Faustus

i name these files weird random things; this one was "soia" and i wrote it in html using notepad

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:03:15 GMT

Awaken to the weirdly sublime way the shadows that have gathered in the corner seem to spite the sunlight as it filters in through the coffeebrown shades. She is briefly aware of the divine interconnectedness of all things, and a sense of how fucking beauiful seems to have hit her, in a kindasortaironic way. She wants to believe it, for real this time of all the silly times to believe it. Her sleepy head turns towards the squat, square thing in front of her as he repeats:

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour...

"This, I submit to you ladies and gentlemen, is one of the most sublime..."

Eighth Period English.

Eighth Period English.

Ticktockticktockticktock the clock on the wall says she imagines and whispers to herself coy and private under her breath provoking a that'sweird look from some white-trash ghetto ho isn't that the one who Yes how's the third abortion-in-waiting, cunt? she thinks

Eighth Period English. Eighth. This is the worst period of the day. Canterbury fucking Tales. Why is it we never talk about anything juicy? Was Chaucer gay, anyway? These are the important things. She'd always known Shakespeare was. Felt it somewhere, knew it. Chaucer, though...

Many men of genius, though, she recalls. Strange how that works. Michelangelo kept a boy lover.

La carne terra, e qui l'ossa mia, prive
de' lor begli occhi, e del leggiadro aspetto
fan fede a quel ch'i' fu grazia nel letto,
che abbracciava, e' n che l'anima vive,

he is known to have said to some medieval ladyboy, and da Vinci of course, that Florentine. And I have reason to believe Tom Cruise as well: greater and greater thinkers through the ages. It only makes sense. Yet in Chaucer there is something of the uniquely heterogrotesque, isn't there? Yes, I only ever bothered with the smutty ones, things that would be in Hustler if anywhere today, that miller and that wife of who was that anyway, this will bother me forever until I get it...
Eighth Period English.

Eighth Period English.

Out.

------

She packs up her things, English book into backpack, English notebook into backpack, doodles-only notebook into backpack, bitter thoughts-only notebook into backpack. She sits up, feeling sprightly, and walks out of the classroom. The what is over.
She mulls over that itinerary in her mind:

Go home. Sleep. Wake up. School again tomorrow. Then: was tomorrow a Saturday?

Was it?

She can't remember the last time she cared. She is runningintowalls confused.

She is slightly unladylike, a bit of a tomboy, her fingernails are uncut. She looks them over on the ground. Uncut. Like a boy's. She puts her hands behind her and hop-stands up as if her tiny brown body is filled with springs. She looks them over. How dirty.

Everyone is looking at her, and she can feel their gazes sort-of mingling around her, conditioned to feel shame when they look too long or too obviously at Downs Syndrome Girl, or Retard Girl, or I-I don't even know...

She is really very pretty if you look at her. Her almond-shaped eyes have lightening pupils almost the color of cashews. Deep in her cornea a little fire rests, though maybe that is just the reflection of those 70's flatpanel lights that dot the hallways of the school.

The lines of her face form a thin exterior that is, if she had to pick a term, pleasingly gaunt. She enjoys her thinness. She has a notquiteRoman nose, tapering off to a sort of angular straightness before the nostrils can flare out into the distinct shape that is, by nature of some distant cousin being himself a distant cousin of the Medicis, probably some sort of birthright.

She is high-cheekboned and prides herself in being unable to adopt any facial expression except the subtle mocking sort an aristocrat seems to put on as he gazes at a sloppy crowd, thinking of all she could do but chooses not to...

-------

She sits in her room, painting her nails that off-white. Thinking of nothing in particular. I lied: Thinking of her social situation. She hates to admit it, that she thinks of it... They are here, watching, unanswering, in every corner of her private room... And for what? What could they ever see? She's above that, isn't she?

She knows she is.

Fuck you all?

Grey is her favorite color. She sees it in everything: everything, but more than anything for her it is the general tint of life.

Every DAY is like SUNDAY is written on the wall above her bed. Vaguely Comic Sans MS. Garish pink, graffiti'd on, epicly sad in the suburban wilderness. The grandeur-in-no-grandeur monotony, the weirdly heroic day-to-day of Downs Syndrome Girl's life.

Words from the bard himself; dactylic hexameter, Homeric verse...

She unpacks her easel. Before 4PM -- and it's 2:40, about -- this will be a red mess, an awful beautiful red mess, a gaping maw, a hungry cunt, crimson and horrible, bleeding jacksonpollock plumes...

-------

Around 3:30, just as she is halfway between painting a vagina and contemplating suicide (4:00PM-6:00PM) she hears a knock on the door.

....

I go on to the house, followed by the chuck. Chuck. Chuck.

....

She goes back to her painting.

The second knock seems like a question. The third, she knows, is a challenge.

Chuck. of the adze.

"Who is it?"

Is this a good idea? Who is this? Moonies? Jehovah's Witnesses? Hasidic Jews?

Do Hasidic Jews even go door-to-door?

The Manson fucking family, the whoever you are, go the fuck away?

The I know what I'm doing now is brilliant, so this had better be amazing?

She opens the door. Struck by the handsomeness and the notquitegrey eyes and the kind smile and the salt-and-pepper business-casual haircut--

Is this the one, how do I look, hands in her pockets, reddening face, oh god?

"Are you Madeleine?"
Downs-Syndrome Girl? Madeleine. It hurts. To be acknowledged. To become a presence in the universe.

In my own way, I do not exist. For you to say that to me is the worst thing you could imagine. As you shatter my quiet.

"Yes."
"Paul's here. Is your mom home?"
"She's out for a little." She mumbles some lie about groceries, but before she knows it dad is nowhere to be seen and Paul is standing there in his place.

-------

Paul was sitting outside on the deck, legs spread, smoking, when he offered Madeleine a cigarette.
She watched the smoke as he pushed it out of his lungs, through his pursed lips, then filtered into the air.
She thought about it that way. Watched it fade up, up. She looked through it and saw the etched form of his cruel mouth. That was all she liked about Paul. He had an angry mouth. She traced a fuck on it in her mind.
She felt so strong around him. He seemed so small.

"No." She smiled again. He brought his hand up to brush her hair with it. He kissed her lips gently.
"I missed you." It had been seven days.

She never wondered why she did this with him. It was automatic. There was no one else. She hated the way his baggy pants stuck to his legs sometimes like billowy black vinyl bags. She hated the greasy way his forehead looked when he tied his hair back. She hated when he smoked and offered it to her, and she hated the no that elicited, more than anything she hated that no because it made things so much less easy, that discordant note, that anti-smile, that ungirlish refusal. There was no one else.

He seemed so small.

His hand had moved to her neck by then. He kissed her neck. He bit her. She sat.

His hands.

He led her inside. The living room. The pictures of her parents. Her first dog. Do you remember the first dog. Do you. Golden retriever wasn't he. When I was 12. When I was 8. Baby pictures. She remembered. Trips. We went to Barbados together... Mommy.

Daddy.

She felt so dry.

His hands circled around her legs. Up to her panties. Pulled them down.

She felt so unconcerned.

He kissed her on the neck again. She was a virgin.

He pulled her onto him. She gasped because her body felt something entering it. She was a virgin.

She bit into his neck so he would not hear the No.

---------

The quivering in her upper lip seemed to contain more of the sublime thaun the rest of her brown body as it etched furiously in the flickering moonlight. On the page were paragraphs of scrawled text surrounded by Cuntgushingblood and Christreich by Madeleine yes Madeline. Unembarassed. This was hers, all hers, those reddening drawings, the ecstatic way her body shook when she wrote, that unplaceable feeling in her lip. It was true, then, it was a thing heavy in her mind, a thing just short of accomplished:

She was singing as she wrote the memoirs of the world.

---------

She puffed on her cigarette afterwards.

What a dream. How sharp. Feelings. Sharp feelings. Sharp things.
Something acute, precious, delicate, touched her.
No, I regret nothing.
I regret nothing. I regret nothing. I regret nothing. I regret nothing...

Well you ask me have I ever thought of killing myself Yes of course Who hasn't How couldn't you Yes and the way he came down upon me and I had never cared enough to stop it Of course Yes Yes always Yes He could have been some rapist on the street and I would have told him Yes even as vaguely somewhere inside me deeper than even the bloody innerness of my womb there was a No somewhere fermenting in my heart and I could have then told him No but don't these things have a way of biting you on the ass because I never felt anything I never liked anything I never cared for anything He never made me wet I didn't want to loved I wasn't like some girls who sell themselves to anyone And Yes I Have Thought About It, Mom, Dad, Yes, I saw him there and could not have cared any less than I did and

Yes. I said Yes. I will. Yes.

Briefly I thought about it feeling myself sucked towards something brand-new and terrifying to leave this place and throw out the easel or bring the easel to the world and sharpen it to the hilt and chase after it never complete always running towards everapproaching a completeness a wholeness a New

But I feel complete, and I am content. Yes.

first draft

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 04:15:25 GMT

I'm in prison.
I walk -- am walked -- into the cell and across from the 5x5 box that will be my home for the next 6 months to a year I see the guy.
The guy I assaulted.

