opium

it had been a long walk

he wasnt tired

he had anticipated it 

                     he slung a rucksack over his shoulder  inside it were four other books so he could change his entertainment between themchange channels as it were  when one storyline or subject began to weary him he entered another book 

as a result his walks were never laborious  

                                             not as long as he could read as he walked

the morning had become afternoon and afternoon was beginning to submit  the light failing the sun setting 

he pulled upstopped walking and stood in one place on the sidewalk beside Main oblivious of the sparse traffic  had there been other pedestrians he would have acknowledged them but they were few and far between

standing fast he finished the astonishing page he was reading  The Soul of an Octopus

if the light held he wouldnt have put it away 

the book was the choicest morsel and he purposefully held off for it to be like dessert after dinner he liked the idea of dessert but since he lived alone he didnt have it afterwards he anticipated hed walk unentertained though yet chewing and tonguing and ruminating upon the realisations the books offered and also on imagined possibilities that occurred to him and churned his mind 

                        recently he began texting them to himself and later able to sort them and elaborate   

he was never truly not entertained

he walked approximately fourteen milesfourteen miles absorbed in history fascism poetry and erotica Nin and Miller knew their stuff piqued his ardor by his figuring hed be home as dark fell a mere mile and a half away

the last bit of his walk now was removed from words and their characters gone he was curious what would arrest his attentionhow would he wander

he closed the book on his finger and looked uplooked at the sky

there was his ridiculous answer

                                       the clouds

an amber whale spirit surged north working its way towards the flashing sun that broke between thunderheads its sudden rays celestial beacons a brilliant lighthouse working against a quiet fog  waves broke on the leviathans flank as surf would break on a sandy atoll a reef exposed at low tide and boiled and sputtered and rinsed away

huge orange birds flew over its back eyeing the sea for hapless fish that fled before it

now walking again he slowly turned his gaze east and saw that the moon had risen it was nearly full  a gleaming white orb a grinning polished skull there for a moment then absorbedswallowed by long entwined coiled gray snakes gray thunderheads that possibly were weeping rain thirtyforty miles away or turning men and women into stone who dared to gaze at Medusa

a soft rain began he thought hed make home before it began  not a terrible game to lose he placed a bookmarker and closed The Soul and slipped it safely among its brethren in the rucksack

the whale submerged the birds dissipated the lighthouse was cloaked yet a dull coppery light persisted

the rain softly beating the trees and earth and structures made them submit  he heard them inhaleheard them exhale then speak over each other a delicious cacophony a sensuous murmuring  and in the air he could smell the perfume fragrance ordours of their breaths

                                            it reminded him of opium

2018,  Sunday,  17  2. 19 

1119,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  20  2. 19 

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/what-led-mccabe-to-order-a-counterintel-investigation-into-trump-1444982851525

Drumpf tweets coup "a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government" illegal and treasonous he shrills in text  

a coup isnt the beginnings of an investigation senior FBI officials commenced per dire suspicions nor is it the 25th Amendment set forth in our Constitution

Oh brother he thought or should he have sighed Oh Big Brother 

1737,  Twosday,  19  2. 19

698 days remaining or fewer

a solitary vulture circled in the sky like a drunk weaving out of a bar at the end of the night whoa  whoa whoaah whoa   Ah shit 

          then somehow other barflies found himhow they found themselves hed never knew  but he never questioned anything that happened naturally  they coalesced like lazybeads of mercury on bathroom tiles from a broken thermometer  their numbers grew  quicklyindeterminately he guessed twentysomething two twentyfive maybe  maybe thirty  thirty drunks having spun off their barstools congregating  hazardously  pointing wingtips accusing each other circling clockwise daring one among them to turn counterclockwise and bring their flurrytheir tall cyclone down out of the sky

abstractly they reminded him of the ManOWars the frigates he searched the South Pacific sky for with glasses to lead the seiner he was aboard to tuna  looking for birds or sodden logs a rope anything afloat that a food chain might gather beneath  old fishermen swore that for every bird in the sky ten tons of tuna were under it  he remembered once when there were more birds than he could count and on two successive sets they brought onboard twohundred an forty twohundred an twenty tons of fish after beginning the voyage with a drought that lasted forty days and ended only after Jamaicans performed an exorcism to free the ship of its former assistant engineers spirit  Joe Spano  who wasnt rehired was left on the beach and died of a massive heart attack not three days after they disembarked

he smiled he never questioned anything that happened naturally  amid the swirling drunken vultures he saw the sober flight of a hawk who must have wondered how it got caught up in their numbers maybe she or he was an interloper a young bird who learned to scavenge rather than the kill and because of its superior reflexes it beat the vultures to the ground and got the choicest morsels before the tribe arrived 

an elegant opportunist

adaptable 

                    the kind of thing he couldnt be  because he didnt value illgotten gains or sought profit with a camaraderie of thieves and villains or those who banded together because separately they couldnt flourish

he didnt think there was ten tons of deadmeat under these birds unless of course they were black feathered harbingers pointing their unsteady wingtips to a future beyond the arc of the horizon                 

1638,  Monday,  11  2. 19

1046,  Twosday,  19  2. 19

Jefferson Starship  Hijack  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H57IyHNq-_8

this is a theatre

                 this is where community  people  come together to share a film

if you didnt want to share a movie you could stay home and catch it on DVD or via some personal online access

catching it opening night to later boast about wasnt something he did or respected

                                                                                       Yeah, I caught it opening night.

