Faulkner was a fisherman

but before he could go fishing he tied on a crokersack apron and tended two young pigs

leaving the farm in the marbly black and purple before dawn he looked back over the wire fence strung with bits of yarn and coloured paper ribbon so not to stupidly run into it if otherwise disposed  he saw them hanging in the yard “their spectral intact tallowcoloured empty carcasses immobilised by the heels in attitudes of frantic running(he knew something about that) as though full tilt at the center of the earth” his alcoholic cousin describing it such   

Faulkner preferred fishing the long ribbon of river before its last deep bend where inland freshwater making the mouth mixed and played with ocean saltwater

he liked the smell in the air there

                            the warming grasses their crystal exhale dappling them tilled fields old woods

ruined leaves mushrooms livestock mudbanks riverstone sand and matter seaweed clots and driftwood

the smell of that which was eternal embracing that which was eternal

                                                          he played a big fish that struck after sunrise
the long shadows of trees on the opposite bank floated on the flatwater etching it like prison bars

slowly he was gaining line on it

though as they fought the fish three times had moved the anchor

the third place held

he figured the anchor bought stone

he knew if he could if he could put the rod and reel down for a moment he wouldnt be able to budge it not tug or pluck its rope free   

the rope came over the bulwark

the bow tilted the down under its tension  

he had tied it off to an iron cleat bolted into a rib

when he realised he had a really big fish on he carefully worked his way to the skiffs stern to counterweight its tilting

the fish seemed recognised Faulkners predicament 

after its SHOCKrealising the steel hook through its jaw it peeled line off his reel running hound dog downstream seeking escape  then rallying coming to its senses it reversed itself and picked to fight him from upstream  and upstream Faulkner had to keep his line up high above the skiff had to take the strain of the fight on his arms and back

as morning struggled forth the sun while at first curious became gloriously intent on the drama

sweating profusely Faulkner wondered who had who on line

the fish remained sounded

it never once jumped to see its tormentor

Faulkner figured his barbed trebled hook was probably sufficient to inform the fish he was an ugly soandso  and steadfast inch-by-inch hollow click-by-click of his reel he gained line on it

the fish kept to the center of the channel deep down where there was a current separate of the river like an uncontained artery overlaid by smaller vessels and capillaries       

it waged its battle sliding side to side like a bull bred in the deep soul and competition of the ring eyeing a matador with one eye cutting across the arena then eyeing him again with the other to determine a rush or strategy or snorting throw caution to the wayside and let chips fall where they may

thats what Faulkner thought

he thought it watched from under the bright undulating surface

because fish could see underwater

it saw the hemp anchorrope angled to one side down into the bottom and the silk fishing line like a long slender bolt of electricity running taut down to its wounded jaw                                 

he thought that because the villagers and locals were getting into his head they talked about him talked about his solitary way talked that he was the best fisherman in those parts because he could think like a fish 

he thought this fish thought as he did 

                               Who was the puppet  the puppeteer

their thinking must have been in sync or aligned forSUDDENLY the line went slack its dorsal slit the water revealing a brilliant blue hardscaled back the river water before it bulging at its onslaught its bullrush towards the skiff

he couldnt reel in line it laid behind the fishs agile quick tail like white seams or webs of fractured glass

the water relented the fish pushed and stretched it like plastic side to side

the fish slammed into the boat a tremendous concussion pitchinghim forward onto his face  only his arm raised up extended overhead initially to signal the fish Halt (whatwashethinking) got hung up on the bulwark and kept him from going overboard

the shudder was accompanied by a great gout of red water that shot up and was aerated pink 

blood and river water showered the boat

                                 and in the pause it took him to catch his breath gulping like a beached fish there wasSUDDENLY another tremendous blow under the skiff lifting it out of the water breaking his nose against its sparse planked deck  it bled freely his blood mixing with the river water and fish blood and in the next moment through his tearing eyes he saw a white bluster a wind coming onto him a god blowing its hawkish nose into a fine silk handkerchief(no god needed monograms to sort His from others) the singular wind streaked his tears and blood across his sunburned face into his hairline and ears livered his throat and neck  then under a pronounced shiver and quake a great spout a whaleblow erupted port side and inside the waterspout the huge fish rose its body shapely rising up and up and up its belly marbled yellow ochre and red like flame it flung layedout its pectoral fins and still ascending it appeared a stylised crucifixion against the sky  then its body transformed at the apex of its leap and altitude and it turned slightly and looked sidelong down into his broken piteous face  each was transformed indecently glacier faces in ruin collapsing and the crucified fish became a cubistformed woman looking down at him and he saw she could be his figurehead impossible to carve arrest or affix to his skiff and looking again he saw her face looming above him and in the water under him he saw her looking up and frantically he pushed hard off from the bulwark to escape her

he didnt want to be crushed and die between her falling and rising bodies

the anchor line snapped sounding like a gunshot

with the mooring broken the sun became disinterested and went off looking elsewhere for fun 

the skiff turned lazily downstream like in a dream

leaning overboard resting on his chest he cupped water up in both hands and gently held them to his face chilling and teasing out the swelling washing away his blood and tears 

he tried very hard to keep his eyes shut as he tended himself

fries rose in the shallow from among watercress to bite at his bloodclots

he tried very hard to avoid the sunlight shimmering in the water  it trying to seduce him with looks of the sky and clouds and birds or insects their reflections shuffling scintillating prisms fiery sunrays bits of broken hemp looselooped white Japanese silk her pierced jaw hued throat violet flanks crossing up inside his weakened consciousness twisting memories of Medusa  Why he wondered   dully       Why     