---

Julie's boyfriend was dead. She couldn't help thinking about it. Her roommate walked in. My breasts are getting too big, she said. Julie's roommate had entered this city as a 32B, and she intended to stay that way until she was 35, 30 at the least. Julie was her confidant in these matters and so offered some kind meaningless words as she was expected to. From her vantage-point her breasts hadn't grown at all. They strained slightly against the fabric of her thin black sweater, but that was because it was Julie's. Her roommate was clueless that way.

No one's going to like me if I'm some busty beach-type. I hate the beach you know.

Julie thought her roommate's paintings of beaches were awful. Her roommate had never been to the beach. Julie did not like her roommate's paintings of snow scenes either, but she could admit to herself they looked better.

---

Julie's friends bumped pills in her bathroom very early almost every Saturday morning. They would collapse and fall past the door as soon as Julie opened it. Sometimes men would help them up. Julie would offer them a coffee and let them crash.

Julie's boyfriend was dead. There were enough forgotten pills and leftover dust in here to kill you. Julie's boyfriend was dead. She was hungry, she wanted to go out. I wonder how my old friends from high school are doing. Maybe I should call mom. My boyfriend is dead. My boyfriend is dead.

She didn't want to die. She wanted to collapse like a girl through a doorway and stay there, just lie there. She wanted the world to devolve into one of her roommate's abstracts. She wanted to watch each person dissolve into their component parts, into the most simple versions of themselves. The easiest versions of themselves. If I need to know Melissa from Alyssa, I will look at this color there or that particular blotch. Easy.

---

I hung out with the wrong crowd because the right crowd bored me. Then I lied in court.

I am prison's Byronic hero. I am prison's only Byronic hero, in any prison, because there is no one else in prison who knows what a Byronic hero is. Which I always thought was a stupid concept anyway, and they're better off for not knowing it. Why put words on something that will exist anyway?

Besides, I bet there are a ton of other guys in prison who know what a Byronic hero is. My ideas can't change reality. Now they are reality.

I try to dream up a world where I don't fall asleep every night scared that I'll wake up with a shiv at my throat. Every day the guy stares at me and screams. He screams through the night, every night. Howls my name, swears and eventually gurgles out heavy drooling sounds of rage and anguish and lets them sliver down onto the floor and pool there where they mix with the blood from his hands where he cut them from punching the walls.

I didn't know there was that much blood in your hands. I've learned a lot here.

Prison had thrown all my books out. I mean they took them away and probably auctioned them off after all the court fees. And I kept forgetting my favorite passages because of those shrill screams in the night.

---

Her roommate had won the lottery. Things just happen like that sometimes. 5 lines, 3 dashes, and a few sentences ago we were talking about a man in prison. His thoughts on Byron have nothing to do with this. Her thoughts returned to My boyfriend is dead. How can I think about this kind of thing when my boyfriend is dead? Maybe she'll share the money with me. We could be rich. I could be rich.

What if maybe, she thought, I just killed my roommate. Just killed her. Took the money. Julie's roommate didn't talk to her except when she was expecting comiseration, but she had overheard from her talks with her stylish friends that a gallery was considering buying one of her paintings too. What if...

Why am I thinking about this. I will never move again. My boyfriend is dead.

What if I killed you? she said. There was just enough of a certain ironic tone for it to be a joke. Just enough.
That would be very romantic.

---

I'm out of prison. I'm swear-on-my-mother's-grave happy for the first time in a year. My dreams are reality. That spitting man is in for murder, first degree, I heard just a little before I got out. You should see what he did to the guy, people whispered. You can believe I didn't sleep at all after hearing that. Only a week though. Now I'm out and he's in, forever. Everything I dreamed has come true. I'm free.

Out for good behavior. Ha, ha. Out because that lady-cop put in a good word for me. If only the judge knew. He has no idea about the reality of the prison. Now it's all the same.

---

I want my boyfriend back. There is no way to tell you how much. She tried to give herself other wants, could not. I want my boyfriend back. He's dead. My boyfriend is dead.

In the club Julie met a guy. For the first time she was enjoying herself for real. Her boyfriend was dead, and someone who looked nothing like her boyfriend was breathing hot on her neck with his hands firm on her hips and for several brief, impossibly sexual moments they were one-and-a-half mostly-rythmic entities intertwined to a heavy, driving, pounding beat.

Almost yelling over the music, he told her he'd been to prison and back. Spent a year in a reality so awful it only existed in sick stories and minds on the outside. Came back changed, changed mostly. Came back with a keen understanding of the urgency of life. Its seriousness. Understood the world, its malcontents, its constant undercurrents of violence.

Of sex. In a perfect world, she whispered to him, the world already unfolding in my filthy little mind (and at this he kissed her on the nose), we're already in bed together.

Why not?

They stumbled out together into the darkness of the city.

---

She wasn't feeling it. She told him she wasn't, so they agreed to go back to her apartment. In the dumpster outside, the man saw an unopened box of cereal. Unthinking, he grabbed it and tore it open.

Julie fell back. That's disgusting! Why are you doing that?

He smiled through a mouthful of the stuff. Why are you not? Who told you it's wrong? The truth is...

He talked for a bit on the truth. Julie smiled and nodded. She wasn't here to talk. Okay. Why are you making this so difficult?

She walked him upstairs.

---

He made her listen anyway, even in bed. He had some awful philosophy to share. She made sure to get progressively drunker as the night dragged on. This wasn't the time.

At some point, she had a drunken epiphany. An awful idea. Irrational. Unpoetic. She held onto the man and listened, really listened. Heard his base, foul philosophy. Things no one would ever think of but only feel. The words didn't matter. After she understood it, all there was to her was the fact that she was lying here, next to him. Bathing in the moonlight and feeling an appreciative ecstacy about it that stemmed from nothing except her own mind. There was only one moon despite the billions of perceptions and connotations in the billions of minds on the planet, and here it was, hers...

---

Her roommate was dead. In the very recent past she had surprised her, overpowered her, and killed her. She knew now that she was the stronger woman. She had thought often about doing this, but never knew that she could. She could. Now this is The Way Things Are.

She knew this seemed crazy, that the way she had killed her roommate had been awful, psychopathic, but Julie knew in her heart that she was the only sane person on Earth.

Did she really think that? Suddenly the whole, the whole awful truth hit her. She stared at her roommate's corpse. The pale skin. The vacant eyes. Her shirt was torn up. Ruined. And the eyes.

She had known this woman, known her. She was a real person. She was gone now. The hole that replaced her was impossible to understand. Julie fell to her knees, held her own eyes as if to claw them out. Felt the hot tears. I can't I can't I can't I can't. You're dead my boyfriend is dead. The tears would not stop coming. She gazed at the beautiful, the awful beautiful corpse. She really was beautiful. Your breasts aren't that big! Julie sobbed.

She realized she had misthought. She could not think very much now but she realized she had been wrong. Forgotten something important. Blissfully refused to consider the facts of her mind and heart and of her roommate's. They still existed.

I'm sorry. Julie took the money. She stole the painting. It was a snow painting. She cried into her hands, she collapsed. She could not go, did not want to leave. Wanted to hold the corpse. Sing to it. My friend. Oh God. How could I?

But she knew she had to run. Get out of here. Somewhere big and crowded, where no one can find me.

---

Julie walked to the coast with the jagged rocks. Past the city, before the bay, and the countryside and the vast ocean lay beyond. Roughly 5793638.4 metres above the Earth's unknowable heart. She climbed onto the rocks that the sea splashed against and gazed up as it groped upwards towards the gibbous moon, and her heart was still hungry and half-complete, and her roommate was dead and her boyfriend was dead, and she was leaving here forever, finally, and there was so much, almost too much, before and behind and below and above her, and she realized now that she could not help but adore it all, and I'm Alive, I'm Alive, I'm Alive

"night-kids"

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:34:29 GMT

when cerulean seas rise to kiss the dying day
they awake, and laughing, sighing, say
"the moon is out, now i must go
where the water meets the land and show
my devotion to ecstacy, to you"

sandalled feet pad past the grim-faced men,
houses and eyes both grey,
awake through fitful sleep,
and trudge through lighter sand to find
the shadowed places where they meet.

there, dances in the sand
a girl with idols in her hand,
sways and faints at the gods' command

endless fights, lovemaking --
dreams
made and shattered, made and made to leave,
made and put to quiet rest.
the stars that gloat in midnight skies
laugh at your loves and lives and lies
yet entreat you to stay and stay their guest.

blood on the sand, love in the sand
the whipping wind attests
"you were there, you were there"
"i shall not forget"

i lied.

