Loving a Difficult Love for a Long Time

Yep, bedtime.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Loving a Difficult Love for a Long Time
Our fingers in the dike holding back the torrent
Where they’ve always been in sunburn and freeze.
One could say it’s a great commission or a slavery
Like Christ’s disciples, depending on perspective.
But I’ve come to see the dike’s beauty and its need.
It gives us a calling, we hold it together with heart.
We need each other in sunburn and freeze.
We are both cracked in various places.
We age it seems and try to grow wise.
If either withdraws we both die.
That will come one day
In sunburn or freeze.
It’s ok. Read more!

Tender Friends

My apartment's finally clean, time to scribble shit.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Tender Friends
Seems like there’s no place to go in life,
But if we’re lucky we’ll find a place to be
Like maybe lying in a patch of grass,
Just being there with the clouds and sun,
The smell of Earth which needs her worms,
A butterfly that feels no need to worship
As it lands on the knee it feels at one with.
All the striving of dreams misses the point.
Still I wish you were here to be with me,
And share a thought of beauty, a smile,
For tender friends never miss the point. Read more!

Testament

Eatin' chili dogs, drinkin' beers, smokin' Pall Malls, organizin' me shit . . .



Testament
What can we do
But leave graffiti
On the cave walls
Of souls.
Masterpieces
Are made of
Our pieces--
Lives are paints.

Radiant, divine,
Colors the flowers
Dreamed before
Flowers became.
Rembrandts past
Glow inside us--
Haloes, open lips,
Fiery eyes. Read more!

Cherish While You Have It

Cherish, while you have it.
While you hold it in your hands.
For it doesn't last forever,
And it fades away my friend...
And is lost with all the lovely things
You never thought could leave:
Who would think something so wonderful
Could ever cease to be?

Hold it in a pure embrace
And never let it go!
Though it isn't what you want, at times;
It's better than you know.
You'll have longer than you'll want, in time
To learn the lesson then—
When you're forced to live without it;
When it's time comes to an end. Read more!

Westward By Night

Westward by night, I travel.
Westward by the light of a dying moon.
Knowing neither my position, nor my purpose,
Nor the world where I must go.
Perhaps it is only right, that I should travel in this fashion:
For the darkness has a comfort all its own.
But as I travel among the shadows, among the creatures of the night,
I shed a tear for all the times I’ve walked alone…

Westward by night? Sometimes I’m not so sure.
Though in my mind, that’s where I always seem to be
And as I travel upon this road, upon a journey with no end;
I shed a tear for all the times I’ve walked with me…

Westward by night searching for a special friend.
Or perhaps I’m searching for another road without an end.
But it really doesn’t matter what I’m really searching for—
In the dark I’ll never find it: so I shed a tear once more.
Read more!

Let Us Grow Gladly Apart

And now that we are done, our lives have just begun:
It’s time to live again!
To go our separate ways.
To put our past aside,
And to improve our lives:
No matter where we’ve been,
It’s where we’ll go, that counts.

The sum of what we’ve done will melt into the past.
Just like this rain that falls,
That clouds my weeping eyes.
And hides my aching tears
In streams upon my breast:
That linger in my hands,
Saying you’ll understand—
That one day, all this pain;
Just like the joy we’ve shared,
Will whisper in the wind, seeming more dream
Than real:
And all these tender leaves
Will wither in the wind
Having no lust for life:
As one day, so shall we…
And knowing this must be, and that our lives
Must change.
Let’s be not, love, estranged;
But gladly grow apart! Read more!

We Weren't Created To Forever Weep

We weren't created to forever weep.
Although we seem perpetually
To mourn.
There lives within enough souls,
Visions sweet;
To weather through the tempest's
Quake and storm...
Although our troubled rearing
Lays us low,
Our eyes shoot skyward—
Dreams we must fulfill.
And we shall surely triumph when it’s meet;
And gladly,
Shall we bide our time until.

(from a dream I had in 1997) Read more!

Lamentations Of A Bastard Child

Let the skies rain down in brimstone!
Hide my body in the flame!
Slay me with the fire of mercy!
Ease my suffering and shame...
Lord, you know that I am weary!
And you know I’m not to blame:
So let the skies rain down in brimstone!
For I am born without a name.

All the people mock my mother.
They all say she was a whore!
Always sleeping with some sailor
Furloughing on distant shores.
Lord, you know how much they mock me!
And you know I’m not to blame:
So let the skies rain down in brimstone!
For I am born without a name.

Or let the mountains be my pillow.
Let the forests be my bed.
Make the starry night my blanket
When I lay down to rest my head.
Take me far away to freedom!
Or, if here I must remain:
Then let the skies rain down in brimstone!
For I am born without a name. Read more!

Even When You

Even when you, "When you gonna...?"
Baby, I just gotta love ya!
When you're pissed at me and moody.
I just wanna squeeze your booty!
When you drive me fuckin' crazy!
Suddenly, your ass amazes
Me, with all the lovely strangeness
That makes me adore you! Read more!

Working With Daddy

Every boy craves acceptance by his father. Not to be loved, per se, but to be accepted. I am no different. I craved this acceptance until the day my father died, and for many years afterwards, before coming to terms with it. There is no longing now. No anguished wanting; no heartrending insights; no work left undone. There is only the dull groaning for what might have been had we been two different people, of different mindsets, with different opportunities.

The America my father grew up in was not the America of my youth. I was born in Chicago, on January 5th, 1967, during the height of the Black Power movement.  My father was born February 2nd, 1925, in Pearl, Mississippi, in the heart of the Jim Crow south. He was the seventh of eleven children in a family of sharecroppers. Although it was the middle of the roaring twenties, for blacks in his part of the south it was no all night party. By the time of my father’s birth, the Ku Klux Klan had reached a membership of 4,000,000 members. Sharecroppers, like my father’s family, were bound to the land; unable to leave until they had paid off their debts for stock and seed; tethered in a form of legal slavery by the laws of the land. Blacks were forbidden by law to look whites in the eye. They were forbidden to gather in white only places, and to drink from white only fountains. They were denied a white education, and kept from voting in elections by the local white authorities; for blacks who forgot the rules, there was always the Klan.

I never learned much about my father’s life in Mississippi. Like most men of his generation, things to do with his past and his feelings he kept mostly to himself. As I grew up, I learned that he had been born on a cotton plantation. He had picked cotton at the age of three. He lost his father, the man for whom I am named, and of whom I am the spitting image (according to my father) at the age of thirteen, to white supremacy. My father had also raised his siblings, though he was not the eldest, and had cared for his mother until the day she died.

Decades later, when I was thirteen years old, I went to work with my father. Although he was not supposed to, (because he had had several heart attacks by then) he went to work anyway in a brickyard to make money to care for his family. I went to work with him because we needed the money, and because my father was trying to cure me of my supposed laziness and incompetence. It was 1980. We lived in a duplex on the south side of Chicago, the one my mother lives in to this day, the home that would finally be paid off two years after my father’s death.

I had nothing but love for my father. He had done many great things by the time I was thirteen. My father had started working at the age of eight, raised three families, learned navigation, broken wild horses, been jailed, and gotten his general equivalency diploma. He studied law on his own every morning, and also the Bible—though not often in that order—and had even acted as his own legal counsel once, and won, against an experienced attorney. My father only had a second-grade education... He was a wise man, a violent man, and very, very uncompromising individual. My greatest frustration throughout adolescence and my early twenties was that my father would not let me love him. “You’re my son, he once told me, “I’m not your son! I don’t have to get along with you, you have to get along with me!” and so the walls grew up between us, and so did the distance…

Working in the brickyard was backbreaking labor. You were stooped over for hours at a time, and you often worked longer than eight hours. There was only one reason why a man would take a job stacking bricks. It broke your body, but you did it because you needed the money. I almost didn’t get to work in the brickyard. I was visibly too young to be employed by the company and it was illegal to hire me. It was also dangerous, with all the heavy equipment moving around, but this was Chicago, and if you knew what to say and how to carry yourself, you could get away with just about anything. My father told them I was sixteen and the man let me work because my father had a good reputation. He knew my father had a lot of mouths to feed and two incomes stacking bricks could keep the seven of us from going hungry. “Just keep him from being seen, and out of the way of the heavy machinery!” the foreman said, “…We can’t have him getting hurt, and we can’t be looking out for him, so you’re going to have to keep an eye on him. …If the cops see him, or if my boss says he has to go, then he’s out of here! I’m sorry, I know what you’re up against, but I’ve gotta look out for myself too!” the foreman then told me how to behave in the brickyard and what to do when they called out an order, or moved the heavy machinery. He left my father and me to our tasks, and my father taught me how to bust the bricks apart, and how to stack them.

We had only one hammer that first day, so the going was slow. My father complained constantly that he would have made more money by himself, and that I was slowing him down. I can still picture the sympathetic looks from the other workers. I felt comforted by them because they validated my feelings that my father was being unreasonable. At one point, a man offered to lend me a hammer. “Naw!” my father responded, “…We got what we need right here.” I remember the look of shame on my father’s face when he turned back to face me, his back to the man. “You see, I could’ve took that hammer from him, but then I would’ve owed him a favor.” he confided.

As we struggled to break, clean, and stack five thousand bricks passing back and forth our only hammer, I remember feeling ashamed by the looks from the workers around us, and by the look on my father. Once I saw how the work was supposed to be done, I realized that I didn’t really need a hammer. I picked up a brick, slammed it into the side of another brick, and loosed the mortar from it. I practiced this a few times, bashing my finger a couple of times, but then I got pretty good at it. My father was watching me to see what I was doing; he thought I was playing. I showed him I could break the mortar off without using a hammer. He told me to forget about it, but I had cleaned so many bricks trying to show him, that he let me do it my way, and he used the hammer.

We had fallen too far behind. My father was working furiously, but we had only stacked a thousand and a half bricks. One of the other workers asked if we were going to be able to make our quota by the end of the day. The guy who offered the hammer before, offered it again, and my father reluctantly accepted it. I was upset by the charity, but I was glad that I would finally be getting my own hammer. I had realized by then, that it was twice as hard trying to clean bricks with a brick because you had to hold it up to break off the mortar, and the bricks got awful heavy. I also kept bashing parts of my finger whenever I started to get tired. My father and I decided to race each other as the day started to wane and after a little more than an hour, we had stacked thirty-five hundred. The foreman called the day early and we packed up our things in a hurry. My father returned the borrowed hammer and we stood in line while the foreman inspected the stacks and paid out the money. When it came our turn, my father sent me away to gather all of our things.

My father got paid out, and I was excited to learn that we had made so much money! Being a child, forty-seven dollars and some change was a lot of money to me, back then. I was also under the impression that I was going to get to keep all the money I had earned. My father did not say much except that we had done okay, and that normally, he stacked five thousand all by himself. He said he had lost out by having me work for him, then said goodbye to some men, and we left. We walked down some long, dirty streets to the bus stop. We were covered in dirt and mortar dust. We got onto the bus and no one wanted us to sit by him or her because we were so dirty. I was very embarrassed. My father told me sternly not to be ashamed of being dirty because I had worked for a living. He held onto the money during the long bus ride home. He was glad that I had come to work with him, and he asked me if I felt proud to have earned my own money. A man on the bus overheard him and engaged us in a brief conversation, telling me to listen to my father, and don’t ever be ashamed “…‘cause you’re dirty from workin’!” He asked me how old I was, and if I was proud to be working with my old man? I told him I was. When we got home, my father paid me five dollars for all of my labor, even though I had earned more than fifteen; I complained. He threw me two more dollars, called me “ungrateful”, and told me that I wasn’t getting more than that because he had a whole family to feed.

