081313 #copperhead "Did I ever tell you about the time I saw bigfoot?" 081613 #worm He doesn't even have to whimper. 000096 #squirrel matthew, you have to trust me 081313 #copperhead "Dude, I'm not going to shake your hand," he says. 091313 #trout I'm lucky I miss her so much. 081413 #worm Omsatigo pays for everything with a fraudulent credit card. 081613 #worm I'm sorry, the owner says. I'm going to have to let you go. 081613 #worm Stop. Go back. You kan't go back, I mean you just kant. 081613 #worm Furn. Amca. Sili, holla, abac. 081013 #dog HIM: Right. Let's see what she says. *Enter HER.* HER: 000000 #human Men like him are the real poetry 000002 #human How to teach the roller coaster though to lean with itself? 081013 #dog ME: Sing. HIM: Sing? ME: Sing. 081413 #worm This way, whispers the whisperer. 081413 #worm Take the third door on the right. 081413 #worm My fucking ass hurts, you asshole! 081413 #worm What's in your hand, Ltiky? A deuce. A dunce. And a knight. 081413 #worm You look good wearing my collar, Krim says, once he is gone. 081313 #copperhead And the sun beats down. 110113 #human #trout You're not a tragic hero; you're just tragic. 010004 #human stay at Rock Bottom or climb out 081313 #copperhead Yeah, but mainly coffee. 111813 #bothy the pure love that only a brother can have for his brother 122503 #eel I began to be glad I had left the sailboat and stuff behind. 091313 #trout A man walks through the dining area wearing chain mail. 081613 #worm Rain is such a cliche. I love the rain. Love is such a-- 081413 #worm Thank you. Oh god. Ltiky's wife utters one final, silent Yes. 081613 #worm I'm not even going to bother to punctuate the equilibrium. 082513 #finch fresh smiles of familiar strangers 091713 #human A really heroic catch can redeem even the worst throw. 120413 #gull #human Just because it says human, doesn't mean it's me. 120613 #mudmask the willingness and practiced ability to withstand pain 091013 #human #treefrog You're doing great, kid. 081213 #gut fights hhhhv h had just. 111813 #meerkat #thekeyto ...permission 081613 #worm You got walls all around you! 000000 #meerkat Give yourself a fuckin break 081613 #worm Coffee? TV, right. Coffee? 081613 #trout They can lick the clouds? 081413 #worm Me: I miss the good old days. 081313 #copperhead "No. What happened?" 081313 #elephant Tee hee! I am special! 092513 #trout Dylan's calling the frogs. 102713 #trout That's like cold toast. 081413 #worm The TV clicks on. It's snowing. 081413 #worm And Bnabe will be long gone. 080913 #gracetone you could build a castle 100713 #trout Talking pigs is dangerous. 081613 #worm You fuckball! Now I'm on drugs. 102813 #fox "Phokoje go tsela o dithetsenya." 081413 #worm You do realize it's snowing. 081413 #worm The ghosts are still here. Why? 081613 #worm Magazines. She hates magazines. 111813 #meerkat #thekeyto girls is tits 093013 #meerkat I have a female brain. 081313 #copperhead Okay, fine. You really 081613 #worm I fumble. You want a smoke? 081413 #worm One sleeping ladybug wakes up. 111813 #meerkat #thekeyto trial is error 081313 if you have the strength to see it fail 081413 #worm An elm. An elm from another era. 081613 #worm Ooooh, you're a back door man! 111813 #meerkat #thekeyto smoke is loss . . . he glowers. 010514 #bushmill Mel laughs, a low, slow chuckle that sound like Mel except--more sad? Or grown up or something. The light turns green and she makes the truck growl. 011501 #eel I pushed the pillow over to give him more, and also hoped he would get a little closer. It felt nice. I was afraid he was going to realize what was happening and stop it. Anything at all. 081613 #worm Pussy! 000096 #squirrel hehehm. what is so funny i dont know. just ironic why mmm. just ironic that the women who like you you dont necessarily like and you seem to pick women who are inherently incompatible with you i mean and so do i well, here's another little confession. uh oh. i dont' usually pick women. they usually uh oh pick me 081413 #worm rye] 000096 #squirrel yeah. strange. i don't think a lot of women know that frankly a lot of women wouldnt do anything if thaey had that information would do anythjing inf they had that infop and i don't think a lot of men weould wnat them to dfo anything about it are you ciokidding how emascuilating for a lot of guys to fucked like a bithc yeah. ahem 081413 #worm Alive? 010614 #bushmill As the door swings open, it's all keys jingling, lipstick and teeth showing, leather creaking, perfume, leaning on each other and more laughing. I may as well be a diapered infant, reclining here on one of the beds, three lousy pillows behind me, boxer shorts revealing gangly legs. The TV pales next to the barrage of their entry. 081413 #worm   Those lips— 052413 #bunny i am praying to the leviathon sex demon that it is not too late to live just a little bit more, to take my shirt off and be as fat or skinny as i may be, to live just a little bit more and fuck just a little bit more before i cash it all in. i have lived and i have partly died and now i want to live a little again. is that so much to ask? 110413 #fox Let go. Yes? 090813 #gull #dandelion accidentally opening a random moment instead of the current is like a genetic mutation; how species can change and interact with others in unexpected ways. Or like the seeds drifting in the wind; how'd you get all the way down here, little dandelion? The rest of the field of crayola yellow is all the way up on the 23rd floor! pussy? 010803 #eel (me) "I used to be better in the area of... imagination." (her) "How do you mean?" "I was reading through a story from when I was, I don't know, twelve or thirteen. I used to be able to just sit there and think of things to happen. Nowadays, I'm lucky if anything happens in my stories at all. I think TV is part of the problem." test 020113 #human I am listening to the big invisible wide animal right now still, and that's why I haven't gone to bed yet. It may be good it may be bad, there may be a better thing to gain from not listening and instead listening to the slim, quiet, breezy, barely-dawn-lit animal of that other practice. But tonight isn't going to be the night I find out. Try this. 110413 #fox Let go. #(ghost) 062613 #human What if you just refused to do or say, agree to or commit to ANYTHING AT ALL that seemed, felt, or demonstrably WAS inauthentic? You might get hungry, lean, desperate or mean. And that might be good for you. You might get fucked in the ass 59 times before breakfast, and you might know something that's unknowable by any other way of living. 110413 #fox Let go. 000001 #eel Him and me walking thru concourse or mall. Me by his side feeling grounded and elated. Young woman with bemused appraisal passes going the other way. I catch her looking him up and down. I get a snotty strut in my walk because he is Mine! But then she says "Hi..." and it is clear that she is friends with him. I feel stupid for my posturing. 