The concrete heats up inside the mixer
It burns and leaks out of the steel container
then it pours into the space to fill the next level
steaming and occasionally burn
The concrete fills up like hot grey soup
It will set and then crack
soon the building may fall
But the drizzle fell and cooled it off
It was losing heat and bonding well
solidifying slowly over the day
readdy to bear the unrealistic weight
Of another ten stories on top of it
Her arm band fits well
clings to the skin
Stretched over it
From the wrist to the shoulder
To protect the skin from the light
The elegance to it
Inside the arm is snug
The world outside
full of its random mishaps
Something to comfort
Something to put the pieces
back together
There were four of them at the table
One for each side of it
Each one a different opinion
mouths for eating
mouths for describing
Four of them barely using ears
Noise was supposed to contain words
But meaning was alien
Like a homeschooled amish kid
being exposed to the modern world all at once
So the four kept their eyes and ears closed
rasping their voice boxes
And inbetween rants feeding their faces
The table spinning faster and faster
Then came the vomiting
And the rants and vomiting merged\
Becoming one acidic cloud swirling
beating against their faces
consuming them
It sat on the edge of the landfill where the grass grew up to and no further, for whatever residue or runoff killed it beyond there.
A dictaphone. Right next to the dictaphone was an empty rum bottle and small plastic bush.
The dictaphone sat there all afternoon every afternoon, as everything else did.
But sometime after midnight it would turn on like clock work.
A young man’s voice could be heard speaking into the dictaphone. Talking about things that had happened to him during the Iraq war.
The words came out slow and watery as if there were some harmful phantom somewhere inside the blue haze of methane lit up by the road lamps.
The dictaphone played for close to an hour.
A local bum named Darcy who would use the depot as a shelter in winter was the first to observe the strange effect of the dictaphone.
He was having his last drink on a bench a good hundred meters from where the dictaphone was. He heard a sound come on from the edge of the landfill at ten minutes to one am.
He casually walked out under the influence but not totally drunk his liver wasn’t destroyed and he had built a tolerance. He had spent a month there and it was the first night he actually heard the thing, as on the other nights he was either too out of it or fast asleep by the time the thing came on.
As he approached the landfill he started to feel exactly what quotient of his mind felt sober. Or in other words just how real the experience felt.
But the voice in fact stirred something in him. Until his shoes actually touched the trash he was sure it was someone who needed help. But as he got closer he could hear the haunting slowness of the voice. And thought it might be something completely different. His lazy mind did not go to anything supernatural until he had to turn a lantern light on to see where he was going realizing he was going toward the edge of the landfill where the pines were.
Everyone in the local town where he came from knew the stories of the infamous area next to the landfill called the pines.
He looked back toward the cozy lights of the depot and thought, well I could just ignore this weird voice and go get some sleep.
“The pines, the pines.” Darcy mumbled to himself. He felt like the pines were a separate person hired with the sole purpose of making him feel too scared to do something.
So as if in protest, completely irritated at that, he kept walking. But this time he could hear the voice clearly and it was slow, watery, sinister and seemed like it was talking directly to him.
Making matters worse a cold late autumn predawn breeze started bearing down on him reminding him he wasn’t wearing enough layers.
“You only see death around you. The ghosts of those who were taken without even realizing they were dead. And their vestiges lie around this wasteland I have been condemned to today…”
Darcy realized it must be a real ghost, a stream of hot urine shot down his leg and inconveniently into his left sock.
He turned his lantern off and slowly walked back toward the depot’s lights. He grabbed the jacket, he’d left there pulled up his trousers dried himself off.
The croak of the dictaphone clicked on again. Darcy, thinking it was the ghost, possibly aware of his presence accelerated. Changing into some spare socks and underwear putting on the same pants albeit pee smelling, then straight into a march back toward town. Holding his face down as if he’d been beaten and humiliated in a bar brawl only to have the patrons see him walk home ashamed.
He would never know it was purely a dictaphone. However one that had long lost its batteries.
The voice began with some echo
First between the narrow space
somewhere the world couldn't see
Was the will to clean
Yet just got dirty
The voice lifted off
whatever part was touched
Was brought to life from a state of neutrality
From a voice that bent the ear
To a sense of impending bliss
Water came down
over shoulders and hair
Soap and shampoo
A warmth in the water
That tranquilized the troubled mind
Until the body gave itself over
The last vestiges of resistance
washed away and melted by the warmth
And the special flow
Part of me is not me
Part of me is foreign
Unknown to me
Unknown to the world
The outside tinkering away
Mostly unnoticed
Inconvenient then forgotten
virtuous but clumsy
Part of me is not here anymore
A part that clung to the world as I'd fall off it
Into the oxygenless space
Only to burn back into the atmosphere
and fill the shoddy expression
Of taking off
Or the sky is the limit
Part of me would burn off descending
Part of me might bail on the ascension
Would they be parts I recognize
Or strangers hanging on over the years
Only getting exposed when things got tough
Abandoning me like friends and family
That abandoned me and that I abandoned
Unknown to me now
Making no conclusions about them
struggling to make conclusion about myself
Honestly and directly
You will be alone forever, even when you have someone next to you
Noone will make you feel anything deep enough to solve yourself
You will long for more affection and connection and there will be none
You will be hollowed and for your needs ridiculed
You will never truly be loved it is not a plane of existance where this is possible
You are essentially alone and cannot ever be whole again
And so continue with shallow vibrations
Hug the colors and noise
Avoid the deep chasm of truth
Where at a real level each person either acts on their fear or their interest
using their ego as a middle point
You will have the illusion of connection
Needs get starved
Lies are adjusted and plastered over reality
Convenient shapes for things that don't fit
Extremely empty and deeply unloved
people sell hugs
Be the message they say
ink shows up on the white page
Makes its mark and stands out boldly
Each letter a man or woman
Each word a group or brand
Machines now think for for us
Yet we never stopped praying
Praying we didn't originate from chimps
Praying we could be more than weak links
In our boisterous collectives
Be the message
Be the consumer
Brand loyalty luxury blinders
A straw for the corner of the mouth
A microphone to scream into an empty stadium with
Praying we didn't originate from chimps
In a boisterous illusion
In a needy heart
In an underdeveloped brain
comic book utilitarians
This bald chap next to me
struggling for his life
pushing himself to the edge
Limits are external
Felt internally
So sensitive
And how does one conciliate
each sensitivity in contemporary man
And how do we exploit it for laughter?