Our time in the brickyard was the closest my father and I ever came to bonding. A couple of weeks later, I would quit working with my father and I would meet the man who would change my life forever—Richard Briggs—my martial arts instructor. My father would write me off completely for years, declaring that I had found myself another father. Many years later, in a deeply heated debate, my father and I would reconcile our differences and forge a peace that would last the last four years of his life.

From the time I met my instructor, and for the next ten years, my father would greet me with a mixture of belligerence and contempt. The person responsible for preserving my love for my father during those hellish years was my martial arts instructor. At its worst, my father and I would go to bed at night for months, believing that we would be killed in our sleep by the other person. I would eventually drop out of high school due to pressure from my father, even though I had taken first place at my school on the citywide tests for three years running. I would lose my scholarships to the Art Institute of Chicago because, without the support of my father, I couldn’t afford the train fare and materials to attend. In the end, I would be kicked out of my father’s house at the age of eighteen because he feared that if he didn’t force me to fend for myself, I would never amount to anything.

As a young adult, I would continue to visit my father and he would continue to demean me. I never cursed him or was disrespectful; I practiced civil disobedience. I would complain to my instructor about my father’s failings as a father and my instructor would frustrate the hell out of me by always choosing my father’s side. “All I know, my instructor would say, “…is I never had a father. You’ve got to love your father no matter what!” My instructor was crucial in helping me to understand my father through the life and times my father had lived. And during that three-hour debate, where I finally confronted my father and told him how much I respected him and wanted to live in peace with him—the debate my mother tried to stop from happening, because “You don’t talk like that to your father!”—the debate where I put everything on the line, and won back my father’s love—my instructor’s words would be the reason my father finally decided to make peace with me.

...When my father died, my instructor would be seated next to the casket as a man in a top hat and tails that the mayor of Chicago had sent to the funeral, read official condolences to my mother and family.


The last words I would ever hear from my father have become the joy of my life whenever I think of my relationship with him. I called him up to tell him I was coming to Chicago to see him one last time. He spoke to me tenderly but seemed a little disoriented. He was dying of cancer and it had advanced to the point where he was in unabated, agonizing pain. I told him that I would see him on Saturday, but he asked me to come on Friday instead, if I could make it. I told him I couldn’t make it on Friday, but I would be there on Saturday. Three times he asked me to come on Friday and three times I told him I couldn’t make it until Saturday. He paused for a while, and then he said, “…Okay, well, I love you, and I’ll see you on Friday!” He died that very Friday in exactly the manner he had always said that he wanted to die. I was leaving Madison, Wisconsin to catch the bus to Chicago when I received the message that he was dead…

Every boy craves acceptance from his father. It is truly a blessing when he finally gets it. Read more!

Spring Fling: The Revolution's All Talk

4th installment.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

The Revolution’s All Talk
We had our intimate moments, physical moments, explorative and fun, but Holly was a special girl and I was a special guy. The physical connection for us reached its apotheosis in cuddling. Holly was coming off a five-year relationship with a woman and had never had a boyfriend before. I was the first. Someone had to be, and I felt honored. She made it clear that when it came to sex patience would not only be appreciated but required. A simple kiss was a big deal for her, and though I loved kissing I never pressed her for this favor. What passion there was was funneled into talk, fueled by talk. Never had I enjoyed talk so much with another person, and neither, she admitted, did she. Our constant chattering had its dangers, and its blessings.
One Monday night after working late I went to her place. It was the first day of her weekend so her mood was good. Thank God for I was exhausted and feeling every minute of my 37 years. Tea-lights and votives cast orange tongues on the walls and wisps of vanilla smoke drifted from the wicks and mixed with clouds of cinnamon incense. Or the other way around. Holly packed her bowl with fresh greens and passed it to me. Her eyes were watery slits of red joy. Her words oozed slowly like dripping paint.
“Hi Spaz-bar [her pet name for me--I’ll explain later]. How was your work night.”
“Sucked.”
“Oh really? In what way did it suck. Tell me everything darling.” This, I swear, took twenty seconds in coming out of her mouth.
“Honey, I work in a sandwich shop. I slice tomatoes and squirt mustard for yuppies. The best I can say about work tonight is that it’s over.”
Holly gave me one of those “come-off-it” looks, then took a thick band of her long brown hair into her hands and pawed at it. “Did you forget your lesson Spaz-bar?”
“I--what?”
Her eyes were heartbroken blue jello. “Love yourself.”
Damn lessons. I always forgot. “I do love myself Holly. Can we please not talk about work? We’re both free now. How was your day.”
“Oh fine,” she said, peering at a candle on the bookshelf. “Maybe you’re ready for lesson two now that you love yourself.” She looked back at me and waited.
I lit a cigarette. “Sure I can take it.”
“Oh good,” Holly said, her speech quickening. “It’s one of my favorites. It’s the lesson of compassion. You do believe in compassion don’t you Spaz-bar?”
“Well of course,” I said.
“Well of course,” she said. “And tomorrow evening you’ll make sandwiches for those yuppies with perfect bodhisattva compassion. Now I want you to gage the spiritual-emotional state of each person who walks through your door, and speak accordingly. I’ll look forward with interest to a full and detailed report tomorrow night.”
My lips moved but uttered no sound for several moments. “You’re amazing,” I said, and I meant it. She cut to the core of things, and I wanted to do the right thing.
“Thanks Spaz-bar.”
“No Holly, it’s the way you twist the mundane into genius. Your talk is fertile ground. I also want to be fertile ground.”
“Paul Tillich’s ‘Ultimate Ground of Being’,” she said. “Thou art that.”
I laughed and coughed up smoke. “You know about Paul Freakin’ Tillich.”
She pointed to herself. “Hello--religion major.” Just then she crawled into bed and pulled the lavender sheet up to her dimpled chin and smiled.
I sat at her desk and untied my tennis shoes. “Snuggle time?” I said.
“Poetry time Spaz-bar. We can snuggle afterward. You start it off.”
This was one of our favorite rituals. Collaborative off the cuff, turn taking poetry.
I opened a new document on her laptop. I crushed out the cigarette and lit another. And thought about a clever first line.
“Want a hint,” Holly said. “Do you love me? Be honest.”
“I got it,” I said, and spoke out the quatrain as I typed it:
He says, look, what I’m sayin’ is
[I shouldn’t be sayin’ this]
It doesn’t matter if I’m in love with you,
Or whatever we call it.
I knew this was a risk, but we encouraged risk-taking in the Collaboration Game, I looked over to Holly who was gazing dreamily to the ceiling. “Your ball,” I said.
“Good, good. Now type this:”
She says, look, what I’m sayin’ is
[I shouldn’t be sayin’ this]
It doesn’t matter if I’m in love with you,
Or whatever we call it.
Hmm? I didn’t get the point of her repetition but I left the desk to take a piss and ponder my response. What to say? Through collaboration we had found a method of addressing the secret issues. No matter what I’d write about her some day. I’d been journaling about Holly from the start. It was my turn.
While pissing in her toilet he thinks,
If we breakup I’ll turn the transcripts
Into something publishable.
I’d used the scary, unspeakable word, “breakup.” Would she be mad? Nervous?
Maybe I really fucked up this time. I always knew it would be something I wrote that ruined everything.
“Relax Jimmy--you’re changing colors,” Holly said, then hit the pipe. “Hands on keyboard now.” I obeyed. “Ok.”
She thinks, when he talks of breakup,
Somehow it comforts me,
Puts less pressure on it,
Allows these moments of joy.
I read the words silently then aloud, and started crying and couldn’t finish. She had just taken all the pressure off, and reminded me of what it means to truly live in the present moment. I tried reading her words again and again but couldn’t get past the second line without biting back the tears. We took a little break. I think I spilled my beer and Holly chided me for fucking up. I wrote:
And he wept upon reading this,
Each time as if it were the first,
Then she says he fucked up.
Holly ran a finger along the coil of my ear, and dictated:
But we don’t remember what
And it wasn’t very important.
She was just giving it to him
Like she always does.
The revolution is all talk.
She handed me the pipe. I was getting high. There was a noise. Holly’s laughter. I typed as she rested her chin on my shoulder.
Are you making fun of me again?
She said, I was referencing your twisted little mind.
Isn’t it cute.
You love me little pervert, and isn’t it perfect.
Only a pervert could ever love me.
[check, your move]
I’m not sure if I--
And I’m Emily Dickinson, she said.
Risen again to teach you the lessons.
Stop it!
Don’t you like that? she said. A pause. Window framing waning crescent moon to the left of an old gothic church steeple. The bells of ten o’clock sounded. Things get blurred a bit. The lovers are making out. There are joy-tears, no words. The poem becomes their tongue, their joy-tears. Jimmy wiped his face, savored the smoky taste of her, typed:
I’ve never collaborated before
I don’t want to go back to a world of duality
And what if--(he eyes her breasts and salivates)
She says, our relationship is occasionally ecstatic.
Just accept it.
[checkmate, new game]
“Well that was productive,” I said.
“Jimmy,” she whispered, suddenly sounding vulnerable like a little girl. “I never want this poem to end.”
In bed that night she allowed me the privilege of cupping her breast. Warm parentheses of skin melting into twin subconscious pools of play. I dreamed that reality was a poem in one voice pretending to be two pretending to be manifold pretending to have separate memory systems pretending to take the whole game seriously with fights and fucks and money stuff, but soft feminine laughter served as constant soundtrack, and I woke refreshed as a child (so rare) and so did Holly.
Read more!

Spring Fling: the Empty Vessel

3rd installment of the 2nd novel-in-progress.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

