JUST BETWEEN USWhat I never told you, is that.
Yes, our special that. The thing we share. Why are you doing that thing with your eyes again? I could remind you of those robin’s-egg shoelaces. Our souvenir butter dish, your fiddler crab earrings. Isn’t that right? The hammered tin heart also. We have kind of the opposite of a secret. You know everything I know. Seriously. But maybe this walrus postcard will refresh your memory? I never told you what I never told you because obviously you figured it out yourself. Obvious to me at least. You’re smart that way. The tartan umbrella? Yes? The spare emerald nose ring? Truly, that’s all I have to say.
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1000 Piece Puzzle1000 puzzle pieces
All cool grey #4 You’d rather play dominoes Or even a classic video game But they offer you only The grey puzzle To keep your devil hands busy To remove you from yourself A jumpsuit slumped While its skeleton takes a shower How many other inmates Pinned the blooms of their eyes on your nakedness Using a cactus’ spine Bury yourself in scraps of your own white meat Your hands are pork rinds Curled around the soap Your mother was no Mrs. Beasley, she was a Half-baked nova, her hugs from a toy oven But god you miss her! When they offered you the Fisher-Price funeral, the Barbie doll prayers You mounted your Tonka tractor & mowed them down PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE (#1-10)Silence, seated in golden hour sun, disintegration looping along with cicada song. Reflection at the end, reckless, feckless, regrets upon each other, nothing to show save the memories lost with me. I hold myself back in hopes that others will hold me. I shouldn’t have to remind you. If only I had an answer, singular. We, all, survivors deserve applause. A bottled scent with hints of leather and hay. Wishing this could be better. Patience. But, darling, if I only told the truth, the story would be so boring. My outward appearance belies the storm inside.
FROM THE GUTThe poet was reading, in a bar,
his latest great work, page after page of scarifying, self-immolating, soul-flagellating, verse. A dozen people were listening to him. But two men, both drunk, were being loud and obnoxious. The poet asked them to quiet down as people wanted to hear. One of the men flew into a rage. The other tried to hold him back, but to no avail. The big galoot grabbed the poem out of the poet's hand and tore it to shreds. Then he grabbed the poor guy by the throat and slammed him against the wall. The audience was stunned at first as the poet, when he could momentarily free his throat from his assailant's raw grip, shouted something about "evolution" and "Neanderthal." His twelve fans packed up their stuff and left. They were willing to listen to other's troubles but didn't want to redden the bar floor with any of their own. The bartender came over and tried to put a stop to the one-sided fight. With the help of the man's buddy, he was finally able to separate the two. The poet lay bleeding. The honor of the other was brutally satisfied. "Are you okay?" asked the bar-tender of the broken scrunched up figure of the versifier. A simple "yes" or "no" was out of the question. SCENE ONE KECK stands over LONG, who sits naked, slumped in a chair. KECK: Your mind is weak.
LONG: I’m washed up. KECK: You’re a quitter. LONG: Always have been. KECK: You’ve squandered your gifts. LONG: A waste. KECK: You’re an embarrassment to the dignity of the human spirit. LONG: Would that it had never happened. KECK: That what had never happened? LONG: My conception. KECK. Oh. Right. LONG: A low point in human history, superseded daily by my continued existence. KECK: But we can rebuild you. LONG: Make me strong. KECK: Restore you. LONG: To my potential. KECK: From which point you can-- LONG: Conquer the world. KECK: Rule it. LONG: Subjugate it. KECK: Tyrannize it. LONG: Terrorize it. KECK: And ultimately-- LONG: Destroy it. When do we start? KECK: We’ve already begun. I see changes. Your golden complexion. Your hardened physique. Your mind—sharp, focused—a weapon. LONG: I am a god. KECK: You are the demi-urge. LONG: The unmoved mover. KECK: The founding father. LONG: The big bang that keeps on banging. KECK: Creating constellations/with every exhalation/of your cosmic breath. Time’s DecayThe unspeakable the indeterminate
hiding in shadow as cold as sadness as cold as absence as cold as winter spring’s shore was caverns and the traces left by tide the plasticity of ocean weed and the rusted remains of failed seacraft our hearts skipped arrhythmic against the monstrous worldliness of tourism chewing its way through the July swelter October was a desolate month filled with the odor of summer’s dreams a feathered hook to pierce a lip to drag across the wave something scuttled at the periphery of our vision spiderlike in the intensity of experience only existing in relation to silence we never expected to remember we never expected to be remembered but hours leached into days and the ice was melting everything ends in time everything blossoms from the remnants of last year’s numbness before fading once again. Things We Wrote On the Walls in My First Condo on the BeachScriptural quotes from Everett Fox’s translation of The Five Books of Moses, when possible, the KJV, other poetic translations, or my own otherwise. Ruach Elohim Ruach Elohim Ruach Elohim Breath of God Breath of God Ice cream every day God is the Aleph. God said, Bereshit—which I translate