                                                   was it only his loins that seemed to harden

1639,  Saturday,  7  5. 16

1244,  Thursday,  12  5. 16

the only thing that threw him off this morning suggested that last nights rumbuzz still affected him was that he fumbled the little stinking rubber ball they had him manipulate while he was on apheresis(platelet donation: He was a Fucking Hero)  --  one time  --  he put it on the ground  --  though he made startled eye contact with one of managements staff and she quickly(attractively) scurried around her desk came out through her office doorway fell on it recovering it and returned it into his hand

they tried not to make too much of it

her valiant effort on his behalf provided him face  stoked his reserve of humility

he was on the machine for eightythree minutes

he was trying to trim it to sixty

an interior competition

his rumbuzz had him in a fascinating mindset  it evoked youthful Miami mornings coloured sunrises blushed sand beaches(not sorry to say sand bitches) rushing headlong into the Atlantic surf to help curb whatever high he was negotiating

he was baptised and anointed in its light in the new day in the promise of the coming evening

he lived for nights in those days for their coy shadowed lust blatant apostasy and sensual riot

out of his rumbuzz out his arm his blood flowed

                                      suddenly he found himself recalling The Abominable Dr Phibes

Phibes Rises Again Vincent Price the price Michael Jackson payed  though no Phibes Resurrectus Brides of Phibes

or his Seven Fates followed despite studios then buying lock stock and barrel into monotonous sequels Stallone Rocky Eastwood Dirty Harry which they and their ilk churned out madly like fresh butter hands fast and wrapped about the plunger it tossed into the air like a baseball bat for choosing up sides at a pickup game

Jesushe choked 
he rocked back on his heels tightened his ass cheeks  

he began to think better about not being a judgy sonofabitch

                                                wasnt he doing the same in the ruminduced bloodtapped lalaland behind his eyes

he closed them
             he didnt want the attendants or nurses or anyone else to haphazardly peer in and catch the flickering show  --  inverted  --  projected on the back of his corneas 

he was keen to that trick he learned it one-night-only watching a selection of eight millimetre blue flicks projected on the front windows pull blind of his neighbors house by their idiot boys

he knew they were stupid

he went to school with them

though he didnt understand the depth of their stupidity until then

or their selfishness

had they included him there would never have been the fiasco the lawn chairs setup on their front lawn the bowls of popcorn the quiet chatter others standing on the parkway with their dogs on leash Police squads later angled on the street to block traffic protect the commonweal and lavishly setting up the weasels inside for when their parents returned

fucking lugs

but at the very least they had an original idea

there wasnt a sequel to it

it would have been worth the reams of celluloid to capture(it obviously still spun on his brain reels and coils) but to-days media is muzzled by risk-aversion overseers whose profit-margins are salted away with jingoism yellow-journalism bromides and slick turds uncovered in the aforementioned

this tethered reverie

                 he really dug it

but he dug anything that was unexpected

wafting in and out back and forth he rode pinfeathers of consciousness and then suddenly derived  peeking out from his mud  an obscene sense that tickled his funnybone made him laugh in hiccups 
                                                                 perhaps this donation would also share with whomever was in the unfortunate or dire circumstance to receive it that they would realise these odd snatches he was experiencing as they were surely etched into the facets of his playtelets Faulkner chiding “ all man had was time, all that stood before between him and the death he feared and abhorred was time yet he spent half of it inventing ways of getting the other half past” his “agony of naked inanesthetisable nerve-ends which for lack of a better word (was) called being alive” or Kazins Kazins  why Kazin  his commiseration the high price paid for “the permanent crisis that is the truth of our times, the truth that cannot be fitted in, the jagged edges that would detract from the simple straight frame and the smooth design”

he either hallucinated or they welled-up from some deep subterranean fissure or store or frittered by the wind they punctuated the aether like broken ash

rumbuzzed

          hed have to do this again                    

                   

1320,  Friday,  6  5. 16

 1349, Saturday,  7  5. 16

Seal of Good Practise  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyrdRo8CQ3w

Painkiller – Buried Secrets --  Guts of a Virgin  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d075v_dl6lc

how the hell does that even work he marveled

so freakin consistent

                  so consistent in fact that he might be cajoled convinced she salted his Jockeys

he urinated into the commode beside a rimed window crackled glass affording privacy in the bathroom that no one could see into unless it was neighbors on a distant ridge using powerful binoculars and inexorable patience

his next door neighbors lived on the downside of the hill his place was on and above everyone else

theyd need a periscope

he had no modesty

too many years an athlete too many nude showers as a boy to enter a public pool(which he relished because his familys home only had a clawfoot bathtub to bathe and cleanse in)

though he was grateful it was there for his girlfriend her modesty and that her naked body was a gift she shared and gave to him and was one of the few things he was possessive of

but beside the window in the pale light extruding into the bathroom he felt first its languid wrap and tug

peering down he saw it

a thin lasso around his cock

he ceased his stream and pulled at it felt it under his scrotum then it slowly unwound growing longer and longer

they washed their clothes separately

she had dainty things that he didnt want to know how to launder and admitted long ago those were hers to ruin because surely he would

washed  he didnt mind separating out what needed to be hung to dry and what could go into the dryer

Youd think he thought her haird cling to her clothes or tumble free and be captured in the lint trap while drying

yet somehow they spurned her clothing and manifested themselves in his Jockeys and t-shirts  the creepy feeling at his neck down his back and stripping off his t-shirts hed find lengths of her hair woven in and out of its cotton weave and gently pull it free

but more often than not her hair gathered and made itself a nest in his Jockeys . . .

he entertained that perhaps this was a latent statement of her possession of his body as he possessed hers

it was strange

always abiding

              always ticklishly dumbfounding

 

1519,  Thursday,  5 5. 16