[sequel to Tony the Tiger]
Give us potato hash, and ready for the backlash. We want coiled licorice strings and fast-food onion rings. We want everything on our list, boxed and delivered and rung up on the exchange. Then the devil readies thugs to de-liver deadbeats, shivering and hungover waking in a bath of ice, and missing key internal organs - or so I've read once or twice.
Tall men in suits chuff effetely on the flute, lining up for coffee instead of kneeling in a pew. Why not be a coffee bean and never wonder why? I get steamed, I get drunk, I have swimwear in my trunks. I have a bank right in the clouds -- too bad the interest rates are junk.
Try to relax as the keys get stuck, the mind in muck, the wherewithal just out of plucking range, the chi, the Clear, the dianetical celebrisphere. Why not dabble in a bit of Scientology? L Ron's alright? Give new religions a chance, if we have no use for God, we gotta have SOME sort of crazy dance.
Leo the Lion wrote an airtight business case for getting the hell out of this place: to rent a forty-foot canoe big enough for him, me, you and half the local zoo. A simple fifty bucks a head; that is, unless they're two by two.
Obadiah Smith and Jersey Pocahontas, tied together on a raft, forced to agree while Ms. Rhythm had a laugh. She put a waterfall + jagged-rocks right where they shook hands, then she'll pile their shattered souls to blackmail the Pelican man.
Grow nuts! Yes, to plant seeds, you dig up dirt to build a tree. I never smiled at a toddler reading, seems so unfair -- I had a thirty year head start to also sit and stare, wonder what I was needing, to find a decent patch of air.
Ozark Ike and the TSX, robber barons merge agendas while a man in Muskoka builds a deck. In the June air above water 'round dusk you can only hear ducks. "I don't believe in boardrooms when my teenager drives a truck." Okeeochobee in Florida, palm trees ye high, I got no patience for humidity, and cockroaches creep by. Did you call the exterminator? He's got a hot date on the playa; men with blue collars have thick brown wrists, I'll put out the ant traps myself just this once - that guy deserves a filthy tryst.
Mona Decadona has cleavage she bought in Arizona, loaned $50K to wear her dreams in silicone, or silicon, body porn or cyber porn just makes another yawn. How can we afford to pay? We got money marts poppin' up like crickets off a log. I got facelift grannies melting in Phoenix in a slow midmorning jog. I got fatass secretaries poppin' Skittles I got human-as-dogs at forty bucks a kibble, getting groomed and massaged more than a man with a sledgehammer stance and cigarette breath ever will and you wonder why the onlines seeth with despair, every thought you ever had will splat against the stare, at forms you fill in, it's never enough, you are like me, guaranteed to leave - we got a forty-foot canoe, just me and you and Leo wishing he never learned to read.
Showing posts with label ms. rhythm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ms. rhythm. Show all posts
2/08/2011
9/21/2010
Zounds - 150 pounds
Unfortunately I find I'm unable to write. You never had that problem, never had to fight.
Swish in sandals, heavenly dreaded scandals singing overlong in temples gold and making men feel young and old. I was white and bored and black and cold and wired to fail. Magic muffins burn in brown and challah loaves from Chinatown did frown my friends and eleventy-ninety never-ending disco bending botany beauties - walnuts wild and other fruits, I did elope and pas de tout did you know that far below, the TSX, I wrote it down, a silver quote that make men rich. You want that cash, clutching savings in a book your advisors so much trouble took and bishops knights and castles rook which check you out of fortune.
Tralala, said Sherry Sweet, from 119 East Dover Street--her rubies slippers on her feet did flit and float on Sunday. I never saw her bottled hair, I always knew she'd never share, I couldn't care when her auntie crowed of how she'd hit the jackpot. The mother lode! My poor toad! It's nothing now to save a tree, when green is black and white is wrong. Of manic men we often sing, a quota on our list to fling, a fire into open arms, we spread a blanket warm but made of lead to cover all your good ideas?
Swish in sandals, heavenly dreaded scandals singing overlong in temples gold and making men feel young and old. I was white and bored and black and cold and wired to fail. Magic muffins burn in brown and challah loaves from Chinatown did frown my friends and eleventy-ninety never-ending disco bending botany beauties - walnuts wild and other fruits, I did elope and pas de tout did you know that far below, the TSX, I wrote it down, a silver quote that make men rich. You want that cash, clutching savings in a book your advisors so much trouble took and bishops knights and castles rook which check you out of fortune.
Tralala, said Sherry Sweet, from 119 East Dover Street--her rubies slippers on her feet did flit and float on Sunday. I never saw her bottled hair, I always knew she'd never share, I couldn't care when her auntie crowed of how she'd hit the jackpot. The mother lode! My poor toad! It's nothing now to save a tree, when green is black and white is wrong. Of manic men we often sing, a quota on our list to fling, a fire into open arms, we spread a blanket warm but made of lead to cover all your good ideas?
