Month: June 2005

A mercy how time flies, don’t you think?
Just sliding by like butter over toast on a warm day.

Don’t like what’s going on, just wait a little while.
A month or two will seem like drops of water. Drip
drop. Done. A second cousin of mine, who has since
passed on (drowned, he was), was convinced that time
was speeding up (also, that there were faces on the,
er, face of Mars, but that’s another story). He
cited, vaguely, a study done of prison inmates in
which they claimed that time was passing by more
quickly than it used to do. My cousin, a skinny man
who was on some kind of raw foods diet, was strangely
belligerent and there was a kind of seediness to his
weird paranoia–testimony to his years of smoking
out? or was it true that he was selling some kind of
drug?–and he made my father and I drink weird
concoctions out of his blender.

Oh, yeah. He had this thing about banks, too. He
stated that banks were nothing but a scam begun in
Italy in the 17th (16th?) century, continuing on to
this day. He thought they were quite the racket, and
I was not–still not–entirely unconvinced by his
arguments. His rapidity of speech and tangential
leaping from topic to topic made it hard to follow
the thrust and flow of his thought.

I’m sure there were other things too, that I have
completely forgotten since. Through some kind of
verbal jujitsu, and because of my father’s good
nature, he set us to work mowing and cleaning up his
yard, while he stood by and led us on.

Another anecdote I recall: he mentioned getting crabs
in Portland from trying on jeans at the Jean Machine
without wearing any underwear. I, of course, imagined
a giant machine from cogs and gears and… well,
jeans. The jeans functioned as a kind of belt to hold
the other bits of machinery together. I never got
around to imagining what the Jean Machine would
actually do. Something wonderful. Or something
rich with eldritch horror. In reality, I’m sure the
Jean Machine was a kind of skuzzy shack with lots of
used jeans to try on. Apparently, infested jeans.

It was one of those interminable afternoons that
seemed to drag on and on and on. Conversation was
decidedly one sided. My father has always been a
soft-spoken man, loathe to interrupt, more jazzed
about what others have to say than anything he might
have to offer and, I suspect, especially those with
mad rantings to get off their chest.I lean that way
myself, though not quite as far as my father. I
mean, I already know what I think about things. In
spite of that, I was utterly blown away by my dad’s
cousin. I had no idea how to respond to what he had
to say. It’s kind of awe-inspiring the way some
can turn their speech (rushing forth like a broken
water spout) on and off like a spigot.

Drowning in verbiage and lawn clippings.

catchall the funny mannerisms in a bucket, let them
loose when they wear their bowlers right side down
or when all’s said and done, just shoot
gregarious lolligaggers plummet like stone to the
crunchy underbellies of all that’s whole and recent
speaking of recent, there’s nots and then there’s
knots and some are fit for untying and some are only
fit for slicing.

these days, all the oncelers are buried under
cordwood. eating their hearts out in some forgotten
place. i once said, talloo tallay, but… well.
all that’s done now. these days, everyone sort of
chuckles and wipes the egg off to that sullen
vibrato: wanh wanh waaaaanh.

lesseee. unless they’ve changed their shoe size, the
clowns’ll never let that one down. seeing as how
their lassos (they’re rodeo clowns) and bullhorn
flower squirters are now defunct. even the bull’s
are feeling anxious and it shows. never have there
been more desultory chasings of clowns around the
ring. even when they roll out of their barrels or
tumble roll out of trouble, its just not the same.
there’s no joy in it anymore.

little bobby clinghorn can tell, and he’s never even
been before. alive, that is. they keep him going in a
jar filled with electrolytes and occult scientifickal
gears and hoozits (in the olden days, mr. horatio
von skelapogos happened to vision little bobby
clinghorn through his murky and bespectacled,
crying “great shoggoth!” before expiring in a heap)
which keep him feverfresh and buoyant, if slightly
greenish and slimy. not only that, his button eyes
are black and black, no white-around at all. nor any
other color. but, really, he’s so cute in his little
beanie, with prop-on-top, though in what slow current
it spins, no one can say.

the pickled boy, he’s called behind his back, far
behind and out of sight of his rusty dish. to be
sure, it wobbles as it spins, but no one can be sure
just how much he hear through that arcane mechanical
contraption. those who’ve underestimated, have paid
the price, some say, for their foolishness. “don’t
forget that snapping iron claw,” they say. it’s
strong enough to smash a wall and subtle enough to
spread butter on toast.

why, he even wears little sneakers in that damn bottle
of his, though why that is, no one can say. some have
pondered the difficulties of tying laces in that
murky goop, but not for long. those black eyes,
staring, staring, are enough to make loose sweat
pop out from palm and brow. no sane man can hold that
gaze for long.

it’s a shame. men weep when they think of pretty
sally clinghorn. how little bobby ended up her
gatekeeper, no one knows, though some would guess.
and some would be foolish enough to voice their guess,
even alone in the darkest grove of night.

when little bobby’s voice emerges, cracked and tinny,
a wax cylinder tone, from its single radioshack
speaker, pretty sally laughs prettily and her
shining teeth flash in the sun. how she lost her
teeth, no one can say, though they dangle from her
brother’s neck, strung together on a string. and
some would say that white gold’s a strange choice,
restricting her diet to jell-o and the very softest
of breads, fresh from the oven.

pretty…

ZORIKI!

such vehemence this one has…