My how the little birds fly when softly the telephone poll that is their branch is shaken.
They quake and break and flake as one by one they are awaken.
Not a sound goes by - not a breeze, not a hum.
Not a wink goes uncaptured in this sterile aquarium.
And suddenly the birds all start to babble for fear their thoughts are dust and drabble.
When out of nowhere appears the sky
And out of nowhere they begin to die.
-RBR
I woke up and made a promise to you. I woke up and said: I am writing this to you from the edge. The place where I fry eggs on Tuesday mornings and rest the dead memories of our after years down for a long cold nap. This is the deep dark precipice The space of “how are you’s and I don’t cares” The space of empty prophecies dressed up as wet cows. The space for you to fall, and drawl, and weep and keen. This is somewhere in between. -RBR
I scrape across these ragged edges of text as if they were the sea – bottomless, capable of the most massive amounts of human emotion – and then I come to a stop. Like so many moments before.
It’s subtle this time – unlike the last when my feet came screeching to a clamorous halt and I gave myself this headache that lasted for “like 90 days – no joke.”
This time I slide. Sliding is funny because you don’t feel the end and it doesn’t bite.
Sliding is like laughing, or yawning.
Or jumping on a giant trampolene.
Sliding is sort of like understanding – with out all the neurons and the key chains jingling in your ears.
I like sliding- softly slowly.
I envision myself like this – slopped up in a bowl of milk – maybe I’m the cereal? but my sides don’t feel hard.
It’s okay – I still know where I land, and as I approach I chant to myself:
“I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care”
as if those words alone will keep me there in that black milky abyss.
as if my refusal to relate could stop the cycle and time would finally be on my side – for once.
“we had a date”
we all have a date – or once had a date. and will expire and renew expire and renew until this vacuous current takes pity or gets bored. and this is the lesson we all want to teach and preach and send like bullets into each others brains or hearts until someone learns
to listen.
But what a waste of time… “enjoy the ride” says some slogan on someone’s beat up van, scarred with years of wear and tear from adventures and late night contemplations – evidence of a body’s experience.
“if only I could get me some I could, I would, I could.”
I don’t think I’ll ever understand why these words don’t matter.
Why no matter how furiously I scrabble to the beat of my own drum, someone elses clock will be keeping time and my rhythm will never truly be mine.
If we are all elemental then why doesn’t somebody throw a tornado on my ass. Tear me up? Make me swear and wince and care?
It’s time for demolition.
It’s time for someone to support my superstition.
It’s time for what I see and what I feel to match up- paint a picture of me. Maybe include something true: some friends, a heart, a family. But the rest could be lies. Make it pretty I don’t care – as long as you make it something rare.
jibbety jive jabber (or pulling my teeth like stars)
Fucking shit. Always a good way to start a play or a movie or whatever this is. Because fucking shit implies catastrophe does it not?
- at least a state of heightened emotional reality. making it more easy for me to transport you to this realm of destitue solitude where my words have no feet and my eyes can’t hear. to a place of total ignorance and unabashed cliché.
this is the part. right here. where I must paint the picture for you. if I must as I must. messy – with all the colors in my palette. and if you hate it fuck you.
I didn’t mean that – sorry sometimes- I can be so immature- sound so mature but still be the opposite.
As I sit here hoping my creations will be somewhat legible and hold the key to understanding between you and mean, I can’t help but yearn for some other cohesion.
Rip the stars from my teeth and the lines from my face
– beg mother earth for her sister back, her brother back, her lover back.
I saw a really fucked up movie last night. Yea I did,
And I write to feel free – I write because if these thoughts escape me
if they run like they so often do then I have only this and this is not enough has never been enough its too rough too tough to scraggly edged and watered down.
I write till my eyes go blank and my fingers take control dictating all that is before me. And yet I know the truth: soon we won’t even have this accessory this cliché keyboard obstacle of a thing soon thoughts will form words all on their own and their will be no need for artistry for craft or will there?
The veil will be raised and there will be no more bullshit protocol no waiting in line thoughts will be things and there will be no step of manifestation time to be convinced and all that talk.
There will just be jive jibbety jittery jive.
And most will be bullshit.
Okay all will be bullshit – but among that clatter that chaos there will be something useful truthful real – and yet as soon as you name it, the thing, it becomes as false as all the other crap,.
So here we are you and I in the puddles of our current chaos a verbal diahreeah of all the agendas and ideas – and still we swim.
i tell you that i care and that i have fears too.
you say it doesn’t comfort you but ask
“like what?” anyways
like running in sand and shadows on the wall.
like losing all of my words… thats a big one.
i wish you would says its okay. that i would always have giberish and our secret language made sitting in trees - eyes fixed on a fading sky.
but your scared too:
“of stuff”
of what stuff?
“crabs. and snakes. and the world wide web.”
why?
“too much information.”
i am laughing. now i’m unsure.
is there more information than there are words?
is there information without words?
“Of course dummy, we don’t need words to see.”
I nod as if you’re right, but I mildly disagree.
