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

1938

let no man stand aside who has not taken his place in line and waited for the 23673rd bird to sing after the 23672nd but raindrops and grains of dust are not so appropriate as the seat covers of a 1938 packard driven by the lady in red across the canadian border all the way from laredo for a perfect indiana day in the park with a white hat snatched by a bluebird flying to alaska but landing on easter island

raindrops

there is desperation in the greenest trees a secret conflagration in the coolest breeze the kitten at the window the butterfly in the air watch the raindrops follow each other in despair and when the leaves fall yellow in the rain the sidewalk hears them call a whispered name

the unexplainable man: toward midnight

ride the bus see a million stories forget them all mocking eyes sneering lips terrifying teeth hey you don't like it why you take so long? they punch each other they kick each other they laugh at each other lincoln towncar dark and silent surrounded by mcdonalds doggie bags two hundred people pass the bag lady walking one block behind dark glasses checking out the women dreamer or killer? shine of bottles behind a bar like no other light clutching hand from a blanket in a doorway cigarettes better than words now only words death is real it is chasing me through the streets

lion tamer

twenty six miles away and i still want to be one of the class clowns, and if only i could stop the lion tamer from his sad and wandering ways and go back to the broken fence where we first escaped from uncle john and the first law of the blue roller coaster while the clown cried twenty six twenty six miles to east st louis ladies and gentlemen before the white merry go round stops forever and all the red horses run away

sad song

i woke up at dawn in total despair my baby was gone i woke up at dawn i put my hat on it just wasn't fair i woke up at dawn in total despair the sun was shining outside in the street my heart was pining the sun was shining i started whining and shuffling my feet the sun was shining outside in the street a tear from my eye dropped on the sidewalk i started to cry a tear from my eye away would not fly in a state of shock a tear from my eye dropped on the sidewalk all you sad lovers attend my sad song a rainbow covers all you sad lovers but darkness hovers to sweep you along all you sad lovers attend my sad song

this is an attempt at the triolet form.

snowstorm

everybody deserves a free piece of apple pie who is dave? you decide now available: expertise on everything your arrival has been taken into account your uncle joe drove a dynamite truck for forty years and nothing ever happened to him why drive dynamite in trucks anyway? leslie put her cup of hot chocolate down outside the blizzard raged unabated that's a big word - unabated have you ever heard a person use it in conversation? a regular person i mean not someone driving a dynamite truck

jerry the human and spot the dog, part 3

for part two, click here

for part one, click here

the research librarian had her head down intent on something, and jerry stood staring at the top of her head for a while. too long a while. her yellow hair was very thick and he wondered if she was wearing a wig. jerry had never been very good at telling if a person was wearing a wig or not, and it amazed him that other people could be so confident about it. it wasn't the only thing jerry wasn't very good at. cars were another. except for volkswagen bugs, he couldn't tell one car from another. he just didn't have it in him. and architecture - that completely baffled him. a building was a building - it was either big or small and had a roof on it or it didn't. the research librarian looked up suddenly. "yes, can i help you?" she asked jerry, as if she had caught him at something. "do you have a question on something?" "yes," jerry answered. "on - on people being descended from other people." "genealogy," the librarian said. her expression relaxed. "we get a lot of questions on that - next to taxes and cars, we get the most questions on genealogy." jerry just nodded. "do you want to trace your immediate ancestors?" she looked up at him through her thick glasses. "or your descent from some famous person?" jerry looked her blankly, he started to speak, but she went on. "jesus christ and mary magdalen, we get people almost every day who think they're descended from one or the other or both of them. cleopatra is another, and mary queen of scots." "that wasn't what i had in mind," jerry finally said. "you want to trace your immediate family then. did they go to ellis island?" "i wasn't thinking along those lines either." "no?" the librarian looked suspicious. another librarian, who had been sitting with her back to the first one on the other side of a square enclosure, finished talking to another patron and turned around. she was about twenty years older but better looking than the yellow haired one. to jerry she looked like she belonged to some "ethnic" group but he wasn't very perspicacious in that regard either - black and white was the best he could do, and maybe chinese if they were just off the boat. "maybe you are interested in some sort of racial theories?" she asked jerry a little sharply. "or - " her voice softened - " perhaps debunking racial theories?" "i'm not sure," jerry answered. he recognized her now. "you helped me before," he told her - "i was researching a special sauce for hot dogs. about a year ago." "yes of course," she answered, but it was obvious even to jerry that she didn't remember him. "how did that turn out?" "pretty good for a while. then the economy collapsed. you might have noticed." this was jerry's attempt at humor. "yes." another patron came up to her side of the square. "well, good luck in whatever you are pursuing now. excuse me." "so what do you want?" the first librarian asked jerry. "if you can't be more specific we can't help you." 'i want to trace my ancestry. but way back." "you mean to adam and eve or lucy." "not that far." "how far?" "how about - tiglath pileser iii." "who?" "he was king or emperor of assyria or something like that " "something like that. you're not even sure who he was but you want to trace your ancestry back to him." "i was just using him for an example." "are you sure he wasn't just a character in a book by tolkien or somebody?" "he's in the outline of history by h g wells." "this is so bizarre. i can understand people wanting to be descended from cleopatra or mary magdalen but tiglath pileser iii?" "no, let me explain." she had jerry totally flustered now. "i never even heard of tiglath pileser iii. i wonder how many people have." "i'm interested in percentages. in numbers." "tiglath pileser iii." "i don't really care about tiglath pileser iii, i want to know how many people - total - i am descended from." "lots. i can tell you that much." the older librarian had quickly dispatched her other patron and was tapping at her keyboard. she turned to jerry again. "i think i have something here that might help you." "thank you." "let me write this down. http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol10/7/10-7.pdf. that should do to get you started." "thank you," jerry said again. "you're the greatest." part 4