Our lived burgeon at thirty
Then narrow predictably
Opiates thrown together
Eventually its a stretcher
and a mask
attached to laughing gas
Chub Mcgroob lived down langford street
He'd have his fill of pancakes saturday afternoon Ihop
He'd get in the door go straight for the menu
Then inch closer to the waitress Sally ann
The same one he saw every time he came for those cakes
She was always on shift at that time
He'd come through the door like it was just the pancakes he was interested in
But down at the table when he was warming up he'd turn up the charm
So was he there for Sally ann? or those sweet soft syrupy cakes back there?
It was a mystery to her and to him maybe it was just a transaction
Chub didn't seem to think, he just seemed to bang into things
He should have been nicknamed clumsy
His legs would almost buckle under him as he walked back to his shack on Lanford street
Sometimes he'd struggle to get in the front door for all the liquer they put in his drink
One day the neighbors were on the street and they observed Chubs halfway into the front door
He was in a state and lurched forward and back until it was obvious what he was doing...
He projectile vomited into his own house
The neighbors of langford street just whispered to themselves
And covered their children's eyes
Mcgroob was never looked at the same after that
Sarcasm bounces off that softness
A man with wit has no business telling the truth
He said he would like to invite the group to walk the hill
But when everyone arrived he sat in the pool
He made fun of the way the walkers dressed
Gulped a caiparinha and told them he would not walk
The enthusiastic group stood and pretended to enjoy his company
Then they made their way up the hill without his wit
Making do with the index of smugness left over in themselves
The summer temps were not quite hot enough
And by the time the group returned Paul had a cold
Cough splutter and wheeze
It's home and a hot water bottle
And other false comforts, illusions of recovery
The tailor made was given to me
The twins didn't question
The mother made a joke
Ember too long
Smoke out the the window
Inhale exhale Like a road to a beach a community
Listen Like I'm deaf
smoke and smoke
Semi belong
Eye contact fits but words get in the way
The cigarette burns slowly
The huge window not taking enough of the smoke
Therefore a haze is growing
Wealth and games between words
Another drag and coffee is prepared
Sarcasm can be enjoyed almost like a pun
In the cup or between sandwich loaf
Simple comfort can be replaced
By wealth to spend on a cigarette
A game of two lungs made for smoke and nicotine
The melted wax from the church is sent in a barrel
It is melted again and formed into new candles
Somehow blessed by the church they graced
And now in someone's house, a hope, a light
The flames that went out years ago
Await a match, a prayer, a dark night
Once borrowed the only new part the wick
To be burned down again holy wax dripping
Seabirds fly into a towering tree on the coast
They meet briefly in a cheerful gathering
Then scour the beach front for something dead
They use the wind and glide aimlessly
As if in leisure when infact whey are chasing their food
Eyes down on those tame little waves
On that narrow slice of beach
Seabirds fly monitoring the coast
Mocking and torpedoing
Circling again and again
Use the wind effortlessly
Enjoying the mission
hypnotized by the sun reflecting in the sea
Not far out from the sand
Tide leaves its remains on the darker patch
A dead silver fish stiffens in the heat
One bird identifies it
Shadows arriving
Towering tree waits above shore
For the next cheerful gathering
The beaches up north are like that too you know
All of them full these forests that hug the shores
(They walk barefoot across the sand slowly veering from those incoming ankle waves)
Places we can take our music too
We can set up tents there and relax for a weekend right here on this beach
(The wife kicks the sand playfully, the husband is still numb from the week's work)
Of course there might be someone trying to charge us something to park the car
A fee for the entry as they do on those beaches up north
(The day continued exactly so, the wife talked about a potential camping trip there, and the husband stayed silent, hardly even aware of his surroundings. lost without his computer screen)
what you have
a big plus from fate of things that don't necessarily fit
A trial of the will
Lack smacked good
Yet you look at all that you have now in disdain
You don't see the value in it
You sit down, pour your drink and nostalgia on
Your personal package of comfort intact
The truths and realities are shun like beggers
Yet they are the jewels of your existance
And the convenient lies are the poverty
The blindfolds are mass produced
What you have is precious
Take from it everyday
Things that don't necessarily fit
Patience and care
The gondola takes us down over the forested hills
To a small tourist village
The altitude is to conjure tacky nostalgia
A sense one is somewhere else
For we are so far away
Getting off and having anxious shopkeepers heckle
Their overpriced kitch
Their reasoning to why each item is so valuable
Stories int the form clues followed by facts
That repeat far into the day
until the personality becomes an outward tool
for promoting little argila nothings
Oversweetened treats
On exit the slight relief
For these false worlds stink of desperation
And now I have to buy the house back
Here in the back yard
the scent of the decades gone
What is left of the world
Prepare your defence as if the world was an offence
I'll have to buy this house back
It is pretty much the way we left it
Like a good friendship
The world outside not so much
You see me as just some interloper
Here to acquire a piece of what was once mine
the closing gate of this life the opening to another
I see where the shed stood, the trampoline
The years gone
The crack of the guarana can opening
Whoosh fizz whish and it enters the glass bubbling upward
Fizzing back down until there are only a few glass-hugging bubbles
Waiting their turn to to float upward following the rest
To flow upward toward the surface and leave the drink flatter
With no bite and less flavor
Yes the extraverts leaving the party on cue
"To get air" They say, or "See a friend"
The essential flavor lingers still though
The guarana lolly like sweetness ricochets
between tongue and cheek
carbonation died down before the glass has emptied
The school owner's all important whims
The huge block building holding over a two thousand students
he prounced as uncle noone ate icecream
The poor dressed up as the rich
bearded and dribbling
The true owner eccentric
picky and fussy
Just as I was
And if the roles were reversed
Could I tone it down?
