The
blurry frontier between active and alive, it gets us every time, and huddling
in the shade becomes the norm. Rooting through the raucous meadows--
pipsqueaked about it, sure-- but the letting on is what stoops to nicer guys
than most finishing third. The penultimate morning in the pastures of hell’s
America (it was almost near the end, see?) gave way to one last hipped hoo-less
ray of dark. Parrot rifles stockpiled by the Who’s Not Who of Plumbush Avenue
were confiscated by looting ensigns, finicky in their subliminal distinctions
about a riot’s specialty-driven ways of commandeering somewhat-lost
possessions. In the scuffle for the winning of inalienable rights a midshipmen
yelled, “Trust the whale-bone armor to protect and serve!” It was almost a
scream, but not quite. The sworn-to-behave took up arms and legs and torsos
against the meanest servants around. Drizzling was about all the weather came
to.
Then
Todd The Dart Hurler said, “I am a moseyer. I have always been slow to the
starting blocks. Give me lassitude or give me, well, something to chew on while
I wait. There ain’t a cold shower left in me, son. Get the brakes cooled off. I
am jiffied to surrender.”
Somebody
snapped a picture of somebody else’s lawn, the grass gleamed resplendent,
greener than any other lawn around, and slick-looking, almost waxy, and nothing
about it was appealing to the person who snapped the photo, except for the fact
that the picture was forever the way it was, there, in that moment, and nothing
would ever change about it, ever.
A
treaty on singing birds was not signed. People ratified their own curiosity
with appeals to ex-rovers and wandering-eye specialists. Lines of
reconciliation were not drawn in the nick of time; they were scratched into the
vinyl’s dust of b-sides. An enterprise of annoyance was entered into by bored,
excitable truck drivers. Nobody claimed to be very special at all.
“Look lively while you wait to pass
away.” This was accidentally said aloud by a middle-wing Wig Man. It was all
through a wall lightly-- the reconciliationed leave-giving that rocked before
it rolled or even drooled, the past tense of a verbified nary (“He naryed
glowingly into that bad afternoon, jogging Spanish, as it were, toward a
flashlight turned to rain.”), the rest-assured loss of the nexus of experience,
or even the morning’s first few drips of coffee. “Please stare. I beg of you
this, at most. I return stares by the boozer’s dozen. I keep my looks to
myself.”
To
this, whoever might have been doing the listening said, “I brake for yellow
lights while the scofflaws imbibe whatever grain-neutral spirits they can get
their grubby mitts on. Me? Hell, I grew up on corn liquor right down the street
from Tammany Hall, on the corner of Oliver and Water Streets, under the shadow
of the Brooklyn Bridge with my foot permanently on the rail, blowing the foam
off some suds. Perfidy was the rule of the land. The Klan was T-Totaling after
Birth Of A Nation’s rallying cry. We dropped oil-filled balloons on their
parade from higher than above. And then? Then? Well, you see, discontent became
the average graft of George-Remus aficionados. That about does it, right?”
“Is
it tomorrow yet?”
“Almost.”
“Good.
We who weep in the rain get wasted on hand-me-down courage and loaned-out
disturbances. Peccancy is our operating system, while we run on stun, clumped
together, or clanked, it weans us from class restrictions and tears the flimsy
fabric of our most gossamer seasons. Repair to the barroom, son; all will be
blurred towards distinction.”
“Hightailing
gets me nowhere. You of all persons should attempt to know this.”
“Oh
hell, listen to this:
“there’s
a right there that’s been wrong enough for too long enough now
“so
come back over this way over here
“where
the commas never stop splicing and the birds pray more than usual
“it’s
like a dead streetlight and we’re separately lonely like this
“too
“while
the stop signs all fall down
“and
we make peace with pie fighters in the thick of it
“thinner
now
“sliced
better
“and
underneath torn bits of fun
“we
almost tried to have
“some
sometimes
“wiser
than a whisper of clarinets scarfing the tides
“better
than I ever could
“sunk
under the circumstances
“to be okay enough
“to
get
“by
“for
good
“pale
and cloudy
“we
get greedy in the gist of whatever we were
“almost
“given
to be down and up
“at
once
“if
a wish’s strength powered factories of why
“we’d
dive almost hungry past the
“sky
“but
there’s a kidding
“that’s
wrapped around the moon
“while
we cut truth better than lying ever could
“just
for us
“just
for the way we sidle up to the necessary
“and
quote tv
“just
to get a better best
“to
just be.”
“Sparkle
and shine, daughter. Sparkle and motherfucking shine.”
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