3/08/2010
Chee boy vibe
Ms. Rhythm's dead, so I celebrate, I order up an ice cream cake - freshly chiffoned with sugar cream, spelling words that Zarathustra spake. You could pick it up, if you don't mind, three business days from now, the cashier tells me on the phone as I milk a mental cow. I have a coat that's smooth and grey, as my head will one day be. I need to walk outside sometimes just to have nothing to see. Talk to strangers at the bus shelter, ask to squeeze politely by--each trip upon the streetcars has me drinking bottled sighs--and commiserate telepathically while staring at the sky. I walk into an LCBO, they've got pretty good customer service--but middle-aged cashiers on Friday night can make a sober man feel nervous. Then I duck into an alleyway just to photograph graffiti. No one remembers hidden things; it's no wonder why we're needy.
12/27/2007
Tragic Flaw Jam
(preserved in a dusty file since December 2005... I dunno, gotta publish something)
Happy is the word the trolls use, abuse and even lose. People can't be happy when they live within a cave, slap themselves upon the forehead and wonder who to save. The potions I drank, they made me thank (a kind of fantastical think), my grammar was warped and the universe stank. Jello's what I was, my spine like a string, elusive and full of guile like a calculated combinatorial and dictatorially lethal diamond ring. I was under a rock and talking to slugs, I was on all sorts of drugs. I escaped into a rainbow that drizzled from a bottle, I was high on chicken wings and flying pigs and fried turkey wattle. Moses condescended from the mountain to kick the crap out of me, I was laughing as he command-mentalized me; he was old and grey and couldn’t out-dance me. O the ocean was my home (but it was steaming into foam).
I couldn’t care for my kids. I was ketchup and mustard in the same bottle, a condiment unclassifiable, a poisonous mixture brewed from spite. The marvelous magicians were wounded too; I was their hero and leader, but they were alcoholic and impotent too, they wanted me to validate them, to party all night with them. I was tired and confused so I whispered ‘all right’. The devil did a number on me, happy with my trinkets, my blinking squealing ignorance; I was his pet, a protégé, I smelled like a bed of roses and there would never be decay. My mumblings were masterpieces, my farts the sweet perfume, my sins were super-sexy, I was popular at last, I could eat cheese and wear linen, I had a maid from Ethiopia, hell I was on my way to saving the world. I had a 4000-watt speaker system, I could listen to the Boss from blocks away. And it was me who wrote the fairy tales, I was the silky spider trading rhymes for curds and whey. I sat beside the milkmaid and she would swoon at my soul, I could croon and babble and make her blush, yes I was totally on a roll.
But I rotted away that autumn, I was all sugar and no meat, I was the devil’s little bitch, and I had begged him for the beats.
The jester's union returned my registration fees, I was shunted and disowned and left to starve in a heap beside a jeep on a road filled with toads and leading into a gulch. I was struck by lightning not once but twice and my hair went silver grey. Onions rolled out my mouth, my stinky breath made babies and mothers cry and my oh my the warts on my nose grew quite large. My declarations were premature, ejaculations suspicionable, my stakes on the new frontier slipping away like a greased feather. My mind stopped rolling along, I couldn’t keep on keeping on, I was bruised to the bone by my broad sweeping fallacies, my redundant originalities, my peculiar chariots and Phaetonesque fantasies. No one needed to ride the sun, I discovered my quests were foolish and full of holes and the wind blew through me like a needle ripping through my spine, passing out the back and leaving that leaky fluid dripping like a pissing wizard from my mind.
Happy is the word the trolls use, abuse and even lose. People can't be happy when they live within a cave, slap themselves upon the forehead and wonder who to save. The potions I drank, they made me thank (a kind of fantastical think), my grammar was warped and the universe stank. Jello's what I was, my spine like a string, elusive and full of guile like a calculated combinatorial and dictatorially lethal diamond ring. I was under a rock and talking to slugs, I was on all sorts of drugs. I escaped into a rainbow that drizzled from a bottle, I was high on chicken wings and flying pigs and fried turkey wattle. Moses condescended from the mountain to kick the crap out of me, I was laughing as he command-mentalized me; he was old and grey and couldn’t out-dance me. O the ocean was my home (but it was steaming into foam).
I couldn’t care for my kids. I was ketchup and mustard in the same bottle, a condiment unclassifiable, a poisonous mixture brewed from spite. The marvelous magicians were wounded too; I was their hero and leader, but they were alcoholic and impotent too, they wanted me to validate them, to party all night with them. I was tired and confused so I whispered ‘all right’. The devil did a number on me, happy with my trinkets, my blinking squealing ignorance; I was his pet, a protégé, I smelled like a bed of roses and there would never be decay. My mumblings were masterpieces, my farts the sweet perfume, my sins were super-sexy, I was popular at last, I could eat cheese and wear linen, I had a maid from Ethiopia, hell I was on my way to saving the world. I had a 4000-watt speaker system, I could listen to the Boss from blocks away. And it was me who wrote the fairy tales, I was the silky spider trading rhymes for curds and whey. I sat beside the milkmaid and she would swoon at my soul, I could croon and babble and make her blush, yes I was totally on a roll.
