/w

19:52, February 2, 2012 (UTC)

1

The silence is broken

2

Piercing echoes hollowed out of lower hollers

The night is young

3

It smelt of canned tuna

Scraps of cardboard, or otherwise tin foil, but mostly shattered glass

Boxes in boxes in boxes

4

Four eyes staring down two black holes framed with fangs

Blink blink. Blink

Tips hat. Blink. Makes step. Blink. Tosses hat

Into the void

6

You are a worthless old man

You lug scrap metal that weighs more than you do for change most would consider scrap metal itself

You scrape by because you’re willing to scrape where others move on towards more profitable venues

What do you have to say for yourself?

Who do you have to love for yourself?

Why must you live for yourself?

8

& out again

No taxes

No death

Just living day to day putting boxes in boxes in boxes

A hat for shelter and a leg for food

Bleeding pus out one eye, blood out the other

Enough breath to wiggle toes, but too tired to do so

Maybe tomorrow, when the night is young again

9

But the night never ends

The sun will never rise again

The fine print was never read. It will never be read

Living in a still wake, spotting those still asleep; they wake only so long as to take another sleeping pill

He had had a life time supply. But he took too many too many times

It took awhile to dig himself down so low. A well aged cynicism, an old expression for fresh perspectives, a fortune of things as valuable as this junk

He wasn’t happy then, though he won’t tell you he’s happy now; but you might fool yourself in either case

If you were to ask him if he’d do it all over again, he’d only have this to say: Oh yes, of course, though you never really know since I don’t suppose I might

Then he’d continue on, having perhaps already forgotten the question. He’d give the same answer if you asked again, intonation unchanged

12

Yellow lights casting strange geometries down shady paths of awkwardly angled alleys along streets of silent shivers

Full of rats and those who might as well be rats

Hiding between lines without a box in a box

It was done. Over. Finished. At this point, he was still only a coward. Walking out on a fetus while his profits walked out on him. That cowardice saved his life

How much can be forgotten over the course of a bus ride?

Without plans, because everything had already been planned out. The general gist of those ruined plans had been to not do anything too drastically stupid

Thinking fell into the category of drastically stupid

Thus the traversing of these untraversable wayward mazes

There wasn’t enough to go around at his eponymous charity. He didn’t mind before. He didn’t mind then

If you asked him now, he might not even recognize the name; he might tell you of some young bastard he’d known

He’s known a lot of bastards, young and old

It didn’t take him long to call me out as one

18

He seems like the kind of guy who would shoot rats at a dump, but he’s never been a fan of firearms

I offered the activity once. He called me a rat. I withdrew the offer

In these years there’s been times where he should’ve become a fan of firearms. Instead he took it a signal that he needed to lighten his load for the umpteenth time

This isn’t to say he’s never made use of such devices. He’s a pragmatic hypocrite who gave it all up for idealism

Then again, giving it all up saved his life. Having mentioned this twice now, I’ll confess:

I was hired to kill him at the time. He doesn’t mind

I later killed his wife. He doesn’t mind

It was much later. I recognized her while heading out one day. By then she’d fallen from fortune too, but she’d been screaming all the way and ever since. Ragged and half shoeless, she hadn’t wanted to be remembered. But I remembered her, so she fell into a violent frenzy that ended with me kicking her down the stairs

If you were to ask me if I’d do it all over again, I’d only have this to say: Maybe in a million years

It wasn’t senility that inspired her insanity. She’d been a wild youth. He liked that about her. She liked his money. You could say they were happy

It was one of those relationships where you wake up drunk in the morning beside a stranger and stick with it somehow

Years later they’d still wake up and think each other strangers

She’d started to calm down and think about settling down shortly before he walked out. After he walked out she got an abortion and got straight back up

Her spending doubled. Her parties were tragedies. People mostly came to observe the decay of a woman. Most didn’t

