blues in the night

i awoke to the words in my head and they said we are only words and words are only memories and memories are only stories and stories are all the same and are all untrue a rag a bone and a hank of hair a mothers prayer a step upon a creaking stair a whisper to beware a princess in a tower a guardsman at a gate a messenger arriving a moment too late the panhandler you ignored on a rainy night who turned out to be jesus christ but he forgives you it's what he came for the water is deep go back to sleep the army of light will defeat the forces of darkness do they not do it every night? a new princess will wait in a new tower more beautiful than ever with a more faithful guard who will try so hard to repel the invader next time

value

the monkey chased the elephant down the empty highway he finally cornered him in the back lot of an abandoned walmart you have cost me a lot, said the monkey and i hate to do this to you but you have too much value what is cost, asked the elephant and what is value as the monkey brought the ruby encrusted statue of the virgin (or maybe it was vishnu or lenin or sarah palin) down on his head the elephants last thought was but i'm bigger than he is

away in the soadfo

this was inspired by this post about word verification on jon parsons' blog "a blade of grass" the words in red were generated by blogger's word verification gadget the words in blue were the "comments" used to prompt the word verification "yikes", exclaimed albert as the soadfo started spreading across the road. "zounds!", echoed colonel bankwait from the back seat as he peered over albert's shoulder. "i'll get the geril out of the trunk." "that sounds like a bit of all right ," miss carpenter-st john agreed. "but i would feel better if we had some nognan ." it was certainly a sight to behold . the colonel had to carefully restep back and forth over the spreading soadfo , as he gingerly made his way to the trunk of the caleflay . "if i only had a mopsp , to cover my face with. " he muttered, considering his chances. it was a definitive moment. "can he get trichona from that stuff?" miss carpenter-st john peered cautiously out the periscope of the caleflay . "or is it exponentially , too early to say?" "this might be an estorik occasion," miss goldenday, seated besde albert in the front seat, observed. she looked fabulous . "oh, oh," albert said. "the pirkili is leaking out of the engine. i will have to get out myself and put some vessiste on the hull to seal it." "be careful," said miss goldenday. "we wouldn't anything to happen to you." "especially," added miss carpenter-st john, " as you are the only one who knows how to fix this organism. it's more complicated than the metabolism of an ahrestri ." "i hope we don't have ahrestried development," said miss goldenday. "but look - the sun is setting. it looks gorgeous ." "as you do yourself, miss," albert noted. he took a humungous pousn and and an incandescent madin out of the glove compartment and carefully opened the door of the caleflay and stepped out into the road. he noted some jellyfish floating in the spreading soadfo . albert actually had no idea how to fix the caleflay . he wasn't even sure how to open the hood, or if the hood could be opened. this is going to be one kinesthetic experience, he told himself. suddenly an acculai flew up out of the soadfo and fastened itself on to his neck. miss goldenday shifted her lissome form over into the drivers seat of the caleflay and gazed out the window at albert's form writhing on the ground. "is that an acculai , or a suregai ?" asked miss carpenter-st john. "i don't know but i sure feel sorry for the gai ," answered miss goldenday. meanwhile colonel bankwait had done a masterful job of getting to the trunk of the caleflay but had been unable to get it open and get the geril . he was pounding on the rear door for miss carpenter-st john to let him back in. miss carpenter-st john nodded noddingly to miss goldenday. "should we let him in? it doesn't look like he accomplished his mission" "i think he has a flask of diespe in his back pocket," said miss goldenday opportunistically . "let's give him a chance to redeem himself."