081613 #worm Hey— 082713 #crow 081613 #worm Time. 110413 #fox Let go. 081613 #worm Tits. 081413 #worm She glances at her husband. He is exhausted, poor thing. Did all the driving all day. She sighs. He's actually kind of a pussy, she realizes. She watches the light on his face alternate between wan and pale, as the broken white lines of the highway warp on past the windshield. Pussies are nice. Pussies are very nice. But summer boy is nicer. 081613 #worm Feel. 010314 #jonquil There was more cursing, muffled laughter, more shuffling around. Then this phantom, this interloper, left through the mud room, out the back door, with a handful of overripe tomatoes. Whistling, skipping, angling jauntily across other people's backyards, kicking at dirt clods, watching puffs of breath steam up, swirl around, disappear. 102913 #snail #featherwoman It felt good to make you laugh, not so much because I wanted to make love with you, which is how I used to think of making someone laugh, but because it made me feel a little relieved of the burden of you not laughing and having a good time after you'd spent I don't even know how much on a ticket to get all the way down here. 081413 #worm #roach *subterranean dimension of him and me* How many times has she come to this cafe? How many times he? And yet they profess, below the level of awareness, not to know each other. To know each other. As if they could be either awake or asleep. What is happening in the worlds of their memories at this instant, this instant, this instant.... 081013 #dog square 1b: you must stand out in the rain like the fuzzy lady in the oil painting in the basement; you must wait like her for a scrawny boy doing silly weight bench exercises and looking at her, you must be in a cheesy old painting too, not one in a snazzy gallery. it's the musty basement for you, old boy, and an audience of one. one. punk. boy. 112013 #barbedwirefence My girlfriend and I were out walking alongside a pasture. There was a wooded patch to our left; lots of gnarly oaks mainly, with assorted scrub underneath. Ahead, fence posts of half-twisted hewn pine, connected by rusty barbed wire. She was laughing. We were both half nude. It was getting dark. I was about to learn something important. 112413 #human #fox we as a family definitely need more straightup classical this winter to see us through. That's my opinion I may be right or wrong. A certain amount of illusory perception that you are real and your mind exists is necessary to be an artist because without it you're just an ice cube melting in a bowl of piss. (and you might be that anyway.) 090913 #worm You thought they were applauding for you, but they were really applauding for the guy who just introduced you, who said, essentially, "Let's hear it for the great big ding-dong from another country." His translator, an uncontainable young woman who unfortunately reminded you of someone back home, stood silently, smiling in a not unfriendly way. 000003 #human I am aching to subject myself, yet living in the role of a dominant husband--complete with the doofusy, teddy-bear token submissions that cliched package arrives with. Honey, schnookums, oh that man never stops to ask for directions, yes dear. I am a prisoner in my own freedom. I have forsaken the princess. Why? All for my daughter? or out of fear? 121813 #meerkat #gull When you find a stone, do something with it, change it into something else (like sand) or build a wall with it. Also, the list of species is kinda like major arcana. Go ahead and start introducing objects or animals or whatever, as needed. Don't worry about whether it's a sustained, major species or not. You'll find out soon enough. 010614 #bushmill It's as if they notice me for the first time. When Mel looks at me, my heart pounds and my hands get cold. It's something about her stare; there's a threat in it, almost a cold hatred, but it's wrapped in a sort of warm affection. It's the most thrilling thing anybody's face has ever done to me. She slows down, gets almost completely stable. 081013 #dog *The stinky pine tree throws particles of pine stink through the sugar-paned windows. It's falling down Fall, hard, and Winter is never far away from a moment like this. ME feels the old new warmth, the invisible blush. Though there is a momentary hatred, a ringing loss, he is also grateful. The gratitude of the pine, the stars and the dry leaf.* 081413 #worm Barp finally went--somewhere. Did he have a home? Was it a cave somewhere, beneath the steaming streets of the city? Did he withdraw into some dingy pit, or defiantly descend into an anti-superhero's gleaming lair, seven basements down the secret elevator, stocked with hi-tech nonsense and a stealth-bomb-car of only shadow hues? Who knows? Who knew? 081413 #worm Instinct of the kind Me has never until now had to rely upon tells him this would be a good moment to disappear, no matter how dubious the proposed route of escape. He grabs at Him's arm. The mysterious hand withdraws. Him and Me wriggle between the dumpsters, and crouch down. There is a ladder. The hand makes way for them. Hurriedly, they descend. 010314 #jonquil Her hair was shining. The crackles of tangles melted away, but Mary didn't stop. Gwen's whole upper body began to relax. The bedroom was quite warm. The strokes got slower and slower, the brush's bristles grazing Gwen's neck. Mary leaned closer. The bed made a noise which seemed to integrate into the tingling sensation in Gwen's face and scalp. 090813 #elephant You have glitter on your tits. Then you eat a cream puff and you put some of the cream on your tits. Then you get in the car like that and you make me just sit there while you drive with no shirt on. I swear to god my cock is going to explode. Truck drivers stare. You belong to them more than you will ever belong to me. And that is how I like it. 090813 #worm You're at the mall. You're twelve years old. Puberty has your voice, your legs, your breath. You sit on the faux-brick rim of the fountain in the center court. A man with long hair and a beat-up denim jacket walks by. Someone's phone chirps. Two young men stride past your perch, athletic, early in their game. You watch people, watching yourself. 000008 #human Aging is just so surreal. Imagine being nervous and bold in a coffee shop with, say, Anne, only with liver spots on the backs of my hands, hearing aids behind my ears, extra decades behind me of having woken up and gone back to bed, over and over again. Nobody gets a free ticket to someone else's heart, and nobody in their right mind would want one. 000096 #human kinda wish i'd stopped to talk longer to ray and rosemary tonight, even though i was on the wrong side of the street. dexter wanted to. i sure like them. they're very small-town, very radiant of something happy and peaceful. next time. i want to say to ray, hey d'you find any new wildlife lately. him and his raccoons skunks and deers. 