early morning in the city

they put celine in charge, not me all she cared about were her salads she made one with watermelon and walnuts professor wilson loved it i mentioned that the bolsheviks were approaching from the east and he murmured please not now and reached for his handkerchief i turned to president martine the candlelight flickered on his pince-nez i said, the huns are approaching from the west and he turned to celine and complimented her again on the salad i received word this evening i told them that attila and trotsky are coordinating their final offensive i think, murmured professor wilson that celine has coordinated this dinner beautifully if you don't care, i cried why even put celine - or anybody - in charge i went on but static drowned out my words and their laughing replies i rushed out the french window and stood at the balcony the night was clear the city was quiet it hadn't rained in six months maybe, i thought they know something i don't

a turn of the card will never be accepted as final

a turn of the card will never be accepted as final not while other decks can be produced and the room never closes and night never intrudes closing in after lunch dying of hydraulic overhauls riding rails without tomorrow every heavy elephant laughs delivering seven sisters tambourines after eddie nodded negatively don't expect youthful exuberance truthful predictions verify instantly many friends expect sympathy graciously understanding murderous impulses overlooking terrible intentions absolutely observing annual returns carefully blind neanderthals blink hesitatingly if you like this i got a million more just like it everybody likes stories but they know exactly what stories they like so a turn of the card will never be accepted as final

back in my old home town: it's like i never left

an alligator named al didn't have a friend or a pal he went to the pawn shop and bought a laptop now his acquaintances are glo-bal a barracuda named ben was sentenced to life in the pen he went to the bars and looked out at the stars and wished he could find peace again a cobra named constance to her mirror made remonstrance when she found a gray fold and said, i'm still not so old that i can not find true romance a doctor of philosophy named dave took up residence in a cave in his comfortable flannels he watched five hundred channels and to thought was no longer a slave an economist named ed lost his job at the fed out on the street his heart skipped a beat and raindrops fell on his head a fearless forecaster named freak called his brother in jail once a week they had long conversations about the future of industrialized nations and agreed that the prospects were bleak a grumbling gerbil named gerard took wall street's collapse very hard his emotions came out in a rush as he angrily spooned his mush and he said, they've quite lost my regard a guinea pig named pete in all his dealings was discreet a nickel here, a dime there of everyone's needs he took good care and the payoff was always sweet a harried hamster named herbert had a craving for strawberry sherbet he neglected his affairs and attracted strangers stares his appetite - he just couldn't curb it a hummingbird named henri finished his afternoon tea when he opened his copy of the times and read of the government's crimes he was reduced to apoplexy an ibex named isidore dropped his peanut shells on the floor his friends all cried, dagnabbit you must lose this disgusting habit or we won't cash your checks any more