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:36:48 GMT

swelter in the womb of night
to whisper things unsaid in day
where weary hearts go to wait
to breathe the fetid air
to break again
(please don't speak)
to wait
on rolling plains of thunder
beneath a rotting sky
(please don't speak)
these hearts of iron turn to clay
and sand and fill with air
and know
and sleep again
and wait
for tomorrow

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:02:00 GMT

the boy's bones are of charcoal;
the girl bleeds black and grey.
they met beneath a mocking sky
and (despite its laughter) touched,
their bodies violent sulfur
as they loved and burned each other
by a ponderous river of fire.

his words were flames that burned and hissed
even as they slipped out of his lips
even as the same words came to her.
they sang and spoke of horrors:
the sterile trembling orifices
that served as mouths
even as they kissed and found
the beauty of each others'.

and she (nor he) cried out
as they bled into each other's wounds,
closed them with hissing flesh
even as they gripped each other
to keep the blood from flowing.

"this tourniquet it cannot last," he said,
and breathed his final burning gasp.

the lake of fire (once a distant dream
of sullen ash and feverish flows)
had made for them
a tomb of ever-dying love.
standing always at the brink,
shivering above
some unspeakable pit.
this was its wedding gift,
even as it was the dowry
for the daughter of the flame.

and they laid there
as they always had,
embracing,
and loved forever.

by that demoniac lake of love,
in that Stygian waste of love,
where embers flit like will-o-wisps
there staid pumice seems to embrace,
cold to the touch
burning to spite the laughing sky.

their lips brushing and searching,
bringing forth fire, finding only fire.

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:05:27 GMT

a hot flare-up of passion
enflamed,
an angry red.
is this what they meant by
fire in my loins?

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:19:11 GMT

the stains of red -- the marriage-bed
shall wait for thee no more.
the callow bed, the newborn bed,
shall wait for thee no more.
(like a babylon that's come upon
the world and never waits
for glory, heedless of the gentle screams
which waft electric out of dreams.)

the crimson bed (ensanguined, torn)
has swallowed up those fledgling dreams
devoured all those darling dreams
and given way to fearful things,
to bogeymen, oh, dreadful things --
the cruel half-howling midnight king --
and fouler things that wait and dream,
clamber to retch and, silent, scream.

love is sweet and love is true
and love is blind and love is
love is--
all the things which bled before you,
disregard them.
for love is all of this and more.

II. Abject failures. "The Flock; "The Delay"; a motley crew of haiku.

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 06:51:56 GMT

Once, for English class, they made us write haiku.

Hai-fuckin'-ku. The puns of poetry. The Howard the Duck of poetry. The goddamn motherfucking Warren G. Harding of poetry. Absolutely the worst, the lowest, the most inane breed of poetry there is.

Observe, and be terrified:

Perspiration still
dots my brow; the summer has
not yet acquiesced.

Watching the leaves start
their gaudy, magnificent,
bright autumnal dance.

Frost chills the ground now;
we rush for blankets and the
warmth of our loved ones.

I like to think of that last one as being only tangentally related to nature, which if you get right down to it probably makes it little more than a group of words arranged in a 5-7-5 pattern, not a haiku. Anything to give an implicit "fuck you" to my teacher.

Without further delay, this is the new shit:

I. "The Delay"

over hallowed knee, god breaks the day
and through the shades bleeds a twice-damned ray.
i seethe with fear and, whispering, say:
"i don't want to get up today"

and loathe to ask that god, i pray:
"mother, is there chance of delay?"
i ask because i lack the strength of will,
to live in filth, to eat the swill,
to squirm with pigs that hungry kill
the latent, lying happiness
that comes with each new day.

"oh no," i hear my mother say,
"there is no chance now of delay!
the buses, you know, though you lay
have already been called today."

and so i shout a curse and lay
five minutes more, wishing delay
as i feel soft time swish, sad, away.

II. "The Flock"

coitus

yes, i'm awake.
TV blaring, coffee pot overflowing
(turn on the TV,
so i can lap up the world
like so much spattered milk.)

in utero

like fishhooks at our eyes -- in our veins
bleeding blue, air dead from ennui --
sucking at its rotten teat,
the machine roars
"this is what you've done to us"
yet there are no ears to listen,
no naked hands to grasp.

nihil

feasting flesh like rodents;
yes, this is what you've done.
you've reaped and so you sow --
the whirlwind always has its due.
when the world is laid bare,
bleeding sin on vulgar flocks --
yeah, like i saw on TV.

I. Overtly Christian poetry. "In Ardennes Forest"; "On the Cross"

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 05:37:48 GMT

I think the whole problem with writing Christian poetry (for me at least) is that I'm not a Christian, but the themes and allusions I can draw from it are just too tempting to resist. So I write them when the mood strikes. But sometimes, as in the second poem here, I get too ironic. Or maybe too sarcastic. Or maybe too "I'm writing this for the fucking school literary magazine, I don't really give a shit if this sounds good or not as long as it resonates with my incredibly simple-minded audience." And I think that, to a large extent, it would. It does, according to the Christians I've talked to about my poems. I think one thing I've gained going to Catholic school for so long (and continually writing Theology class essays concerning my thoughts on God or what Jesus wants from me) is that I've become incredibly adept at pretending to be a Christian. And maybe, just maybe, in the writings of this elaborate, years-in-the-making fake Christian-persona there are some insights about, at least, how a fake Christian feels about Christianity.

But come on. I rhyme about fucking Timbuktu. I use the word "Timbuktu" in a poem. How fucking folksy is that? If that's not completely tongue-in-cheek, I don't know what is.

Without further ado...

I. "In Ardennes Forest".

By the deep blue lake nestled in Ardennes
there lies a naked grave;
unmarked, undecorated, undeserved --
this is rest for the brave!

Leaves fall upon the lonely cross --
how humbly adorned
is the site of final loss!
(And how sadly little-mourned!)

Just like Death coming down from God,
a white sliver escapes the sky;
kissing the yellow-orange leaves
which begrudgingly comply.

And if God Himself did make these leaves,
this snow, this lake, this sky;
how could He be so very cruel,
to let this young man die?

But as I sit there by the lake
amidst the greenery of sweet Ardennes
I can see faintly a connection
between plans of God and wants of men.

Perhaps it is only the way the light
hits the glitt'ring snow and the gaudy leaves
but I think God grants the bravest soldiers
the most beauteous reprieves.

And as Death came to claim him,
amidst pathetic cries of pain,
perhaps that soldier saw the light
and went on to live again.

*I'm around 80% sure that you could probably rhyme "Ardennes" with "men" because I looked it up in the infernal, needlessly complicated IPA system -- but if I'm wrong, and I probably am, a thousand apologies.

II. "On the Cross"

Zarathustra went and tried to tell me God was dead.
I guess he up and lied -- and so, I say, instead
that God is very much alive.
Between church doors, behind cold eyes
a burning sacred hatred lies.

Oh my! Such tiny children dead.
Like ragdolls, little torn-off heads.
Hey ma, guess what I did today
with the Grace of God for the U S of A?

And so I said to the poet:
"Begone with you, I say!
These children's bones
they must repose
till they're soft and dry like clay."

And to the philosopher, too, I cried:
"Therefore go back from whence you came!
Religion without science is blind?
Well look at you -- you're lame!"

These mocking voices shriek at me
when all I want is truth.
Tearing talons, screeching screams:
"Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth!"

And meanwhile these scientists,
these wise, these worldy men
Every day all that they say, again, again, again:
"Oh, all this is about as true
as the Piltdown Man or Timbuktu!"

And meanwhile, I say, I lay
upon the cross, alone.
My cross to bear, my crown to wear.
Yes, this is Christ's holy throne.

"The last Christian died on the cross." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

the crusaders

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 04:12:21 GMT

oh, pit of utter infamy!
oh, overwhelming sin!
a palpable miasma breathes
and beats, and bleeds within!

no ordinary air can boast to have lain
beside that choking devilry
much stronger ones than we were slain
amidst those sinners' sweet idolatry --

dig in! hold fast! stand strong!
your shields held high, fangs bared
to face the gibbering throng.

stronger crusaders than you and i
have fallen here, bereft, bereaved.
these impious ones, near as sweet as they are sly --

they lie!
do not allow yourselves to for a second believe --
do not so deftly be deceived!

their sin -- it bleeds, and runs, and rots!
and sings their cancerous praises!
the lies they speak -- they promise all
but dust and ash and blazes.

march onward, forward, always --
no obstacle abide!
look ahead -- hazard zet!
there is nothing, if not pride!

but what of me? -- it begs the question.
what of me, if this is so?

