’d be pretty hard to tell if the monk had any tattoos, cause their clothes hide most of themselves, and even if he did have one who knows what’d look like. I’m not all that fond of crab, its way too salty and the shells and claws and antennas are gross looking. I meant unsavoury, but didn’t want to come off sounding like a know it all. I’ve know a lot of know it alls, and all of them were a fucking a pain in the royal ass. Not that royal has anything to do with it, but anyhow these fuckers are real royal pieces of work. If my dog hadn’t have burned up in the fire, nasty thing fire, I’d sick him on these simpletons and have ‘em running for daylights. Sad thing is my dog was way too passive for that sort of thing, you’d have almost thought he was a monk or something, the way he was so nice and kind and not a loud barker and the like. He was a petter, meaning he like to have his ears scratched and the top of his head rubbed with the heel part of your hand, real hard like you were going to rub the fur off, like that, real slow and hard like. Poor fucker, probably didn’t hear my mom and dad hollering cause he was asleep next to the television, probably on some late-night missionary show or something close like that. I can see now how come the Catholics and Protestants don’t get along, always elbowing in on one and the other to get better television space, almost pathetic in a pathetic sort of way.

It’s getting hotter, like in the weather and the sky and the temperature, hot like that. The way I figure it its way too hot to ride on the bus, so I’ll leave that for now, riding the bus and all. I could walk, I suppose, but I’m way too lazy for that, and on account of the fact that my feet get all swollen and puffed out and crabby looking. I knew this guy who refused to walk anywhere if the slope, I think that’s how it’s called, was too high, as in an incline or a hill going upwards. He took a taxi or simply stayed put, sometimes not leaving the house for days on end. It’s sad, when you think about it, how some fucker can’t even walk up a tiny hill without figuring it’s too high and way to costly on energy. As far as I’m concerned they might as well call it quits, fuck off, I mean just stop all the blubbering and complaining. Jesus made the world with hills and slopes and inclines and the like, so why bother complaining or giving it a second thought, really? Of course who am I to talk, really, I mean I can’t even leave the house if I think it’s going to rain, cause if it does, rain that is, I’m pretty much fucked cause I don’t have an umbrella, and there’s nothing I hate more than getting all wet and soggy, well maybe being scaled with scalding hot water, but that’s about it.

One thing I like about the rain is the thunder and lightening, it reminds me sort of like when I was a kid and used to sit under the porch stoop listening to it. The crashing and bolts, I think that’s how you call it, of lightening were like fireworks, not you normal general kind of fireworks, but the kind what’re made by Nature and Jesus, like. I’d hide under the porch stoop with our dog, him licking and slobbering on my face, all screwy looking in the eyes on account of the fact he was scared and all. On occasion sometimes I’d bring some matches with me and fire them off like rockets, striking them against the striking part and tossing them into the air. The best thing about being a kid was not having to listen to your mom and dad; mind you, I suppose I did miss it after they burned in the house. And me fiddling round with matches underneath it couldn’t have been all that smart, not by a long shot I guess. Its not that I particularly like the sulphur smell, but the fact, I guess, that I could do it and get away with it. My grandmamma said it was cheating, or lying, or something like that, but I could care less, cause it was fun and a fun thing to do under the porch stoop in the rain with our dog. Sometimes doing fun stuff is way better than listening to your mom and dad, sometimes I guess, but not always.

I remember throwing stones and watching that poor girl trouble her way down the street, the girl with the hearing-box strapped to her chest. She was pretty much deaf so had to wear this crazy looking contraption on a harness or something, it was sort of tied round her back and strapped round the front, like a rucksack or a schoolbag. It made this buzzing sound like bees in a peanut jar, and there was this tiny green light that flashed and flickered, so she could tell if it was on and all I guess. I’m pretty much sure that she had crappy eyesight, too, cause she had these real thick-looking glasses on that had an elastic band round them, sort of like the ones that athletes wear to keep they’re goggles and stuff from falling off. I’m pretty much ashamed to admit that me and my friends made fun of her, making crazy screwy-eyed faces at her or saying something when we weren’t, but just moving out lips like we was. I hope she’s okay now, now that she’s all grown and doesn’t have to have us as kids living on her block. I’m not too happy about that, but when you’re a kid you do stupid things just to get the other kinds to like you; and most of the time they don’t like you anyhow, so it seems rather pointless, really. Now that I remember it, me and my friends uses to catch bees in peanut butter jars; you just flipped the jar over on top of them and slid the jar top back on. We used to have millions of them in one peanut jar, buzzing and smacking they’re wings against the peanut butter jar glass. You could always find them cause they hovered over honeysuckle plants, on account of the fact that that’s what they liked to eat, and there was plenty of honeysuckles on the lawn in front of the church across the street from our house, before it burned down of course. I’d been better had the church burned down, cause I didn’t care much for the minister or the guy who ran the AA meeting.

