Friday, June 28, 2019

2 Minutes. Go!

The tired evening sits upon the old wooden fence, wheedling. The animals are quiet, lost in the vacant contemplation of the moment: fatigue, full bellies, cool of the evening, falling as benediction. The man stares into his empty glass and scratches the whiskers on his chin - Virginia hills call to him, and he hears the stories of his grandfather which tell him: you are here, you are supposed to be here, you are alive.

The body of the boy is stinking and attracting flies, but it doesn't matter. He'll deal with it. He'll deal with it and everything else because that's what he said he would do. The obligation is a yoke; he is plowing his subconscious. The boy smells like shit. It is a real smell. Alive.

Behind the cabin, the stream trickles by as it has for years and ages, and maybe all time. It is filled with smooth rocks and windfall branches and slick, shiny trout that leap and flash in the falls. Watch this festival of natural absurdity glisten as it tumbles in the green water, heavy with rain.

The night will come, and it will signal the hoot owl and the hound. The boy will take his final resting place in the ground. The night birds will sing, and the neighbors will call that ominous. A panther will cleave the night like a woman's screams, and all will be laid out into the morning.

We don't need your gods. We don't need your medical learning. It's all and more that we know - what's in these hills. Every story ever told by man and half of his sins live in those trees. And when summer hits its stasis point and night is tipping scale toward morning - hell, nothing matters except the stories we tell ourselves. And they get big. Bigger than the hills.

There are more secrets. Everywhere. They clog the tepid air with their contrite seductions. There are corpses in the closets where most store skeletons. There are crossed bloodlines and cursed brothers - and in summer, when the night is a velvet curtain, you walk softly and you listen for the big wind that says the storm is coming. And if you're smart, you pray, whether you believe in it or not.

Thursday, June 20, 2019

2 Minutes. Go!

He's yelling your name at the top of his lungs. The sound reaches up into the sky, hovers at apex, and then falls, exploding into light showers. He knows that you are big and thinks he understands what that means; he thinks that you must be the most beautiful man he's ever seen. You must be able to chop down trees with your hand. You must have a blue ox somewhere. 

This is because he doesn't understand how things really work.

H doesn't know about medical insurance and genocide. Not yet. He's too young for all that. I wonder when you're old enough for genocide?

And he's looking at you like you're some kind of spirit guide. Wide-eyed enthusiasm. What do you say? Most folks consider me a loser, so you may want to find a different guide? 

The boy still thinks that flowers and birds and puppies are important. He doesn't know about the kids his age who are caged and locked in the desert, covered in sickness and misery. He doesn't know about 9/11 or Chris Brown or Syria or slavery. He just wants to play and you can barely remember how that felt. 

But you know you used to feel it.

And that little boy is going to grow up and he'll wonder just like you do. A lot of folks loved Hitler, MAGA nightmare notwithstanding - when you're living it you want to make it small. This can't possibly be real actual historical significance could, it? Yeah, but it's all about perspective. 

The farther you get, in time or space, the bigger the damn thing gets. 


Thursday, June 13, 2019

2 Minutes. Go!

There's a sly, white slice in her eye - sheet metal gray around it. She takes everything of color; she absorbs the light.

"Tell me what's up."

Maybe it's nothing man, but sometimes nothing means something. Sometimes, it means everything.

You stick that sexy diffidence. It's delicious; it bends the very walls of the universe, cools like magma into a hard, gray shell.

I'm gonna be the lighthouse. I'm gonna be your nightmare. I'm gonna fuck your life up. And none of it ain't a bit fair. I will dance in the darkness while the church is burning; I will not fiddle.

Cast your sentiment aside and call me a coward. Listen as the minutes drop, flooding into hours. You look at me and it's all raw - the air, the feelings, the sound and touch and taste of it. I'm not talking about sex. Abasement.

Inside the twisted vortex of mind-fuck tapestries, behind your failed quests for justice or retribution - which are not the same things - you see a younger you who is afraid of what you have become. Your reaction to this child tells you everything you need to know about yourself.

So, the brain rumbles on and the thoughts keep tumbling. The fingers move like they're greased, but it takes a minute to find the rhythm. There's no rhyme to it.

It's different every time, see?

I'm just the conduit.


Thursday, June 6, 2019

2 Minutes. Go!

You on the team? Everybody’s on the team. Everybody gets a slice. You’re like a shitty general manager who doesn’t get paid. I’m like, sitting in the outfield, laughing. Your sense of allegiance is misplaced. Your anger is tangible, but you’re not angry about this. This is supposed to be a release valve. You’ve turned it into a bar with premade beef. Other people’s beef. Brother, you are NOT on the team.

The sun hits everyone and everyone dies a little as the hours pass. Get you a hotdog. You can tell folks at work on Monday that you played an integral part. Half-drunk-idiot in the nosebleed seats is an important position. I get you.

Pre-recorded rivalry is a stupid reason to die. Stupid reason to fight. Stupid reason to argue. You can’t care enough to get invested in human welfare, but you’ll die if your rival team wins because, well, you were told they were the enemy and that was enough. Get the pitchforks.

How much does the team care about you? About as much as your season tickets cost. About as much as the merchandise you overpay for. About as much as I care about you and your Sunday rage-preach. There are children dying in cages.

Did YOU see the game.

Open eyes, face on soft velour. Flash of neon in the rain, smears as you drive. Radio playing bad hip hop. The road is smooth, then a washboard. Your body is chilled, soaked. There is a sense of panic as your eyes focus. That smell. Don’t think about it. 

Time passes and you wonder. Wondering is risky. Risk is aversion. Avert your eyes outward; introspection is not your friend. 

Go back and construct excuses from what you recall. Cover your trail in hypocrisy soaked in convenient half-truths. Crack the window. Drink the soggy air. Hear the music, stunted and guilded by the sounds of the city as it flows by