We’re sitting on the sofa. Sitting as we always do. I try to forget - as I always do but words pop back into my head:
words about things, about people, and memories, and groundhogs
“why groundhogs?”
Never mind, i say.
I’ll keep my words for now, and tell you that i’m sleepy.
but i dont move and you turn on the tv.
i want to go write a story - but i may accidentally slip and write about you, and how sometimes you remind me of my father - but that would be weird. I know how i mean it - but my words may actually confuse as they cross my head to yours- or even worse a strangers.
instead i sit here - eyes closed.
“what about squirrels?”
huh?
“ain’t you scared of squirrels.”
bats.
oh…. oh.
clean skylines, clean windows, clean crows.
i knit my fingers carefully between yours. but i can’t let it go: i’m restless.
Your scared of the world wide web? it makes me laugh again - so hard I fall of the couch and hit my head. still laughing:
who calls it that - the world wide web - it’s like dr.seuss!
Finally you laugh too - crinkle nosed as always.
may we always have these accidents.
Galantly the fireflies make circles in the sky.
They brave the winter forest like ants upon a tower.
We are still and meager like them - often confused by the changes in season.
Our fate is just as shiftless - or shifting- one or the other.
In the glow of their aftermath neither really matters or needs to make much sense. There is only pause and matter. Delicious light.
Childhood fishes. childhood wishes: haunt me like gold.
Summertime nightmares haunt me like squirrels in the backyard.
Shutters like the ones on his backdoor creep up my spine as I recall the summer home I never had.
Ode to a white picket fence. Imagined in detail - a garden with carrots, and beats and friendly rabbits who invite me up for tea.
The magical treehouse we built together beside windows in the sky.
Starlight starbright first star I see tonight.
Wishes made in glee.
Wishes made in hate.
Wishes made for me. Kites, Towers, Fairies.
And secrets by the pond.
Secrets about god, and light, and ice cream sandwiches. Hopes and dreams that fade and glow - hold on tight, hold on tight, first star I see tonight.
Waiting. Waiting for hours. You on the old dusty stairs. The one with the iron swirlies. And me on the bench, wishing I was next to the radiator in my corner. How I yearn for my corner. Cozy as a mouse- you might say- might choose to say.
“How delicate it is this freedom of choice” you remind me. Words are a choice.
But I still speak carelessly when you’re not around.
We sit enjoying this moment.
“Are you enjoying this moment?” I whisper.
Smoke clears the airway between us. I smudge what looks like dirt on your rug.
My feet are cold.
“I can’t sleep” I tell you.
“So share something.” You say - “a memory”
I pause, and reply:
“Back then. In the days when I slept with the lights on.
I remember thoughts - like the ones i’m having now - streams of syllables - always going. never slowing.
I remember, ketchup and chinese food. Songs that went on for days. Jokes between us - me and my imaginary friend. Buckets full of frogs I’d catch. Caterpillars and centipedes.
The TeePee my mother built as a tent. Igloos - made up on my living room floor. Tea parties (minus the tea).
I remember a time when my father would cradle my toes. So small.
I remember what it was like when television was a privilege.
This is how it is:
Morning time- I’m on top of the world.
The shower is my personal masseuse -the closet a personal trainer.
Dogs bark my praises as I prance down the street.
The coffee at my local cafe begs to be sipped “give me a kiss, your lips are like heaven.”
I oblige - everything is free - everyone smiles.
The sky is light blue and the clouds are like personal taxis. No limos.
By the afternoon:
I imagine. Dinner: large plates of something… middle eastern.
Cravings set in: I crave, cigarettes, chocolate, lemonade, straws, high heels (stilettos), ramen noodles, erotica, months off - a vacation to .. bali… india… Taiwan.
And then I think of all things the predicted about my future, and the inevitable sadness that is said to blanket our world.
I analyze these: prostitution, global warming, slavery, rape, prison, divorce, war, gay rights, women’s rights, hypocrisy.
Each subject I can handle when alone: dissect, descent, disolve.
It feels good to be the doctor. I have answers! I have solutions!
By the evening: I’m a fraud. I realize all of my faults. I’m too tired to care.
Saying this out loud causes me to hum ambiguously for the rest of night.
My sweat pants are the only peace I will pull off for the time being - and that’s okay.
I just want sleep - but my eyeballs are restless and full of questions. Shhhh - to bed now. A little tea, a joint, some t.v., a late night phone call with a long lost friend, a lover, my mother - when I’m real desperate the operator.
Reading only exasperates the situation. Everywhere is the scent of anticipation - chaos:
As if to say “Was it worth it? The dressing, the eating, the pantomime Really do you feel productive now. At the end of the day?”
Now is the inevitable - and I feel like my whole method ends up in circles.
How long can I stare at this wall? How long?
And - who is taking notes on this? the typewriter in my head? Does she submit these thoughts to the collective memory? You know - the one that decides fate, and law, and history - or do I have to do it myself?
A self subscribed submission signed in memory.
And how much do I pay her? This secretary from hell. Incessantly typing away in my head. click click click.
I quit. Go to bed. Grab a drink - some food- something.
We do. Finally. And I drift off to start again.