So wha fuck you  

he hadnt been in a theatre where he didnt rub elbows with people to either side of him  the thrust thrust parry parry Excuse me Sorry their arms dancing in the dark the shared bemusement embarrassment

these were plush seats recliners frankly buttons embedded in the arms operated how far back you wished to leanhow high to raise your legs on incorporated footstools  he would have to have weighed fourhundred pounds to fill the arms  and still he wouldnt have rubbed elbows with his neighbours unless they also weighed fourhundred pounds

he was alone on a fucking island 

there wasnt anything communal about this theatre this experience

he remembered catching the Exorcist at the Ramova of South Halsted with friends

the floor under their feet was slick reflecting the muted overheard lighting before it went down for the previews still moist from vomit mopped up its smell still emanating

he remembered rounding the corner part of the line they stood in  finally able to eyeball the marque  COMING SOON! EARTHQUAKE  BILLY JACK its face swept by the flashing lights of an ambulance  before they bought their tickets knew they made the cut for that showing the attendants wheeled out an older man who suffered a heart attack 

he remembered when Regans head turned onehundred an eighty degreesspooked he rocked back hard in his seat his arms went out openhanded he slammed his friends to either side of him (he would have jammed anyone who sat to his sides) he dumped Jane on his left into her boyfriends lap she almost went hysterical nuts with fright his sudden violence FUCK! barked at the top of his lungs

sitting in this obese chair he wasnt sure he could even reach the people who sat beside him VICE however wasnt going to frighten him he wasnt going to shove anyone despite their distance it wasnt going to save them from his snake hiss his Fuucker 

            he tried to keep his voice down

unfortunately he remembered American political history more than he might care to admit 

he could suppose when something offends youmakes you feel a victim you dont forget for a long time America had offended him  asif a fat man sitting beside him at a banquet dinner helped themselves to the food on his plate eating it with their greasy fingers their bodyguards seizing him by the arm when he went for his fork to stab him the second time  foregoing the warning Excuse me fatso

at the end of VICE he startled several of the moviegoers with his applause didnt people applaud a good movie any more he appreciated the actors art the films vision the subject though he wished would have died when he suffered his first heart attack

                   the entire world would have been better off    

2335,  Twosday,  29  1. 19

1539,  Sunday,  17  2. 19

Leonard Cohen  Chelsea Hotel #2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhaPHtVUaX4

James Baldwin  People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.

                                                                                                       how prophetic

1558, Monday,  18  2. 19

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/11/19/gwendolyn-brooks-james-baldwin-library-of-congress/

he hadnt cared for the mongrel since first he heard him yip yipyip  immediately he wanted to strap him with a muzzle or roll a rubber ball out into the street FETCH! before a milk truck  and fantasise about the broken bottles of cold white milk spattered with hot red blood and twisting in the gutter among the spoils curdles of pink brain matter 

the mongrel has a name Stephen

                                    he is responsible for Drumpfs Inaugural American carnage the Muslim ban SIT! he sits across from Chris Wallace Sunday and relates that Wall is a matter of national survival however he couldnt refute that none of the prior 59 national emergencies since 1976 tried to get around Congress to grab military construction funds  he stated there are 4000 troops along the Southern border  overtly  obviously  omitting that the troops are there only because Drumpf ordered them to be there or that of those national emergencies only two authorised military construction one during the Gulf War  the second because of September 11

                                                        quickly he tried to sidestep those notable examples to insist that previously we have engaged in military adventures to destroy drug fields in foreign lands in Afghanistan and in Columbia and therefore they are pretexts for Wall to combat the criminal cartels at our border the criminal organisations that are destabilising the Western Hemisphere (and) are fundamentally foreign policy 

destabilising the Western Hemisphere

                                         thats a breathtaking pronouncement

Stephen Miller a policy wonk another wannabe American oligarch

he hated to admit it but for once he agreed with Ann Coulter The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot

evening,  Sunday,  17  2. 19

1319,  Monday,  18  2. 19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmDFg4jJ5c8

paper mache

somebody said ithe overheard it  somewhere    whohe couldnt remember  

it percolated in his ear as if it was whispered too close  it woke him

he stuck his little finger into his ear and wiggled it trying to cease or dislodge the words 