The Empty Vessel
Credits rolled at the end of my dream last night. It was a dream called “Silverbeard’s Flight,” and in the dream I could fly anywhere I wanted. After soaring past the freezing peaks of mountains and swooping close to the ocean’s surface where telepathic dolphins urged me onwards to self-discovery, I found myself floating introspectively above my old childhood neighborhood. All my old buddies were playing kickball in the Kowalski’s backyard on Hancock Street. I watched from a vantage point of about forty feet but soon discovered I had telephoto zoom-in power which got me close enough to see the golden beads of sweat on Robbie’s ten-year-old forehead. Roland was chortling over at first base, the old English D of his baseball cap sizzling with golden sunlight. Summertime in Michigan, happy daze. There was fat Walter who scared me because he was two years older than the rest of us which seemed like a whole generation to me then. Now he giggled and waved to me like a kissable cherub. The door slammed open and out ran Steve and Scott and Mark Dilley, my first best friend. I circled and circled, the air was sweet with the sweat of good times, and Robbie’s mom came out with lemonade and those magical tube-top-boobies I used to dream about.
The dream flapped on like laundry on the line, and Mark called out, “C’mon Jimmy! Play with us.” And then it hit me: I was ten years old again. My dream-body was that of a little boy, and I did cartwheels and rolling somersaults in the air for the joy of it. Ecstatic bolts of life energy pumped and poured through me. I breathed through lungs that had never tasted cigarettes. My brain smoked with rapid thought as if it had never been dulled by drink. I was back, I was ten again, given a second chance at eternity. I tried to recall how I stumbled upon the secret of time travel. Somehow I’d done it, maybe for the love of Laura whom I’d have to find before she moves to California again with her family. I’d done it--I knew that I knew I was not just dreaming in a ten-year-old’s body, but my sleeping self had found a way to return to the scene of the crime when the soul went bitter.
Mark waved and I descended. Then Robbie’s mom let the dogs out, and they snarled at me, leaped at me with devil’s teeth and foaming mouths stinking of rot. All went black and I thought--No!--and credits rolled, starting with the title, “Silverbeard’s Flight, and ending with “two German shepherds, played by ‘You-too’ and ‘Second-best’, of the Kowalski family, 1977.” I woke panting and clutching my knees beneath the sheets in my Portland apartment. Alone and approaching forty. Here and now.
Holly used to dream terrible things and would wake me from my own subconscious dribbling to share. Some of them had apocalyptic themes, such as when the old church bells were beaten by gangsters with sledgehammers all around town and her scar bled puddles which rippled from the din. She shook me awake that morning, looked into my eyes imploringly: “You would protect me from evil, wouldn’t you Jimmy? wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, yes, yes my darling, sh sh, need coffee . . .”
Or the time she dreamed the sun scooped her up with black talons and transported her to a secret room in a hidden galaxy where I was fornicating with a bevy of whores who turned out to be her own girlfriends and a gruff voiceover sounded out, “Sick! Ning!”
And she woke me, beat on chest, begging to know if I’d been faithful.
And I hadn’t been. And I told her so. I could never lie to Holly directly. Through omission, of course, but facing her with those blue eyes huge enough to see my own reflection in--never. She took the news well, considering that not only I had betrayed her, but her friend Sandy too.
“So Jimmy, you gotta cripple fetish?” Sandy had an artificial leg.
“It was just once, during one of our temporary breakups,” I said. “You’re not crippled, Holly.”
She nodded. “I suppose I should be glad you didn’t fuck a real woman. Wouldn’t you say so Jimmy--I should be relived, right?”
“Stop it. I said I’m sorry.”
“You accept my scar if not my sex.” She got out of bed and ran her fingers through her hair. “You should’ve known I’d figure it out Jimmy. The self when it dreams is an empty vessel. Now and then the dream-people spill some truth into the vessel. That is how I learn things.” She smiled proudly and clasped her bra. “That is what you call my witchery.”
“You forgive me?” I said.
“Don’t lie to me again!”
“I won’t, I won’t,” I said. “And you forgive Sandy? She made me promise not to tell you. She considers you a--”
“Former friend,” Holly snapped. “Friends don’t fuck around with other friends’ boyfriends.”
“But-but, you’ve forgiven me.”
“And what I do with Sandy is now out of your hands,” she said while posing before the mirror. “Now pour me some more coffee. Black this time.”
Holly and I tended to move on from such moments as if they never happened. It was still early in our courtship and each present moment contained its own beginning, middle and end then melted into the next present moment, always seemingly self-contained, untainted by the blessings or despairs of the previous eternities. Only now do I have time and energy of mind (though I yearn for emptiness like the thirsty for water) to reflect on the dramatic beauty and brilliance of our shifting times. It was never the same with Holly. There was no complacency, no doldrums, and as such our love couldn’t die from them. She went to work after that black coffee and a few tokes from her pipe, and I went off to Powell’s to browse among the hidden wonders in the bookshelves. When I got home there was a message from her on my voice mail. She used her high, sleepy voice, the voice she used to connote sweetness and conciliation.
Holly’s internal monologue number one. Jimmy, let there be no more division amongst us. I had a toothache today at the store, one of my molars was screaming expletives in my head, and the hordes of riffraff showed no mercy, plopping their shitty malt liquor on the counter and barking out orders for cigarettes, and leering at my cleavage, but I so prefer your tender appreciations to theirs. Anyway my darling, we’re in this tale of magic and pain together, and I’m glad and I just want you to know that I love you and I’m so sorry I’m so neurotic. Please call me. Bye.
Holly’s phone messages quelled an any thought of desiring independence from her. I saved them all and listened to them during times of doubt, resaving them always after a hundred days at the voicemail’s prompt. I coveted every saved syllable of her voice. I wanted a record for posterity. Part of me worried it could end any moment.










Read more!

Spring Fling: Memories of a Thousand Dollar Poem

2nd installment of the 2nd novel-in-progress.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Memories of a Thousand Dollar Poem
Her night-breath upon my neck was like the ocean’s tide. Intrauterine music, soft and dark of before we were born. All things proceeded from this, her ocean-breath, the warm arm brushing like waves at seaweed the curlicues of chest hair. Sun rolls tongue over blue shards of robin’s egg. Day. Rain beads nostalgia of past lives on the window. Night. The April air smelled like cinnamon and her breasts were still blooming like stars behind the closed eyes of now. You only get tired of things you remember. I lay in bed tired, and alone. Tired like memories of a thousand dollar poem.
“Boyfriend,” she’d said, and it worked. How long had I known her (a half hour?) and already she knew what I’d wanted to hear. I’d given up on the love thing, felt deeply as a matter of lonely pride that I’d learned enough of that soul-twisting experience, that I could write about it from a cool, empirical outsider’s view. I had my friends, my life, and surely it was working. I had finished a two-hundred-thousand-word rough draft of a novel that Holly dismissed as solipsistic juvenilia. I had a certain momentum going. I worked, drank, wrote, played pool, beat off, repeated daily. Who was she to fuck with that? I didn’t need to be tampered with, fixed like a dog. I was married once. I wrote a thousand dollar poem once. Twelve years ago! And where was she? Burying her dolls or plastic dinosaurs in some sandbox in Michigan? The poem was simple I admit. Yet glorious. A little girl broods about death while bottling insects for her collection. I was a serious character once like Ezra Pound ranting against usury. I was going places! Sane places, accomplished places. She was some kid in her twenties packing a nice cognitive punch. And witchcraft.
“Jimmy?” she said one morning while I was half asleep before coffee.
“Um hmm,” I said, nuzzling her neck with eyes closed.
“Who are you who wandered into my life from left of heaven where the angels forgot to dust?” Her tone was serious, urgent. How many times had I asked her never to ask me anything before my first cup of coffee?
“Mmm?” I said, hand cupping her warm left breast. I wanted to remain undisturbed. I wanted to press against her heat and never say another word. I wanted her to let me be. So tired of explaining myself.
I felt the shift of Holly’s weight. She jerked up in the bed and I was cold. My eyes opened to confused slits. She shook me. “Quick Jimmy! Tell me the history of your life! All of it. Now.”
Oh no, I thought. Was this a test? I felt her fingers at my perineum. She tickled me silly. This was her way of rousing mindfulness and felt good till it crossed over to torture. “I-I don’t know,” I said, heaving and writhing and trying to jerk her hand away.
“Tell me now,” she said. “You have five seconds.”
Half out of my mind, hyperventilating, I said: “I was born, and then I met you, and now I’m here.”
She stopped tickling me, kissed my mouth, whispered. “Oh Jimmy, that’s so romantic.” And then my eyes became reacquainted with the deep angry scar that vertically ran the length of the left side of her face. It always surprised me, but never shocked or disturbed me. Holly’s scar colored her every feeling and thought, every day of her life. But it was a fact I often forgot. Her right profile was flawless. The fact that the left didn’t match was interesting to me, not ugly. I just wished, always wished that she could see her beauty, her feral feminine truth through my eyes, and then she’d know I really did accept her as she was.
“I just want you to be the best man you can be for me,” she said while reclining in bed.
Oh no, another nonsequiter, I thought. Deep into a second cup of coffee and preparing to leave, I hoped her statement was rhetorical. “Um hmm,” I said and put on my hat.
“Can I borrow a few thousand dollars for the surgery?” she said.
I slung my bag across my shoulder. “If I had it honey.”
“But I want to be a beautiful woman for you.”
The pathos in her voice made me want to feed my balls to the System, or more practically, blow up a bank or a dam. I faced Holly. She was pouting. “You are beautiful.” I wanted fresh air and time alone. “To me,” I added.
Her words came quick and urgent. “What do you mean by that? Am I ugly? Jimmy?”
“Damnit Holly, that’s not what I meant--you’re not ugly!--you’re not!” I stopped, shocked at the anger in my voice.
“Not pretty,” she whispered, and slowly shook her head from side to side. “No.” She started crying.
I dropped my bag to the floor and went to her. I held her as her tears dampened my collar. I bent to her cheek and kissed, imbibing the salt of her sadness, and saying “I’m sorry,” and “I love you,” and so on. We embraced and rocked on the bed and tasted each other’s tears. After a long period of quiet I felt it was safe to talk. “You ok?”
“I’m sorry I’m so crazy,” she said.
“Me too,” I said. Her eyes flung poison darts. “I mean, I mean--I’m sorry that I’m crazy too, Holly. You know, we’re citizens of the Island of Misfit Toys. It’s perfect, and I love you.”
She smiled at this. “Kiss my eyelids,” she said, and I did. “And now kiss my third eye.” This I knew to be code that disaster had once again been diverted. I pressed my lips between, and just above, her eyebrows. She moaned. Our relationship, whatever it was or would become, could go on. Once again I went through the motions of preparing to leave. “Wait Jimmy,” she said.
“What do you need honey?” [Oh my God!]
“I have a project for you.”
My shoulderblades buckled. I wasn’t breathing. “Uh.”
“Write something for me. How about, ‘Memories of a thousand dollar poem’?”
This was her usual way of poking fun. She wasn’t impressed with the actual thousand dollar poem, saying flatly “that’s nice” when I first read it to her. She had her ways of cutting me to shreds. She probably believed it was good for me, would make me worthy of her, but I figured she had a fierce passive-aggressive addiction. I gave her my crazy smile, brows crooked and high, eyes staring through her, vein pulsing on forehead. “All done honey,” I said. “Just four words.”
“What?” she said with hands on hips. “You can do better than--”
“Better than your poems.” Read more!

Spring Fling

Another novel-in-progress. I must be nuts . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Spring Fling
A Novel
By
M. C. Guimond

