when it comes down to it there is really nothing left to do except bottle water and move from hill to hill. it is treacherous to think otherwise. we all know this. the plumage is in the feather. the cap fits. solitude is a country we have all kept our passports for. hear the cluck of the razor strop? that is foreboding enough as it is, without all of this buttery froth thrown in for no apparent reason. get the grease out of your ears. it is pounce time.
the girls are grilling salmon out on the deck. sometimes the meat slips from the bone and drips like oil between the grill’s slats and steams from the coals below, and smokes too. oh, there is a lot of smoke involved. always a lot of smoke. it stings your eyes like lemon juice. you become blind for a frightful moment, and then you stagger back and laugh at yourself. because you have got to laugh at yourself. that is a prerequisite of this fiber-optic hissy fit we are all involved in. the foliage tell its own stories. mostly about banana trees in the backyard. boats? boats know better. they keep to the water.
we make plans. there are festivities on the north porches. pinball when it rains. the cats purr and curve carelessly into pillows. waning moons are not too much of a bother. we seem to have light enough to battle damselflies and possums. sometimes a grip will become loose, merchandise will be lost, and then there is hell to pay for those of us who still retain a few toes. the pompoms are filled with dragon teeth around here. don’t be a sucker. we are all out just for love. just for love.
the horizontals are all clipped. it is done after a fashion. a wormy skill that is not regarded highly anymore. though many in-the-know think these things through, and then they tell us how wrong we all are. just a mist to reconsider hindsight. a nettled medicine man with his hands tied behind his head. do not forget shorts weather. it comes around even if you are not looking for it. sometimes dossiers are kept of such things. but mostly we just keep strumming the hard dirt with rakes. listening takes two. also, a parakeet will get caught in the gears a few times a week, and we have got to clean them out with hoses. the list of daily tasks grows ever long.
the pages of our lives are now dog-eared with worry, though the breaks along the barriers of our skirmished creeping-thistle souls have become more frequent in these hydra-headed days. we only want to love and be loved, preferably by the same person or persons. sometimes a spare part will fit eloquently into the works of the pasty maker, and then the girls will be less skittish on the more-than-enchanted evenings, and then nobody will get all tangled up in microphone cords, and then we will learn a lesson in saying goodbye, and then tinfoil music will fill cupcakes with mechanical hearts, and then jealousy will be defeated by candy addicts, and then orphans will weep during an organ recital, and then we will reconnect with nature’s blues.
the points of no return keep getting lost. a purse was filled with shriveling old-newspaper-colored apple cores. we found it on the stairs where nobody belongs. everybody wants to belong somewhere. the moon is losing its class. the pawnshops around here have started selling valor by the handful, and we have got large hands. the shop owners have sworn off gin, but they have not sworn off love. not yet. we mean less than the urine-soaked scarecrows. we play pre-recorded homilies on full blast. the neighbors never complain.
the ruins of dismissiveness come to crowd us. there is a feeling of togetherness mashed with specks of isolation. communities tend to thrive in times of gilded arrivals. do not discount our capacity for pity. there will be a bonfire of empty amber pill bottles when the crows take over lengthwise segments of tomorrow’s yield. in the meantime we will forsake the keeping of records. spinning bottle caps will cover the spread. people lose noses over less.
a copse young in the rain. a fresh lawnmower smell. there is something better than dusk fading leeward, and we all know shadows like that, like capes of indifference. the machines run their man-made course. the levers get cranked. the circle is never complete. we blow bow-tie kisses at ice cream socials, at chemistry events in the town rhombus, at sour-graped girls, at movie screens. our fun days may be over, but we still have inlays of opal threading what is left of our dreams. supper is not quite cold enough yet.
bottle. bottle. bottle. move over. move on. bottle it up. screw the cap on tight. move. read romance into the annotations in the pinch of metal arms. grade the plastic on its capacity to like and worth of being liked. unscrew. open. scrunch. bottle. bottle. move. move. move on.
patents on arm-bending methods are due to expire soon. our ghosts are reliving their own nightmares for all eternity. getting a steel slide for our deliveries has been difficult. grass ceases to grow in rare instances and clear-cut cases of overweening cowardice. diesel stains the conveyor belts. we have got deals to meet and ends to make and mistakes to stumble upon and planets to never visit. and we err by justifying the clover’s honest touch with pellets of hostility. things have become louder than we can hear.
under the awnings we sweat. we sweat and mutter. we catch our breath only to lose it once again. a rate is raised. purchases are easily bought out. those of us with anatomy-model figures make the most of open windows, though our peripheral vision is not what it should be. last night a white bat winged through the makeshift pope-colored curtains in the attic window. everything here is broken and old.
we have been hard at work lately on soul-baring techniques. they come in handy during hailstorms and marching drills, when, of course, we moue with single-file compunction. we have been reassured that reinforcements are on the way, but for the time being we must make do with golf pencils, postcards, and discarded wax paper. the smallest amount of ink spilled for unreasonable reasons can make even the most usurious among us plaintive and ill-disposed. and if in times of doubt we cheat on our small-motor-skills scantron tests, well, at least we never scribble outside the bubbles.
yesterday a wolf cub was found lost in one of the machines. it was gruesome, stretched like taffy by the jostles and pins, and its skin was burnt, its thin coat of tawny hair mottled and sheared through in places as if with a laser beam. saffron and tar came to our minds when we whiffed it, while a hint of berber stubbed the toes of our senses with a synesthetic blur. nobody was quite sure why, but we were suspicious of the lug nuts. they were aligned horizontally. the stench stayed with us all night, and many were those who dreamt in cloudy sepia splotches of flaming tundras. an ordinary man with a rattan cane rescued the carcass from its assumed abode. it was placed in the pink disposal bin marked: “For Laundry Use Only.”
without care we sponge the floors. we mop the ceilings. everybody gets drenched. soapy hair is the norm, though goggles help us remain courageous in all of our endeavors. even in victory we do not speak above a whisper about blood or urine. what goes on in the spirit room is debated weekly, with an almost barnstorming passion. multiplying usually helps even things out. it pays its dividends in leak-proof skies and rubber bands wrapped around the diaphanous skin of empty plastic bottles. we take our fill.
pass that bottle over here. we need room to move too. too much is enough. enough is not enough. bottle us a smile. no more is more than enough. rain us a body. instill virtues in cucurbits. nobody laughs at brute force anymore. smooth the grooved style of the surface with shallow convictions. call the country. the bottles empty into another alaska-sized flask. get rid of the evidence. move into a valley without fear. bottle no more.
pinch.
Posts
