Now to the Brocken

Emmen Drenthe rode into town on the back of an ox, his cart, unfastening from the camper-hitch, rearing down the embankment into a hollow of Fagaceae Quercus velutina. The Stip sisters (of Makedonski Stip) are in cahoots with the Ashdod HaMerkaz sisters who, unbeknown to the Stip sisters, are in cahoots with the Xaltianguis Guerrero women’s auxiliary, known for they’re ferocious dislike for bumblers and halfwits. On the back oh her skull, in bold plain lettering was written,

Witches (in chorus)

Now to the Brocken the witches hie,

The stubble is yellow, the corn is green;

Thither the gathering legions fly,

And sitting aloft is Sir Urian seen:

O`er stick and o`er stone they go whirling along,

Witches and he - goats, a motley throng,

Voices

Alone old Baubo`s coming now;

She rides upon a farrow sow.

Astrid Reeperbahn and Émile Louis Alphonse, sea captain, met Félix Roblès Fénéon and Dujardin Édouard at the second annual Octillion of the Chorus of the Goat. Fionnula, know for her sparkling voice, sang Oude to the Torreon Goat, finishing with an homage to Milton Stock, adman and worldly philanthropist. Jeungpyeong Ch'ungch'ong-bukto played the double-reed oboe, having pawned her single-reed one earlier in the week. ‘…I say, the chorus has a screw loose…’ stuttered a bald headed man in a green and gold raincoat. ‘…what a motley throng...’ added a man in a red and blue raincoat.. ‘...and in muddy rubbers...’ said the bald headed man. ‘…muddy indeed…’.

What a Fool Thou Art

Magdalene came from the Fenland between Danube and Ó Danachair ‘…such a beautiful day…’ she spruik, the corners of her mouth curling upwards. The last pig to pass, its rider pulling hard on the reins, had a ring in its snout. Snorting, the pig bucked to and fro, weakening under the weight of its rider. ‘…stop that pig…’ hollered a man, his head tilting sideways. ‘…it’ll make a mess, mark my words…’. Urdorf Aargau rode the fattest pig, a sow with black and white splotches on its belly; Obregon Sonora the littlest, a rundle piglet with a sharp capstan snout. ‘…for fuck sake …’ said Urdorf Aargau, ‘…will this cur ever stop fucking bucking…?’ On the underbelly of the sow was written “that thou art a mighty great chatterer, and that with a blunt wit thou art always striving at sharpness; but to show thee what a fool thou art and how rational I am, I would have thee listen to a short story…” Obregon Sonora, kicking his heels into the side of his pig exclaimed ‘…man is but a fool, it’s the pig that knows the truth…’.

[1] CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de, Novela de Rinconete y Cortadillo, Deutscher Taschenbu

Getafe Petcock

Getafe Petcock grew up in a family of malcontents from New Madrid, his great grandmamma never once saying gazoontite or God bless when she sneezed or honked her drupaceous nose. ‘Getafe with him one could dare something Big , or…’ God bless Petcock, may he come to Big things in this life. The Maracay Aragua women’s auxiliary sold 25 peacock feather hatbands, 4 leucosis chickens (retrovirus Avian Sarcoma) 32 septum’s, a tincture of bees’ pollen and 27 ½ beautifully coloured daisy hatpins. The Witness, having witnessed a man riding on the back of a pig said ‘…by jive, what a strange sight indeed…’. It was the day before the Feast of Alexander and the streets we a litter with pigs and men, some riding atop, a gay sight indeed, others rousting them with good hard whacks to the pork-belly, hide and fur corkscrewing into the street. Out of the corner of his eye Getafe Petcock espied a man whacking a pig, the pig bucking wildly. ‘…hey you there, leave that poor pig be, you’ll surely hide him to death…’. Not bothering to look, his face blued with anger and bile, the man said ‘…leave be you say…I’ll show you leave be…’ and with that gave the pig a good hard whack, the pig bending at the knees and collapsing to the asphalt snorting. ‘…I’ll have the rector’s assistant on your ass before you can say Jimmy crack corn, you stupid man you…’ shouted Getafe Petcock blinded with rage. The pig, foaled into a birthing crouch, its snorting piercing the man’s temper with piggish contempt, slid over onto its belly and fell dead, the man behind, riding atop his pig smiling gleefully, whispering into the sow’s ear ‘...that one’d make a fine purse, big enough for any women’s oddities...’.

Felix Günther Jumped

‘…a vicaire or a mongoose…’ said the Witness, ‘…or a bowlful of rectory stew, I’m damned famished…’. The touché-chef at the Moulineaux Café makes the most inspired Haute-Normandie soufflé, flambéed in 27½ year-old cognac and over-ripe cherries. All who taste his gastronomic delight, and there are many, fall crestfallen to the floor in the knowledge that they’re in the presence of a master who’s culinary skills are far superior to your run-of-the-mill fry-cook’s mash and rashers. ‘…I’ll have a fish cake and a pint of Paddy’s, and step on it before I loose consciousness…’ bellowed the Witness, the woman seated next to him overcome with fright. The touché-chef makes a sumptuous chocolaty Brauschweig pudding, sifting Mijolla icing sugar on top and finishing it off with a dollop of fresh-whipped cream.