Prologue: C-Minus Film Project



Pay no attention to my narratives. My narratives aren’t too hopeful. Or helpful. They will not augment your consciousness. Like a beam of balmy moonlight dancing in and out of the periphery of memory she haunts me still. That is all I have to say. I could stop right there, type “The End,” and move on. But I won’t, so here it goes. She went crazy, that’s the truth, but that’s not all. She was beautiful like a fairy tale before the moral, and I loved her, and there were roses, and there was meaning, and there was walking on air, that’s the truth, but that’s not all. It’s terrible. Just now a devil in my ear is singing her morning song, “I’m the prettiest girl in the whole wide world, ain’t nothing gonna stop me now.”
Holly was drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon in the beer garden and chattering on about this and that in a mesmerizing singsong affect. I sat across from her with big eyes like a boy dazzled by a bedtime story. I don’t know how to account for it, save for the moon’s witchery and my own creeping intoxication. We were alone and together for the first time. I had been playing pool with Schneeb and Dave when she intruded upon us with a radiant smile and turquoise eyes that seemed to drift out of their sockets and precede her like smoke. Next I forgot my friends existed. Seemed like good times, forgetting my friends existed for a chance at female acquaintance. It’s terrible.
She howled at the stars. “If one more nut-sack tells me I create my own reality I’m gonna kill myself!” Her fist slammed the table. “Roll credits!”
That’s when she really had me. That’s when I knew that I knew I was in love. She was the first woman in my experience to share my belief: Reality is a movie. Actually it’s a C-minus film project turned in by a bleary eyed grad student in a higher dimension. You know, some lack-witted mother-fucker four and a half billion years ago pulls an all-nighter jabbing and hooting at the keyboard like a chimpanzee and here we all are living out the absurdity of it. Sometimes it’s funny I guess, but what I really want to say is that it’s terrible. Let me get back to Holly.
At some point it became obvious that the war would start in mid May. More brown people had to die. The President was upset. We weren’t sure if he was evil or retarded or a robot or a zombie. Holly didn’t like it when I went too far with the kook talk. She’d make fun of me and rein me in. Secretly I loved her for that, though I pretended to argue.
She took a long loud swig. “Lesson number one Jimmy is to love yourself.”
That broke the spell. My shoulders tightened. “I love myself.”
She gave me the funniest look like she’s been seeing through my soul my entire life. A look that said, “Come off it, no you don’t.” I struggled to produce a cigarette, then struggled to produce a lighter. I felt a hand on mine. Hers. Electric and milky. She smiled at me now and offered a lit match. I felt more composed after drawing a few puffs.
“Of course I love myself. What are you saying?”
She leaned forward with hands crossed on the table and scrunched up her face. “Oh? Then how do you explain your relationship with that David guy.”
“We call him the Mayor,” I said. I couldn’t stand her perplexed look anymore--was she mocking me? “What’s the matter Holly?”
“He treats you like he’s a king and you’re a subject. And you allow it. Don’t you love yourself?”
The moon was three quarters full and waxing, and a rare panoply of stars dazzled an early spring Portland sky. But I couldn’t enjoy it. I was under the gun. Thinking back at the pool table dialogue, trying to discern what she was talking about, I remember joking with Schneeb and the Mayor about a number of things in our deprecatory rapid-fire way, but I can’t be sure how much she’d heard or how long she’d listened. “I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, trying to look into her eyes without babbling at their beauty. “We joke around a lot. Was it the self-deprecating humor?”
She sensed my struggle and tossed me a life raft, her touch. She took my hands into hers, a shaft of soft light from over my shoulder (was it moon? star?) lit upon her forehead between her eyes like a firefly. Gently it lingered, and fluttered. Did I dream the thing? Memory isn’t perfect, but it seemed a third eye opened just then. In her first, then me. “You know,” she said. “You know.”
“I do?” I said, not really knowing intellectually, but I felt peace, like my heart knew or my soul, and that she wasn’t judging me.
“I absolutely require,” she said, lighting a cigarette, “that my boyfriend love himself deeply and sincerely.” She released my hands and wagged a playful finger. I felt cold. I already missed her touch. “No more phoniness,” she said. Read more!

ACHTUNG: How To Avoid And Fix Formating Problems

it is my hope that all contributors read this, for I believe will solve many problems that we have been having with posting.


THE PROBLEM: weird formatting issued with posts, generating alot of blank lines in the summery, and rendering much of the content invisible.

THE REASON: it all has to do with the "read more" code. apparently when you enter a post in the "compose" tab it goes all kaflooey with the extra html I added. when I added the html the instructions clearly stated that posts should be entered in the "edit html" tab of the posting box, not the "compose" tab. I set the "edit html" tab to default, which at the time I thought was making it default for all users. this was apparently not the case.

SOLUTION: I believe I have fixed it, but I want you to go to "settings", and in the "basic" tab, under "global settings" check and make sure the "Show Compose Mode for all your blogs?" is set to "no". if it is not, then set it to "no" and inform me that you had to do that.

HOW TO FIX POSTS AFTER THE FACT: if your post has gone kaflooey, or if you spot a kaflooey post someone else made, here's how to fix it:
1 - click the edit link for the post
2 - click the "edit html" tab
3 - get your hands dirty editing the html. this is way easy, but kind of tedious. there should be one [span class="fullpost"] bound by angle brackets instead of regular brackets (the regular brackets shown here for easy posting) after the post intro, and one [/span] (also with angle brackets instead of regular brackets) at the very end. delete all other instances of [span class="fullpost"] and [/span] for they are superfluous and are the root cause of the kaflooeyness.
4 - click "publish post" and you're done.

and finally,
A SUPER QUICK GUIDE TO VERY BASIC HTML: do not fear the html. it is way easier than you think it is. here is some very basic html that you may even be familiar with, even if you don't know it yet. this will come in handy here and on many other internet sites:

the basic syntax of html is as follows - a right angle bracket and a left angle bracket enclose "tags". each tag opens with the tag itself bound by two angle brackets, and then more or less the same tag bound the same way, but preceded by a "/". many of you may know the more basic tags as BBCode on forums, where instead of angle brackets, regular brackets are used. for example, to bold text on a forum you would type [b]then type the text to be emboldened here[/b]. now if I keep the b's and the backslash but change the brackets to angle brackets I am an emboldening terrorist!

do the same with...
i for italics
u for underline
strike for strikethrough
blockquote for

block quotations

so you see, it all makes a kind of sense at the beginning. but don't worry, the more advanced stuff makes less sense as you go along.

if you fuck up on these now and then, don't worry, they are easy to fix. just go back and spell check your tags. if you would like to know more html tags and tricks, there is a whole internet full of html tutorials and cheat sheets.

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Making Nothing Interesting

A trip to the mall


My day started off as most of my days off do. Waking up with a small headache as I have forced myself to sleep in has become routine because, well, it's my day off. I meandered out of my bedroom to become familiar with my day. As I turned into the front room I am greeted with my daughter looking up at me smiling, proud and aware of her accomplishment, "Daddy, glasses, broken." She then laughs and turns back to Sesame Street on the T.V. After all, this really means nothing to her, it has no importance or significance.
To me however this is catastrophic. I cannot read, cannot drive, and cannot see clearly anything without these meaningless things (as she would see it). I scheduled an appointment at Lens Crafters (which was once D.O.C but Mr. Golden decided selling out was the best option) to get this problem rectified. 12:40. Shit, I gotta go. I placed my broken glasses on my face, which now rest comfortably at a 45 degree angle over my nose to enable me to see as I drive to the mall, Lakeside Mall, ah the memories.
After the formalities at the Lens Crafters it is explained that my glasses can be made "right away" meaning about 2 to 3 hours. I have this time to "enjoy" shopping at the mall. My decision is made quite quickly as to what I would do with this time...bookstore...coffee, a prescription that is familiar as well as enjoyable. Of course, I cannot see more than three feet in front of me and I have no idea where the bookstore is. I cannot use the directory because that makes you look stupid or foreign to this atmosphere, so I begin to just walk around. This experience is odd, I can't see anyone's face, all the people look like nobody, they have no characterization other then "people" period. They are all ugly or beautiful I can't tell. Everyone is walking around talking to themselves, probably on their wireless, handless, untiless cell phones but I can't tell that, I just decide their all crazy and walking around like schizos mumbling obscenities to God or whoever did them wrong in the past. Whatever, this idea is funny so i'm going with it. I still can't find the frigging bookstore. I'll use the directory now, I sure as hell am not going to ask anyone.

Waldenbooks, ah nice. Wait, where is the "books"? Romance, Sci-Fi, Children's, Magazines...no books. I stumble onto the clearance rack but I can't see shit! I pull my mangled, glasses out of my pocket so I can see what lies ahead of me. Vonnegut, Slaughter House-Five...50% off. This rack is filled with Wilde, Steinbeck, Shakespeare all 50% off. I can pay full price for some romance novel or seventeen magazine but the good stuff is 50% off. I buy Slaughter House Five of course, after all, somebody is currently making me glasses, that's why I'm here. Irony, not really, but I love it all the same.

As I approach the counter, glasses cocked over my nose, the clerk looks at my selection and smirks..."you a fan?" This question is probably because this is the first "book" he's sold all day. "yup, thanks" He wants to discuss with me his favorites by this and other others but frankly, I dont really care. I walk out to find a coffee, somewhere. He looks deflated, I think, "enjoy selling your wall of Stephen King and Rolling Stone's dumb ass...I gots to gets a coffee." I laugh, out loud accidentally, the people around me stare at the crazy broken glasses wearing guy walking out the bookstore and I remove the glasses from my face. Back to my trip, not acid this time, just bad eye sight.

Panera Bread...coffee...good. I walk up to the counter and ask for a coffee. "What kind?" I restate coffee and she looks discouragingly and hands me a mug. After deciding which flavored coffee would taste the most like actual coffee, I venture to find a place to sit. I find a table between some chick who is taking up a whole table with her shopping bags and Mr. and Mrs. Mothball, at least that s what I smell. I hate frigging mothball stink, but its the only table.
Once again I assume the role of "crazy guy at the mall" as I place my glasses atop of my nose. The more I wear them the more I think the angle against my nose is increasing, it feels like I'm wearing them upside down. The manager asks me what I'm reading, I show him the cover and he responds by walking away, saying nothing at all. Pleasant chatting with you I think, but whatever. I drink two cups of coffee and read about 50 pages before I have to leave because of the horrible jazz music that is bleeding out of the ceiling. I love jazz music but this was no Coltrane or Miles, it may have actually been Kenny G. but I think all jazz that sounds this way is Kenny G. Time to smoke...
On my way outside I see a table with four instant lottery tickets and four pennies on it. Apparently the person who bought these tickets was so angry at the pennies for "making them lose" they just left them there. I picked up one of the pennies and bought a ticket from some pissed off lady at the counter, I won two bucks. I bought a Frappachino and pocketed the change including the penny that I swiped from the abandoned pile of misfortune, after all, you make your own luck. I went outside to smoke. I watched the parade of parents dropping off their 13 year old girls at the mall, after all it's summer break.
While I was outside the birch tree above me was dropping something down, continuously on my head, I could not see what it was without my glasses but I didn't really care. Some Emo, Goth, chick who works at the mall came outside to smoke, she looked miserable, but I think that was on purpose. I think she smiled at me but I couldn't tell.

Now the conclusion. My time of waiting has passed, my glasses were finished. As I sit having them "fitted" properly on my face the Optomoligist stopped and picked up my book, "is this yours?" he asked, as thought it could have been someone else around me, although there was no one else around me. "yes" I said. "You know, its about an optomoligist?"
"yes, it is.".................................................................................................... RIP Vonnegut THE END

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What It Is

I'm Back! Ho hum . . . yawn.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
What It Is
The seduction of vanity being what it is
With sun on bricks and a woman frowning
From a frame on the wall and weeds
Flowering from a pot on a sill I begin
With the joy of a child reciting the ABCs.
The room is clean like my mother’s heart
Yet I yearn for carnal discourse with gods
Leapfrogging the milk and honey stars,
And though I lust but do not score I’ll
Close my eyes and pray for a gateway
Like a childhood summer that never ends
But does each time my eyes reopen to now.
That’s ok for the bricks still shine with sun,
The woman’s frown has turned to smile,
The weeds still flower with love for me
And I’ll squeeze the bliss from this minute,
Knowing the next may hurt or worse. Read more!

Home of the Vacant

A poem about old experiences


Here is the house

The Same Colors
the Same Window dressings
and the Same coffee mugs
even the Same People
here, in the house

But the words seems different
The transient wanderings now lay still

no waves, no thunder, no friction
No hellos, good byes, or even "kiss my asses" to be heard
Just a cold track laid without thought or regret
Even my memories are confused
Even my hands are feeling old like its once again new
And this drama seems to be saying something, somewhere
to someone........but shit, I cant hear it

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not a green thumb...

seeds have not sprung yet
i know god doesn't like me
water the barren spot



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Wolfeschlaegelstienhausenbergerhaufstedt Haiku

a series of haiku's based on a name from a segment entitled "Funny Names of Real People" in an old book I've had since I was a kid entitled "The Big Book of New American Humor" (edited by william novak and moshe waldoks, 1990 Harper Perenial). due to the length of the name, some liberties had to be taken with the haiku form.


Wolfeschlaegelstienhaus-
enbergerhaufstedt is a
long ass fucking name

Wolfeschlaegelstienhaus-
enbergerhaufstedt did it
I swear your honor!