082313 #human thinly the music from their ipad streams in thru the screen; the girls are sleepin under the stars tonight & the moon, finally risen, looks like butter and candle wax and a ship and a song. Maybe I'll never know exactly what these late summer evenings mean to them, will have meant to them. #finch ƒill with something besides eating 113012 #copperhead There's a certain opacity people's faces get when they're genuinely trying to hide their distaste. Their voices have makeup on. Those vowels responsible for cheer, sympathy, and camaraderie get drawn out just a little too long. No matter what the textual conversation is, they're wearing an invisible cloak of relief that they're not you. 081413 #worm Beldor and Jeenir do that dance they like to do; the super-duper, slow-mo one, where they don't ever touch each other but by god, you'd swear they would have to, to move together in that way. Srera sings a porcupine song about seduction, which is horrendous in a mildly cute way. Some chick will fall for it. She'll have a good time. Srera's all right. 120913 #fox Is it really necessary to know how great a chunk of the "world" my actions are going to affect? Is simply following my instincts and doing what I'm interested in enough? But even that takes immense (at least compared to what I feel I've gotten used to) self-discipline. 081013 #dog *Dak is using the Kireta mechanism to train Bynca for Piausru.* 070704 #eel One day I borrowed the boss's hovercraft, and was skimming silently over lakes and boulders. There were all these snakes poking their heads out of the water as I flew by. I had never seen so many snakes in such close proximity. I wondered if I wanted to be as free as they were, or if they too had their problems at which I couldn't even guess. 010314 #human #roy #mistress had another revelation after not masturbating with homemade-brand lavender massage oil in the bathtub: I'm actually okay with being monosexual right now. Why not? Thinking of my old boy Marco Vassi. But anyway, games of all kinds are afoot in the cuboid. My boy Roy for example is starting to wonder who exactly the mistress is. 081413 #copperhead I wonder if being transfixed by memory is anything like lying on your back on a gravel bar next to your beached canoe next to the impression in the gravel where your friend was a minute ago until he went to go find something or take a piss or something. Honestly, you weren't really listening. You were something like transfixed by a memory. 121512 #human #crow And so that's what I do, and JUST LIKE I KNEW ON THE MOTHERFUCKING AIRPLANE, I don't fucking owe anybody a clear manifesto or definition of my sexuality. I DON'T OWE ANYBODY SHIT, except my integrity. Except my honesty. And that's something that has evolved, from spiderwebs through hatboxes and old computers, to whatever it is made of now. 081413 #worm Him and Me are young. Younger than that. They're practically embryonic, these babes from other than the woods. But they're already inseparable. Him is the kind of kid Me would be afraid of, if Me didn't know Him, and if Him hadn't proven himself a friend over and over again, in the face of bullies, boredom, parents, gym class, girls, and better offers. 010514 #stranger Click. Yes, he is running toward the car, there can be no mistaking it now. He got out here so fast, it's as if he has trained for this exact moment, and yet looking back, the driver sees his scowling face and gesticulations in slow motion. The driver reacts, also in retrospect apparently in slow motion, and the car begins to inch forward. 080913 #sialia Draw bluebird hill. Draw ravens in the prison yard. Draw a dead crow you almost stepped on in the snow. Draw eagles above the bluegreen and limestone cold of the hatchery. Draw pellet-gun holes in the wall of your first apartment—shoot- ing at roaches. Draw the robin you shot dead, behind that same apartment, and still wonder why you did it. 081013 $him&me *HIM crouches naked over ME's quivering face. ME lies naked on a low stone wall near some university buildings. The sun do shine, even where it don't normally. Packed buses trundle up and down the nearby boulevard. Students come and go, their backpacks, cliches, and hidden brilliance heaped upon their shoulders. People are of course starting to stare.* 080913 #human Really jonesin' for a drink, but no. Trying to come up with a healthy golem or what's that word--a homunculus--for that image of how I want to feel, who I want to be, the healthy version of me, like I felt at Split Rock or in the pickup with Celi at the hardware store. You know? But it's not easy. But it's okay. It's a job, and that's good. 111111 #human This is all so--what is the word? So many people misuse "surreal." The playful abandon in the warmth of the house; the hulking emptiness; the resonant anxiety; the intermittent perfection of sleep; the mild horror of the mundane work week. Meanwhile, Celi's little teeth, perfect, as full of potential as a row of keys on a perfect keyboard.... 081413 #worm Finally, you reached the amusement park. But something was very, very wrong. The parking lot was a sea of weeds and broken asphalt. Hamsters and gerbils skittered out of your way as you negotiated the jagged terrain. The whole scene was underlit, and way too orange to be hopeful. Spider webs danced their rainy dreams across the mercurial night. 031513 #human Sat and listened to a bunch of old men at McDonalds today. The caretakers were grey-beards. The old leading the old. They made jokes about Alzheimers and about the one they called "Tank." Cuz he used to drive a tank, in the war. He still thinks he's driving one now, the old caretaker said, when he's in his car "*honk hoooooonk*, get out of my way!!" 081813 #treefrog Anyway, my point. Kaytriauna called me a bastard (and, later, a nigger). I came back into the room, threw up my hands, said, "Okay, you heard her. I'm a bastard. I don't care. Can we get on with class now?" And somebody said, in my right ear, as I was pacing the boards back to the front of the room, "All right. Good way to handle that." 082513 #elephant There are no spirits in this tavern now of course. I am still waiting for some fat wench to find me. Waiting for her clear high-heel shoe to tap tap tap across the boards that aren't hard anymore, her naked toes to tap tap tap in my face and give me the tasty shame I need to haul my ass erect and leave. I am still waiting when she never comes. 081013 #dog HIM: I guess I might as well just slump here and have a smoke. [slumps against the cinder-block wall. The SMOKE languidlly checks out the ceiling.] SMOKE: Thank you for having me. HIM: No problem. *HIM smokes the SMOKE, and the SMOKE smokes HIM.* PORN: [within] Oh! Uhh! God! Yeah! Fuck that cock! Take it, baby! Fuck it! Fuck it! Yeah! 051204 #human #robot Could it be that the heydey of monolithic literature is waned? De-emphasize "ownership" of "manuscripts" and such? Is it no longer "my" words? Are we all alive to be bits? Each of us contributing as a droplet to a rainbow, and as ephemerally? Is this really the era of ghosts posting messages stochastically? Is that the thing? Is it? 131011 012114 #roach Right now I am not exactly obsessed with the fuzzy-edged scrap of paper sticking barely out from behind a framed picture on the wall of the cafe. I tried to pull it out, but my nubbly fingertips couldn't get it. It's stuck tight. It's probably not an important, powerful, charming note that would lead to an acre of urban adventure. 