At the corner of Czacki and Mickiewicz Streets Felix Günther jumped out of his Landau and into the day, his satchel clutched life a newborn calf under his arm. The Maracay Aragua women’s auxiliary were putting on their yearly bazaar, setting out tablefuls of knickknacks and oddities in the parking lot behind the pump house vestibular. Felix Günther made a special trip to the settlement every year, arriving the opening day hoping to purloin some long-lost oddity, haggling with a half-blind vendor or a cheating a slow-witted artisan out of a bejewelled antique hatbox. ‘…su infinita...’ said a woman in an lavender coat, the sun having reached its noontime peak. ‘…viene el juego con las putas, mi estimado hombre…’. That afternoon the woman’s auxiliary brought in $270.00, the bazaar considered a smashing success. (Odintsov Kaliningrad, what an odd name).

The Price of Fish

Ignácio Escritor fell from a height so high his neck wrapped round his waistband like a loose belt, his life coming to an unexpected end. He left behind his parents, three chickens and his pig Armando, who was fostered out to the Esquito family, the youngest son having always wanted a pet pig. Of course this is a lie: nothing of the sort ever happened, its all magic, slight of hand, fiddle-addle.

He walked from the Antinomianist’s compound, in a thicket behind the house where Kallisto sisters, Oreias and Erinyes were born, past where Dr. Sickly, of the Herstal Liege pantomime troop lived with his great-grandmamma, where he learned how to connive and cast unnerving spells, to a village on the outskirts of Pradesh, a crow’s throw from Wetenschap en Kunst where Hyderabad and his brother Andhra grew up, bypassing the home of Simon Drogue, animal tender, to the very outskirts of Falmouth Antalya (Antalya's), Kiev, a postcard-size village inhabited by a clan of hirsute dogmen known as the Kyyivs'ka Oblast's, to just beyond the five-mile fence where Riyadh Ar Riyad, coke oven stoker, lived with his mamma and poppa, not once stopping to slake his thirst or rest his weary feet.

After a night on the turps, spent discussing the price of fish and hiccups, he left for places he’d thought he’d once been, far away places where people spoke in tongues, where the sun rose in the evenings, the moon at the crack of dawn, places he’d dreamed about, rash and unkindly places, swell jolly places where no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t make a person frown, here and there, places far and wide, but never where he was suppose to go, never there. ‘…if you want my advice you should stay where you are…’ said a woman in a lavender coat. ‘…why go anywhere except there…?’ The woman, on her way to Gteborg Vastra Gotaland where she’d heard there was a firesale on women’s evening attire, smiled and went here way, never once asking about the price of fish or hiccupping.

He fell from a height so high, feet swimming madly, arms swiping pockets of air, his belt wrapped round his neck like a hangman’s O. His life came to an end, leaving behind a chicken, a dog and enough fear to fill a fright-night movie hall. His mamma and poppa gave his dog to a boy, thinking ‘…dogs are man’s worst friend, all that pissing and scratching…’.

Los Guante Putas Asesinas

With nothing to loose he lost everything. Los Guante Putas Asesinas was the name given to the first whore’s glove cut, sewn and tailored by the Vincennes Glove Co., going back some 27½ years to a time when well-tailored women’s apparel was an art practiced by a handful of highly-trained esteemed haberdashers. The glove, thereafter referred to as Los Putas Guante, Asesinas being removed for marketing purposes as it conjured up images of wholesale barberry and cudgel-fighting, was a popular accessory among the rich and up-and-coming, oftentimes referred to as the hoity-toity. In San Carlos De Bariloche, where Los Guante Putas is considered an invaluable addition to a woman’s evening attire, the Rio Negro Couture Co. carry a wide variety of putas gloves, offering them in kid-leather, calfskin, goatskin and emu, and ranging in colour from red, highly coveted by dames and courtesans, adding a contrast to their oft times black evening attire, Prussian blue, known for its vibrant oceanic appeal, browns, off-white and the traditional black, worn by woman of leisure and limited intelligence, often referred to as black-mailers and no good so-and-so’s, many a man left broken-hearted and penniless, having lost at love and simple arithmetic.

Gabrielle Émilie Le Sommelier de Creteil

Oh my goodness me what a gray mottled day, and with no lightness in sight. Gabrielle Émilie Le Sommelier de Creteil (also known as Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil) daughter of the lamplighter, sees the world upside down, rejecting a right-side-up view of things. O velho Incinérez lives with the chickens in the cattle-shed behind O Palácio do Cão, the cattle having died off in O Praga do Injusto of 1928. Skopje Karpos, the farmhand Skopje Karpos, lives in the next shed, the one used for stowing gardening tools and whetting. The farmhand Skopje Karpos was hired to care for the ailing cattle and dispose of those that had succumbed to O Praga do Injusto, the lamplighter having a fear of carrion and flies, his daughter, Gabrielle Émilie Le Sommelier de Creteil (also known as Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil), seeing no harm in having a strange man around as long as he kept his hands to himself and took a weekly bath.