I think not
The fancy sense of disregard for everything
Seems like a flavor on its own
The crawl space
The band is playing on the other side
Pop band quite narrow brained but rather wide
everyone knows them except those cynical
The popularity is incredible
And everybody wants to be a part
So duck under the entrance ease into the panic
slide yourself between the floor and the granite
Where things stick just force it
pressed and bruised to fit
Like an item of ironed clothing
then get up on the other side
Jump once for joy
Clap to celebrate and revel
And join the rabble
Ignore the discomfort
Opiate sneeze
Look back at the crawl space
Your entry's unease
Wormy fall from grace
I bought it for twenty thousand
Drove it for about an hour
The first problem was the steering wheel cover fell apart
And only the steel underneath remained
I kept driving changing gear, avoiding accidents
The road demanded all of my attention
The people talking around me distracted me
I thought I might crash from running off the road
Instead I drove down the road I was told there would be a mechanic on
But there was nothing down there just an abandoned farm
Years felt like seconds I got back into the van and yelled we need to get out of here
So each person got back into the beat up old minivan
I turned the key and gave a little juice
The fuel cable burst
There was oil leaking directly into the car
One of the uncles went to get help
While the rest of us stood on the side of the street where the lichee grow
He came back with an ice cream in his hand
I swore I could have murdered him right there and then
The minivan was as good as irrepairable
The money I spent stuck like a huge stinking shit on top of my head
The cavalier attitude of the family and friends bothered me to no end
The responsibility was mine, living life was theirs
The revs blare on the soft highway
Years have passed
Much ashphalt under rubber
the wheel wells the seats
The endless surface
the smell of gas
the fever dream
Colors of another life interrupting
Imposing themselves into this one
Over the road inside the vehicle
The decade of the seventies gripping onto the eighties
A tiny grain of sugar atop the upholstery
Sparkling out to the child in the neighboring car
Unable to identify it
The dog Ribbons sucked the rug
His rug to be precise
He slobbered it
Bit it and almost ingested it
Then he turned back to me
Like pay attention here you negligent owner
He bites again licks and licks
Slobbers
This dog got the restless
the ghost fleas
The ripples and rapids of a dog dream
he turned back to me
feed me
talk to me
Mr Ribbons chewed the rugged
Then in succession fell asleep
Those eyes that look back
Those eyes that feel judged
On a body too big for its application
In an urgency not indicative of its nature
Eyes that look back
and at the last moment look away in fear
Fear of being seen through, evaluated and ridiculed
The pain inside the eye... white hot, the iris scalding, pupil eternal
Those eyes that feel the weight of the observer
That absorbs the outward energies flung like impulive reactions
Sparks that land on the membrane of the turning blind eye
She got stuck with the cars
She still keeps up with the trends
1950s sentiment reaching into her temples
Divine antiquated reverberation
Velvet blinders block observation
She turns the hand crank to get the motor started
The wheels go round and the things shudders
But inside it is broken and offensive
The outer paint is expensive
Her habits correspond with her personality
All purpose is simulation for most of us that is true
Illusions of control and age makes it all iffy
Wine to get the middle ground to squiffy
Father we always followed your goals
never creating our own
Humble and modest
Pathetic and rudderless
For what would we make of our own destinies
Should we squander our lives to make yours comfortable
Not reach too far for only you are allowed that privilege
Father should we be less and you be more?
Or you figured it out and we are still calculating
It comes easily doesn't it father
We just need to know not to sweat the small stuff
Get all the glory then summarize away
Should we not exaggerate the way you did?
Should we become clones for ambition
Are we deemed invalid without it
condemned to failure lest we follow your goals
That way we stay less and you become more
And when its our turn to win you simply check out
main thing is you get your part
I lost my phone my hope my connection
My guile my wisdom my fury my fire gone
I lost it all and stand unhuman
A primitive confusion
I lost my phone I hide behind a shrub
I do not want to be seen
The hours tick by and I lose each appointment
That feeling of missing out
I ask to borrow someone elses
But none of my contact information is there
I have no way of reaching out I am cut off
The sunlight doesn't lull me it is pure anguish
The submarine drone boosted
Parked under the wharf
Under the seaside hotel
packed with explosives
The two brothers checked into the hotel
Signed into the book under pseudonyms
Armed the bombs and activated the countdown
Then left to entertain themselves in a local park
The bombs went off blowing pieces of the hotel all over
Pieces of the wharf and restaurant roof shooting over the park
There would be nothing left and the two brothers simply pretended
that they were not responsible for the terrorism
The roof cactus is so stubborn
It sticks and it is so glued
To the dust rotten bird pooped concrete
It has turned into some sort of soil substance
Just to feed the roots of this stubborn cactus
The moss is at its ddorway
The first weed seeds opening
In stern competition
Alas the roots of the cactus
Eat the sooty remains that appear as dirt
Even the moss is struggling to cling to rooftiles
Fine and narrow attempting to exist on the building flimsy edges
Amongst the tight village i went looking for a place to rest my head
There was nowhere
No house was open to me
No available free space
The alleys just echoed NO
And so i kept walking like a body with no soul
Just a man who hadnt slept
And couldn't find a bed
The alleys were so narrow my shoulders hardly fit
I was not welcome here either
Slight relief at their conserted rejection of me
I walked up to the manor where they let me in
But tomorrow I would probably forget where I lived again
Just to see who would let me in
They were rehearsing dance
and setting up food stalls
Dressed in trendy rags and leotards
Half alternative but not quite letting go
Of the predictable
They started frying sausages and cut the grass
Before the inevitable 2 oclock rain
Pitching tents and telling themselves it would be a good turnout
Reminding friends they had no choice but to come
Guilt tripping family
Rock and roll tshirts from nineties grunge
cheap beer and syrup based juice
What does a person seek here at all
A cultural spectacle
that acts within the bounds of the pre expected
I left the university at three thirty in the afternoon
The day had grown pitch black except for some strange shafts of sunlight
Piercing through the dark cloud down on an angle warming me
When I shouldnt be able to feel any warmth
The day became ever darker the few beams blessing my day of study
Then they too disappeared and the northwind would dominate
And storms would come down and reak havoc upon Canada
I had to get to my afternoon classes
Threats from the south beat on the windshields of snow ploughs
The few shards of light seem to be coming from the distance
Not where the midday sun should be in the sky
Those shards started to burn and intensify
The eagle and the slug
And then God said fly
And so the eagle flew
In my mind it was vision
On my arm a tattoo
He said to the slug slime
And so the slug slimed
originally an amoeba
It was a symbol of laziness
Slow movement
Sluggishness
The slug turned it's head upward
"Why do you get all the glory?"
The eagle looked down
The slug continued
"You can fly around and kill anything from the air,
What an unfair advantage!"
"I fail at getting my prey or food more than you slug"
The slug unsatisfied turned its head up once more
"Why don't you eat me?"