But I rotted away that autumn, I was all sugar and no meat, I was the devil’s little bitch, and I had begged him for the beats.
The jester's union returned my registration fees, I was shunted and disowned and left to starve in a heap beside a jeep on a road filled with toads and leading into a gulch. I was struck by lightning not once but twice and my hair went silver grey. Onions rolled out my mouth, my stinky breath made babies and mothers cry and my oh my the warts on my nose grew quite large. My declarations were premature, ejaculations suspicionable, my stakes on the new frontier slipping away like a greased feather. My mind stopped rolling along, I couldn’t keep on keeping on, I was bruised to the bone by my broad sweeping fallacies, my redundant originalities, my peculiar chariots and Phaetonesque fantasies. No one needed to ride the sun, I discovered my quests were foolish and full of holes and the wind blew through me like a needle ripping through my spine, passing out the back and leaving that leaky fluid dripping like a pissing wizard from my mind.
7/15/2007
Calm
Happiness can be deadly. Procrastinate amid generalized joy; the blog must face this new steady state. You can still write - but you don't have to shout; tired of the tongue-tied fistfight. You can't worry about calm. So invent a new category.
Once-a-year light at 8:30pm tonight. The house bottom bricks past the point of light but the treetops turn a sunset shade of green with the last rays licking leaves. Notice it all, the firefly-night delight, swing-sitting take-in-everything insight, meander on the bike, sackclothed women with hoses on the lawn, group goodbyes upon a porch, summer not for long. Tightrope walkers tree to tree in Trinity B, I stick hands to highfive strangers, oh yellow-green jerseys - go Brazil! - dogs, smirk, always dogs - please, have a kid instead.
I'm stuck on a stunning white dress, fluffy bathrobe, warm towel, my sweet success, half-baked bluster, waffles I insist are morally provocative, but a first-prize smile takes the cake. Who is to blame for this dance-sing-body-mind harmony? A woman named Justin Timberlake.
Ms. Rhythm had stopped my heart, an arrhythmia, mumbling mumbletypeg; she rained vicious undulating waves of vocab from the sky, she wanted logic to die; and so whenever I tried it felt like a lie - that is, to prompt an effect - your deliberate intentions are just like a shipwreck. She would sing mind-wringing rubbish that rang like a siren: You are sleeping and beautiful. You will never know yourself. Creep alone, unconscious as you type Sanskrit-speak, spinning at perfectly harmoniously satanically satellite suborbital outer-space speeds, forever peeking at the pink edge of dawn from the dark side of the moon.
(And so I've decided to fire her!)
Once-a-year light at 8:30pm tonight. The house bottom bricks past the point of light but the treetops turn a sunset shade of green with the last rays licking leaves. Notice it all, the firefly-night delight, swing-sitting take-in-everything insight, meander on the bike, sackclothed women with hoses on the lawn, group goodbyes upon a porch, summer not for long. Tightrope walkers tree to tree in Trinity B, I stick hands to highfive strangers, oh yellow-green jerseys - go Brazil! - dogs, smirk, always dogs - please, have a kid instead.
I'm stuck on a stunning white dress, fluffy bathrobe, warm towel, my sweet success, half-baked bluster, waffles I insist are morally provocative, but a first-prize smile takes the cake. Who is to blame for this dance-sing-body-mind harmony? A woman named Justin Timberlake.
Ms. Rhythm had stopped my heart, an arrhythmia, mumbling mumbletypeg; she rained vicious undulating waves of vocab from the sky, she wanted logic to die; and so whenever I tried it felt like a lie - that is, to prompt an effect - your deliberate intentions are just like a shipwreck. She would sing mind-wringing rubbish that rang like a siren: You are sleeping and beautiful. You will never know yourself. Creep alone, unconscious as you type Sanskrit-speak, spinning at perfectly harmoniously satanically satellite suborbital outer-space speeds, forever peeking at the pink edge of dawn from the dark side of the moon.
(And so I've decided to fire her!)
5/24/2007
O'Hare airport
(4 cups of coffee into my trip home)
This is not a good idea
O true worship, O man of length, the strength I gave was never spent.
If persons black were lent a noose, so I could I clear my name, the effect was cursory; I never was the same. Poems black as clouds, shave the faces of the proud. Othello was my cousin, I carried his sword and dagger, I walked in shadows until I reached the cliff of the great green adder. "This is Sunday morning showdown," and the walls shook like spiderwebs. I heaved at smoke and breathed in cellar dust, wrote encyclopedia entries for acid and rust.
She wore a cloak of silk atop her oiled golden tan. A frog and a gazelle traded jokes in Hindustan. I would calculate with simpletons; they crowned me Foxy Beast. Now insomniacs contribute to my pot of charity, it was explosive death I traded in — it was mindless liberty.