132130 190831 072396 #human if I can truly imagine it. Magic IS real. It is everywhere. To conjure something ALL YOU HAVE TO DO is focus on it, concentrate on it so that you can REALLY SEE it, REALLY FEEL it in your mind. Pick something. A submarine sandwich. Your life in five years. Chopping wood. Practice. Practice. Practice. That is the meaning of the Blank Page. 082302 #eel Briefly I toyed with imagining I was a normal guy, imagined being in bed with her, being with that sexy voice and those perfect breasts and demeanor as an equal, but it was far too much sexier that she was denigrating me. Spurred on by my sense of shame-lust, I bent down to help her pick up the boxes she was stacking up in the green-carpeted hall. 081413 #worm Which one do you want to dip into? As you're trying to decide, moving along slowly, breathing the exhilarating vapors, you realize you've been hearing music for quite some time now. It sounds like a duet between a dulcimer and a sopranino recorder--and in fact, it is, as you can see when you round a tiled bend, pushing aside the fronds of a dwarf palm. 081613 #worm I am looking at the interstitial white space. I am looking at a future of macaroni, cheese, and despair. I am looking at all the reasons why I get such negative reactions. Roll the dice. 2D8 or whatever the fuck it is. I am looking at rum and Juicy Juice with a squirt of lime. I am looking at a strangely lonely but full evening. I am tired. So tired. 00006 #human When she asks, "are we together just because of the kids," i secretly think, yes. But the invisible part, the subvocal part, the subliminal part, is this: That's enough. It's no reflection of a lack in ourselves or in our partnership. It's like asking, "did we build our town here just because it is next to the spring?" The answer is yes. 120413 #snail #deeppool I suppose i am ridiculous for feeling *this* is my internet; that i will never compete with the orchestrated cacophony that is this moment's superior yet oddly casual intellect. *This thing* keeps people awake a different way--by loud clacking, not by endless layers of being too cool to be self-facing but self-effacing enough to be cool.... 010113 #human Millie gave me some ornaments she made; one was made of gingerbread, and one was a picture of her with her rainbow hair on a foam cutout. There was also a ceramic magnet she painted with rainbow swirls. The gingerbread man had a huge mouth. She said, "I messed up on his mouth," but she was laughing and so was I. I told her they were all beautiful. 120008 #human I'm doing the best I fucking can here. I am always here for you. I'm not an idiot. I don't sit around and watch you do all the work. I pretty much do whatever the fuck you tell me to. Please just use a little respect when you're telling me what to do. Don't turn into your fucking mother. I'm not your fucking dad. I will not be treated this way. 090913 #elephant Stroke up. Stroke down. Stroke up. Stroke down. Stroke, slowly, up. Stroke down. Stop. Make me wait, make me think You've stopped for good. Stroke up, and at my anguish Smile. Stroke down. Kiss once, lightly. Squeeze. Stroke up. Then lightly run your fingers, disappearing as a fog, up, and walk away. 051111 #martian 1. A middle school teacher said, "Huckelberry Fin [sic]... who was the author? Tom Sawyer, right?" 2. I had thought I was barely holding on by a thread, but I actually had a relatively glowing review. That has done wonders for my sense of self. 3. I ate some of the Deacon's collard greens for lunch. It was good. It was really good. 091213 #human I don't have to be coerced to write careful notes about the techniques and effects of the writers I'm reading. I investigate this thing -- especially when I'm healthy and clean -- no matter what else I may pick up or drop. I have real opinions about it, and they flare up in the presence of others' forged in contrasting, complementary experience. 110008 #human If it's ever something else, that's fine too. But I know for a fact I can always come here. Until I say that, because saying that is like screwing the lid too tight on the firefly jar. But that's all right. They'll come back. They always do. Every year (except for that one year when they didn't.) God it feels good to be truly desperate again. 091313 #worm #dog I remember playing pool. The smoke mixed with the late afternoon sunlit haze mixed with the few old coots at the bar. Everything was beautiful, and me and him didn't even know it. Well, maybe he did. Well, okay, maybe we both did. Maybe we both knew it better than any adult trying to celebrate beauty by ravishing it could ever understand. Maybe. I'm not sure. I'm trying to remember. 112112 #human #bunny It's so much smaller and quieter than putting on a new pair of pants. The pair of pants yells at you and "validates" you with its flashy ass. But your knobby knees will poke through soon enough; soon enough you'll have to change your underwear again, and then you're really still just naked old you under there after all, aren't you? But naked old insignificant you is *free.* If you want it. 000094 #human When Erin stopped by, drove into my drive just as I got out of the car from coming back from St. L with Scott, I could picture, as I told her in a polite way that I didn't want to go out with her tonight, her as a middle-aged woman, driving some family car, wearing sunglasses and being sensible but sorta odd. It was not very appealing, except in the sense that any character is appealing for some reason. 133904 121996 #human #hollowtree They like me, they think I'm kind of cute, but they do not need me and they do not call me and they do not wait for me, and they miss me when they are lonely and then they call me because they know I will be there and I will be a big doll for them to play with and I am not a doll for them to play with and I am no longer there. Because I am here. Because I live here. 144215 082513 #gull Also I learned something about the teh-dsa. It is not synonymous with this computer, not with my Documents folder. There is nothing sacred about a collection of clipping files. Teh-dsa is bigger (or smaller, farther out, deeper in, whatever) than all that. This is how I happen to be accessing it at the time, is all. Which means I can always have it near me wherever I go. Even if this computer blows up. 000097 #worm The sky grew lamenting. Snow lay about. We finally found the place. You had to park and walk up a ways, and then there was this big old house, just standing there open and fairly warm and neat inside. There was a kitchen that just anybody could use, complete with dishes and some condiments and odds and ends of food in the refrigerator. There was an old raggedy piano that I plunked on a little bit. 081413 #copperhead But this morning rain has been tapping on the tarp for hours. It was a dream tapping at first, fading in and out, until just before the sun began to think about spreading its fingers down into the folds of the valley through which our river glistens. Now it's a steady typewriter symphony, warm and vast, a multidimensional wave of information beyond our power to decode. So instead we merely listen. 