I went once. I didn’t stay long. Long enough to drink some wine while she cried about not being able to hook another fortune. She’d cornered me while I’d been looking over the abstract paintings she had hung up. She bought expensive paintings and cut them up for collages

They were always ugly. Not to say intentionally. Somehow even the most disparaging of critics of the abstract expressionists would cringe at art having such a fate. Some artists refused to sell to her, regardless of price. She wanted to kill them. So I did. Once, before dying, an artist asked me to burn all his paintings so that she couldn’t have any. I obliged. She used the ashes

She’d’ve liked to use their carcasses. But that’d be sloppy murder. It wouldn’t go with her decor either

She always had the nicest dresses… But I digress

24

His fortune wasn’t old money. He wasn’t yet another case of some young chap blowing his family fortune

This isn’t to say he was born poor. Only that his growth was that ideal exponentiation in which each order of magnitude is as unfaltered as the last

Few can say quite what he owned. He ended up on the right side of a hyphen in a number of patents

As a joke, I was going to shoot him with a pistol bearing his name. There too, on the right side of a hyphen

I suppose that makes it clear that he’d profitted some with military funds. That also covers more on why not so many can say what it is he held business in

But there’s also his organized crime. My own identity probably made that clear enough

He never got too involved. He wasn’t the kind of guy who could do anything with intent, so he didn’t. He acted more as a lucky charm

I’m not giving him enough credit. He wasn’t walking into profits through dumb luck. He knew what people knew. He recognized good ideas. He knew who was genuine

He was also a credit grubbing smart aleck

I was on the left side of the hyphen of the pistol bearing his name

Now I’ve implied that we’d known each other before I was hired to kill him, rather than coincidence having us meet at some later date. This might’ve also been implied by my acquaintance with his wife

I did not meet him in the development of my firearm: I received venture capital through one of his funding programs. He didn’t even interview me for the funding

I was, however, acquainted with his wife by then. She’s who I received the funding through. This isn’t to say she worked for him. Only that we got along, and that she had pull

We got along well enough for me to know she had a nose fetish

We grew apart after I was hit by a car and my nose smeared into a slime across the road. Tongues were not a suitable replacement for her

This isn’t to say we were ever very close. It was only one night that we went out shooting rats and she saw for herself that I’d made something good. She wasn’t a good shot, she wasn’t a fan of firearms either; but she shot well that night

She wasn’t a good enough shot to shoot him when she walked in on him the next day

The next day they settled it over tea. He never could get the stain out

I only knew this because I use to read the news. Old news

I don’t read the news anymore. They stopped talking about people I knew

He still has the shirt he was wearing that day. He’s never explained the stain to me. He doesn’t know I know. He never read the news

He reads poetry backwards. I know this because when we met I was reading the last newspaper I’d ever read. I didn’t know it was the last newspaper I’d ever read. He was reading poetry. Backwards

He also writes poetry backwards

36

Thus did end Great Theodore

But did he check the bucket over the kitchen door?

Even the buckets under the kitchen sink

He’d checked behind the flour bags twice

Where else, he could not think

It wasn’t in the rathole with the mice

It wasn’t in the laundry

It wasn’t in the rice

It wasn’t in the pantry

He must find this bucket

But before he nailed her casket

Until sweeter days for bitter nights, Theodore

But you’ve misgivings fewer

Maybe I’d seek newer

If only words rung truer

Oh sweet Helena,

He knew what next he’d write:

Ever the lethal widow, Helena

You’ll find who you are to me in a bucket

Why won’t you die in a fire?

Dear Theodore,

What’s this? Nailed to his mail box: Another letter

He would persist, his love insist

In one of those briefest love letters was the ring he’d sent in a briefest love letter prior

For who is Theodore, given her almighty entity?

Those letters as proof of his identity

That he wrench from this mess

Only a matter of life & death

Not that any of it matters

Oh what briefest love letters

Ever never there, Theodore

Am I no more a dame than any other brother?

Oh dear Helena,

Ever the angry wench, Helena

You’re a pompous fool

Dear Theodore,

72

Where does this leave me?

