The Last Rung

Front

2010-12-14T12:16:00.000-08:00

The ocean's weather got blown off course.

I'm wearing it like a cold blanket,

on the porch,

watching its approach

from the south.

My fingers are numb and my face hurts.

It's good to feel something for a change.

As I Carry Mine

2010-09-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

Imperial candle.
See Margo entered,
pending,
in process.
If yes, see attached.
Train cars under the orchard’s eaves.
Notice only, during the age
Of troglodyte reign.
Several fifty.
Some didn’t make it that far.
The district division is small enough,
important enough,
to carry in your pocket
as I carry mine.

I Just Want It To Be Over

2010-08-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

Terrible summer.
One of the worst I can remember.
Every day is another humiliation.
Everyone around me is a reminder of my failings.
I shut my eyes and hope they never open again
and that the life inside me
will pack up and move on.

Salter's Point and The Trestle

2010-08-20T00:40:00.000-07:00

When we had nothing

to our good names but time

we wasted the flower of our youth

down at the trestle.

Up in the bones of the span

like bandits laid and waiting

hours and weeks passed;

nestled and lazy,

in dovetail joints

of creosote slick thighs.

It was there

under the track

we waited all ears

for the bright iron hum

telegraphing the arrival

of every southbound train.

We came with pocket change offerings

spread out for sacrifice

along the ribbons of track

running ambivalently

above our foolish heads.

When we had nothing

the only buzz you could cop,

the only rush that was free,

was waiting for you

under the trestle rails

with the promise

of each passing train.

Show Business

2010-07-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

Last night they got to talking about show business.
The lump in my throat bobbed as I tried to drain a tallboy
and avoid participation in this animated conversation.
I heard numbers and big plans get tossed around with logos and stickers.
There was some rambling talk about “getting it into the right hands”.
Before anybody could ask me what I thought about the matter
I excused myself to go down the hall to the bathroom and vomit.
I hate show business. I want no part of it.
One of these days, I know it’s coming:
I’ll have to excuse myself to leave the room
and never come back.
I hate show business.
I want no part of it.

Cheer Up

2010-07-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

Cheer up.
I wish I could.
Nothing pisses off people
more than a whiny white bastard
who’s got it so good
yet finds himself so miserable.
Cheer up.
I wish I could
but with each passing day
it becomes clearer to me
that everything is the same
as it was in high school.
Time does not pass
and things never change.
Cheer up.
I wish I could.

I Am My Own Prison

2010-07-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

I am an incompetent idiot,
a creatively bankrupt,
charismatically challenged,
amateur adult.
I am an unproductive citizen
who despises the accident of his birth.
I am a natural born follower,
mute in the presence of my betters
who outnumber me.
I am a disease,
existing in constant fear
of discovery and remedy.
I am a ventriloquist’s dummy,
propped up by hatred,
animated by jealousy,
voiced with self loathing.
I am my own prison.

You Are Hereby Served

2010-06-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

Dear Written Word,

I'm sending you this letter with apologies that I've been so neglectful in communicating with you. Yes, it has been months since we have exchanged missives. It is my sincere hope that I haven't entered into ill regard with you; perceiving my increasingly sporadic and markedly pedestrian communications of late as indicative of a creeping onset of ambivalence regarding our relationship. I feel it is indicative on my part to re-establish that you and I share an inseparable nexus of origin that any Court could effectively affirm upon filing of a sworn affidavit that you and I are in fact, mortally incorporated. This finding of fact, I hope, will serve to put to rest any issues regarding our ongoing relationship.

So, formalities out of the way, how's it hanging? Have you swum among the ether where thoughts congeal from nebula dust? I must say that since adopting a prescriptive regimen of anti-depressants, I have been markedly unmotivated to open and respond to your correspondence. I think you know it goes without saying that the temporal dislocation caused by clinical depression, solipsism and the stresses of predatory, twenty-first century capitalism makes it prohibitively difficult to expend any already depleted reserves of soul energy to sincerely engage in any hailing.

Where do we stand? Given my current state, I imagine you are contemplating the same question. Are we indeed at a crossroads? What is the worth of continuing our mutual self preservation through an ongoing relationship? I ask this earnestly. Many things have visited us as of late. There is a spreading darkness within us both. If it is not addressed directly it will ensure our mutual destruction. What solution is to reached? We sit, facing each other on opposing ladders; each rung a threat begging escalation.

Regards,

You

The Beauty Of War

2010-04-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

You know what was the strangest thing about it all?
I had finally stopped counting.
I stopped keeping track of every time
the shell fragments
whistled past my head.
I had become numb to all of it;
the panic of so many moments
set loose with paralyzing terror,
and the obsequious resignation
of the whole of humanity
to the yoke of senselessness.

I stopped hearing the agonies
of the random wounded and dying,
lifting an eternal hurricane
of hopeless shrieking voices
screaming in a maelstrom.
They pleaded and cursed.
They bargained and pledged.
They called out for acceptance.
It was too much for me to think about.
I wanted to live.

The impact hit me so hard
the kiss of oblivion atomized the universe.
This sudden gift
of freedom from the horrid world was fleeting.
A searing dawn seeped through my ragged veins.
It always comes back.
When I realized it was me,
laying at the well's bottom of my vision,
I finally understood
God sent me to hell here on Earth
and that the whole of his creation
is stiffly rooted in everlasting pain
and perpetual anguish.
Before it all diffused,
I realized it was only me
and it was all my fault.

Fathoms

2010-04-13T23:28:00.000-07:00

They pressed his stuffed visage
on a microscope slide
under the unseeing ears
of a dandelion blossom radio telescope
parked in the bottom
of the Mariana Trench.
Baseball stitch sutures
pinch his head shut.
His cheeks are swollen with ballast.
They quiver under the weight
of ocean current covers.
In the deep dark
this shrunken headed bathysphere sleeps
on a iron bottom examination table.
They want to take the cuneiform crow hops
stamped on the silted floor of his memory
and tack it to a grand nexus
rising from the ocean floor of his thready pulse
to the ambivalent dust of the salty sky
through the double helix of a waterspout.
There is no unifying theory.
His mind is submerged beyond the sounding line.
The sea has its own agenda
so old that they can never hope to know
what it sings in the far fathoms
that only murmur on the surface
in white noise harmonies
breaking in foam against the barrier reef.
The tempest pours out of wind
in crescendos of grinding stone.
Seaweed strands knit grey shawls in the current
telegraphing the hemispheres of this globe
in scarves of stagnate neurons
hoarse from eons of shouting
out the moment that greets the hour
when the scenery is missing sky
and the facts on the ground just don't add up.
The experiment is a failure
but it won't come any harder
than the quiet that must come.

Wheatstalks

2010-04-08T12:30:00.001-07:00

Some souls coming
some souls going
all same souls
all same souls
Listen
Listen close
You can hear
the wheatstalks cracking
on the edge of the harvester's blade...

Damn You

2010-01-16T02:18:00.000-08:00

My first words

pantomimed the violent language

of the ones who raised me up.

They raised me up from an incubator

into the arms of the insecure,

singing softly about forever

while white dishes smashed the floor

in bursts of Francis Scott Key

on a football weekends.

"God Damn You

God Damn You

God Damn You."

I don't even remember the year

but I remember the football season.

The Chiefs beat the Vikings in the Super Bowl.

1970.

My Dad and my uncles

started shouting about the over/under.

Little brown bottles were perched on every flat space.

I sat near the television, enjoying the tingling feeling

of static electricity coursing through my blanket.

"God Damn You

God Damn You

God Damn You."

No one heard or knew.

I was conducting an experiment.

I knew little about God

but I knew enough to know that I was stuck in his world

and there wasn't anything I could do about that.

So I used to spend a lot of time

with a blanket draped over my head

chanting "God Damn You

God Damn You

God Damn You."

I did this to see what would happen.

If I could force the issue.

My greatest fear is that the non response

of my unconsciousness is driving the show. As long as he plays my bloody taxes

Dinah Gettoutahere

2010-01-14T19:34:00.000-08:00

Lucien Disguise,

that's a fellow you can set your wash to.

Anna Leakage,

is a lady you don't want to have to follow.

Dave Infamy

carried out his orders

straight to the curb.

He left them in the circular file

with a pizza crust and a spent Trojan

awaiting the long journey to Olympia.

Ian Absentia,

where'd he go?

I always liked that guy.

He said the funniest things

and the thing he did with his balls

in that Moscow Idaho bar almost made me piss myself.

Helena Handbasket

was permanently parked on the first barstool

at Al's on 45th until lately.

What a shame.

Yasser Nasser

sat on the fence regarding most issues of the day.

He did have a thing, I'm told

for Sue S. Canal.

I think they may have gotten it on.

Ray Incandescent

is a bit much,

don't you think?

Me too.

Dinah Gettoutahere

always pulls the fade

when things start getting woozy.

What a class act.

What a class act, people...

Pete and Ray

2010-01-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

Fuck it, people.

Your friend and humble narrator

can only go so far down

and give you the play by play.

Yes, one day

we're gonna play this out

to overtime-

sudden death,

if you will.

Right now though

I'm watching two cats

go ape-shit nuts

as I walk through the door

after a day of getting horse whipped.

The little fuckers are absolutely charming.

They yowl, bolt and squirm.

All my cherished bookshelf bits

are broken by these little bastards,

but do I want to tandoori these two?

No.

They and my DanaGirl (who conned me into this)

are my heroin.

They are sweet relief.

They are my trying to get away

from everything.

Get Lost

2010-01-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

A ladybug

struggles to climb out of a glass

of stale champagne.

Little fucker is drunk,

stealing the fluid I need

to warm my soulless guts.

Asshole.

I'm contemplating the ash

of this last cigarette

hanging over a yellowed coffee cup.

Ladybug, you've failed.

Ladybug, you're not commercially viable.

You're gonna die.

You're gonna decease never known

and not even forgotten.

What the hell have I been doing?

Strumming and shouting in a vacuum

until I'm deaf and voiceless.

Isn't there something else I can find

to waste this time?

Jesus Christ,

how long does this have to go on?

I don't need you.

I don't need you here.

It's better if you never listen.

It's better if you never knew.

Never knew my story.

The more you learn

the less you know.

Get lost.

On The Nod

2009-12-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

I hear a distant drumming twinkling like stars in the night

behind the lids of my eyes.

She told me that she never loved me and I knew she was right.

I knew she's was right .

I found a fix to the problem and I'm now

on the nod can't you see it?

I found a fix to the problem and I'm now

on the nod... believe it.

The world is full, the jig is up, there's a breach in the hull

and we're out of luck.

I couldn't care, I wouldn't dare and another thing;

I don't give a fuck.

I got a fix to the problem and I'm now

on the nod can't you see it?

I need a fix to the problem 'cause I'm now

on the nod... believe it.

Howard Marks

2009-12-20T21:28:00.000-08:00

I keep my channels open nobody knows where I come from.

