Really

She called to me.

I put down the cat feces and went upstairs.

"You called, my darling?"

Her hair was wet with sweat. I quickly wiped her with a clean cloth. She said, "Is it day, or night?"

"It's almost ten. You've been asleep for two whole hours."

She coughed loudly. "I need my pills."

I looked at the clock. "Not for another six-and-a-half minutes, my sweet."

"Fine. How much have you smoked today?"

I hung my head. "Only half a pack."

"You'll never get sick that way!"

"I promise I will smoke like a chimney in the afternoon!"

"And how's you cirrhosis?"

"Very painful. I think it's working. My urine has clots in it. Oh, it's time for your pills." One-by-one she took her morning medicines, precisely as the doctors had prescribed.

Fifteen minutes later, we were done, though I saw no sign of improvement. She said, "Have you enough to drink?"

"I have a 26er of vodka for today; I'm a quarter of the way through."

"How's your thigh?"

"The wound is suppurating nicely. I think it's infected!"

She lay back. "I may sleep now."

"Good. Keep your strength up. I'll be in the next room, licking asbestos."

 

*

 

Late October

 

See Doctor Death prepare his instruments:

His yellow parka and his bathing suit,

His rubber gloves, his scalpels, and his stents,

His anvil and piano and his flute;

 

See him come along along the road,

Looking for a place we congregate,

Lugging on his back his heavy load,

Ready. Willing. Able. Operate!

 

His manners sometimes much to be desired,

For never does he ask a man to aaaaah,

Or ask if widows' pensions are acquired,

Or ask if murdering's against the law.

 

Statistically he visits most at dawn

(And numbers like to lie, to hide their guilt),

But yet he'll go for any denouement,

Wherever: under ground, or under quilt;

 

So get you set for medical attention.

Don't bother pencilling for an appointment

Or asking for a couple days' extension.

He's ready with his salves for your anointment.

 

And say your says and goodbyes to your stuff

You've spend so much in gathering together,

Because you cannot money-count enough

To change the constellations or the weather

 

He'll choose beneath to come to you, with all

His comfort and his cozy nonchalance;

So make him feel welcome at his call,

For you will only get to see him once.

 

*

 

It had been going on for quite some time before I even realized it was happening. My absolute aggregate numbers, I saw, were falling: I noticed the digits started with a 3 instead of a 4. I made a spreadsheet of my posts and I saw that, sure enough, they were selectively vanishing.

I searched for 'erasure' and 'deletion'. Everything pointed to one post. I looked at the post, which was a tasteful skit about dogs. In the comments (the only comment, actually) was:

 

This is terrific! So terrific that I am going to methodically delete all of your other posts. Face it, every one of them is inferior to this marvellous piece of literature. You'll thank me for it! - Peter Quince

 

I was upset for some time about this. How dare he! What gave him to right to delete my work?

Then I took a look through my work, and I saw there was a definite improvement overall. There is now a lot less stone-cold awfulness. This Peter Quince fellow is doing more than I ever did to improve the nature of my communications, by erasing!

I don't expect this post to last for long. Which is great!

 

*

 

The madman at the coffee shop took Bob into his confidence.

The madman had built a palace out of nothing, he told Bob proudly.

At the centre of his palace the madman said was the fact that his daughters were a couple cunts.

And this was why Norman Mailer hadn't been properly reviled until after he keeled over.

Bob nodded and said, "Well...." but the train bore down regardlessly.

The madman waved away the well and said he had diagrams of everything all squirrelled away.

It's perennial philosophy. Hinted at in religious texts. It's why they were kept.

The roots of the ancient wisdom trickle in its fruit your blood, the madman said.

Bob said, "In theory, yes...." gripped the salt shaker and rolled it on its octagon base.

That my daughters are cunts is why everyone was afraid of Norman Mailer.

The triangle, the square, the pentagon: everything fits properly inside a single circle.

Humanity's culture contains both these facts, this must be admitted openly.