Wolfeschlaegelstienhaus-
enbergerhaufstedt milks the
dictators left teat*

Wolfeschlaegelstienhaus-
enbergerhaufstedt, do the
Wolfeschlaegelstienhaus...

Wolfeschlaegelstienhaus-
enbergerhaufstedt is a
name cruel parents give

Wolfeschlaegelstienhaus-
enbergerhaufstedt will not
fit on the license

how would you like your
Wolfeschlaegelstienhausenberg-
erhaufstedt prepaired?

Wolfeschlaegelstienhaus-
enbergerhaufstedt wears an
old worn chestnut blouse*

we ran out of Wolfe-
schlaegelstienhausenberger-
haufstedt this morning

whatever happened
to Mrs. Wolfeschlaegel-
stienhausenbergerhaufstedt?



for more on Herbert Wolfshlaegelsteinhausenbergerhaufstedt, Xavier Yopp, Sibyl Bibble, other funny names, and diverse comedy pieces from a span between 1965 and 1990, pick up an out of print copy of The Big Book Of New American Humor from your local library. but you don't have to take my word for it!

asterisked haikus by cousin Larry Read more!

uuuuuhhhhh

My attempt at standardized


Traditionally
Winds blow inside of my being
As structure subsides Read more!

on the order of the mundane

a travelers tale


nighttime and the unscrewed daylight backs away slowly. cause there's nothing to see here, just the orange incandescence of the streetlamp and the cold dead moon firing hot photons it had stolen from Sol. her feet beat the earth below, as graceful on a human scale as it is cataclysmic on the microscopic and irrelevant on the cosmic. as she rides her flat L-shaped appendages, most basic of all modes of transportation to the store of nearest convenience for a pack of cigarettes and an ice cream sandwich she stops and plucks a leaf, just beginning to crisp in the seasonal heat. this same leaf, she thinks, could have been brushed by her soft hand just two months ago and been new, cool to the touch from it's tiny cells swelled with water which had traveled up to it through the conveyance of the shrubs branches and roots. in a few more months all of it's kin will die, and yet no one cares enough to warn them. she certainly does not, and her wanton murder of a citizen of Thatshruboverthereland is forgotten without remorse as she casually discards it's green body in a gutter like so much... it rises. it rises up. pulls it's roots up. stretches it's gangly legs and behind her she hears a *thump*. and another. *thump*. and a creak here and there too. she turns around and it waves at her from ten feet high atop it's thin legs. she waves back. "so, um, hi", the words forming in her mouth as easily as a lunch order. "HI!" says the jilted green giant jarringly. "do you need something? cause I don't have any change" she lies.
"I CRAVE NOT YOUR CHEAP METAL TOKENS, I AM HERE SEEKING JUSTICE!"
"for what, that little leaf?"
"THAT'S GEORGE TO YOU, MISSY!"
"fine, whatever, I don't have time for this."
"YOU HAVE TIME TO COMMIT HERBICIDE AND YET NO TIME TO PAY THE CONSEQUENCES?!"
"fine, what are the consequences?"
"DIRE! WE, THE PLANTS, HAVE BEEN STUDYING YOUR SPECIES FOR MANY CENTURIES, AND WE HAVE CONCEIVED OF PUNISHMENTS THAT STRIKE AT THE HEART OF WHAT YOU HOLD MOST DEAR!"
"yeah, yeah, yeah, cut to the chase already"
"TO THAT END, FOR OUR HIGHEST CRIME WE WILL BE FORCED TO INVOKE WHAT WE BELIEVE TO BE THE HIGHEST PUNISHMENT WE CAN RENDER UPON HUMANS!"
"alright, so what is it?"
"ONE PAPER CURRENCY NOTE!"

she hands him a buck and continues on her way, cursing him for depriving her of her ice cream funds.

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a rare Robyn post
.

Save the Bees

the meaning of life is to live meaningfully.
even as the birds and bees are dying,
babies are fucked into being.
in the beginning there was no beginning;
but now, both fate and will demand:
fuck something, even love!
save the bees!
be!



Read more!

Woe is Me Haiku

I'm leavin' on a jet plane, don't know if I will write again . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
My brain is funny
Nobody understands me
Springtime is freezing Read more!

dont finish your own business

unknowing he caters to their whims.
fuming, you stab the earth cursing under your breath.
the soil dries faster these days...
epiphany strikes-
young one,
you must learn on your own, the greed of others.
i wont have you cast out.
i instead will just hold you when you learn of their ways.
Read more!

After Argument Dawn

I just looked out the window and thought, I'm crazy . . . I'm crazy . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

After Argument Dawn

How could we when the dark made sense at last
And where is the “we” so smothered by morning?
All those eggs consumed with ego, all that talk
Of revolution skidding off track into tension
Like the questions we shouldn’t ask.

We have no reference for what we are
But the goodness and heat of our entwinement;
Quick and calm now the apologies pour forth,
Replies flow thick from ancient source,
This river of our-self before we were two.

Really, it’s so much pepper on scrambled eggs,
Words ground out from the heart to be eaten
Like everything else, and forgiveness
Like roses beading with tears like everything
Else in the sun’s orange rising again. Read more!

This Yellow Rose

Love hurts, blah blah blah, love blows, blah blah blah, love [whatever!]
Obviously we wouldn't be human without its predicaments. Go love go!
Hey . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

This Yellow Rose

Heaving dreams onto pedestals didn’t work,
Neither idolatry of feet nor phallus,
Sneak attacks nor unclean notions of love.
Distracted ash burned faith and bed sheets,
And booze couldn’t quell the current of hurt.

Forcing cherished gospels we left contentment,
Strayed from best intentions to opposite camps,
Argued around meat to stomach expired milk,
Made believe that sour was sweet.

Universe turned without us, her music paused.
Dipped in wrong images too long the magic
Subtracted from hearts left bewildered husks,
Bedside brooding, wedded resentments,
All the good times engulfed then gone.

This yellow rose stands against ugly endings,
Stands for what we had at beginning blush:
Petals not yet plucked, dreams not yet bruised,
First risk, first kiss beneath unmarred moon. Read more!

Rain and Sunbreaks

Dreaming of Michigan and happy times, those previous lives that stab me in the gut with remembered beauty.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Rain and Sunbreaks

Like hurling darts at stars our best
Attempts to commune as lovers
Fall short: ego’s gravity trumps intent.

But what we’ve had is worth the folly:
Night rain cleansing this world of mistakes,
Morning essence glinting with sunbreaks.

We are flower-lords of separate gardens,
Bending stalks toward each other’s
Petal-lips, spitting pollen kisses

Across the yards and through the fence,
Riding redemptive winds, comrades in
The dance of intimacy and distance.

What can we do but continue to embrace
Through rain and sunbreaks, and refrain
When refraining seems right, and right
Is what we are, will be, weather be damned.
Read more!

whats up with the zine???


Just curious as to the status of the publication

Read more!

I Cannot Stay with You, I Cannot Leave

Sequel to the previous.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

I Cannot Stay With You, I Cannot Leave
Remembering Beckett and all things not coming
Save the usual attacks from everywhere and nowhere.
It’s freezing beyond your walls
And it’s freezing within.
Godot and peace my dear, not coming.
Childhood again, not coming.
What tender things can we say to each other
All misconstrued to hate and breakup
And inability to breakup?
I want to hear you sing again your little morning song.
“I’m the prettiest girl in the whole wide world,
Ain’t nothing gonna stop me now . . .”
I have to get going.
I have a life somewhere I remember.
You are my life and I am lost.
I have to kiss your neck.
I can’t.
Sweet milk neck.
God help me now.
The wind like crazy Beethoven howling out of tune
In the bricks and my heart has lost its wisdom.
Is that what befell Solomon?
Lust-muddled fool forgetting the heart’s gold.
He slipped into madness and God did not help him.
All that helps not damns from a place of absence.
You blossoming rose.
I shriveling vine.
I want to die. I cannot.
We’ve scalded ourselves with a substance called love,
And we’ve been swimming in love’s falsity, and look--
These are the scars, but they didn’t have to be.
Forgive me, I was a child once,
Entity, aflame, seeking the same.
The frost makes love to the rose and knows not the murder.
Waiting, waiting--we have not murdered yet.
Black day snarls hungry.
I bring you a beer and I am afraid.
I have forgotten the mother’s love
Which is the substance I used to swim in, and look--
This is the healed me, photo in a dusty book.
All that has followed didn’t have to be.
I was a child once and once I understood.
Forgive me but maybe you shouldn’t,
And hide, hide that sweet milk neck
For my heart has lost its wisdom. Read more!

The Wisdom of the Flesh

Some experiences are beyond words in a very good way;
This is why I say yes to life come shit or storm.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

The Wisdom of the Flesh

Our tongues like buds of April pink
Fuse and the Revolution flowers,
The new cosmos comes in shudders.

O sage of bliss and blistering, I slip
Between your parentheses and brackets
And Sabbath in the softness there.

All I wish to read
Are the wild and smiling prophecies
Of your body’s Braille.

All I wish to write
Are the worlds that flame within
When I speak your name.

In you I am calm as when new,
Grateful as when ancient.
Read more!

Hell Is In "Hello"

Hoorah! Roadtrip!



I'll tell you, hell is in "hello,"
And heaven's in "goodbye,
it's time for me to go."

As I shoulder my pack,
I know there's not a place
that won't look better looking back.

Can you hear that sound?
The whistle's blowing,
and my feet are off the ground,

the wheel's rolling,
yesterday is where I've been,
tomorrow's where I'm going.

It's not about the destination,
but the journey,
and life is my vacation.

Hell is in "hello," my friend,
and heaven's in the knowing
that the journey never ends.
Read more!

Out of the Howling Tao an Uncanny Goddess Comes

New love is always good. Of course time changes that as it should. Stasis is antithetical to time. Eternity attracts according to its own special gravity. It gets sorted out in the end, I think.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Beguiling moonlight and Portland spring and newness dances.
Amid night beer and tears of planets you unhinge your jaw to talk,
And I surge enthused, God-ward with you, somewhere, I guess.
I cannot put a name to your brain’s pretty constellations.
I eat your star-petal syllables, the animal-me is hungry.
I wish to gorge on witch-tits and empathy.
Your eyebrow raises hard questions; I think, labyrinthine, balk.
More drinks are ordered and drank, and there is nervousness.
In cuddling candlelit silence I dream your mouth to mine.
Words do come eventually, but no answers,
But I say yes to your raised eyebrows and yes to your flesh,
The warm Sabbath of your body, and something secret
Beyond words but analogous to peace, and yes to all the rest. Read more!

December's Internal Dialogue with Once Beloved

Going to Michigan soon. I won't have internet access so I better get my June posts in now!


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

So many cold drafts in this dinginess, I can't get warm.
Cast aside the bed covers, dear. You'll be a fossil one day.
Is that what the paper says? Be good and bring it to me.
The coffee's done, dear. There isn't much. Get out of bed.
I'm tired and my knees ache. Is it dark yet?
Dark grey as always, dear. The oatmeal won't be hot forever.
Why don't you come back to bed with me? I'm cold.
I'm awake now, dear. There's stuff to do. I gotta do stuff.
What stuff? Won't you come back to me? I'm bored.
If I come back to you, dear, I'll never get up again.
Why are you getting dressed? It's nearly night again.
Not yet, dear. There are things to touch and taste and talk to.
My teeth are chattering in my skull. I'm talking to you!
Your words in my head too long, dear. Today's page is new.
I'm fading. I'm snowdrift beneath the dusk. You loved me?
Yes, dear, I did, but there's more to scribble in my story.
Where are you going? You won't forget me? You can't!
You were God of morning, dear. But life doesn't end at noon.
Our souls blistered long together, and in your soul I will live!
Yes, dear, and each white cheek given a rose from the cold.
I go now, a lit candle in memory keeping you warm.
Read more!