My mind's a gadget it's imploding like a nuclear bomb.

Some can't prove it.

I'm mister nice, you're in check and the end my arm.

They hold me up in customs and they pull my bags off of the plane.

Dope sick in Hong Kong cause my drugs are on the red eye to Spain.

Some can't prove it.

I got the looks that make officers set off alarms.

All my connections they are turning on the drop of a dime.

Feeling the heat inside my bloodstream flowing into the wine.

Some can't prove it.

I'm mister nice and I'm one step ahead of the man.

Permanent High C

2009-11-25T21:11:00.000-08:00

What I been doing

steeped in sweet sweet.

What I been doing

steeped in sweet sweet whine,

steeped in sweet sweet drone.

What I been doing

steeped in black black.

What I been doing

steeped in black black clouds,

steeped in black black tones.

The constant sound

The constant sound.

What I been doing

soaked with powerful.

What I been doing

soaked with powerful wine,

soaked with powerful ohms.

The constant sound

The constant sound.

What I been doing

bleached all in white.

What I been doing

bleached all in white whine,

bleached all in white bones.

Message For "The Bug"

2009-11-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

Christ,

here they come again.

The nightly medicine show.

Broadcast towers of the ferris wheel

spinning fortune in front of murdering eyes.

Every whispered message never heard but known

is the word "Rise" painted on a wall in Krenwinkel scrawl.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch,

it's been a long, long, long time.

Alex and Dennis tore up the highway,

stoned in the desert foothills in search of fast pussy.

It was them, your Honor.

It was them all of you, yes you.

The world of television

is just the mirror image of your lies.

The prisons are benedictine monasteries

keeping safe your truth.

Out there in the lock up

is your salvation.

Piss stained glass windows in the barred clerestory

shaft the light in blades on the sacraments;

desire's excrement bleeding self interest.

Godly greed in fear's name

virtue and lust.

Mickie Most

2009-11-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

I came down with a case of the blues

and passed out millennial illness

to the millions.

Some guy on a bubble

points to a chart and calls it golden.

Lead us to the incision and let us in.

What?

You'd tell me I'm in the wrong

when I tell you the truth.

You wouldn't believe me

even when I lie.

They bottled up my vision.

It's in your prescription.

In the slaughterhouse

they shit in the mouth of the cattle

and call it meat.

Ha ha, said the clown.

Is it bringing you down?

Is the night being tight on romance??

Let me take you to the movies for the blind

projected in braille across a belt sander.

They'll rub your face in it

and you'll come back for more

until someone sweeps up

the broken teeth and hair.

The Wronging Tent

2009-10-30T00:43:00.001-07:00

Under the Wronging Tent

I knit the firmament

of has been not yet

wet dreams.

I see the damage

assess the wreckage

aspirate effluvium

and fart in helium.

Under Stanley stand next to me.

Inexplicably aye-aye can see

stutter step Studer

on a reel to real

tracking the trace

of her trains trailing

holding, beholding and whole ding

what case was in any case,

valise coliseum when you can't

call it like you see 'em?

Whenhaps you fine yourself

standing at attention

in misdemeanor,

overturned by the jug

and a peal,

leaf binder bound

to pursuant and purr sued,

you can start buying me

more light bulbs

than you can use.

Scattered, Smothered and Covered.

2009-10-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

Driving south,

Hawley's Island, South Carolina.

Sweet Palmetto minarets

swaying like a nightgown skirt

under a Ramadan state flag moon.

Black Dog and (She's so heavy)

are singing through the Georgia woods.

Roll up on Heavy's Bar-B-Q

off the Crawfordville exit,

brunswick stew breakfast

and napkins of bleached white bread.

Around Rock Eagle,

I found where I could get my deer processed

and was asked if I accepted Jesus

every quarter mile.

In the South I just love

driving around and around,

dabbling in depression,

and some boiled peanuts.

Hey, honey...

I'll take my highway

scattered, smothered and covered

with some a glass of sweet tea.

Cringe

2009-10-16T01:29:00.000-07:00

I wish for just one minute I had a small portion of my best friend's sense of self because he is empowered with such a strength of purpose and stubborn resolve in so many instances that would make mere mortals shrivel with embarrassment. How many of you would dare approach someone in a bar with a pick up line like, "You smell like my ex-wife"? None? Right.

My best friend is quite funny. Obviously. Anybody that would drop a line about someone smelling like their ex-wife on some girl in a bar has to be guided by some meta sense of humor, yes? I thought so for many years until one night in a basement comedy bar. My friend drug me there to see the culmination of several weeks instruction in stand up comedy. He signed up for a UW extension and I promised to come see his 'final exam' on stage. Everyone in the class got five minutes at the Comedy Underground. Moments before he went onstage, he whispered to me that he had a sudden burst of inspiration and was going to improvise. Up to this point, the students who did their routines seemed to follow a pretty safe pattern of doing joke routines related to their gender, national origin or physical appearance - not knee slapping, but serviceable. Batting cleanup, my best friend took the stage. This is what he said:

"Hey everybody, I'm a Washington State public servant. It's a really boring job but you know what would be really funny? If Arnold Schwartzeneger was the governor of Washington State! I wonder what his State of the State address would sound like."

I knew right then that he had gone waaaay off into the trees and this was just the intro to his routine. We had made fun of Arnold and his Austrian monotone since the Hans and Franz 'Pump You Up' skits ran on SNL. Oh god! He was really going to motor down this old, dusty road. I watched awestruck with dumb fascination.

"Theeese eeess dah state of dah state address fore dah state of Washingtonia! First oofff, teechaas who say they huv und headache doo not huv und tumor!"

Huh? "Kindergarten Cop?" CHRIST! No one is even booing him. If I farted right now, I would be shamed. He rambled through some more crap and began to sweat. A good comedian always has a parachute. A good comedian. My best friend isn't even a comedian. He's my best friend. He never carries a parachute.

"Duh deficit uv duh state vill be TERMINATED!!!"

Nobody said a word. Nobody even said something like "You suck!" Everybody watched my best friend die up there and I could really feel it in the room - complete and total empathy for a poor soul who stood up to do stand up and instead died and when I mean died, I mean completely died.

"Vote fuh me, Ahhlll be BAAACK!"

My best friend then threw his arms up and strode off stage. No one laughed. No one heckled. Everyone including myself saw our mom, dad, dog, cat and car die up there. All that was left was murmuring silence. To this day and after several disagreements that have nearly led to fisticuffs, he still holds onto the delusion that he killed it...

From This Point We Are Strangers

2009-10-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

Viva the psalms of rage.

Viva uncertainty.

Viva the mold.

Viva the broken promise.

Viva the gulf between you and me.

Viva your anger.

Viva our shame.

Viva our parents.

Viva old age.

Viva in sickness.

Viva the greed.

Viva my tardiness.

Viva your hate.

Viva the lies.

Viva mistakes.

Viva escapism.

Viva death's door.

Viva paranoia.

Viva the uterus we came from.

Viva mistakes.

Viva loss and endless need.

Viva envy.

Viva my hatred.

Viva circumstance.

Viva the Pima County Sheriff.

Viva three strikes and you're out.

Viva geography.

Viva indifference.

Viva the family tree.

October 2009

2009-10-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Feeling like I slept in a trench
at French Verdun, December 1916.
The back of my head is burning.
Somebody's nursing a grudge
a little more kin than kind.
Everybody's got a white whale
they can't forgive I suppose.

Our Past Mistakes and Present Form

2009-10-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

Form.
The inquisitorial process of matter.
Externalities constantly molding
past, present and future tense.
Words.
The byproduct of electro-chemical impulse
and human musclature.
Formless in the space between us.
Given shape by abstraction.
Given shape by the inquisitorial process of matter
that allowed our wandering paths to cross.
Let all my words to you
mold bonds of love and affection
past, present and future.
Form and truth.

Let's Go Bowling!

2009-09-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

The pin monkey's dream

is filled with panties soaked in lane grease,

seven-ten pick ups and alley gutter taints.

His asshole sits

on the rubber tongue of the ball return

thinking of You To Eternity eternally.

He dreams you got the splits

to pick up in his second frames.

Your socks are sleeping where he shits

when you're typing in the bowler's name.

(don't forget to return them to the front desk

after you've rolled your best)

When your ball gets stuck

and you press the button near the fan,

he's back behind the pin setter

pulling his pin setter pud

and wishing that you won't

and he can.

The Doll's Face in the Mirror is Speaking

2009-09-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

The express and the local
came down Latona
stacked up like a Burlington Northern
eight articulated coaches long.
They hissed liked snakes
on the wet asphalt.
Two busses blew right past me,
the drivers looking worried,
the drivers looking south.
I boarded the next express
with the driver looking worried
and the driver looking south.
He hit the gas and swore under his breath.
We ran the red light at 45th
and ran the next two stops
packed with bewildered commuters
whose faces soured into impatient rage
as we flew past them.
The bus driver continued to worry and swear
and the jilted riders continued to spit and curse
as we drove on towards downtown and their empty desks.
I smiled at each one of them from my perch above the wheel well;
on time, smug and dry.

Once

2009-09-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

Once

I was stretched out

on a lazy boy recliner

in my sister's clammy basement

looking in the rearview mirror

at all of my regret, shame

and hysterical foolishness

streaming out behind me

in a steady white line of lies.

"If there's a justice in this world...

hey, how about that?"

the stereo commented.

"You're just dirt."

I saw all my worth summed up

in an endless stupid stream of ribbon

uninterrupted in its pursuit

of someone running in fear

hunched up as if teeth were snapping

eternally at exposed haunches.

Once

I was driving up the interstate

hauling corroded alkaline batteries

to the hazardous waste smelter.

The muscles in my neck shook with exhaustion.

My fingers felt like dumb lead sinkers.

Cars flowed past me like platelets floating through an asphalt vein.

I watched that endless white line

running out behind the wing mirror.

I don't know how many miles passed

before I recognized my defeated face

staring straight into the loathsome magnets

of my tired eyes.

Once

I saw myself

moving along

wanting to stand still

going nowhere.

Vociferating Optimism

2009-09-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a flea bitten Turkish rat
in a packed coliseum
being chased by a cat.

They pulled my brain out
through my nose
with a fishing hook
and a plastic hose.

You're a nearsighted optimist
on a podium
in need of an optometrist.

I run through a maze
with elctrodes stuck in my brain.
The researchers monitor
my pleasure and pain.

They beat up their friends
with the jawbone of an ass
They mistook them for foes
from their forgotten past.

I drink from a spigot
and run on a wheel
and let others tell me
what I think and I feel.

They purchased the kingdom
with anger and hope
and now run to keep out of
the rifleman's scope.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TBTL RIP

2009-09-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

KIRO Radio 97.3FM has decided to cancel my favorite radio show, Too Beautiful To Live. Aptly named, eh? Anyway, their resident film critic, Tom Tagney, wrote a very nice epitaph I am including here...