Coetaneous to the arrival of Skopje Karpos, the farmhand Skopje Karpos, was the arrival of the dogmen, from the littlest to the biggest, from the most foul-mouthed to the most insidious. Dogmen had been known to travel beyond the five-mile fence in search of eels, other times looking for a punch-up or a free-for-all. The dogmen traveled by oxcart, carrying whatever they owned, which was measly, in old wooden apple boxes piled one on top of the other like stacked bodies. Before they arrived in town, setting up their dogmen compound behind the Waymart behind the aqueduct, where they eeled for eels and stole whatever they could get their hands on, they lived, the dogmen lived, inside the five-mile fence at the edge of the cattle-gate across from the cattle-shed where Skopje Karpos, the farmhand Skopje Karpos, lived with the chickens and rats, the rats having arrived the day of O Praga do Injusto of 1928, jumping scow and finding refuge and a bellyful of rotting cattle ashore.

Coetaneous to they’re arrival was the arrival of the Narrow Masons, with whom the dogmen had once shared a small plot of land 27½ miles to the north of the five-mile fence, neither party getting along with the other, the Narrow Masons moving on to the south where they established a settlement and opened a small haberdashery specialising in women’s undergarments and whores’ gloves, the latter selling well until the Vincennes Glove Co. cornered the market, forcing them to close shop and search out alternatives to whore tailoring.

The Morning the Day Before

In Belize City Belize, as in Sdertlje Stockholms Lan and Navurevure Central people run about half-clothed yanking on the tips of their ears. Of course, and within reason, slow-wittedness and unhurried thoughts run backwards, people seldom meaning what they say or saying what they mean, the world whizzing by like an aft-thrown rock. In the beginning the beginning begun again and again until everything beginning began again, a second, third thousandth time ad nausea. He fret like a well-strummed guitar, the pads of his fingers picked raw, his chin elbowed into his shoulder, the strings of his heart worn thin and frayed. ‘…for the love of Job all I’m asking is for a leg up, please…’. ‘…basso-bocce…’ said the legless man, ‘…for the love of Job get on with it…’.

The Staffordshire sisters of Lichfield are in ca·hoots with the Daugavpils Sisters of Daugavpils’, neither sisters having a particular fondness for jack the ball or pinochle. On Thursdays and Tuesdays both the Staffordshire’s and the Daugavpils’ sisters play ring-around-the-maypole, the littlest Staffordshire sister calling out the count. When she tires the biggest Daugavpils sisters takes over, counting backwards from one-thousand to one-hundred-and-one thousand, stopping only to clear her throat and hock up a razor of spit, her stomach having turned sour grapes from calling out the count backwards. ‘…fuck the maypole…’ says the littlest dogman sitting hunkered in the hedgerow, ‘…for the love of Job please…’.

That morning, or the day before, the man in the hat left his lean-to in search of Dejesus who he was to meet behind the Waymart at 27½ passed the hour to discuss gloving and mischief making, whoring and double-crossing. Skipping, jollily, he made his way down the upside, his hat firmly tamped on the crown of his head, his brown calfskin satchel swinging at his side, the sky bluer than blueberries in July. Stopping, suddenly, his satchel swaging, his trousers milky with road dust and salt, his eye catches sight of a most magnificent ham tied in cheesecloth and hanging from a butcher’s hook. ‘…ah a most delectable ham indeed, and fit for a king …’. Drooling, his eyes focusing on the delectable cottage ham, his satchel now at rest against his trouser leg, he says ‘…for the love of Job, but for a morsel of knuckle…’.

Ignácio Escritor

Suddenly, and then a second time, the sky shook. Clambering, the legless man punted across the sideways, his pushcart barely touching the cobbles. ‘….what a windy day, and no windlasses in sight…’ said the legless man, his brow tightening under his hatband. The wind picked up, squalling the legless man to and fro, sending him arse over teakettle. ‘…tomorrow I will buy a big umbrella and scotch it to the prow of my cart…’ he said, his face twisted into a robber baron’s fist. Across the sideways, standing against the door of the Greek Deli, the alms man counts the coins in his cap, 25 nickels and 27 ½ coppers, one copper having been sliced in half by a southbound train, railhead and wheel scored into the face-side. The alms man, expressing a desire for some beverage to drink, walks into the Greek Deli, the screen door snapping shut behind him.

Looking around he says ‘…there are desperadoes who terrorize pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head…’. ‘…yes, we have skin the goat at cutthroat prices…’ says the proprietor, his face beaming. The wind picked up a second time, sending the legless man caroming and veering out of control, his pushcart almost breaking in half. Stepping over a blind beggar, his jacket twisted around his throat like a cheap ascot, the alms man pats his trouser, feeling for vassals, vassals being a rare find even in the most auspicious of times. ‘…you there, give me a leg up…’ grabbles the blind beggar, the legless man watching on with bemusement. ‘…a leg up is all I need…’ said the beggar gasping for air.

