Easier to stalk with LiveJournal

around here, bartenders tend to keep white bar rags in back pockets--- waving at anything larger than toppled pint.

as we are apt to do, eulogies are oft written by the wannabe writers when little else is thought of--- always there to be pulled from old sheets, well manicured and passed off as last-minute notes scribbled; any excuse for others to find us brilliant. this is that... finally apt to be pulled out.

it's just a hole.

it's being dug for the reason most holes in history have been dug - shovel swung by the grieving. there

are no more marks to show the holes that have been dug and filled here before - this is the second to the last.

the body is covered, adjacent to the hole and a magpie comes calling:

Blood. Blood.

"leave me be, Magpie. i'm burying my dead."

Not your dead. I've smelled your living in their moonly cycles of necro-thespianism and it is

not the blood of yours feeding this ground.

"you're mistaken. i'm burying my dead."

Mistaken? Mistaken... and if birds could make sniffing sounds, the magpie would do it now. Perhaps. My beak

for blood has not been the same since the Raven scared these white spots onto me - did you ever hear that story, Human?

Goes back before you or any of your dead whe--

"certainly, i prefer the Raven's conversation."

But the Raven does not talk to the living.

"i know. now leave me be, Magpie, i'm burying my-"

Yes, yes, you're burying your odd smelling dead and you are making progress on that hole. Splendid

digging; even if your haphazard dirt flinging seems to follow me about. But it isn't the burying I'm interested in

so much as the dead.

"my dead."

Yes, your dead then. Right. Surely you know we can take your dead to the Underworld just as well

as Charon and you won't even be out the coins with us. I don't see where--

"i will not have Her dismembered by your beak."
shovel swung in the air as the bird tries to peak under the sheet, digging away at the sky above where the magpie

flies just out of reach--- landing in the branches of a tree some six feet above ground.

"come Magpie, tell me what it will take to get you leave us in peace."

Leave me your dead.

he climbs out of the hole, leans on the shovel and stares at the sheet.

"wait, what if-- yes, what if we have a third party arbitrate your grievance, Magpie?"

Another beast? ...or human?

"oh, a human or dog or, if you like, a bird. but if it is a bird, i get to pick which and plead the case."

Agreed! No Bird would side with your kind, Human.

"we'll see. get me Mockingbird, Magpie."

Very well - step away from the shovel; be back in a minute.

and he sits in the wet soil and pulls a cigarette from his breast pocket - lights it - as it is finished

he hears:

Blood. Blood.

Blood. Blood.

Here is Mockingbird.

Here..

"hello Mockingbird."

hello...

"did Magpie tell you we need a grievance settled?"

...grievance settled.

"and you, Magpie, agree to anything Mockingbird concludes?"

Indeed, anything.

"very well. i am tending to my dead; i wish to send her to Charon in peace and Magpie want her to stay with your

kind, right Magpie?"

In short: yes.

"so, Mockingbird, should she be sent to Charon in peace or should she stay with your kind?"

...sent to Charon in peace...

You double-crossing, dumb Bird!

...double...dumb Bird!

"so be it. i will keep digging..."

and he grabs the shovel and descends into the hole.

Wait, Human---

"we had a deal..."

Yes, I know, and Birds never go back on their word but-- how did you know?

"i didn't. i thought he would have taken the other option."

Stay with us Birds, yes.

"no, he would have said--"

...stay with your kind.

"yes, to which i would have replied: 'but the dead cannot stay with living humans.' which he would reply--"

...dead can't stay...

"and, in turn, i would have said, 'so you decide she must be given life again?'"

...given life again...

"yes, that's how i imagined it going. it would have bound you, Magpie, to a deal where you would have had

to fetch my dead's soul from Death but, it would seem, Mockingbird has been tricked before----"

...tricked before...

"and all i get is to bury my dead in peace. tho, if you wish to try again, you could fetch Cockatoo and--"

No, Human, I've had enough. A deal is a deal; I will leave you be. Bury your dead and may Charon see her well on her way.

