My son came to me, beleaguered
“Pa, may I beg of you: a taco”
you understand, he is medical
and my wife, she gives him candy.
My son, he has diabetes by the gallon
and he smells all of reptiles.
Oh my lovelies, the reptiles
each one more beautiful than a lady beleaguered.
My prized lizard, kept within an empty milk gallon
stuffed with the meat of an authentic Mexican taco.
She is my candy.
Yes, I have seen the medical
professionals, how they use their medical
implements to distract me from mine reptiles.
How their breasts coated in sugar, like sour candy
swing low over my beleaguered
form confined to my bed and my taco.
They drain my semen by the gallon.
And they sell it! By the gallon!
And though they label it for medical
use, I saw one spread it over a taco.
And feed it to my reptiles.
My poor and beleaguered
wife, she begs for papa’s candy.
The doctors forbid her this, my candy.
For she drinks whisky by the gallon,
and her frail, beleaguered
liver: it is quite a medical
marvel. It resembles a bag of dying reptiles
or a warm and soggy taco.
I did allow my son a taco,
may it keep him from his candy!
And may he leave me to my reptiles.
For I have sorrows by the gallon.
And when I speak to the medical
men what crowd me, they only sigh, beleaguered.
And so I too am beleaguered, and soft as a fresh taco.
My medical bills taste nothing of candy
and so I swig from my wife’s gallon, and taste my sweetest reptiles.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Otto in Spain
Otto wasn’t at the hospital the day his daughter was born because he was at his wife’s parents house, with his wife. He was in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the white porcelain tub, staring at his white shoes on the white bath-mat on the white tile. His shorts were white, and his shirt. The sun poured into the bathroom through some sort of ridiculously expensive window designed to let sunlight pour in whilst still allowing one to shit in private. Otto had already gotten six or seven calls regarding the whole daughter-birthing thing but he couldn’t very well leave now because this anniversary was some kind of really enormous deal to his wife because her parents had been married like longer than she or he had been alive. Otto was 26. Until last year he had been an extremely successful tennis player and he was kind of famous, especially for an American tennis pro. He supposed that his wife would probably find out about the baby soon enough. It was pretty remarkable, he guessed, that he hadn’t already been photographed with Jennifer, which was the awfully annoying name of the woman who was right now having Otto’s first child as he moped on the edge of his wife’s parent’s porcelain bath. Probably this anniversary was such a big deal to Anita because probably she knew that they would never make it as far as her parents had. Or else maybe she was pregnant, oh God. Otto let his ass sort of slide down into the tub so that he was sitting in it with his head against one wall of the tub and his legs dangling out like a murder victim. Otto had sort of attempted to murder himself before he quit playing tennis professionally. It hadn’t really panned out though. Although in all honesty he had pretty much been pretending that he had succeeded. But now he was going to have a daughter.
Maybe after Anita divorced him he could move to Spain with Jennifer. Otto doubted that he was very famous in Spain. He could raise goats. He would never again wear white shorts. At night he would lay at the top of a hill and observe the stars and he would speak spanish to his neighbors. Otto closed his eyes and imagined himself speaking Spanish to his neighbors. Perhaps Jennifer would not like Spain and she too would leave him. She probably would enjoy neither looking at stars nor conversing in Spanish. Otto hoped that when she left she might run away in the night with a visiting American millionaire and leave Otto to raise their daughter. He thought that under these circumstances he would really pull through. Due to their nighttime stargazing his daughter might become a famous astronomer. Or maybe she would write novels in Spanish and win numerous European awards. Reviewers would note that she was the daughter of former tennis star Otto Ambroch who disappeared shortly after his sudden retirement from tennis. This is exactly how he would like to be remembered: as a brief anecdote in newspaper articles written about his daughter.
Maybe after Anita divorced him he could move to Spain with Jennifer. Otto doubted that he was very famous in Spain. He could raise goats. He would never again wear white shorts. At night he would lay at the top of a hill and observe the stars and he would speak spanish to his neighbors. Otto closed his eyes and imagined himself speaking Spanish to his neighbors. Perhaps Jennifer would not like Spain and she too would leave him. She probably would enjoy neither looking at stars nor conversing in Spanish. Otto hoped that when she left she might run away in the night with a visiting American millionaire and leave Otto to raise their daughter. He thought that under these circumstances he would really pull through. Due to their nighttime stargazing his daughter might become a famous astronomer. Or maybe she would write novels in Spanish and win numerous European awards. Reviewers would note that she was the daughter of former tennis star Otto Ambroch who disappeared shortly after his sudden retirement from tennis. This is exactly how he would like to be remembered: as a brief anecdote in newspaper articles written about his daughter.