Ignácio Escritor grew up among the rabble and dimwitted of Tranent East Lothian, a place of horrendous afflictions, some so unspeakable even the most seasoned doctor vomits in his hat. Ignácio’s mamma and papa, both afflicted with an insidious affliction, the skin between they’re fingers and toes webbed together, were unable to hold they’re son, his care being given over to the town’s whore, whose milk ran from her breasts like water from an open fire hydrant, children jumping in and out of the watery swale singing and reciting childish rhymes. ‘…this is utter nonsense…’ grumbled the man in the hat under his breath. ‘…shame on you…’. The man in the hat juddered up the sideways, his hat jiggling on the crown of his head. ‘…for the love of God have you no manners…?’ he shouted basso-bocce.

Howard Keating and Peter Roark

The morning came and went like rainwater off a mallard’s back, the rainsoaked sky furrowed with big white sheep’s clouds, harbingers of restless nights and troubled dreams. The man in the hat stopped for a cola at Rennes’ Texaco just off the beaten road not far from the centre of town. The gas attendant, a morose boy with uneven teeth held the door ajar, inviting the man in the hat to enter, which he did, entering to the left of the boy, the boy’s moroseness mingling with the smell of gasoline and spilt oil. ‘…over there…’ said the boy pointing. ‘…where what…? asked the man in the hat, his brow tightening. ‘…cola, we got’s bottles in the back but on account of the door being busted I can’t get at ‘em…’. ‘…oh…’ said the man in the hat, ‘…thank you, I’ll take a tinned one then please…’. The morose boy sidled up to the ice chest and retrieved a lukewarm tin of cola, and handing it to the man in the hat said ‘…that’ll be 25 cents, cheaper on account of there’s no refund on tins…’.

Howard Keating and Peter Roark own Rennes’ Texaco, Keating having inherited the business from his great-granddad Jessop Keating, whoremonger. Wanting nothing to do with the business, as both Keating and Roark have better things to occupy they’re time with, they employ a morose uneven toothed boy to manage the day to day operations. The man in the hat, unaware of the boy’s diffuse nature, buys the tin of cola and roughhouses it out the spring-loaded door, the uneven toothed boy waving morosely goodbye. Whoremongering aside it was a fine day, a day to throw prudence to the wind. She has a pockmarked face, Highland dirks running across the bridge of her nose and into the splint of her chin, tea-coloured teeth broken off at the gumline, pustule lips and a crooked smile that defies physiological description.

He kissed her hard on the lips, his eyes pressed tight into the ceiling of his skull. Her breath summoning up harsh beatings and falls from high places. He found a longsheet of foolscap on which was penned, in a neat unordered hand, the following, ‘Wen ewe thinc aboout it, using a horsis hede, a decapitated hede, shorn frum its pulpit an strung up in a toolshed whair it ripens and ages immaterialle, ewe’d thinc thair wuz sumthing unfitting aboout it all: all this trawma; all this behedeing an decapitashun. An tha fisharmen with his streng and tyine; harnassing up tha horsis hede inordar to throw in inta tha brown streem an sniggle fer eels’.

Ulrich Grossmünster and Jürgen Pécs

Ulrich Grossmünster of rue Sacile 27½ Friuli-Venezia Giulia is known for his collection of casa de la puta antiquities, gloves and garters, la ropa prostituta (you smarmy so-and-so!). …standing, arms akimbo, staring into the yellow fire of the sun, an oyster of spit gerrymandering his chinbone. Never once standing down or kneeling in supplication he took a stand, his proud face pushed like metro rider into the splicing yellow sun. ‘…las putas tienen hambre…’ said Ulrich, the corners of his mouth dropping. ‘…las antigüedades son seguras, ocultado en la casa de putas…’. The Masons would have none of this, claiming the rights to las antigüedades puta. Impetuous fools, scoundrels, the Masons had little time for cold-hearted conmen. The following day at 27½ past the noontime the alms man retraced his steps, stopping only to slake his thirst and redouble where he’d just stepped.

Jürgen Pécs, wholesale women’s apparel manufacturer, István Brunkhorst, a corporate gadfly with unsavoury connections to cutthroat buyers, some of whom carry hipflasks of plum brandy for those cold unyielding nights when one finds oneself lost outside the five-mile fence, Hauke Brandom, proprietor of the Hauk Bullhorn Co., Jolán Lutz Wingert, small-time crook, and Vattimo Von Weltbildern, statesman, are all in cahoots with one another, Ulrich Grossmünster having introduced each to the other. The Colchester Essex Sisters and the Oban Argyll Sisters are in cahoots with the Bute Crawley Sisters of West Sussex who are in cahoots with the Daugavpils Sisters of Daugavpils’. The two, the sisters and those brought together by Ulrich Grossmünster, sharing little in common except they’re love of cahoots (you impetuous fool, no one gives a shite about who’s in cahoots with whom; such small-minded dross… you are a smarmy so-and-so, yours untruly, the reader).