The eagle looked down with piercing eyes
"Your slime contains parasites that can kill me or any other animal"
The slug moved on slowly blushing through the slime
I opened the veil
To greet the old twins
they saw I was a ghost
both were horrified
Because I entered reality
Next to the street post
They witnessed me pouring through
They comforted each other
The waxing crescent glowing across my face
I haunt the streets after dark
Letting the shadows mold me
The night my life force battery
I'm a silly bear with nuthin but stuffin
When i get hot I go about cussin
Life is about the fine print
So I've become fussy
I'm a silly bear I've sweat the small stuff
complained the world was not fair and life rough
And prayed that what i had would be enough
but nothing would suffice I laughed
Never understood why
This pain found a home in my heart
I followed it, it followed me
Along the pavement in the light of day
Up the sidewalk where magic moved
through limbs and grace
I followed it, then it stopped following me
I never understood how this pain
made a home in my heart
Making me believe, definitively,
that everything I lusted after
was something I never deserved
No matter how much desire
overruled my existence
I couldn't claim that one thing
And I followed it and it followed me
The pain that made a home inside me
kicking up trouble in my impulses
driving me to perform beyond my capacity
to show off like some insecure kid
I never understood why it had such a pull
After a few months
the pain was evicted
But the void remains
sitting there, ready
for the next fantasy
He came down to tell me the truth
Slim and pale and uglier than ocean floor parasite
He looked into my eyes and told me the truth
The way I lived was ridiculous
He looked at me and burst out laughing atleast that is what he stated he was doing
he said my beliefs were completely blind and insane
That I was infact the hideous creature
Who loved the fantasy of things that never were and will never be
I hugged the Alien for being the first to tell me the truth
The thing recoiled in disgust
He floated above me and sung about the times I had become gullible
Given myself to rumour and paranoia
He whistled a chilling shrill to every unkindness I had committed through my lies
And I understood what a mess I was
The alien took off back to his camp in the clouds
As I unsuccessfully regained my sense of self
The rock of the boats
queasy has a stomach for comedy
The banks reinforced against the sea
No knowledge of the storm coming in
The disappearance of the waves underneath
The soup apple tide moves moored boats to ramming
Brackish bliss meets the incoming
The tide a tiger of violence and famine
Apple of my eye arrived no shark to snatch it
Full of panicking tourists being welcomed
Getting eaten alive by hungry mosquitos
Each one the size of your thumb
Then finally destiny arrived a tiny canal ship
Anticipating faces hovered over the front of the boat
Almost sea sick from the boats constant rock and tip
The aggressive budge and jump at the entrance of the river
Eternal love and mary flower held their place
Soon the storm would test their mooring
churning turbulant sky and sea so horny
These come along no brain involved
These just vomit the last earfuck they had
You have your group and of course you all agree
We drive long pasty dough in the oven
That was paid for with our ignorance
We eat and go soft in the head
Just accepting the bent facts
The selective information, its bias and exaggerations
These tell the story like they know the truth inside and out
Not just little speakers of popular sentiment
blasting their speakers with predictable slogans
They are just the victims of their own intellectual suicide coming back to life
Dimwitted and stubborn
spelling out their letters to their brand
wearing their colors wearing out their sanity
Zombie retards to decorate the street with their schmaltzy retarded histrionics
Inside the aeroplane of my life
Formality of airports
My own level of discipline
I always say no
I deny the outside power
These turbines have become robust
Sending me far above the skies
Why am I always flying
I cling to the wall inside the plane
The plane shakes
panels start to loosen
Twelve thousand feet above
Inside my mind
it is an airport
Busy confused and chaotic
Every thought lining up at each gate
There is nowhere to sit
There is only a sense of forward
I deny the clouds outside
At this altitude I get nauseas
His wife skipped ahead across thos rocks that layered the lane
Driven by a fiercesome urge to move ahead as if movement itself would save her
The husband dawdles though and checks through each shop window
They've finally met at the end of the lane and one thing has become absolutely obvious
They've walked down the wrong and can be seen asking for directions from a young woman
The woman tries to explain to them at which point in the village they actually are
Her gestures seem to make the old couple even more shocked
Yes a kind of confusion kicks in but it was not the normal kind, not what is expected
Their faces expressed a guild mixed with bewilderment
As if they were tresspassing in heaven
The man is in the window
his eyes lazerlike down from a the balcony window
The eyes aware survey below including me
over the tree stumps that have become holders for bromeliads
Centennial trees barely dressed in leaves
He stares down from the darkness of the second story
Observing from there
healthy face and curiosity
Jutting out to capture the movement below
It's a dry ditch and im walking through it
Not to be seen by the local retainers
Old neighbors who were sworn in as soldiers
Patrolling the roads and trails
Not too bright though that much was true
I got close enough to the forest edge to enter
They hadn't seen and I was in the undergrowth and clear
Deeper into the forest foraging what I could
Then to building my shelter
I would be forced to become a hermit
To survive between these tyrannical kingdoms
Like a ghost an unrecognizable entity
She is fudge
Longing for the prickly back growth
To hit the skin on both sides
Then sweat breaks out
Brazen friction
The quads and the hips work crazy
Oil pump constant
She is fudge and I am in like...
A paranoid criminal trying to get it done
Before the authorities are alerted
Though I an aspiring sherpa
Slow pace running up the mountain
Goose bumps knitting threads over my spine
Feeling that pressure and the friction
The pleasure of that fudge
Big grey body in two parts
A very ambitious arachnid
Climbing up the bag brace
Toward the shoulder
I put you down on the ancient pavement
Witnessing you carefully
As you jump tiny puddles
To make your way back to my bench
Cheering the flamingo on with those red legs
Approaching me I see you are the ever seasoned predator
With a mouth so tiny it is smaller than the eye of a needle
Three hundred years ago
Under this tropical shade
Thick slabs of stone make the praça
The vase atop the fountain
Collecting deadleaves and bird droppings
Bromelias hang down cooling the hot hands of tropeiros
Oversized brass taps protrude from the huge marble slats
Filling the waterskins and cans of the port's parched and weary
Their temporary stay before the demand for goods drives them inland
Or out into the treacherous sea
Ummmm
Yum yum yaughts and cherubims floating
Buns ravishing chiddy bang bang
Who will camp on in my death win
Sum sun in my hard hand, in my fly wind
She'da told me -wake the issue, detonate a bomb!
Done dumb leaping car, cry wind
Recruit a nought "come will gun"
Not to roam in Charleton
Boom bum bun bar best nourish him
Or trott with him hierarchy train forlorn
Attack it track it attack at it
Rum rum rum rock the carnal
Cutting cut a look at each dumb straw
Calorie numb
Come come caution kosher...