000096 #squirrel well. i think and maybe im just flattering myself but i think im probably one of the most illogical irrational and generally strange relationships youve ever had oh yeah easily and that in justbeing me really goes against the grain of everything that you know. yeah it does it's nothing that my father would probably bve able to explain to me and anything of that nature makes me uineasy 122802 #human Christmas is a long three days ago. This age is rusted iron and slag, melted plastic of a zillion colours. Meaningless twisted circuitry. Wireless pollution. Good morning. Let's work out the kinks together, hiking on the glacier. Skiffing thru the skyline. Let's go downtown and build a fire. We can check out some more remains today. See if we can find your friend. Your large, nameless, quiet friend. 090612 #human Don Dickerson: It's not that I was wrong and he's not a son of a bitch, it's just that I've learned to appreciate him. I love that old son of a bitch. And I was wrong about what "son of a bitch" means. And these ridiculous, huge, all-midrange speakers are partly about filling out the midrange, and about as much about paying some kind of respect. Letting in what my adolescent pout refused to see. 081413 #worm Finally, they agreed on dry-roasted peanuts and a game of pool, at which, any reasonable outside observer would have been moved by their performance to pronounce, they sucked; but pool, like cards, is a game played on the surface of a swirling vortex of other games, at once quieter and more violent, wherein geometric acuity and the skillful manipulation of hard, colorful spheres is hardly paramount. 120613 #crow #trout #maelstrom #treefrog Sitting at Eisenhower cafeteria, no place to go until 3rd period, two guys walked by & one said, making the other one chuckle, "...told her just take a deep breath, it'll be okay." Then I just had this flash of a feeling of somebody having to say that to their child, right before handing the child over to be killed, in some kind of war or sacrifice situation. 010314 #jonquil Can I sleep over? Gwen tried to parse the simple phrase. The sweetness of it, the comical innocence of it, coming from the dark-lined lips of this girl whose moody superiority she had come to see as a landmark of some sortit was disorienting. And it made swirly sensations in her gut. Well, yeah, but 081013 #dog *In a coffeehouse, sitting in a booth, waiting for tonight's movie to start.* 081413 #worm They are not alone, not even with the ghosts--bats, pinkfaced with their eyes squunched shut, hang quivering upside down from hidden footholds up above. Ltiky's burgeoning heart prepares to make the bats witnesses to his confessions, his professions. He can't help it; he's going to try to win Krim back. He is giddy with the foolishness of it all. The barely visible sheen of her breasts revs his confidence. 081413 #worm The yelling outside grows rhythmic, cultic. An engine roars. There is a terrific concussion that sets the metal walls of the truck, and Him and Me's ears, ringing. The accompanying flash brightens the cracks around the door. Yelling ensues. Him and Me fall back against one wall of their disgusting womb. Then comes another great smashing noise--they are jolted again. The yelling swells up, then subsides. 081413 #worm Omsatigo shows up next. He's freaking freezing. He's wearing all kinds of weasels and stoats and god knows what kind of fucking batshit and greasepaint, but he's still fucking cold as the day he was born. He starts to work on building a fire. First you have to gather some wood. Fucking tiresome. Why didn't I kill myself the day before I met you? he says to his old, old whore, and they laugh, and embrace. 082513 #elephant Drink another beer. Walk hand in hand. It's all over so soon, you don't even know what hit you. So you might as well have a festival and get pregnant and get crazy and almost die but get up again and go for a walk when it's summer again and you get knocked up again. That's all you ever do, you fertile field of primate. That's all you're good for: You eat and you're food. Fuck you; I love you. 102513 #ass #gull #mistress I declare myself Typo-Mastic general with braying teeth and hee haw haw all you rustic slaves have simply to accept it. Hathor is so mad he refuses to document my ascension in the histories, but hee haw haw by the passion in his denial he guarantees its inclusion. By the way, I fucked your wife. She gasped and moaned and got all red faced and squirted all over your side of the bed. 010514 #stranger Sunlight, thin and clear, glints off the chrome around the windshield. The passenger-side window lowers, and a blonde female head, behind a camera, pokes out. What is there to take pictures of? A yellow diamond sign that says "WATCH CHILDREN." A rut beside the gravel beside the broken asphalt of the road. The sky--high and clear, pale blue stippled with sideways sliding clumps of clouds. 011814 #human Libby just did a beautiful job inhabiting a moment. She was sweeping the kitchen. Adele was playing quietly in the background. The kitchen light was on in contrast to the growing dark outside. The snowman out there is about twelve feet tall. She was wearing a red sweater that glowed warm against the gold and soft pink of the inside lighting. She was like a radiant Cinderella. Only with less abuse. 081613 #worm Corn passes. Gravel to dirt. More corn. Dirt to mostly grass, and it goes downhill sharply, past the sunset. The old truck wobbles to a stop at the edge of a dark, thick stand of oaks. You get out. You get this eery feeling you've been here before, but with--less hair? Different clothes? A different--name? You look around for your companion, but he is gone. Where the road ends the path begins. 121512 #human - I cracked up my van - My digestive system is fucked up - My belly is too big and floppy - Some of my toenails are fucked up - I still yell at my kids sometimes - I'm fucking broke That's really about it. When you look at it that way, it doesn't seem as horrible as when you look at it through the mist of anxiety's nighttime high tide. I mean, it seems overcomeable. I think I can take it. 081313 #copperhead There's always one last drag. The penultimate shove invariably leads to one last gravel scraping—a sandpaper tentacle caressing the hull with one last goodbye—an almost foolish, tender gesture—the gravel knows it cannot keep you; knows you will always return to the water, as long as you can. No land can compete with water in the hearts of men; it realizes this, and yet—and yet— 011714 #human "Love the necessary hard work." Part of the work is brute-force (with logic too though!) overcoming your emotive snap reactions. When Millie says "I wish you would spend more time doing stuff with us at home," you have to let the easy defensive retorts wash through you, and bite down on it and realize it's a perfectly valid thing for her to have said, and respond in a generous, don't-have-to-be-right way. 031001 #eel There was an animal eating some of my food. In the process of trying to rearrange things so it couldnt reach some of the stuff, being a little scared of getting bit or something, i saw that it was a baby raccoon. it peered at me from right outside the open/closed door. Then I closed the door, wondering what to do because i didnt want it messing up all my stuff, and yet it was so cute and all. 081313 #copperhead But whatever, right now I gotta pee. Hopping from gravel over wet tracks to grassy knoll, I look left and right for the perfect spot. I'm facing in the direction of the path he'll be arriving on, but that doesn't matter. I have no sense that anyone is anywhere near nor will be anytime soon. You ever get that feeling? It's kind of nice and crunchy on the outside, with a soft terrifying center. 