I dig for hours before I find the straighter line, open cans of worms and evaporate the brine. I wonder 'what will come?' but it's hours late, I looked up words like 'jaunty' 'facade' and 'defenestrate'.
If cobras could combine into a mild lamb, if pomegranates sprang like diamonds from my hand - why I'd spit out choreography and smile at the moon. I'd drink mudslides in the hammock and name my firstborn daughter June.
I call you contradiction I call you labyrinth, I call you late for dinner with an absinthe after dinner mint. I'd drink ovations with a monk and we'd scan the crossword pages, I'd make a pact with Lady Silver, and her first cousins, the Sages.
Collect a few fragments, polish them a bit, point them at the ocean and then be done with it. That's better than most, who obsess with spelling, grammar, father son and holy host.
I'm winding down and that's what makes me glow. I hammer till I shiver, live on love, process grief through my wretched liver. I can breathe now. I always knew this, but did not know how.
I loved many but insufficiently, never a soul completely, until we ate street meat at Queen and Spadina on Saturday evening. Lady, treat me as your lord, slave, lover, knave, lad, brave mad sad king. I have nothing except you - and I will give you everything.
This is not a good idea
O true worship, O man of length, the strength I gave was never spent.
If persons black were lent a noose, so I could I clear my name, the effect was cursory; I never was the same. Poems black as clouds, shave the faces of the proud. Othello was my cousin, I carried his sword and dagger, I walked in shadows until I reached the cliff of the great green adder. "This is Sunday morning showdown," and the walls shook like spiderwebs. I heaved at smoke and breathed in cellar dust, wrote encyclopedia entries for acid and rust.
She wore a cloak of silk atop her oiled golden tan. A frog and a gazelle traded jokes in Hindustan. I would calculate with simpletons; they crowned me Foxy Beast. Now insomniacs contribute to my pot of charity, it was explosive death I traded in — it was mindless liberty.
I dig for hours before I find the straighter line, open cans of worms and evaporate the brine. I wonder 'what will come?' but it's hours late, I looked up words like 'jaunty' 'facade' and 'defenestrate'.
If cobras could combine into a mild lamb, if pomegranates sprang like diamonds from my hand - why I'd spit out choreography and smile at the moon. I'd drink mudslides in the hammock and name my firstborn daughter June.
I call you contradiction I call you labyrinth, I call you late for dinner with an absinthe after dinner mint. I'd drink ovations with a monk and we'd scan the crossword pages, I'd make a pact with Lady Silver, and her first cousins, the Sages.
Collect a few fragments, polish them a bit, point them at the ocean and then be done with it. That's better than most, who obsess with spelling, grammar, father son and holy host.
I'm winding down and that's what makes me glow. I hammer till I shiver, live on love, process grief through my wretched liver. I can breathe now. I always knew this, but did not know how.
I loved many but insufficiently, never a soul completely, until we ate street meat at Queen and Spadina on Saturday evening. Lady, treat me as your lord, slave, lover, knave, lad, brave mad sad king. I have nothing except you - and I will give you everything.
11/23/2006
Rhymaggedon
We are dying. Lies make us. I die trying, fly high trying.
Great geese overhead in winter; fly to where? I can’t care, but know they go there, through air. Don’t shit on my hair. I’m stuck. Luck I earned, karma stashed from previous lives, love I got drunk on, and burned.
Collide. I scope a crash for colours. Rainbow wrecks and twisted rigid bones. Amen to the jigsaw in my brain, wipe shrapnel, go home. Here I am, babbling to the only person I love on ten thousand telephones.
I write love letters, sweetest she ever received. Envelope lick drop-in box delivers unfading memories and etchings you can believe. But these days - nobody can digest a megabite, or trace autumn leaves - that just ain't how folks get paid - and whistling? Disappears into the breeze.
Cataclysm! Ms. Rhythm gave me schizoschism, I trap her, keep her prisoned in a prism, ringing elision, illusion of darklife and deadweight confusion, refresh from fullness, sick to death of bullshit underwater nowheres - here, there and everywhere. I know it’s not fair, nothing is and everything is. But I'm so tired I don’t care.
Stuff a sock down my pants and call it country. I sang bluegrass in her kitchen and cracked like humpty dumpty. I was dared to hit a girl once, but anger’s a failure of intelligence; violence is so 20th century, like not voting’s worse than suicide. Governments and the afterlife - we get what we deserve.
Will I bomb you, Osama? What will calm you. The drama. You, on the desert dromedary, your derriere kicked by an ass donkey King Kong Bush still swatting at the consequence of that aerial ambush.
They made a war. Outlet for fate. Pent-up nihilism needs its place. Explode yourself on a bus, try to crush my luscious blush, your self-destruction doesn't wipe the smile from my face. Optimism. Relax. There’s a reason why people masturbate. Or if you’re that desperate for affection - ask your sister on a date. But don’t blow me up: it's my get-home bus, and I don't like being late.