the wanderer

icy lights behind black glass. come on buddy, you have to go someplace else can i stay until i finish my candy bar let's go - now! i went to harvard, i'm a teacher at berkeley the candy bar's made of coconut it will freeze and break my teeth, all right make it hard on me, do you really want to make me fill out a report and take you downtown in this weather? then i won't be your friend any more i went to harvard. i'm a science professor at berkeley berkeley is three thousand miles away i know, i.m waiting for the bus, but i lost my ticket, and besides, you are not a real cop, just a transit cop, oh just a transit cop, and this is what, your private bed room, icy lights. sudden blast of air goodbye. lost my ticket

wichita

he told me the saddest sttory i ever heard - went to the track, lost his whole welfare check, on the way back, he gets stopped, gets a ticket for speeding

arnold

the terminator was at the uc cinema i thought it might be good for a laugh got there early they were waiting for me my fellow arnold fans with open mouths thick glasses and scraggly beards giants caps on backwards field jackets stuffed with candy bars and stephen king novels a chill passed through me and i continued on down university avenue to serendipity books to buy a nice book of poetry but who was i kidding? i was one of them they were my brothers

pirates

i had a dream last night i wasn't in it myself it was a movie about pirates they had a green flag with a gray rat on it it was the best movie i've seen in 20 years i wish i could remember it better i'd tell you all about it

doing it

"do it, bill." "i'm not sure i want to" ""you have to." "i'm not ready yet." "just do it, bill. it's required." "but - " "you have no choice." "oh, all right." "that's better." bill did it. "next!" "what's your name?" "bob." "what's your number?" "1-3373-7637-6598-6881" "that's a prime number." "so they tell me" "you mean you can't tell yourself?" "not really." "not very bright, are you?" "i guess." "you guess? not really? not much for explicit statements, are you, bob?" "if you say so." "you're a pretty poor excuse for an excuse, did anyone ever tell you that?' "not until you came along. you're a big meanie." "that's all well and good, bob, but are you ready to do it? are you ready to step up?" "no." "no? just no?" "i was trying to be explicit." "good one. score one for bob." "thank you." "back to square one. seriously, all joking aside, are you ready to do it?" "not really. i would prefer not to." "let there be no misunderstanding here. you are going to do it if we have to sit here all month. but if we have to do that, if we have to sit here for a month or a year, there will be some very annoyed people, only beginning with me. do you understand?" "more or less." "are you ready to do it?" "yes." "good." bob did it. "next!" "what's your name?" "buck." "what's your number?" "2-4595-3941-7845-3674." "that's a pretty tedious number." "whatever." "i like your attitude, buck. are you ready to do it?" "absolutely. put me in, coach." "all right. did you hear that, stanley? buck is a hero. congratulations, buck, you're our first hero of the day." "let's do it." buck did it. "next!" "what's your name?" "buddy." "what's your number?"

sometimes you can't go home again even though you never left

a friendly fish named frank always stayed near the surface of the tank the vast vistas of human faces in his mind always stirred up traces of an empire that long ago sank if the comte de sade came back to earth and saw the new cosmos giving birth oceans of pornography vampire novels from sea to sea what would his dreams be worth? an unknown prophet named slim couldn't swim he was thrown in the water but old pharoan's daughter just turned up her nose at him blind potato murphy played the blues he walked the hills of ireland in his alligator shoes he drank poteen dreamt of fair kathleen and paid his union dues bob, a humble barracuda sought the path of the true buddha a dinosaur banging a big brass gong followed as he walked along and quite destroyed his mood, ah a sunfish named stagger lee lived in the depths of the sea a sea lion named bob (or was it billy?) thought his paraphilological positions were silly and never invited poor stack to tea an electric eel named ed wore a path to perdition on his head he didn't know its approximate cause so he kept it wrapped in gauze and took another med a platypus named roy was no stranger to ecstatic joy he could feel the earths heart beat beneath his wary webbed feet but his demeanor remained quite coy

demon lover

when i was a child in ages dark demons chased me through the park and angels though in charge in me laughed loudly at my misery and when i finally tripped and fell you raised me with the hand of hell angel born and demon bred you introduced me to the dead the dead whose wide and staring eyes were whiter than the winter skies who sat all night on fog wet benches sad sentinels of eternal trenches the dead whose soft and wordless lips twisted like slowly sinking ships in black and bottomless seas in unreverberating reveries