Winter’s weight and dust galore Eyes heavy in the pain of dawn cheekbones ache whiskey madness takes its toll on an ever-building mint bridge to heaven, scars, delusions I’d be cutting the lawn if there were a lawn to cut I’d be drinking soda drops and pops if I wasn’t a ghost such a ghost walking through walls wading in the stalls I might be painting the fence if there were a fence to paint, the barricade is metal, so rusted stained with the sweats of dashing immigrants this mind so invaded where are you lumber lady now? on the seven seas forgetting fornicating the sailor boys as I drown in cold crab legs you flag hags put your pink slippers away and start another war be careful you kings of New Hampshire, you Queens of Albuquerque do be careful.
There is this guy see who lives upstairs from me he’s the weird upstairs walking guy walks and walks but he never says hi – until today he looked disheveled and bruised hair all a muss toting a bank bag full of money and I’m wondering what all the walking is for floor to floor he walks and walks till a quarter to four
Is he shooting darts or is he shooting junk is he hiding a decapitated head in a hand-carved wooden trunk has he stashed away the body of Cinderella takes her out in the deep of night combs her brittle golden locks until she looks just right props her up on the couch beside him as they munch popcorn and watch “I am Sam …”
Or maybe he’s a Buddhist with incense and candles and lots and lots of fluffy pillows he kneels on his straw mat and bows to the sun or to the moon or to the neighbor beating his dog and grandma with a pinecone and a bat
I always see him solo never with a mate and I wonder what his story is what is his twisted tale of fate how old is he how much does he weigh does he believe in Jesus or follow his own way what does he think about when he drives to Albuquerque does he play a Steinway or toot on a green bottle flute enticing the charms to rise from the ashes buried in his carpet does he drink white wine or red what does it mean when he screams like that is it merely bad dreams or frustration bubbling to the surface in the form of dragon fizz and warm oil
Does he watch Regis and Oprah and maybe Dr. Phil or does he watch the motion on the ocean three vodkas and three pills is he a menace to society or one of the popes does he smoke razor blades or psychedelic dope is he a war veteran or a homosexual does he eat pot pies or filet mignon is he French or is he Irish does he have nightmares or fairy tale dreams does he have children or maybe a wife has he attempted suicide with a rusty fruit knife has he called on Allah to save this bloody world or does he sit back and sip martinis whilst smoking Izmir Stingers not really giving a damn about his brain anymore
All this I wonder but don’t really care I wish he would just stop walking and leave me to my Russian bear the one that looks me in the mirror and says… Please don’t stare.
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.
mindless and blind like seven mice in a grinder, palpitating in rhythm to the chagrined man stuck high in the trees on Michigan Ave., trees of glass and steel penetrating the clouds like a needle copulating with the airy blue
a jumper at the precipice Chicago oil and steam below, a great sea of fluttering beings all wired on something mindless blind like cats with no eyes, eternally hopping from this and that with no real solid goals in mind, taxi exhaust floating up and stinging his eyes, his nervous wife at home in Arlington, pacing the floor, biting the blood red polish from her nails, clenching her thick pale lips wondering why why, why, why did I move to the suburbs mom? Is Darryl Ok? Yes mom, he’s fine, he’s at work watching the Sandpeople
he closes his eyes and lets the wind suffocate him the medics scrambled up from their lounge chairs dropping their Long Island iced teas, the sirens and the lights came to life, and they rushed to the scene, his body had bounced from the roof of a car, broken glass, spatters of blood, the smashed remains twisted freakily near a front tire, a mass of chattering folks gathered all around… Darryl, you forgot to close the door his mother screamed from some distant vision
his wife drinks a martini and smokes a fag in twilight the ringing of the phone breaks the big silence shrouding the American dream and she lunges for the receiver, her hands shaking, her drunk head reeling and angry. Darryl! where the hell are you? I’ve been waiting for two hours!
