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Mike Bergeron Sep 2012
There was a house fire on my street last night …well… not exactly my street, but on a little, sketchy, dead-end strip of asphalt, sidewalks, weeds, and garbage that juts into my block two houses down. It was on that street. Rosewood Court, population: 12, adjusted population: 11, characterized by anonymity and boarded windows, peppered with the swift movements of fat street rats. I’ve never been that close to a real, high-energy, make-sure-to-spray-down-your-roof-with-a-hose-so-it-doesn’t-catch­ fire before. It was the least of my expectations for the evening, though I didn’t expect a crate of Peruvian bananas to fall off a cargo plane either, punching through the ceiling, littering the parking lot with damaged fruit and shingles, tearing paintings and shelves and studs from the third floor walls, and crashing into our kitchen, shattering dishes and cabinets and appliances. Since that never happened, and since neither the former nor the latter situation even crossed my mind, I’ll stick with “least of my expectations,” and bundle up with it inside that inadequate phrase whatever else may have happened that I wouldn’t have expected.



I had been reading in my living room, absently petting the long calico fur of my roommate’s cat Dory. She’s in heat, and does her best to make sure everyone knows it, parading around, *** in the air, an opera of low trilling and loud meows and deep purring. As a consequence of a steady tide of feline hormones, she’s been excessively good humored, showering me with affection, instead of her usual indifference, punctuated by occasional, self-serving shin rubs when she’s hungry. I saw the lights before I heard the trucks or the shouts of firemen or the panicked wail of sirens, spitting their warning into the night in A or A minor, but probably neither, I’m no musician. Besides, Congratulations was playing loud, flowing through the speakers in the corners of the room, connected to the record player via the receiver with the broken volume control, travelling as excited electrons down stretches of wire that are, realistically, too short, and always pull out. The song was filling the space between the speakers and the space between my ears with musings on Brian Eno, so the auditory signal that should have informed me of the trouble that was afoot was blocked out. I saw the lights, the alternating reds and whites that filled my living room, drawing shifting patterns on my walls, ceiling, floor, furniture, and shelves of books, dragging me towards the door leading outside, through the cluttered bike room, past the sleeping, black lump of oblivious fur that is usually my boisterous male kitten, and out into the bedlam I  had previously been ignorant to. I could see the smoke, it was white then gray then white, all the while lending an acrid taste to the air, but I couldn’t see where it was issuing from. The wind was blowing the smoke toward my apartment, away from Empire Mills. I tried to count the firetrucks, but there were so many. I counted six on Wilmarth Ave, one of which was the awkward-looking, heavy-duty special hazards truck. In my part of the city, the post-industrial third-wave ***** river valley, you never know if the grease fire that started with homefries in a frying pan in an old woman’s kitchen will escalate into a full-blown mill fire, the century-old wood floors so saturated with oil and kerosene and ****** and manufacturing chemicals and ghosts and god knows what other flammable **** that it lights up like a fifth of July leftover sparkler, burning and melting the hand of the community that fed it for so many decades, leaving scars that are displayed on the local news for a week and are forgotten in a few years’ time.



The night was windy, and the day had been dry, so precautions were abundant, and I counted two more trucks on Fones Ave. One had the biggest ladder I’ve ever seen. It was parked on the corner of Fones and Wilmarth, directly across from the entrance into the forgotten dead-end where the forgotten house was burning, and the ladder was lifting into the air. By now my two roommates had come outside too, to stand on our rickety, wooden staircase, and Jeff said he could see flames in the windows of one of the three abandoned houses on Rosewood, through the third floor holes where windows once were, where boards of plywood were deemed unnecessary.



“Ay! Daddy!”



My neighbor John called up to us. He serves as the eyes and ears and certainly the mouth of our block, always in everyone’s business, without being too intrusive, always aware of what’s going down and who’s involved. He proceeded to tell us the lowdown on the blaze as far as he knew it, that there were two more firetrucks and an ambulance down Rosewood, that the front and back doors to the house were blocked by something from inside, that those somethings were very heavy, that someone was screaming inside, that the fire was growing.



Val had gone inside to get his jacket, because despite the floodlights from the trucks imitating sunlight, the wind and the low temperature and the thought of a person burning alive made the night chilly. Val thought we should go around the block, to see if we could get a better view, to satisfy our congenital need to witness disaster, to see the passenger car flip over the Jersey barrier, to watch the videos of Jihadist beheadings, to stand in line to look at painted corpses in velvet, underlit parlors, and sit in silence while their family members cry. We walked down the stairs, into full floodlight, and there were first responders and police and fully equipped firefighters moving in all directions. We watched two firemen attempting to open an old, rusty fire hydrant, and it could’ve been inexperience, the stress of the situation, the condition of the hydrant, or just poor luck, but rather than opening as it was supposed to the hydrant burst open, sending the cap flying into the side of a firetruck, the water crashing into the younger of the two men’s face and torso, knocking him back on his ***. While he coughed out surprised air and water and a flood of expletives, his partner got the situation under control and got the hose attached. We turned and walked away from the fire, and as we approached the turn we’d take to cut through the rundown parking lot that would bring us to the other side of the block, two firemen hurried past, one leading the other, carrying between them a stretcher full of machines for monitoring and a shitload of wires and tubing. It was the stiff board-like kind, with handles on each end, the kind of stretcher you might expect to see circus clowns carry out, when it’s time to save their fallen, pie-faced cohort. I wondered why they were using this archaic form of patient transportation, and not one of the padded, electrical ones on wheels. We pushed past the crowd that had begun forming, walked past the Laundromat, the 7Eleven, the carwash, and took a left onto the street on the other side of the parking lot, parallel to Wilmarth. There were several older men standing on the sidewalk, facing the fire, hands either in pockets or bringing a cigarette to and from a frowning mouth. They were standing in the ideal place to witness the action, with an unobstructed view of the top two floors of the burning house, its upper windows glowing orange with internal light and vomiting putrid smoke.  We could taste the burning wires, the rugs, the insulation, the asbestos, the black mold, the trash, and the smell was so strong I had to cover my mouth with my shirt, though it provided little relief. We said hello, they grunted the same, and we all stood, watching, thinking about what we were seeing, not wanting to see what we were thinking.