080913 #spoonman I know what this world needs. We need an infusion of joy. We are a grid of sad chickens. There aren't that many eggs to go around, The sap of one gets cracked open and trickles a little ways, maybe to one pen, maybe to another, maybe to another and another. And it dries up. It is barely enough. It is not enough to sustain us all. Where is our crackling, our singing? Where is our electric current? 081613 #worm I remember tai chi with the three fates. I remember karate with the cartoon kids. I remember becoming a baby in the nineteen nineties. I remember fucking my brains out. It's been so long since I have fucked my brains out. That makes me intensely sad. The thought of adultery is not cheap plastic, it's the finest quality rust there is. It's not about betrayal or lust; it's about remembering. 041594 #eel Somebody else in the store was trying out a recorder, and he sounded really out of control. He was trying to play one of the Irish tunes that I know so well, but he quit before I got the chance to join in. Then for a while I played a kick-ass solo on my conga, which suddenly seemed to appear, until one of the checkout wenches told me it was against the law to play drums loudly in a grocery store. 081613 #worm This one time, we went swimming in a low, slow river down below some sagging summer trees. I had nothing to change back into, so I borrowed some of his clothes. The cut-off jeans were too tight, and the t-shirt seemed almost obscenely personal against my nipples. I was extremely aware of the presence of him pressing all around me, by fabric proxy. I suspect he was clueless about my aroused chagrin. 091313 #trout A strange peace came over me. And lasted about three seconds. Then my life was shit again. 081813 #treefrog CYNICISM: one of the most important elements of this society's core curriculum. Taught by ironic dissonance. We act as if it's the natural decayed state of embittered adulthood; we pretend we're reluctant inhabitants of its domain; all the while we eagerly, comfortably model it for our kids. 101503 #trout He pounds. She breathes. He pounds. She opens her mouth to let in more heat and air. Her face is turning red. He pounds. He pounds. How did he become so skillful? He pounds away, and away, and away, and she gasps, and she moans. Her naked back on the cold table top. His back lean and taut. He pounds. She begs. She has forgotten I ever existed. She doesn't even have to forget; I never existed. 081413 #worm Bnabe streaks in slo-mo sideways, covered with a sheen of hot, sweet sweat and almond oil. The ridiculous beauty of his face tells stories. When you get off work he'll call, and you will call him back. You'll go together down by the river to drink, smoke, walk, talk, and swing from trees. Eventually you will have a sword fight. He will win--because you let him?--and you will become his prisoner. 081813 #treefrog #trout The protective stance is deceptively slack--gazing pointedly into the focal point/field of the device--into the singularity, in fact!--brow slightly creased, body slightly inert/vacant--it's a dipole disguised as a monopole, which is really a deeper disguise for a network node. That network is juxtaposed with the one we so-called grown-ups mostly inhabit--how are the two related? 081413 #worm His fiancee is waking up in the hotel room. But she doesn't yet know she's his fiancee. It's almost time for brunch. They'll have a good laugh over coffee and cigarettes, when she tells him what she thought he really meant. When she said Let's do it, she meant let's just plant all the seeds! Let's get a bigger house and have a huge garden. But when he clarifies, she says Let's do that too. And so they do. 081413 #worm #roach What happened to the Moth's Wing? It must have landed in a tree. Him and Me climb the rope ladder, and clamber on board. Me presses button one, button two, button A-prime twice, that's for good measure, cranks lever one, steadies joystick three, and wiggles his remaining fingertip a hairsbreadth away from button XX-D, just to be safe. Him looks at him like he's nuts. The cafe explodes. 112413 #human #lifeboat #soldier #wirydog Any time you say, "we're warm in here," you invisibly underscore the possibility that sometime you might not be. Any time you can comfort your child who, disoriented, just woke up from scary or confusing dreams, *hold on.* hold her warm pajama'd body close, because you have to understand that someday you might not be able to, someday it might not be just a dream. 011114 #warmglowbox #human #ourquestionsimplytheiranswers Wouldn' t it be easier to go to bed, masturbate, drink some juice, think about some juicy tits, make a cosmic farce out of failing to ignore the itch, remember being stoned? remember drinking? I've already said the five or six most obvious things to say, and they dashed off pretty attractively, shouldn't I stop now before the boring things come out? 081413 #worm Crewal follows Liddyd. Elty spars with Liguw. Dilv and Ilky team up on Asrekyku, but for his tentacles they prove no match. Even Barp, hung-dogged and drugged-up as he is, dives in with Geprorogo. Useless buddies celebrating futility to the end, they crash about like drunken shooting-gallery bears, taking pellet after hot pellet as the toy guns of reality go ping! ping! ping! Jelse chuckles darkly. 081413 #worm In the center of the circle, Krim begins to undulate in time with two of the shirtless men. One of the men is slender, and waves his torso like a sinuous weed. The other man is shorter, huskier, with broad, flat pectorals and a great, grizzled, grinning head. They both wear ragged cut-off shorts; Ltiky can't help noticing how their buttocks and quadruceps flex with the earthen dance they hammer out. 022613 #worm #roach She goes out one door, he another. The invisible husband... is not important. She exists all over the city; on a freezing breeze she will infiltrate another café another day. He is in one place only, and increasingly it is at the bottom of a vortex of increasingly solid matter. The invisible husband... is text only, text only, undimensional, theoretical, abstract, almost, almost... gone. 030696 #squirrel #crow University of Florida read my manuscript and regrets to inform me they don't have a position for me in the MFA program this fall. Surely I understand they get so many blah blah blah. So I find myself, first pierced to the heart, then oddly cheerful, doubting my very essence, my very worth as a human being, and feeling at least by one infinitesimal glimmer more like a man for having applied. 