Well, I can't say that neither of the catfish danced.  One did.  Undone.  And I am not upset.  I promised Mother and the fish at the market place.  Whether or not I can make it.  I'll try.  But I won't be there without Sam.  Probably.  He'll see if it's OK.  Mom said so.  It's going to be that one time.  That I don't have to worry.  A rainstorm.  Kyle wouldn't talk to me.  So maybe I will see if Sunday works for him.  Friends.  They aren't always the way they used to be.  And what was that one way anyway?  Used to.  When I was a kid?  You had no friends then or now, Carl.  You're the same now as you were then.  Then.  When you were a kid.  You took pride in your ability to play alone.  To be satisfied.  Playing with yourself.  You were not a strange kid.  But those people you called friends.  Thank them.  And thank your mother.  You wouldn't have had even one of them were it not for her forcing you to play with them.  But you preferred to be alone.  So many universes to re-create.  All of them fit from cartoons.  Right?  Yes.  When I blinked, the commercials turned into cartoons.  For a split second.  The length of time it takes to blink.  Quick.  But the cartoons were there.  When I blinked during the commercials.  They were there.  I know they were.   Well, it was a paddle and a ball and an elastic string.  You know the kind.  Where you bounce it about three times and then try again.  Actually, if you're good three times.  Otherwise, one.  If you're lucky.  At three years old.  That was my first memory.  The bouncy, rubber ball hanging from the elastic string.  And the paddle.  Wood.  It was my toy.  I remember saying.  "Remember this."  It was the first time I told myself to remember anything.  I still remember it.  I don't know what else, though.  I held on to the paddle-ball.  Only.  Wait.  There was an outdoor fireplace.  Cinder blocks.  It was across the street at my aunt and uncle's place.  I walked there all of the time.  I was walking home.  Or around the fireplace, which was there.  On my way home.  I said, "Remember this."  It's important.  I kind of remember saying, "This will be your first memory."  I was three.  I specifically tied those two portions of this memory together.  Three years old and the paddle ball toy.  And I said, "Remember this."  Why?  I don't know.  Witchitaw.  Wabash.  Let me feel that.  Well, I'm sorry if you were frightened.  I feel.  And I felt.  A need.  And I acted upon it.  You're never gonna let me live this down.  Are you?  Please try.  Again, I'm not gonna be scared anymore.  Not if I try my best to squeal with delight.  Like I should when confronted with all of those things.  Which one tonight?  The damp one.  Easier.  Inside.  Wavering confidence now.  Un-enforced.  Logic.  Please tell them to come in, because I can't talk.  I'm coughing.  Or I coughed.  And I'm not trying not to cough again.  I waited for the right moment.  That they said to cough, but it never came.  I had to.  I had to cough.  I couldn't help it.  Please try and stay away.  As far as possible.  Away from me tonight.  As possible.  OK?  I'm in no mood.  To party.  In fact, I'm celibate now.  I'm waiting for the right time.  Stay away.  That smell.  I know that smell.  It speaks.  Volumes.  So much ecstasy.  I could rub that smell, where it comes from, all night long.  God.  Please.  Let me feel the warmth of that spot.  It's squeamish.  Until I make it comfortable.  I'll release it.  I'll do.  What you want.  But stop calling me.  That.  With that.  Smell.  It's a wonderful.  Odor.  Said I'm going to change my plans for this afternoon.  Yes.  Come with me.  I want you to believe.  To be there.  Too.  Here.  Right here.  Next to me.  Can I hold you?  Closer.  That's so much better!  Isn't it?  God.  You feel so nice.  Why haven't we felt each other this way before.  So far away.  All of the time.  Only our smells communicating this way.  Before now, I only imagined.  I didn't know.  Now I know you've felt the same way too.  The whole time.  What a wonderful feeling.  These smells.  They're great.  Too.  You don't have to get me wrong.  But this is altogether different.  Isn't it?  I know it is.  You don't have to say anything.  I can tell.  From your smell.  And now from your torch.  Hot.  That's so good.  Please.  Don't stop.  No!  Wait!  That's not what I wanted.  Wait.  Now stop.  Now.  OK.  This isn't what I thought you wanted.  No!  Please.  Stop.  Go away.  You are uncalled.  Take your lures away.  Further false.  In what they offer, they are false.  Fake jewelry.  Costume jewelry.  The latest fashion.  Whatever it sells, it sells.  And not by high fashion standards.  Exactly my point.  Wilting.  Daffodils are not as easily identified as dandelions.  I am aware of the color, the texture, the size, the location, the blooming-season, the reputation, the sight, the feeling, and the wrath of dandelions.  Yellow.