Something Impending

I need help! Does anyone know a shrink who'd be willing to say I'm too mentally ill to work? I'm lookin' to retire real soon. It can't go on like this much longer. I start my internet search for shrinks now.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Something Impending
All this time our sophisticated egos have been shitting out skeletons.
Spring thunderheads blacken the sky, suck in the seagulls, wait.
Bald guys with butterfly nets are scampering naked through the roses.
They are coming for you and your quest for relevance and love.
They are coming for me and my soul's macabre bric-a-brac bullshit.
Tick-tack-toe and the clowns with machine gun bowties are free.
Would you like some more coffee, O sweet-leech, before the endtime?
May I kiss you for memory's scrapbook? I'm not alive unless I kiss you.
The storm blots the morning, thunder-muting our senseless protest.
Is it too late to guerilla market our poems, or whore for peace?
As kids we figured out this hand-me-down cosmos was dark farce,
We flew over the ruins of adult dreams and vowed to never give in.
Eyeballing well the puppets' toil we pretended our strings gone.
Older now, unraveled: your lunatic syntax makes me nervous.
The bald gods fist-beat the door and fuck it, I'm letting them in.

Read more!

Ethereal Theater of the Absurd, Part 6

All we can do is our best according to our talents which we have not buried. All judgements upon our doing are subjective. And our being? Can't touch that!


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE


“Then hell’s my proper place,” Ernest said. “All my friends will be there. None of
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 20
them ever had a pot to piss in. They were artists, wisdom seekers, the beautifully wound-
ed. All poor, all struggling to make sense of this sick existence. All slaves to their own
addictions, yes, but good hearts, good friends, and none of them were willing to sell their
souls for cash! for you! for your ghastly absurd paradigm!”
WANNA BET?
Silence from Ernest, his eyes on Sarah. We lived lifetimes in those two years. We
augmented each other, healed each other. Our love was real, wasn’t it?
GOD IS KEEPING TABS. SHALL I GIVE YOU THE LOWDOWN?
I cooled the cloth for your boiling head. I held it there. I was not a monster.
YOUR FRIEND KATIE, THE PAINTER, HAS HOOKED UP WITH A SUC-
CESSFUL ART DEALER. SHE’S SLOBBING HIS KNOB RIGHT NOW FOR CASH,
FOR ME. YOUR FRIEND SUSAN HAS MET A YOUNG, RICH, UP-AND-COMING
ACTOR WITH CONNECTIONS. SHE WILL NOT COME TO GOD EMPTY-
HANDED. EVEN YOUR FRIEND BRANDON HAS.
“Hey God, it’s party time!” A new male arrival strutted in, donning a spiffy grey
suit with black pinstripes, a wide-brimmed triangular hat cocked to one side, and black
patent leather shoes, freshly shined. He produced a pen and a check book from his suit’s
inside pocket.
“Brandon, say it ain’t so?” Ernest said. “And why do you get to wear clothes?”
Ignoring Ernest, Brandon scrawled out a check with ornate flourish. “What’s up
God!” he said.
WELCOME PRIZED PEARL! I’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU. THIS POOR
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 21
PUNY FRIEND OF YOURS THOUGHT HE COULD APPEAR BEFORE GOD SANS
CASH.
“He don’t get stuff God. I tried as you know. He’s stupid, and sick.”
SO I’VE LEARNED. HIS POOR EX-WIFE HERE AGREES.
Ernest fought back tears. “We believed the same things Brandon, remember?
Civilization’s a toilet! Reality’s a farce! Money-hungry type-A pricks are crazy!”
Brandon tore out the check and turned to Sarah. “Was sex with the monster bad?”
“Don’t answer that turncoat, honey,” Ernest said. “I can’t believe this shit.”
“Shut up Ernie. I don’t want to lose count.” Sarah straightened the stack of
money. “Fifty grand so far.” She smile and addressed Brandon, “Did you know he liked
little girls?”
Brandon laughed. “Everyone knew.”
“It was the worst sex ever,” Sarah said. “The fumbling idiot took forever to come.
I’d lay there, feigning interest, awaiting the money shot, awaiting the money shot till bored
I’d push him out of me unsatisfied, but worst of all was his anal fixation. But I got him
back. I shit on the monster’s dick.”
HA HA HA. SUCKS AT SEX. SUCKS AT SUCCESS. GETS SHIT ON BY
ALL.
Ernest rose to his feet. “Yeah, thanks everyone. At least I didn’t sell out.”
DIDN’T THEY TEACH YOU IN SCHOOL THAT COMMERCE WAS GOOD?
“Of course but--Brandon! What happened?”
“I played the stocks on the sly,” Brandon said, adjusting his tie. “I invested in arm-
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 22
ament corporations, made it big, cashed in this morning and poisoned myself.”
“You killed yourself?” said Ernest.
“I had the good sense to bring my check book.”
“You hear that God?” Ernest wagged his finger.
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE NEEDED CASH TO MAKE JUDGEMENTS
HERE. BOTH SUICIDES AND PROSTITUTES ARE WELCOME IF THEY HAVE
ENOUGH CASH BUT NOT YOU. I AM A FORGIVING AND MERCIFUL GOD
FOR THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD ME.
“Here’s my check,” Brandon said. “Three hundred sixty grand.”
WELL DONE MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT! YOU QUALIFY FOR
PLATINUM MEMBERSHIP. AN UNLIMITED BAR TAB AND UNLIMITED
PUSSY AWAIT THEE.
Spiral arms formed and the angel choir sang. “Brandon wait!” Ernest called.
“What about the mushroom? What about the gnosis?”
“Gnosis shmosis, wet brain. It’s just a drug,” Brandon said before being
swooshed into the kingdom amid joyful trumpeting. Ernest stared long at the space
through which his friend had vanished, the following silence broken only by the rustling of
Sarah’s growing money-stack.
“Sarah,” Ernest said. “Can I please have a smoke before you go?”
“I guess,” she said, lighting one and flipping it to him. Ernest savored the drags,
and one more time tried to wish himself back to the hospital bed.
GOD GAVE YOU TWENTY-TWO YEARS OF WORKING LIFE TO
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 23
ACCUMULATE ENOUGH CASH. HOW DID YOU SQUANDER IT? WHERE DID
IT GO? ARE YOU CERTAIN IT’S NOT STUCK UP YOUR ASSHOLE?
“I was a waiter once!”
NOW YOU’RE JUST AN ASSHOLE.
“I had bills to pay, and I was nervous. I needed smokes and beer.”
EXCUSES, EXCUSES. SO MUCH PROMISE PISSED AWAY ON PIPE-
DREAMS AND AN EASY BUZZ. YOU SUCK!
“Pipedreams? I labored to build an authentic life, and I was a brilliant writer.
You can ask Susan when she gets here. She read it all. I was a genius!”
GOD GLADLY ACCEPTS CASH FROM FOOLS AND GENIUSES ALIKE.
WHERE ARE THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABORS?
“I couldn’t get published. It’s not my fault. Ask Susan.”
LEAVE HER OUT OF IT. SHE WAS A GOOD INFLUENCE ON YOU.
“I know. She was my motherfucking muse!”
YOU SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN MARKETABLE MATERIAL! INSTEAD
YOU SCRIBBLED BLASPHEMIES. SO MUCH BITTERNESS. SO MUCH SELF-
LOATHING. SO MUCH SHIT. NOT MARKETABLE.
“I wrote what moved me! I followed my goddamn heart!”
AND WROTE PERVERSITIES. WHAT A FOUL HEART YOU HAVE.
“I had spiritual epics planned for the future! I was in process and growing in
power and.”
AND YOU’RE ABOUT TO BE DAMNED. HA HA HA. ANOTHER GOD-
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 24
ZINGER!
“Sarah,” Ernest said. “Tell God I was good. Tell God I was worthy.”
Sarah turned to God. “I have fifty-two thousand, Lord”
WELL DONE MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT! YOUR FRIENDS
WAIT FOR THEE IN THE COCKTAIL ROOM.
After Sarah was snatched to paradise, Ernest broke down and wept bitterly. He
wracked his brain, and finally said with contrition, “All I have to offer you, God, is the
talent you so blessed me with. Allow me to praise you with a poem of thanksgiving for
the rich, strange life you gave me.”
MAYBE YOU CAN WRITE THE DEVIL A LOVE SONNET WHILE HE
RAPES YOU!
“God, please listen to me! We can reason this out!”
DEPART FROM ME, PENNILESS WRETCH! I CAST YOUR CASHLESS
STENCH INTO THE FIRES OF PERDITION NOW!
“No but! But God!”
I NEVER KNEW THEE!
Ernest trembled, folding icy hands in prayer, then--Poof! Read more!