010114 #godilovepeople Internet said "Kool-aid hair dye with Hawaiian punch?" and of course it didn't work. People are so grubby. Even rich people, though their parents and friends may say different lines in response. This is why I can hardly stand to touch them, and why I crave, to the point of depravity, to fuck and be fucked by them, knotted together like sweaty pretzels saying, Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god...! 081413 #worm Trucks parked out back, in the pitted gravel. Trucks welcome. Busses too. The grinding of the shimmering gears of industry! Blinding light! No matter how much you run from competition, you're never going to find a place where there is none. No matter how many times you reinvent yourself. He says. Hitching up worn jeans over a salmon-coloured tee shirt. Just learn to live with it, best or worst or what. 081413 #worm She's singing. Yes, she's definitely singing. But you've never heard lyrics like this before. You can't understand a word she says--except every now and then, you can. Familiar words bob like tiny bramble-jams in the flim-flam of an unfamiliar stream. You're the water; free to listen, you can jangle on down the always downhill holler. In her nonsense words, she tells you what you need to hear. 090913 #human I really want to start typing in the morning again, to make the time more real stretched out & slow--and also just to have inhabitants on some of the lower floors. Some life, some teeming, some laundry on the balconies blowing in the city's pre-frantic sweetness. Some warmth against the pre-apocalyptic freeze. Innoculation. Make the stink of strangers palatable. Tame the work week's hyperosmic barrage. 010614 #eel Please let Snake win, she said in confidence, whispering in my ear as the whole room waited to see how this interuption by the new guy of their normal routine was going to shake out. Before I could talk about the ridiculousness of that, of which I'm sure she was aware, she kissed me, once, twice, thrice, so soft and sweet and murmuring that I got all jellylike and said Okay, dumbly. She smiled. 010614 #bushmill Man, what the, you got a, shit, and other musical expressions of disbelief and ribbing fall all around the big man's muscles as he ditches the wiry white guy and falls back in with his companions. They get into a big gleaming American car, and slam slam, slam-slam the doors. There's a low growl as they disappear back to the world of the highway, and are gone forever into that stream. 020008 #eel and then he rose up on one elbow and he had the most horrible smile you could possibly imagine; not grotesque, just calm and absolutely paralyzingly horrific, and i said, You're dead, and he didn't say anything except just two words of "I'm going to fuck you now," so that it came out "fuckyou" over and over again, and i knew it was him, i knew it was him and he was dead and laughing and pissed off 072603 #eel There were large pieces of thin natural-colored paper cut roughly into shapes that almost could have been seen abstractly to suggest the word "yes." Camera stops, your voice, slightly digitally distorted, says almost musically, "Yes." So I have to smile despite my earlier woundedness, and I tell you-- "I have learned, or anyway I am learning, how to prioritize my concern." 000001 #eel "No I'm serious," I said. "Hanging around with someone who didn't have a dark side would be like hanging around with--a ghost, or a shade or something." Then I thought about that first dream I had about Glenn coming back, and how it turned out-- "I know, because I've done it before." My voice cracked a little, not entirely on purpose. "That's good," my date said. 092413 091813 #greyknight #human Judge Panel: Brown, Gundrum, Reilly Opinion: Summary Disposition Decision: Affirmed Pages: 4 Order Text: IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the circuit court is summarily affirmed pursuant to WIS. STAT. RULE 809.21. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Attorney Patrick Flanagan is relieved of further representation of Schulte in this matter. 081613 #worm #roach I went to jail. Now jail is not a very good place. But, they got a lot of video games, and curves, and all the pone you can murnch, so it really ain't too bad. Not nearly as bad as all the wastoids will have you believe. If you live in a little apartment, across from a new old café, you probably already have a fair idea of what exactly jail is just like. 081313 #copperhead Then one last push, not quite so jerky anymore, aided by the man in back poking with his paddle, and then that's really it, you're really gone, you're really floating, and you'll never again be as young as you just were a second ago. But it's okay. It's okay. The best parts are coming. You'll see. The sadness of the shore also lives in the hearts of men, always. 021802 #eel Outside, there was a giant boulder, big enough to be an island (resembling the one in the middle of Sylvan Lake), with a great wooden pole atop which sat a crows' nest of a sort, where anyone who wanted to could climb and look out over the undulating sea. It was a good life. I was relaxed, alert. It didn't occur to me conspicuously that I was happy, because I just was. 091313 #trout For now, we drive up and down this godforsaken riverbank looking for tobacco and brandy and other essential supplies. What the fuck. Who the fuck put this guy in charge. I'm a raw recruit, and I'd make a better damned officer than this fucking blowhard. Yeah, I need a god damn stogie. Thanks. We'll light up and sing around the fucking campfire tonight, what the fuck are we-- 081413 #worm In one, a young lady lounges in a claw-foot bathtub. Her legs blush primly through soapsuds, to cast a rosy glow against the porcelain. The bookseller will be home soon. He will remove his glasses; they will clank lightly on marble. He will look at the young lady in the mirror. Her backwards, red-headed smile is arch. His stubble is roguish. They will stare at each other. 