"thank you and goodbye Magpie. goodbye Mockingbird."

...goodbye Human.

we were no longer given rainbows.

it wasn't announced. no booming voice called down:

-Thou shalt not see rainbows again.

it wasn't until we were sitting around in the new-world smell of post-thunderstorms that someone innocuously asked:

-When was the last time you saw a rainbow?

and we all took to furrowing foreheads; a consensus came to--- not for near two decades.

before that, there were no government statistics documenting the last rainbow. it was a promise no one believed

would become broken. but then-- after we made everyone aware --the news took up talking about it incessantly. rainbow watches with

false sightings and all. a new federal department created. people bought boats.

it was her punky colour® promise that we wouldn't be destroyed. bleached hair dyed ROYGBIV from roots to bifurcated

tips. a turn of the head and it arced in a familiar way that had never been seen before. but spread on the pillow it bent to

reveal breaks between colors... running finger thru it as the rain beats annunciations into the ceiling.

i need to be blown like an NES cartridge.

it's a matter of purpose.
just as a loaded gun tucked under a stained pillow beneath a scenic painting in a hotel room still smelling of sex should not be blamed for going off when triggered. it's more than in its nature; it's what it is made for---

my purpose is you.
even if it is just a one night purpose... and i should not be blamed.

i kept her earrings in pocket to return.

somehow we missed each other at the bar the next night.

then an old girlfriend called me and she got into a car accident and earrings aren't what you bring the bedside of someone bruised and bloody.

it's been near three years and they still get deposited with my keys and wallet on the nightstand each evening; always the possibility of seeing her again.

we tried to escape.

maxxed out credit cards to hop airplanes to anywhere--- eight, ten, twelve hours in flight.

out the windows were the amorphous clouds we'd come to know in skies so blue it was hard to believe they were

real. always landing while asleep.

and-- in the haze of waking --it all seemed new.

the distance revealed erect monuments and the platform sidewalks were runways for strangers

speaking nonsense; hotel beds held us in confused euphoria for the first night. but the next day we recognized

the same strangers saying the same nonsense and the tours of monuments made them feel like mock miniatures

seen thru looking glasses of amplification.

then it all crumbled--- overstaying the mirage's longevity. brushstrokes of backdrops showed;

the extras stopped acting and spoke a lazy english instead of an accented one; even the motel beds became

as familiarly uncomfortable--- offering up dreams of far far away because it knew we could never get there.

so the "flight" home was slept thru: supposed eleven hours passing in the measured rest of three.

always easier to return to what was.

we tackled stars stuck in forever nights.

watched them tumble into a burning mortality; the only way to wish away the darkness.

we were implanted with desire without being desirable.

so this is what we receive in kind: silence.

both phones blaring the electronic drone speakers make to simulate the silence we abandoned each other

into--- not to be malicious; there is simply nothing else to say. where the attractive and tolerable already did the:

-No, you hang up first....

-No, you hang up first....

-No, you...

in middle school-- awkwardly, giddy --we know we've outgrown these things. instead, thinking:

-God, I wish she'd hang up first...

-God, I wish he'd hang up first...

so much so that these thoughts trump even those of rolling out of wet spots or looking around for something to wipe

away the remnants from a stomach. there are other options, of course. the radio, surely, has someone talking---

talking about some wrong done, seen as wrong because the speaker would not get away with doing it and would want

someone to speak out if such a thing were done to them. and there is family somewhere, in a time zone

where they'd surely be awake at this hour--- with their stories of familiar names doing the things unfamiliar enough to

make them worth telling.

but those stories are one sided--- upon realizing there's no involvement with all these actions and names we

we know of but do not know, well... it can be far more isolating. at least this-- this silence --requires equal

participation from both sides.

but neither party is desirable; we know this.

participating in a moment can be completely selfish: sometimes two people are needed to make

one moment happen. already i think how the sheets smell like the next woman. already she is creating

fictional conversations with some other man who may come along with subtle wit and interesting interjections

to her stories.