Ethereal Theater of the Absurd, Part 5

We get a little misguided sometimes, and that's ok. We try our best usually . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 16
YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST TO COME TO ME WITH ENCOUNTERS WITH
THE FUNGAS. MAGIC MUSHROOMS ARE NOTHING BUT DRUGS THAT
BLOOM FROM COWS’ SHIT. YOU WERE DECEIVED. SORRY. I AM THAT I
AM AND THAT MEANS THE ONE AND ONLY GOD.
“No, it can’t be true. I felt truly healed from the shroom, and the God within in-
troduced himself. In the mirror my face shape-shifted to all faces, every face, and I knew
that all is one--I knew it! No petty, tyrannical ego-mirage can strip that knowledge of
gnosis from me, that song of tag you’re it and now we’ve found you and now you know
and all is gnosis and all is good and all is God and all is healing and all the tears are saved,
the tears of God’s song, the All-song, even me!” Ernest stood, naked, and sobbing from
the remembrance. Out of the edge of his eye Janice was smiling and counting her money.
Ernest allowed his rage to gather again before resuming.
“You, false God, cannot take that knowing from me. You imposter! You big fat
otherdimensional baby, sittin’ there all retarded and smug, tuggin’ your dick, shittin’ your
diaper. How dare you judge me. Fuck off!”
BLAH BLAH BLAH. GOD IS GREED. WHERE’S THE CASH?
“How ‘bout this. I challenge you to a writing contest. If I win you let me into
heaven. We’ll summon some deceased former writer to judge. I’m pretty fuckin’ con-
fident I’d kick your ass.”
PLEASE STEP ASIDE. YOUR EX-WIFE IS HERE. MAYBE SHE HAS
CASH FOR GOD.
“What the fuck,” Ernest whispered. He spun around, and sure enough, Sarah
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 17
Carnation marched toward them, hacking asthmatically and huffing for breath, as in life.
She lugged a stuffed duffle bag and puffed angrily on a cigarette. “You whore,” Ernest
hissed as their eyes met.
“Whatever, loser,” Sarah said, forming an L with index finger and thumb, and
gluing the gesture to her forehead for dramatic effect, as in life. She plopped the bag
down and unzipped it. Naked she stood, belly a bit more Buddha-like than Ernest re-
membered, and something new and disturbing to his sense of once-connection: a bloody
gash below the navel, clotted but red and angry, the mark of violence.
WELCOME DEAR CHILD. DO YOU HAVE CASH FOR GOD?
“Of course, God,” Sarah said. “I’m not retarded.”
APPARENTLY YOUR FORMER HUSBAND IS.
“Sarah!” Ernest said, eyes fixed to her wound. “What happened to you?”
“Like you ever gave a shit.”
“Sarah, what are you saying? We had great times. I, I taught you how to drive.”
“Yeah thanks for nothing, Ernie. I was a just battered kid and you promised the
moon to get in my pants.” Sarah took a deep, hateful drag from her Virginia Slim and
blew smoky spittle at Ernest’s face. “You said you’d be a famous writer and I believed
you. I had big dreams, Ernie. A nice wardrobe. Trips to Europe. Gourmet dining in the
best restaurants. We ate hamburger helper, Ernie! Hamburger fuckin’ helper! For two
goddamn years I fucked you and waited for the money, fucked you whenever you wanted
till I got smart and woke up one day, so sick of fucking a loser.”
“You fucked Ricky on the side. You left me to become a whore.”
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 18
“You couldn’t provide for me, creep, but I hung in there till I walked in on you
jacking off to the Olsen twins one day.” Sarah faced God now. “He’s a sick, pedophile-
pauper, God.”
HA HA HA. MORE PEDOPHILIA CHARGES. GOD IS ENTERTAINED.
Ernest threw his hands in the air. “But the Olsen twins aren’t minors anymore.”
Sarah walked right up to Ernest and ashed on his dickhead. “It was their fuckin’
slumber party video, sicko. They were nine years old,” she huffed. “Monster.”
Janice, done counting her stash, threw her wizened arms around Sarah. “Oh, dear
child. We’re bonded by mutual victimization. The monster tried to rape me.”
HA HA HA. GOD HASN’T LAUGHED THIS HARD IN MILLENIA.
Ernest sat down, resting his chin on his knees. “Sarah, you know I did my best for
you, working at that shitty restaurant to make ends meet, fucking you whenever you
demanded, even when I was too exhausted to think straight.” He spoke to his toes now.
“I paid for your modeling school. I held you as you cried at night. Your stepfather was
the monster, not me.”
“Please Ernie, spare me. I was seventeen and vulnerable. You were twenty-nine
and should’ve known better. Not the Prince Charming I thought you were.” Sarah whis-
pered to Janice. “I’m sorry this sick beast tried to rape you. Thank God that God is here
to protect us.”
YOU LADIES HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM THAT LITTLE PERVERT
ANYMORE. I SEE THAT YOU BOTH HAVE CASH FOR ME. GOD LOVES YOU.
“Uh Sarah,” Ernest said. “Can I have a cigarette please?”
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 19
She flicked her burning butt at his balls. Ernest flailed self-protectively, then
retrieved the nearly spent smoke, and sucked hard at the remaining nicotine. Once fin-
ished, he looked with despair at the commiserating women. What did I ever do to deserve
such misery?
YOU FAILED TO MAKE CASH FOR GOD. YOU BURIED YOUR GIFTS IN
THE SAND.
“Uh, excuse me God,” Janice said.
YES, MY CHILD?
“I have a hundred and twenty thousand dollars for you.”
WELL DONE MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT. YOU MAY ENTER
PARADISE PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO INCREASED THEIR TALENTS. As the
angel-choir returned and heaven’s hands lifted her up by the armpits, Janice looked at Ern-
est a final time and cackled. “Have fun being a sex toy for demons!”
“Is hell really for the poor, Lord?” Ernest mumbled while watching Sarah count
money from her bag, a child-happy look on her face, her lips mouthing the numbers, lips
that he had kissed in tenderness, in lust, in hope, in frustration, in boredom.
THAT SHOULD BE CLEAR ENOUGH TO YOU NOW. HELL IS FOR THE
HOMELESS, THE RABBLE, THE LAZY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING TYPE-B PERSON-
ALITIES WHO WILLINGLY CHOSE SOCIETAL TONE-DEAFNESS AND FOL-
LOWED THEIR OWN HEART’S MUSIC, RATHER THAN TAKE THE PROGRAM-
ING, WORK HARD, OBEY LAWS, AND PRESENT CASH TO GOD. Read more!

Ethereal Theater of the Absurd, Part 4

Sometimes it's just a big misunderstanding!


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE


“I want it back, Elizabeth. I want it, I want it.”
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 13
Janice Stephenson, long silent, her ancient face red and animated again, appealed.
“See God? He’s a monster. A monster!”
“No I’m not,” Ernest said. “I’m a man. I human being of flesh and blood and soul
and dreams and.”
YOU COULD HAVE CONTROLLED YOURSELF! GOD AGREES. YOU
ARE A MONSTER. YOU ARE A PEDOPHILE AND A GERIATRIFILE WITH
DARK INCESTUOUS INCLINATIONS. ADD IT UP FOR YOURSELF, MONSTER.
GOD’S MATH IS GOOD.
“God’s math is a joke,” Ernest said. “Remember the apostle Paul’s lament, that
which I want to do, I don’t do; that which I don’t.”
DON’T QUOTE SCRIPTURE TO GOD. SCRIPTURE MAKES GOD SLEEPY.
“Very well,” Ernest said. “I rest my case. I’m just like the apostle Paul. Can I
either wake up in bed or enter the kingdom of heaven now?”
DO YOU HAVE THE NECESSARY CASH?
“I do!” squealed Janice, holding her purse aloft, beaming.
“What?” Ernest whispered. “What did God say?”
DID NO ONE EXPLAIN THE ENTRY FEE TO YOU, PUNY?
“Why the fuck would there be an entry fee? Heaven’s a spiritual place, isn’t it?”
IGNORANCE OF THE ENTRY FEE IS NO EXCUSE. GOD NEEDS CASH!
“Well, I suppose diapers ain’t free,” Ernest said, looking over at Janice with con-
tempt. Saggy grey tits brought a purse!
HA HA. VERY FUNNY. YOU THINK GOD’S JOKING? GOD HAS NEEDS.
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 14
“For diapers?”
GOD’S BOOKIES BADGER GOD NIGHT AND DAY, AND THE ANGEL-
PIMPS HAVE BEEN SMACKIN’ AROUND GOD’S WHORES DUE TO GOD’S
FORFEITURE OF PAYMENT FOR SERVICES RENDERED. GOD NEEDS
WHORES. GOD MISSES THEM. DO YOU HAVE CASH?
“I’d like to wake up from this nightmare now.” Ernest took his hands off his
crotch and closed his eyes. Back to my body, back to my body. Little Mary took the
opportunity to reclaim her toy.
“Get bigger, toy worm,” she said, wiggling Ernest’s limpness with vigor. “Get
bigger for Mary.”
“Please stop,” Ernest murmured. Back to my body!
“You’re asking for it,” cried Elizabeth, crossing her little white arms over her
fluid-slimed chest, and tilting up her chin haughtily. “I hope it pukes on you too.”
Janice counted a stack of Franklins that she’d pulled from her purse, and chanted,
“Monster thousand one hundred dollars, monster thousand two hundred dollars.”
Ernest gave up, opened his eyes, saw Mary batting his prick against her tiny pink
nipple, and erupted into laughter. “God, how am I supposed to bargain for my salvation
with this kid pawing at my pecker?”
HA HA HA.
“C’mon God, I accept your reality now. Can’t you conjure up some marbles for
her? a teddy bear? a Barbie doll? Anything to get her off my dick.”
OH, YOU HAVE A CASH OFFERING FOR GOD?
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 15
“Give these girls something to do and we’ll talk.”
ALRIGHT! YOU GIRLS HAVE WAITED LONG ENOUGH. YOU MAY
ENTER YOUR FATHER’S KINGDOM NOW, PREPARED FOR THEE AND THINE
SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. THEREIN YOU’LL FIND TOYS
APLENTY. ENJOY PARADISE.
High above everyone’s heads the sky-painting changed. The clouds-on-purple
swirled into a rotating spiral, forming two arms on either side. It’s hue changed from
milky purple to glowing gold, and the celestial music from before roared with a million
angel-voices an ode to awe. The two spiral arms reached down to the girls, forming
welcoming golden hands at their ends. A sublime tenderness emanated from those
hands. Ernest’s heart hummed along to its tune. His Adam’s apple froze in his
throat. Mary gave the penis a final tug. “Bye bye, toy,” she said, then heaven’s hands
scooped up the girls and sucked them into the vortex, which then vanished, the sky re-
turning to its previous state of clouds-on-purple.
“Wow,” Ernest said.
YOU CAN GO WHERE THEY ARE AND PLAY WITH THEM AGAIN FOR
ALL ETERNITY IF YOU CAN JUST FORK OVER SOME CASH FOR GOD.
“That statement is so fucked up on so many levels that I don’t know where to
begin.”
BEGIN WITH THE CASH EXCHANGE AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW.
Ernest raised his arms. “Am I supposed to pull some cash out of my ass?”
GOD’S CHERUBIM WILL WASH GOD’S MONEY. ALL MONEY IS HOLY
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 16
TO ME.
“I wasn’t being serious, God. There’s no cash in my ass.”
ARE YOU SURE? MAYBE YOU FORGOT.
Janice, still counting her stash, chimed in. “Give the monster a cavity-search,
God.”
THAT COULD BE ARRANGED. IT’S THE SERAPHIM’S SPECIALTY.
“Look you two, I don’t have any money. I didn’t think it was important. Am I
the only dumb ass who believed in the adage, you can’t take it with you when you die?”
YES YOU PRETTY MUCH ARE. HEAVEN HAS NO ROOM FOR PAUPERS.
DIDN’T YOU READ ABOUT THE MANSIONS? YOU STUDIED MY BOOK A
WHILE, OR MAYBE YOU FORGOT.
“Yeah, but the heavenly mansion thing is just a metaphor for the glories of God’s
kingdom. What about the meek inheriting the earth? What about the first will be last, and
the last will be first? What about it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to.”
WHAT IS A METAPHOR?
“What! Aren’t you the author of language?”
THE LAMB OF ME IS LOGOS, NOT GOD.
“Aren’t you and Jesus of the same--No! Fuck that. The magic mushroom is
Logos. My breakthrough trip taught me as much. It dictated a hymn to me, and for six
hours I listened to that God within, and typed out It’s melting wisdom on the screen, and
that tune of healing I tell you, beast, hums in my soul still.” Read more!