081413 #worm That request has already been logged, announces the metallic quasi-female robot voice. Me snaps awake. A shiny, sinuous, plastic prong grows out of the far end of the bathtub. It pokes toward Me's exposed asshole. It's just a little too creepy, even flushed as Me is from the vividness of the dream. He leaps to his feet, plashing water everywhere, and makes for the door. 000097 #worm In this little pool, under an overhanging lip of rock where steaming water dripped, held back from flying off into the wide wide Colorado sky by a little row of stones, you could truly sit still, as long as you wanted, and be quite warm enough. Closer to the source. Ahhhhh. Some deer came up, stood there being deer in the steamy dewey snowy alive place, and then flew away. 000096 #squirrel but no! but i think it is becauuse here we are telling each other things about the roles we thought we did or perhaps even had to play, and were getting a glimmer that maybe that was not all iot was cracked up to be in other woirds maybe the rolses we have been thinking we have been playing could be cast aside like illfitting garments and that is always a good feeling As soon as I got up this morning, my dogz waz barking. I mean, I'm in jail now, so I sez to myself, Fuck! I might as well smoke! and I wrapped up about five or six rollie-fags in a bunch, and hove 'em all in my craw at the same time. Smoke was billowing out of my kranch like a Schwerman the Steam Engine, I kid you not. I felt so sick. In my cell. Right before you approached me, yes. 102913 #snail Oddly enough, it feels almost as if you're getting younger when Gi shuffles over to where you're sitting on your stool in the half light; he looks away just slightly when he talks to you so his words sound offhand even when they're straight to the point: What are you doing sitting here with your dick out on this stool in the middle of the stage after everyone has gone home? 121513 #bushmill I don't know who you are but you live in a narrow, splintery apartment above this pub, and you have a chipped, claw-footed bathtub and even though it's 3:41 am I'm thinking about going up there to take a bath because it's cold outside, snow, like life, is cruel, and i love you way more than i would love myself if i were to be described the same way i just described you. 081413 #worm Hanad's topographical hands begin the automatic process of getting his coffee. Dorbifr settles his great big lungs, his winter-chilly parka with all of its pockets, his memory-tanned boots, his paunch, his beard, his foggy breath, his ungainly duffle, his nerdy spectacles, and his arrestingly comforting, crevassed presence onto and around his usual stool at the counter. 081413 #worm Safely back in the cab, Jelse unscrews the cup-cap, then the inner cap. It doesn't smell poisonous. He pours carefully with glove-clumsy hands. Ahh, yes! He sits back and enjoys a generous serving of the most god-awful coffee he has ever tasted. It's still hot enough to send tendrils into the truck's tiny, private atmosphere. Now that is nice. He gives up. Yes! Yes! Yes! 081013 #dog *It is the second part of the known lives of HIM and ME. They came down from the mountain together, confirmed lovers at last. They are living in a house at the head of the foothills. It has thatched roofs. There is a fire, burning inexplicably within a ring of stones, in the center of the living room floor. It has been there the whole time. It doesn't ever go out. Get it?* 120613 #mrgrenache It truly does not matter whether you grow your hair out or not. 101503 #eel There was the sea, the great lake, some untold body of water, a few feet away, waiting to suck us all in. The water seemed higher than its own surface level. There was a pause. Then he wheeled the old car around, and we drove on up the street to some other night-lit destination. 000096 #squirrel hahaha. tweo beers well thatl get me completely blotto what are you gonna drink] there is also a finger of tequila left a finger? yes. a finger isn't that the term? dexter is licking me making you pretty finger. thats a lesbian term finger. bullshit. its a word! alwasys hated that yah i know but its a lesbian slang sorta too always hated that 082513 #trout ZoE walks in, naked above the waste. I feel lethal. I stare at him until he comes over to my table. He holds his knife in his fist, and he slams it down. It quivers in the rotten wood in front of my eyes. I sit here, comfortable in my festering high-backed chair. The flowers are singed, the arms are frayed. ZoE breathes like a stallion; his taut little nipples scream hello. 110113 #eel He enters the right key commands in just the right arcane way, and the arcade room he has weirdly shut the other hotel guests out of (he got a weird look but the guy backed off when he had said DON'T come in here, and don't try to hang on because when this thing takes off it'll rip your arms right off!) slowly, sort of reluctantly maybe?, takes off, heading out over the city. 051111 #martian 1. almost nobody tries to fail 2. lonell wrote "looseleaf notes!" in permanent marker on a manilla folder. He wouldn't have done that if he didn't care. but the studied appearance of not caring overtakes.... 3. I accidentally said loud, broadcast, "Title 1 people who just came in...." Then I changed it to "If you came in late...", but it's already out there. 011814 #robot #gull #tinker #warmglowbox We have officially (at least for now) moved over to VoodooPad from Finder as our cuboidal repository. There are some really fun possibilities here. As long of course as I don't just use it as a way to keep the box full of crap. "Look at it--look it like doing crosswords," she said helpfully. Sometimes Jan's almost too helpful. God love her. 081313 #copperhead Right here at this bend in the river, the river flows just about exactly northeast. That's why the sun is setting behind me, or will be soon, will soon be setting the sumac leaves on fire. They've only recently begun to turn red—strange, actually, it seems too early in the year for that. Summer's not even technically over, but the *sumac leaves are blazing scarlet.* 010614 #bushmill I don't know where we're going, Mel doesn't know, the stranger apparently doesn't care. At least I'm sitting next to Mel. She's talking more to him than me, and that makes me mad and hot, but I'm pressed up against her and there's pretty much nowhere she can go right now because she's driving, and I'm thankful for that. I think maybe I love her. I'm hungry. 013004 #eel We pretended not to know why they were asking about the people in the pictures they showed us. We knew who the people were, but didn't let on just how well. Felix even named one of the people, one who was really close politically to my dad, and at first I was alarmed, but then I realized that it seemed less suspicious than if we claimed we knew absolutely nothing. 101503 #trout I know she knows I'm not looking at her, but the horror is I also know she doesn't care. 081013 #dog *ME pauses, taking advantage of the built-in drama of an encroaching storm. His silly old fading black duster whips about in the wind. Finally, he spins the cube, lights the dial, flips the shit or whatever it is that makes it go this time, and the "answer" comes up:* 000096 #squirrel so,. i'm a go get that beer now,. you want one? sure. dont let me pressure you now. mm mm. you trip me out manb why. well thats a deep subjet. allright asshole. why do oi truip you out. mm. cuz yuour so unfemale and im not used to that kind of energy and its actually kind of delightful and refreashing almost like this beer 051706 #squirrel and yet i still don't know; at any moment i could disappear; return, go back into the country my mysterious angels came here from (and why?! i cannot say); that place between the scenes, that place where we all meet, my tribe and me, to talk about what comes next, what came before, and how we're going to play it differently next time.