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 20:59:13 GMT

     A vast, dark shape floats above me, the dense shroud of smoke surrounding us gently parting in fear of its immensity.
     Forever it continues -- then forever is but a second. The shape begins presently to contort and shift, its mass becoming less and less evident with each maddeningly slow turn until eventually I see before me the lithe form of a woman. The smoke returns – or perhaps was there to begin with. It is the same.
     I slowly lift my head, feeling the effects of the opium lessen with each passing moment, and dare to plant a kiss upon the enshrined lips of the lovely figure atop me. I am as of yet unsure of its identity, yet presently I realize it is, at least, a handsome woman, lithe of figure and surprisingly bold against the hazy background of the smoke. Suddenly I am aware of small, smooth hands firmly working their way down my body, in the fashion of the most skilled masseuses of the Orient.
     Languidly I lie, though allowing my senses to sharpen, honed by the departure of the hazy opiate shades that have hitherto clouded my mind. I see now before me in sudden clarity the features of the woman before me – they are pleasant, to say the least. So too can I more vividly feel the woman's small, balmy lips greet my neck with bouts of gentle kisses, each carrying with it its own quiet melody, as rain upon soft sands.
     Feeling myself become increasingly sober, I decide to sit up. Even then, the kisses continue.
     I survey my surroundings: yes, it is the same dreary London apartment I had taken my leave of hours ago, opting to replace its drab tones with the florid, color-splashed symphony of an opium dream. Yet this is home, and it is, of a certainty, more pleasant than what lies outside.
     “My dear,” Madeleine begins suddenly, hardly disrupting my thoughts with her negligible volume and gentle cadence. “I see you have awoken – shall we?”
     Yet I have not yet collected myself enough to know of what she speaks.
     “My dear,” she repeats with emphasis, softly slipping her hand down to my leg and absentmindedly stroking my thigh. “I adore you so – this you know.”
     I nod my head slowly as I begin to understand her intentions.
     “Yet.... a lady, even one possessing of modesty and chastity... has certain needs, and I...”
     “Whatever is it that you are suggesting, Madeleine? You know it is of a certainty that I cannot--”
     “My dearest,” she begins again. “I would so very much adore it if you were to make love to me this very instant.”
     Oh, fateful utterance! “Madeleine, you know of my feelings! I cannot. For have not you yourself said that these laudanum nights we spent together were as lovemaking, their passion and ecstasy equaling its own?”
     “Perhaps I have, yet you know nothing of women. Is that, then, a refusal?”
     “Regretfully – yes, Madeleine. I cannot. My apo--”
     And with that, she saunters in her still-alluring way out to the door and slammed it behind her, the abrupt noise a ringing hammer against my ears.
     Naturally desiring to right the wrong, I follow her.
     I open my door – after so long, and its absence has not made the heart grow at all fonder! -- daring to expose myself to the blinding cacophony of light before me. One hundred thousand daemoniac lights, endless before me in row upon damnable row. I shield my eyes, yelling to Madeleine for her to return: “Madeleine! Madeleine!”
     Yet suddenly, I am aware of a frightfully large presence – of a certainty fashioned of metal, and moving at a speed I realize is impossible. I wonder then if the opium's effects have not diminished as much as I thought they had.
     Without warning, a torrential downfall has deluged me along with the machine's passing. I am soaked in the city's excesses – its garbage, its tepid sewer-water, its overwhelming sin.
     I am a fraud. I return to the terrible warmth of my apartment and grab yet another LSD tablet.

I hereby christen this story "Untitled". Part 4/4, by the way. Thanks for reading.

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 17:26:46 GMT

I'm out. The crazy kid's out. Lacey's out -- and out cold. Fumiko's right behind me. We're on the dance floor now. Some punk (and I'm being literal here -- spike chains and all!!) with an enormous green mohawk is the only one who seems to have noticed a guy with a gun in the room with him. It's impressive that he noticed at all, considering that from his glazed-over eyes I can tell he's high on something.
"Fucking... whoah... man."
(Fucking whoah is right.)
"Listen, just get the fuck out!" the crazy kid shouts. "I don't see why the fuck everyone has to ruin this! This is my big scene! This is where I launch the fucking missiles, you hear?!"
"Missiles?" I inquire.
"Fuck, no! You know what I mean! The bombs! I'm gonna blow this shit up!"
"Bullshit." Fumiko chimes in.
"Heh, fuck you." the crazy kid says, seeming to gloat as he casually producing what appears to be a detonator.

(That's great. They let him in here with three strange objects -- and the bombs too. I'd be surprised if this wasn't Club Maxijuana.)

"I'll ask you again," Fumiko shouts. "Why are you doing this?!"
"You know why? I'll tell you why! Because I lived in a metallic shithole most of my life! My mom beat the shit out of me! I'm just a normal guy -- let me rephrase that, a normal guy except I'm gifted! I can write! But everyone knows no one likes an intellectual nowadays unless he blows shit up! You get it? You get it?"
"Well how about you just relax, huh?" I offer. "You're not really all that special, so how about you step down off that soapbox and give the rest of the world a chance?"
He's audibly surprised: "Listen... I... I just wanted people to know. I didn't want money, I didn't want women -- not even ones like this one," he says, giving Lacey a lazy kick, "all I wanted was for people to know. I wanted people to know about my life, what I've been going through."
"Well you still can. And I get it -- I do, I really do! I'm a writer too! And I wish I had reached you first so I could have helped you... But you fucked up. You can start again someday, but first you're going to have to spend some serious time in--"

People have noticed. People are running.

"Shit! Shit! I'm about to lose my chance -- no one cares about a writer with a low body count! This is the last thing I can say, because I want to say it all, I want my whole mind out there: I had second thoughts, okay? I second-guessed! I think if things turned out differently, we coulda been friends. But they can't, and so...!"

He's holding up the detonator.
Fumiko shoots. Thank God, I think. It's terrible that he's got to die, but--
"What the fuck? Out of ammo? Fuck! Fuck!" she shouts.
"Fuck! Fuck!"

We know we can't reach him amidst the thronging crowd struggling now to get away. We close our eyes and keep them closed tight. We're so scared -- I can feel Fumiko's fear too, because now we're clasping each other's hands with all we are.

She's so clammy... I just want to...

Oh God. He's talking again:

"Life..." he sighs, "is very long."

"Between the desire...
And the spasm...
Between the potency...
And the existence...
...Between the essence...
And the descent...
Falls the Shadow."

"...For Thine is the Kingdom..." Fumiko whispers along with him, her voice clogged with tears as she anticipates what is to come.

"For Thine is...
Life is...
For Thine is the..."

I open my eye just a sliver, hoping desperately I don't have the misfortune to inadvertently witness the button press which will end my life. The crowd's starting to part. Maybe, just maybe...

"This is the way the world ends."
I start to run.
"This is the way the world ends."
"This is the way the world ends."
I'm running so fast. I'm almost there --
"Not with a whimper, but with a--"

All of a sudden, the biggest, burliest cop I have ever seen in my life tackles the guy. He doesn't look too bright -- but one thing's for certain, I bet he can quote T. S. Eliot better than this numbskull. Jeez! How could you mix those two up -- and when I was really getting into it, too!

Poetic license, my ass!

------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------

It's a few months later. Crazy kid is either in jail -- or, I guess, knowing our legal system today, waiting for a trial. Appeals and bargains and whatnot up the wazoo, I'd imagine.
Dylan is playing -- it's one of his live CDs. But what's got me now is the gorgeous woman in my bathtub.
So alluringly she lies there, her small, perky breasts perilously obscured by a delicate foam of bubble and froth, probably awaiting a world-famous Tom Casey backrub.
We're talking about the case. It's playful, but neither of us really understand. Did we even do anything?
"You know, I can't believe he misquoted T.S. Eliot. If he had gone through with it, wouldn't it all have been for nothing?" she says. "Even with his last words, wouldn't he have made his own death into a meaningless farce?"

I find Dylan very suitable for this kind of thing. First you're playing
around like a kid with an acoustic, then you're contemplating terrible
possibilities. Very fitting.

"Yeah. A meaningless death -- that's no way to go. I think we did him a favor," I reply. But way back in my mind I'm thinking... hey, that would have been pretty funny, huh? And besides, if you ask me, it takes all kinds -- even potential Darwin Award nominees. I figure if you're gonna blow yourself up and kill hundreds of innocent bystanders in the process, at least make it something people can smile about.
I'm thinking all that when suddenly, she freezes.
"Tom..." she begins, clutching her delicate breasts against herself as if in defense.

Dammit. What is it? Is the crazy kid back? Is it Lacey scratching at my door begging for me to take her back again? Is it Osama bin Laden at my door collecting funds for 9/11 2.0? I've just about had it up to here with this shit!

"Tom... I just realized, we still don't know what the first thing he was holding was... and I was just thinking about something I saw on the Internet today... and it just hit me all of a sudden, and..."
I crane my neck towards her. What is it, Fumiko?
"and Tom... do you think that kid was...

...Tom, do you think he might have been a
------------------------------------------------

life is very long

------------------------------------------------

I realized recently that I absolutely hate the title "Under". Part 3, by the way.

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 02:52:24 GMT

Finally, we've arrived.
I step out of my Kia, cigarette lying lax in my mouth.
With a nervous nod to Fumiko, the doorman lets us in to Club Maxima.

(The gaudiest, cheesiest place I have ever fucking seen -- but that's beside the point.)

