parallel the fall

Look at the power of that fucker. It'll smash you up in seconds, I said in mock Jersey speak.
Yea, it'll do that.
I'm sayin'.
Babe? (pause)
Yea? (pause)
Nothin'.

We stood staring at the American falls, that tiny side tributary separated by an island. It was a beautiful evening, soft, misty and comfortable. We made it there on a spontaneous visit after dropping Z and the boy off at the airport to meet the family.

Do you imagine yourself perpendicular to the fall or parallel to it?
Oh. I'd have to think about it. (time). I imagine myself parallel to it.
Really?, hm.
Yes, your head here and your feet there so you'd fall at once with your entire body, she said motioning the direction of the fall.
The funny thing was I pictured the same thing but I'd call it perpendicular because I imagined the front of the fall from head on.
Why, would you be parallel? she said.
No, I'd be perpendicular but I'd fall the same way with you. We'd both fall lengthwise.
Really?, she said. Hm.
hm?
hm? oh.
oh?
oh.

We just stood there grunting in the undercurrent and watched the glassine edge, soft and gentle and then the fall.

drawing by Steve Caruso

maria. avé.

Dash Snow's dead. (+) It came in a text from Youth.
Fuck, first MJ and now this.
Thoughts? asks Youth.
He's gone to the 27's. Done. Sad.
Aye.
That was that and we were alone again in our personal prisons. respectively. respectfully.

I'm not sure that we feel things the same.
Is that so? Why, why would you say that?
You wouldn't make those choices should you know.
That's what everyone says. It's common. The you wouldn't hurt me if you knew stuff stuff.
Maybe.
Not maybe, now sing a different song boy.
OK then, how's this - I've come to love on you.
Then love on me.
I have. I am.
What now?
What now?
You don't know? You're crazy then. You're bi-polar or something.
sigh. (silence).
You're using me.
(silence)

The Girl came back to town looking as gorgeous as ever and as lost as ever or as found as ever. So was I but we go in a good way. My thoughts were easy and free. I was happy. Until later. Later I kept thinking of buttercup sitting in that chair like the ambassador of beautiful (+) and how the days turn to weeks turn to months and all we want stops and become silent. "I thought she'd make a good story to you" she said but in a loving way. "I know you think that," I replied. I am what I say I am and be careful what you say. Even your thoughts become lakes, especially when you are compelled to exhibit them. That I do.

It's childish, you know better now.
I do know better but what's the point of knowing better.
Live forward. Live like a fish, hold a ten second memory and react to danger. Cover yourself in scales and slime. Spawn. Return. Be food for the biblical types on Fridays. Scour your clean waters. Clean your soiled ones, mercury, shit and all.

Who are these people?
Who are they? Lost Souls. They are the end. Watch them live forever.
You want that too? You want to live forever?
C'mon.
Just then Cathy pulled up her shirt to reveal a set of nipple clamps biting hard at her soft tits.
I keep them on all day in anticipation.
Anticipation of what?
Getting fucked later.
You keep them on through class and meetings and everything?
Yes.
Nice, I said and left it at that.
I stood there again and thought of Maria, her blue dress and my left ventricle heart part all cooed and ready, broken up and loose. Faf too. Avé. Avé & go.(+).

1 pellet every 4 ounces water then sip

Two metal scents filled the hall. One was a burnt ballast - I peaked out the studio door and saw the offending encasement flickering off its last hours. The other was something from the train yard below - it smelled like oil but with a crispness to it.
Post investigation I sat in the studio, alone and a bit afraid.

Fear? Why fear? I thought you were over fear dear boy.
No. I'm traumatized I think.
Birth was your trauma.
Good point. I think.
Are you?
What?
Traumatized.
Yes. So I'd understand why you'd want to leave me.
You do?
Yes, of course. Are you going to then?
What? Leave you?
Yes.
Well it's not that I want that.
But you are going to?
Yes, eventually but everyone must part eventually.
I understand. It's maybe better if I don't say anything then.
That'd probably be good. I mean you are very good looking.
So?
So just look good and be happy, maybe keep that other stuff to yourself.
(nod)(time) Is it too late now then?
Too late for what?
Too late to clam up and just look good.
Yes, I think so. I mean I guess so.
So you will leave then?
Um, yes but not right now. Not at this moment.

What gets out blood?
Is it fresh blood?
Yes. What gets it out?
Cold water and soap will take it out, she said naked and beautiful from half the world away. But do it immediately.
And it did, white fuzzies and all.
Amazing, I say. That's amazing, it just disappears.
She smiled. Like everything.

oh six short

If I could tell you what makes me this way I might tell you about some trauma. You might too. You might even tell me about a rape, a beating, a break-up, a dissapointment. You might tell me about a great joy, a drunken night when the direction of your thoughts just changed for the better. A love, a big love or the death of your grandfather. And if you should ask me the same I may tell you about the two deaths in my college dorm, or Charlie, or the loss that left a young man in jail for two years and a mother not able to get past it. I might tell you about even more than that. I might tell you about betrayal or terrible fear, awful shame or the castle in Naples. Then I may ask you to be silent.