ka ka cutty come melt the slalom
Catch ya whore tar road or nada
Clump cling come for ashing
Come drawing and drooling come Harlem
Come come give your dear humps
Padda madda sat on them, indeed
Highly sat on them
Lump lone numb why done tone "voilã"
wall elite just to warn em
little deus saved me on the city center
Day darkening not yet an opened umbrella
With dwarf eyes still not fully open in the early mists
Of a mysterious Paraty morning
Little deus pointed to unknown stones as big as mountains
Smaller than grains of sand
Garage garage birth and conception
Show the world
Little deus came with her mother pondering
Wandering and discussing last night's church sermon
The truth of it all
The collective never protects
Only little deus who goes ahead and saves
Who came and saved me from certain death and eternal hell
As I skeleton pulling earth flesh half wittedly ambled back to front
Vagabonded clumsily across the aching pavement
Because he likes you father
Father father, daylight likes you
There has been a certain squashing
So that all may fit
A whole family with their defects
The hotel room too small perhaps
Did you hear what the little one said
I laughed out loud around seven o clock in the morning
There was an encouraging fire burning on both temples
Just holding back the headache
The extra beer the night before
Rosy shine to the day
A little rascal son or daughter to kiss and hug
Distracting ourselves as the life watch counts down
Those grains of sand flowing out
Running away forever
The hourglass emptying out for good
Leaving the world in its state
I made my way with the broom
Sweeping both sides of the mansion alleys
The ash and soot accumulating into piles
satisfyingly coming together
Pieces of my skin were blackening and falling to the ground
So with every attempt to sweep I made more mess still
It kept going so I had to skip meals and keep sweeping
The big courtyard hill in the middle
There stood the important servants
Above my house rank
commenting on how poor my work was
I was just a sweeper good for nothing else
The world looked down on me
I saved my bitterness for the broom
And pretended not to see their sarcasm
As it burned my hope to live
All the bad things you have ever said
The frustrations you threw out of yourself
In the form of offensive language
the most hurtful
Came through the screen
Touched the less capable
The special ones
The deficient ones
And you couldn't save their ears
Or the way they processed each insult
Breaking them down digesting each one
Faces slowly turning to disappointment
They were not seen straight away
You were just venting
We can understand
However they were there
Listening on loud speakers
You truest and purest expression of derision
Full of happiness
and food
Empty and anxious
austerity
Smoked and battered
Stoned and hogfished
Straight shooting, squarely a refuser
Discipline and adherence
The hellos were timid
A new family came through
Tripping up chairs
Not able to choose a place to sit
In a room half full of empty tables
The friendly ones are sometimes the worst
Shaming me out of of my timidness
They seem so internally righteous
And I so cheaply proud
The attention hungry ones
A thin man a rounded woman
Now renewed and recovered from childbirth
Clumsily collect their breakfast
The quietest are expressionlist
Miracles of people
observing is a superpower
Keeping their heads held high less they become targets for idle chit chat
Same trees I'd find back inland
Here the leaves are fat and greedy
Back in Tau Tau narrower and more spindley
The wider greedy leaves soak up more sun
They interact with the humidity
Gulping up the breeze
Back in Tau Tau there's more dryness
There the air is lighter
Here it is heavy and damp
The smallest shrubs still aim for the highest canopy
Using the abundance of rotten vegetation
Pockets of steaming heat
For these smaller shrubs
Are at the mercy of huge trees and palms
The only source of sunlight is dappled
and very highly coveted at that.
Milky brown water flows past
Carrying its haul from inland forests
Of debris logs and tonned of mud
Where did all the fish fit
How do they find any space
When the river is swollen with organic muck
And yet there are still fish
A splash and a pattern of ripples
another splash a slight rush of water
through the milk coffee colored surface
Some nimble show off jetting out of the glug
Despite the floating tree litter
The flow is slow and smooth
keen to enter the ocean
She was a wrecking ball of a woman
Her hair almost touching her waist
She had swung some kind of super mallet
Destroying the shelves of the library
The thing even ate through thick reading tables
concrete walls and statues
No sacred piece was spared
The mess was incredible
white concrete dust came flying out of the building's entrance
A cocaine orgasm
No police were there that day
Infact people had left the capital in panic
So she kept smashing it all down
Even the books
Shouting all the while of the cursed patriarchy
screaming until hoarse
Virtually unstoppable
Smashing floor plaques and trophies
Never stopping for one moment to realize
all of the authors were now women
Fabio the wise no longer needed my hope
Nor my help
Nor my insights
For he had bigger problems
The baldness and the company screening
With unfulfilled potential
He got up from the class
A deep low burp he failed to contain
Several others left the classroom with him
Same detriment baldness and company screening
Politics and chemical castration of the soul
But enough in the bonus to buy the latest model
Though when new demands were made they came back
Telling me the good news as their faces shined a few tones paler
Their implants holding together
At the end of the day I could say nothing
And most of my corrections went unnoticed anyway
All were following the training guide
at the table of teachers
The middle pages had fallen out
Or were ripped
I couldn't follow it
I had arrived unprepared
my book was falling apart
A colleague tried to share their book
The images confused me
The looks and voices confounded me further
The sunbaked courtyard heating the brain
I Followed through the ripped pages
Half diagrams and texts
So lost and disoriented
What was a teacher to do
Just hoping no questions were asked
Me on the street cooling off
last night's rain has formed
today's long mirror like puddles
Looking back at me on the way to buy bread
Soon they'll dry up
leaving coffin stains
all the way up the sidewalk.