Mass graves. Grave masses. Crusade Christians. Help the homeless and don’t throw stones. I live in a looking glass. I can move anywhere, but I live what I choose – wherever they got sweaty skins on tired bones; wherever they have eyeballs; wherever they got the jigsaw blues.
Great geese overhead in winter; fly to where? I can’t care, but know they go there, through air. Don’t shit on my hair. I’m stuck. Luck I earned, karma stashed from previous lives, love I got drunk on, and burned.
Collide. I scope a crash for colours. Rainbow wrecks and twisted rigid bones. Amen to the jigsaw in my brain, wipe shrapnel, go home. Here I am, babbling to the only person I love on ten thousand telephones.
I write love letters, sweetest she ever received. Envelope lick drop-in box delivers unfading memories and etchings you can believe. But these days - nobody can digest a megabite, or trace autumn leaves - that just ain't how folks get paid - and whistling? Disappears into the breeze.
Cataclysm! Ms. Rhythm gave me schizoschism, I trap her, keep her prisoned in a prism, ringing elision, illusion of darklife and deadweight confusion, refresh from fullness, sick to death of bullshit underwater nowheres - here, there and everywhere. I know it’s not fair, nothing is and everything is. But I'm so tired I don’t care.
Stuff a sock down my pants and call it country. I sang bluegrass in her kitchen and cracked like humpty dumpty. I was dared to hit a girl once, but anger’s a failure of intelligence; violence is so 20th century, like not voting’s worse than suicide. Governments and the afterlife - we get what we deserve.
Will I bomb you, Osama? What will calm you. The drama. You, on the desert dromedary, your derriere kicked by an ass donkey King Kong Bush still swatting at the consequence of that aerial ambush.
They made a war. Outlet for fate. Pent-up nihilism needs its place. Explode yourself on a bus, try to crush my luscious blush, your self-destruction doesn't wipe the smile from my face. Optimism. Relax. There’s a reason why people masturbate. Or if you’re that desperate for affection - ask your sister on a date. But don’t blow me up: it's my get-home bus, and I don't like being late.
Mass graves. Grave masses. Crusade Christians. Help the homeless and don’t throw stones. I live in a looking glass. I can move anywhere, but I live what I choose – wherever they got sweaty skins on tired bones; wherever they have eyeballs; wherever they got the jigsaw blues.
10/21/2006
Ms. Rhythm makes a comeback
She came into the night and this light dying and my heart failing. After hours of screaming silence, she winks and whirls into the river, as though escape by water could excuse her crime. She didn't leave a calling card or a thoughtful hand-written note. I scour the bank upon a skiff, a boat beneath me to float that way and this, the merest whiff, perfume in a jar in my memory, across the ocean she's laughing or crying. I asked her mother her new address; I carried a photograph of her silk black skirt, I don't remember clothes but I remember certain textures, powders or sensations of heat. She was a criminial no doubt, word was out in the town, most wanted thief, most feared devil, most loved siren, most certain death.
6/25/2006
Just getting warmed up
Sunday night and the way things flow it's hours before we get bored. I can’t lie Ms. LadyGlow, you attract me like no other; it’s our chance at something special. But you are shy and I’m an unpredictable loon, so they say. Wrong. Oh that's wrong. Don’t take quirks for a lack of interest; don’t fall for the directness of a common thug. Transparency and tallness have their drawbacks. Don't listen to the echo of your DNA desires – it’s time you understood where evolution ought to go. You and I have a future. We could have rhythm to topple all those arthritic drones. I like the flutter of your dress, the touch of the fabric, rose-print on silk, and I’m glad you avoid glitter, it’s so adolescent. This first number’s fast and made for flirting. Leonard Cohen had to wait for his miracle, but I’m witnessing one right in front of me. Your shoes don’t move like an Earthling’s shoes. Which planet gave you gravity, floating in a circle like Saturn’s rings? I can’t tell your skin under this light; it's dark chocolate or whip cream or olive with spice. I dance slow at the start but think fast on my feet, I whisper in your ear at a thousand miles an hour – so who needs to shout. I slicked my hair in the bathroom and now I’ve got my A-game out. Let’s be honest, I dance because I like it when you like it. And I like us alone in a crowd. I dance on a mission, and every melody is a mission statement, varies by tempo, buttered with bass. So how much medicine – how many sentences - have I got to tame to make you heel?
5/16/2005
More Ms. Rhythm
(far more than anyone needs...)
She was ready but I was steady; in time I'd be dead, but today I'd strike, smite, bare teeth and bite. Ms. Rhythm was an ugly sore, a spot on the earth, a stain, a man-claiming harpy, a widow-making woman, face so bloody and white, this lethal demi-deity, this dark lady knight.
It was a narrow black alley, soot begrimed and foul, a howling mangy dog and cobras crawling in thick fog like gas-and-acid soup, a spot for deeds of ill and guile, a hole of rotten jive, Ms. Rhythm was here at home; both of us were here alone - but one would not leave alive.