                                                                                             paper mache

paper mache

paper mache

               then they quit they left him  and he laid in his bed restlessly staring up at the reflected coppery light on the ceiling off the rain soaked street  through the window  

he had taken the shade down the blinds he pulled the curtains wide apart  he disliked any obstructions between himself and the outside and if it wasnt for the rainspeckled glass panesdespite the cold he would have slept with the window open too

paper mache 

               it irritated himhe was irritated by its artificiality by the emptiness  hollowness  he knew it enclosed 

he despised it no matter how fantastic or beautifully it was configured

colourful  imaginative  piñatas 

                                   flour paste stripped newspapers over a toy balloon or balloons to devise shapes their formers desired  or elaborate masks rap rap rap nothing there behind it nada nada nada

like a closed elaborately carved door leading into an empty room

yet he kept knocking  listening

knocking  listening 

                           once someone was there

he didnt see them leavehe would have seen them leaveshould have he kept watch

they left like a ghost

they should have said they were leaving

                                           leaving him on his own

had they he wouldnt have waited despite saying he wasnt

they he wasted his time

some time,  Twosday,  13  2. 19

1613,  Saturday,  16  2. 19

Fleetwood Mac  Woman of 1000 Years  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQYHFWGXeDk

I know you

I know you she said

she unnerved him

I know you.

they had met the only place he could have met her at a liquorstore

she was young 

she was with a girlfriend

she was the better looking of the twoseemed the most forthcoming  personable

they were standing at the threshold of an aisle across from a large glass case filled with topshelf tequilas and mescals

he asked earlier if he could help but they declined

Excuse me she said You’re a man.

I am Thanks for noticing they laughed she didnt cover her mouth her girlfriend did  Thats quite a line

still laughing A terrible line.

Awful

Oh, goodness, I didn’t mean . .

. . No you didnt It just came out funny

Very funny. Oh, goodness. he joined their laughter

Okay We got that behind us  Yes

Yes, yes. What I meant . . 

. . Yes

You’re not going to let me off the hook, are you?

No I havent had this much fun meeting anyone in a long time  You were saying

What I meant, I meant I mean, you would know what a man would want.

I would know what I want however men these days trouble me often theyre notfor lack of a better word as mannish as Id expect or want them to be  but thats a whole other kettle of fish Im interrupting  Please

That was a mouthful, not that I disagree. But, what I wanted to ask you is, I’m two weeks into a relationship and I’d like to buy him a small gift; he likes tequila.

Ah Do you know the tequila he likes or drinks

He drinks Patron Silver.

How does he drink it

How? Um, he shoots it.

Thats a shame I got a buddyJim when he and I get together I bring a bottle of silver Patron Hes like your boyfriendBAM its gone I think of Patron as a cocktail liquor tequila to be sipped Jim laughs You sip, that just means more for me.

Yes, he shoots it too. I just don’t have a lot of money to spend, and it’s more expensive than I thought.

It is

I didn’t realize it was this expensive.

Not the way he puts it away

Yes, not the way he puts it away.

Lemme show you something Youre two weeks inyou obviously want to make an impression not that thats hard he smiled he dipped into the watch pocket of his jeans and withdrew a talisman he always carried with him Open your hand she held her hand up and he set it in her palm

What is this? she looked at it A buffalo?

Yes A handcarved buffalo made of bone Before my girlfriend became my girlfriend ten years ago she gave it to me An at the time she didnt know that my totem animal is a buffalo or that I am fascinated by bones their shapes their feel We hadnt known each other long enough to really discuss our likes or dislikes When I told her as muchthanking her I was terribly touched She said I looked I exhibited the attributes she thought a buffalo possessed

It didnt cost a dollar

You couldnt buy it off me for any amount of money

she handed it back to him her eyes were shining her girlfriend sighed

So  money  what a gift costs isnt important

But youd like to buy him some tequila

Yes. I don’t know anything about tequilas.

But a man would

Yes she bursted out laughing againher girlfriend not a step behind

This is too much fun

What I might suggest this is a 375 millilitre reposado the silver is blanco young  reposado is aged sixty days to a threehundredsixtyfour days he pointed to an anejo anejo is aged at least a yearno more than three an there are extra anejos aged three years an more

The silvers are usually for mixing he smiled at her or shooting I suppose But I like to savor my alcohol straight 

This reposado is by Casamigos George Clooney is attached to it although while celebrities tout advertise products Clooney co-owned Casamigos anif youre aware of Clooneys acting directing writing producing he doesnt halfass projects not if his name is on it

Id suggest if youre sold on giving him tequila the 375 is affordable Then you can get a sip of it to educate yourself An maybe you can teach him to savor Rather than gobble Which would be he winked at her to your advantage the girls blushed  The colour befits you both

I know you 
             she had just referred to his buffalo how he carried it everywhere with him That’s so sweet.

