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A misty green jungle glow leaves me melancholy high at mid-morning sigh the curtains in the kitchen hold back the ashen stare of this cell block with eighty tiny windows and hands reaching out to pray for the immoral justice to fade, fade with the orange gassy glow of another wet night of multiple ampersand weddings and lonely shuffles beneath creaking porch lights … and I cannot stop thinking of the wandering crows in those tiny black clothes and how they blow through the air and into a fractured face when the hobbling world is overworked or tired as I light these mystic candles all alone the mantle missing pictures of all the seas of you and I at the shores of blue water space and it’s blessed to imagine the days we are tightly knit together our lives wrapped around each other like newspaper on fish, like wings on wheels and it’s fun to play life with you for without you this game is already over and I am merely a wedge stuck beneath an open door letting all the air out forever and ever.
Beauty is in baskets lying all over the world a tumbler of goodwill a shot glass of decency lined along the bar of distant scars the marathon jubilee pounds the ribbon strips gray across bridges and country lanes laced with the structure of Big Brother Nostradamus and Orwellian patriots rolling pool balls across the lawn whilst Beethoven wails to the sky life is but a red rubber concerto kick your ball to the stars feel the pressure of toe on geometry and you wonder about the girl living in the cube the colorful cube before your eyes and you know she is ocean beautiful you know she is fun in the sun Morrison dialogue falling from her lips Kerouac’s beautiful dynamite stripped raw from the bumper of your guts and you envision ancient Mexican sunsets in her arms her peeling back the clock and making you feel alive again not a fool, but a partner of comfort turning counter-clockwise in the twine of a misshaped reality and you try to cradle every tombstone in your aching arms pulsing with sweat but you’d carry every burden for her just to make her life a bit more comfortable when all she wants to do is cry so when I’m coughing up all the pain I feel the beaches of my angel’s city call to me and say come join us again for another red rubber concerto witness life witness love witness the fall of my American dream come wear your name badge the golden flask pinned to your chest the prick that draws blood the tag that identifies you as the big log we drink oceans of breath but do we swallow the meaning of life or do we just spit it to the shore and watch it be pulled away by the wet arms of a burdened destiny full of secrets and closet lies and I want to be lead away not on a leash but on a touch to sincere eyes and a head of hair that smells like some dreamy garden and the click click of this oily phantasm draws sand paintings on my tongue and I spit the dryness the emptiness into a dirty space of asphalt always looking toward the sketches in the sky with the hope for new hope with the setting of the sun dial the bright hot eye in the sky beckoning at me to arise and live another day even when God’s spinning wish list is torn in a storm.
I went to the place of high sands, the place of paper wasps swarming around my heart looking to sting, to puncture another hole in my already bruised organ. I walked among the hibernating cottonwoods and the mulberry bush lapped by the setting sun I saw a great owl rise quick from his post and the noise and speed startled me, really startled me like a pan noisily collapsing atop its pile in the cold kitchen of my romance novel abode gone sour every niche cold and silent every breath weeps lonely and I cry out for childhood again, dumbfounded and swimming in the hopes most likely false and it kills me inside wants to make me kill it all around tired of this everlasting ache constantly welling up, then subsiding welling up again, never subsiding as I try to ignore the complications of human existence as that bird outside my window takes a kamikaze dive into the crooked steeple the church bells toll toll through my soul golden gongs of everlasting love echoing of destiny derailed and the sands of time don’t spill quick enough it’s already all flubbered and flucked and I want to get off, get off, get off.
The days here now are cold and polished the gray sky like some sheet of ice dangling from the ceiling clouds like membranes all pulled apart everyone flying south and I just want to go north or east to feel her breasts press against my chest as she goes down on me in 4 a.m. lust, the sands of time, the sands so smooth and arched trickle down with gravity filling in all the spaces that I’ve stepped in before erasing me, erasing me from the palette all color blank and void the purity of her pronounced speech fading to a cold, silver shimmer sand and shotguns blasting me all away to another day where my memories do not thrive and poke where my past no longer plays magistrate eternally swallowing the key if I knew not love I could triumph in life’s wars not knowing love I would be without a soul where do I go without a soul I do not know.
When life has ended at the midpoint but you are still waking up, still breathing, what memento have you become? what cherished scrapbook do you yellow within what guts are you released from ever so violently wicked violets leaving purple bruises on the hands, on the cold glass of winter dusk, on eyelids heavy with sleep, on dreams inked by the utterances of self-depravity, lost in all the spaces melting together that crush crush me, crush me, crush me with charity and the goodwill of electric casual sex.
I am the canvas stretched and splattered, splattered with the annoyances of modern artists of cave dwellers bar dwellers bedroom noise dwellers and the sinking feeling you get when you break a bone and you are all alone and starve helplessly gnawing on carpet fibers in your very own home but no one is really home the doorbell is disconnected the knock is dissected the blessings never resurrected like Christ tied to a goal post and everyone kicking the shit out of Him just because He is who He is.