Ms. Rhythm had eleven souls, a leash on death and more, she sold hot blood by the bucketful, was a trader in the gore; she minded men at markets, and took their spirits in her store. Her lies were sweet seduction, sexpot shapeliness, surrealism sublime, a crime in her thighs, eyes blank and swirling, voice like a screaming cannon, the water in her veins was salted ice, or toxic Satan's brine.
Ms. Rhythm, jealous, knew my mind, but its secrets were not hers to find, she mined its crevices in vain, striking out in shame, so eager to blame. Each devil's day she took vengeance on my body, ate my bones, broke my neck and crushed my spine. She laid me low long years ago - but I healed somehow each every time.
Bobby had trained me, said 'be good and seek food,' gave me speech, uncoiled a tongue and offered the precious rung of a silver ladder, to step above this Madame Adder, that snake and soul-stabber. Ms. Rhythm born of gutter-dust, mud on her face, a skin-sore waste of ugly foul must - if she was alive inside it was a lie; there could simply be no middle ground, it had to be my town, my sundown, my time to throw down.
My nerves were quick at last; I smiled sly and slow - I smiled, and she gasped.
A flickering knife and thrill of sweat, she looked me up and down the chest, ready to grab and plunge, rent me twain, feast on my fertile brains. I was set for something far from tame, the memory of her torment fomenting fear into rage resilient, my inner crystal twinkled, I had the grace of something greater, hastening me to this fulfilment.
I shook my head, my lips of sweat and salt, knees pressed and steady breathing, incanting upon heaven, ready for Ms. Rhythm's assault.
She lunged and was true, her iron blade near made me two, its edge in an arc kissing the skin atop my startled heart, it was a sally with intent to kill, her aim to make me glue; she was not delaying, she'd have butchered me 'fore the moment's through.
It was heaven spared me, a ghost delivered me, my body was dangerous music, minor chord, angry harmony, breathed with Bobby's wisdom, yearning decked in a platinum sword, earning this moment evermore.
I was full of piss, hand upon a knife, set to cry murder and make her goo for good. Rhythm deep inside, courage conjured to my hide, my mind-soul elided, disguise evaporated, penetration and elation, frustration crumbled - it was wrong where I was going, so I'd set it right tonight - I had her in my sights, it was going to end everything, this fistfight by the firelight...
(to be continued)
She was ready but I was steady; in time I'd be dead, but today I'd strike, smite, bare teeth and bite. Ms. Rhythm was an ugly sore, a spot on the earth, a stain, a man-claiming harpy, a widow-making woman, face so bloody and white, this lethal demi-deity, this dark lady knight.
It was a narrow black alley, soot begrimed and foul, a howling mangy dog and cobras crawling in thick fog like gas-and-acid soup, a spot for deeds of ill and guile, a hole of rotten jive, Ms. Rhythm was here at home; both of us were here alone - but one would not leave alive.
Ms. Rhythm had eleven souls, a leash on death and more, she sold hot blood by the bucketful, was a trader in the gore; she minded men at markets, and took their spirits in her store. Her lies were sweet seduction, sexpot shapeliness, surrealism sublime, a crime in her thighs, eyes blank and swirling, voice like a screaming cannon, the water in her veins was salted ice, or toxic Satan's brine.
Ms. Rhythm, jealous, knew my mind, but its secrets were not hers to find, she mined its crevices in vain, striking out in shame, so eager to blame. Each devil's day she took vengeance on my body, ate my bones, broke my neck and crushed my spine. She laid me low long years ago - but I healed somehow each every time.
Bobby had trained me, said 'be good and seek food,' gave me speech, uncoiled a tongue and offered the precious rung of a silver ladder, to step above this Madame Adder, that snake and soul-stabber. Ms. Rhythm born of gutter-dust, mud on her face, a skin-sore waste of ugly foul must - if she was alive inside it was a lie; there could simply be no middle ground, it had to be my town, my sundown, my time to throw down.
My nerves were quick at last; I smiled sly and slow - I smiled, and she gasped.
A flickering knife and thrill of sweat, she looked me up and down the chest, ready to grab and plunge, rent me twain, feast on my fertile brains. I was set for something far from tame, the memory of her torment fomenting fear into rage resilient, my inner crystal twinkled, I had the grace of something greater, hastening me to this fulfilment.
I shook my head, my lips of sweat and salt, knees pressed and steady breathing, incanting upon heaven, ready for Ms. Rhythm's assault.
She lunged and was true, her iron blade near made me two, its edge in an arc kissing the skin atop my startled heart, it was a sally with intent to kill, her aim to make me glue; she was not delaying, she'd have butchered me 'fore the moment's through.
It was heaven spared me, a ghost delivered me, my body was dangerous music, minor chord, angry harmony, breathed with Bobby's wisdom, yearning decked in a platinum sword, earning this moment evermore.
