Jorge Luis Borges“Your mother was unkind to me,” I thought as we boarded the rollercosaster. It was Independence Day after all. I thought about the ways in which she had always cast dispersions on me and my family – a side of the tracks which she peceived in me, and which she did not desire for her daughter, although we lived blocks apart and on the same side of the tracks. There was an imaginary track in your mothers mind in which cotton and coal and automobile parts moved up and down the seaboard, and on the other side of it – the side that knew nothing of these tracks – lived those people. It was strange that she was my mother’s best friend in high school and that they had not spoken in 30 years. My mother attended your father’s funeral when he was mangled in the mechanical looms at Burlington Industries, and your mother did not acknowledge her. Driving home, mom saw an albino deer cross the road and she was sure that it was the spirit of your father escaping to freedom. I don’t know what happens in these dreams. My upper teeth, gums and teeth, half rotting, become detachable. Easy answer is that I need a trip to the dentist. Hard answer is that I feel that I am losing a part of me. I guess I have felt that for awhile. Like a phantom limb thing for the last 10 years or so. Like I need to become whole with the person that I used to be, and that I was comfortable with. I...
Falls Lake at sundown.Once upon a time, mama saw the giant with big green eyes and asked at the behest of her husband to at least spare the children. It was only later that the true drama happened and I walked into a snails’ nest of heckuvalotuv trouble. Michael and I dug the grave on the occasion of his thirteenth birthday, under the treefort 836 yds. in the woods behind my parent’s house and roughly 416 yds. behind his. Roughly 8 ft. by 4 ft., we spent all late afternoon opening the ground and building the mound beside. I paused on the hour to vomit and Michael would berate me in the best way he knew how, with his limited language, speech impediment and drawl. I did the best I could to understand exactly what he was saying. At times, I even mistook his unkind words for the kindlier variety. It was that afternoon while BMXing down by Falls Lake that we came across her. Fresh out of the water and on the rocks lying there, we hid in the fallen trees for over an hour before ever making an approach. Mom called us at lunch and her voice rang through the valley and down to the lake, but since we were known to tarry outside of earshot regularly she did not worry at our absence that afternoon at the lunch table, Saranwrapped, the sandwiches were put in the frigidaire for our imminent arrival. Cookie, Michael’s mom and my mom’s best friend, had relinquished custody of us boys,for the afternoon to my mother. We swam early and played our...
Why not?Okay, there was a party. A few thousand people in attendance. Much more than should be there for an ordinary party, before one has reached the ripe-ol-age of 70 years or so. I managed to stay around long after my welcome was severely worn. I pasted passionate kisses onto a sheet of 50lb. paper to make my way in the general direction of the protagonists involved – as they have aged at a rate quicker, not to mention being born earlier, than I have found myself. Leaving there tonight I made it around a hook and a crook and an Atlanta police cruiser to the old sweet spot where I used to procure Staropramen, because I liked the name and the label. I would walk twice a day to acquire six nuggets of middle european delight. My neighbors loved me, and the walkers-by loved my inattention to my nicotine deficit. Tonight I happened to be lonely upon departure from the lovely combined b-day party. Lakey had begun off to bed too early as a result of the too much booze. Wendi was awake and cognizant, and lovely, and all that. It was 3 AM and time to head back to the hood, as Sian informed me was the name of where I currently reside and pay rent. I cannot imagine a diffrerent way. So I scuuttlebutted away to points in Oakhurst, on the cusp of Kirkwood, past your dreams, or what any plan could make possible. As a nicotine imperative seems to drive me to my grave, I made my way by the old corner shop, where I...
I hate Paris – arrogant and syphilitic arsehole of Europe. Its pavement cafes and broad shopping streets will one day crumble, the Seine will run dry and Notre Dame will burn. The witty young artists in paint-spattered garrets will all reach for their sleeping pills and whisky at the same pathetic moment, and the chain-smoking fashion models will cough up their lungs, but not before the politician slips on the shit-streaked pavement, breaking his neck. I cannot wait. I hate Paris, but that is where she sleeps tonight. And maybe an unborn...
Coward of the county.You were there when the Red Sea parted… and into my lap came a flood of whole and half-whole salt-water. I gurgled for the first fifteen minutes or so, just waiting for your lovely head to rise from the brine. My fingers do not make such great things as my mind does. I hope it will all go down in the the analogues as a sweet and disturbing chore. Beach winds blow on your back tonight, and if you could not tell, I am not asleep, or asunder… but rather dashing homeless dreams of incredible numbers, less seen, less noticed, only once in a half moon… I walk signigficant juntas by my pillow. I await substantial paradigms. You thought summer was easy. I realized it was hard, and hot, and me and you. I bowed to catholicoprotestant prayers. I made a haven to you and me. You will be back here sooner or later you see. C. Columbus says the star are in aligment. (Wrap around the world once for good measure,,, it all comes back to you,) I make moons out of your left eye. Mascara smudges my pillow. You are so far away. A Pawley’s Island getaway, I felt a heartbeat. A heartsmudge. An inclination before awakening. If I asked you there, would the answer be, ” Pie Glue!” ? Or something of the sort? We have it all, and to us all is figured out. Make it and keep it like a secret. I saw you 78 days before I knew you, and knew that I was in love. Your strained lip, your...
Stand still… and it will all come back to you.In lieu of writing each of you individually I have chosen to post it all here in a way that everything may be told as plainly as possible. My father once was a lineman for the county, in a manner of speaking. He was, at the first clap of thunder, erased from the family for hours, and to your houses to make sure your televisions, dishwashers, back massagers could continue to operate, as soon as possible – after the old oak tree severed the mainline coming into the suburban neighborhood. Since this is an “everything story” I will put it all out there. I realize that it has been eternities since I have caught up, so I will write it all here, word by word. Video is forthcoming. My mother is opening a new business. I have become a changed man. I relish and agonize over my brother’s… unchangeability. What if the world really is flat? Would it make a difference to the crows watching 747 jet planes landing on the runway at RDU? I am sorry to wield such a rusty sword. I pulled it from a stone years ago and submerged it in salt water. Did the same with a Craftsman screwdriver, but could at least take it back to Sears for a renewal. For those of you who knew me during that time, I have moved once again. Ten times in ten years. Two weeks since I moved out of the house where Kathy and I lived for a while – and then me after Kathy left...
Recent Comments