Two firefighters were on the roof by this point, they were yelling to each other and to the others on the ground, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying because of the sirens from all the emergency vehicles that were arriving.  It seemed to me they sent every firetruck in the city, as well as more than a dozen police cars and a slew of ambulances, all of them arriving from every direction. I guess they expected the fire to get really out of hand, but we could already see the orange glow withdrawing into the dark of the house, steam and smoke rippling out of the stretched, wooden mouths of the rotted window frames. In a gruff, habitual smoker’s voice, we heard

                                      “Chopper called the fire depahtment

We was over at the vet’s home

                He says he saw flames in the windas

                                                                                                                                                We all thought he was shittin’ us

We couldn’t see nothin’.”

A man between fifty-five to sixty-five years old was speaking, no hair on his shiny, tanned head, old tattoos etched in bluish gray on his hands, arms, and neck, menthol smoke rising from between timeworn fingers. He brought the cigarette to his lips, drew a hearty chest full of smoke, and as he let it out he repeated

                                                “Yea, chopper called em’

Says he saw flames.”

The men on the roof were just silhouettes, backlit by the dazzling brightness of the lights on the other side.  The figure to the left of the roof pulled something large up into view, and we knew instantly by the cord pull and the sound that it was a chainsaw. He began cutting directly into the roof. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, wondered if he was scared of falling into the fire, assumed he probably was, but had at least done this before, tried to figure out if he was doing it to gain entry or release pressure or whatever. The man to the right was hacking away at the roof with an axe. It was surreal to watch, to see two men transformed from public servants into fingers of destruction, the pinkie and ring finger fighting the powerful thumb of the controlled chemical reaction eating the air below them, to watch the dark figures shrouded in ethereal light and smoke and sawdust and what must’ve been unbearable heat from below, to be viewing everything with my own home, my belongings, still visible, to know it could easily have gone up in flames as well.

I should’ve brought my jacket. I remember complaining about it, about how the wind was passing through my skin like a window screen, chilling my blood, in sharp contrast to the heat that was morphing and rippling the air above the house as it disappeared as smoke and gas up into the atmosphere from the inside out.

Ten minutes later, or maybe five, or maybe one, the men on the roof were still working diligently cutting and chopping, but we could no longer see any signs of flames, and there were figures moving around in the house, visible in the windows of the upper floors, despite the smoke. Figuring the action must be reaching its end, we decided to walk back to our apartment. We saw Ken’s brown pickup truck parked next to the Laundromat, unable to reach our parking lot due to all the emergency vehicles and people clogging our street. We came around the corner and saw the other two members of the Infamous Summers standing next to our building with the rest of the crowd that had gathered. Dosin told us the fire was out, and that they had pulled someone from inside the gutted house, but no ambulance had left yet, and his normally smiling face was flat and somber, and the beaten guitar case slung over his shoulder, and his messed up hair, and the red in his cheeks from the cold air, and the way he was moving rocks around with the toe of his shoe made him look like a lost child, chasing a dream far from home but finding a nightmare in its place, instead of the professional who never loses his cool or his direction.

The crowd all began talking at once, so I turned around, towards the dead end and the group of firefighters and EMTs that were emerging. Their faces were stoic, not a single expression on all but one of those faces, a young EMT, probably a Basic, or a Cardiac, or neither, but no older than twenty, who was silently weeping, the tears cutting tracks through the soot on his cheeks, his eyes empty of emotion, his lips drawn tight and still. Four of them were each holding a corner of the maroon stretcher that took two to carry when I first saw it, full of equipment. They did not rush, they did not appear to be tending to a person barely holding onto life, they were just carrying the weight. As they got close gasps and cries of horror or disgust or both issued from the crowd, some turned away, some expressions didn’t change, some eyes closed and others stayed fixed on what they came to see. One woman vomited, right there on the sidewalk, splashing the shoes of those near her with the partially digested remains of her EBT dinner. I felt my own stomach start to turn, but I didn’t look away. I couldn’t.

                                                                                It was like I was seven again,

                                in the alleyway running along the side of the junior high school I lived near and would eventually attend,

looking in silent horror at what three eighth graders from my neighborhood were doing.

It was about eight in the evening of a rainy,

late summer day,

and I was walking home with my older brother,

cutting through the alley like we always did.

The three older boys were standing over a small dog,

a terrier of some sort.

They had duct taped its mouth shut and its legs together,

but we could still hear its terrified whines through its clenched teeth.

One of the boys had cut off the dog’s tail.

He had it in one hand,

and was still holding the pocket knife in the other.

None of them were smiling,

or talking,

nor did they take notice of Andrew and I.

There was a garden bag standing up next to them that looked pretty full,

and there was a small pile of leaves on the ground next to it.

In slow motion I watched,

horrified,

as one of the boys,

Brian Jones-Hartlett,

picked up the shaking animal,

put it in the bag,

covered it with the leaves from the ground,

and with wide,

shining eyes,

set the bag

on fire

with a long-necked

candle

lighter.