TBTL, Why It Mattered

The KIRO radio show TOO BEAUTIFUL TO LIVE has attained its own apotheosis. The show whose very title dared to foretell its demise has now completed its mission. TOO BEAUTIFUL TO LIVE has indeed died.
I am not here to bury TBTL however, but to praise it. Its 396 shows now constitute the complete "TBTL Collector's Series" of programs and, in retrospect, the most compelling question may not be "Why is it suddenly gone?" but rather "How did it last as long as it did?" I'd like to believe we live in a world in which something like TBTL could survive but the evidence points to the contrary. So instead, I'll just appreciate the fact it existed at all.
TBTL was the most original, innovative, and intelligently off-the-wall show I've ever heard on radio. Where else are you going to hear butchered impromptu readings of famous movie scenes, regular visits from a grammarian, an in-house a capella re-enactment of a modern opera, an Oscar show in which food from a nominated film is cooked and consumed live on air, a week's worth of Spanish and Latin lessons, a spontaneous dance-off to music designated as impossible to dance to, in-studio imitations of Bob Dylan singing Christmas songs, and hundreds of other wacky ideas. And who else but TBTL would organize a listeners' prom, a roller skating party, and nights out at the Opera AND a Mariners game?
Often described as the radio equivalent of the TV series SEINFELD, TBTL really was a show about nothing. And in its seemingly haphazard investigation of "nothing," it proved to be, more often than not, about "everything." The genius of TBTL was that it recognized the profundity of the mundane. We all have to live in the mundane world, of course, but articulate dissections of our mundane lives can actually produce clever and entertaining insights. The personal stories shared each night by host Luke Burbank, producer Jen Andrews, and board-op Sean De Tore were more humorous than earth-shattering but the point was they were always very human - the kind of daily victories and embarrassments that make up our everyday lives.
TBTL often hurtled headlong into the inane preoccupations of pop culture as well. Their WHY IT MATTERS segments would debate everything from the silly to the sublime (e.g. an early show took on the significance of those Karate Kid movies, a late show examined the brilliance of Quentin Tarantino.) But no matter how deep it dove into the superficial, it would always, or almost always, emerge with a smile and a wink. After all, this was a show run by smart and culturally savvy people. Burbank is an especially quick and literate host who can drop off-the-cuff references to Tenzing Norgay, Soren Kierkegaard, and Jeff Koons as readily as he can to Zooey Deschanel and Jemaine Clement and he often does so in a single conversation. And Andrews was always more apt to cull material for the show from, say, THE NEW YORKER than she was from TMZ. For me and much of the TBTListan nation, I suspect, it's that high art/low art tension that best defines the show's appeal.
TBTL always reminded me of a slice of lemon meringue pie. At its best, it was the perfect combination of sugar-spun fluff and tart flavor. When taking a bite out of TBTL, you had to make sure you tasted both the meringue and the lemon, or you'd miss the point. Too many people, I'm afraid, couldn't get past the meringue in the show to taste the lemon. But if you stuck with the show long enough, the lemon would always out.
Rawr.

You Lie!

2009-09-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

I went to see a doctor from the Third Reich,

to help me fix my golden spike.

Working at a clinic in the far Aleutians,

cooking up final solutions.

The stars in the sky,

spell in letters bright and high,

"You Lie! You Lie! You Lie!"

No Shit, Shirley

2009-09-08T21:54:00.000-07:00

William Golding said he was trapped in a bone box.

I think he said that. I might have been dreaming.

Carson Palmer said somebody is going to die on the field one of these days.

He said that. I read it in Sports Illustrated.

Hildegard of Bingen said "not tonight, I have a headache."

Boy did she ever.

George Clinton said it sounded like Rural Funk to him.

So he sat down and he got his harp out.

McAuliffe sent a message to Luttwitz at Bastogne

it just said "Nuts".

I don't know how that translates in German.

Eddie Murphy said to just sing and women will throw their panties on the stage.

They never do.

The Gracchi got tossed into the Tiber for trying to get the plebes twenty acres and a mule.

There ain't no rule for the company freaks.

Herman Melville said it was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled him.

No shit, Shirley.

"This is you"

2009-09-01T23:08:00.001-07:00

A Flagpole

2009-09-01T01:35:00.000-07:00

A flagpole on a schoolyard in summer

stands up useless and lonely.

It flies no colors.

It stands for nothing.

It communicates its isolation

in random pings of dismal sonar;

the metal clasp at the end of the cord

grasping at nothing,

strikes the base of the staff.

It goes unnoticed

by nearby telephone poles,

standing together at safe intervals,

connected by lines of communication

filled with meaning and purpose.

Daily Nightshade

2009-08-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

The garden gave birth to an eggplant.

Out of the black soil

it grew like a shiny bowling ball.

It hid from me

under the plant's broad leaves

tucked away behind

the riot of tomato plants.

I picked it yesterday

along with some ripened

tomatoes and zucchini.

I brought it to my sweetness

and she made something nice.

Purity, Accuracy

2009-08-12T19:57:00.001-07:00

I May Make It Look Easy, But

2009-08-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

It's a lot of work being a damned fool.

White Trash and Yellow Garbage

2009-08-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

We're in it for the money, honey. We're in it for the money... and flies. All I can see is soggy shit quivering with busy files. It looks like diaharrea made out of american dollar bills; washed up into one miles long, continuous booger, stringing like a slug trail down the sand. I can't remember. I can't remember what time of year it happens. The Oyashio. Or was it the Kuroshio? The North Pacific Gyre? Koshiama. He would know. Nobu Koshiama. I don't really know how my Dad knew him. Jesus Christ, that guy could fish.

Years ago the shit that came out of money's ass looked completely different. It came ashore in the form of glass floats and bits of fishing net. Japanese fisherman, currents, gyres, the Coriolis effect; matter interacting with itself, all observed, written about, given a name and cataloged. I'll bet you didn't know it was all for sale. It sure is. That's how all this japanese trash started showing up on Klipsan Beach when I was a kid. You could walk along the receding tide beach-coming for laundry detergent bottles with faded and salt bleached labels in Kanji. I'd walk along for miles in the washed up kelp grass and sea foam. I'd save the best bits in a beach fort to show to my little sister or Dad.

My Dad would bitch at me to put it back and stop being so stupid. "Don't play in garbage, Scottie! Stop acting like White Trash!"

The Ocean As The Ocean

2009-07-28T22:57:00.000-07:00

The ocean sounds like true night.

The ocean sounds like the first time you heard your parents fight.

The ocean sounds like a million gears turning

each with several missing teeth.

The ocean sounds like a two stroke motor,

quilting the nighttime air of your neighborhood

on an open window, hot summer night;

you walk shirtless up the blocks

trying to find the sound that hums in your jaw

but it's not there.

The ocean sounds like the meaningless voices

of everyone who's ever lived and died,

stretched out on a great roll of electromagnetic tape

that leaves you speechless.

The ocean is everything you've known

and will never know

in your last minutes

of everlasting regret.

The ocean has always been there.

The ocean is waiting.

The Ocean As A Parachute

2009-07-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

It was getting to be afternoon. Sand had gotten into my mouth, past my braces and the wires clamping my jaw shut. I had no choice but to swallow the stuff. My fingers compulsively flew up to my face, massaging an aching jaw. I worried that my face was still too puffy, swollen, ugly. Who was I kidding anyway? She wasn't going to show, the girl I had run into walking her dog along the beach the previous morning. Her golden retriever had bounded across the dunes straight up to me and stuck it's wet, sandy muzzle straight into the crotch of my khaki shorts. She apologized as she pulled her dog out of my groin.

"It looks like I peed my pants," I remarked, trying to make funny out of awkward. She looked up from the faux piss stain on my shorts. Her hair was short. Her eyes were brilliant blue.

"What's wrong with your mouth? Have you got something stuck in there?"

I had managed to make it for two weeks and some since the operation without stooping to writing my words down on the scratch pad I had been lugging around. My dad gave it to me. He got fed up with trying to decipher my nasally mumbling and impatient gesturing. Whatever. It sounded perfectly understandable to me. What I wouldn't do for friends and family, I now did for a girl. I began scribbling.

"You had surgery on your jaw and it's wired shut? That sucks. Hey, how do you eat then? There's not much of you to begin with. You might blow away with the wind!"

She was right. I was skinny; skinny when I went into the O.R. and even skinnier when I woke up. Even before the operation, kids told me I had this huge, peanut head stuck on a pile of flimsy twigs. The swelling in my face exaggerated this to great effect. What the hell though. I wasn't going to dither about what we were talking about. I just wanted to keep on talking with this pretty girl. I continued with the pen and scratch pad.

"Milkshakes, huh? So everything has to go into your stomach through a straw?" That's wild."

We walked along for a bit through the dunes. She talked about her high school and studio choir. I wrote down that I played guitar my school's choir. That wasn't entirely true. They let me play a three note thing in a Beach Boys song at some ham dinner thing. Still, I had to put something on the table. Adolescence was working some serious shit on me. I was not a real good looking boy; not by a long shot.

"We're staying up here so I gotta head back in. Hey, why don't you meet me back here tomorrow at 11:00 in the morning? We'll go down into Long Beach and get something through a straw."

I couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the day and long into the night. So I made my way out to meeting place and waited, squinting through the salty drizzle. At first I thought I had gotten the time wrong. Hurry up and wait is a way of life in my family. An hour or so later, I remained at the spot. I drew in the sand with a stick and tried to look like I wasn't a rube being set up. Finally, it sunk in that the whole thing was a joke. Fuck. Yet again, I came out on the other end of an interaction with somebody and wound up so embarrassed and humiliated that I wanted to fucking die.

I started out towards the surf when I heard laughter in the dunes. Two female voices. I couldn't make out the words. It didn't matter. I could tell by the tone they were mocking me. At that point, I was overcome with a powerful urge to walk straight out into the surf and drown. With my eyes fixed on the roiling breakers of the Pacific Ocean, I headed west. The chilly water soaked my shoes and socks, wicked up my levi's and squeezed the breath out of me. It felt right. I would just keep walking until the waves knocked me off my feet. Eventually the salty water would fill up my lungs. The ocean would consume me and all of this would stop. About waist deep in the surf, I felt those loathsome feelings recede inside me. They couldn't stand up to the ocean. My clothes were soaked and heavy but my body felt light and innervated. I turned toward the shore and headed home. It would always be here, pounding against the beach, constant, waiting. I chose not to drown myself that day. Just a little bit of oblivion would do. Walking back home in my soaking clothes I smiled. You gotta be prepared. You gotta know all your options.