Everyone gasps at his philosophy he is such an atrocity how can he be allowed to live mumble the Pee and Em as they read from the good book and hate and kill just the same behind turned heads and silver tears candy is the only one left on Earth to me and even sugar is drifting away sometimes it seems though not entirely elegantly true throw me another bruise God wipe my face across the broken glass once more kick me breathless beat me senseless stuff me back into the womb and cut me away why won’t you save me for another day?
And everyone walks on eventually can’t stand the sight of me so what is my reason today to breathe, to walk, to slide away? To put on shoes or arise from slumber I’ll only be smacked around with a piece of jagged lumber, a beer spill down the shirt is cold and I want to be washed away to a bar in Denver hyped up and comatose with a drink in my hand and a smoke plastered between my fingers talking to the broken bodies of bones who pass by me like nuptial ghosts and I never rode a hotel bicycle in a wedding dress phoning cock-throbbing villains fleeing the scene like sand carving away another piece of forgotten history, tucking it neatly in a pirate bottle of glass.
I felt the breath of God in Santee by the shores of Lake Marion the spiders like aliens weaving webs the size of quilts white and silk tapestries of insect thread jungle creatures with big, black eyes and I looked to the sky overcast and clouds a boiling the wind blew through the treetops knocking the leftover rains from their leaves the brush as thick as terminal cancer in the lungs and the lonely breeze whispered help me please as I walked on down the road
And the green was everywhere the breath of God cooling my veins and I strain to find meaning in every pulse I strain to find meaning in my mind my dreams my sleep my pain my rage love
And the deepest green was still everywhere the chalky tracks of the dirt road looked like baby powder on the tires of my burnt-out ride and I ran I ran up the road into the tunnel of trees the verdant canopy of angels God’s leafy cherubism cradling the path of my life and I ran down the road back into the sun breathing hard And spitting blood and I preached to the stones the sky the trees the weeds the birds love
And it felt fine beneath the cloaked sun the fireball veiled in churning clouds it felt good for a change to be amongst the rural world the rural South the old man rocking on his front porch just breathing in the vapors of heavy vegetation and peace
I rolled with the marbles toward home ice chips in the eyes, the work of romantic elves destiny forever on the dash, beyond the cracked windshield.
The chariots rode into town blaring trumpets and waving spider webs like white, cotton kites and the soldier watched the cheering crowd all smiling with blood on their teeth and scriptures dripping from their curled fists and the soldier felt as empty as wind when he jumped off the back and made his way through the blistering crowd their eyes vacant, their hearts rattling with ice everyone was like a bee sting clawing and banded amber jewels wearing spears and hammocks on their backs in which to swing above a lazy flower before the dark stones fall from the sky and Jesus is riding a missile spreading handfuls of love dust across the widening gap of mankind and he plants the point of the missile right into the dirt lot of the Cactus Gin a splintering roadhouse joint on a desert road a long, spindly caramel kiss warmed and running across the bourbon asphalt the mellow yellow of factories glows like a foggy harbor veiled in red velvet and the broken bulbs of the Cactus Gin marquee still flash, the craggy edges are crusted black the little heartbeat light flickers like a sick Christmas tree and inside… floating malnutrition backward evolution noise pollution
And the son of God ordered a whiskey and smiled at the people he created as they danced and fought and loved, cried and laughed and ached… to the slow grind of a melancholy jukebox and he brought with him an angel one with a rhombus head and stunted wings and the angel was singing the grief of all she suffered on her leash and a weepy guitar began to groan in the corner Jesus was singing a song about peace and love and the congregation began to throw beer bottles at him and Jesus spoke into the mic… “Oh great. Here we go again.” But he took the blows with harmony, nibbled the glass between his teeth as he sang weaving tanglewood hopes through the vibrating cave.
And the madness began to settle as he curled before the window the soldier was home but shaking he was upset about the killing he had done his wife a dozen miles away on sleepers the children were slaves the plays were robbing their minds of any moral foundation the madness had spun out of control to the point of consensual acceptance like morphine in your I-V the slow drip of horror shows gone real and fishing down by the river was no longer notated in the wired almanac as simply two boys and a bucket of worms a shingle thatched roof crowning a famous whitewashed bait and tackle shop glows in the background like a slice of warm care or apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top cinnamon showgirls lifting their skirts and squirting you with a city sweet… that’s life with those eyes, what is this undecipherable want?