as “Let it begin with Beht.” The face of God wild over the deep, rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters-- God separated the light from the dark. And God called to me, calling the shadow under the roof of the Beht “safe.” And God sheltered all of creation and all that was to follow creation beneath the sheltering Beht, beneath the roof of the beginning of His Beginning, Bereshit. God sheltered all the letters that appeared before Him before beginning the creating, so the letters for the creating would be as safe as the Word itself together with the light & the dark the waters & the land the fish & the beasts the heavens & the earth. And God made us on the last day of God’s creating. God blessed us. There was setting, there was dawning: the sixth day. John said later or at the same time or is yet to say, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. David sang, He makes me to lie down in fields of tender grasses. He leads me beside the living water. He restores my soul. David sang, Yea! Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no harm, using the ancient syllable ra, meaning physical harm, not evil. The labor of women in childbirth comes to mind when we read ra because there is no spiritual harm. Childbirth. The beginning of Woman’s love. In the same way, Israel only meant the man (Ish) fought (ra) with God (El). God gave Jacob a new name on the bank of the river where they fought. Jacob fought with God in the way that some people are born to fight with God. Like me. I am not a fighter, though. I just am. I do not fear harm from God. All I want is to cross the river together. To be closer. And no, I’m not afraid to fight You for the right. A new name. I needed two new hips when I was still quite young. We love and we labor we live and we die and most of us love children. A woman makes love without fear of giving birth when it could so easily kill her. Women are born to love the child whether we or she loves or dies. A daughter is our beginning; she is our Word. Your Word; my word. Daughter, I am your Beht and the sky that shelters you; it will always be so. My friend Katanya told me she had a dream: I got a letter. It said “Katanya. Feed my sheep.” Three times. God had a door to His workshop, where He had written His words and equations and the Calculus and some measurements. Now the door is lost. How does a door get lost? Somehow, the words and the Calculus I adore are still in the doorway—anyone can see them passing from one life to another. Solomon said, Lean not unto thine own understanding.
Notes for a sort of bilingual poem:
1. Ruach Elohim means “Breath of God.”
2. God is the Aleph, which is why the creation does not begin with Aleph. 3. Bereshit is the first word of the Torah, and it is usually translated as “In the beginning,” or “At the beginning.” Bereshit starts with the second Hebrew letter, Beht, which looks like a backwards squared off C, and Hebrew is read right to left, so that is why I say all of creation is sheltered inside it. 4. Before the creation began, all the Hebrew letters presented themselves to God on fire in a beautiful ceremony (Hebrew folklore). Only after God has the letters can God begin with the creating, which is why the Word is so powerful. 5. The word ra simply meant physical harm. 6. Ish means man, El means god. So Israel means “man wrestles with God,” which is exactly what Jacob did all night long on the other side of the river from where Rachel has just had her baby. He would not let the angel go until the angel told him his name, which he refused to do, or blessed him. For some part of this, God touched Jacob’s hip and hurt it. After this event, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. This was a compliment. 7. Near the end of the Gospels, God asked Peter to feed his sheep three times. Most people think we are the sheep. Peter became the first leader of the Church. 8. I shall fear no evil is from the 23rd psalm, KJV. 9. He makes me to lie down in fields of tender grasses is a better translation of Psalm 23. 10. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God is the way the Gospel of John begins. 11. Lean not unto thine own understanding: Proverbs 3:5-6 KJV. We have entered an age of undifferentiated living—the machine is inseparable from the mode of living and life has become an extension of our technological selves. The other half is speaking for us and we are more and more interwoven with the tools of our trade. This is not a particularly new phenomenon but one which has been recently thrown into stark relief. In fact it goes all the way back to the most primitive examples and the birth of the other half.
Howie Good’s handmade collages have appeared or are forthcoming in Mayday, Sulphur Surrealist Jungle, Defunkt, Drunk Monkeys, decomp, The Offshoot, Mad Swirl, Mercurius Magazine, Scapegoat, Wrongdoing, Willows Wept Review, Uppagus, Pine Cone Review, and Otoliths.
Lachlan J McDougall is an Australian Word Technician working in cut-up and experimental literature. They are interested in smashing the Control Machine in all its guises and have chosen the written word and symbol as their weapon. Their books I was out.. the mice were in... and Blue Flute: Stories and Artwork can be purchased on Amazon.com.
His social media links are as follows: Facebook – Lachlan J McDougall - Author Twitter - @AuthorLachlan Instagram @lachlanjmcdougall Website – lachlanjmcdougall.wordpress.com |
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