Appestat Curvier, Sommelier

The sommelier for the Ramos Bros., Appestat Curvier, knew the man in the hat and the harridan, having met them in the basement of the Church of the Impetuous Sinner in 1978, both parties, the man in the hat and the harridan having arriving together, and as such constituting a party, and Appestat Curvier, who was there on behalf of the Ramos Bros., makers of rare cork wine, sharing a fondness for dories and Pop-siècle. ‘…if there’s one thing I can’t stand its that…’ said the harridan pointing at a man walking a dog, the dog yanking toothsomely on the owners pant leg. ‘…quite the spectacle…’ said the man in the hat, ‘…toothsome…’ added the harridan, the dog yanking and tugging.

The Nova Bana sommeliers and the Nitra Parow sommeliers are in cahoots with the Western Cape sommeliers who are in cahoots with the Estoril Lisboa sommeliers, a sommeliers’ couturier. Appestat Curvier, sommelier for the Ramos Bros., purveyors of rare cork vins, claims to know the whereabouts of a couturier of whores’ gloves, the whereabouts somewhere one would be least inclined to ferret.

He could recall a time when the blue sky wasn’t blue above his head, flapping like a blue sheet on his grandmamma’s clothesline, there above his head where he last saw it the day before. The day before yesterday, the sky exactly where it was the day before the day before yesterday, he wrote a letter to Elisa Oyj, a seamstress for the Vincennes Glove and Scarf Company with whom he was keeping an ongoing correspondence. ‘My dearest Elisa, the sky was blue yesterday, bluer than dahlias and butterfly wings, so blue one can’t distinguish it from the bluest sea or the bluest ocean’. To which Elisa Oyj replied, ‘Go fuck yourself you smarmy cunt!’

‘Sounds are impostures’ read the sign over the Masons’ door. ‘Please remove your wetgoods before entering’. The South Ossetia Bros. came by way of there. With them they brought a haberdashery of men’s and women’s clothing piled waist-high in their rickety oxcart, the oxen snorting and hoofing the dirt. The South Ossetia Bros. arrived the day before the Feast of the Great Annunciation, a nonsectarian feast held in the basement of the Church of the Impetuous Fool under the auspice of the Feast of the Lamb, which is held every year under the auspice of the Feast of Saint Impious, so named in honor of the Feast of the Impetuous Fool, the feast to end all feasts.

Coober’s Rye Whiskey

Rolling out the barrel he felt a stitch in his neck, his collarbone chipped at the free-end, the end closest to his sternum. His breastplate crackled and wheezed with each step, pulling him off-centre and a smidgen to the right. His left ankle snapped sideways when he lifted his right leg, his left dragging behind like a laggard child. Walking was not an easy affair, his left foot wanting to skip, his right swing round in an oblong circle, toes pointed inwards.

Malachi Mutagen and Alpert Koževnikov met at Fife’s Penny Laundry in Saint Andrews, Mutagen having taken the train from London by way of Malacca (Newer Bersejarah, as it is referred to by its townsfolk) Koževnikov on foot. In his day-pack Malachi Mutagen toted a plastic dish of rank olives, three two-day-old rolls and a bottle of Looter’s Gin; Alpert Koževnikov, in a carryall slung over his shoulder, a packet of rye crisps, two three-day-old plums, bluish and covered in a hirsute mold, and a hipflask of Coober’s Rye Whiskey, both men carrying a penknife, Malachi’s, whalebone and corset wire, Koževnikov’s, a simple goat shearer’s half-blade.

On the way Alpert Koževnikov ran into a dwarf, his head barely visible, bobbing, from behind the shrubs that ran alongside the road. The dwarf’s chest spread out from beneath his arms like a barrel, his shirt stained through with sweat and spat pips. In his arms he carried a watermelon, his eyes double-crossed staring at a fly on his chest.

He had a choice between sodium caseinate, dipotassium phosphate, sugar, artificial colour, mono and diglycerides, carrageenan, soy lecithin, artificial flavours, rats’ asses, zithers, monorail grease, machinist’s oil, gummy white crap, salver, parturition sweat, an old sweater with tattered cuffs, pre-seminal fluid, a snippet of cocks’ wattle, a cockscomb brushed flat, protein, penicillin or uppers. Pulling the old sweater with tattered cuffs over his head he walked out in a huff, the others choosing soybean oil, parturition sweat and zithers. ‘…La Reina Loca, si los habitats…’ said the dwarf. Los Centre Paray de Aberystwyth and the Ceredigion Glue Co. are in cahoots with the Altrincham Underwriters and the Dadeh Sistan va Baluchestan Bros. of Cheshire. The notice read ‘Mr. Fine and Mr. Alekhine are scheduled to play at 9;27 pm this evening at the Dorsey Pharmacy and Co-op, seating is limited so please arrive early’.