Why? What comes next?
Several things. Maybe love.
There you go again.
We know by now that trauma is latent. I am surviving.
Ruminating more like.
Am I? (fear) No, surviving.
Wait till it hits your person. Big fists full of fun.
It has already.
Has it?
It has. I wear it like a pleasure shawl.
(silence)

Fuck the interlocutor.

once more a beer

Flora entered into her heat and bled all over the studio floor. She kept curling up to me in prior days - poor thing had menstrual cramps. I just let her into it and wiped up her bloody snatch when a clump had formed or when it looked like a big drip was forming.

Did you ever think you'd be wiping up your dog's bloody vagina? Luna asked.
Yes. Remember my kennel days. The dogs. Lots of bloody vagina's there. Maybe not off of the floor of your house though.
Exactly, she added.

And what a house. But by the time I had seen it, really seen it, and let it in to roost I was over it or through it or on top of it. Or somewhere else. Too close or too far to make any sense of the order of events that make up a life. Luna simply stuck through it with me, simply opened it all up. To anybody or anybody with half a mind to help. Helping consisted of showing up with regularity and staying with half a mind to stay. Half a crazed mind to accept all the pieces where and how they lay. That's survival and I wanted to learn this from the battle hardened.

Oh Rosebush, wake up. Wake up my little worm to cuddle while the cuddlin's good. Wake up my dollform.
Wake up to what?
To the real, to what is right in front of you.
I see: My hand on the trauma trigger, your hand on me. Your hand on the trauma trigger, my hand on thee. That?
Poetry, dear boy, will not supplant what you must make right.
Make right? Fuck you. My right is generations deep. It'll take two or more, just like you.
(silence)
Always silence. (silence). Always more of this silence. Death will be silent, speak now. (shame)
(silence)

At the grocer I stood in line waiting for the clerk to take back the mop head and the extra bottle of oil. When my turn arrived the man methodically went about his tasks, checking off entries, punching keyboards and working various machines with paper, pen and printer. He did this through tiny mashed hands persistent from a birth defect, through slurred speech and gawking fools. Me. I let him to it and found the consistent replacement for the returned sponge mop and bought it again. Even five bucks or an extra bottle of virgin olives made a difference, especially if I planned to drink a bottle of decent red in the evening. So after a stop at the winery and through the dirty heart of my filthy city I settled back and did just that. That's that. That's just that. That's just that then.
My Love?
(silence)

back to back to back to

Ba Boom BOOM. Ba BOOM Boom. BA boom boom.
Bang that drum slowly Rose my boy. More slowly than that even. Yet more slowly still. Right now one hundred thousand lives are happening. Not just you right now. There's many more than you right now. But one hundred thousand is enough. Do you see my point?
No.
Blond Emily's will rule the world then - all one hundred thousand of them.
That's more than we'll need. Ten is enough.
Funny boy. That's it then. For the sake of the ten you will be spared.
Ten blond Emily's? Sounds good. Deal.
No deal. Time. Time and nothing more.

Flora sat eating cherries on the sofa. Most of us just swatted them or plucked them off the deck as they fell from the sky but Faf took them one by one and ate them leaving the tiny broken pits to litter the cushions. Then after being such an incredible doll and beauty she sneaked quietly away to the back room and made a steaming pile of shit. She's my dog alright. I was pissed anyway. Pissed enough to lock her in the back yard where she promptly escaped for the indignity of it, got picked up by the cops and spent the night in the awful prison under threat of sterilization or euthanasia, audibly. "I lost my doggy," was my response. No sympathy. Several phone calls and one hundred and twenty bucks later I had her back. Fuck. I suppose I could be more organized about the situation but damned if I'd wait another minute to enjoy what I should have several days, months or years ago. Back to the grind then, almost over it, back to it, back into it, mine, yours, the other. Grrrrrr...

objecticandy

It's not very often I'm alone, clear, separate, alive and in love with life so intently. At this moment I can share some thoughts with you.
What's clear?
What's clear. I love you. At times you may think my actions indicate differently but they don't, they aren't and I love you.
What's your idea of perfection Rose?
What, my idea?
Yes, what is it?
I don't know really. (thought) Love. (pause) Adventure. Solitude. Death. A good life. A productive life. Love first though, the kind that bites into you.
And what kind would that be?
Love of the other. Soft full love to and from the other.
God love?
God. (long silence) Love. The other. Love mostly. Is this what you asked for?
(Pause) (silence) (soft laughter) (silence)
Yes. this is what i've asked for.
(silence) (laughter) (silence)