It was too much for me then. I couldn’t control my nausea. I threw up and sat down while my head swam.

I couldn’t understand. I forgot my brother and the fact that he was older, that he should stop this,

Stop them,

There’s a dog in there,

You’re older, I’m sick,

Why can’t I stop them?

It was like
The Good Pussy Nov 2014
.
                            A hard-on
                        doesn't  count
                      as personal  gro
                     wth.If  you  want
            ­         to  hear  the  pitte
                       r - patter of littl
                       e feet,  I'll put s
                       hoes on my cat.
                       This isn't an off
                       ice , it's hell wit
                       h florescent lig
                       hting.How do I
                       set a lazer prin
                       ter to stun? I m
                       ajored in Libera
                       l arts. Will that
                       be for here or t
                       o go? Too many
                       freaks, not eno
                       ugh circuses.  I
                       have a comput
                       er, a ******* a
                       nd pizza delive
                       ry .Why should
                       I leave the hou
      se? Stress is wh   en you wake up scr
eaming and you re    alize you  haven't  fal
*** asleep yet. I like  dogs  too .  Let's  exch
  ange recipes.  And   yo u r      c r y b a b y        
    whiny- assed   o      pinion      is?      Al 
      low me to intro       duce my selves.
#****
Eid reven nac taht eno... Latrommi ma I
Thgil eht gniruoved... Ssenkrad eht ma I
Edisni lived eht, sraef ruoy... Eramthgin ruoy ma I
Thgin yreve peels ot og uoy nehw, luos ruoy gnilaetS

Mrah yna morf uoy stcetorp taht eno... Ruoivas eht ma I
Nus lanrete eht ekil gninrub... Tghil eht ma I
Dnal esimorp eht ot egdirb a... Ediug ruoy ma I
Dnah efas ni er'uoy erus gnikam, Peels ouy sa ouy gnidrauG

Erif lanrefni eht em ni eveileb... Lived eht ma I
Erised uoy lla gnitnarg ni em etivni, eman ym maercS
Thgif ew lived eht rof htaif yb deneprahs thgil fo drows a...Legna na ma I
Thgink gninihs a, rotcetorp ruoy em otnu llac ythgimla eht fo rewop eht htiW

One may contemplate, doubting their faith,
For some reason with a little suffering they started to hate;
Easily clouded their minds with deception and lies!
That's what devils do before plotting your demise...

One may keep holding on, no matter what is thrown;
For they believe in the almighty, and the coming salvation;
A walk through hell, a test of their own will and faith
For never a moment the devil tried blinding their sight

We are our own angels and devils
With free will we live a life with choices
A path through darkness where the devil lies
A stairway to heaven where the almighty shines

You need a mirror to talk to your self
Ask something that you will not regret
What kind of person soon you'll become
A soldier of God or an army of satan...
Allison Nov 2017
Unmoved by your arrival from the west coast,
ten thousand little things are different.

It’s October and the trees are on fire:
a forge that you won't notice, 'til you're gold.

Your Kicks don’t leave footprints on these cobbled streets;
even the children have old, leathery hands.

Try to paddle-board the Eno and the bass go belly-up:
that river’s for scattering ashes and making moonshine.

All they sell at Aldi is ethnic shampoo,
so now your hair twists like the roots you’ve lacked

'til now, because all you’ll ever need is two hands:
for prayer, and work.

Life moves on like a cigarette’s drag,
while somewhere Hope’s fiddle strums;

Take off your headphones and
go put your ear to an oak.
Carlo C Gomez Jul 2022
He kinetically arrived
with 1973.

Night is the longest day,
here come the warm jets,
served on a cold plate.

Play it back at half-speed
and you've got auditory wallpaper,

it must be as ignorable
as it is interesting.

His own world spins within a device:
cacophony of sound
mixed in a blender
and xeroxed;
a little snake guitar,
a little Leslie piano

— music to resign you
to the possibility of death.

Then came 1983
and beyond just him.

Tamper tantrum hotline,
amplifiers on the balcony,
secretly taping Edge
and Adam Clayton
on a 4th of July.

The numbered streets
and desert rain
add soul to this heartland,
it's the gospel truth
he wiped the deck clean.
(sort of and maybe).

His device spins within its own world:
manageable hums,
danceable drones,
welded into night;
daytime variations
held together
no better (and no worse)
than a cloud.

Then there's sfumato:
music without lines or borders,
in the manner of smoke
— theatrical fog
— a different kind of blue.

Densely layered,
so impossible to track,
this being lost in
the magnetic hush
of airports and
  other strange kiosks,
it all falls into a creative lull.

Guess it's time for
Oblique Strategies...
JB Mar 2015
I plunge into the cold water on that warm July day
no goggles, only the loose-fitting swimming trunks
I swim through the blur of chlorine
pushing through the water
when a familiar tune I heard hours earlier traps itself in my brain
and I suddenly become weightless, a plane high above in the air

The water is pure blue sky, below me the clouds
And at the bottom the city in ruins
I take my plane and dive down below the clouds
past the blur, until the city is in view just below me

I level the bomber and let it soar low above the ground
Over the pale white shells of buildings
I remember the museum exhibit that inspires this flight

I walk through, studying the pictures and the uniforms and the weapons on display
when in the distance of the room beyond I hear the familiar tune:
Brian Eno's "Ascent (An Ending)". It brings me closer, and I move past the exhibits
at a quickening pace, past the slow browsers
glancing only briefly to read, to catch a glimpse of an object, a photo, a map

I keep going, "Ascent" on a loop, its minimalist beauty entrancing me
until I find a large television in a small corner.
A few people are gathered around, solemn,
the television entrancing them, the music washing over the room.