One thing I know for sure is that thinking isn’t worth a damn. It seems like the more I know the more confused I get about all those other things I think I know I know. That sort of shit, confusing shit. Like the time I was thinking about this nature show I saw about bees and hornets. Well it turns out it wasn’t about them at all, bees and hornets, but ants, except I thought they were bees and hornets on account of I don’t see too well when the television gets all blurry and static-like. I just figured they were bees and hornets that’d lost they’re wings or something. My grandmamma said it was on account of I sit way too close to the television and it was scrambling up my brain patterns making them think I was seeing one thing when I was really seeing something else, something different than what I thought I was seeing. That sort of shit, confusing shit like that. Granted I did need spectacles--that’s what my granddad calls them--but the social worker said there wasn’t any money in my grandparent’s account to pay for them. So the way I see it, which is quite confusing, really, there really isn’t all that much difference between bees and hornets and ants, not when the television is all blurry and your eyes all fucked to shit, not much of a difference at all, really.

It’s what you don’t know that really matters, all those things just waiting to be thought. Something’s you know you think, but really don’t know at all. Or sometimes it’s thinking that you think you know when all you really know, for sure, that is, is that you’re thinking about thinking those very same things, the things you thought you knew but don’t, never did, really. I get sort of stuck in between, between the things I think I think, the something’s, and the things I think but haven’t really thought, the no-things. Having thoughts is like when you drink an ice-slush too fast and you’re head freezes all up and you feel like you’re going to passout or something. I can do without that sort of shit, honest.

Our scout master was a fat bastard; scout masters are either fat bastards or real skinny ones; ours was the fat bastard kind. Sewing badges on sashes is for sissies and kids that play chess and wear glasses what’re too big for their faces. I’m saying this because if I was to keep it inside I’d explode like a one of those helium dirigibles, and that’d be a shame, me all busted up and floating round in the sky in pieces. Now you can see why I’m not so big on thinking, especially if this is the kind of crap I’m always thinking thoughts about; me all busted-up floating round in the sky wearing way-too big glasses and playing chess with fat kids.

This one scout master with mint crumbs in the corners of his mouth, not humbug mints, but those white pocket-mints that old people chew on like candy, I didn’t care much for, not in the least, really. When some of the other scouts, the ones with way more badges sewed on they’re sashes used to whack me in the ass with they’re moccasins he’d just keep chewing and chewing like the fat bastard he was, fat shitty bastard. I had all these welts on my backside, moccasin-shaped welts that hurt like bee stings, and that fat shit scout master just sitting on his fat ass chewing on mints and making hacking coughing sounds when he swallowed one down the wrong hole. I almost got the orientation badge but lost my compass just near the end so they said I was way too clumsy and didn’t deserve a badge for something that meant you were well-oriented.

Grandmamma had this theory about getting old, as long as you don’t think you’re old you isn’t, it’s the codlings what’re fucked from the get go. On account of the fact I don’t have a bank account I’m considered little, littler than my grandmamma what has two, one for groceries and the other for pinochle. Sometimes she dips into the grocery one when she needs money for pinochle. Thing is she plays pinochle more than she does the grocery shopping, so having two different bank accounts seems sort of stupid. She might as well just have one and pretend she’s buying groceries when she’s really playing pinochle. She’s probably way littler than she thinks, but can’t say it out loud in case my granddad hears and makes her feel silly and like a liar. Our scout master was a big liar and a bastard so I can stop talking about him, for now at least.

Sheaves of Watery Wheat

Outside my bedroom window the tree begs for leaves and twig-foolery. Little wee nascent buds budding on the branches, such valiant little cunts.

I wish I wish I wish indeed, that I could fall willy-nilly to sleep. Perhaps a tincture of wild-root bitters and a slam-back of Neo-Citrine (minerals a brownish yellow semiprecious stone that is a variety of quartz. Use: gems). Fuck it, no time like the present, no time indeed. A slanting rain, sheaves of watery wheat. When I was a boy full of vim and vinegar a rainy day was a blessing. Now they are a cursed blaspheme.