'mma comm'ner!
'mma comm'ner!
Whild it
Port 'rhet above,
'im down
F'rsaken.

Afore'd!
Allay'd!

De' the round,
De' the Bayck

Brent of stick
Wally a'bock
Rayne
A'doon, a'tunya, Mekker'un

A 'block, a moon.
The Rhine, 'ya dance 'ya
In the Maine
Yal 'amo
Tor'red ett'on
Fer tha'dance 'ya
Fer tha'roon

Allek 'un daree'ya
Mag'k ung Garee 'ya.

He stands on the stage with muscles tensed and mind relaxed.  His ability to perceive anything at once is employed.  And there are twins in the hall, a frog in the toilet, and nowhere (out of sight) is the aphrodisiac named Lenny.  A common misconception is the conception of any order at all, and everything you want to exist now, or ever existed, a priori: this is the meat-muscle, the excreting weener, of Cain.
"Nowhere, man," states the deaf mute with essence, "must have a musk, a muse."  An Algonquin replied, "Stay away from that horrifying ontology."
The man on the stage is at the same time becoming less inquisitive, more unconcerned and fallow, and now he watches their amusement from off-stage!
Now, those poor, poor people on the balcony--watching him, recording every minute--they do not cow him, for he watches them as an aside only, for the figure on the stage rises, mimicking an immense marble statue.  His spine stretches, as the calls of his own voice call out, in his own voice emit, for the figure on the stage, especially when he calls, little or no recognition.  The only voice, obviously, is this unrecognizable, willful voice that once belonged to him.  Although it cannot be, it can.  Although it is not possible (that it is not), it is.  His personal translation beckons concern.
With all his initial reactions lost, no longer won, no longer controlled, he is, by those very two filters, totally unmediated.  But steadfast guile and limitless misery become his (one-two) weapons.  The elations, employed at last year's performance, are absent.  Crying, he becomes, just as defeated as a whim.  But his legs move around, and he jives and jives and jives, like a crazy set of legs, as if almost no technique is being spared.  Tonight.  Tonight he is earning his pay.  Pray.  Prey.  Tonight!  But only a willful moneymaker, a master of his control, in this reality, earns him his pay.
"Sing!  Sing!  Sing!  Sing!  For I'm praying you!" screams an old man in the orchestra pit, "For I'm paying you with my best!  Tonight!  In all ways, I am yours!"
The dancing marble man looks up.  He looks at the world.  And from the smoke, a seed believes its lofty purpose lost, in a mournful message, in a reluctant admission to that unforeseen realm, of communiqué.

Like old
mean beetles,
like old
men in battle,  
like egos: solid anvils,
like families: lethal weapons,
like these: them,
begotten sons
who begat daughters
of a land, of a bordered plot
on the globe, the dirt,
the house, the property
which begot
them
both,
these two
bitter enemies
from two
separate places,
furiously blaze,
as the time
for darkness,
is far
from arrived.

And the sun
quakes,
in its heat
rippling sights
and
knocking particles,
which deter the next
knocked,
and which enforce
the continued sensation of
warmth
continued,
of aversion
continued,
rising,
screened,
for its impeccable quality,
against
nobody in
general or
specific
to announce, or to gain
against
consequences, which are
soothsaid
in time,
nullified.
Partners afflicted will be less opportunistic
and more egalitarian,
but are sworn,
like the sun,
against the monotony,
of repetition,
of indistinct days;
like these:
them,
the enemies,
they
are
engaged,
aged,
unteachable
and
spoiled.
They are always
immersed
in
vexed
states,
always in competition.
Hope
is
the
souls
united
never again
as much
as the static,
single dimension,
alone,
impeccable,
impossible,
for its possibility
is drawn by He
who
spews forth
lumens
next to card sharks and Amazons, knowing these
will have to suffice, having no escape
from the projected
source
of energy.
The metal heads
of garden rakes,
weapons
thrown
at devils
in the sweltering heat
of hell,
the Inferno
that holds a
first-person
point of view,
a dream, alongside
superheroes, allied,
but who are,
nevertheless,
without their unique
and exceptional powers,
pros and willing deviants
from the celibacy,
the weight,
the unoriginal paint
that collides
in
each
stroke,
making what
appears
null,
and the array
but one,
and supposed,
so that then
are the weary
and soulful mergers
which corrupt
and meander throughout,
polluting,
as
it
were,
the tranquility,
the wrenched service,
of the destined
machine,
of a million
trajectories,
homespun threads,
woven
into
a
million
miserable
microfibers,
unanswered
q­ueries
that were
held back
in
fear,
and
were
never
asked,
and remain
even
now
sorry.