Ethereal Theater of the Absurd, Part 3

The human affirms his humanity as demons tempt. To be human is wonderful.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
.
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 9
“I didn’t try to rape her!”
THEN HOW DID YOUR SEMEN JUST HAPPEN TO OOZE FROM YOUR
LITTLE TESTICULAR PUDDING FACTORIES ONTO THIS GOOD WOMAN’S
STOMACH?
“No, but.”
GOD IS LISTENING. GOD KNOWS WHEN YOU’VE BEEN SLEEPING.
GOD KNOWS WHEN YOU’RE AWAKE. GOD KNOWS WHEN YOU’VE BEEN
BAD OR GOOD SO BE--
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, God! You should know the answer then.”
HOW DARE YOU BLASPHEME THE LAMB OF ME! HE DIED FOR YOU.
“Sorry your honor, but if you’re omniscient shouldn’t you know the answer.”
ARE YOU TRYING TO TRICK GOD?
“I’m just asking, don’t you know what happened?”
God banged the rattle over and over against his knee, during which the humans
winced and covered their ears. Then, setting down the rattle, God thundered forth a
bubbling, juicy, malodorous anal emission, and chuckled. GOD SHARTED! HA HA HA.
“You shit yourself,” Ernest yelped, slapping a hand to his nose.
GOD HAD TOO MANY TACOS. HA HA HA. GOD LOVES TACOS!
“Who’s gonna change your diaper?” Ernest asked. Green, serpentine clouds
slithered by. Everyone coughed and wheezed. One of the little girls fainted. Ernest lifted
her up and flung her over his shoulder, holding her with one hand by the back of her knee
as her twin stayed conscious, still pressed to Ernest’s thigh and clinging to his left leg.
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 10
Meanwhile, taking advantage of diverted eyes, Janice dipped an index finger into her
stomach-glaze, sniffed at it, then licked it clean.
GOD WILL ATTEND TO ALL WARDROBE CHANGES WHEN GOD IS
GOOD AND READY.
You ain’t gettin’ off easy, motherfucker, Ernest thought, the holy vapors subsid-
ing. God’s diversionary tactics be damned.
GOD MAY BE FULL OF SHIT SOMETIMES BUT CAN STILL READ YOUR
MIND. GOD FEARS NOT YOUR PUNY QUESTIONS, MORTAL. CONTINUE
THY DEFENSE!
“Thanks God,” Ernest said, grinning. “As I was saying, not only did I not try to
rape the lady, I wasn’t even thinking of her when Ernie Junior started spittin’ up. It was
an uncivilized little accident.”
GOD RECOGNIZES NO ACCIDENTS! SINS OF THE HEART ARE AS BAD
AS SINS OF COMMISSION. WHO WERE YOU TRYING TO RAPE IN YOUR
MIND?
The girl, draped over Ernest’s shoulder, stirred. Her dangling feet kicked play-
fully against his leg, curious toes occasionally grazing the erect shaft. “I wasn’t, uh.”
BRAIN SOILED BY BAD THOUGHTS AGAIN?
“I wasn’t thinking of raping anyone in my mind. I never do! It’s just that.”
PLEASE ILLUMINATE GOD ON YOUR STRAY REVERIES, FILTHY
PERVERT!
“You made me, monster! You made my mind, even the dark places, so who the
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 11
fuck are you to stand in judgment of me--your creation?”
GOD IS LOVING AND INDULGENT. CONTINUE THINE CONFESSION!
“A man gets thoughts, you know, and they’re not always holy.” The little girl’s
feet seized Ernest’s penis on either side. She started rubbing. Back and forth, back and
forth. From her unseen face Ernest heard giggles. I’m Jesus in the desert; I’m Buddha
amid the tempting nymphs; I will not be moved. Ernest struggled to focus, closing his
eyes, opening them. “Here’s the gist of it, God. Janice was a wreak of weeping con-
fusion, and I consoled her. That was good, right?”
GOD GUESSES SO. GO ON.
“Good God, I mean--ah!” The other nymphet, no longer fearful and bored with
all the God-stuff, tickled her sister’s feet, quickening the rubbing frenzy on Ernest’s meat.
Hold your spunk, hold your spunk, Ernest exhorted himself. God help me.
GOD ALWAYS HAS A HELPING HAND TO LEND. HA HA HA. GO ON.
“Ok, uh--I consoled poor Janice, and she was so needy and pitiful that my
thoughts shot out to my Aunt Dora, who would heave herself upon me in much the, uh uh
same way.”
GOD UNDERSTANDS! YOU WERE DREAMING OF GOOD TIMES WITH
AUNTIE.
“Well no, ah ah--I mean yes. I did have good times with her. She accepted me
with all my foibles and eccentricities like, ah, no one else. Time stood still for us and we
kissed and held each other, and it was good and proper, our physical contact, nothing
wrong with it! But oh!” At that moment the girl stopped tickling her sister’s feet, grasped
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 12
Ernest’s sputtering engorgement, a cock-headed look of wonder in her wild green eyes,
and tugged like a pro.
GOD IS PATIENT. YOU SAID NOTHING WAS WRONG, BUT. BUT
WHAT?
“But, uh, aunt Dora had this smell, see. It was uh, how do I put it, ah.”
AROUSING?
“Uh, uh, no. Not arousing. Nothing so unsavory. It was more like heaven.”
LIKE THIS PLACE?
“Huh? Ah--fuck no! It was like when we were together, and hugging and kissing
and loving each other with perfect empathy, it was uh, uh--we were one. One in spirit,
and she smelled like crushed lilacs, her breasts against me, ah fuck. I mean thinking of
sweet Dora in that other woman’s arms, my spirit soared again with the old ecstasy, and
my poor soul, uh ah, and my flesh, my body kinda went wild from the spirit’s buzz and,
uh--oh no! oh no!--I, I.”
“Yucky, yucky,” cried the unsuspecting handjobstress, wiping at the gelatinous
junk now covering her breast-spots. Ernest, shuddering and shame-faced, set the other
girl down and covered his guilty genitals with both hands. The unsoiled foot-masseuse,
standing again and ignoring her sister’s plight, gave Ernest’s hands a bratty pout.
“I want my toy back, mister! Where’d it go? I want it.” She pulled at those hands.
“Bad toy, Mary. Bad toy,” the soiled one shouted, fingers dripping viscousness.
“It barfed on me!” Read more!

Ethereal Theater of the Absurd, Part 2

God will not be mocked! And so it goes . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 5
SILENCE! WHO SUMMONED GOD FROM HIS NAP?
Faraway, unseen, the old woman shouted from the gelatin sea of humanity, her
voice amplified by some unknown means. “It’s I, God. Janice Stephenson. That man
tried to rape me.”
DOES GOD HEAR CORRECTLY? PUNY ERNEST CARNATION HAS BEEN
DECEASED A MERE FIFTEEN MINUTES AND HE’S ALREADY HORNY FOR
GERIATRIC TAIL?
Ernest shook all over. It can’t be.
GOD LIES NOT! GOD KNOWS YOU LIKE OLDIES AND NEWBIES AND
NO ONE WITHIN FIFTEEN YEARS OF YOU EITHER WAY. A SAD PSYCHO-
SEXUAL POSITION IF YOU ASK ME. YOU SOUGHT MOMMIES AND
DAUGHTERS, BUT NO EQUALS. TOO BAD!
“No,” cried Ernest. “I mean, I’m not dead. I’m only thirty-nine, and you’re not
God.” He looked around him for support, for a look on someone’s face that this whole
show couldn’t possibly be real, but found none.
TIME FOR GOD TO DESCEND TO THE SKEPTIC’S LEVEL AND SHOW
HIM MY TRUE FACE. Just then the sun turned white and descended toward the surface
of bunched humanity, a bit left of Ernest’s position, a bit right of his accuser’s. Upon
reaching an altitude of twenty feet the sun halted its descent and started to blink, hyper-
paced, like a giant strobe light. Little arms grabbed at each of Ernest’s legs. Startled, he
looked down and beheld two naked girls, identical, with wild green eyes, no older than six
years old, each yanking in strobe-effected slow motion on their own Ernest-leg as if trying
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 6
to pry apart a wishbone.
“Fuck, I’m not your daddy,” Ernest said.
They looked pathetically up at Ernest, then pressed their small faces into his hips,
their fingers tight around his meaty upper legs, occasionally brushing a thumb-knuckle
against his scrotum, which dangled low and swung forward and back with the rhythm of
the girls’ tugging. Damn this tempting dream, Ernest thought. I will not be moved.
The pulsing stopped, and Ernest returned his eyes, anxious and curious, to the
bizarre, pretentious star, whose surface was now clear as a bubble. Something pink and
chubby squirmed inside. My God, Ernest thought, astonished. A fat baby?
GOD NEEDS ROOM TO LAND! CLEAR OUT, PUNY MORTALS!
Wailing babble of a million mouths, sounding to Ernest’s ears like so much non-
sensical glossolalia. Then, an intense Hiroshima-flash filled the space. In that instant of
detonation Ernest lost all bearings and ability to reason. The flash abated as quickly as it
came. Ernest had reflexively clenched his eyes shut, but now opened them. The sky still
seemed a purple, amateur painting, smudged here and there with clouds like glued cotton
balls. The ground, visible for the first time, seemed a cheap, inexact replication of the sky.
The little girls still clung to Ernest’s legs, but had ceased their desperate pulling. To
Ernest’s left, Janice stood, brown eyes hawkish and hate-filled, the curl of her white-
dentured smile tightening her cheek-wrinkles. Everyone else had vanished. Room to
breath, Ernest thought, and felt better. I’m gettin’ control of the dream now. The hag’s
still here, upon whose belly I’ve christened with DNA, but the girls are cute--they can
stay. Now, what shall I do with that big baby over there?
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 7
DO YOU DARE MOCK GOD, PEDOPHILE! The baby sat diapered before the
four human beings, high as a three-story building. It clenched a Pederbilt-truck-sized baby
rattle in one fist while the other hand’s pudgy fingers preoccupied themselves by yanking
out in fits and starts from beneath the diaper’s crotch-seam at a Cadillac-sized, rubbery
phallus.
I’ll have fun with the specter before banishing it. Ernest gave the baby a hard,
accusing look. “Excuse me, your obese-ness, but I’m no pedophile. I’ve never--”
LOOK AT YOUR DICK!
Ernest looked down at his stiffness. Blond tresses framed either side. “Uh, some-
times the body just does stuff,” Ernest said. “Probably got a real boner back in bed at the
hospital in Portland.”
YOU ARE DEAD!
“Look at you!” Ernest said, pointing. “You’re the one playing with your dick. I
haven’t touched mine.”
GOD DOES WHAT GOD WILL! YOU SHARE NOT IN SUCH FREEDOM!
HOW ANSWER THOU TO JANICE STEPHENSON’S CHARGE, GUILTY OR NOT
GUILTY?
“Goddamnit dream,” Ernest said. “What are you talking about?” The two girls
pressed in closer, pinching Ernest’s legs’ skin with their gripping, the curls of each dangled
like garments over his genitals, tickling and quickening, keeping him throbbing and hard.
Ernest glanced at Janice, who shook her head in disgust, mouthing, “Monster, monster.”
“Goddamn dream.”
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 8
THOU SHALT NOT TAKE GOD’S NAME IN VAIN!
“It’s you who are vain, dream-demon,” Ernest said.
GOD WILL LET YOUR BLASPHEMY GO FOR NOW! SOON ENOUGH,
ERNEST CARNATION, YOU’LL REALIZE YOU’RE DEAD, NOT DREAMING.
LET’S FOCUS ON THE CHARGE OF THIS GOOD WOMAN TO YOUR LEFT AND
NOT THE INNOCENT LOLITAS SHALL WE? ONCE AGAIN, GUILTY OR NOT
GUILTY OF THE CHARGE OF ATTEMPTED RAPE WHILE WAITING IN LINE OF
THE RECENTLY, AND SOON TO BE JUDGED, RESURRECTED? HOW PLEAD
THEE?
“I’ll puke on the wise ass who slipped me this mickey.” Ernest considered the
tyrannical infant and gulped with revulsion. Sucks to be the poor shit who changes God’s
dirty diaper.
GOD IS POTTY TRAINED AS WELL AS TELEPATHIC, PUNY! HOW
PLEAD THEE?
“Alright, I’ll play along. Not guilty.”
DOES GOD HEAR THEE CORRECTLY? YOU DID NOT TRY TO RAPE
THIS SAINT?
“Could you stop referring to yourself in the third person? Could you stop mixing
old and new English words for ‘you’? C’mon God, I’d expect a little better.”
GOD CAN USE ANY PERSON HE WILLS, WHETHER FIRST, SECOND,
THIRD OR INFINITY. YOU TRY GOD’S PATIENCE, PUNY. NOW BACK TO
OUR GOOD WOMAN AND THE ISSUE OF YOUR ATTEMPTED RAPE Read more!