anyway, her voice would inspire images of an angel with mange at the moment.

anyway, she knows the other end of the phone would never be able to say something like:

-Shakespeare had a rosebush named Earl.

so we lie in the silence we created.

i'm working on a novel again.

feels good to deceive myself into believing i'm a genius again.

mother's father built bridges to dreams.

it kept them on the move; so many burned when the buyer found their way to one side or another.

years of architectural study to be litigated in every new city: insurance fraud, accessory to arson---

no one could keep standing the things mother's father built.

a shoulder to lay my head upon---

it's always there. practiced in homelessness. and, sure, i had broader shoulders then--- biggger.

and my body has fallen now. time sides with gravity and they both fall away from us too quickly. these

shoulders aren't good for much anymore. boney. maligned with weakness. uncomfortable for anyone else.

but one or the other can still hold my head. it's a trick, really. a way of sitting in a library chair to keep

the head comfortable.

it's what's available when chevron shoulders are further away than friends.

you can sleep a lifetime or less like that before it becomes tiresome.

of all the women i've helped deceive---

it was never the, "My boyfriend will kill us both if he finds

out."s and never the "My husband held a gun to a guy's head just

for driving me home once..."s that deterred me from taking them

wherever it was we were when i took them. often, that helped.

of all the women who wanted to deceive their men, the only

one i walked away from was the one who said, "My boyfriend will

be hurt if he ever finds out."

i swear she opened her legs to show me too much of her.

her bleeding bladder justifying all those bathroom escapes

from me.

the corroded stoned kidneys and diseased liver leaking

accusations of my involvement in its demise.

and a heart wrapped in blackened lungs holding high court

with weakened emotions posturing in pampered wigs and movie-

learned accents.

somewhere in there was her.

or maybe all of it was her.

but none of it was worth seeing.

anything i have can freely be obtained by friends.
the problem is i don't have much.

a decent library, a set of car keys, an opinion for every occasion, a few million useless facts and a few hundred records. for every parent i have endless pockets when they want a drink because they stuck around like i never could and neither of us know if they are happy; deep pockets for anyone in a relationship without knowing why; a drink or four for those who need them for any reason because i've needed more for so many more reasons. a phone that's always on for the lonely or alcohol poisoned or drunk tanked or midnight exoduses from X's apartments...

each knowing i'd never give anything i didn't want to so some take more freely than others of all i have to give.

and the sum of some of the women who have been friendly know this as well.
each with a hundred or so in a meal, some with just that in a bottle of wine, one with 100x that in ten days. some with more or less to give in exchange. each thinking the value of what they have is invaluable; their thoughts, their love, their conversation, their bodies.

these women are not friends.
that is why i feel contented taking things from them.

these women are not friends.
but they know i have more to give than what i openly offer friends as late night phone calls don't ask for anything more than a story. they are the only things that are mine. so i tell them how i always buy two portions of every meal i'm looking to cook because i don't like supermarket checkout women and meat wrappers thinking i am alone. i tell them how i want to fall in love with a blind woman who can read the braille of my skin disease and tell me it tells her something beautiful. i tell them how we fell in love on Spanish soil during a war neither of us believed in but both needed to believe in. i tell them about the answering machine and how i still warm up one side of the bed then get up, brush my teeth and crawl into the cold side of bed feeling the warmth of someone else in the sheets. i tell them things they know i will tell to the next woman so i tell them to the next late night phone call so they are not let down.

the newspaper calls us murderers.

really, we're just a bunch of twenty-somethings who got drunk one night and decided to have the mark of Cain tattooed on our foreheads. as a mock warning from God to all those who would try to hurt us.

the hungover morning after, none of our enemies died.
but our families were no where to be found.

the public, cops and judge don't believe us.
and that's fine.
we're hoping for a superstitious jury.

her cellphone died the day the bombings happened.

where it used to say: This is Rebecca. Leave a message at the beep.
it now said: The subscriber you are trying to reach has been disconnected or...