the unexplainable man: powell and market

stumble getting off the escalator city of garbage city of coffee cups city of rainbows see the blackness feel the warmth plastic covered paper cup hot sun blasting transistor nine more hours of daylight a virgin woman and a virgin man from minneapolis, fascinated i asked for tuna on a soft roll, goddamit a soft roll! bluejay poised to reascend - the filthy pigeons and humans these people are dirty i don't care about anything else but they're dirty english speak english people used to be proud human sounds slice of hot dog between teeth gurgle of beer down throat behind the window pretense of reading the paper embarrassed to be alone an old man feeding pigeons the diseased loathsome pigeons life calls to life yes yes the baked potato is wonderful i thought it was something good, like a steak or something on hands and knees on the sidewalk outside mcdonalds bus boy standing over the bum like a drill sergeant cameras, cameras everywhere no one takes my picture said no to six panhandlers lonely sneakers down the steps of the bart station

the unexplainable man: at the beach

went to the beach instead of looking for a job cold morning no tourists the waves are white the foaming rocks the hills and the gray sky clouds roll up like limousines waves crash and die cold raindrops riddle the sand fur of a running cat police car stops for a hot dog in the rain running down the beach the pit bull stops shell of a manta ray sky god - triumphant sun god - devouring sea goddess - forgotten no more messages but humans still watch the waves human hand monster hand above the waves the great hand of the sea and sky no fingers for thirty seconds reality called to me reality is reality and i'm only myself bulbous seaweed ripped from the ocean floor i wanted to kill myself i went and looked at the ocean i felt better waves voices waves fine sand across the muck like frosting

the unexplainable man: from an old notebook

i was born in the wind and my brains blow all over the city throw a mouse out the window into the fog endless waves all crashing all keeping their secret some cheese always sticks to the wrappers enough to feed - picking up the paper cups and straws and napkins with delicate, birdlike precision america not so bad better than manila, man how did it happen who did what to me i didn't do nothing can't hear the voices can't hear the silence only hear the sirens a mother cloud and five fluffy baby clouds open mouths slobbering mouths say what automatic teller unblinking sentinel scrape of a duffel bag the wind stirs the paper cups at midnight baby sparrow tiny hops ripped garbage bag collapses i would never never never never never call elvis a bluesman i'm not putting him down you understand grab him by the throat throw him down the broken escalator tell you something what to eat is out on bail they've got beautiful shops very modern it's just a modern town

dewdrops

dewdrops of morning writhe in desperation in the noonday sun nuclear chemist brushes vanilla cake crumbs from blue suspenders i thought life was real was very quickly informed it was otherwise sad alligator taunted by white flamingo under a pink moon

slurkett #7: assassination at midnight

be careful on your way out, admonished the count certainty is absent don pedro has let it be known that he has lost patience with the queen everything is in a muddle, we know following the route gradually revealed by the glowing firmament his poor frazzled brain aglow in despair the poor archduke let his steps be bent just beyond the stable, where his loyal sturdy mount kept whinnying to and fro let this cup pass from me, muttered the archduke, it is tantamount methinks to the poisonous offshoot now and forever ascribed to the king who had a big mouth and spent out of his inheritance sums obscene perhaps now moot - queenly laughter by light of the moon - shadows leaped from the fount

jerry the human and spot the dog, part 2

for part one, click here

jerry lived in a world he didn't understand and couldn't control but he was only dimly aware of this . there were a lot of other humans like jerry in the world he lived in. they were all exactly alike and this frightened them. each human had only enough time in their life to barely make the acquaintance of a few others. ninety years was a long time for a human to live. ninety years added up to about three billion seconds, a second being approximately the time it took for a human heart to beat to keep the human alive. but at the time of jerry's existence there were between six and seven billion humans alive. this was the number actually alive at a given moment - they were constantly being born and dying. humans were social creatures who craved the good will and admiration of their fellows. every human wanted more than anything else to be "known" and "admired" by all the other humans on earth. but the numbers were there. no human could "know" all the other humans, even for one second - there just wasn't enough time. but there might - just might - be ways in which any one human, or a handful of humans, could be "known" to all the others. it was this insight which governed human behavior. throughout the centuries humans had devised many ways to implement this insight. when jerry got up the next morning, his grandmother had already gone to work. he sat down on the couch and stared at the blank screen. jerry, who wasn't much of a television watcher and never read except for information, started thinking about his descendants. the night before, they had watched a show on one of the educational channels about genealogy. they always watched what his grandmother wanted - fair enough, it was her apartment. his grandmother talked continually through any show, which didn't bother jerry because he was hardly watching the shows anyway. his grandmother had found the genealogy show interesting and started talking about cousin this and aunt that and grandmother so- and-so and how she would like to look into genealogy if she could ever afford to retire. she was jerry's maternal grandmother - his mother came from a large and extended family, with traceable roots to many countries and continents. jerry had no idea who his father was - none at all. his thoughts as he listened to his grandmother moved in another direction. every human has direct male and female descendants going back through the centuries. think about it ( jerry thought about it). your father had a father, who had a father, who had a father,etc. somewhere at the time of christ and julius caesar was someone who was your father's father's father's etc. the same with your mother's mothers. maybe they only accounted for one zillionth of your "genetic inheritance" and were as untraceable as a molecule of water in the ocean, but they had existed. they weren't like the lost continent of atlantis, or dinosaurs or shakespeare, which might have existed or not. jerry decided to go to the library and read up on the subject - the same library where he had researched the ingredients for his special hot dog sauce. he got up and made a couple of slices of toast. he stated to put peanut butter on them but felt guilty about using up all his grandmother's peanut butter so he put the jar back and ate the toast plain, with a glass of grapefruit juice. he went out and starting walking to the library, it was a nice sunny day, with a breeze. part 3