there’s a rainy funeral near a grassy hill his pieces lay in an expensive box, the wife sits stone still, her eyes looking straight ahead above and beyond the casket as it is lowered down into the ground, and one by one the people turn and slowly walk away, disappear into the trees behind the wet grassy hill, like ghosts from a previous life
the padded cell was comfortable but lonely she arranged invisible flowers in an invisible vase, she checked her invisible watch and then darted to the small wire laced window, the sun was dropping quickly, so this is winter in Madland she thought as she looked down at the red scars ripped across her wrists and the doctor pushes her wheelchair slowly along the path on the cold grounds, he points out the ducks skating across a near-frozen pond, they’ll be gone soon he whispers in a dirty breath, and puts his hand down the front of her sweater
an unwanted ache is born beneath an August moon she tries to stab it with a nail file, and they rush her away, a mad fever takes her hand and drags her to a lightless room where she stews in impending doom and has dreams of being killed by a pack of witches with brooms
a long coil of mercy strung tightly around her neck strangles her in nightmares and dark prophecies, images of her husband pecked full of bleeding holes, stabbed gently with shards of glass by an angel lightly spritzed with a wedge of cut lime and she bows down in grand finale within her cell and squeezes the tortured mind out of her head. she is mindless and cold upon a silver tray and her soul ponders how God looked away from the atrocities of her life, her husband’s life, their life together so quickly ruined by the madness of an unloving world too caught up in the gains and percentages, too caught up in selling every single freaking thing that there was nowhere left to go for free and everyone striving to be plastered in perfection, a glossy glow about their faces, a finely cut suit clutching the flesh and bones within so that when you walked you were admired for being so fashionable and beautiful and perfect and everything that mattered came from within a clean window on some fine street in some fine city where life is real and pumping and let’s forego the little children in Snapwood UK who go to bed with nothing in their bellies whilst Pa pistol whips Ma ‘cause he ain’t got no job and he’s frustrated to the point of inflicting bodily harm upon the one he fell in love with so many centuries ago when his blood was comatose in a hidden vein far beneath the rock of Planet X and the leaders of the free world step up to the microphone donning their $3,000 suits, smile into the camera and tell us how wonderful life is and how much more wonderful they’re going to make life for us whilst Bobby Blue stares into a nearly-empty refrigerator and curses the piles of bills and bleeds over his laundry list of worries that come creeping up from the shadows right when the sun rears its ugly, fiery face down upon the world, he swears at his trap, calls it all crap and beats himself with a rusty chain
cornflowers dripping wet in the sky Jesus passed her a joint as they sat on a bench in a golden-green park like Oz far up in Heaven and she asked him why the world was so mindless and he just smiled, shrugged off his Shroud of Turin and said: I don’t know why, I’m too high.
I had a dream in the opening creaks of dawn today that I was getting ready to graduate from high school again. In my dream, the colors of my cap and gown were white trimmed in gold. In my real-life graduation, the colors were green and gold… I think. I don’t really remember because it was eons ago. I had attended a Catholic high school my last three years because I had been a bad kid in regular school and kind of got kicked out. I guess it wasn’t because I was bad really, I was just maladjusted. I didn’t fit in. But truth be told, Catholic high school was rougher than regular high school. That’s just what I needed.
The point is, because it was a Catholic high school and a relatively small class of less than 100 people, we had our graduation ceremony at a godly chapel on the campus of one of the local colleges. It was some sort of long-standing tradition. I suppose I didn’t really care about that. I hated high school and was just so ready to get it over and done with.
Moving on, I guess it was only fitting that my final act as a high school student turned out to be an exercise in my own misplacement in the world. After I accepted my diploma and began to stroll across the chancel, I reached up and struggled to find the tassel that I was supposed to move from right to left. It never occurred to me that performing such a seemingly simple act would have turned out to be my penultimate high school kick in the crotch. I was mostly concerned with the damn cap completely falling off my head and then everyone would see my messed-up hair.
Like I said, I had reached up and I was feeling for it, but I just couldn’t find the damn thing. I could sense the breathlessness in the gathered crowd. I was immediately struck with panic and what I really wanted to do was just run, run, run and never return to society ever again. But that would have been impossible. Everyone was watching, everyone was waiting. And then, as I took nearly my last step at the come down point off of the chancel, I found that damn tassel and flipped it to the left. It had slipped to the very back of the cap somehow. I was relieved. The crowd was relieved. The saints and demons etched into the colorful stained glass of the chapel were relieved. The whole damn universe was relieved.
That was my graduation. While everyone else was happy, excited, and celebrating the coming joys of their surely bright futures as they gathered on the perfectly manicured lawn outside after it was all done, I had had a tussle with a tassel. That is my memory. That is the little burn scar from my 18th year of life that for some reason really sticks out to me. It shouldn’t though, because over the years I have collected many more missteps and scars – much thicker and deeper ones. Such is life, I suppose.
I would think that for many people, high school was the highlight of their lives. For many people, I believe, high school memories are pleasant ones filled with friends, good times, laughter, dances, football games, parties, trips, dating, etc… Not for me. I was never involved in anything because I just knew I would have made a fool of myself, and those bastards would have jumped on that opportunity and torn me to shreds. And you may think I’m a psycho, but I actually burned my high school yearbook in our downstairs fireplace at the brutal Colorado house in the foothills where I lived. I just kneeled before that hearth of red brick like a monk and watched it flame up, curl, and finally turn black and tumble to ash. I don’t know why I even had a yearbook. My parents must have gotten it for me because it surely wasn’t something I would have chosen to have on my own.