Monday, March 2, 2009
It turns out I do occasionally do more than write shity summaries of ideas, in this case I begin to develop the sketch below. No editing tho.
Fuck these girls.
These girls who cry because high school is over.
Fuck these girls who mourn the passing
of a rotten fucking blight on our young lives.
No one suspected Kathleen Wyzinski was silently composing what read something like the note the police might find scrawled on the inside of the back cover of an AP Calc textbook in the locker of that pimply kid who tried to knife the Salutatorian Prom Queen just as “Pomp and Circumstance” began to sound from the chapel organ and the graduating mothers sounded their whimpering noses like trumpets and trombones and the babies all whined like detuned violins--
“Hey yo, Kathleen, what the hell are you waiting for?”
Kathleen had closed her eyes, something she did when she was narrating, something she did to force herself to be more evocative, more precise, and had failed to notice that Darlene Vulvankawitz already had a 15 meter head start on her, more than double the rehearsed distance. She could see Eddie Z.’s sweaty mother, face a mess with tears and snot and sweat and makeup that had congealed to a paste, glaring at poor Kathleen as she, Mrs. Z., waited impatiently to snap a picture of Eddie’s impossibly non-photogenic mug as he ambled past her on his way to receive the diploma his father’s donations had earned him.
“Seriously K, MOVE IT!” Eddie hissed and poked her sharply with his knuckle like a prepubescent man-child.
Kathleen lurched forward into the chapel, lacking all the grace that after 15 years of classical ballet, should pretty much at this point have been toxically burned deep into her muscles. Her muscles however were tight and agitated and wholly ungraceful about one-hundred percent of the time outside of the studio or off of the stage. She had contracted like a turtle upon hearing Eddie’s awful voice, attempting to collapse all of her atoms upon themselves so that she might condense and cease to exist or at the very least, become non-reflective.
However there she was, tall and wobbly on silly shoes, teetering down the long isle toward the alter, the most unholy of alters, decorated with living icons from four years of an existence marked by an ever-increasing devotion to hermitdom.
These girls who cry because high school is over.
Fuck these girls who mourn the passing
of a rotten fucking blight on our young lives.
No one suspected Kathleen Wyzinski was silently composing what read something like the note the police might find scrawled on the inside of the back cover of an AP Calc textbook in the locker of that pimply kid who tried to knife the Salutatorian Prom Queen just as “Pomp and Circumstance” began to sound from the chapel organ and the graduating mothers sounded their whimpering noses like trumpets and trombones and the babies all whined like detuned violins--
“Hey yo, Kathleen, what the hell are you waiting for?”
Kathleen had closed her eyes, something she did when she was narrating, something she did to force herself to be more evocative, more precise, and had failed to notice that Darlene Vulvankawitz already had a 15 meter head start on her, more than double the rehearsed distance. She could see Eddie Z.’s sweaty mother, face a mess with tears and snot and sweat and makeup that had congealed to a paste, glaring at poor Kathleen as she, Mrs. Z., waited impatiently to snap a picture of Eddie’s impossibly non-photogenic mug as he ambled past her on his way to receive the diploma his father’s donations had earned him.
“Seriously K, MOVE IT!” Eddie hissed and poked her sharply with his knuckle like a prepubescent man-child.
Kathleen lurched forward into the chapel, lacking all the grace that after 15 years of classical ballet, should pretty much at this point have been toxically burned deep into her muscles. Her muscles however were tight and agitated and wholly ungraceful about one-hundred percent of the time outside of the studio or off of the stage. She had contracted like a turtle upon hearing Eddie’s awful voice, attempting to collapse all of her atoms upon themselves so that she might condense and cease to exist or at the very least, become non-reflective.
However there she was, tall and wobbly on silly shoes, teetering down the long isle toward the alter, the most unholy of alters, decorated with living icons from four years of an existence marked by an ever-increasing devotion to hermitdom.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
A piece of something that is kind of gay, needs a shit TON of editing and might be really stupid, let me know please
Her default expression was a smile that had absolutely nothing to do with her mouth. Still not even the most obvious, untalented poet would try to claim that it had something to do with her eyes. Eyes don’t smile. Eyes refract light onto the retina, slowing the light down and allowing the brain to process images. I’m not trying to say it had anything to do with her goddamned eyebrows either. Just relax your face in an open and innocent and sad way that it is not at all naive and if you are capable of doing that perhaps you are capable of understanding her. Don’t look in the mirror though because her expression is not anything like the ridiculous expression on your slackened maw.