The Mullach Íde Women’s Auxiliary

Every May civic holiday the Mullach Íde Women’s Auxiliary put on a puppet show in the basement of the Church of the Perpetual Sinner. The assistant to the rector’s assistant, Rolf Moquegua, is in charge of the puppet castle, built from bald timber and scraps of cardboard scavenged from the dustbins behind the Waymart. The man in the hat, the harridan and her sister attend the Mayday celebration, enjoying the colourful costumes and slight-of-hand of the puppeteers, the assistant to the assistant, Rolf Moquegua, ensuring they have a good view of the castle courtyard and the balcony, both of which are fashioned from crate-paper and white bed linen. The following May, after the Catechesis of the Fox, the Mullach Íde Women’s Auxiliary put on a Gastēr-manteia Koldtbord under the auspice of the Sisters of the Above, renting the garden of the Steeple of the Redeemer across from the Waymart.

The rector’s assistant pilfered biscuits from the Friar’s Tuckshop, the pantry friar up in arms over such an unholy act of mortal desecration. The following May, after the Gastēr-manteia Koldtbord, Rolf Moquegua confronted the rector’s assistant, regaling him with recipes for milktoast biscuits and decrying acts of indecency and burglary. The following June, after a Mayday that seemed to go on and on, the rector’s assistant resigned his friary, leaving the sanctity of the Church of the Perpetual Sinner forever.

‘…these are strange times…’ thought the man in the hat, ‘…and getting stranger by the minute…’ added the alms man, his cap turned inside out. ‘…its getting that an honest man can’t get an honest days’ work…’ cursed the man in the hat. ‘…and an honest answer…’ said the alms man, ‘…that, too…’ added the man in the hat, his hat turned outside in. ‘…and that coxswain, he’s a charmer…’ said the alms man damningly. ‘…not a word of a lie…’ added the man in the hat, ‘…and a damn sight uglier…’ said the alms man begrudgingly, as he had held the office of the ugliest townsperson before the coxswain arrived sailing into town. ‘…uglier than a pork chop whore...’ added the man in the hat, ‘…that, too…’ said the alms man, his hat having blown clear off his head fluttering down the street. Both men, at odds with all things even, went their separate ways, the man in the hat toward the Waymart, where he was to meet the harridan’s sister, the alms man in the direction of the Greek Deli, where he’d heard the proprietor was giving away rank olives and two-day-old rolls.

Dropped Anchor in Rokovoko

….this must stop, playing jack the ball and all the while introducing new characters at will. Shame on you, shame. A stick to the eye, into the ‘i’, shame on you, shame. He liked to play jack the ball with his granddad, whooping and hollering when his granddad dropped a stitch or fell toppling to the bric-a-brac floor. That evening, beneath cloak and hide, he stole away, leaving behind a Quaker’s dozen and a bowlful of dower grapes! The Mercury Fish van fishtailing into the kerbside, a ricking heehaw. …plain and simper, ah mien.

Unbeknown he slipped silently into the night, his face pressed into the slick yellow moon. He stopped briefly in Aravaca for a soda, which he enjoyed under the Jerks’ awning, moving on to Madrid where he partook of a bullfight and paid a visit to the Ladies’ Auxiliary, then stopping in Paitilla where he purchased a straw Panama hat with a chin-string and whistle. The coxswain pulled his cap over the flimsy cartilage of his ears, cinching it taut with a well-tied knot. One was best served if one paid attention to one’s dome, as kingfishers were known to seek shelter in the swales. ‘…not what you’d call a coxswain’s free-for-all…’. Unbeknown he slipped into the mess in search of jig-rum and press dumplings, both of which he had a fancy for on cold dew-wet nights such as these. ‘…ahoy you there dumpling thief, put that jigger down…’. There would be lieutenants punishment to be had were one to step astride the watery grave. His da told him the coxswain’s tail on those nights when the lamplighter was off sick, not one bull-lamp flickering against the slick yellow moon.

Malcolm came (ant wend) with the ebbing tyres, stopping just long enough to refill his gaol bag with jigs-rum and sweetbreads. The seafaring called him a-vestry, stoking the coal-oven, a jolly smirk on his face. His da knew Malcolm when as lads they both went faring to sea, his da aboard the Jim Dandy, Malcolm rigging Her Majesty’s skiff with brass tack and Queequeg. Faring seaworthy fairly they dropped anchor in Rokovoko, hoping to slake their thirst, but alas, they came up unslaked, finding the sea under their arses again, the slick yellow moon baying madly mad.

Féasta a Chaitheamh Gabhaireoil

(Quimper Bretagne Bergen Hordaland Fiscal the juggler was from Sint-Katelijne-Waver, a small potash mining town outside Antwerp, Hog school Visor, an accomplished tightrope walker, came from Waterscape en Kent where he worked as a dockhand before joining the Horsetail Liege pantomime troop, and Hyderabad and his brother Andhra grew up in a village on the outskirts of Pradesh, a region known for its red russet red apples and shapely women). He stands astride the grave sighing lowly ‘…why can’t I sleep…’ he sighs, ‘…I’ve had better days, boyhood days spent catching bees in a peanut butter jar, spearing frogs with a bow and quiver, peck and pluck days…’.