First the white words centered against the black screen: "The Bomb".
The come the white-and-black photos and footage of the mushroom clouds hovering above Hiroshima, then Nagasaki,
standing tall like ungainly trees in an empty field.

The soundtrack to the short video before me is "Ascent",
or rather an excerpt, a piece of it, stirring strange emotions
Familiar ones that I give attribution to when I listen to it on my own.
Yet it feels different coming from this;
on the screen a few photographs of corpses and burnt victims flash by.
And then the screen fades to black, a moment of silence
before it all starts again

I hear this loop and see these images before me as I fly above
the imagined city in ruins
And for a brief moment I am the Enola Gay;
I will only know it at the bottom of a hotel pool
I was inspired to write the rough draft of this in the afternoon after I took a swim. Earlier in the day, my father and I went to the National WWII museum in New Orleans, and I came across the exhibit that I first saw as a child and which had the most profound effect on me.
Prabhu Iyer Dec 2012
Above clouds that hide the earth
from the stars: slowly the receding city
breaking up into plots, dotted around
patches of green and winding rivulets:
that distant fire slicing through mists
this winter morning like a lamp lighted
to the skies; Thoughts emerging from
receding memories, reversed numbers
of the tailgating truck's plate on my mirror
that misty morning, receding skyline
riding into the frost in many shades
of grey cast on the car speeding past;

Giant eye of the fair: the same phantasm
emerging, enlarging, dimming, receding;
Hall of dreams in a castle of darkness:
waves of events playing out again and
in smoke and shadows amid resounding
chambers, a costume and a drama, a role
you reprise again, dreamed of your past,
approaching and receding, breaking
everything, my heart; that wanton night;

The fair is up, one broken slipper of a pair,
half-buried cup, corks, shimmering
trinkets, withered roses, pecking birds,
circling again and again; that distant fire
dimmed into the clouds, all now smoken
moss-pale around; We take off now.
Welcome to your flight to never-land
this morning, we serve you breakfast
and hot tea. Inverted numbers playing
in my head, some approaching deadline.
Net, 10 I tell myself, enin, thgie...eno..eno..
A bit of the surreal....!
R J Apr 2013
Am I everything I said I couldn't be,
To see is to see is to be,
Apparently,

In the circle of life, this cycle
A recycle of bicycle tries and left behinds

i stayed behind?

Why should I mind the carnal bind between sin and mankind?
From birth to death
Defect
Affected the infected

US

us?

US
FROM THE LUST TO THE MUSTS
THE MUTTS WE'RE ABOVE SUCH SAID 'EQUALITY OF'
THE RUST THAT REPLACED US,
DEFACED AND ERASED US

THEY CAN'T TAKE US

they can't take us?
did you forget what this about?

your doubt and your bout with your 'is this all I can think about'

*and you call yourself a devout...
Chris Weallans May 2015
Forgetting the glances,
the long dark drift
of glistening dewy webs
spread in the misty dawn

Sound as thin as air
Soft, like filmy frost
that rimes the windows
on icy mornings

A tune as quiet as breathing
labyrinths of colour
without landfall
or metaphor

Letting go
to idle and float
From the surf sea sands
Into the fathomless ocean

No strut or clasp
but in its place,
the soul can rise
in all the washing wonder of the world
Bowie
left town
blasting off
from a
Lafayette
rooftop
his ***
spewing
a rainbow arc
liberally
sprinkling
Gluten-free  
golden glitter
onto chichi
Houston Street
bistros
liberating a
fawning glitterati
eager to prance
about a
shanghaied
High Line

for a
NY second
the best dressed
homeless dude
in NoHo
spotted a
Pale Duke
apparition
fluttering over
a posse of
faux
figurine
graffiti
splashed across a
Banksyless wall
tagging the
sunny side
of the finest
neighborhood
car wash

a ghostly
Lou Reed
dressed to the nines
in sleek
Transformer drag
watched
chuckling,
scratching his *****
humming
the final bars of
an Eno
inspired
Perfect Day,
marking odds
when a
long overdue
Iggy Pop
will crash the
Pearly Gate
mosh pits

Ubering
through
the choppy seas
of urban sludge,
lightning bolts
streak down
the sullen faces
of cash strapped
honey dippin
lust for life
hipsters,
luxuriating in
a well nursed
millennial
angst
stew

Fun City's
frenzied
bare footin
Little Monster
darlings
imprisoned
in soulless
high-rises,
still a
quarter shy
from annual
bonus time,
pace
white
stained
minimalist
spaces
indulging
notions
driven
by economic
compulsion
to dial up
flush with cash
fund managers
to seek
margin loans
on their
large positions
in alpha rich
distressed
asset funds
while their
diamond collared
Schnauzers
wait outside
the corner
State News
licking the
oozing sores
encrusting
Lazarus's
feet

Ziggy's
lapping tongue
marks time,
waiting for
the stretchy
panted painted
ladies scoring
Iman's
organic rouge
at a corner
bodega

listening to
a sidewalk
trash can
yelp today's
Daily News
headline
"Major Tom
Myna Hero!"
bekighting the next
15 minute legend
a talking
Myna bird
named
Major Tom

the vigilant
Major
alerted occupants
of a Brooklyn
townhouse of
a furnace leaking
carbon monoxide
when he stopped talking
and dropped dead

a veritable canary
in a coal mine story

a special service
marking
Major Tom's
supreme sacrifice
is planned,
in the spirit of
neighborhood
beatification
the family
implores those
wishing to express
condolences
in lieu of flowers
to please occupy
Prospect Park
to drive out
the rapacious
squeegee men
and feed the
hungry pigeons