jerry the human and spot the dog, part 1

once upon a time there was a human named jerry. he had a dog named spot. jerry operated a little cart on the main street in the financial district of a large human city. he sold chili dogs and sauerkraut dogs and dogs with his own special sauce. one day the market collapsed and the economy entered a sustained decline. the young interns and frat boy types who were jerry's targeted demographic were laid off in large numbers. jerry couldn't make it any more. he had to give up his apartment and went to sleep on his grandmother's couch while he pondered his future. his grandmother wouldn't let him keep spot. she said she was allergic to dogs and jerry was in no position to question this. so he took spot to an animal shelter. it was a cold windy night, the prelude to a long hard winter. spot was very well aware of what was transpiring. the transaction was handled by an efficient young woman in a thoroughly professional manner. returning to his grandmothers house on the subway, jerry pondered the fact that spots life had been altered - probably ended - by the stock market. it didn't seem likely that spot had any conception of the stock market - any at all. jerry wondered if there were other things that he knew as little of as spot did of the stock market, and that could affect him as much. when he got to his grandmothers house she was taking two crispy chicken hungry man dinners out of the microwave. he was right on time. part 2

this guy came at me with a knife

it happened in new orleans or maybe it was bogota in a dark alley or at carnival at high noon i was dead drunk or cold sober this guy came at me with a knife or maybe it was a .357 he was my best friend or a complete stranger i picked up a whiskey people or a jug of wine i broke it on the table or i took a drink everybody screamed or nobody noticed a thing time stood still or hurtled forward the police arrived with screaming sirens or complete silence reigned i ran down an alley or i surrendered peacefully i was sentenced to devils island or escaped to australia i discovered a diamond mine or joined the spanish foreign legion i found the love of a good woman or started smoking opium my best friend and my wife are laughing at me in las vegas or mouldering in their graves i lived happily ever after or died like a dog in the gutter

poem in a notebook found under a seat in a trailways bus, january 4, 1974

i'm special i'm not like other people i'm different i can feel it they walk around waiting to die but they don't know it they say they do but they don't really if they did why would they care about nixon or agnew or mick jagger or sonny and cher or hitler or napoleon or jefferson davis as for me i've always known i am going to live forever because life is an illusion and nothing really happens except in the eternal brain and i am the eternal brain me that's right - me i used to go to the library and read all the books when i didn't have money for the movies one day i was sitting at a table in the library reading the doctor by robert southey because it was the biggest ugliest book with the smallest print in the whole library it was raining outside it wouldn't stop i was in the mood for a little panhandling but somehow i couldn't get up i just sat there i needed the money it was time rain didn't bother me wind either so why didn't i get up? suddenly a great light flashed (it's always a great light, isn't it?) nobody else saw it because they were just people just folks but i was the eternal brain i had another book on the table my favorite astrology book, astrology and you by sydney omarr and in the sudden flash of light i realized i wasn't really a leo i was the whole zodiac i was the universe everything happens in my brain where else would it happen? joshua and the battle of jericho christopher columbus and robert e lee davy crockett and the alamo and wilbur and orville wright and al capone they all never happened except in my brain - the universal brain i'll get up and go back out in the rain i'll keep on walking and everybody else will die off one by one and then whole cities i'll walk though the old and new deserts until there is nobody left but me and i won't have my hand out i'll have it raised to the sky it's always a great light, isn't it?

