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