Thank gawd a legit yard sale
not one of those stinking estate
sales by families
who hire knowledgeable leeches
who
evaluate a decedents household
then squeeze its contents for every damn cents they can shake loose
chronically incentivized by their share of the take(smells like robbers)
Keep your grimy hands off it
unless you intend to buy it Cant you
read eidget Fragile
then if you anteed up enough cash you could haul your ass back to the house and claim it
to be honest
he didnt really know who croaked
but in this exact order the Bereaved
the Facilitator the Experts
they could line up and suck his cock
the legit yard sale
spawned by downsizing children
leaving Spring clean-up or I cant believe we bought all this shit
then they rode out from their homes to an established perimeter and stapled them to wooden electrical line posts
or taped to metal street lamps
and on the inspired rare occasions
which snatched his eye right out of his
head
they taped them
to weathered durable plastic sandwich boards or horses they lifted from highway
construction sites from other Counties
their picnic tables bump hips
with their neighbors borrowed picnic tables
they have tubular metal folding
card tables painted particleboard
bookshelves
old blankets and
frayed beach towels scattered on patchy grass or on the dirt at the edge of the
drive just beyond the sprawl of blooming jasmine
tiddlywinks tops yoyos pick-up
sticks marbles Chinese checkers ball and jacks jigsaw puzzles paddleballs
coaster wagons scooters rusty tricycles
ones junk anothers treasure
garments ponchos coats jackets
and sweaters
National Geographics Playboys Boys Life Life magazines books
encyclopedias
motel Gideons Bibles
dictionaries reference and school books
amassed and amazing
and then the inevitable -- he couldnt look away if he tried -- the beat
up cardboard box
2 for a five cents
15
for a twenty-five cents
old
photographs
some sepia chipped and crumbling since prior to the advent of Brownie black
and whites
other black
and whites Instamatic coloreds Polaroids
portraitures most inhabited by
people that nobody at the yard sale knew
not family they insisted(what
kind of a family would turn a profit off of unwanted items)
or even how they
had the pictures
he was ever intrigued by them
they were like the used books bookmarkers inside them slips of paper written on lists
drugstore receipts
they were poems and poetry visually telling suggestive and tantalizing confounding
it was curious how the so very
mundane evoked wonder and mystery
he didnt own a camera
he didnt like pictures taken of
himself
Go on Get in there Hell no
Give it to me Ill take the shot
it was akin to him not liking the sound
of his own voice when it was recorded
That aint me I know its me but I dont sound like that in here to me
and if he had a camera likely hed find that he would take pictures
of inanimate objects buildings landmarks
landscapes forests separate trees flowers cacti lakes and river valleys
human beings didnt attract him
when he recognised the haphazard box
of pictures off to one side they always seemed to be out of the way furtive
away from the quick milling
feet hands and arms labored with bags and purses
he held them for last
he held them for last
giving the rest of the Sale a decent chance
a
patience once over
then
when nearly ready to burst
he sought them
he carried an obscure notion he couldnt
shake particularly in light of all the
Sales hed been to in so many states
and easily doubling up in years the states hed
visited
the notion he couldnt shake disprove
because science wouldnt know either
was an
involuntary twitch in his eye
so
many many of the images he found seemed to be of periods or historical eras
that preceded the technologys availability
too copious to have recorded and be so replete evidencing affairs of people dressed in
costumes that were so exquisitely authentic
masterly eyes turned to detail
and fabrication intricate lace silken hose elaborate bird feathers doeskin worked and beaded tunics and pants bonehandle hatches horsehaired reins moccasins blankets
greaves metalworked Omphalos
shields short swords
their atmospheres not foetid
fetes balls
Inaugurations Church
ceremonies Celebrations
simple backwood gatherings
his unbelievable notion rattled
physics not that physics couldnt be
rattled or shaken like a childs toy
it
was yet that new
its toys were yet being fashioned and fantastically calibrated
it occurred to him that landbound
Atomic and Nuclear blasts shattered atoms
their
debris fallout waft across the planet tainting foodstuffs
and infecting basic raw materials for all sorts of use
perhaps those smashed atoms went
places we have no imagination for Preposterous
and what if the currents were
just so that when they were flung out
and into the past that they didnt see record
people and places and then
return with their shadows that then shaped and sharpened themselves on raw celluloid
supposedly
spoiling spools and rolls
that
business interests sold anyways
and
when they were developed people didnt take their films because obviously the
images werent what they shot
Who are those people Do they look like any of my family
I
attended a Renaissance fete Really
Who gathers at maypoles and dances around them
A disemboweled Roman
gladiator A Centurion
A
painted Indian in deadly pursuit of a buffalo trammeled over a cliff stone knives cutting away flesh
Notions may be terrible things if a person isnt dissuaded
then what
then
they may find themselves stalking a legit yard Sale looking to poke a hole in their balloon
0910, Twosday,
28 4. 15
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