And each individual arranges these facts in ways according to personality, or is the cause of personality.

And I have my own culture said the madman as he picked up the pepper shaker menacingly.

 

*

 

Calculated Fantasia on Five Seconds of "How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All"

 

Dan came home. Had it been another rough day?

"Has it been another rough day?" I asked.

He took off his cap and dropped it on the table. "I honestly don't know."

I sat beside him and rubbed his shoulders. "We could try something else."

"I spent three years training."

"That's nothing, you're young."

"I never liked it."

"It can all change."

"There's nothing wrong with the guys!"

I continued dinner. "Are they still making you nervous?"

"I'll say! We had a call to surround a meth lab. We were all out there, doing our surrounding. Then I thought: I don't trust these cops. But I was one of them!"

"Maybe everyone takes time to adjust to their roles. Give it time!"

"I'm afraid of the people I work with. Isn't that the sign of being an impostor?"

Dinner was done. I put it out. "Maybe the other cops are afraid of cops too."

Dan said, "I see no signs of that."

I sighed. "Then maybe you should turn in your badge."

He laughed. "And I'll burn my uniform!"

 

*

 

Camping in the Minefield

 

"It's an undiscovered gem." Pat showed me the brochure's map again.

"I know where I'm going," I said.

"The site map we pick up at the gate."

"Good, good."

At the gate we got the site map showing where the mines were known to be. A line showed the paths we could take to safely get to the campsites. Our campsite was campsite 19.

"Keep between the red posts and the green posts," we were told. "Take care, and enjoy your stay."

With our tent, pots, and food we snaked our way in solitude through the minefield. Campsite 19 was a rocky spot between three spruce trees.

Pat said, "Look. There's not a soul in sight!"

There was only enough time to set up and eat before it got dark.

In the morning we took a look around. Not far from our campsite we saw a crater with some blackened shredded nylon around it.

"That must have been one unhappy camper," laughed Pat.

We cooked up a fish.

In the distance a dog barked. "I hope it's on a leash," I said.

Later, Pat said, "You enjoying this?"

I said, "It's too much like ordinary life."

 

*

 

Don jumped out of bed at dawn. "Hang on!" He darted to the door. "Who is it?" "Police! Open up!"

Two guys in police uniforms stood there. "You have to come down to the station with us."

"What for?"

"You're under arrest."

"Who put you up to this?"

"You're under arrest."

"Can I get dressed?"

"No."

"I'm naked."

"We'll give you a blanket."

The two guys in police uniforms dragged Don to the vehicle that looked like a police car. They shoved him in the back seat and threw a blanket over him.

He said, "Quite the show you give."

"Yeah, enjoy the show."

They drove to a building that looked like quite like a police station.

Men and women in official-looking outfits milled about inside looking busy. Don stood in front of a cage and inside the cage a man looking like Mr. In-Charge asked Don a lot of questions.

Don was put into a cell with bars. He wrapped his hands around the bars. They weren't plastic.

"I gotta hand it to your stage manager!" he shouted.

Next morning he stood before a woman in a black robe. She said, "You're getting the death penalty."

Don said, "Really."

 

*

 

Bunyan Bite Bullet

 

1.

I dreamed about a man who one afternoon happened by chance upon an old girlfriend by the name of Julie Kerr. He had not seen her in thirty years and she did not appear to have aged a day.

In a park at dusk he was talking to someone. He kept talking although he was well aware he had to go meet Julie Kerr at her house. He talked and he couldn't stop. Thankfully the person he was talking with went away. It was almost night by then.

He proceeded across one street and down another. Her house was there. He went inside. It smelled exactly as it had smelled thirty years before. Julie's mother at first did not know anyone named Julie, at second said she was away, at third said she was indisposed, and at fourth called up the stairs for Julie.

Julie came downstairs like a best friend. They touched. It had been a long time but they didn't act that way. Things were as they once were. Everything was warm.

They made a date to go see a movie in the morning. He would return at dawn next day.