Bowie's earthly star
may have gone black
but the ashes of his
disembodied voice
will forever
mark the city
like the
ubiquitous
gray splot
ashes of
pigeon
guano

David Robert Jones
1.8.47 - 1.10.16

Well Done Beloved
God Bless and Godspeed


Music Selections:

David Bowie, Dollar Days

David Bowie, I Can't Give Everything Away

David Bowie, Black Star

Jazz Messengers, Wayne Shorter
Lester Left Town

1.17.16
NYC
jbm
TreadingWater Jun 2017
,...now
whatcouldyoupossiblywant¿
you're rea  _  ch  _  ing  _ ou _ t
when-we-both-know
that door's ~~******* | shut |
all. those. times.
you { ****** {me {in
just to spit> me >out >
oH; you're_wind//ing/ it/ up
again
& i'll dive 》right 》in
cuz\ ****\ if \i
can
@lovemyself
enough
to  ]] resist ]]
495

It’s thoughts—and just One Heart—
And Old Sunshine—about—
Make frugal—Ones—Content—
And two or three—for Company—
Upon a Holiday—
Crowded—as Sacrament—

Books—when the Unit—
Spare the Tenant—long eno’—
A Picture—if it Care—
Itself—a Gallery too rare—
For needing more—

Flowers—to keep the Eyes—from going awkward—
When it snows—
A Bird—if they—prefer—
Though Winter fire—sing clear as Plover—
To our—ear—

A Landscape—not so great
To suffocate the Eye—
A Hill—perhaps—
Perhaps—the profile of a Mill
Turned by the Wind—
Tho’ such—are luxuries—

It’s thoughts—and just two Heart—
And Heaven—about—
At least—a Counterfeit—
We would not have Correct—
And Immortality—can be almost—
Not quite—Content—
Saša D Lović Apr 2015
krivo ga nasadili
vidik mu izvitoperili
eno ga gde baulja
razravnotežen
krivo ga nasadili
ugljem ga nacrnili
eno ga gde prljav obraz
pere
krivo ga nasadili
kičmu mu ispravili
glava mu u oblacima
noge u govnima
krivo ga nasadili
pa sad meni kukaju
ijao
pomagaj
Connor Mar 2016
Old Katherine Kimberly had a sty near her eye
it was a bleeding abhorrent electric
dream spilling out her sanity
the sty was not just any regular sty
it was a satyr placed there by cruel forever
just because
why not

old KATHERINE KIMBERLY had a
mute cousin who came over for tea
when K.K was feeling down, he wanted to be a comedian
but this wouldn't work out for obvious reasons.
old Katherine Kimberly
had a recurring nightmare involving the world around her inverting it's layout, a backwards realm with backwards chairs and backwards backs
everyone looking like they suffered a dramatic accident
spine snapped but still walking
she was the outcast with her even shoulders and
delicate form but there it was that sty by her eye
wouldn't quit not even with sleep.
She went to see a doctor about the nightmares he prescribed a miracle
didn't work
so she went to church
met some wiry bald-spot
evangelic addict figure who
gave her mysterious bagged-and-untagged drugs
(those didn't work either)
nothing would help.. Kimberly came to the conclusion that the sty and the dreams were correlated in some spiritual, cursed sort of way.
Nobody could see it they promised

"No! no! you look fine, everything is in order god knows what you're on about Kim"

but she scratched and scratched for hours in her bedroom and looked in the faded mirror with microscopic detail and sure enough it was/gone??
since when??
she could feel it there, she was no hypochondriac it was alive and feeding off her still
that HORRIBLE THING!
some months now or maybe more it had always weighed her down but now gone
or never there...?
IMPOSSIBLE!
this wasn't over, old Katherine Kimberly would tear this ****** apart on a sub-atomic level and make sure it would never haunt her in any respect from "this day forth!" she said poetically,
wearing a conservatively fashioned dress with green flowers on it
and green grass, too.

She took to the New York subway on a Wednesday, the time was.......2pm
and she was headed to the drycleaners but not the one closest her apartment, the people that ran that one were pushy and irritating.
She was going to "Maude's" she and Maude had lovely conversations about the Gardener who lived one floor up from her who sometimes allowed a small hello from his lips on the way up, off of work.
She liked what he liked
or at least she imagined that to be true
but then again we all do that
it's a bad habit
he could be a total *******, she thought.
Old Katherine Kimberly walked in and opened the backroom there was Maude listening to Brian Eno
(Cindy Tells me/HERE COME THE WARM JETS/1974)

"THE RICH GIRLS ARE WEEPING"

Maude heard K.K come in and swiveled around in her office chair with the one off-kilter wheel which she didn't do a very good job of fixing.
"Well I don't shop at Ikea, its no wonder why, Kat"

"This sty! I know it looks like it's gone, but it isn't, do you still have any of that herbal remedy stuff you told me about earlier?"

"yeah, yeah.. the stuff you refused take way back when?"

"I admit I was being stupid, I just need help, I'm out of options and I'm kind of on a bad trip right now, see? some ghoul at the church gave me these pretty pink pills, said they were from mars and that they could cure anything! O Maude I was desperate and now I'm hallucinating all sorts of wack. I'm afraid I won't come back from this! I dunno what to do Maude! I dunno what to do!"

"Relaxxxx poor doll, you're always getting caught up in messes like this. It's like I said! you gotta settle down with that Rupert, he seems like a genuine guy, real caring, real. I'll help you, I have that herbal medicine in my car I will be right back"

Maude left hastily with a pat on K.K's shoulders as she went
K.K was going cuckoo
she suddenly felt that on a very metaphysical level her atoms were remembering this drug
always
and that when she died, eventually..some innocent child would be reconstituted with her atoms
to live with this for all time
and to be forcefully admitted into a psychiatric ward
pleading for lobotomy!