I was full of piss, hand upon a knife, set to cry murder and make her goo for good. Rhythm deep inside, courage conjured to my hide, my mind-soul elided, disguise evaporated, penetration and elation, frustration crumbled - it was wrong where I was going, so I'd set it right tonight - I had her in my sights, it was going to end everything, this fistfight by the firelight...
(to be continued)
4/26/2005
Ms. Rhythm's Revenge
(to be read ALOUD)
Ms. Rhythm's Revenge
She came in all twinge and cringe - and without a sound she took me down.
I was a thundercloud then, a heavy shroud, but I was dry inside, chased by hell's hounds, and she was proud; she froze me, shattered me with no warning somehow. It was a crowning act of glorious mourning, it was low-down and crazytown, all sugar, corrosion and clowns, it was all around and I was picked apart, eaten by her crows; it was a massacre, it was art: my limbs crippled, my heart ripped from its beating start; I was a quaking termite mound, aching to shiver, collapse and drown. I got hit hard, I admit - I was eyes closed, head down; I was beaten into the ground, I got raped all night in my wedding gown.
I woke, paralysed and screaming, disbelieving, all fume and steaming, wasn't sure I wasn't dreaming, robbed of all meaning, leaning barely on the railing, ailing – sure, you could call it that. I was wailing wild jazzy scat; once I was a cool cat, yeah, but I was absolutely nowhere now – that was right where I was at.
But Bobby pulled me off the mat.
Bobby yeah, he saw me bleeding, grabbed me cuff and sleeve, taught me to breathe again, stand up, smile, say cheese again. He dried me, tried to guide me, had me fed, clothed, made me realize where I was, to remind me of the prize; I sighed, I cried sure Bobby, I am finally alive. But I lied.
I had long put down my sword. I was drilled and bored, I was bull-gored, I was wiped out, humiliated, had lost the war, was hiding from the Lord; and so I slept for two years more. But Bobby waited patient at my door.
For two whole years he heard me snore.
Then Bobby got mad, had enough, shook me, kicked me raw, beat me up and worse, pity-time was over - his voice mammoth, mighty and terse. Bobby told exquisite truths, he knew just how to hurt. I shivered, wasn't ready, the furthest thing from rock-steady, I was all dread and leaden, couldn't fathom heaven, forgetting every reason - it was simply not my season. Bobby had to show me, teach me how to show her, to really get to know her, to learn her tricks, that Jezebel, that witch, to smack her and run right over her, to chop her up and rip her, cast her in a ditch. But I was so slow; I walked with a limp, I was an easy target for that bitch.
I saw her the next day in an alleyway, and my hand went straight to my switch. I took a good look at her, tried my hardest not to retch, I felt a sharp sliver of fear, and a shiver, like an excruciating kiss. When revenge is next to ruin, you must be careful which is which; you must make certain what to pick.
She was all talons, tar and fangs, garlands of strung-up claws, tusks, snake-scales, a man-eating vulture squat on her shoulders, she was Medusa and Delilah, Mistress of Hades, crushing boulders with her teeth. She hissed and spat and laughed; it was her rules every time, man, always her kind of scat. She wanted blood; I should have run, but she caught up with me every other time; I should have brought my gun...
(to be continued)
Ms. Rhythm's Revenge
She came in all twinge and cringe - and without a sound she took me down.
I was a thundercloud then, a heavy shroud, but I was dry inside, chased by hell's hounds, and she was proud; she froze me, shattered me with no warning somehow. It was a crowning act of glorious mourning, it was low-down and crazytown, all sugar, corrosion and clowns, it was all around and I was picked apart, eaten by her crows; it was a massacre, it was art: my limbs crippled, my heart ripped from its beating start; I was a quaking termite mound, aching to shiver, collapse and drown. I got hit hard, I admit - I was eyes closed, head down; I was beaten into the ground, I got raped all night in my wedding gown.
I woke, paralysed and screaming, disbelieving, all fume and steaming, wasn't sure I wasn't dreaming, robbed of all meaning, leaning barely on the railing, ailing – sure, you could call it that. I was wailing wild jazzy scat; once I was a cool cat, yeah, but I was absolutely nowhere now – that was right where I was at.
But Bobby pulled me off the mat.
Bobby yeah, he saw me bleeding, grabbed me cuff and sleeve, taught me to breathe again, stand up, smile, say cheese again. He dried me, tried to guide me, had me fed, clothed, made me realize where I was, to remind me of the prize; I sighed, I cried sure Bobby, I am finally alive. But I lied.
I had long put down my sword. I was drilled and bored, I was bull-gored, I was wiped out, humiliated, had lost the war, was hiding from the Lord; and so I slept for two years more. But Bobby waited patient at my door.
For two whole years he heard me snore.