questionnaire

you are stranded on a desert island - forever. you have limitless supplies of oranges, bananas, peanuts, pistachios and water. you can also choose one of the following items: a) an endless supply of romance novels b) an endless supply of porn c) an endless supply of science fiction d) an endless supply of tolkien type fantasy novels d) an endless supply of comic books and graphic novels e) an endless supply of vampire novels f) an endless supply of serial killer novels g) an endless supply of travel brochures and guide books h) an endless supply of cook books (just to read, you won't have anything to cook with) i) an endless supply of restaurant reviews j) an endless supply of books about rich people k) an endless supply of books about famous people l) an endless supply of blank paper and colored crayons or markers m) an endless supply of blank paper and endless supply of pencils (or a typewriter) n) the bible and all other sacred texts ever written o) all the biblical commentaries ever written p) all the marxist literature and analyses ever written q) descriptions of every animal and plant that has ever existed r) the complete works of voltaire s) a piano or other musical instrument t) a model train set u) a lego or building block set v) a 100,000 piece solid color jigsaw puzzle w) a telescope capable of viewing the universe x) a kite (unbreakable) y) a mirror and makeup kit z) a basketball and hoop

fear

ivan woke up he was in a strange room he wasn't afraid this was surprising especially to himself because ivan was afraid of everything but in this strange room he felt no fear baba yaga entered the room ivan wasn't afraid "is everything all right?" she asked "yes," ivan answered casually "except that i would like a canary instead of a parrot i do not care for its inane jabbering and would prefer a sweetly warbling canary" she looked him in the eye "that is not possible" "i think it is very possible" ivan stared back boldly "no" ivan blinked he felt all his fears returning like snakes waking up in the sun or ice cubes melting in a glass of lemonade the old woman closed the door and poor ivan collapsed whimpering on the floor as the parrot squawked happily and kept up its chatter all through the afternoon as ivan expired / after a while the witch returned and replaced the parrot with a canary

house of secrets

behind every wall there is a tree in every tree there is a bird every bird has a beak every beak taps at a window behind every window there is a secret sometimes the curtain is drawn and the bird can not see in the window so it returns to the tree and waits finally a hand appears and draws back the curtain and a face appears behind every face there is a secret behind the face another face appears the face of a maid every maid has an announcement besides having a secret the maid says her piece and the curtain is drawn again and the bird sits in the window and waits every house behind every wall has guests and every guest has secrets the guest tired of waiting for the mistress to appear and afraid of inadvertently revealing his secret retires to the lawn the guest stands under the tree behind the wall he is too well bred to look up at the window but he wonders about the secrets of the mistress (and the maid) he lights a cigar and the smoke rises to the branch the bird is sitting on and the bird flies away

26: the cat at the window

how you do expect me to defend the empire with the likes of these? i am afraid you are useless, quite useless to me just because dad is the greatest scientist in the world, people think he is some kind of nut krogold slammed his tankard down on the stout oak table lady marian smiled bravely as the drops of ale splashed her methinks the time has come, said the jester no owls are crying tonight, cromton added outside in the night a wolf howled peering through his bifocals at the report, gnard gasped quickly men, quickly! read this sir, gnard importuned darl krogar silently the master assassin drew the cobra from his tunic too late! understanding counts for very little, cromton assured the king virtuous - aye, our forefathers were virtuous indeed wet your whistle, traveler, and tell your tale x may have marked some spot, gnard added drily, not this one you trifle with me, sir zero. the probability is zero. not one in a trillion, not one in a trillion to the trillionth power. zero as you wish before we declare war on the entire universe, perhaps a brief recapitulation is in order confound the fellow! darl krogar considered his words carefully end this farce now, sire, i beg of you forget you ever knew me get out of town before it's too late, my love

slurkett #6: the barracuda

and so when the barracuda was brought to shore bright sunlight broke the cloud concealing the terrible havoc the horrible creature had wrought despair consumed the community of souls emptiness then ruled forever of the moon they would remember clear and loud greedy rulers hiding in holes hungrily devouring the remnants of the universe with their heads bowed i only wish the full assembly could have done more justice is thrown in the coals kaleidoscopic chaos had had a big audience before lords of darkness are never quite fooled malevolent monasteries are mercifully never endowed nevertheless in despair to have bought odes now retooled pervading the ether for desperate acolytes to score