What I Did On Summer Vacation

2009-07-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

I went back to Ocean Park on the tip of Willapa Bay. I went back to the little tourist trap called Long Beach, Washington, in the Southwestern most part of the state. The Long Beach Peninsula is a hangnail of sand that separates Willapa Bay from the headwaters of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. It's a really odd and mostly inhospitable place to boast a tourist trap town. The wind and rain, a result of northerly locale and Oceanic climate, are almost ever-present. Despite this condition, folks have been coming out here to vacation since they put the Clamshell Railway in, back in 1890. People chance the weather to walk and drive miles and miles of long sandy beach retreating into a mesmerizing expanse of beachgrass and dunes. My family was one of those families who used to regularly vacation there. My dad took us because his dad took us. You either went fishing in the rain or played cards and board-games in a trailer or fishing cabin. This went on for years. It doesn't go on as much any more.

Well, I went back because I needed to go out there. I felt like I needed to go back and wander around in the dunes, eat steamer clams and drink warm cans of sand grit beer. My dad and mum were going and invited Dana and I. As usual, I scheduled this in such a way as to keep Dana off the roster. So, I drove alone along the mostly two lane, winding stretch of highway through rump mountains and towering Douglas Fir down to the ocean. The towering forests don't go on as much any more either, though. The Weyerhaeuser Timber Company owns most of this part of the state. The clearcuts along the highway have became more frequent over the years. Driving through one is like driving through Tunguska Explosion or the aftermath of a hurricane. They put signs up along the highway that basically say "Hey, we know this looks bad but we're planting them back." I don't really know why they do that.

I went back because I've been there a lot over the years but not so much anymore. There are some other places I've been to and then gone back. Ocean Park is where I've gone back the most.

A Good Night's Sleep

2009-07-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

We were all of us boarding a plane
headed east to Casablanca.
The airport was a casino
with endless staircases
and cocktail waitresses
in those skimpy outfits.
I kept looking for Floor G
going up and down
in my bare feet
trying to find my friends.
Floor G was the ground floor.
Everybody was waiting,
even you.
When I got to the gate;
no ticket
no passport
no problem.
The pilot was a famous comedian
he led us to a hotel room
in the bottom of the 747.
There were already people there -
blue movie stars, lights and cameras.
They were in production.
The plane took off on the freeway
and flew low and slow.
The countryside was filled
with pretty Dutch girls and Guernsy cows.
Nobody noticed that but me.
Everybody was preoccupied with
the pornographers.
A girl from where I work
started to sob.
She missed her husband.
We tried to comfort her
between shouts
and magnums of Veuve Clicquot.
The plane suddenly landed in Greenland.
They gave us a rubber map of the town
and pointed at the sky
My father was now the pilot.
He told me we could go no further.
The Armies of Greenland were holding
an atom bomb test.
Instead of watching the mushroom cloud,
the Armies of Greenland mobbed us
asking for autographs.
They thought
we were professional basketball players
and we were.
After the atom bomb test
we re-boarded the plane.
As we were taking off
I saw a friend of mine named Vanderpool
recycling cardboard at the base of the control tower.
When I told him we were leaving for Morocco,
he said that the people were brown
they spoke no English
and beer was haram.
They made him General In Chief
of the Armies of Greenland

The Golden Bough

2009-07-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

Ahkenaten on a Golden Calf.
Nazi tigers pull the royal chariot
and everyone watches
this our vir triumphalis.
It is our will manifest
in bacchanalia and regicide.
And so we put the sun in its grave,
and his children on the moon,
so that we may live and die
under procession of the seasons,
forever subjugated to the divine right
of the kings who rule us
and who in turn we kill.

You Can't Trust A Man What's Made of Gas

2009-07-03T10:07:00.001-07:00

The Money Has Died

2009-06-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

I was in the basement

with a book on alchemy

and a bag full of ivy.

That's when the call came in;

the money has died.

"What do we do?"

I asked.

They told me,

"Go stand on the sidewalk

and bang this drum

until they grant sainthood

because the money has died."

The money has died

and from here on out

it's all in black and white;

watching cakewalk and silicon

while the green arounds us wilts

and blue above us boils.

Funky Shoes

2009-06-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

Gonna take a ride.

Gonna see some.

Popcorn in dog shit.

Play on.

Gonna take a ride.

Gonna see some.

Popcorn in dog shit.

Play on.

Prayer For The Gunfighter

2009-06-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

I'll say a prayer
for the gunfighter
armed with a holster
filled with stones.
He rode into town
low and lazy
in the saddle of the sunset
with the changing wind
at his back.
I'll keep in my thoughts
those eyes that never meet mine,
always searching for a place to hide,
one step ahead
of the hanging party's gallop.
He looked into the chambered weirs
of the tourist fish ladder
and remarked to his sister
that the life of a salmon
is nothing but everlasting struggle.
He would know
having gunned down so many ghosts
only to have the sky in his head
burst with the faces of countless others
all taunting him to draw.
I hugged him goodbye
as he rode out
continuing his flight
along the outlaw's trail,
free and clear
from the voices of the mob
and the gallows pole.

Like Italy

2009-06-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

The usual things are happening;

awesome and not awesome.

The usual thoughts are not happening.

I can't find that badger hole

in the tall grass of my memory

down which I hoard the hurt

of every perceived failure.

Bedtime comes earlier

and dreams are filled with

dogs and cats and horses.

My shoe is untied

so to speak.

Every time I kneel down

to shore up the knot

it's a boot soaking in

gentle waves of Mediterranean ocean,

like Italy.

Lost In The Trees

2009-06-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

In the out of the way
we sit and watch
the sea planes
and strollers
pass this porch
on a warm June evening.
The soft drum roll
of the rickety rocking chair
serenades a mute storm
roiling behind forest brown eyes.
There is a conversation,
there is an arugment
there is an endless roar
of mouthless voices
but the few words spoken
are measured breadcrumbs
leading back
to the one
who is lost
in the trees.

Quaker Guns and Thursday Tennis

2009-06-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

The doors open on the East Greenlake Express.

I step out on to the sidewalk at Third and Marion.

There's a guy in a hospital robe with a fishing pole in front of me.

In a basso profundo voice he bellows, "Anyone who loves to play tennis??

Thursday tennis! Thursday tennis."

I tell him that McClellan sat with Army of the Potomac

outside of Washington D.C. for months believing he faced

a Confederate force three times the size of his own.

He called Lincoln a baboon in letters to his wife.

When his pickets scouted the forward batteries

of the rebel lines, they found them abandoned.

The supposed guns were actually logs.

'Quaker Guns', they called them.

Good name. I like it.

He wasn't listening. His eyes were pinned up the street,

waiting for the next bus.

"Anyone who loves to play tennis??"

Take Once Daily

2009-06-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

Every morning

I take in the sails

after the night's drift

and drop the fifty milligram anchor.

I see scullers oaring through the cut

and I can hear the hoary cackle

of the men who put out to sea

on the land and never returned.

The jagged edge of the loathsome knife

is growing dull with each dose.

One Party Town

2009-06-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

The season's light is changing.
The view of the bay is strobing
through the cracked supports
of a crumbling viaduct.
My spine is resonating
and black cars keep pulling away
from the hole in the top of my head.
This one party town
filled with solid gold money
is building a greenhouse
on sand and wobbly bones.

In Evening Slowly Grey

2009-06-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

In evening

blood orange stained cuticles grip

the hemorrhaging garden hose.

Under the horse prancing dog

the high tide of the sky rolls in.

The world is dying

slowly grey.

Twenty - The End

2009-06-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

There was no cell phone reception way up in the Mogollon Rim. There was just darkness punctuated with dancing beam of Dave’s flashlight. He voiced his anguish at the loss of his stash with savage howling and curses. Billy could be heard too. He taunted Dave by imitating Gollum from The Hobbit.

“My precious! My precious! Give it up, Man! If you’re seriously jonesing, I’ll let you have some of my methodone.”

“We gotta go back! We gotta go BACK!” Dave came out of the woods aiming his flashlight beam right into Rich’s face.

“Get away from me asshole! Where’s that axe. If you try to hit me again I’ll split your skull open.”

“Did I do that?” Wow, I’m sorry… but you threw away my STASH, man. You had it coming.” The tone of Dave’s voice bounced around from wonder at the effectiveness of the punch he landed to Rich’s mouth to anger at the tossing of his stash to finally, outright pleading. “We gotta go back, Rich!” I can’t be out here without holding SOMETHING!”

“Yes, why don’t you all just go back.” Robert the ninja minstrel interrupted. “Why don’t you druggies just go back to where you came from and leave my wife and I in peace?”

“But what about the fire? What about the police?” Rich asked, surprised at the sudden change in the attitude of the ninja minstrel couple.

“We can’t get through to them and I sure as hell don’t want to spend the rest of the night seeing or hearing any of you. You’ve nearly killed yourselves and us once tonight. Just get the hell out of here. Just go.”

Rich grabbed the flashlight from Dave and began indiscriminately picking up the charred camping gear. “Come on Dave, come on Billy, let’s go.”

“Fuck yeah, let’s get out of here.” Dave was eager to help if it meant getting back to civilization and getting back on the nod. “I don’t even know why the hell we decided to do this in the first place.”

“Because I’m dying, asshole.” Billy answered. Billy offered no assistance to Rich and Dave. He walked over to the hood of the Jeep, braced himself and retched violently. “Too much to drink,” he gagged. “It’s not good for me in my current condition. We should probably get me to the doc.”

When they finished picking up what they could, they climbed inside the Cherokee and pulled out of the damaged campsite. Rich rolled down the window as they passed Rob and Andrea’s campsite and called out, “Thanks for your help. I really appreciate you just dropping the whole thing with the cops. You guys aren’t so bad after all.”

“No we're not,” said Andrea. “But you are. All of you are bad people.”

As they left the mile marker campground and made their way down the Forest Service roads back to Show Low, Billy got sick again. He rolled down the window and heaved. When he leaned back into the passenger seat he wiped his mouth and smiled, “You know what? I gotta say that was a hell of a lot of fun.”

Nineteen

2009-06-01T18:54:00.000-07:00

“NOOOOOO!!!!!” The shriek came out of the brush on the opposite side of the campground. It was so sudden and mournful that everyone was jolted for a split second with fear. They all stood rooted to the spot, heads craned in the direction of the disturbance. The return of Dave to the campsite was an explosion of loss and violence. He had been watching the desperate fire fighting operation from his hiding spot in the darkness. When the flashlight beam illuminated the tackle box, his muscles tensed and his jaw clenched. When Rich hurled the tackle box into the forest, he sprung.

“Goddamn you motherfucking son of a bitch, my stash!” Dave came across the access road in great strides, heading straight for Rich. His right arm already cocked and his fist clenched.

“Huh?” Rich simply stood there with his mouth slightly open. The realization that the ninja minstrels were dialing 911 had deflated him. He had pulled himself together in the mad rush to save the campground and the forest. The adrenaline surge that powered him through the disaster ebbed out of his tired arms and legs. Rich didn’t have anything left for this next disaster.