We slide through the dance floor, serpentine. We're surrounded by a gaggle of punks, junkies, and what may or may not be convicted criminals.
    I swear to God I see Tupac. Twice.
The place is permeated by the pungent scent of fresh sweat and the unmistakable odor of low-quality marijuana. To be frank, it's disgusting. I can feel some sort of venereal disease taking root just standing next to these people.
Fumiko nudges me. "Fuck, how could we miss this?"

         Yeah, how could you?

We're risking life and limb to navigate our way through a stale ocean of losers. Ugly people, ugly habits. If life's a game, they folded pretty early on -- then went outside to smoke a blunt and never came back.

All of a sudden I see a clean-cut guy in what appears to be a business suit. Real shifty-eyed. He looks around nervous and like he's about to cry, then he ducks back in to some unknown corner of the room.

Well, shit. Coming in looking like that, he's gotta expect a beating or two. If I'm right, this is our man.
I nudge Fumiko. "That guy look suspicious?"
She looks up at me.

         (Man, is she pretty.)

"I'm already on it. Let's go."

----------------------------------------------

i dont even know what i'm writing anymore
mother is
i am
i can't
i cant even say it.
the thoughts are splattered all over me, bleeding through. the things i wanted to say.

i admit it, here where i admit everything: i'm having second thoughts.

but this is probably the last.

-----------------------------------------------

"Hey, pal. Just figured I'd ask you some questions. What's up

-----------------------------------------------

oh god oh god oh

-----------------------------------------------

with that thing you're--"
The guy starts running. Oh, something's up.

                     (He's pretty slow...)
"Hey, hey! What's up! C'mon, buddy! I just want to talk! What's up?"
Suddenly he stops. He puts whatever he was holding away and takes out something else.
Fuck!
What is that?
He's got a gun?
Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Listen, listen!" the guy shouts, waving the gun around. "L-listen up! I want you... you mo-ther-fuck-ers... fuck... just get the fuck out, okay! I'm not doing anything so just get the fuck out!"
"Hey, hey. Look, kid.

(How old is he I've got to stop thinking these things I've got to stop thinking these things like right now this is the WORST time CONCENTRATE TOM CASEY)

         -- It's obvious that you're up to something, okay? Just put that down, okay? I'm a cop -- wait, no, but she is."
I see Fumiko's got my back. She's holding up her own gun. Casually, like she's done this before, she flips out her badge with the other hand.
"You see? This Asian lady, she's a cop. So you're just gonna put the gun down, right?"

-----------------------------------------------

hahahahahahahahahaha

i just remembered before so i took the gun out and i shot him i'm running

i can't believe i

-----------------------------------------------

"Fuck kinda shot was that? He missed me by about a mile!"
Fumiko's freaking out right about now. "Fuck! Fuck! I've been on the force four years now and I've never been shot at!"
"Jeez, jeez Fumiko! Didn't think you'd freak out so badly about this. Don't they train you for this?"
"Well... yes... but it's..."
"Different from the real thing?"
"... Fuck." She looks pissed. "We've got to get him."

------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------

We're running after him. He's shooting at us. It's surreal.
"You want something like Pulp Fiction?" I ask myself. "Well try this!"
Crazy guy scrambles into a door. I follow him.

Fuck. Is that Lacey?
"Listen up! Don't either of you fuckheads move! I've got this bitch, so all of you can just get the fuck out of here!"
            (Guy's got no idea how to curse.)
"Jesus... Jesus Christ, Lacey! You're... not looking so good."
It's true. She's even more dishevelled than that one time THINK CASEY THINK CASEY THERE IS A MAN POINTING A GUN AT YOU

      (and she's got the blindfold and ball-gag just like that time, too!)

"Why... why are you doing this?" Fumiko cries, sobbing. I guess she can't take this -- having a gun pointed at her twice in one day, I mean.
I can't either. I don't know what I'm holding onto here. It's probably experience -- along with the healthy detachment from life in general I've used to survive up until now.

This is a joke, this is a joke.

He grins as if he's got something to say -- some incredible master plan, some mind-blowing plot that will make us cower in fear in a way the guy holding what I now realize is some sort of small submachine gun will never be able to equal.
But he just snorts, then. He starts looking real sad. I kinda wanna go up to this kid -- I see now he's a kid, can't be older than 17 -- and give him a nice friendly hug (although that impulse has had a bit of a damper put on it, given the situation.)
"Listen up. You know the Unabomber?" Creepy Kid asks.
Oh Jesus, we've got one of these guys to deal with?
"...Well, yeah." Fumiko replies, seeming slightly stumped despite her response. I'm a little mystified too, but I can kind of see where he's going with this.
"You know Max Planck?"
"Max Planck? Yeah, I took Chemistry."
"... Well most people don't! And that's my point exactly. No one cares about intellectuals unless they make something die. So:

No one. Cares. About. Me."
"..." "..." Me and Fumiko are silent.
"... Well why the fuck would we?" I venture.
"... Because I'm great! Have you read my writing?"
"Well, no."
"That's because corporate pigs won't publish it. What I want to do, Tom Casey --"
         (Whoah. Uh, hi?)
"and yes, I do know who you are, don't be so surprised -- some writers are famous -- what I want to do, Mr. Casey, is express myself. And I want people to read it."
"Well hell, try writing something good then. I mean, after you get out of prison. And hey, you could even try an indepedent publisher! They're not so hard to get into! I myself, I--"
He fires a warning shot dangerously close to where my fedora should have been. "Hey! Fuck you! I'm doing the talking here! And you know what? My mother just died--"
Me and Fumiko have looks of horror on. Did this crazy fucker just kill his mother?"
"-- And I know what you're thinking, and no! I am NOT sad. She died blowing up a safe just now. And I'm not sad. You know why? Because she's fucking stupid. I loved her -- God I loved her! -- and look what she does! Fucking stupid!"
"You... you killed her, didn't you?" Fumiko asks, shuddering. "You--"
"Whoah, whoah! Hey! Fumiko -- I, for the record, don't think you killed your mom."
I don't. I really, really don't. If anything, this kid just doesn't have the cajones. But then again, seeing him on the street you wouldn'tt think he'd even have the balls to come into Club Maxima, much less toting a submachine gun.
"Whoah. Whoah. You just don't get it. I couldn't tell you. You could never get in my life, you could never see. You never read it, either. So--"
"You're a monster!"
He fires a shot and runs, toting Lacey like she's some kind of--

      He hits this time.

-----------------------------------------------

mother i am so sorry
i was lying, i'm sad, i'm confused, i'm scared, please don't be mad
i don't know if i even believe in heaven i don't know if we're ever going to see each other, i don't know what i'm doing
please god please be real i'm about to die please be real

------------------------------------------------

"Oh God, oh God!"
Fumiko shrieks as what I imagine to be the most immense pain imaginable shoots through her body. I still don't know where it hit...

                 But then she grins.
"'Tis... ouch... just a flesh wound."
"Hah, Monty Python. Very funny."
She shows her arm to me. "Look, I'm serious. He just hit me here. It really is just a flesh wound. I can go on." She smiles right at me -- no sarcasm now, just a pleasant adoring thankfulness. I can tell.
"No, no, you can't."
"Well hey, what the fuck?!"
"Listen, Fumiko. This guy is fucked up. You've already taken a bullet -- and in your gun arm, too!"
"You... you noticed?" she replies, blushing a cute pinkish red.

But I guess this isn't the time for that.

I grab the gun. "Hey!" she squeals. "I told you I can go!"
"You've got a first aid kid... right?"
"...Right..."
"Listen, Fumiko. I know this is shitty of me, and I know you want to go -- and it's not because you're Asian, I swear to God!
               (She grins again)
                  But you really are injured. I'm seeing reality, here. I've had years more time on the job than you. Fumiko, just wait here."
"... I guess you're right. I'll clean myself up while you get going."
I get up and right then she grabs me.
"Listen... Tom?"
"Yeah?"
"I never really saw Pulp Fiction. But it's always been my opinion that every Tarantino film is the same -- I've seen Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill, so I thought it would be funny to just say that I saw Pulp Fiction too."
"So... I'm guessing the point here is that we can see it together someday."
"... No, I was just telling you that completely random comment for shits and giggles in what appears to be a climactic moment in this case. Fucking of course it means I want to see it with you!"
I laugh.
      But shit, whoah. Time to go.
I run off behind the psycho kid and Lacey, hearing the imperturbable police girl's footsteps echo behind me.

........
.......
.....

"Dammit, Fumiko!"

"Under", pt. 2.

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:28:39 GMT

So really, I'm just smoking my way through this conversation.
            (I guess nobody really thinks of this stuff except me, but a great way to keep from having to talk to someone, especially someone inexperienced like this pretty young thing, is to pretend like you're really into your cigarette, like it's some new drug you've discovered that smells exactly like tobacco yet gives you an acid trip -- and obviously they're not dumb enough to really suspect that, but they're too timid to just ask and get it all out in the open. You just gotta act like you're off in some incredible acid-trip la-la land because you're smoking tobacco. Either that or they think you just really like a smoke, like you're one of those refined movie star types who gets into his own little world whenever he lights up.)
Works wonders on her, at least.
"We'll see," she says, blushing more than a little.
Blushing a lot. More than a lot. "Beet-red" isn't suitable in this case -- a beet would be ashamed, because a beet's only got to be red, but this chick's got them beat in redness and she's cute to boot.