"What is this? what did I take? does that Kubrick-looking ****** use this often? how is he even tethered to reality?" she was dizzy, good thing she was sitting down..

Maude came back, shaking her head in sympathetic disapproval
"Jeez.. you've gone down the rabbit hole as far as ailment is concerned, that's for sure"

"What do you mean..?" Katherine Kimberly kept her feet grounded to the carpet as to not sway reality to a snowglobe catastrophe.

"Well you say the sty has something to do with the nightmares, or vice-versa, so you took drugs from a complete stranger! only made things worse, I'm sure.. and now you've come to me"

"That's true" K.K agreed
"Why do this to yourself?"
"I've been lost, out of tune, completely washed.."
(((((())))(((((()(((((((((())))(())))))))))()()()))))((­(())))))))))
she was going to continue, but felt like vomiting

She lept from her seat and hunted for a bathroom,
A vicious tabla bleached her brain
with supernatural viscosity
her body played like a cosmic instrument
for a higher being in a higher realm.
Next, the frantic sitar which reminded K.K of July and
the humid balcony marijuana, Ravi Shankar melodically spinning in her living room.
This was a much different experience.. as made clear by her
convulsions
the viper's final dose of venom

"The great spirit lifted his hand without much ado, and split apart Flower Mountain's ten million layers." - from Elder Ting Stands Motionless. (Blue Cliff Record)

"-******* that ******* from the church
why I ever listened to him-
-I feel like I am afloat atop the world able to see the stars as vibrant eyes! but I'm wavering without a sense of gravity. I am at once motionless and spinning!-"

A lot more trouble than it was worth,
O the wisdom of consequence!
K.K, poor doll, lucid consciousness
and an acute awareness for her disposition in this Universe
and all alternate universes for that matter.
(Including the version of her that decided against taking those pink pills from that pink-cheeked man, Stanley Kubrick lookalike ******* probably only posing as a religious man, they never met in one reality, they ****** in another. In one he is god! he is the only god! and in one she is god! anything better than this reality now! her lungs foaming up with death)

GLOBE-O-VOOTY/
GUIDE-O/
ME SOFTLY/
GET THIS THREY-WAY/
OUT FROM MY MIND/
(That's VOUT language for you, there. Slim Gaillard's timeless bop language)

after puking up the rest of her morning meal
she wiped her mouth dry with her sleeve and
reunited w/ Maude who handed K.K that herbal
music
and wished her well

"Look, I know it's none of my bussiness.. but if I were in your shoes, I'd make some changes.. that's all I'm gonna say about THAT"

so Katherine Kimberly went home, she wept
wept about her disposition
about her mistakes
about that inoperable mental sty which was more than a sty
parasitically latched onto her for ages
she wept about how boring people were
how after all this protest and bloodshed
we're just the same as before if not less intellectual!
this fever dream of a day hath made her realize
that she SHOULD make a change.
Hell, Maude was right, sometimes insufferable (tho not as much as others)
She couldn't keep doing this, whatever this was.

The herbal medicine was contained in some cutesy vial
a kind of amber-shade
thick liquid.
Just in the fashion of Lewis Caroll she
drank up her prayer potion, with the sensation that the room was expanding around her, shrunk down to the pathetic dreamer once again,
and so she tried to sleep this desperate sickness off.