she could have been anywhere; India is a big place. but i didn't sleep for almost three days. living on online news sites, looking for the names of the dead. every time i lied down the same thought thought itself. repeatedly. and guilt or fear would pull me from bed to google her name again and again like i've done so many times before. even called her parents but they, thankfully, didn't answer. didn't think of what i would have said if they had... Remember me? I used to date your daughter? Is she dead?

that same thought that thought itself: FINALLY.
so many things made easier by one little event; one stopped pulse.

not the obvious things.
obviously, it would make more sense why i have my answering machine sitting on my nightstand. i have no landline and, of all the women who have slept next to that little machine with its red light lit with a digital 2, only one has hit PLAY to conjure Rebecca's voice from 10+ years ago into the room. it would have been easier to say: That's my X who died and that's all I have left of her. rather than: Sometimes I get lonely and like to listen to the voice of the only woman I've loved. no woman likes to hear you're lonely when lying next to you; even less-so if the remedy is on the opposing side of the bed.

and obviously it would free me.
whatever part of me she had locked inside of her would be scattered into as many pieces as her body--- blown to the wind to be inhaled by any one/where. so i lost some sleep thinking i could finally walk streets i've never known and feel like i could fall in love with anyone instead of feeling like it abandoned the city just before i got there.

but, mostly, i lost sleep over little things.
pulling out old photos. re-re-re-re-re-reading old love letters. questioning: do i call mutual friends? when would the funeral be? could i give the eulogy? her father liked me, knew me to be the kind of guy who'd call 411 at 04.00, drunk, and get the listing of every Rebecca Smith in the state of Oregon to dial them all one-by-one instead of disturbing him and his wife. why couldn't i give the eulogy?

so much time spent on the eulogy. my masterpiece. a requiem written in three weeks. long past the time a funeral would have been held--- but no mutual friends had heard from her or her family. so maybe it could still be given or performed or published or...?

one week after it was finished, she called.
to ask how Prague and my travels were--- to tell me about hers.
and i had to tell her i would kill her myself if she ever was in a bombed country, domestic or foreign, and didn't call within a week to let me know she was alive. she laughed it off, asking: Did you worry I was dead? and i answered honestly: No, I didn't worry...

liquid heroine

the barkeep calls us by drink names
as tho "well scotch and water"
were my cell block number or
concentration camp tattoo
which may seem
dehumanizing
to you
but
it's the names that strangers give us
that seem to say the most about us

it's how
all our names
start out now:
Wellbourbon
Wellvodka
Wellgin
all's well
even where there used to be
crown royals, jagers and maker's
with microbrew surnames
now they all end as:
"a Pabst back"
as tho Mr. A. Pabstback
sired so many bastards
sticking around just long enough
to name them all
"Wellwhiskey"

the times are tough

they always were

we just forgot for awhile

just as
Wellvodka Screwdriver
three barstools down
forgot those newish golden quarters

weren't quarters at all

until pocket excavating six of them
setting them slowly on the last of his cash
to cover the $1.50 of the bill
bills could not
until
the barkeep said

-You finally tipping me now?

that's when he remembered
holding Sacagawea into the air
and LOUDLY proclaiming
Susan B. Anthony
as his heroine
then he traded
all
of whomever she was off
for one more
round

it's hard to find heroines
to hold on to

to the left of me
Wellgin N. Tonic says
her heroine
is Alice
who follows
inconsistencies
wherever they lead
and is able to escape