            How awkward, though.

"But.
I.
think.
we
should
get
back
to-our-conversation."

   She smiles.

   "In any case -- yes, just diners, really."
I respond with a bored blast of smoke in the air. That's when I start the whole dazed and confused act.

Presently:

In between puffs, Tom Casey, newly single (?) detective: "Please, please, just relax."

For the past few minutes she's been talking aimlessly. Under normal circumstances, I'd listen to a woman's pointless bullshit because it makes me look sensitive and caring. But she's obviously too young for me -- and frankly, Fumiko, I don't give a damn.
I interrupt the torrent of impossibly technical details she's spewing about the case: "How old are you, anyway?"
"I'm 24."
I smoke.
"... How about you?"
"31. I'm old, I guess. Much too old for you."
I smoke again. She coughs. "Excuse me, could you--"
No, I'm already on it. I'm grinding the thing into the carpet. Who gives a damn? I'm a private fucking eye -- have you ever seen one of our movies? Anything to impress a dame.
She covers her mouth. "But isn't that going to--"
I smoke. I don't tell her I've got a plastic covering on the carpet. It's all right.

------------------------------------

------------------------------------

"In any case, I'd better get out of here. If you need me -- well, you've got my number."
"Wait, wait... what do you want me to do?"
"Look, I know you were listening. I know the smell of tobacco -- I'm twenty four years old, for Christ's sakes -- and you don't seem to be at all like some intellectual sort who gets really into his cigarette and starts contemplating life and metaphysics and what-not as he watches the smoke rise."

      (Oh, if only she knew!)

      "Hey, are you listening to me? Listen, I don't really know if this is where you got it from -- but if you did, I read that book too. The one about the guy who's got no self confidence whatsoever so he hides behind a cigarette and pretends like he's James Dean all day, too cool to talk. You're not even as cool as the loser in that book, so please just stop trying, okay? Oh, and--"
      "Jesus, Jesus. I get it, okay? You're misinterpreting it completely, but that's beside the point. In any case, the boys in blue want me on this because they haven't got the chops to do it themselves, right? Listen, it's all right. You don't have to tear me apart.

                  ... But wait, you read Smokestacks too?"
"Damn right I did. Great book," she says, smiling.

---------------------------------------

oh to be back amidst the foetal warmth of mother or blankets

i am so much within that i couldn't be without enough to tell mother to stop

all things considered? this is mine.

-----------------------------------------

Fumiko has been outta here for a while. Right about now I'm getting ready for a dinner date with my good friend Jack Daniels and his esteemed associate Mr. Marlboro. Tom Casey, famed detective and author, is shoveling TV dinner into his mouth and getting ready to switch on VH1 like any other aging American hipster when he gets a sudden call:
"Hey, Tom?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm coming over. There's new info on the case. We've got reason to suspect that they're planning to make a change in their plans. This time, it's a club, not a diner."
"Can this wait? I'm, uh, having someone over."
"At this time of night? Who?"
"Jack Daniels and his buddy Mr. Marlboro." I am so clever.
"Funny, Tom. I'll be over there in 5 minutes."
"Wait -- did you even leave my apartment complex?"

"...
...
...

Just wait right there, okay?"
   About a minute afterwards, she comes through the door, looking rosy as ever.
   "Well that's pretty strange," I admit I'm thinking.
   She's blushing.

------------------------------------------

metal in my hands just like on the walls now
mother does not matter
the whore does not matter
we are going from the sewers to the history books
(and maybe even into literature.)
i know i am going to die.

------------------------------------------

She grabs me by the arm. "We'd better go."

All right. Let's go.

Wordlessly we walk out to my car -- or rather, talking so idly and pointlessly that may as well not be. I guess that's what you call "flirting".
I get in. My car, it's a cute little thing. A little Kia. I wonder if Fumiko likes it.
Obviously not a great car -- I mean, it's a Kia, it may as well be a Pinto -- but over the years I've grown to love it. I settle comfortably into the luxurious (well, for a Kia) leather seating. I feel so at home settling in the contours that have developed from my body over the years -- not to mention the familiar scent of Lacey's perfume and the slightly-embarrassing stench of sex from the night before.

But anyway: even now, when you figure it'd be stale, it still feels so good to gently press my foot on the pedal and push in my ancient Bob Dylan tape. There's a feeling here -- the nostalgic je ne sais quoi of the raunchier teenage wet-dreams and smoking in your parents' basement -- all of a sudden resurrected from the foggy, idealized depths of late childhood. The "gee whiz!" feeling of your foot on the pedal, the timeless lyricism of Dylan -- classic, just classic.

"I hate Dylan," Fumiko reports, intruding on my romantic reminiscences.

... What? "What?"

                     "What?"
"Get outta here. How could you--"
Before I can even really say anything, she's switched on some terrible radio station blasting the newest, shallowest sort of pop garbage.
I can't stand the new stuff. Je ne sais quoi my ass.

---------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------

"Under", Pt. 1. Christ, it was a bitch to format this one for LJ.

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 03:19:29 GMT

i am lying under a blanket and i am drenched in the musky, bleachy scent of semen

i have done this.

there is a smell here and it is a musk permeating me and surrounding me and making my throat hot

i am under the blankets, two three four blankets, covered in a sort of sacred warmth, hot under the blankets, breath and heat emanating, stagnant, warming.

cooking.

that is why i want to write.

----------------------

Disinteredly is the only way I can watch as my cigarette smoke drenches the room in its familiar, hollow scent that is a scent yet not a scent; something so basic to my condition that my senses are numb to it.

Non-scent it is. Hollow, so hollow.

My fedora is falling again. I adjust it, reaffixing it to my sweaty head. I frown as I chance to feel the sweat as it rolls down my sideburns in heavy clumps about as thick as spoiled diner ketchup.

I don't remember being this sweaty. Or this balding. I muse, giving my mussed-up hair a complimentary scratch as I wonder about just how many possibilities are already dead for me.

I slump down.
My eyes make a lazy, dispassionate survey of the room:
Potted plant, couch with holes... gorgeous woman.
I'll get to her later: what's got me right now is the cigarette smoke's lazy, barely perceptible meander through the eldritch passages spoken of in nigh-forgotten lore--
Not really -- I'm just kidding. All it is is another shitty apartment way out in the middle of Urban Anywhere. It's about the size of a matchbox, just without that pleasant matchbox smell.

Mmm, matchboxes.

And the woman:
Red-haired, ravishing. Voluptuous.

Aging, just like me. About ten years younger, though.

You don't really think about it much but those people are aging too. They look so young, so fresh, so --

I stutter in my thoughts. She wiggles her way up, making sure to exaggerate her already prodigious hips as she does, and kisses me.

Nothing fancy. No tongue. Just lips -- warm, red lips, plump with makeup and inviting as anything.

Oh, it is good to be here, here amidst the stray cats and the cat-calls, smoking our lives away.

-----------------------

i swear i am as normal as anyone (just in the sense of normal today which is

"normal" (n.) now a fiction and a lie fit only for the minds of unfit men)

i fall back into myself and the musk of my body and the warmth i make that comes back to me and for a second it is so nice, only for a second

where is mother??

-------------------------

The woman sits on my lap, purring and kissing.
As her mouth withdraws from my ear, she whispers accusatively:
"Why do you make me dress like this? And what's with this?"
She grabs my fedora and throws it to the ground, revealing my less-than-stellar hair.
I re-muss it. Well fuck you.

Anyway, I tell her off.
"Well I dress like this because I just so happen to be really into this!" I shout. "It's elegant, don't you get it?! Classy! Sexy!"
"I don't understand what's wrong with you, Tom. We're not in some crazy private-eye movie. For Chrissakes, you could at least fuck me while I'm wearing this silly 50's dress! Aren't guys like you supposed to get off to this sort of thing -- the whole costume deal? I mean, look at me!

Doesn't this turn you on?" she shrieks, at the same time slipping said dress back to reveal a dangerous amount of leg.
I'm taken aback. This is some pretty sexy stuff, but I'm in no mood: "It's a 20's dress, you Phillistine -- and I like to fuck naked, thank you very much! Like God intended!"
"Well maybe God intended for you to go fuck yourself tonight!" she spits, extricating herself from my lazy grasp as if acting on an afterthought.
"Good-bye!", the ravishing hooker shrieks at me as she slams the door shut.

I muse as I often do: I bet she'd have loved it if my toe was in that door.

And yeah, it's true. Lacey's a whore. But she's my whore. I've been seeing her for a good three years now.

Maybe soon she'll stop making me pay.

--------------------------------------

the world is like

metal metal metal metal metal metal metal metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal me metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal
metal metal metal metal metal metal metal metal metal and i-dont-know-where is mother.

