the canyon

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The One thing I remembered. Just now. There were three ‘ones’ – on the dashboard clock. It struck me, almost like a joke…it was late and I was tired and weirding out. I get that way – kinda goofy - then I crash.

…guess that wasn’t appropriate. Sorry.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know I was tumbling inside this can over and over and glass was flying. Got some in this eye, which is why the patch. Didn’t know I was bleeding. No idea, Too fast. Like waking up into a nightmare, you just don’t know. I thought I was alone. Never thought about Mike or anyone else. No time. That business about your life flashing? Bunk.

When we struck, we struck hard. Rock hard and bang that was it. Blackness with a whack.

Whatever happened next…whenever it was after that…there were some voices at some point, I heard but could not respond. I could think the thoughts, but not speak the words. Like I was locked in my own cell and everything I could hear was outside in the hall and no one could hear me screaming from inside the walls. Not feel my body.  Not feel my own pain. Then I was gone. That’s about it. Blank now for the past…what?…how long’s it been?…and now I feel the pain and need more drip…need the drip.

I don’t recall what I look like and I’m betting that it isn’t the same as before. That traction contraption drove me mad, I do know that. Torture. The tubes, the surgeries, the damn machines…the constant puff and whiff of oxygen. The beep….beep…beep…maddening inside my broken body…my fucked up head.

…sorry, I…

I hope you can bear looking at me. Am I grotesque from my wounds? I…I…hope you don’t find me ghoulish.

They need to make me a new face – not the same, my cranium rebuilt, new shape. They say they have a good woman in charge. I hope so. I’ll need the help.

Mike said he could do it and I believed him. He knows that canyon…he knew it…we blew it. Bad. 1:11. Oh, Mikey, what did we do?

They're out there

Aspiring with Skunk: 

This is my thought process. I say to myself….

“You are not thinking for a moment that each tap of your finger tip is a sacred gesture in scribing the scrolls of your existence do you? You are not the second coming, you are not even the second drop. In this day in this moment, this nano-moment your tap is buried, your thought swept away in the Wash of a digital current so enormous your perception cannot wrap it’s legs around it. Ludicrous, as it may seem that blip you just streamed is not a reality, not a physicality, only a beta burp in the torrential bubble stream. Your jeweled observation, less inconsequential than a sow bug being washed down the sewer. Your insights, your vision, your wisdom, is the same muse that brings a rooster to shit. Inconsequential.”

Is this a monologue or a dialogue?

“You are not charring the bone, nor grinding the dye with which to stain cave walls for a posterity that has no connection, not hammering the stone to etch your tome in rock that too, crumbles. Wash. Wash clean the orb, at once pristine, now void by necessity. Your tip taps. The jazzy little apps. What is that? Don’t delude yourself. There is no substance, there is a dearth of substance, we are gelatin in skin sacks, yet we spew a massive residue, flushing the channels of consciousness, washing away our genius in the trash, barely a scrap, the lash of a gnat, headed over the falls. It all flows together, bits and bits and bits and bits of nothing flowing, but a fractal sperm fallacy, as the finality is simply a plug in the wall.”

 ( = ) =D----------       < - doodle

“Go ahead, I say. Plunge. Don’t let me gird your flow, but to think you exist in that space and that it matters, is much too far to go, and the minute you’re gone is your lifetime.”

We grow quiet as we ponder (fart) and order another round.

“In the back of my head someone is playing Silent Night on the tuba, deliberate and somber, like a recital.  Do you ever get that?”

I get ball-games.

“That’s not bad...”

Depends on the game. I also get some Big Bands. I think I’m picking up frequencies from old radio shows. That’s my theory, anyhow.

I tend to agree, They're out there somewhere.

In Final Gasps

As my body fails

And I go Code Red

There'll be one last thought

Going through my head:

Step a little closer

I simply ask

for one last 

grasp

of your 

precious ass

So that I 

may smile

as I pass

Amen.       

                 - anon.

n  o  t  a  c  o  g  n  i  t  o

Btm 9

The arrangements

had not been 

confirmed 
ahead

seems his agent 
had not made

Reservations,

but Errors

instead

and the Trip

was suddenly

not

going well

at all.

Lost not only

the baggage

the signal

the message

The memo

And the map

to Get Back

Lost all perspective

Lost the directive

Lost his reason-

ability

All sense of response-

ability

Somewhere

between 

here and there

Lost his will

His trust

His Ardor

His Lust

And finally

the Thrust
to step off

a-cty-dst

Angel  (city)  Dust

Dry heat

 blown from desert crust

by santana’s  torrid gusts

stirs

noxious envy &ozoneanger

anxious rashlibido&inner (city) lust

the empty siren wails

dry breeze
wafts light 
through windows

curtains trail

'gainst gilded walls

where shadows fail

echoes canyon deep

like a victim’s weep

down ornamental halls

carpets seep

where victims sleep

in luxury's keep

The devil’s menace 
slip and creep

No gravel’s crush

Nor floorboard creak

But there, the same.

……some bitchmother’s

Murderous freak…

with butcherous lust 
the blood he seeks

On …..Angel

City

dust.

Tanker Ray

Tanker Ray was having none of that. Not today. A man that big need be suppressed before he causes harm. Ray was in the business of Harm: harm to property, harm to health, and harm to life itself on more than a few occasions. So if The Tanker is cranky you best stay away. Ray was looking for me, I heard say, so I took my own advise.

Stayed away.

Geneva was Ray Scilianno’s sister, and once again I get suckered in by a babe who is just a little bit crazy, only this one’s got a brother who is a lot. I think it might be the crazy sex angle, but smart. The troubled ones got something to unload, sometimes bad, Not the desperate kind, but the one’s that got  ‘just getting off’ on their mind.

Some nights I swim tired seas, where no one wants to work that hard ….Not when something easy will do. Geneva was not a catch - she jumped into my boat. Dark, magnolia-scented, full lipped and vodka breath. “Hide me quick before that prick comes back.”

“Do I know you? Is there trouble?” then I saw the flicker in her eye. Playful. Forward. A hint of a promise. I bit the bait.

“Is there really a guy after you?”

“Not exactly.”

“I saw you with the guy…”

“He dumped me. Here with you.”

“Me? No. I don’t fit into that equation. I am a non-entity in this.”
“An innocent observer…”
“A none observer, and a big, I don’t-carer, too.”

“Can’t you just find a little piece of that heart to give me a place to hide?”

“That makes little sense…if he dumped you then what’s to hide?”

“I slip in and out of reality.”
“Not seamlessly.”

“I sense you might have a common knack for doing the same.”

“I have enough trouble with the reality part, but am willing to stay in it rather than slip out.”

“Don’t know what you are missing…”
“Oh they find me. I know.”

“So what’s that make me? Another lost crazy girl out to screw up your life? And let me ask you, if your reality includes this place then why bother?”

“You’re here...”

“This is where I come to slip out.”
“I see. So, what? You slumming?”

“Something like that. Now come on, you’re a good looking guy…I think maybe even smart…and I can carry on a spirited conversation. Let me buy you a drink and sit awhile.”

“Smooth talker. You see how these things start? Not so innocently, and never end very nice.”

“You’ve yet to  open the book...how do you know the ending?

“I have a few volumes on my shelf.”
"Nothing too heavy I hope."
"...nope."
"Bullshit. Okay, we've done the epilogue. Blank page.

Title? WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DRINK? 

Page One. Chapter One... "

"Johnny Walker Black...fuck Tanker Ray..."

"Doubles", she echoed

"And so it begins."