The man in the hat imagined big headed people and littler headed people, oftentimes confusing the one from the other. When he was a boy his mamma told he’d been blessed with a very special gift, an imagination. His mamma, not being of sound wits, figured her son could get whatever he wanted as long as he used his imagination: the more he imagined the bigger he grew, until he grew bigger then littler than littler, all the while growing no more than a few inches a year. He grew bigger than a Huancayo bandit, as he had a particular fondness for bandits, having read about them in comic books and in the circulars he found stuffed into his parent’s mailbox every Thursday without fail, then into a Junin carpet-layer, carpet-layers being littler than Huancayo bandits but bigger Aldershot Hampshire coopers, who were bigger than the circular bandits but littler than the ones he read about in comic books.

That summer an Féasta a Chaitheamh Gabhaireoil was held in the church basement, the Hunters Table adorned with nosegays, Daffodils and Dahlias, Chrysanthemums and Slipperwort, Yellow Lady’s and Cypripedium Alveolus’, the women’s auxiliary preparing everything the day before, the rector’s assistant standing cross-armed between the closet and the Deacon’s step-up taking in the succulent display of churchly goodies.

Inanna pulls her hair back so tight her eyebrows recede into her forehead. Inanna studied pickling under Hubert Ibrăileanu, a much revered Narodnik from Narodnaya Volya who had a distain for bawlers and hoodwinkers. She was tutored in the gastronomic arts, learning how to butter wax paper and poach toadfish; the latter her specialty, the former a much regretted staple, nonetheless one she need to learn how to do without turning the egg white into rubbery pap. Bruttium O’Casey of Portadown Craigavon likes his toadfish over-easy, foregoing the unprincipled Principia Gastronomica of poached and coddled food.

Johann Magdalene’s Brother

A windstorm kicked up, sending dustbins whirling, dogs flying and cats soaring. Sitting cross-legged on the kerbside the alms man checked his watch, 27½ past 19 past eleven. At 28 past 20 past 19 he unbuckled his watchstrap and tossed his watch into the dustbin, time having an strange way of impressing order on order. The wind blew and blew, the alms man cursing ‘…damn you sky, damn you…!’ ‘…now then now stop that infernal banging…’ plead a man in a Macintosh and baggy trousers, his lower lip protruding. ‘…yes, that’ll be quite enough…’ said the alms man, wishing to build an alliance with the baggy-panted man. Both men visibly upset with the ruffians and kooks marching three abreast along the sideways, the ruffian at the front throwing his chest out like a mating bird, looked at one another and frowned; the baggy trouser man’s lip protruding below the knob of his chin, on which sprouts a single grey hair. Johann Magdalene’s brother hasn’t slept in two years. Schlafes Bruder, as he his known, stands in front of the Waymart waiting for the sky to fall, unable to move a muscle or close his eyes, he stares into the blue oceanic sky silently waiting, the townsfolk making faces and casting aspersions on him. ‘…hey dumdum, what time is it…?’, or, ‘…how can you possibly stand on those chicken-legs of yours…?’.

Jorge Luis Borges: The Mirror Man - 1/6

Una Muestra Sobre el Artista Burgalés

…{he found} the man in the hat found a scrap of foolscap on which was written the following, ‘Poetry is the short-circuiting of meaning between words, the impetuous regeneration of primordial myth’.[1] Unsure what to do with it he folded the paper in four and placed it back on the bench where he found it, thinking as he did, ‘…surely an impetuous regeneration is no worse than kick in the teeth…’. The man in the hat strummed the tin-reed with his thumb, his da cursing ‘…take that damn thing out of your mouth, not in this house you won’t...’. He placed his shiny new Jew’s harp on the chair next to his grandmamma, her legs frowned into bows, and watched his da scraping out his cob, mealworms of charred tobacco falling onto his lap, no one caring whether he was happy or sad.

The skié felle balkars back inrô the night, tripang on its own monceau skirt. Everything that falls was once unfallen, he thought to himself. His head ached like a sprained ankle, the bruise taking up ¾ of his face. The last time his da hoofed him in the back of the head he fell over flat onto his back, his spine tingling like bleached cod. His da had no patience for complainers, saying a man does what a man does not a cause he wants to, but on account of its what he has to do, plain and simple. Kicking people in the head was his da’s way of making a point, whether the kicked head needed it or not. He figured his da had had a poorly childhood on account of his own da used to kick him in the head for sassing, and his ma having the curse more often than not, laying the blame on his da for pushing too hard and squeezing her against the headboard so an she couldn’t catch her breath much.