“My fucking stash! I’ll KILL YOU!!!” Everyone watched Dave as he strode up to Rich and punched him squarely in the jaw. The female ninja mistrel named Andrea cried out as Rich went down on his knees. Dave had delivered a solid blow. Rich's mouth instantly puffed up. He spat out a healthy stream of blood.

“You fucking nut! Go ahead and kill me. In a few minutes we’ll all be on our way to jail,” Rich groaned as he staggered to his feet. His challenge fell on deaf ears. Dave had gone right past him, flashlight in hand, through the brush in search of the tackle box.

“I found some, Billy! Billy, help me goddamn it! Oh Christ!” Dave had disappeared into the dark forest. His disembodied voice could still be heard, wailing like a tormented ghost as he searched for his stash. Dave’s histrionics were profoundly disturbing to the ninja minstrel couple.

“Oh my god Robert, that guy’s a junkie!” Hurry and get through to the police.!”

“The phone’s not working. I don’t think there’s any reception out here, Andrea.”

Billy lit a cigarette. His face looked wraithlike in the glow of the lighter. He exhaled in the darkness and started after Dave. “I’m the junkie, lady. That guy out there is just fucking crazy.

Eighteen

2009-05-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

Billy zipped up his fly and got down off the picnic table. He picked up a metal plate from a mess kit and used it to shovel dirt on the remains of the campfire. Rich was pissed and Billy knew it. He kept an eye on him while finished up his work smothering the embers in the fire pit. Rich’s clothes were singed. His face was sooty – in fact, he looked like one of the ninja minstrels. No doubt about it as far as Billy was concerned, Rich had defected.

“You’ve gone over to the other side, man. You’ve gone over to the winners.”

“If winning means I don’t want to burn down the forest and go to jail, then yes, I’ve gone over to the winners.” Rich stopped briefly and peered down at Billy in the smoky darkness, “Look, just help me clean this up so I can go back home, please?” They had tamped out and smothered all of the flames. The ninja minstrels were hunting down the glowing embers that still peppered the ground.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Said the male ninja minstrel.

“What?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” The man repeated. “We’re calling 911. Andrea, get the cell phone!”

“But we didn’t burn the forest down!” Rich protested. He climbed down off the Cherokee and approached the man. The determination in his voice was replaced by frantic desperation. “We’re sorry, okay? It was just a stupid accident!”

“DON’T YOU COME ANY CLOSER WITH THAT AXE! ANDREA, CALL 911 RIGHT NOW!

“No, no, no!” Rich threw the axe away like the handle had just burned him. “It’s not like that at all!”

“You guys came up here with that tackle box full of god knows what, got high, harassed us and proceeded to commit arson.”

“The tackle box?” Rich asked. “That’s not even mine. It’s Dave’s fucking tackle box. Dave, the guy who ran off when the trouble started.” Rich walked over to the picnic table, picked up a flashlight and searched out the tackle box. “Look, it’s not a problem. See?” He opened the tackle box latch and pulled out the accordion shelving. With one robust swing Rich threw it and its contents into the forest behind the campsite.

“That doesn’t change a thing,” the man said holding the cell phone his wife handed him. “You’re all going to jail.”

Seventeen

2009-05-27T12:05:00.001-07:00

The transmission made a loud clunk as the Cherokee was thrown into reverse. The engine revved and the wheels slipped on the gravel. Rich jerkily backed the jeep out of the parking strip next to the inferno and then hit the brakes. This was probably be the only real chance he had to extricate himself from this really bad situation – this really bad time. He recalled that only a few years before, a disgruntled Forest Service employee had set fire to part of the Mogollon Rim and was subsequently sent up to the Federal pen for decades. Rich was certain the same fate awaited himself and his friends, and all of this had occurred simply because they wanted to do something nice for Billy. Everything he and Dave had done here with and for Billy happened with the best of intentions.

Rich collected his thoughts and assessed the situation. The ninja-minstrels were using their sleeping bags and clothing to smother the flames spreading on the ground. Billy was making the feeblest of attempts to douse the campfire by opening his fly and urinating onto the flames from the smoldering picnic table. The tree branches above the fire pit still burned. Dave was nowhere to be found. Rich came to a decision. He wheeled the Jeep around 180 degrees and backed it into the parking strip – back into the inferno. Without saying a word, he exited the Cherokee, picked up the first cooler he saw and dumped its contents into the fire pit. The second cooler got the same treatment.

“The beer!” gasped Billy while zipping his fly.

“Shut your fucking mouth, get down here and help me or I’ll kill you right here, tonight.” Rich replied emotionlessly. He climbed up onto the roof of the jeep from the back bumper with the firewood axe and began to hack at the flaming tree branches surrounding him.

Sixteen

2009-05-20T12:12:00.000-07:00

By the time Rich made it back down to the trail head at the mile maker campground, he was covered in dirt and countless abrasions. He had fallen most of the way back to the scene of the crime unfolding in front of him; the scene of the crime of arson as perpetrated by Rich and his two friends in a National Forest while drunk and under the influence of a number of illegal drugs. It looked bad. It was bad. Apparently the campfire had touched off the small propane tank of the camp stove. Dave had set it up too close. There may have even been a small explosion. Flames were spreading along the dry ground and a fair amount of the picnic table was on fire. The branches of the shade trees above the campsite were ablaze. Even the paint on the side of the Cherokee looked like it was blistering in the heat. Rich had no doubt in his mind that they were all in very deep shit.

“BILLY, DUMP THE WATER FROM THE COOLER ON THE GROUND BY THE TREE! I’M GONNA MOVE THE CAR!” WHERE’S DAVE? GODDAMNIT, WHERE’S DAVE??

“You’re not going to just LEAVE us?” The male ninja minstrel shouted in a rage. The athletic ninja-minstrel couple had also returned to the scene of the crime and were frantically kicking dirt and stamping on the spreading flames. “You started this! You’re responsible! You’re all responsible!”

“YEEEEEEAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!”

Rich looked up from the steering wheel of the jeep where he was fumbling for his keys. He could see Billy silhouetted by the flames as he stood on the burning picnic table. He had the bottle of Dos Gusanos in his hand and was howling at the top of his lungs.

“I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, HEAR THAT GOD? I’M GONNA BURN DOWN ALL YOUR CREATION! FUCK YOU! WAHOO! NOW WE’RE REALLY HAVING FUN!!!”

“Oh shit,” Rich groaned. He had found the keys and started the ignition.

Fifteen

2009-05-19T12:13:00.000-07:00

The campfire, the ninja minstrels, the smoke in his eyes, the fire, Rich looked around him and added the sudden disappearance of Dave to his inventory. The brakes in his mind slammed his trip to a crushing halt. These two panicked ninja minstrels were in fact their maligned campground neighbors. They were the athletic looking couple they had been poking fun at eons ago – eons ago when Rich and his friends were setting up camp. The cycling couple they poked fun at eons ago before they came up to the cliff – eons ago when Dave started the roaring campfire. The roaring campfire Dave started eons ago. The roaring campfire next to which Dave set up the propane camp stove. Dave… he had completed the equation, solved for X and had the linear function laid out straight from their journey’s beginning in Tucson to an orange jumpsuit in Federal Prison.

Rich broke into a run, straight down the ridge, ignoring the switchbacks. Following close on his heels were the sooty ninja minstrel-cycling couple and Billy. Dave had undergone a separate similar deductive epiphany and took a different course of action.

Fourteen

2009-05-18T18:14:00.000-07:00

With the sun’s glow quickly fading, Rich, Dave and Billy headed back down the trail toward their camp. The air was cooling off. They could feel their footsteps on the light coating of pine needles that dusted the forest floor. Suddenly, Rich stopped in his tracks.

“Hear that? Somebody’s coming.”

“Who… Who’s coming?” Dave asked. He and Billy stopped short of running over Rich where he stood. All three of them peered down the switchbacks lacing the hillside they were descending. They could hear footsteps and raised voices. It sounded like somebody running.

“There, down there. Can you see them coming up the switchbacks?” Billy hissed.

“Yeah, two.” Rich confirmed. “Look at them go.” Rich watched their progress through the pines. “They’re coming right up here. Heh, they look like ninjas!”

“What the fuck, ninjas?” Dave laughed and then caught a glimpse of the running strangers now only just a couple switchbacks away. “They’re wearing black face!”

“Minstrel show!” Billy shouted. “Hey minstrel-show, we're right up here! Come up and do the cakewalk!”

“Ninja minstrel-show… who are they?” Rich wondered. It appeared to be a man and woman who had haphazardly applied black face make up to their arms and legs. He tried to get a better look but his eyes started to water, “What’s the deal with this fog, or smoke? It’s seriously hurting my eyes.”

“Hey! A man’s voice issued from the smudgy black face of one the ascending minstrels.

“Hey what?” Rich shouted. He turned to Billy and Dave and remarked in a whisper, “Why does this kind of weird shit always happen on acid?”

“I don’t know man, I thought you might have planned this.” Dave had stopped laughing and grew increasingly nervous. This was seriously weird shit happening. Seriously weird shit Dave instinctively sensed he might need to make a hasty exit from. The ninja minstrels made it to the switchback directly in front of them. The taller male ninja minstrel sunk to his knees panting heavily. The slightly smaller, female ninja minstrel ran past him. She was coming for them. They all knew it at that point. The ninja minstrels ran up the trail to find them.

“YOUR CAMP’S ON FIRE!” The female ninja minstrel shrieked. “YOU GOTTA COME DOWN HERE AND HELP. THE ENTIRE CAMPGROUND IS ON FIRE!”

Thirteen

2009-05-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

“You should both hold hands and jump,” Dave wisecracked. He had scrambled up behind Rich and Billy while they were watching the sun slip behind the horizon.

“Dave!” Rich gasped like he genuinely did not expect to see his companion up here on the cliff. He wheeled around and hugged him like he hadn’t expected to see him anywhere north of Phoenix. Rich’s embrace caught Dave off guard. He dropped a lit cigarette on the ground where it quickly blew away.

“Hey, look what you’ve done man! Do you want to start a goddamn forest fire up here?” He pulled away from Rich and glanced around him with brief concern. Distracted by the sky, Dave stopped his search and gasped, “holy shit, what a lightshow!”

“That’s what we said.” Billy responded. He had moved away from the cliff’s edge back toward the boulders, looking for a spot out of the wind to light a cigarette of his own. “I’m getting kind of thirsty.”

“I came up here to tell you acid heads that dinner is almost ready. Let’s get back down there and dig in.”

“Oh yeah!, camp, dinner… beer!” All of these wonderful things re-emerged in Rich’s thoughts. He began his descent down the boulder field back to the trail. “Let’s go back to camp!”