After high school she moved to Paris to study ballet and she found that the city was comforting to her, especially because in Paris language was no longer abrasive or invasive, as it was back home. Because she could not understand the foreign tongues of Parisians, the incessant noise of people nattering became like muzak except not annoying or shitty. Unburdened by understanding she could stand to venture out into public and to listen. Her muscles relaxed, her dancing improved. Her thoughts were clearer than they had been in eighteen years, which is to say clearer than they had ever been. The need to shut out the world slowly shrank away. She got along by pointing and smiling and humming quietly to herself so as not to begin to pick up the language, accidentally. Local grocers and booksellers did not even have to excuse her ignorance for they never suspected that she did not speak their language. They were too enraptured by her movements and her face to think of anything other than what she had gestured for.
She was never in want of physical company for the boys were drawn to this strange girl who never seemed to talk. She shut them up by placing a finger to their lips and if that did not work she simply left them, dumbfounded.
Of course the girl was not living a silent existence. She would however only carry out her intellectual discourses in English with the more socially withdrawn students from the University’s mathematics department whom she found mostly too clumsy to be arrogant or suave and who simply fell back on what they had recently learned about Wittgenstein or Riemann which she enjoyed. One of these students, something like a friend of hers, was a young woman who’s older brother was a prodigiously talented pianist and a composer and was very good looking in a way that wasn’t at all annoying and she loved to hear him play the piano but he only spoke French so she kept her distance even though she was magnetically attracted to him.
She feared him because she knew that if she began to spend time with him she would quickly learn French because there was no way in hell she would ever consider putting her finger to his lips because she was well aware of how damned silly and pretentious that was. She enjoyed doing it because she never could have gotten away with it with the boys in high school who all thought she was extremely pretty but who found her to be too painfully sad to hold hands with or sit next to at the movies.
After high school she moved to Paris to study ballet and she found that the city was comforting to her, especially because in Paris language was no longer abrasive or invasive, as it was back home. Because she could not understand the foreign tongues of Parisians, the incessant noise of people nattering became like muzak except not annoying or shitty. Unburdened by understanding she could stand to venture out into public and to listen. Her muscles relaxed, her dancing improved. Her thoughts were clearer than they had been in eighteen years, which is to say clearer than they had ever been. The need to shut out the world slowly shrank away. She got along by pointing and smiling and humming quietly to herself so as not to begin to pick up the language, accidentally. Local grocers and booksellers did not even have to excuse her ignorance for they never suspected that she did not speak their language. They were too enraptured by her movements and her face to think of anything other than what she had gestured for.
She was never in want of physical company for the boys were drawn to this strange girl who never seemed to talk. She shut them up by placing a finger to their lips and if that did not work she simply left them, dumbfounded.
Of course the girl was not living a silent existence. She would however only carry out her intellectual discourses in English with the more socially withdrawn students from the University’s mathematics department whom she found mostly too clumsy to be arrogant or suave and who simply fell back on what they had recently learned about Wittgenstein or Riemann which she enjoyed. One of these students, something like a friend of hers, was a young woman who’s older brother was a prodigiously talented pianist and a composer and was very good looking in a way that wasn’t at all annoying and she loved to hear him play the piano but he only spoke French so she kept her distance even though she was magnetically attracted to him.
She feared him because she knew that if she began to spend time with him she would quickly learn French because there was no way in hell she would ever consider putting her finger to his lips because she was well aware of how damned silly and pretentious that was. She enjoyed doing it because she never could have gotten away with it with the boys in high school who all thought she was extremely pretty but who found her to be too painfully sad to hold hands with or sit next to at the movies.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Breakfast.
David and Francine are in the kitchen. It is a nice suburban looking kitchen. They are young. The sun is bright through the windows and the colors are just lovely. David is reading the newspaper drinking a beverage. Francine takes something in Tupperware out of the refrigerator, she opens it, looks at it, walks over to the microwave and puts it in. She turns around. Looking at him. Leaning against the counters. She is wearing a dress.
Francine: You know, I’m pretty sure I do hate you... I don’t know. Yeah. I think probably I do.