Anyways, enough of that. I think this post was supposed to be about a dream… Yes. The dream.
In the dream this morning, I was getting ready for my graduation, and I was terribly anxious because I just knew, knew, my cap was going to fall off and I’d be made fun of… Again. So, in this dream, I was madly scurrying about in some cabinets searching for hairpins. I needed hairpins because I wanted to have them with me in case I needed to pin my cap to my head to keep it from falling off – which is really stupid because I never had hair thick enough to pull something like that off.
I was searching and scrounging and scavenging for hairpins, and in the process, I was making a huge mess of everything because I was just tossing stuff everywhere, like in a cartoon. My mother was in the dream, and I recall she looked really worried about me as I was just flipping things about in search of hairpins. It was as if she already knew I was going to have a very rough life and there was nothing she could do about it. She knew she had bred a cuckoo. That’s the look she had. The dream ended when I finished shoving everything else back into the cabinet and it was such a disheveled mess in there and that bothered me and I hated leaving it like that, but I did. I just closed the cabinet and then I woke up.
Fast forward umpteen years and at this moment my beautiful wife is gathering the laundry and clanking dishes. I’m madly typing away at my desk. I just finished my coffee and Greek yogurt sprinkled with granola and soon I will down my daily dose of prescription medication and head off to the gym. I didn’t need high school for this. What a painful waste. I just needed a chance to be what I wanted to be. I never fit into that small rectangular box that I sternly looked out from in that burning yearbook. I never will properly fit – not like they want me to.
The mutual poet and I wrapped our scars around rainbows like barbed wire cuts of rust wrenching the tears from the colored spine like lemon juice or the salty water from a baby’s crushed ice face. The mutual poet and I stayed up all night, for three nights, maybe a week, we couldn’t sleep, but a bit at twilight and the sun shook us from our slumbers and we blotted it out with a big patch of dark cloth the color of blood running from a split-open heart on some cold boulevard by a bar after a bruising breakup over loud music, cigarettes, and rum.
We ate nothing at breakfast and sauteed bullets for dinner; he wandered around in a daze mumbling things to himself, forgetting where he left his lit cigarette and I followed in his footsteps, perfect synchronicity as he did one thing and then another, rapidly changing gears and always mumbling like a freight train feather with a bad valve and he had a poor sense of concentration, his brain like a steam-whistle screaming away at 5 o’clock but five o’clock comes every 17 seconds or so; was this the end of it all? the great melting mind (and Joejack if you hear this, you’ve been there before but now safe in the bosom of the valley far north) — you will all hate this, say I am a tantric rip-off of some dead so and so … so … no love in this poem? love in every poem, even the most seething verse and the darkest string of words was once spawned from love and it is our gift to stitch them together in the ocean quilt with sawdust and bone.
But back to the mutual poet — he once put something in the oven, fell asleep and then woke to the stench of burning food and a choking cloud of smoke, he once put a gun to his head not really knowing if it was loaded or not — pulled the trigger — wasn’t that time.
Just trying to get back from wherever I came, haven’t had a home in centuries, no place to dwell with any decency, no place to settle in for the long haul; different doorways trap memories behind them, too many doors and different floors, and some places are filled with love and others filled within silence and fingernail scratches on the wall from just trying to remain standing and well the boo-hoo girl went back to white dinosaur in a green car and she should be happy there, then again she’s happy everywhere.
The moon, mutual poet, was muzzled pink tonight, hanging there like a faded ruby with bruises and the clouds all around it were like melting blue butter and black-eyed whipped cream, the brutal stars and stripes puffing away on another hand-rolled cigarette and the monkeys were swinging madly from limb to limb as the warm river rolled by beneath another freeway to another kingdom of fractured lives slaving away, day after day, to barely get by as strangers manipulate the development of their children’s minds and fights roar out of control and another head is buried in a wall.
They buried the mutual poet on Good Friday 1913, yet he remains with me here today; his motions are my motions, his forgetfulness and inability to speak coherently are traits we both share, but if he was here and I was there, would it make any difference at all?
Well goodnight Joejack. I picture you laughing at a sad movie or crying while watching a comedy; do you know a guy died in your house? — the one with the long hallway — it always creeped me out, but if you think about it, we are all walking over someone else’s bones. Goodnight Joejack.
By
Aaron Echoes August
An online journal of fiction, essays, and social commentary.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 