The sky today was so blue I almost mistook it for the ocean. I awoke from sleep, head topsy-turvy with thoughts, as with most mornings the night’s rest was a restless one, when I sleep I think, and when I think I sleep the sleep of the restlessly thinking, an ataman with his head on fire, one thought after the other until the bottleneck jams up the who shebang, a cobbler’s bench of thought thoughts thought while asleep, restless thinking. Is this what my thinking-life has come to, a thought-jam of tinker’s thoughts thought without rhyme or reason, a cobbler’s bench of worn out soles and missing heels? Dare I say it again (for the millionth time) philosophy has been the ruin of my life, my thinking-life, my cobbler-tinker’s worn at the heel life.

The Liepaja Stepbrothers of Latvia

The Liepaja Stepbrothers of Latvia sold old shoes and heels supports from the boot of an old Dash Rambler. The Liepaja Stepbrothers were in cahoots with the Kista Brothers of Stockholms Lan, who also sold old shoes and heel supports from the boot of their car. They were fighting with the Sibu Brothers of Sarawak over the sole right to sell old shoes and heel supports from the boots of their cars. An old man in Aurora Colorado sat on his front porch rocking, wondering if he would have a day brimming with joy and happiness. In Nottingham, far, far away, a man sat on his back stoop wondering whether the sky was really blue or just a faint bluish blue. In Tabriz Azarbayjan-e Bakhtari a man who worked for the Hamara System Tabriz Technology Company ate a boiled ham sandwich with Gibbs’ hard mustard, his face twisted and red. ‘The world is a silly, silly place’ thought the man in the hat, ‘and getting sillier by the minute’. The sky turned azure blue, a hackling of puffins crackling and whipping across the blue azure blue skycap.

‘Tomorrow I will buy a loaf of Quaker bread and a half-pound of jellied pork’ The man in the hat did his weekly shopping on Saturdays at the Seder grocer’s. He bought coffee and tea, bread, rice, potatoes and carrots, baker’s chocolate and currants, low sodium soda, orange or grape, carob yeast with the little man on the front of the box, laundry soap, jellied pork and a loaf of oven-fresh Quaker bread. When he was a boy the man in the hat liked nothing better than a boiled ham sandwich with Gibbs’ hard mustard and potato crisps. His mamma made him eat skillet-fried kidneys mashed with asparagus that hurt his throat when he swallowed. She served it with boiled onions and mace, mucked together to form a sticky paste. If he’d had his way he’d have eaten boiled ham sandwiches with Gibbs’ hard mustard for breakfast, lunch and dinner, saving a rasher for a before-bed treat or a afternoon snack. But as his dear mamma kept a stern eye on the larder morning, noon and night, he ate whatever she placed in front of him, even if it hurt when he swallowed and made him feel queasy and sick to his stomach.

Dejesus said he’d leave all his worldly goods to whoever could play ball and jacks for 27½ hours nonstop. The shamble leg man, rising to the challenge said ‘on one condition, that I’m permitted to wear my Husserl cap and go barefooted’. Dejesus, not quite understanding what the shamble leg man was on about, or what a Husserl cap was, agreed. ‘Yes, but you must ball and jack for 27½ hours without stopping or the bets off’. The shamble leg man agreed to the terms of the ball and jack and removed his shoes one loafer at a time, his socks stuck to the insoles of his shoes like calf’s tongues. The sky was full of gray rain-soaked clouds, the sun barely able to keep its head above the horizon, the air thick with flying squirrels and June bugs. ‘On your mark, get set, begin’ announced Dejesus from his dais atop the balustrade wall.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

http://www.pitt.edu/~wbcurry/nietzsche.html

Cundinamarca Coition Bros. of Bogotá

Cundinamarca Coition Bros. of Bogotá fought for control of the coition market, fighting with the Pernambuco Bros. of Jaboato and the Gleeson Bros. of Washington, who were in a fight with the Charlottetown Boys of Prince Edward Island and the Seoul Sisters of Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, who were in a torrid fight with the Newbury Aunts and Uncles of West Berkshire and the Belfast Stepsisters of Belfast, and all of them, the Coition Bros. and the Pernambuco Bros, the Gleeson Bros and the Charlottetown Boys, the Seoul Sisters of Seoul-t'ukpyolsi and the Newbury Aunts and Uncles of West Berkshire, fighting with the Liverpool Bullies of Liverpool on the Thames. Fearing a collapse of the market they banded together to form a consortium, the Coition Consortium Co. This is a Coitionary Tale, a tale told by a fool, a blackguard and a man with a monkey’s foot keychain.