Why did I come here?

Why do I tell these things I’ve been entrusted to never tell?

When will my body finally break down?

Where did those beautiful days go?

Am I going to get rabies?

Dear me, will I ever find my way home?

Will you come and get me when I don’t?

Why was she heading out before I kicked her down those stairs?

What’s backwards poetry have to do with making lots of money?

Where’d all my money go from counting heads, or engineering arms?

How’d we end up in the same place, as ethereal as we are?

Who do you think you are?

Who are you?

What do you want from me?

What’s your problem?

Do you have a problem with that?

Why are you still listening?

Why don’t you answer me?

When did you show up?

How come you never did anything?

Where are you from?

What’s your name?

How did you get in here?

Where am I?

Where’s the exit?

Why can’t I get out of here?

Does anyone know where we are?

You trapped me here

You strapped me down to this bar stool and had me recount all these awful memories

You told me you cared

You made me ask all the questions, because you didn’t know where to start

Just described a couple of loose ambiguities and then let me ramble

Hoped that I’d rat out my accomplices

Thought that you could drop back into the shadows if you propped up a narrator with enough character

But I don’t ramble enough, so you stopped short when I didn’t have 72 lines to say

Now you’re going to take the easy way out and quote me verbatim

Make it seem like some shitty avant garde post modernism when it’s simply plagiarism

But what if I go quiet?

How will you finish the last 32 lines?

When were you born?

Oh, me? I don’t know. I’d imagine it was a long time ago, otherwise I’d know

You take some people, and they’ll tell you their age like it haunts them. But me, I was always smug and said my age was whatever it looked. Some pretty gal would say “Oh, you look like you’re some young twenty four,” and I’d let her think she’s some sly cougar

I can’t pull that age anymore

But time is a place. When were you born? What are your childhood memories? You didn’t share any of that

What is this, an interrogation? I gave you an answer and that’s my answer. I don’t have any childhood memories because you didn’t give me any childhood memories

Alright, so you were born thirty. What was the world like?

I’ve got this image in my head: the slate gray blue street and the slate gray blue walk dotted with slate gray blue cars seen through a slate gray blue alley. The street lights only make it more blue. I’m in that alley. I’m walking the city. I’m a dark gray coat out night sighting

This is the setting where all my stories start. As I get older, the scene becomes sandier and yellow. Stone houses become wooden. It’s why I don’t think I’m where I started. Why I wonder how I met the fellow whose story I find more interesting than my own

Will you tell me a story?

I’ve been telling you stories this whole time

But I want to know what you imagine when you don’t have your memories to read off of

…Alright:

Snip and Snap are sitting on– no, in– a plane making half a ruckus

A strict waiter comes up and tells them to get out of the restaurant

Kicked out

…Wait, what? I thought they were on a plane; are they falling to their death, or sitting outside a restaurant on acid?

Here’s to ruckus

Thief, you stole that story from me. I want a new one

In ten lines? Alright, if that’s what it’ll take to finally nail my coffin

Make it eight. I want to comment

Cranky’s working night shift on a red dirt road

He’s a road sweeper. The product of industry. State of the art. Yellow brushes out his front

He lives in a world where there are roads which are only accessible to those with a defensive driving license. These driver’s licenses are more strictly distributed, requiring frequent renewal and rigorous testing

Defensive drivers can tell who each other are. They are able to efficiently interact. They’re able to signal the urgency of their travel to determine right of way. There are no speed limits, because the community has an awareness of the speed limits

Cranky, being a road sweeper, can’t get a license. But Cranky’s been programmed to sweep all unswept roads

The defensive drivers don’t know how to react. How do they deal with this strange intruder?

They hold back while he sweeps. They drive based on the strategies of other drivers, and not knowing what strategy Cranky follows, fallback on assuming the worse

That night, now afoot, they smash Cranky

Here’s to cranky

What the fuck

You didn’t give me enough lines. & now I’ve given you too many

/w