For last night the streetlamps were gurgling
Drizzle filled them
the scattered spray turned to begger drops
One by one their yellow mouths drank
While the mendigo mariner
leans out of his hangover
What's missing in the true believers today
They have no paraphernalia
No deep rooted symbols to identify with
Not those cheap and fleeting trinket trends from a one dollar store
No look at middle east and their cultural beliefs
The heirlooms the traditional cups and sauces
Elixirs and herbs and spices, tapestries and carpets
The tropical zealots have none of these things
The wannabe libertines cling to cliches
As if they have evelasting meaning
The zealots cling to rapid austerity
Both diseases age them fast
And to replace the old relics
Printed flags and slogans iconic tropes
Seeking to achieve those American ideals
Snow and Santa Claus in December
Yet it's summer in the southern hemisphere
Less interested in the origins of thing
Curiously ask if the european celebrates chrismas
Not knowing the concept was created there
Face in the brick work
two hundred years ago
the man who passed away whose face lay against
The hard granite
In the hush under those big royal poincianas
falling apart and held together by bromeliads epiphites
Old kite string and hanging succlents
Also the matted mess of abadoned nests
The face stares out of those shadows
The Paraty phantom of all things
It's soul a piece of the landscape
forever observing the strange human activity
The day severs dreams from my waking reality
memory unwilling to grant me their secrets
The strange craftiness of their nature
The sweet depth of their journeys
Cut off from the mellow warmth
The colors and emotions that blend into one
The secrets and epiphanies
That noone believes
My heart and brain both long to experience them
But the mundane wall of the expedient has risen and dried
Blocking those secret worlds
Only bowing for the new day's sun
Clapping hands
The wish for new things to step inside of life
The unwillingness to make them happen
Beautiful fantasies leading somewhere incredible apparently
The future you desire
Is found in flat routine
Days that trace the same deep lines
made from the tyre tracks of yesterday
Such big things suddenly happening except not
overwhelming events come up except don't
The oracle is cardboard
The soothsayer a tarot hack
Don't answer the question
Take the worm off the hook
the life line is going deeper
dragged down by the sinker
Carp perches on the rock bottom
Above oily black seabirds get snagged
On old fishing nets
The past such a web
your personal racket
Volume and mafia
Scratching backs
and pro quos
Body bag
Concrete weights
Boat all blood stained
slumber in the deep
Carpe diems
Flock conformity
left feeling like idiot beggers
Hats in hands hoping for quarters
Never coming up for air
Afraid to give away too much
Thinking the secret is safe
Alas its all out in the open
Never answering the questions
And up the sleeve just enough ammunition
So if cornered
you can tommy gun around the magazine
A story re-enacting itself
inside of the head
A bubble of pride
formed from years of pretend
The young man looked offended
He gazed amazed at his interlocutor
Eyes almost watering
Hint of outrage visiting his brow
Surprise and visible transition into mutual unease
Then he states the obvious, articulating his displeasure
He corrects each part of the interaction as if such an act was necessary
Perceived faux pas that don't measure against his cultural conditioning
Through the possible reasons this interaction was wrong in nature
Strategically he gives concessions
Tells the interlocutor to go on with his day
And that he genuinely wishes him well
Which carries no value whatsoever
flooding the situation with another layer of surreality
The imposing farewell is a pair of scissors severing a string
Ive seen the face poking out of them clouds up there yonder
You say there are too many words
But there are not enough to describe that face
It imposes hollow eyes like something tribal
It tells me to question my whole life
friend and rival
It beams out from between thick crusts of abandoned cloud
It begs no pathetic collective it is whole except for a nose that doesn't fit
It promises rain and truth and strife and peace and god and then maybe some death
It promises those deep greys that scream flood flood from the bewitched sky face
It grusses the mountain and lets loose on the lowland
That face all pale and wiggly unapologetic fully fully that deiety
Some nestle in their coziest corners blanketed and deafened
Others seek the beginning of those inevitable thunder like drums
The ones the boom and hug the soul
The ones that emit fortune and wrath simultaneously
uncanny gloom building itself and the face still smirks
My spirit dances up there in the chaos
let me have mine these thoughts quasi furled dream unfolding
Hands go up and down with the deluge the face looms again
The smile and eyes wash the tarmac rearrange these streets
Torrential relentless, dragging what doesnt belong
Robbing its essence, as that thing did the city when the city was dry
The swing attached to the apple tree
The sandpit not too far off
Places so inviting where cheerful children play
The sun declared yellow
Hovers aloofly in autumn
A far off beach north winds cool
Freedom cruises downward through
Eliminating the summer heat for my writing partner
The pen in reach the next line hers
The grass remembers her footsteps
Apples fall where beaks and worms meet
A page left open, a poem for a shortening day
The kind of world busy with children's chatter
Leaves accumulating in patterns on the ground
Like a red carpet to the night deer or racoon
A small bird busy with it's own language
Jenny watches the morning give itself to the afternoon
Arctic winds steal parts of the summer
The rest of it retreats southwards
We are lost
I see the remains of us
You all staring
wanting some sort of instruction now
I say these are the best of us
We are organized by region
we might as well be a religion
we don't seek the truth we believe we know it
But we are lost
Desperation in the eyes of our soldiers
Day is churning dusk
men are dizzied by their apathy
Make a little speech
stirr those last little sparks
Send them off on their last suicide missions
While I retire somewhere out of bomb blast range
And so it was
Later that night after fighting died down
I armed and returned to the spot
Sirens of their ambulances and security forces
I loomed in the shadows and listened to their voices
Then vanished
as if I had never existed
The omen of the flying shadow crossing full moon
During the day we walked to the first park.
Thirst started to get the better of us
Then up to the bigger flat park on the other side of town
The palmiera saias were dying off
Not a reptile insight
What had they done with my brothers?
Wide avenues that narrowed down toward their awkward endings
like wonka corridors
Big restaurants
Large signs no meaning
The elbow of a great river
The carcass of a bull washed up on its margins
Vultures are late
The palms are half eaten
Caterpillars are infesting them
Because lizards dont exist there
Those noble fronds have missing filaments
Even the grafiti seems lopsided
I found myself disoriented in surreal winter heat
Back there lost in Pindo somewhere back in 2024
Round and round burning the air whizzing
Metal and sharp revolving
Through the wood into the wall
Each word into the ear
Buzzing diving it's sinking and biting as it goes
Smoking and entering
Friction and the dust catches
Flames burst
The spin of it radiates immortality from outside
From inside compounded death
The message melts ear wax
it's meaning going deeper
There taking advantage of time
Long hair tells a story
Avoid telling, I walk in weird
You have sought protection
Magnificient chimera you share
I the listener the observer, am strange
You feel like you are selling yourself
Juggling your energetic balls of optimism
Juxtapose of you and your stability
pretending everything is perfect
Sitting before the gauche artist
Who cannot capture your likeness
For there is no sincerity
The world is not a sale
Even as it advertises to yopu
Living is not a recipe
You cannot cook yourself to freedom
You wander behind the white rose doubting
You wander behind the red one flaunting false confidence
I impose on your views and you blush midfantasy
The portrait in spontaneous combustion
Feel that heat reflecting as the rest of the room catches
See me holding the matches
See me, just a bucket of napalm?
She said I may dream of drapes and fictitious creatures
Of curtains that would shut out windows
Invite sleep
Of unicorns that flew far into nightskies lighting them
The color of cream
Cream the pales coffee
The describes the overcast
The tone of my skin come sunless winter
She said I'd dream of drapes
Those and unicorns
headfirst into slumber
The well deep but narrow
Waking in a kind restlessness
Not the state God intended
To start a day
not forecasted
Peel away the under leaves let the rest grow another two weeks.
stab the earth open it up,
it doesnt bleed.
Hark the dream is coming true!
The fire toad is here.
First it seems a malicious apparition.
It sits as still as the surrounding land.
It dreams awake.
Enchanting the weeds.
It slowly imitates the world outside.
Read it's smile as it camouflages.
Yellow flames written into skin.
It protects the crops.
Wards off the outside black magic.
Something conscious the humidity screams.
I till the space between the plants.
Letting the oxygen in.
Something unseen watches.