Then Bobby got mad, had enough, shook me, kicked me raw, beat me up and worse, pity-time was over - his voice mammoth, mighty and terse. Bobby told exquisite truths, he knew just how to hurt. I shivered, wasn't ready, the furthest thing from rock-steady, I was all dread and leaden, couldn't fathom heaven, forgetting every reason - it was simply not my season. Bobby had to show me, teach me how to show her, to really get to know her, to learn her tricks, that Jezebel, that witch, to smack her and run right over her, to chop her up and rip her, cast her in a ditch. But I was so slow; I walked with a limp, I was an easy target for that bitch.
I saw her the next day in an alleyway, and my hand went straight to my switch. I took a good look at her, tried my hardest not to retch, I felt a sharp sliver of fear, and a shiver, like an excruciating kiss. When revenge is next to ruin, you must be careful which is which; you must make certain what to pick.
She was all talons, tar and fangs, garlands of strung-up claws, tusks, snake-scales, a man-eating vulture squat on her shoulders, she was Medusa and Delilah, Mistress of Hades, crushing boulders with her teeth. She hissed and spat and laughed; it was her rules every time, man, always her kind of scat. She wanted blood; I should have run, but she caught up with me every other time; I should have brought my gun...
(to be continued)
4/17/2005
I Guarantee Sun on Sundays
Heaven and hell smell, it's
well to dwell on the death knell, but
it's swell to bell-clang with lung men
though we shout and hang the delirious gang,
we think, stink and rinse,
drink pink fluorescent mixed things, me and him
big pig bins and thin winnings.
Cranes build high and we sky-sigh outside in the
dry warm blast of mai-thai soaked vermilion,
the million clicks that make a clock, smiling
walks around a block the rocket stopped to mars,
money-mad for moptops not marvels,
the fancy foreign cars that park remarkably politically
and the loanshark harping for men desperate to make a mark - into this tank of fish we swim in day and dark,
it is murky and lark-laughable, jerking, rustling, expecting
affable but facing disaster, able only to chew, unable to do or undo - this, sadly, is you.
Boo hoo boo hoo, you get what you choose.
And me? Woo hoo - time is chipping me, ripping me, spitting at me, sticking me in a memory glue.
Me?
All I've done so far's unscrew; I have so much more to brew, but the recipe's in flames, I'm distracted by the dames, I'm a crutch away from lame and I haven't got a clue.
well to dwell on the death knell, but
it's swell to bell-clang with lung men
though we shout and hang the delirious gang,
we think, stink and rinse,
drink pink fluorescent mixed things, me and him
big pig bins and thin winnings.
Cranes build high and we sky-sigh outside in the
dry warm blast of mai-thai soaked vermilion,
the million clicks that make a clock, smiling
walks around a block the rocket stopped to mars,
money-mad for moptops not marvels,
the fancy foreign cars that park remarkably politically
and the loanshark harping for men desperate to make a mark - into this tank of fish we swim in day and dark,
it is murky and lark-laughable, jerking, rustling, expecting
affable but facing disaster, able only to chew, unable to do or undo - this, sadly, is you.
Boo hoo boo hoo, you get what you choose.
And me? Woo hoo - time is chipping me, ripping me, spitting at me, sticking me in a memory glue.
Me?
All I've done so far's unscrew; I have so much more to brew, but the recipe's in flames, I'm distracted by the dames, I'm a crutch away from lame and I haven't got a clue.
6/08/2004
Ms. Apocalypse
(remain calm; what's the worst that could happen?)
*ahem*
Ms. Apocalypse
the world died on a Monday evening
you were drying laundry on the line
AM radio going berserk
why would you notice, smoothing out creases
the power went out at 4:20 p.m.
porch birds picked at toast crumbs
while nuclear submarines set the coast on fire
you found matches, lit the stove, boiled a pot of tea
flesh-eating zombies knocked at your front door
“sorry,” you said, “I don’t have any cash”
they banged their feet, insisted on brains
how very crude—“how bout muffins instead?”
tanks rolled through your living room
you took the car out for a spin
guerrillas had blown up all of the bridges
so you pulled to the shoulder, popped in some jazz
“I’ll be there soon,” Ms. Apocalypse told me
whisper from a payphone, turn the Mustang around
the world had ended; I was hysterical
“Tonight,” she said, “I’m coming for dinner.”
*ahem*
Ms. Apocalypse
the world died on a Monday evening
you were drying laundry on the line
AM radio going berserk
why would you notice, smoothing out creases
the power went out at 4:20 p.m.
porch birds picked at toast crumbs
while nuclear submarines set the coast on fire
you found matches, lit the stove, boiled a pot of tea
flesh-eating zombies knocked at your front door
“sorry,” you said, “I don’t have any cash”
they banged their feet, insisted on brains
how very crude—“how bout muffins instead?”
tanks rolled through your living room
you took the car out for a spin
guerrillas had blown up all of the bridges
so you pulled to the shoulder, popped in some jazz
“I’ll be there soon,” Ms. Apocalypse told me
whisper from a payphone, turn the Mustang around
the world had ended; I was hysterical
“Tonight,” she said, “I’m coming for dinner.”
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