His da had a dog with a crooked tail that slept in the woolshed behind the house, the dog blinder than a cave of bats. His da had a temper meaner than a cut sow or a wild dog. Thinking back over those days, some so long they seemed like weeks, the man in the hat felt smaller than his ma’s dry period. Days as long as weeks, his granddad pulling crud radishes out of the back garden, his palms scored with dirt, his grandmamma, her skirts choppy with cow piss, pealing leafs away from brown cabbage, the sky threatening no rain. Hurricane season came late that summer (El director del Instituto de la Lengua, Gonzalo Santonja, destacó además la organización para finales de año de una muestra sobre el artista burgalés Modesto Ciruelos visto por José Hierro, Eugenio D´Ors y Camilo José Cela). His da paid the washerwoman 25 cents an hour to clean the woolshed, the dog having shit all over the sawdusting.

[1] Bruno Schulz, "Mityzacja rzeczywistosci", Republika marzen. Warszawa: Chimera, 1993: 49-50, Translated by John M. Bates

Sigmund Freud - 6 May 1856

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Freud/Dreams/dreams.pdf

The Glaswegian Doctor G. J. Finucane

.‘…I’ve had enough of this gobbledygook…’ said the man in the hat. Crossing the curbside he hightailed it eastward scurrying. All he wanted was a moment’s rest, sprawled out under a long-winded elm on the banks of the aqueduct counting fish in a barrel, the day reeling off into the distance. His grandmamma made him wear a starched shirt to Mass, lest father what’s-his-name scold him for poor hygiene and sloppy attire. He felt a burning at the base of his head, next to the fourth and seventh vertebra abutting the pineal gland. He jabbed his fingertips into the bone-hinge at the foot of his jaw, ‘...I have the jawbone of an ass....’.

Dejesus was either leaving or coming. He left, returning when he had nothing left to stay for. Staying, he felt his way round, touching the inside out of things, walking shoulder to shoulder with the sky into the blue grave of the sea, leaving behind the child that never went further than the back fence, sitting in the tire-swing behind the woolshed, feeling the inside pushing out, the moon gently sighing, his ma kissing his forehead, gently, softly, forever.

The Glaswegian Doctor G. J. Finucane, P.C. M'Coy and Patrick Elpenor approached from the east, crossing the bridge where the five-mile fence spans the aqueduct. P.C. M'Coy, from Schifferstadt, a agrarian green nook that sits snugly between Rheinland-Pfalz and the Hero Distillery, looking over her shoulder said ‘…a fine day indeed…’, to which Patrick Elpenor, a member in good standing with the Högskola Commoners Society, replied ‘…yes indeed yes…’, the Glaswegian Doctor G. J. Finucane, who’s spinster mother paid for his schooling with open legs, adding ‘…and lowly hot…’.

Sigur Ros - Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa

Novela de Rinconete y Cortadillo

Horton Foot, headmaster of Clongowes Grammar School wears his hair gathered into a topknot. Before coming to Clongowes he was the assistant headmaster at Esslingen Middle school and the Dunning Perth College for Advanced Savantism in Kinross. Every morning before class headmaster Foot reads aloud from Novela de Rinconete y Cortadillo,

"…he would not deserve, for mere pimping, to row in the galleys, but rather to command and be admiral of them; for the office of pimp is no ordinary one, being the office of persons of discretion, one very necessary in a well-ordered state…”.[1] Moisel, a soft-skinned boy who sat at the head of the class raised his hand and said ‘…my da knows a pimp who’s always belly-aching about getting short-changed and fucked over...’. To this headmaster Foot replied ‘…a cheats a cheat my boy, there’s no two ways about it…’. The soft-skinned boy looked at the headmaster Foot and said ‘…but sir, to fuck-over someone is a sin…?’. ‘…not if he’s got a lay on the land…’ the headmaster Foot snickered, ‘…and a topknot where a bottom-knot should be…’. Moisel joined in the class as they sang glory be to the Walpurgis Night,

Now to the Brocken the witches ride;

The stubble is gold and the corn is green;

There is the carnival crew to be seen,

And Squire Urianus will come to preside.

So over the valleys our company floats,

With witches a-farting on stinking old goats.

‘…you’re voices are atrocious…!’ bellowed the headmaster Foot, ‘…stop before the windows shatter, you heathen imps …’. Rennes Bretagne and Clorox Cazeaux stood facing the buttress, never to be seen or heard from again. The Bretagne’s and Cazeaux’ have no place among proper soul-bounded people. ‘…off with they’re feet…’ hollered Moisel, his voice deeper than well brick. Agog, Horton Foot, headmaster, left his place at the front of the class and hightailed it out the door, never to be heard from again (however he was seen skulking, his feet threaded with onion sores).

Upon waking, his back stitched with pain, that alms man fingered the blacktop in search of his cap. His head swarming, he couldn’t make hide or tail of where he’d placed his cap, the coldness having laid waste to his collarbone and outside hip. That afternoon he knocked into Tyrone Lothrop behind the aqueduct, both men facing one another, the alms man wondering where he’d seen the hulking figure before, Tyrone Lothrop fixing his stare on the alms man’s cap.

[1] CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de, Novela de Rinconete y Cortadillo, Deutscher Taschenbuch, 1981