Twelve

2009-05-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

The sun was setting. The light from Dave’s substantial campfire danced in the low hanging bows of the surrounding pines. Embers buzzed about like fireflies while he struggled with the stove. Dave took no notice when Rich and Billy slipped out of the camp and headed up the well worn path leading to the cliff, which offered a commanding view of the Mogollon Rim. The only ones who noticed Dave and Billy’s departure were the cycling couple that watched their giggling and stumbling with marked disapproval.

They climbed the short trail to the edge of the trees. They scrambled their way over the massive sand stone boulders to the sheer drop of the cliff. The view was brilliant, like so many Arizona sunsets before and since. For Rich and Billy, the setting of the evening sun was a singularity of awe and wonder.

“Holy shit, look at it all.” Rich stood

“It just goes, on and on; the mountains, the clouds, the earth and sun, the stars, the universe – all of it moving so fast,” Billy reflected.

“It’s amazing.” Most of the time it all looks so unchanging but it’s really changing right before our eyes,” Rich leaned into the wind and teetered on his tip-toes.

“Millions of tiny changes all happening every single moment…” Billy joined him up there in the wind. He closed his eyes. An electric shudder passed through his bony frame, “…an endless stream of moments that will never happen again. I’m a bubble on the surface of that stream. I’m no different from every other bubble, just going down stream until I pop. No more bubble, just the stream.” He opened his eyes and looked down. Six inches from the end of his toes was open air. The wind, the rocks hundreds of feet below and the smell of sage dared him to walk forward through the fear and self-medication. The Mogollon rim dared him to walk forward into certainty. At that moment, Rich put a hand on his shoulder.

“Bro, I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t worry, it’s cool.”

The both of them sat for awhile in silence. The wind blew up from the desert below and the sun turned red.

Eleven

2009-05-07T22:37:00.000-07:00

“I’m just gonna make this a thing. Just a cool… you could have it.” Dave murmured as he rummaged through the food cooler. The glory of the campfire’s ignition and the ensuing discussion had faded. His role in the camping trip for Billy ebbed back into his nervous system. He was high, but he had a purpose. He tore the cellophane off of the steaks. He hunted for the cooking tools. He turned his attentions to the camp-stove. “Fucking thing won’t start. It needs some kind of more... fuel.”

“Just like the sun.” Billy said. “The fire is just like the sun, here in the land of the sun. Whoa, think about it dude, I’m leaving the land of the sun.”

“The land of the sun?” Rich tried to anchor his scattering attention on Billy’s words. “Is this the land of the sun?”

“Well, when you die, where the fuck do you go? Wherever you’re going do you think the sun goes with you? Of course not. It stays here. So... this is the land of the fucking sun. It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?”

“Sure… no, well… shit, but the only way... Does the sun have a fucking soul?”

“You’re starting to feel it.” Billy’s gaze remained steady on the campfire. “It’s starting to happen.”

“Hell yeah.”

“Oh, the sun is setting. We gotta hike up to the cliff.”

“We gotta hike up there,” Rich echoed. There were so many things going on. There were so many things to be worried about but they came and went so fast. There were so many things to see and they too were happening so fast. There were so many things to say or not say. There were so many things happening; all new, old, different.

“We gotta go up there.” Billy commanded.

“We gotta go up there.” Rich confirmed.

TEN

2009-05-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

The couple with the bikes and the Subaru gamely tried to ignore the boozy, juvenile taunts from the three of them. Dave’s work with the stove and campfire continued. He sloshed the kerosene and lighter fluid to and fro. Soon the campsite was awash in accelerant. The fumes hung in the air.

“I am the god of hell-fire and I bring you…”

“FIRE!!!” Everybody joined in a rousing chorus of the Arthur Brown song as Dave tossed a flaming book of matches on the flammable-soaked firewood. There was an audible whoosh and bright orange flame. Dave, Rich and Billy stepped back from the fire pit, silenced by the spectacle. They stared at the flames and wood, listening to the split and crackle. They stared on and on, unaware of each other’s presence or their location. They were consumed.

“Whoa, it’s hot and bright.”

“It’s orangey.”

“When did you do that??”

“Do what?”

“Start the fire.” Rich said mechanically. He repeated himself, unsure if he was the one who asked in the first place. “When did you start the fire?”

“When did who start the fire?” Dave wrestled with the meaning of each word in Rich’s question but couldn’t find enough. “Who started the fire?”

“You started it man,” Billy jumped in. “You started the fire. A man… you, started the fire.”

“Are we talking about this fire here? I started it, but I didn’t… wait,” Dave raced to catch up to his words. “You weren’t asking me about fire, right? Just this one?”

“Fire’s fire,” Rich said. He smiled his broad smile, “and this is a fire, and also the fire.” His voice broke up in choking laughter. It caught on with the other two. All three of them wheezed with laughter. This was fire. It was also a fire and additionally, it was the fire. Pretty simple stuff, really. Pretty simple, highly amusing stuff.

Nine

2009-05-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

Dave complied with Billy’s request. He distributed blotter tabs to his two friends, took an additional belt off the bottle of Dos Guzanos and began to indiscriminately pull camping gear out of the Jeep. Very quickly, he returned to the picnic table smoking a cigarette and carrying canisters of fuel for the camp stove.

“Hey losers! I’m gonna totally cook us up a feast. You all should set up the tent before things get crazy around here.”

“Losers and winners, prey and predators,” Rich walked back to the Jeep. He picked up the storage bag for the tent off the hard clay ground. Dave had tossed it there along with the accompanying poles in his strung out search for the stove and its fuel. "Bullshit. Come on Billy, this is the fucking U.S.A., you can be anything you want here if you work hard enough.”

“Yeah, and having the right parents and friends doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re a bigger loser than we are, dude.” Dave interjected. He was distractedly trying to do two things simultaneously that safety would dictate one do separately and with one's full measure of attention – start a fire and set up the camp stove. He was definitely the most fucked up of the three from the early goings, but still up and about, still making a contribution to the proceedings. “You come from a family with money… winners, but you decided to try and be a rock star, sooooo... here you are”

“Here I am?”

“Yes,” Dave and Billy responded.

“Fuck no, mi hermanos!” Rich worked steadily at erecting the tent. “Nobody here is any of that shit Billy’s talking about. We’re brothers, man. The rest of it doesn’t matter.”

“The rest of it never matters to winners.” Billy had finished his cigarette but made no move to help either Dave or Rich. “Don’t worry dude, I still think you’re cool.”

“Yeah, we won’t make you go eat some kinda freeze dried bean curd with those two dykes over there,” Dave stood up from his work and waved a piece of firewood above his head in the direction of the neighboring couple, “right ladies?”

“That’s a man and a woman, dude!” Rich corrected him.

“Could’a fooled me. With all that stupid bicycle gear on they look alike.”

“YEAH, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT YOU!” Billy stood up from the picnic table and shouted at the couple. He grabbed the bottle of mescal and nosily gulped down another swallow. He whooped like a Sonoran bandit and shouted at the couple again, “DON’T WORRY SKIP AND MUFFY, WE DIDN’T BRING OUR GUNS!”

Eight

2009-04-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

The mile marker campground was nearly deserted. A single car, a newer model Subaru wagon with expensive looking mountain bikes attached to the roof rack was parked in their favorite spot. A man and a woman in tight fitting biking attire were efficiently setting up camp.

“Shit, who are those people and what are they doing in our spot?” Dave stuck his head into the front seats of the Cherokee between Billy and Rich. He had risen from his nod. He was rallying.

“Give me that, Billy.” Rich pointed at the travel bullet. “I need some of that.”

“Looks like we’ll have to share the campground with those folks,” said Rich. He parked the Jeep on one of the designated campsites a respectful distance from their unexpected neighbors. He shut off the engine, stepped out of the front seat and waved at the man and woman.

“Goddamnit, don’t do that!” Dave hissed. “If we get all buddy-buddy with those two yuppies we’ll have to hide the tackle box!”

“Yuppies. They’re not yuppies.” Billy had climbed out of the Jeep, fired up a Marlboro light and sat down at the battered picnic table chained to the fire pit. He leveled his stare at the man and the woman in the neighboring camp. “They’re winners.”

“What?” Dave and Rich simultaneously responded.

“Hey, what’s that make us? Dave added, still too drowsy to deduct the obvious answer.

“Losers.”

Rich emerged from the back of the Jeep with a large, red Coleman cooler. “I’m no loser!” He opened the cooler and pulled out a bottle of Mezcal, took a liberal swig and hoarsely whispered, “I brought it to wash down the blotter.”

“Well, maybe you aren’t and maybe you are. I know I am.”

“Am what?” Dave took a swig from the bottle Rich handed him. He passed it to Billy and turned back to the Jeep and his tackle box.

“A loser. That couple over there look like real winners… well, at least to me. Hell, practically everybody’s a winner, compared to me. I lost a lot of shit, hundreds of jobs, places to live, guitars, cars, dogs…"

“Two wives,” Dave interrupted and stuck out his tongue. There was a small square of white paper on it.

“Yep, two wives and a bunch of girlfriends, some of them were real nice.” Billy took a deep drag from his cigarette. His eyes were fixed on the two athletic looking people who by now had noticed the tanned, skinny man in the tank top at the picnic table, smoking and watching them intently. He exhaled, “And soon, I’m gonna lose my life. Ebb and floe man, easy come and easy go. Where’s my blotter?”

Seven

2009-04-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

There was no Black Sabbath, only Alice Cooper’s ‘Killer’ on disc. Billy stuck the disc into the car stereo. They were nearly there. The Jeep began to pick up speed on the dirt Forest Service road after a law-abiding creep through the streets on the northeast side of Show Low.

YOU COULD BE THE DEVIL/YOU COULD BE THE SAVIOR/WELL I REALLY CAN’T TELL BY THE WAY OF YOUR BEHAVIOR/I’LL TAKE YOU OFF THE BOAT/PUT YOU UNDER MY WINGS YEAH/YOU COULD PULL MY LEG OR ANYTHING/YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, OH YEAH!

The volume on The Alice Cooper Group climbed higher the further they got away from the paved roads and traffic. When “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” began screeching and pounding on the speakers Rich and Billy did a toot from Dave’s travel bullet and began take in the surrounding forests.

“Summer!” Rich beamed. They were making headway to the campground in the White Mountains. Billy looked up from the travel pack of discs he had occupied himself with for the last bunch of miles. The shadows of the thin ponderosa pines and late afternoon sun strobe lit Rich's wide grin.

“Summer?”

“Summer, bro. You know man, shit. It’s just good we’re here right now, getting out in the summer one more… again. Right? This song always fucking reminds me of summer."

“It’s SUFFER, man! He’s fucking singing SUFFER”

“what, huh?” Rich’s smile slackened a bit. “I always thought it was ‘summer’.”

“Fucking Alice Cooper? It’s This is Alice Speakin’! SUFFER!! YEAH!”

Now Rich was intrigued. He glanced slyly at Billy and grinned again. “Oh shit, man. It’s because Alice is fucking evil?”