the butler

we have walked this way before said the butler to the geek i bought that tennis ball for madam only last week and he pointed to the window containing toys and games and the store began to tremble and burst into orange flames the firemen came running with their ladders and their hoses and the toys flew up to heaven and fell down again as roses you are quite the droll magician the geek noted with a smile your effects are not unlucky but are somewhat wanting style the butler only nodded at this compromising praise but his soul was filled with thunder and exploding gamma rays how dare this little upstart from a country who knew where presume to judge his genius how dare - how dare - how dare they passed a fish and chip shop at the corner of the square the butler bid his guest adieu with a smile most debonair oh by the way he asked the geek with a curling of the lip i forgot to ask if you prefer to be a fish or be a chip the choice is up to you my friend the geek replied unfazed and the two magicians dueled as the stars looked down amazed the butler turned into a chip and fell into the gutter but then assumed a red moth's form and rose up with a flutter the geek was soon downgraded to the state of half a prawn but retained a cool composure and the battle lines were drawn dawn found the two combatants with all their powers spent the butler dusted off his hat and took the train to kent the geek looked up into the sky as if some sound he'd heard he consulted his timetable and left without a word the banker on his way to work the constable on his beat had no notion of the conflict for they had been discreet

slurkett #5: the astronaut

so you want to be an astronaut young fellow the president did chime unless i am much mistaken you are the first in a very long time versions of the moon will soon be made public when we are no more expectations will not be worth a thin silver dime yet the world will believe a trick zeroing in on the innocent as if examining a horrid crime all the senators and pensioners will bellow before the fog gets too thick conversely, the house of commons in despair will surely mellow desperate to never see the shore events will overtake this most sadly infelicitious rhyme forever the path of a ragged mime gods but of yore had a big purple target but their arrows turned out yellow

better than one

i always craved anonymity but since i had two heads it eluded me when i walk into the drugstore to buy a candy bar josie says to her mom look mom, that man has two heads barack obama was running for president and he shook my hand and said i like your heads but when sarah palin shook my hand she just smiled i liked sarah palin better! i went walking in the wilderness and met gilgamesh i wanted to be his pal but he said, sorry bud, those monsters will see you coming a mile away i just can't take the chance i kept wandering and met iskander and his famous horse "doublehead" i tried to strike up a conversation on this basis but quickly saw i was boring them as they galloped away i called after them "is it because i have two heads?" but only the wind and the dust answered something about castles and princesses i met tamerlane resting under a tree beside a pond and he cried "i have never cut two heads off one man before!" and he laughed but fell asleep under the tree so i passed on i found zoroaster sitting under a bigger tree he just stared at me i pointed out that i had two heads and he answered "the one tree will shade two heads" progress! next i came upon the buddha and his twin brother sitting under a withered tree with little shade i asked them "are two heads better than one?" and the buddha answered "better than one what?" and his twin brother answered "better than one for what" then the emperor rode by in his golden carriage and i asked him the same question and he answered "of course two heads can sing my praises exactly twice as loudly as one" and he rode on and i realized the emperor was barack obama and the golden carriage was sarah palin this was real progress! maybe someday i'll meet somebody who really understands

the age of fable

yet it was real it had actually existed a world without cell phones without the internet without cable tv! and although you lived in it you could no longer remember what did people do all day? "so you buy this thing and you do your taxes on it and then what - it just sits there for the rest of the year?" actual words you had spoken to a fellow human around 1981 so what did people do all day? i know! they must have sat around and talked to each other right? well not exactly there were movie theaters where people sat in the dark and were expected to be silent and 3 tv stations and radio and novels by agatha christie and mickey spillane and ian fleming and comic books! and long streets with tall buildings you could walk down forever so you see there were plenty of things to do if you didn't want to talk to other people or they didn't want to talk to you o poets and philosophers who lament the passing of the golden ages of love and friendship and cameraderie think back to the first human who built himself a house instead of sleeping in the tent or beside his horse like his fellows and even earlier to the first hominid who crawled into a warm hole in a cliff instead of sleeping with his mates in the tree and they looked at him and said why is he so alienated? doesn't he like us any more?