‘Wait up, stop and wait up, please’ said the harridan to her sister. Her sister scurried across the street in front of the church, her knickknacks clutched under her arm. She was late for the church bazaar and feared losing her spot in the church basement. Rumor was the Cundinamarca Coition Bros. had arrived in town, they’re coition wares packed in crates and paper boxes. The Bros. were looking to rent a table for they’re coital wares. The O’ Fallon Bros. of Missouri were also in town, the O’ Fallon’s being known for their sheepskin condoms and bladder-bag coitus hats. The hats were fashioned from sheep’s bladders stitched together with tripe and steamed into fedoras and sou'westers. The Corpus Christie Boys of Eugene Oregon were on their way into town, an oxcart full of discarded bottle and tin cans weighing the oxen down like lead bullion.

Wishing Wishing Away

Some days going anywhere, being anywhere but there, wherever that may be, was a chore for the man in the hat. It might be simpler to be where one is, where one finds oneself, there, than wherever it is one thinks one should be, over there, for example, or way over there, there over there, away from here, this place here, the here and now and then. But then again being there or here, or here or there is a matter of conjecture, a matter of moving one foot in front of the other until you get wherever you’re going, over there or here, or somewhere other than the here and now and then. Wherever it was he found himself, there or here, here or there or way over there, there, the man in the hat always found himself wherever it was he was suppose to be, wherever he was going or had come and been, going and coming, being and becoming all being part of the getting there or here, here or there, away from here and there and wherever. He could imagine being there, there being Seocho Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, there, in that exact place, in the here and there, or he could imagine, conjure being over there, not Seocho Seoul-t'ukpyolsi but standing impatiently in line at the Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute waiting for his pills, his tablets and tinctures, waiting in line impatiently waiting. No matter where he was, wherever where or there or here was, he always ended up where he was going, where he was suppose to be, there, over there, there.

A prattling of gray sky popped in and out from behind a clover of clouds. The man in the hat watched the sky popping and cutting in and out, thinking as he did that the sky was an idiot, a moron, an imbecile. Such thoughts he thought often, more often than not, thinking them, the thoughts, against his better judgment and mien.

The shamble leg man had a wish, he wished he owned a shanty shack, a roiling turbid ditch of roiling turbid water running crookedly under a broken bridge, a busted up dilapidated span, a span that spanned the roiling turbid water beneath the crookedly crooked broken bridge. He wished he didn’t wish such silly things but wished them just the same. He wished he could wish away wishing, wishing it far, far away, so far away that he would never have another wish, never. But as this was unlikely, wishing away wishing, he settled for wishing for wishes that were within his grasp to wish, simple uncomplicated wishes, small ordinary not out of the ordinary wishes, small things.

Lucian Michael Freud 1922-

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/freud/

Videsh Sanchar Nigam Monkey’s Foot Keychain Ltd

The man in the hat had never been to Caracas Distrito Federal where the CANTV Servicios held a monopoly over TV and Radio, Lake City Minnesota, Princeton New Jersey where the Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research made squib’s malt whiskey and highballs, Saintes Poitou-Charentes where Mr. Lunberg ran the LUNDBERG FAMILY FARMS and was a partner in the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Monkey’s Foot Keychain Ltd, Bridgeport Connecticut, QLT UNIV OF CONNECTICUT where Doctors Scrim and Willows reintroduced the Skinnerian box to great acclaim, Saint Louis Missouri, Seocho Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, New York, New York, New York University where the air was unbreathable and people scurried round like Skinnerian rats and Santiago, Region Metropolitana.

Periwinkles and French Cuffs

I slept in the bellows of my sheets, feet jimmying arms akimbo head crushed into the pillow. Lungfish airbladders creel oil and bilge. She had a pirates-patch and a saggy left-side, from a seizure or dropsy one might have assumed. My Felliniesque morning bus ride can be a caravan of odds and ends, odd-bits and quail. I dare say, dare I, public transport can be a eyesore for sore eyes, yes indeed.

I remember skinning my knee when I was a kid and my mother daubing mercurochrome on the cut, mercurochrome redder than blood. Bandaging was done in the quiet of the toilet where my dear mother swaddled my knee in a torn shirt sleeve, one of my dad’s work-shirts, a white one with periwinkle dots and French cuffs.

It’s colder than a coffin-maker’s lunch, my bedroom window, the very one from which I espy the world, rimed with hoarfrost. My plants over my bedstead bed are wilted and sorrowed, poor sots. Skinned knees daubed with mercurochrome, periwinkle dots and French cuffs redder than blood.