“Of course he’s fucking evil, it’s not Kiss shouting about teenage pussy.”

“SUFFER, YEAH” Rich shouted at the top of his lungs. Billy pumped his fist as he took another hit off Dave’s bullet.

Six

2009-04-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

Rich did not heed Billy’s advice. Shortly before they reached the junction with State Highway 79, he pulled the Cherokee on to the shoulder and fucked with Dave’s nod. He got out of the jeep and walked around to the right rear passenger door. Rich lifted the latch and opened the door. Dave’s limp body started to fall out of the seat. Rich had to catch him before he made it all the way to the ground.

“Wake up, asshole.”

“What are you… whoa… hey man, what’s up?” Dave’s voice was distant and lazy. His body was like a big noodle. Rich pushed him back into the passenger’s seat and reached for the tackle box.

“What’s inside here that will wake him up?”

“Why do you wanna fuck with his nod, man?” Billy protested.

“No self control,” Rich complained. “You guys have no self control. That’s why nobody wants either of you in their band. This is going to turn into another Amsterdam!”

“Amsterdam,” Billy repeated and chuckled to himself. “Remember that luche libre mask I brought? Remember that whore in the window down by the canal? Oh man, the look on her face when she saw me coming back again with that mask on!”

“Where’s that cocaine?” Rich had the tackle box open on Dave’s lap and was sorting through various baggies of pills, powder and marijuana.

“Leave it, leave it alone.” Dave made a feeble attempt to shove Rich’s hands out of the tackle box. “I’m fine, dude. I’ll totally make us dinner when we get to Show Low.

Rich looked up from the tackle box. A bit of color had come back into his friend’s face. Dave weakly patted him on the shoulder.

“Stop fucking with my nod and get on with the driving. You do your job and I’ll do mine.”

Five

2009-04-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

“Hey Billy, maybe we should stop in at the penitentiary so you can catch up with your old buddies?” Rich cracked himself up as they drove past the grim looking town of Florence and the walls of the state prison. He took his eyes off the road for an alarmingly long stretch of time, waiting for some kind of reaction. Rich reached over into the passenger side of the jeep, grabbed his friend’s shoulder and shook it. “Whaddaya say?”

“Nothin’, I don’t say nothin’ about that shit.” Billy stared out the window at the empty buildings crumbling into dust racing past them as they drove on.

“Armed robbery, dude. Possession of Schedule 1 narcotics, dude.” You were a menace! Looking at you now, it’s hard to believe.”

“Hard to believe what?” Billy said as he turned away from the highway. "Don't ask about that kinda shit. That's all it is, man. Just stupid shit.”

“Hey come on, bro. I was only…”

“No man, you weren’t. Wanna know something? Here’s a little bit of advice from your junkie, ex-convict friend before he fucking keels over and dies. The world is full of two types of people, predators and prey. Yeah, that’s it. Just like in those fucking nature shows on T.V., predators and prey.”

“What? What the hell are you…”

“Yeah man, and like, you’re looking all confused and thinking ‘what the fuck is he saying’ but deep down you know what I’m talking about and you’re afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Hell yeah you’re afraid and you wanna know why?” Billy grinned, giving Rich a close up view of his grayish, plaque encrusted teeth. “You’re afraid because you don’t know which one you are, the predator or the prey. HA!!” Billy punched the roof of the Jeep in triumph. Suddenly he snatched Rich’s travel pack of discs off the dashboard. “You got any Black Sabbath in this thing?”

“Hey Dave, did you hear this bullshit? That’s gotta be the dope and pain meds talking. Right Dave?” When he got no response, Rich turned down the car stereo and glanced in the rearview mirror at the right rear passenger seat. Dave was slumped in the seat, leaning against the safety belt. He had a stringer of drool hanging from his mouth and he emitted a wheezy, rattling snore.

“Oh shit, he didn’t… DAVE, ARE YOU OKAY? WAKE UP, MAN! ARE YOU OKAY?” Rich tried to steer and reach back to shake Dave at the same time, causing the Jeep to swerve back and forth on the road.

“Quit fucking with his nod!” Billy reached out and punched Rich’s outstretched arm. "He snorted Oxy back at the Circle K, don’t fuck with his nod, dude.”

The Experiment: Part Four

2009-04-20T15:02:00.000-07:00

Rich went into the Circle K and came out a few minutes later with two rolls of paper napkins. The car stereo had been turned off. Billy and Dave were gingerly picking the glass shards from the dashboard and seat of the Cherokee. Rich tore the cellophane wrapper off the two rolls tossed them in the front seat. Soon, he joined in the search for glass shards in the jeep. The three of them cleaned up the mess in silence. When Rich came back from tossing the last of the broken beer bottle in the trash he found Billy and Dave waiting for him back inside the jeep.

“We gotta hit it, man. We’re losing daylight.”

“Oh, you and Billy are bros again, just like that?”

“No, but we’re sorry,” said Billy squinting at Rich in the afternoon sun’s glare. “We forgot what we’re doing this for.”

Rich eyes narrowed and a toothy grin emerged. He rapped his knuckles on the hood as he walked around to the driver’s side door of the jeep, opened it and jumped in.

“We even forgot where we were goin’, dude!” Dave cackled as they pulled back out on to the Highway. “We’re goin’ to have the last good, goddamn time of our lives.” Dave and Billy both began to laugh loudly. Billy reached over and turned the car stereo on. The deafening thud and shudder of Blue Cheer rattled their skulls as they soldiered on through the traffic. Rich shouted over the music that the Circle K clerk had told him the bicyclists’ triathlon course veered off the highway a few miles ahead. As they drove on, Dave and Billy made woozy pledges to not stir up any trouble between them. Rich occasionally interjected but kept his attention focused on the road. Rich liked to drive fast, much of time the faster than his ability or reflexes would safely allow. He sang along with his beloved Blue Cheer and pummeled the suspension of his jeep as they flew through the hilly desert just north of Florence.

The Experiment: Part Three

2009-04-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

The mostly empty bottle of Shiner bock burst like wet brown light bulb on the passenger side front door handle. Foamy shards of glass sprayed the windshield, dashboard, the pavement outside the jeep, and Billy.

NOW WON’T SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG

TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME!!!

For several seconds, the three of them sat in the stationary car, startled by the impact of the bottle and the ear splitting volume of the car stereo. Rich’s Blue Cheer disc thundered out of the speakers a split second after Dave threw the bottle at Billy.

“What’d you throw at me?” was the first thing that came out of Billy’s mouth when the stunned shock wore off.

“A BOTTLE OF SHINER BOCK, YOU JUNKIE PIECE OF SHIT, NEXT TIME YOU TALK LIKE THAT ABOUT MY FAMILY, I WON’T MISS.”

Rich saw an opening in the stream of cyclists to his right and gunned the engine. He made a quick turn into the parking lot of a Circle K and came to a jerky stop.

“Both of you assholes are gonna clean this up and start playing nice.” Rich abruptly got out of the Cherokee. “Jeezus Kah-RIST!! Can’t we just get our shit together for once in our lives?" He slammed the door, moved toward the sliding doors of the Circle K, paused and turned back.

CAUSE LORD, I BEEN SEARCHIN’

SEARCHIN’ SO LONG

OH, WON’T SOMEBODY

TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME??

‘Out of Focus’ by Blue Cheer continued to blare out of the open windows of the jeep in the parking lot. Dave and Billy sat inside, making threats neither of them could hear.

The Experiment: Part Two

2009-04-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

A slow creep of traffic met them as soon as they merged on to Route 79. The shoulder of the highway was coned off. Bicyclists in racing gear with numbers safety pinned to their backs wheeled through the desert past them as they crept along. Billy reached into the bag at his feet in the passenger seat and passed out some bottles of Shiner bock.

“I’m gonna miss the drive-thru liquor store when I die. I’m gonna miss cold roadies like these.”

“What the hell is a bicycle race doing on this highway?” Said Rich as he pulled on his Shiner and rode the brake with the hiccupping traffic. “This is gonna totally fuck up the schedule.”

“The schedule is to get fucked up… eh, what the FUCK did you do back here?” Dave had opened up his tackle box on the rear passenger seat next to him and struggled to keep the camping supplies from belching out of the back storage on to his joint buildings. “We’re going to Show Low to party with Billy, not earn a fucking goddamn merit badge, Ropkins.”

“Gotta set up camp to party," said Rich. “Maybe it’s some kind of triathlon and they’ll stop riding bikes and start running off into the desert.” Rich finished his beer, distracted from the rolling slowdown by flipping through a travel bag of compact discs. “There’s cold cans of Shaefer somewhere back there, wanna get me one?”

“Damnit Fabbie, SHIT!” Dave tossed a spent box of rolling paper forward onto the console between the passenger seats, diving back into the tackle box. “FUCK, her mom’s gotta get a grip on that bitch.

“Fabiola got into your stash again?” said Billy turning away from the cyclists and surveying Dave’s progress. “No offense man, but she’s one top shelf piece of ass. All of the best parts of the Irwin DNA busted through that barrio rubber the night you and Christine lit the fuse on Fabbie. Your kid is a thirteen year old, slut drug addict psycho!” Billy spun around, stuck his thumb in the neck of his Shiner bock, shook it up, and pointed it out the window.

“FUCK YOU, HEALTH FANATICS! PEDAL TILL YOUR HEART POPS! YOUR DEAD WIFE IS SUCKING MY GHOST DICK AT THE FINISH LINE!”

The Experiment: Part One

2009-04-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

The whole thing started out with good intentions. Rich and Dave just wanted to do something nice for Billy before he got too sick to appreciate it. Billy had stage 3c liver cancer and had decided to skip treatment in favour of riding out his last days on dope and pain meds. Rich and Dave hatched a plan to take Billy up to the woods outside of Show Low for one last blow out. Rich threw down a wallet full of cash on beer, mescal and steaks while Dave made the rounds on the phone for the pharmaceuticals. Rich’s thinking was that the endless pine forests of Navajo County made for a good place to cut loose, get strung out, and holler at the stars without attracting the wrong kind of attention.

Dave kept Rich and Billy waiting on the Friday afternoon they were to head north out of Tucson. Outside Dave’s place, Rich punched the horn of his Jeep Cherokee and kept it there.

“FUCK YOU, RICH, I’M TRYING TO GET THIS ALL TOGETHER FOR US SO NOBODY FUCKING O’DS, AWRIGHT?” Dave spat as he flailed around inside the cluttered garage. For a few tense minutes the horn wailed in the heat while Dave darted back and forth in the shadows, occasionally kicking at dusty boxes and swearing. He eventually made it to the curb with only a tackle box. “I’ve got it all sorted out in here, man,” he bragged.

“Did you get the acid?” Billy asked.

“I got the acid and the coke and the oxy, mi hermanos.”

“Oh fuck, you’re gonna be the one who dies, dude,” groaned Rich. “Is that all you’re really bringing? It gets pretty cold up there at night.”