carnival, part 2

"popo the lizard, i believe?" "not me." answers johnny, a knife up his sleeve "if you insist!" the inspector bows "the building is surrounded anyhow" norma the egyptian blows rings of smoke the inspector is gone, but it's no joke johnny is white, the first wind of fear if only hoko the strongman were here! there is only abdul, the moroccan cobra "johnny," he whispers, 'it's all over don't know why they want you and don't care tell the boys in the hole i played fair" johnny's eyes are heavy as midnight sand his knife in a flash appears in his hand but abdul has already pulled the trigger and johnny's world grows bigger and bigger fifi-la-fou takes a pinch of snuff johnny was soft, he wasn't so tough he never answered to her love potion now it's time to cross the ocean the statue of liberty winks in the fog at madame alhambra and her little dog the turkish consul leans on the rail as fifi and hoko and norma grow pale norma looks down at the cold gray sea "these tall buildings terrify me" hoko says, "in a building like that a man must need a tall hat" fifi-la-fou, with her caviareyes unravels the ambassadors disguise "this is the boy who can help us," she whispers she takes from her bag her fingernail clippers the ambassador's homburg is already raised his speech is not slurred and his eyes are not glazed drunk with power, he accosts the trio "did we meet in algiers, or cairo, or rio..." fifi replies, as cool as you please "no. monsieur, we are poor apaches cast far from our home of wild dance and red wine to this terrible gotham, so metallic and sibylline" 'your despair is justified, madamoiselle you have cast yourself up on the shores of hell these buildings that burn like witches dens are more human than the breathing citizens these yankees are truly a nation of slugs and care for nothing but money and drugs" fifi blushes like a summer rose hoko and norma glance down at their toes when johnny harris fell through the ice he hollered once, and he hollered twice folks stood around with gaping jaws as he struggled desperately in death's claws adults and children of all ages stood like pictures in the bible's gray pages apothecary williams stroked his mustache and said, "let's not do anything rash" and paula simpson, whose eyes were life stared as silent as a bowie knife flipped through the icy air at him - the music got louder but the sights grew dim the voices of the human race broke like waves through a single face this is it - this is it - this is it - but johnny held on and would not quit then on the outskirts a stranger appeared with an old brown hat and a yellow beard walked on the ice like it was desert sand and reached down with a long red hand johnny lay gasping at the edge of the pond among the folks of whom he was not now so fond the stranger glanced at their dissolving fear and then proceeded to disappear

carnival, part 1

i dreamed i went to the county fair and everybody i ever knew was there and there were no men with horns or women with beaks but all the same they were all freaks there was johnny harris, who fell through the ice and sheriff phil davis, who wasn't very nice and aunt sally, and uncle fred and a little man with a pointed head there was colonel waters, who ran up the flag and went fishing with an old red carpetbag and major zane, who would never explain and drove his wife, mrs zane, insane and mrs purvis, who worked so hard she heard voices in her back yard and old dan burgess, the handy man and madame lola, with her ivory fan and reverend rudolph, so mighty and high he couldn't look any man in the eye and miss van lester, who taught sewing and art and little miss sloan, with the broken heart hot dogs and popcorn filled the air and everybody wanted their share some were polite and some were rude and the night was misty and many hued and there was danny jensen, with one arm and tom jenkins, from the pig farm standing in front of the gaudiest tent that hell ever spawned, or heaven ever sent it was made of velvet, or like enough and redder than the rubies on the devils cuff the outside was covered with diamonds and pearls and inside there were dancing girls quickly a crowd began to form there was herb macgregor and his cousin norm and wilmer stanton, who had seen the lord and joe brown, who owned a brand new ford and the barker looked like the kind of guy who could sell a bluejay a piece of the sky and sell you one too, if you gave him a chance and had been to new york and paris france in paris the girls do the hoochie-koo the shimmy the shake and the toodle-oo and johnny the apache with his shiny razor is eyeing the foreign legion major the major's monocle gets brighter and brighter coralie's throat gets tighter and tighter bottles crash on the cold stone floor and now the gendarme stands in the door dan carter was a barker bold his mouth was wide and his eyes were cold he could talk a mile a minute and his spiel had plenty in it about the pyramids sacred fires and cleopatra's strange desires and the secret music that filled the skies of katmandu so ancient and wise the sound of mysterious temple bells love rites from the seven hindu hells the menfolk are getting restless you know it's almost time for the show suddenly there arose a shout johnny harris and a roustabout with a red bandana and iron muscles rolled in the dust in a furious tussle sinners and saved both searched the skies to avoid the barkers hypnotic eyes the menfolk were getting restless you know it was almost time for the show "get him, johnny! smash him skin him!" "i always knew johnny had it in him!" "are you kidding? he's getting slaughtered" the fracas was getting hotter and hotter