David: Glances at her over the paper. Well.
Francine: Remaining still and calm. Standing. Looking at him. Really David. I want to kill you. Whenever you’re asleep... I just-- I literally want to end your life right there. Like... I... I don’t know.
David: Drops the paper to the table. What the fuck. That’s fucking sick Francine.
Francine: I just thought I would tell you, you know, so you could like... I don’t know.
David: Fuck. Are you serious right now?
Francine: You don’t have to be so coarse David.
David: Well what the fuck am I supposed to say Francine?
Francine: I really don’t know.
David: Why don’t you just fucking leave then. My God.
Francine: This is my home too David, I don’t think I should have to leave it just because of you.
David: Because of me? Me? Well I fucking shouldn’t have to live here in goddamned fear of my life.
Francine: David. Please.
David: Up. Upset. Fuck you Francine. Seriously what the fuck?
Francine: Can’t we just talk about this, please. Let’s just talk.
David: Talk? Maybe we should have-- have fucking talked when you were only thinking about... about... Fuck! Francine! Fuck!
Francine: You’re telling me you don’t understand. Even a little bit. At all?
David: No! No!No!No!No!No! Fuck! Francine!
Francine: I will not be talked to like that.
David: You-- what? What!
Francine: Settle down David, for heaven’s sake, you’re behaving like a child.
David: Puts his hand through the window. He must have cut himself because there is an awful lot of blood. Oh God. Oh my God. Oh God. Oh Lord. Oh God. Francine, I broke the window Francine. I--I broke the window with my hand and I think I cut my wrist oh my God. Francine my wrist is bleeding a fucking lot. Francine.
Francine takes out a pack of cigarettes. She draws one out lights it with a match, inhales deeply, exhales, tilts her head, frowns.
Francine: You know, I’m pretty sure I do hate you... I don’t know. Yeah. I think probably I do.
David: Glances at her over the paper. Well.
Francine: Remaining still and calm. Standing. Looking at him. Really David. I want to kill you. Whenever you’re asleep... I just-- I literally want to end your life right there. Like... I... I don’t know.
David: Drops the paper to the table. What the fuck. That’s fucking sick Francine.
Francine: I just thought I would tell you, you know, so you could like... I don’t know.
David: Fuck. Are you serious right now?
Francine: You don’t have to be so coarse David.
David: Well what the fuck am I supposed to say Francine?
Francine: I really don’t know.
David: Why don’t you just fucking leave then. My God.
Francine: This is my home too David, I don’t think I should have to leave it just because of you.
David: Because of me? Me? Well I fucking shouldn’t have to live here in goddamned fear of my life.
Francine: David. Please.
David: Up. Upset. Fuck you Francine. Seriously what the fuck?
Francine: Can’t we just talk about this, please. Let’s just talk.
David: Talk? Maybe we should have-- have fucking talked when you were only thinking about... about... Fuck! Francine! Fuck!
Francine: You’re telling me you don’t understand. Even a little bit. At all?
David: No! No!No!No!No!No! Fuck! Francine!
Francine: I will not be talked to like that.
David: You-- what? What!
Francine: Settle down David, for heaven’s sake, you’re behaving like a child.
David: Puts his hand through the window. He must have cut himself because there is an awful lot of blood. Oh God. Oh my God. Oh God. Oh Lord. Oh God. Francine, I broke the window Francine. I--I broke the window with my hand and I think I cut my wrist oh my God. Francine my wrist is bleeding a fucking lot. Francine.
Francine takes out a pack of cigarettes. She draws one out lights it with a match, inhales deeply, exhales, tilts her head, frowns.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
I am my own grandpaw
My grandfather was a Jazz musician and a contract killer. When I was six years old I spent the summer traveling around northern Iowa with him. I saw him kill seventeen communist potato farmers and a Canadian pimp. That summer had a profound impact on me. When I was thirteen he introduced me to Dave Brubeck. When I was twenty he was arrested. When I was twenty-six he was put to death at a federal prison in Kentucky. My mother attended his execution but not his funeral. My sister attended his funeral but did not cry. Dave Brubeck cried at the funeral and got drunk at the wake. My grandfather had killed some fifty people and recorded three gold records. After he died a reporter from the New York Times Arts and Entertainment section came to my house to interview me. I slept with her. It could have been better. As a child I had always admired my grandfather though I never committed a murder or a song to magnetic tape. I did however burn down a hotel for money once. I guess it all wasn’t wasted.
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