There is order There is disorder There are purgative drugs And there are clouds to sleep on
It was a day that was easy to dance to It had a beat and a really good rhythm with the angel ship standing there like she was some great gift slipped directly from God’s palms and she didn’t even begin to sing she just stood there a microcosm a star a California thread beating down my doors with her eyes and a long highway lust stretched as taut as the yellow line from which she had just begun the long-toed tip toe with valleys of grain whipping by her temples fast as light and she waved goodbye to her scar tissue as it flew out the window and died in the past for now all she had before her was the whitest milk and the blackest nights snuggling a cold mattress reeling in the chill of it all as does he
My chorus ran through the checkpoint my liver was aching something fierce on that Arizona wideband that Calypso horizon swimming like a fish across the rusty pinnacles sprinkled with salt and I dreamt of snuffing it and devil tattoos calling to me from the other side and I begged for the lush of some green island adventure with vodka and bright vegetables canopies on wheels and jalopies with no steel a theater show for the man on his homemade bed peering out a broken window watching all the wealth rain down on him and he was indeed the meek and all he wanted anymore was to inherit the Earth she being queen sun and he being king moon and he would lay out carpets of stars for her so she could step over the puddles of empty space ever so elegantly and precious like a newborn baby kept clean and pure behind a bell jar of kaleidoscopic glass
He stepped on the white, feathery scorpion and it played the tune of a harp when it squealed and he wondered if he were in Heaven rolling snake eyes and sin across green velvet lawns sprinkled by the belch of a crisp hose he pondered fame he pondered glitter he pondered perfection and the price you pay for not living what you feel when all is a cool, light, tapping reverberation and your soul feels as empty as some wicker basket beside a raging river run dry think of the music inside you think of what smells good think of letting go and feeling for once with that wrecked soul
He was playing a baby grand cigar crunched between his teeth the whole of NYC bouncing around in his eyes and he looked around at the clean carpet and all his plush interior and he felt as dirty as a slaughtered lamb he was too cold to think and too hot to cool down with ice he was wrapped up in all the fornication society was performing in front of him and he climbed out the window and started to fly like some great bird startled free from a bush all around the world he soared like a rollercoaster of flesh and all he saw was her standing there with her small feet planted firmly on the long, yellow line
He dropped the porcelain figure on the highway it was crushed by large wheels and scattered amongst the tacky asphalt and cryptic road kill so he knew now it would be a mad journey to hell and back with an English girl and an American man and he rolled her on the dandelions in some London park and they ate squares of cool, orange Jell-O making glasses out of them and seeing the world through a wobbly, blood-stained sepia glaze the antiqued film made them sentimental the statues and cobblestone had a look like one would find on Mars not the planet, but the god’s personal person and he pulled out a slide and the world was indeed an orange hue and the English girl and the American man never wanted to leave London in the summertime
And he steered his teary-eyed red rabbit near Joseph City, Arizona gunning it hard toward Gallup and the museum of green pharmaceuticals but the meditation gave him a vision
Like a small film painted on the cold, white wall of a motel room and this particular film taught him about writing letters and the waste of getting wasted because he knew the angel would return in one form or another and she’d be happily holding out a plastic platter filled with jars of glass eyes swimming like fireflies
Who am I but silent scream who am I but dizzy dream drifter in the daylight mummy in the night who is there to make it right right, right what is right what is wrong don’t know what I am thinking a long, broken song running through my head nerves all a twisted and surreal neon is lightning pauses are thunderstorms solid becomes liquid liquid becomes melting shaking becomes catastrophe big orange bombs bursting inside of me knuckles red and dry burning sensation in the eyes what is happening changing yet dying, again and again living, not breathing every morning a train wreck every night a balloon ride to space every dawn a handshake every moon a distant plate chock full of unanswered destiny, a van driving north, south, east, west – sunset seeker, mountain keeper, a drizzle, a fog, pounding my head wondering where it all went wrong – all gone, gone, gone
Red stars and atom bombs gas globes spinning in the heavens dripping flawless arms of colored smoke the sun startled the blue plate awake a dinner of history set in stone a playground for the mastodon a curtain of pure beauty out east somewhere far from the roads far from the buildings far from the dust storms stinging at my skin the aroma of beer and cigarettes illuminates the interior of the vehicle as I sit in sun-splashed happy horror the moon dangles there up high in its casket of deep blue a lone pearl cast from the string of space an ivory stone embedded deep within the sky’s bruise spinning motions all around me wash machines and black tires crazy drug laced eyes peering deep into the belly of a dirty tumbler the earth itself spinning motionlessly and there’s some sharp-edged wedge stuck deep in my back, deep in my neck cutting off the circuits that make others human and I taste like anti-freeze spitting out the thing that clogs my veins
But I am merely choking on the memories of LA, blue dead Vegas, the frozen North, the lava islands where the cars run roughshod over grooved freeways slick with oil and the sweat of the sun, great mighty machines boiling over in the dense sense of pollution and crimes, dying down on Vine, the lepers and the shark-skin suited monks wiping their wallets on the palms of dirty phone booths, palm trees swaying to the pop music of this pop culture in a pop-ignited fury furnace with its breast nestled gently against the shoulder of the Ocean Pacifica
Jesus tries to pacify me with a hamburger and a Coke it’s a Christian monopoly with Buddha playing pieces priests raping babies and sinners serving soup to the poor, the homeless, the disheveled presidential nominees and silver-spooned dynasties racking up the big bucks while single mom sells a suck the price of everything keeps going up, up, up while my means keep going down, down, down proud to be an Amorikan, proud to be starving and losing the fight give me a library card so I can check in my brain throw away my umbrella so I can drown in the rain stop walking, you better run this heart is stretching its seams this heart is stopping at the end of this dream
Red star, blue plate alarm clocks are boiling over as I am about to go to sleep one more nail to pound one more tear to stop time to say goodnight, it’s heaven-o-clock at the terrace plunge.
By
Aaron Echoes August
An online journal of fiction, essays, and social commentary.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 