Wonderland

simply by waking
as the jingling of
gaudy silver bracelets
do a poor job of covering
one way she's tried
to escape
before
saying
Alice
was never an oyster
for the Walrus
Alice
abandoned a sea of tears
simply by opening a door
Alice
never had to
file a restraining order
on The Mad Hatter
or fight off
the Duchess'
husband
or...
or...
or...
as words get lost
thru the raised glass
she's looking thru
for another
world

on the right
Wellrum N. Coke
says his heroine
is heroin
vein-sewn armor
crossing his heart
hope to die
a thousand needles
holding it
together
because he has this
Temple of Doom

trick

where he pulls
the atrophied thing
out of his chest
and flops it
onto the
floor
with a
wet meat SPLAT
reeling it in slowly
twitching as tho it were
the bait of injured prey
while the predators flock
with feminine curiosity
trying to stomp it

but

it’s been
needle-sewn back together
too many times now
obviously indestructible
and the women here
quickly
lose interest
in anything
they can’t
kill

in the center
Wellscotch N. Water
cannot decide on only one

my heroines

have always been
women who
travel alone
women who
don't cook but
enjoy good meals
women who
fuck
for pleasure
or power
or money
or out of
hatred horniness
sympathy obligation
lust longing boredom revenge
fantasies-of-rape
who do it to be
in-charge beautiful hurt
overwhelmed calmed creative
submissive dismissive
who do it to live
who know
the only way to say
HALLALEUAH AMEN
properly
is in
moans

my heroines

are every woman who knows
the chaos between her legs
can display EVERY emotion
save for love

but really

forced to pick just one
i tell them
i'm torn between
Ms. Elizabeth Bennet
and Wonder Woman
not sure
which is stronger
and wondering if
it's just coincidence
that we all named
fictional characters

the barkeep
points to the clock
his heroine
the only beautiful face
left in the place
saying he should say
last call one
last time
pouring the drinks strong
so we feel like
we've accomplished
something
when we lift them

but the man on my right
needs something stronger
to feel nothing
and the lady to my left
raises her last
to punish ice
in Cheshire teeth
as she fades into the
barstool background
with every other
Queen of Hearts

and in an empty bar
without a woman
to Ms.
or Wonder about
the times are tough

they always were

but we
escaped
one more night

WISH
was the sound
the sheets made
as she onomatopoeia
climbed her cold body
on top of mine

twenty-four, returned again from europe, i had no job.

new year's day my father gave me $10 an hour to purge files in his office--- little needs to be kept after three

years. some things never expire; mainly court documents. rummaging thru thousands of files to shred everything but

the application form and bankruptcy verdicts or divorce settlements.

paying a voyeur $10 an hour to read dirty laundry can become expensive. for some reason the reasons

for divorce/bankruptcy never got tiresome to read, even in legal jargon. not that they were original; not at all. all

the things you'd expect to be there were there: medical costs, credit cards, irreconcilable differences, extra-marital

affairs. but the things they kept---

people put down petty things in their REAL PROPERTY lists of things to keep--- or keep from the other.

of the thousands shredded, one stood out. so i kept it. of the things each put down as "One half of...", the

other half was never on the other's list.

indicative things on her list:

#7. Stuffed monkey, Zippie. (premarital)

#8. Thumbelina. (premarital)

#12. Yearbooks and annuals.

#19. 1923 silver dollar.

#24. Her Bible. (premarital)

#28. Pink sewing basket. (premarital)

#35. 5 dollies, antique.

#38. Swiss lace tablecloth, antique.

#47. Princess House crystal ice bucket.

#56. Wooden toy box made by her dad.

#63. Greeting cards received during her childhood and from her children.

#66. Half of the photo album pictures and scrap books.

indicative things on his list:

#2. Tools.

#4. 1990 Chevrolet Silverado PU, OR# ***-***

#7. 1990 Ford Escort, OR# ***-***

#9. Stereo equipment, receiver, CD player, tape deck and 2 speakers.

#13. Lazyboy rocker/recliner.

#28. All small appliances in kitchen.

#35. Tupperware.

#43. Super Nintendo w/games in J****'s (son's) room.

#54. Bathroom supplies.

#59. Brass plant stand w/artificial fern in master bedroom.

#64. Ladders.

#75. John Deere BBQ.

#85. U.S. Bank savings account no. ********** in the approximate amount of $6,152.28.

#86. One half of the U.S. Bank checking account no. ********** in the approximate amount of $669.16.