----------------------------------------

I'm biting my cigarette and nursing my wounds when a little Asian policegirl peeks her head into my door.
"Nihao!" I yell playfully.

Oh, mistake. Big mistake. I shouldn't have gotten so tremendously drunk after Lacey left. We were supposed to share that stuff.

"Excuse me? What the hell is that? First of all, I'm Japanese -- 'Nihao' is Chinese, which you'd know if you had any degree of linguistic knowledge or racial sensitivity or even just plain old fucking manners, and second of all--"

That's when I pass out.

"Oh jeez, I'm sorry" she says, greeting me with that and those cute brown eyes of hers. And what perfect white teeth!

"But you're still an asshole. A total fucking asshole."

"I... was... drrrrrrunkk..." (and I still am, as a matter of fact.)
"That's no excuse. That was a real fucked up thing to say, okay? Now sit up.

.......
Can you sit up?"
"Umm-no. Too dddddddddddr-dr-drunk."
She extends a dainty hand. O maiden of the pink fingernails, how can I resist your irresistable siren call? I take it and sit up, wiping an embarrassing quantity of spittle from the sides of my mouth as I do.
"You are Thomas Casey, right? Famous detective-novel author and private eye?"
I nod my assent.
"I didn't expect you to be so.... drunk."
I nod my assent. I didn't either.

----------------------------------------------

roses are red, violets are blue, how could you do this to me

----------------------------------------------

We're sipping tea. I made her some.

(Condolences for being born such a crazy bitch.)

To be honest, though, I kind of like this girl. Just something about her. She looks so innocent, like she's some cute thing right out of a storybook... Feisty, though. Real feisty. Not what I expected. "Nihao," indeed.
"Alright, Detective Asshole, I guess I can forgive you," she says somewhat coolly between sips of tea. "But seriously--"
"No, it won't happen again. I mean, the thing with Lacey -- well, you heard, I told you."
"Guess it's just an innocent slip... fucking cracker," she says to me, a warm smile briefly playing across her delicate features.
I giggle a little bit inside -- people say that in real life?
I oblige her with a good old-fashioned fake chuckle -- it's simply appropriate, and I don't want to alienate her any more than I already have.
"In any case... I do have a reason for coming here. I'm not just basking in your radiance, you know."
"Hey, you sound kind of like me!"
"I'll ignore that little insult. In any case, Mr. Casey, what I've come to see you about is a crazy man."
"A crazy man, huh? What's the matter -- is he cheating? I'll tell you, Miss...?"
"Smith."
"I'll tell you, Miss -- wait.

(I stumble in my words)

What? Smith? Um..."
"It's hard to tell, but my dad was half-white, and I've got no idea why I'm bothering to tell someone like you that. But really, the thing about him is--"
I cut her off with little notice: "Miss Smith, I've got you covered. If there's anything this private eye is good at, it's cutting the balls off of cheating husbands. Damn scumbags. I'll tell ya, if I had a cutie like you there's no--"

(I'm still a little drunk.)

"MISTER CASEY!!" she yells indignantly. "Will you stop it? I'm trying to tell you something and all you're doing is rambling on and making comments that probably qualify as some kind of sexual harrassment."
"Oh, oh." I'm stumbling through words. "Ouch." I feel kind of like Mel Gibson -- although I guess "cutie" probably isn't on quite the same level as "sugar tits" is. "Okay."

Okay.

-------------------------------------------

oh, you

pink girl in red
(struggling)

--------------------------------------------

"So wait. Let me get this straight. They rob... diners, right?"
I'm wiping the sweat off my brow. God damn. When did I get so sweaty?
"Yeah, only diners."
"Only diners? Like in Pulp Fiction, right?"
"...Yes, like in Pulp Fiction."

This is exciting.

"That's great. That movie was great. You ever see that movie?"
"Of course. What, is it surprising that an innocent little Asian girl has seen--"
"No, no! No, Fumiko. Not at all. I was just wondering, because I was gonna ask maybe sometime if you hadn't seen it maybe you and I could--"

I'm still a little drunk.
(Her name is Fumiko, by the way.)

--------------------------------------------

i couldn't get it i can't i couldn't get

i couldn't get an erection i can't believe i couldn't get an erection i was trying to but

oh, oh, oh, i am in trouble

(mother is home)

---------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------

oh god i am

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 22:10:25 GMT

Here, in the interest of completion only, is "Equinox", which I wrote sometime during early October.

He was unaware when exactly the thought had come into his mind, but at some point during James' interminable school day, he became highly aware of the dominant concept which had kept his mind awake during the long hours previous: a pumpkin. Coming simultaneously with this awareness was the realization of exactly how preposterous his idea was. James Coroner's inane, absurd, enormously juvenile idea was this: he was going to carve a pumpkin. He was going to carve a pumpkin, and he was going to make it art.

Attached inexorably to this sudden and almost entirely inexplicable drive to carve a pumpkin was the thought of exactly what would be etched into it: Edward Munch's The Scream. James dismissed this idea. Again and again he flung it from his mind. The whole concept was vaguely embarrassing, and he felt a fool for even thinking it. Rudely disregarding his wishes, however, the thought floated back into his mind time and time again, no matter how often or how vehemently he dismissed it.
James felt that perhaps this hideous drive had been etched into his brain by his friend Brian Thompson, who had, in the course of an extended joke, suggested the idea of da Vinci's sublime Mona Lisa smile being supplanted onto the unsuspecting face of an ignoble and common squash.
James cursed his classmate – old-style, like something Shakespeare would have said. James almost immediately realized how silly and inappropriate thinking in such a fashion was, especially during school. He pushed it from his mind, into the shapeless void where all errant ideas of his were destined.
It was chiefly because of this void that James had never quite amounted to anything. Entirely unable to create art, occasionally incapable even of speech, James floated through life in a vaguely unhappy haze.
It was in this mindset – for he had few others – that James set about on his task. It was at once an entirely absurd project that he felt sure he would abandon within hours and his beloved magnum opus, his first and only foreseeable chance at any sort of creation.
The purchase of the pumpkin was, as most purchases of pumpkins are, uneventful. He paid a brief visit to his local farm and, upon the selection of a particularly plump pumpkin of pleasing shape and countenance, purchased it with an enthusiasm he found quite unbefitting his personality.
“No matter,” he told himself, disregarding this embarrassing thought but not quite discarding it entirely; to him, the recent internal embarrassment was already a distant memory, a paltry episode of uncomfortable feeling in comparison to the grand work ahead of him.
Next came the acquisition of tools. James found himself far too unmotivated to pay a visit to any sort of shop, so he employed a few old carving tools of indeterminate origin that he had been lucky enough to happen upon in his cavernous, junk-filled shed.
The work began. It was a hard process, seeing as James was not only lacking in the area of experience with pumpkin-carving; he had in fact never drawn, never painted, never created art of any sort. But still, James felt compelled: that night he had, over the course of two hours, roughly planned out how exactly he would transfigure Munch's masterpiece into a revolutionary example of vegetable art.
How interesting it was! James had spent a large portion of his night plotting out on paper the exact course his work would take when reality, cursed nemesis of his since his very birth, intervened: homework's dark shroud had hovered over the project since its awkward beginning two hours prior, and at 9PM it finally overtook its vegetative rival in the contest for James' ample attentions and admittedly less-ample talents.