One floor up, Rupert thought about whether or not he should *******, he decided to make some coffee instead, continuing where he left off on a new-age book about hypnotism.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
i am the one who makes up my owm axi,
rather than be man, in talk of repast,
and fake, and metaphor, and the need for
sleuth... ordeals and godly stature, but only with
orff's carmina burana, we are to dine?!
oh jew, oh arab... why whiff that stink so far
north? familial affairs? concerns? psychiatrists?!
how about an ode to dates
to break the month of ramadam?!
no, you tell me, at, what, point,
am, i, to, understand, you,
before, i, stop, selling, you,
apples, at, the greengrocers?
you gonna fake it and turn all turk
on me? i kinda hope you did,
the time i mentioned henry viii's wives
in a rhyme: charles the first goit the chop,
charles the second managed a harem
but primarily a poet,
charlie ****** the third?
    probably a plush stuffed bunny...
so i tell this homeless person my rhyme...
****! she runs off screaming...
next time i talk to homeless people
i'm brining a monopoly fake of a house
to surround and let the hounds loose on them...
but it's kinda nice... living in a society
that still believes in monarchy...
  i get to talk silly rhymes, just about names,
wives of henry buffon and...
that brothel disease: syphilis and sisyphus!
and that rhyme about 'enry... the 'andy man...
the one that could put up a shelf...
  yeah, that rhyming Olaf...
could get a homeless woman... running...
to fear rhyme...
    just when Otto was in power in germany,
and there was no vogue concerning baptising
babies with that failed name...
you know women, premonitions about
the zodiac and ****... magic...
          crying about the stone cold heart
of men in labs...
   yep, that story, it's boring,
it's history, tried and tested, proofs in pi...
and take to making up
names.
then again, the turks are prettily civil,
they can allow housewives,
and those housewife soaps.. i.e.
operas... i.e. melodrama that doesn't happen
in real life... the turks can stomach that...
ask an arab to provide the same when women
age... he starts a vanity project akin to
a pyramid that is the dubai glass-glacier...
   i know, and many other people
know where the Everest mountain belongs...
should that glass monstrosity belong where it's
currently placed? i'm looking at it and going all
Loci to say the most perfect joke...
   hyper-*****?
     ask the people that built it, the Bangladeshi...
why ask a ******* ****?
     they're bothered by Hindu...
i will add: -stan -stan, never mind Stanley
and why pole is never bothersome
you valentine crisp day-care centre worth of emotion...
  i don't get bothered whether you smack your
head against a pole, polejump, and polish
a wooden table... ****... get along with it...
english says don't when it says do not...
**** is acronym, ever heard of those?
     -        do i look like a queen Sheeba prediction
of copper skinned waiting for vitamin D
like i might wait for a suntan?!
yeah, i probably do...
but can you grow mushrooms on the tip of everest
from a horse's ****, giving there's so little atmosphere?
can fungi grow in zero oxygen environments?
  next, i'll say: i feel like growing one on my toe...
and be called an athlete...
     hail Olympus! ooh... hail 'eno... z...
    harp and snore... the anti clues given to both
orchestras...
apparently life was so very different back then,
thankfully my nostalgia only goes as far back
as the 1990s (nineteen nine tee offs)...
  before zeitgeist piracy and when your bought music.
i just find it funny how people get offended
by someone's spelling accuracy,
it's like people want people to become dyslexic...
no one seems offended when a triangle isn't
drawn...  ******! draw a triangle!
  a bit like: write something that doesn't require
spell-check!
              i always believed in people and literacy,
evidently people these days don't believe in either...
and yes, the Japanese really did write better cartoons
than the Mc Disney brigade...
they acutally invoked *** in their cartoons...
you know, once you learn english
you learn alice, the "wonderland" and the inherent
joke that the english language can't rub off,
namely paedohpilia...
           *** aware once able to take ***-invoking selfies
and posting them online?
  huh?
          you've been giving the status of a global
sprechen, and it's the internet, so apparently it's not real,
apparently the matrix metaphor can last for
30 more years...
of course the internet isn't real,
what with internet banking, hacking, politics,
the death of 20th century concept of window shopping...
the internet isn't real... what with
online dating... brothel services...
   THE INTERNET IS IN ITS INFANCY,
DO YOU EXPECT PEOPLE TO TELL YOU
ANYTHING APART FROM TRYING TO CALM YOU?!
   i too wished i wasn't the lab rat... evidently
the lab came before i realised i was a rat in it...
          they tell you it isn't real,
they tell you all that *******...
and sure, i buy it...
       it's just one thing,
they tell you the internet isn't real
when they accepted that the phonebook was real...
and yet they do their banking, on, the internet...
  what is and what isn't real... kinda happened...
and is already pointless to talk about.
Asa D Bruss Feb 2015
yad a ekam dluoc  I fI
noitalsnart ni tsol saw eno on erehw
!eb dlouw taht yad yppah a tahw O
dniknam sah ydalam retaerg tahw roF
kcal elpmis ruo naht
.gniwonk fo
sdnim lautum ruo fo gniwonk ehT
dlog naht thguos erom si
revlis naht suoicerp erom
dnoyeb dna raf dna
derised erom
. sevlesmeht sthguoht eht fo yna naht
http://www.radiolab.org/story/translation/
PETTY POET Sep 2020
NI SAHII*
Nimekuwa silent for a while waka-confuse kuhang boots na a short break,huwezi nipata bar no wonder bars zangu ziko so-bar,black supremacy... Niko na connection na maraga ndio maana akanipea hii ko-r-ti,ni  poet petty siku hizi na-weigh content si  value ya suti,apart from kutema visiriaz,nacheza guitar na at times isukutti,kaa ni kisima,si  unajua obvious hii_ siikuti,

Daily na hood niite mya-hoodie,ni  due to public demand so sikuwa na budi,nilipretend kunguru ndio nipate hizo white collar jobs,na nikasema sitadiss king rabbit ndio unispot kaka,aty petty ameomoka?,si aitane basi sherehe ya kukata na shoka,kaa ni breko naamkia konyangi,na hii  dry spell uko sure hunyongangi?.

Hii class kila mtu  huchoma tuko high class,heri  uko mnakula vako,huku kumekauka kuliko kichwa ya babu owino,dawa ya wivu nakuandikia eno,situmii smartphone natumia phone smart,only call sina  time ya kuchat,ambia smart joker jokes zake huwa joked smart,

Walisema sikio la kufa halisikii dawa,acha nijaribu tena  MARA MOJA, thanks to corona for the first time mluhya anaoga mkono na si  ugali anakula,na petty unatema hata  mtu  haezi sema,ni  venye alikuwa na vinyasa mbili so nikamwomba sho-r-t
moja,na petty pieces zako huniacha in pieces,hizo ndio comments nareply,juz for teases,

Na kama corona shida zangu huwezi zicough out kwa public,natumia mouth piece ya scimo na Leo hatubongi za mitaro na toothpicks,na kuna chizi flani  ananukia colon na hii corona huwezi sema kwa mama mboga iko loan,na kama ni  lyrics nauza hii itabidi umechomoa mita,na before niachilie mic,kumbuka sonko alisema social distance ni  ya one metre,sihang suspenders kwa shoulders, nikiwa hustle nahang guitar,hio  time short nimespend apa  nilikuwa na blessings za mama no wonder sijastammer,kama nimekubamba scratch kwa tenje uniseti stage ndio home na sijaplan...kuhama.
-P€TT¥PO€T✍️
©️2020.
ˇ      

Feel Superior              on
If You                                 i
Have                                  it
Enough     ­                    pos
  Credibility         upper
                       To
        Mantain  S





Concrete's Translation:
"Feel superior if you have enough credibility to mantain superposition."