Who is the world's ugly tyrant
The working class nobody
From living for others
None living for themselves
For many the symbol of the oppressor
Many will echo the ideas of a revolutionary world
variations or copies of enpowering slogans
conjuring the illusions that this is a fair world
Ponder your identity anxiously
Have you curated it invain
Like a piece of merchandise in an online shop
You wait to check those evaluations
A toxic world grows around new false narratives
Nestled in their collectives
pointing their finger with a thousand others
Righteous falseness
Fresh morning breathe in the dew eight degrees
Ash tree waits for the sun to come through
My little legs take me to preschool
I lived for the sweet freshness of the air
trade it anytime for the dust of the classroom
And then I became a stupid teacher
But back to being a toddler
Sensing percieving loving the glistening grass
The dew gives me the impression it rained
Mother corrects me
The other kids are all obsessed with the same thing
Couldn't they just cut my head off?
and replace it with one that thought the same as they did
as these other little motherfuckers
All repeating the same catch phrase
So long as you say it, you are okay
And if you dont say it
The fuckwits bully you
Mornings were quick
I found blocks
Another introvert would come over
I'd slowly brainwash him out of the herd
as we built some bullshit we saw on t.v
Then I built things noone had ever seen
They called it strange and stupid
I was too little to defend myself
Age doesnt cure stupidity
Fuckwits love conformity
"He's started dating again."
"Oh so has she."
"Do you think they make a cute pair?"
"She's looking for someone different."
"Oh so is he."
The same cute lines
The two and half drinks
Predictable compliment
The "I know you from a past life" drivel
Early false promises
The first uncomfortable rift
Glue and unglue
question the shit test
The separation
The same hard words
The same sense of loss
The same game of victimhood
Different angles of blame
The quest for importance
In another's life
Romantic oversweetened slurry
Around and around
The same pick up line
Well timed joke
Buy the first drink
Beautiful inside the picture frame
Even the cynacism
twice as useless, twice as pathetic
The irony inside words
reveals that syrup of puerility
At the bar there on that first date
That first trip
heavenly fantasies and growing expectations
So superb inside that picture frame hanging
The wall holding it up
is a thick carpet of poison mould
back to your regurgitated idealogies
Acidic in your throat but familiar
...familiar
A hail of arrows is your gaze
traditional battlefield razed
Rattling with the sound of armor
deafening heartbeats
Every direction new
none of it dilutes you
Oh the daily grind is infact
The length of your sensation
The jarring impact, use your dice
Street corners give advice
That gets confused with pop lyrics
Inside the background music
The Trebuchet launches others flee
Catch me off guard between road and trees
Something pins me down making me weary
I should be dead but I remain prostrate and merry
Every direction you walk in
Examining the grievances and hopes
Overpouring the nectar just to cope
overbandaging the wounds that have almost healed
The cannon fires and hits me right between the eyes
If you accuse me and I accuse you, we both sigh
Does that mean we care? Or are we just feeling naked?
The past unhealed making us feel bare
Everywhere you go near or far
searching for your true northstar
Lost in the pursuit of a prerogative
That gave your life a sense of meaning
Your blindness is beautiful
Articulate your life goals with finesse
I'll never expose their spuriousness
Never judge even as it comes uncovered
Like a battlefield strewn with all things lost
Each claim you make about this life
Tremendous loyalty to fallacies
Shows me fugazi choreography
The material flaps slowly
Milk in the sky
Orange juice on the pavement
Through the tunnel of my mind
communicating
the cloth moving in the wind
or is it dancing by itself
I'll have to wet a finger
Milk in the sky angel
Save me from the eternity of thought
Bring me inside the curtain you seem to be
Shut it out so that I might hibernate
Orange juice up to your ankles
The residue of a sweet dessert still clinging to your lips
Will you come early that decent relief
Or late stretch out that anticipation
The material catches a gust
bulges out and the flattens
my hands come together
I pray for a storm
Milk in the sky
I can see it in the cloud
Evidence is an empty city
waiting for the deluge
Don't escape it
Invite it and look me in the eye
Are you looking up or down at me
Am I your Paparuda your snake antelope?
Lakeside the crayfish boiled
But something stayed wriggling
tolerated the heat and the spice
Anticipated heaven inside intestines
The bowl served hot
Living with the expectation
That all will be set
The rhyme of life not severed
The moment should have passed but it paused and became stupendous
Bowl of that campylo infested soup
overpowering spice
The smell of it calls the senses
The contamination sets in
The guts have become infested the body trembles and vomits
The mouth fills with warm saliva
As if marinating the tongue
the head invites nausea
the stomach turns
Hill party
The trendiest of a small town
Our special needs make us cool
snacks and cliffs and slopes and slips
The aloofest found the gumption
To hand me a business card
More and more food came to the table
Each food had a rule all served on boards
The aloofest finished the leftovers
So there the board and table was empty
Like magic in one big mouthful
One that filled his cheeks
But left enough room for a caricatured smile
beaming triumphant glee
hours later bathroom drama
Skipping over the piles and piles of discarded refuse
The boy dragon looked down, his eyes scanned over two small white shapes. Roo hoo ha ha
Big boys thin in front of the restaurant
With his four friends
Anxious at the night's expression
Big boys thin
White tshirt hedgehog hair
At the pay desk
Bamboozled by the sense of himself
The group
The bluster
Interaction getting hot
Banter spilling drops
beer overpoured
The four of them spoke
One thinking he was better than the next
Hur hur he he hu ha ha ha
This is how they laughed
Good natured written across their faces
Laboured stances late teens try to maintain
On the cobblestones
struggling to split the bill between them
Some shadow descended from the attic
It had the same presence as an old dying wolf
descending on us the lost children
The remains of last millenia
Clinging to that mother's hand
to that familiar soft toy
Some shadow haunts the stairs
It makes complete sense
the inevitability of it all
A cloud whose blurry thunder plagues youth
somehow unthwarted that shadow comes down
Hungry to know the human dramas
The difference between sibling and parents
Friendships astray the conflict key to estrangement
Sense of unease descending
Something else stirs something opposed
existing to swallow the wretchedness
It serpents inbetween the thin space
Between doors
passing upward to find its way
To the head of the cruel mist descending
Icicle fangs and hollow eyes
It ties itself up in the mist
biting into it absorbing it
Wide stepping it all the way down her own independence
Streaming personal power
Blending in with the humidity
Blue bluing the night not needing effort
Inhaling the thick air dowsed with aromas
A city full of kitchens
Long white pants slowly flapping
By the movement of those elegant steps
Otherwise night stood still a kite's nightmare
Pomp and swank accompanied those steps
That hip mobility put into practice
The motion conjured sexual fantasy
Something so beautiful moving through the membrane of the night
Stirring the still air with that electricity
They put a motor on a predator
It nearly skidded off the roadside
snarling and sparking
Screaming as loud as the screech of the brakes
Leaving a trail of tyre black
Across the smooth surface
It careened forward some yet dug in
Purchased traction
Picking up that aggressive acceleration
Droning on into the night
The echo booting and bouncing
Out of sight
The noise slopping out
buildings and walls
The uproar a motor on a predator
They can pretty much sum you up in a second
and get you wrong in a fraction of that
Theres always more to come
Bullshit from the mouth boring
silly stupid
They fill out the questionaire on your behalf
Forgetting that others did the same to them and how that felt
They seemed to pile on their understanding
getting offended when i find it entertaining
and for the self proclaimed heroes
You are just as deluded as the villans you condemn
Raising tour voice at a screen
A redundant emotional speech proving nothing
Think about the desert wall climber
Dead grass rattler
Dry dawn begger
People out of the cave early to worship the sun
To begin licking their screens for sweet illusions
While the day warmed
The sacred scorpion crackle hiss
cloudless sweltering salty pavement
And people cheered from the shade
holding hands in their respective bias loving groups
Led by formally dressed and spoken clowns
On the extreme left and right
Thick about the line of ants
Calango lizard bands over the top of the wall
They dont hover there because they are cowards
Its because there is twice the amount of food
Near the landfill there is a soccer field
The neighborhood kids assembled
divided into two groups
and started playing
Two minuted after arriving
One of the kids opened his hand
and declared, -its going to rain!