If you knew me youd know Im not sweet

I know you she winked

she unnerved him
                   but as he wasnt ticklish he also didnt blush

evening,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  13  2. 19

1152,  Friday,  15  2. 19

he fingered the telephonehe wasnt going to call

he didnt want to contend with the disappointment of her letting his call go to voicemail

which inevitably it would

                           he wasnt going to send her an emale a text message either

the ball was in her court                            

he gave her the ball a long time ago and when she complained of his silence he reminded herhad to remind her -- I don’t remember, you know I have trouble remembering things – he reminded her of the quiet ball he gave her to be selfish because she needed it if she was to mend and heal

to call to communicate would be an affront

so he didnt call didnt emale didnt text

not Good morning

not Im at work have a fine evening

not Im home

              not I love you

if she didnt know

                    telling her wasnt going to make a difference

1331,  Saturday,  16  2. 19

National Emergency

emergency  (citing The New Oxford American Dictionary)  a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action

the FAKE PRESIDENT announced a National Emergency (33:20 minute-mark) . . but I want to do it faster, I could do the wall over a longer period of time, I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster. And I don’t have to do it for the election, I have already done a lot of wall. For the election. 2020. And the only reasons we are up here talking about this is because of the election . .  

                                . . I didn’t need to do this . .                                

an emergency requires immediate action

FAKER is an emergency  but unfortunately he cant be removed immediately he could step down

Climate Change is an emergency
Student Debt is an emergency  
                                    however FAKER will never address those

1152,  Saturday,  16  2. 19

16  2. 19  Rose Garden address  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dQ6USl13AY 
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-undermines-emergency-declaration-as-soon-as-he-makes-it-1443682883506 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZe_EYYZVnQ  https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/student-debt-college-public-service-loan-forgiveness

the small billboard was hidden in a side parking lot off the main street

he supposed you had to know it was there like a peek show a pornshop  for a particular discerning clientele

HOP’S BOUNCE HOUSE

INDOOR Bounce House

OPEN play ALL day

he could suppose children were discerning but what kid really wanted to play inside 

once upon a time when he was a kid that was like pulling teeth

                                                                   Lemme out of this hole!

when he was a kid he knew what he wanted though typically what he wanted was denied

he supposed that formed character thats what he was told

he certainly was a character

but growing up he thought about the other kids from families who were spoiledgot everything they wanted  they talked about sailing skiing in Colorado during Christmas break summer houses they stayed at in Wisconsin or summer camps where they recreated 

recreated

           he wreckcreated at home summers after his paper routes chores cut and edged lawns cut firewood hustled babysitting jobs  people liked the idea of a boy watching their kids playing with them getting them fed and down for the night on time he wished he got paid at home   he was the eldest of six  

then as often as possible he made it down to the river to swim or fish usually swam  fishing took time

his family wasnt from across-the-tracks  but they lived mighty damn near them

on a rare day of nothing to have to do after his early morning routes he followed the train tracks out of town into the farmer fields the pastures tree stands he loved the sound of the leaves shaking in a breeze

usually he hung a couple of books bound by a strap over his shoulder a surplus military belt and canteen slung around his hips a jackknife in his pocketnah actually an illegal switchblade a cop he knew gave to him Ostes

Ostes was his huge guardian angel Christ, kid, beat it home before curfew. You know what time it is. You don’t even try to hide; just walking in the street swinging your dick. It’s a good thing I like you.

Ostes lived next door to one of his two best friend 

                                                    he must have been selectivenah he had more girlfriendswould rather spend time with a girl that a guy  for obvious reasons  if you got bored you always had something to do

he looked at the sign the happy white rabbit wearing a smile and green bib overalls its ears erect their ends rounded and turned down

                   its happiness verging on leering

the voice went off in his head spoke to him

Wouldja cut it out

Me cut it out it said  I’m only saying what you’re thinking.

What Im thinking

It ain’t me doing the thinking.

Fine  What am I thinking

Man, I wish just once I could punch you in the arm, slap your face. You know what you’re thinking.

I do . .

. . See! That wasn’t so hard to admit.

And?

Are you going to say?

Yahsure A bounce house ought to be adult playground  Open a bar girls in swimsuits bouncing up and down up and down live music some evenings Why should kids have all the fun

Adults are just big kids

I dont know why they refuse to accept that asif play is beneath them I mean play  Not golf and other shit Play Go swing on a swingthrow a rubber ball against a wall

Play

Have fun

A bounce house sounds good to me.

Yeah Me too

1437,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  30  1. 19

0926,  Friday, 15  2. 19