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superposition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Imagined by
                                                      Impeccable                <3 Space
unnamed Jul 2019
His absence tore her to pieces
And now their hearts mirror one another.

Each one shattered and disposed of in
A black hole of seething lies and regrets.


_____________

siH ecnesba erot reh ot seceip
dnA won rieht straeh rorrim eno rehtona.

hcaE eno derettahs dna desopsid fo ni
A kcalb eloh fo gnihtees seil dna sterger.

Growly Wolfus Aug 2021
Hand me a tall glass
of a swooning potion
bubbles rising to the top
and the foam in motion
as I sway back in forth
my cheeks marked with red blush
uncontrolled laughter
and careless touch

Does the world really spin
as fast as it does?
And does alcohol help us to see it?
Are these just
intoxicated shower thoughts?
Am I conscious enough to believe it?

Everyone's dancing
while I'm standing still
or is everything backwards
no one really knows
swonk yllaer eno on
or do they?
like a tainted echo
of what's really going on.
But I don't know what's happening
so does that really matter?
Do we matter?
What matters?
Who cares besides ourselves what happens?
Is that a paradox?
Will the world explode?
What have I done?
Oh well :1
all that matters now is

Sleeeeep
Olga Valerevna Jun 2016
I know that I can fall asleep in arms that aren't my own
but every time I wander off I end up in your throne
yet what's a king if folly be the only thing he seek
for I have heard the things he said when I was out of reach
his life commands a part of him I will not dare to claim
and all of it is more to him than I have ever been
my blood has boiled long enough for me to let the green
be something that was part of what I didn't want to be
so there he is and here I am - an almost circle's ring
I can't recall a single day remembering a thing
to read me.
Saša D Lović Apr 2015
nem
brane mu pesme da piše
u srce krastaču mu nasadili
prste mu lepljivom svilom spojili
u noge sačmom gađali
iz očiju sve mu suze isisali
eno ih gde suva leže nisu više ni tako zelena
u uši mu ptičji izmet nagurali
i na čelo žig
iz sna prijatelje mu isterali
umesto njih strašno zlo osanotvorili
samo su se smejali
ponekim udarcem u kičmu ga budili
dok je nem tumarao po svetu
u pesme su njegove duvan motali
ili bi slova izvitoperili
takve na čitanje davali
brane mu život
brane mu da diše
apollota Mar 2017
I th016ink there's a g015litch in my co014de.
I'm tr013ying, but I st012ill feel alo011ne.
A010nd, my he009art?
It's bi008tter cold t007o the touc006h.
I wi005sh this l004ife w003as eno002ugh.
Li001fe is to d000ie.
-=-
2017-05-18
-=-
it reads;
"I think there's a glitch in my code.
I'm trying, but I still feel alone.
And, my heart?
It's bitter cold to the touch.
I wish this life was enough.
Life is to die."
-=-
TreadingWater Aug 2016
~ wi~n~ding~
     through
the
     desert
just ^after ^^°dawn
nooneontheroad
it's _ cool & it's _ warm
the stillness holds. me.
#funnyhow
i \don't \feel \the \least
bit \lonely
[alone]
mean _ while _ the moon is
uP ^there ^all. day.
__ long.
&idon;'treallynotice;
maybe if you ask
all the lovers
who've 《《come _ &gone.;
"there//there"
(just breathe)
~see~ the
tiny-yellow-grasshopper
has >come >a >long
for
the ride¿
}.gentle reminder.{
all-in-all it's all a crutch
mov》ing 》for》ward 》
is ¡ all ¡ i've
got ¡
&
it's
<eno*ugh
TreadingWater Jun 2016
See○ing○you
with someone {new}
it's a punc_ ture wound;
it's a ra/zor/blade/tooth/
& i ₩anna be €ool
but there's. no.           room.
'cause this heart's #shreds
it's>all >consumed
¿What¿ is it about me
that isn't eno[ugh]
youheldMyHand
》》》i never asked》for》 it
It's as if you - LiVE - to -  ****. me. in.
late night whiskey/morning gin
i make¡ you¡ come¡
you~make~me~shake
meltIntoone
Oh,...;But,...Wa,........itTt­ttt/tttt,...
When #daylight _ shows
none. of. it. matters.
it's like; the dawn makes
your memory ****>>>ter
& I ******* know (how it) always ends
Yet; here. I.  am.
back\       .again.
silly rhyme time
TreadingWater Aug 2016
fingernails
trace,... my》 bones
morn°ing° coffee°°
& wine soaked
good{nights}
all~ in~ all
she should. be. what. i. want.
- so-who-knows -
what ¿season
could ever be¿
enough¿
^there's ^^no^^
《taking 《it 《back
you;strawberry
}moon} }
days2short
& lo _ _ ng _ _  es _ _t
nights. e\clip\se the
bl ack
tattooofyou
<can't << e <<< rase
skinonskinonskin
[however vague]
my highs//
my lows
TreadingWater Jan 2016
How she can c
                          l
                           A.
                             i. {havehearditfromthestart}
                              m
All. She. Wants. Is.

toBeLOVE---Ed

How she could have that
^^^^^ 1000 ^^^^         ^^^^ over ^^^^^^
                              times

But in>>>  stead she chooses the ones
who.         don't.

&I;'M stifling a S C R E A M
i'm punching imaginary  |||||  walls

I've  grown weary of BiTinG-My-TonGue, dear
,...oh the blood tastes a b\it\te\r pinch

It's so hard tofeelsorry a-bout
the lessons you've learned, l _ _ ov _ _ e

Because;.... it isn't eno.  ugh

You haven't really OpeneD your I's.
at all,....@

— The End —