James proceeded unenthusiastically through the next day in a cold, unpleasant torpor. The teachers continually felt a need to awaken him from his pleasant, docile dreams. James had little interest in scholastic pursuits. His thoughts seldom strayed to the pumpkin, but upon one consideration during a Math class that seemed to assume a particularly interminable aspect as it wore on, James realized something that, at the time, seemed quite profound: it was the only notable, meaningful thing he had ever done. He had toyed with this concept before, but here it was standing before him, its vibrant orange hue standing in stark contrast to the brownish, mundane coloration of reality. James allowed his head to nod and nod until eventually he knew little of the pumpkin and nothing of reality.
He awoke with a start. The math teacher flashed him as dirty a look as he could muster as the bell tolled; whom it tolled for was no one in particular, and the very fact that it was not a bell but a cold, electronic beep kept James grounded in a place where he did not want to be. The lack of artistic significance in daily life was a burden to James.
“What's up, James?” his pseudo-friend Brian Thompson shouted (afterwards, of course, flashing his customary attention-getting smile) as he stopped the newly-tortured artist James Coroner in the hall. James did not wish to enlighten this simpleton (for he secretly thought little of Brian) with a reply; there was also the slight matter that “what was up” was possibly the most absurd, juvenile thing James had ever done. James walked on, attempting to give Brian an impression of hurriedness when in reality he was headed to his second study hall that morning. His efforts were in vain:
“Do anything fun lately?” the chattering simpleton asked as he continued to follow James, his lecherous intonation leaving no doubt as to the sort of “fun” he was asking about. James decided to surprise the obnoxious pervert:
“I've been carving a pumpkin. Goodbye.” Before Brian could reply, James had disappeared into the burgeoning crowd. He stood there, perplexed at what sort of joke his bizarre classmate was making.
James went home and immersed himself in his work. Finally it had truly begun: the great pumpkin transfer! Though he tried, true immersion in the work was hard – he slowly chipped away at the vegetable, attempting to recreate the work with painstaking detail.
The week proceeded in this fashion, with James' fervor towards his work increasing along with his alienation towards Brian. Both seemed exponential in their growth. As he became more and more estranged from Brian, James allowed the pumpkin to fill the gaps that were left.
“The truth, anyway, was that we were really never very good friends in the first place,” James asserted. The only audience present for this assertion was his diary. The sad truth was that his casual, meaningless relationship with Brian had been the only “friendship” he had ever really had.
“Add that to the long and ever-growing list of things I don't have,” James lamented silently.
One thing James did have, however, was a girlfriend. Their relationship was never quite as serious as the ones some of James' peers had with their girlfriends; however, it did provide him with some degree of comfort, and sometimes, in especially queer moments, James thought that he might actually be able to relate to the strange, fay creature he called Allison.
They were distant; that was how James liked things to be. He would see her often, though, and sometimes he found himself startling close to her. They spent time together. He found it lovely.
A week after the incident with Brian, they broke up.
No reason was cited. No real reason. One day she simply stopped him in the hallway and said to him:
“I'd like to talk to you later, James, if that would be alright.” After school, the announcement was made, that fatal pronunciation:
“I think we'd be better as just friends.”
“The absurdity of it all!” thought James. “Has society degraded this much? Can't she just be honest? No woman in the history of women has ever broken it off with a man simply because he'd be a better friend.”
But break it off she did, and James felt alone in an entirely new way.
He plunged into the work. His enthusiasm would have been legendary if anyone else had noticed. His parents were distant; his friends nonexistent. James did not drink, smoke, or do much of anything. His chief activity was the reading of books – that is, it was his chief activity until the pumpkin had seized him.
The work was difficult. More than once James sliced up his hand in the process. But something grand and lovely, something that could only be called art, was taking shape: Munch's masterpiece, he felt, was receiving a transfer almost worthy of its original magnificence.
The next day, James spoke to no one. Through some hideous stroke of luck, not even the teachers called on him. He felt acutely alone, profoundly alone. The most pathetic part wasn't even that his new “best friend” was a vegetable – the most pathetic part was that he felt closer to this vegetable than he had ever felt to Brian Thompson. This was not an unlikely or surprising turn of events, and the goofy, abrasive class clown could hardly be blamed: the pumpkin was an extension of James' self, whereas Brian Thompson was an outsider, and would have been even if he had been particularly close with the artist. The pumpkin may as well have existed in his own mind, as he had never shown it to anyone else and did not plan to.
Work continued. James was not very bothered by the fact that the concept was not his own, but that of a long-dead painter. He felt that the concept was Munch's, but the soul his own.

Eventually, James' condition worsened. The pumpkin was so close to completion, and he feared that. It had offered him a respite from everything – his failing grades, his failed relationships, his empty life – and soon it was going to be over.
“And for what?” he asked himself. “What is a pumpkin going to do but rot? What have I been doing this whole time? This isn't even my concept.”
He had known the whole time, of course, that the work was unoriginal – however, now that thought seemed much more real. He had finished something, but no credit could be taken for it.
The idea of transformation, of transfiguring his art into something new, never occurred to him – it simply happened. One minute he was chiseling away at the finishing touches to Munch's sublimely subtly-tinted orange cloud, and the next said cloud had been transformed into a leathery, batlike wing.
Within a week, the etching on the pumpkin did not resemble the original art at all. Instead, it was taking a form entirely its own.
James stopped going to school. He threw his whole self into the world of the pumpkin and its slavering, deranged demon.
A week later, it was near completion. “Terrifying” did not begin to describe the beast which James Coroner, tortured artist and consummate misanthrope, had created with his very own hands.
“My hands!” James suddenly thought to himself late one night while laying the finishing touches that would finally transform Munch's familiar face of horror into the original creation of carver Coroner. He looked upon his digits and saw that they too had undergone a transformation: where once were thin, dexterous, beautiful fingers were now scabby staves caked in blood. James' tools for carving, he finally realized, had been slipping constantly this whole time – yet he had barely noticed at all.
That night, James worked as he never had before. He seemed to become the beast on the pumpkin as his hands flew across the vegetable, each stroke bringing him that much closer to the completion of his masterpiece. He felt a daemoniac glee as his gory, infected hands slashed away at the pumpkin, completing its transformation from something entirely benign to something disturbingly profane. His face was that of a lunatic.
At 6AM that morning, he finally finished. He slumped down into his chair.
“Finished, finished, finished, finished...” he thought, “I'm finished...”
“What to do now?” was, despite efforts to the contrary, his very next thought. What was to be done with a carved pumpkin except display it?
He looked at his calendar. Halloween was fast approaching – was tomorrow, in fact.
The first order of business, of course, was to show his parents. They were disgusted, terrified. Words like “Satanic” and “obscene” shot through the air, but James did not heed them: he was an artist, and here was his art. The outside world had not helped in its creation, and so its judgemental critics would not have a say.
Next came his classmates. He felt slightly embarrassed bringing his pumpkin in to school, but he did have a pretense: there was an autumnal art contest going on, and he felt justified in presenting his creation.
“Coroner's Belial” was not a success. The refusal of the judges to even rate his piece was not foremost in James' mind; instead, there was the mockery of his classmates. He was a freak, but lower: freaks, at least, were not artists.
Through it all, James remained indifferent.
“Here is my art,” he'd say, “and I am proud of it.”
Those who knew him (to the extent that anyone could really know James Coroner) found this uncharacteristically mature. He, however, knew better. Under different circumstances, he felt, it would have been a mature thing to say – but not here, not being said by James Coroner in his current mental state.
Allison, at least, liked it very much. She saw James in quite a different light now. Here was no longer the timid, quiet boy she had first thrown her affections towards. Here was something different, something she felt could utter the word of “love” with some cognizance of what it truly means to feel for another – but here also was someone who carried with him a profound sense of unwholeness. Here was, perhaps, a man who could understand love, who could entertain the object of his affections with gleeful dalliances and affected poetry, but a man who lacked some basic element that would allow him to fully express his love, to bring his his feelings of adoration into a more concrete sort of reality.
“Here,” she corrected to herself in her thoughts, “is a boy, still – just a more interesting one.” She simply had to admit to herself that she was quite curious, though.
She said nothing, however. To associate with an artist was social suicide.
Some hours later, James left the school, disgraced but not ashamed.
He finally came to his house. He placed his pumpkin on his porch, in a hallowed spot he had imagined for it since before the beginning of the whole affair. He went inside.
What was there to do now but wait? He had shown his art to the people he knew, and now it was Halloween, supreme night of pumpkins – should not his own creation, full of his own soul, have its own chance alongside the hideous store-bought artwork of a thousand little children?
He slept.

James awoke and went outside. He intended to retrieve his pumpkin, to take pictures so he, at least, would never forget what was in his opinion a true work of art in a soulless era.
There it was: the remnants of his pumpkin. The smashed vegetable, wholly unrecognizable, its gory remnants smeared across the walls of his house.
There it was: his many weeks of work, his pain, his sweat, his tears... the classes he'd failed, the girlfriend he'd lost, the obscenity-filled note written in Brian Thompson's unmistakably crude handwriting standing defiantly atop his destroyed creation, a beacon of cruelty and hatred and more than anything tragic, disgusting misunderstanding.
There it was: all for naught.
There it was: James falling to the ground, feebly attempting to stem the endless flow of tears with his threadbare shirtsleeves and the bloody staves that once were fingers.
The next few days were sober in a way that surpassed sobriety. James did not speak. The realizations had not yet set in.
There was simply too much to say about that silly, simple vegetable. James had grown to love not only his art but his medium... and of course, the art was, as art always is, much more than art.
A week after Halloween, James shambled outside to look again upon the visage of horror. By now the insects had gotten to it, and were gorging themselves gleefully on the remains of James' opus. He stomped on one, snuffing it out for no reason other than to see the artful pattern its entrails might create. He was hungry to create more, but the wounds of the loss seemed too deep; he had not spoken since. He gazed upon his pathetic pumpkin and thought for a moment he saw a final, haunting glance of Belial's shrieking, daemonic face before the swarming, frenzied ants were able to overtake it. James turned away, then remembered the face of Allison when she had seen his art – pleased, in some strange way – and the gorgeous, gaudy configuration of his unfortunate insect victim's organs. He sighed, and tore himself away from the future to take one last, long glance at the past. James gazed for a minute and allowed the invigorating odor of decay to waft through his raw nostrils, feeling in it the ineffable promise of renewal.

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 22:01:28 GMT

Well, here it is: my glorious writing LJ.

I initially had some reservations about doing this, but there comes a point when one just has to make a decision.

Expect stories, poems, maybe even a drama or two.

Feel absolutely free to add. I always reciprocate, and I probably do it better than your last girlfriend.