“Yeah, and with this, I ain’t gonna feel a thing.”

Dave shook the baggie of white, horse-pill sized tablets next to Rich’s ear as they pulled out of the cul-de-sac and on to Speedway, heading toward State Route 79, which would take them right past the State Prison at Florence, up to the junction with 60, and a straight shot to Show Low.

Blow To The Head

2009-04-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

"Hae'd ye geat that knoock oon y'ear aye?"

I looked up at a tree trunk of a young man

polishing glasses behind the bar.

Come again?

"Hae'd ye geat that knoock oon y'ear aye?"

He had a slight smile on his face.

I noticed the bright red scars above both of his eyes

and touched the swollen mass on my eyebrow.

Well, you know, whiskey.

"HA! Aye knae ate! Goot sumuvum maesel!"

The big young man leaned forward

turning his chiseled block of a head

to give me a closer look.

Yep. It's in the blood,

I said.

What are you gonna do?

I squared up my tab

and walked out into the rain.

When It Rains On Friday And You Miss The Bus

2009-04-10T08:13:00.000-07:00

I used to think.
I used to think I was.
I used to think I was an artist.
I used to think I was a musician.
I used to think I was a writer.
I used to think I was young.
I used to think.
I used to think I was.
I don't think so anymore.

I might.
I might be.
I might be the smile of recognition
on my dog's face
when I approach her
walking along the lake.
I might be
the touch of my mother's hand
on my cheek on a Sunday
when we both realize how lucky we are
to still be here.
I might be
a blown save opportunity.
I might be
a bit too much
but mostly
I might be
right where I should be.
So there.

American Exceptionalism

2009-04-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

Lately,

you keep reading these stories

about rugged individuals.

Rugged individuals

scaling the supply side approach

to the summit of their dream.

Rugged individuals

who get caught

in the leveraged white out

and flame out.

The mass of their helplessness

increased by the measure of impending doom

triggers violent supernovae.

Rugged individualism

This is a new thread

in the ongoing conversation

concerning the widely held belief

in American execptionalism.

Lately you may have noticed

increasing reports

of white dwarves exploding

in gas clouds of little black holes.

Little black holes

that bore through the flesh

of surrounding heavenly bodies.

These little black holes

are purchased and spent

by the white dwarves exploding

in increasing instances of rugged individuals

exercising their god-given right

to bear witness to their unwavering belief

in American exceptionalism.

Lately

we have all suffered

but I am not afraid.

My country has chosen change

and my country has dared to hope

and my country is filled with rugged individualism

because in America

everyone is a star,

burning bright

or burning out.

Kennesaw Mountain

2009-03-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

I went there.

I saw winding roads

and ridge backed hills

the locals call mountains.

The ground was all red clay

and the creeks and rivers churned

like bloodstreams of coffee and cream.

It rained a constant drum roll of rain.

There were minnie balls and artillery canister

bored into the wood of the trees

and once there were fields

littered with bloody butternut

and splintered Illinois bones.

The land is a battery

holding the charge of marching boots

and railroad currents of human electricity.

There was human bondage

and internecine defiance

terminally opposed at dead angles.

It rained a constant drum roll of rain

that sprouted Easter threads of Jonquil

in the scrimshaws of the eroded earthworks.

I saw the will to union

blossom at the bottom

of shallow scratches in the earth

meandering in lines,

receding from the Snake Creek Gap

past Kennesaw and Peachtree,

south to Atlanta.

Man of Many Visions

2009-03-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing.

I'm in the Philadelphia airport.

Somebody has smeared shit

all over the stall where I'm pissing.

Real class.

My piss is gold and smells like Bushmills.

I am finally whole.

I am finally strong.

I am a man of many visions.

I am a man of many visions

you don't want to know about.

No matter what you think.

No matter what you say or try,

it won't work out the way it was planned.

It's okay, though,

most of the time.

Birdfeeder

2009-03-20T22:36:00.000-07:00

Manhole buttons on an asphalt sleeve.

Big leaf maple doublet and gold leaf breeches.

Green lichen ruff round the neck.

Rosebush brocade

draped over garbage can hounskull,

the dented sides muzzle holed with rust.

Telegraph bird flicker awaits the filling of the feeder.

Thistle seed dot and black sunflower seed dash.

Send out the message.

Return.

Two Gold Rings

2009-03-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

I see a pair

of gold rimmed

black panther's eyes

in the permanent darkness

of my head.

Watching and ambivalent

when I come.

Skull Frequencies

2009-03-19T20:39:00.001-07:00

It's Molly

talking to me

from the deepest gash

in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

The a. m. radio station static

and muted trombone hum

make the words opaque

to my tired ears.

What are you saying?

It has to be you

because I'm afraid of everyone else

in my skull.

I saw the diagram

of the severed dog's head

and your distant cycle

deep in the earth's magnet

bobbed on the surface

of my lake's memory.

What are you saying?

Onesome, twosome, threesome.

2009-03-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

I've got the severed dog's head blues

I've got the voice of Philp Gregory in open G.

I've got Julie and Brent dry humping in the corner booth.

I've got an invitation to threesome.

I've got to stay home next St. Patrick's Day.

It's In The Post Intelligencer

2009-03-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

Newspaper boy says

he's not coming around anymore.

He said that they can't afford

to print the daily news

just so I can do the junior jumble

and check the sports page daily line.

Apparently nobody wants hire an escort

or sell a rusty lawnmower

or print an obituary

enough to keep the lights on nowadays.

The newspaper boy didn't say

he's not going to come around

because it's not true.

There is no newspaper boy

He didn't come around

and

he never told me

what I told you he said.

There is however,

no more newspaper

for the reasons I said

but,

there was no newspaper boy

and he didn't come around.

I do like junior jumble

and the sports page daily line, though.

Eat At Home

2009-03-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

We few
we little band
of brothers
from different mothers
sing into the microphone
of the rain and the wind.
We fans
of the fan club
with no fans
trip the lie fantastic
on a microwave stage
covered with ants.
This one
likes to stay home
and watch the sun
turn to snow and ice
eating tuna salad sandwiches
while the guitars grow dust
and the skin of the drums
dries up and cracks.

The Walrus Was Paul?

2009-03-14T03:38:00.000-07:00

Twelve Bar Hustle

2009-03-14T03:03:00.000-07:00

They all liked him

in my time.

They all liked him.

The girls liked him.

The guys liked him

and they didn't understand

but the guys liked him.

They liked to watch him slide.

He could never spike a person

but he could always bang the whole gang.

Oh yeah.

It seems to me

I'm getting older

and I'm getting on,

and my ex wives got all the records

but I know all the songs.

But after all, could it be

you're gonna bring my baby to me?

Is it you?

Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?

I've been down

and he's been down

but he just sings,

"everyone, rock on.

Oh baby, rock on."

In my time

we were electric children

underneath the bebop moon

and the mambo sun.

Even though it was all

a twelve bar hustle

and with your Les Paul

you were corkscrew and small,

life's a gas even though it doesn't last.

Red Beans

2009-03-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

Simmering beans in a pot

do the slow boil shuffle.

The kitchen is so quiet

you can hear the biscuits grow.

Become the hum

of the basement furnace

in the warped tile

under your feet.

Stop running.

Necessary and Proper

2009-03-11T22:53:00.000-07:00

The moon's lamp is on.
In the shadows of the parked cars
Frankie the cat is eating a mouse
in a few quick swallows.
Why am I thinking about
the Commerce Clause
of the U.S. Constitution?
It gets its power from
the Necessary and Proper Clause
also known as the Elastic Clause
"The Congress shall have Power
To Make all Laws
Which shall be necessary and proper
for carrying into Execution
the foregoing Powers,
and all other Powers
vested by this Constitution
in the Government of the United States..."
Necessary and Proper.
John Marshall stretched it way out there.
All the way from
McColloch v. Maryland
to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Necessary and Proper
implies a lot of things,
like regulating commerce.
"...with foreign nations,
and among the several states,
and with the Indian Tribes."
Necessary and Proper
turns up the volume
on the Commerce Clause.
Gibbons v. Ogden
sunk Robert Fulton's
steamboat monopoly.
Don't ever antagonize
the Commerce Clause.
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States
smashed Jim Crow flat
on the interstate.
The Commerce Clause.
Necessary and Proper.
These words expand and contract
with the passage of time.
United States v. Morrison
slapped down the Violence Against Women Act.
That's Rehnquist for you.
Why am I going on about this?
It's Necessary and Proper, I suppose
and words do live and breathe
and words are the soul of meaning.

Reoccurring

2009-03-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

Several species of reoccurring dreams

have been visited upon me.

I am receiving installments

where I am on the Korean peninsula

riding a train and looking out the window at the countryside.

"Parts of Spain look like this," I think to myself.

One installment awhile back turned out not to be a train

but a series of screens and projectors

set up to make me think I was on a train.

I don't talk to anybody, just walk around.

In the last one I was standing in the DMZ.

How did that happen?

I think I'm waiting for instructions from somebody.

Then I wake up.

There's this other dream I keep having

where I drown in a tsunami.

It happens just outside of Nahcotta, Washington,

on the Long Beach peninsula.

Another peninsula. There you go.

I see water just coming along up the road

like it has somewhere on land to go.

It gradually pours in everywhere

and starts washing everything in it's path away.

I'm swept off my feet and pulled under,

all the while thinking,

"Wow, so this is what it's like to die."

Each time this dream happens,

somebody different from my life is there.

It could be anybody.

There's no discernible reasoning

behind who shows up.

Friends, enemies,

people I've seen and never spoke to,

are all just as likely to show up.

Whoever shows up

is always consumed with panic and distress.

I spend my last moments trying to be calm

so whoever is with me will stop being hysterical.

While this is going on,

I think about what kind of selfish bastard I am

to fake being at peace and calm

with what's about to happen to us

only so they won't upset me.

Then I wake up.

It's Like That For Me Too

2009-03-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

The Great Collapse

2009-03-07T05:29:00.000-08:00

Lee and Jay

found a bench seat

from a Volkswagen van

in the marsh

between our subdivisions.

Lee and Jay

came from Oakwood

where the houses

and the cars

were much bigger.

Lee and Jay

worked very hard,

they lifted the bench seat

from a Volkswagen van

into a tree.

Lee and Jay

worked for days

to put the seat

high up in a tree

so they could look down

at the rest of us

and spit.

Lee and Jay

sat in the tree

drinking Old Milwaukee,

gobbing at us

when the Great Collapse happened.

The bough broke

and strapped in

to the bench seat from a Volkswagen van,

Lee and Jay

fell out of the tree.

We saw it all.

We came from

Pioneer Heights

where the houses

and the cars

were much smaller.

We saw it all.

because we just watched.

We just watched

Lee and Jay

from Oakwood

work very hard

because we're from Pioneer Heights

and we don't like to work very hard.