Everything went dark.

 

*

 

Bunyan Bite Bullet

 

2.

The dream went on.

At dawn the man who happened by chance upon Julie Kerr walked to her house. A light went out inside and Julie came out of the house. She was dressed in dark blue. She was still acting like a best friend. She got into a car in the driveway and he got in the passenger seat.

They drove down to the main road unobstructed. It was like they were the only two in the world.

Nonetheless they took a wrong turn and found themselves within sight of the movie theatre but there was a rocky field in between. The man got out of the car and together they slowly guided the car across the field. The field had seemingly come out of nowhere.

Julie parked the car. The sun was coming up. The parking lot was empty. They went in the theatre entrance. A lot of people were in the place.

They were clinging together like oak and vine. They didn't know what was playing. Fortunately they ran into a couple they somehow knew: Jim and Ann. This bothered the man briefly.

Jim and the man went up a long escalator together.

 

*

 

Bunyan Bite Bullet

 

3.

The dream went on, at the top of the long escalator, where two more escalators led up from this floor, to higher and higher floors, and theatres where the films were obviously more violently sexual. The man (who'd happened to chance upon his old love Julie Kerr) and Jim stopped to see a very long queue at one of the entrances. Through telepathy or another means the man discovered the essence (though not the name) of the film this queue was interested in seeing. The film was about Orson Welles directing a production of Coriolanus in a prison.

It was culturally appealing.

Jim had in hand three tickets for this showing. He told the man to go back down, send up Julie and Ann, and purchase himself a ticket.

The man went down the escalator. Julie touched him tenderly. He wanted to be alone with her in the dark once more, like old times. Julie and Ann went up the escalator. Julie looked very appealing from behind and the man entered a hazy reverie with physical manifestations.

Snapping out of it, he looked around. People were buying tickets from machines. He looked for a cash register.

 

*

 

Bunyan Bite Bullet

 

4.

The dream went on, with an erection.

The man desperately in love with Julie Kerr after all these years saw a cash register, but there was no-one behind it. He had to get a ticket. He heard laughter that was certainly coming from some employees. He turned, and saw them. They were wearing red and white caps. He went over to them.

"Can I buy a ticket?"

"Sure, from one of those machines."

"I only have cash."

"We don't do cash this early in the morning."

"I have to get into the theatre. People are waiting for me."

The employees continued laughing.

A different employee said, "Don't we have some of those W.B. passes lying around?"

Another employee said, "I think so."

The man asked, "What's a W.B. pass?"

"They get you in."

"You can get in with a W.B. pass."

"Easily, with a W.B. pass."

The man asked, "What's W.B. stand for?"

They were still laughing.

"We don't know."

Another employee said, "And we don't know where they are."

"It's too early to tell."

The man said, "Please look."

Another employee said, "Look where?"

There my dream of the man who loved Julie Kerr ended.

 

*

 

Housewife

 

You like my pool? Tis seven metres deep,

With sides so blackly slick a leap

Will leave you seeing but the starry sky:

I took its inspiration from her eye.

Come with me down my tree-lined avenue,

With apples red and cherries ripe to view:

Imagine you the sweetness in their slips!

It's from my inner image of her lips.

You see I've cut my porch in blonde bamboo

With subtle jointures in a darker hue;

Of course I'm here referring to her hair

That flatly down her back she likes to wear.

Examine now the lintel and the doors

Which doubly offer entrance to my floors;

Note how they're all upholstered in a plush

Pink leatherette that's sleek and lush:

They represent her labia generous

That's over-archéd with her veneris.

Come in. Five dozen rooms you'll find,

Each faculty of body and of mind

In metaphor presented here to scale;

All fixtures meaningful down to each nail.

Now come with me and let us both descend

A score of steps so you can comprehend

My meaning clear, where I'll to you recall

The purpose of my modern Taj Mahal:

For I have placed, as centre of my art:

Beneath a crystal dome, her happy heart.