And another ten seconds passed
Then the showers came
but the kids kept playing
Shrieking even more
yelling themsleves hoarse
slipping and sliding
Until the game became just about balance
The baby kind
the unformed mind
All rhythm no thought
All expression
No reflection
Popular entrance
appeal melts most of men's indifference
sparking the kindling crackling curiousity
They look onward
stretch yourself you elegant mammal
The baby kind
Everything is face value
first sight first impression
simple and exquisite
Kiss the air unintentionally
March in and own the light
Those shards of light showing you off
All the way in and out
people try to earn your smile
She spun overbusy in the kitchen and screamed I need parsley
children were bewildered as their mother beleld like an alarm
So out I went on my skateboard toward the supermarket
The streets were straight and flat
I could roll smoothly through without much effort at all
I felt the concrete judder gently under the chunky wheels
Half way there I remembered the parsley I was growing
It a bulky clump, surely I could take some from there.
I started skating back to the garden where the parsley grew
But on my way back the street had changed
None of the footpaths and sidewalks were even
There were obstacles blocking setting cement
There were cracks and pot holes
I'd have to take myself off the skateboard
walking among the messy roadway
From across the street the professional skateboarders skated
They observed me and laughed
Time seem to slip by faster
As if I myself was wading through wet cement
Coming home empty handed
No parsley
not even another similar herb
Perhaps a substitute
No just an adult with a skateboard
Legs covered in bruises and cement
I'd keep rearranging myself, well can you blame me?
Morning in a different order, birds will dance
Banana leaves busy
making a religion from the wind
Universe kept leaving its clothes for me to pick up
I watered the same plants
with a different mind acting up behind my eyes
I thought about this from a new mind that took over from the old one
A person refusing to be ordinary
and a small green insect
eating its way through a lettuce patch
I pulled a weed and found a deeper root beneath
This is the world getting through your experience
Evening I had become reasonable, which was disappointing
The plants had grown so well, fertility showing in all it's little signs
I was looking for evidence so the I could plant more
But the garden never needed proof
It slips down in the water
Dragging light out of everything
Saps your energy
Sucks the marrow from your bones and leaves you crawling
makes one think life has no point
Makes existence look like a rigged game
It was too drunken to sustain
A filthy bargain to sell tomorrow and survive tonight
To kill thirst
To choke the screaming from my own throat
It makes one thirstier than ever
Leaves you parched in a desert of your own design, licking sand
More stupid and sentimental
Blubbering disorientation and broken compasses, mistaking every oasis
So lost, the world is a dizzy place
Horizon snaps sanity slithers, the ground turns traitor, every direction predatory
Do these words give any more grip
Just clawing at the air, strangle meaning empty adjective?
On this place I'm slipping away from
Crumbling reality comes apart as the horizon did
Who I want to be
Fighting to become that flicker of good inside me
What I want to pursue
The thing I hunger, as darkness tries to sell me off cheap
They are crushing questions
Grinding my senses a million easy answers
I wish they could go back to being empty
Silence and hollow space
But feeling is a quality
The insensitive are cursed
My name is Dimmy Ribbons. I'm a mixed breed dog living inside the property of the landfill.
I sit here under a broken piece of garage roof. It’s currently raining. I have my chin on my paw. I’m looking up at the faintest sign of the sun behind the nonstop oncoming cloud.
Suddenly my head goes up, because I heard thunder coming from the distance.
I am in panic, but I decided to keep a level head.
I moved further back under the aluminium roof. Curled up inside some bubble wrap.
I thought to myself the rain will soon be gone and I’ll be able to wander around and maybe hunt a rat.
I saw a blind dwarf, who had been dropped off by one of those state institutions.
I stared and stared at him. He sat shivering in the rain. He sat on an upside down plastic bucket.
It made that cracking sound like it was going to come apart.
But it held together.
I kept an eye on the blind dwarf. His thick forearms looked like two stubby table legs.
What had he done to end up here?
What had I done, had my owner not seen the the light in my eyes? Had I broken too much furniture?
I slid it out of my head.
I thought, I am Dimmy Ribbons! Yes, just a dog!
Not at all! I am a great animal. Am I?
Despite the rain I sprinted out and grabbed the blind dwarf’s thick rolled up jeans from around his ankles. I barked and he reached down and patted me. I guided him through to the highest space between the aluminium and the ground.
Once in he realized it was like a shelter.
The blind dwarf hobbled around until he found a plastic panel to lie down on.
He sighed and started sleeping.
How am I, Dimmy Ribbons the dog, supposed to find enough food for the two of us.
Maybe I could kill a cat.
It started raining harder, I sat down dug into my coat with my naturally sharp teeth, snapping off a tick and taking a few fleas off.
If only I could be a tick sitting on a mountain of flesh. Sapping the blood to keep me sustained and happy everyday. My home would be my meal. What a concept.
The blind dwarf rolled around on the plastic panel to get comfortable, the dropping water was inches away from his face, as if he had put his head closest to the downpour so he could make sense of his surroundings through the sound of the raindrops.
The clouds darkened and the day faded into dusk. I closed my eyes inside my bubble wrap nest, waking myself up with the first snore rattles. Then hurrying back to the important business of sleep.
Deep sleep with dreams that allowed me to see the faces of the kids and parents at the house I used to live at.
Was I a terrible mongrel?
I knew I had a lot of energy. Now I was a host for blind dwarf under a broken aluminium roof at a landfill.
