CEREAL AFTER SEX

The Orange Motel

It was somewhere between Q-Town and the LA basin of all that glitters and orange grove cathedrals that there came the great snow and I was forced to shut down in some Arizona town— I was in between lives, feverishly dodging the corruption of compassion that come raining down all over the world like a meteor shower, and I watch them soar through the sky and hit the snow land with a restless thud, they vaporize, we sterilize … every sense known to the jungleland juke joint spread all haywire on fire through the spires piercing the all heaven sense bandage bowl of God’s finely-bleached robe.

I sat out by the pool in my parka at The Orange Motel watching the bar maiden get ice for my drinks from the ground. She was still wearing shorts and her legs were turning blue as she walked over to me carrying a tall glass and a snow shovel. She passed me peacock periwinkle strangulation and I asked her to clean the pool, for I wanted to take a polar dip before 6 and when the news came on to spill all that bloodied guts on the monitor screen, so it seems, always screams and rarely a tender hug at the tender claw ripping the sky wide open and screaming for a cleaner to vacuum the golden halls where I walk with purpose, as the world spins so recklessly, so topsy-turvy beneath a linen-scented sky blanket, and gas blue demon dryer chewing on the laundry in some long-lost, perfect Wisconsin town.

On the memory ship … every drip of her laugh as we tossed the witch puppet skyward and to the outer cast regions of all mind space lest we forget county fair good times and smells ripping through like vibrant magnets sucking on the carnival lights, of night, of altitude flight, harmonious vapors all twisted in glorious gut roar, and the corn smells like machine, dive deep down deep blue baby blonde beneath the tree, you smell like Arabic perfumed, bleached cotton, and I colorize every breath you take beneath this butter-yellow moon, beneath the old pine in the backwoods of grandma’s joint, I was honking for you late into the night like mad cap Harpo Marx, going around in circles and circles, sucking the eclipse like a drag stone, hoping you would fall forth from your window like a mannequin come to life, to light a fire to the day, to burn deep down together in the brown hut on the hill, that place that smelled of sour wood and inky red geraniums, my brother in his death suit, eating potatoes all alone in the corner, he already knew, God would punch his lights out all too soon, with drugs fantastic ferocious and with the tortuous scrape of a metal spoon.

Monsoon mind as I dig into the ice bin flickering in the outer hall of The Orange Motel. TV bullshit is blurping through the cinder-block, comatose, American fuck night walls … down the cascading lighted halls, the yellow puncture of deep night, the road raging right over there, the snow falling like chandelier light, the color of milk and tequila all spit out on the falls, like pastoral glitter bombs raging shoulder to shoulder with sun flares in the soul of all she rips from the veins, brother, brother, brother … do you remember the orange kitchen floor and Daddy doo smoking Kent fags at the supper table? Do you remember all that up in Heaven as I sway and sweat in The Orange Motel in some Arizona glow on the highway between here and there and ever after?

Locked in room and thinking about how disappointed I was that the sick ass fish joint Smith Bros in the Port Washington had somehow collapsed and shut down on that dreary day I arrived under that electric sun to watch the waves crash and roll … how I so looked forward to the perch, the fish sandwich all dangled up in my mind like fat ass tattoos and circular taboos wailing mad at the peaceful street at Beach City where I once held your hand and collapsed to the beat of your beautiful heart … all static and mad now down the river head where I breathe alone in room 6 foot 12 and all the walls look the same and it’s all caged corporate heat up in here … knock, knock, four-o-clock … “I’m afraid all the highways are closed, even so you wish to float away, to LA.”

Static fissures burn a hole in the roof of my mouth as Parka Pam comes pounding on the door … “Sorry love, no time for the old in-out, I’ve just come to wish Mars good luck in its search for extraterrestrial life!”

And so I want to keep going, but it’s Canadian orange vinegar that’s got my head all knotted up and thinking about razor-sharp love, you know, the kind that cuts you and leaves a trail of blood behind you as you walk home to step into the empty flat and you can think of nothing else to do but turn on the stereo really loud to chase all the heartbroken voices away, back to the clouds, back to the period of time where indigo beauty at dawn in the radiation void desert wasn’t so beautiful after all … but you shake it from your head, yet she does not swim to the other side of the ocean, but she lingers, like all scent exploded, forever in the air, forever, everywhere.

By
Aaron Echoes August

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The Tomatoes of Oz

The doorbell rang at dusk

The old woman came bearing fruit

She held three tomatoes in tired hands

One was the size of a softball

The other two she cradled like bloated testicles

They came from her very own garden and she beamed with pride

I had to accept the gift, for it would be rude not to

But inside my tired mind:

“Old hag, have you not heard my decree in the dead of night?

For I loathe your foul tomatoes.”

My hand shook as I reached out to take charge of the vile fruit

The skin was orange-red and smooth

There was the tousled cap of dark green on the large one

I wanted to vomit on her canvas shoes

But I feigned delight instead

And closed the door

As the sunset roared

The Wicked Witch of the West was cackling

The fireballs delivered

And I stowed them upon the counter of cold granite

And they looked up at me

The brainless one

The heartless one

The scared one

And I looked down at them

I, the most powerful wizard was crackling with power

And I denied them gifts of love and grace

I reached for the switch and snuffed out the light

“Suffer for a while in silence and darkness,” I boomed with evil

My large onion-shaped head on fire…

And I returned later

Drunk with tiredness

Longing for my cuddle cobra

The Dorothys now rolling about and chanting a high-pitched menace

“There’s no place like salad, there’s no place like salad, there’s no place like salad …”

I quickly reached for the glinting kitchen hatchet and hoisted it high in the air and yelled out with a heart full of psychosis

“Fukison smash!!”

I stopped just short of the kill

I caught my breath

I was moist with sweat and I whispered over them

“There will be no salad. There will be no sandwich. There will be no salt and pepper. Your lives will end tonight at the bottom of a barrel.”

I scooped them up and they cried

I punched the pedal of the trash can with a socked foot

The lid flipped open and I dropped them in

There was a thud, thud, thud

And then all was peace and darkness

A real quiet, country dark

The frogs croaking gladness in the grasses near the pond.

By
Aaron Echoes August
Roswell 1969

The low machine hum of the big, big city is entrenched in gaslight dawn.

The birds and the killers are mum, waiting for the razor light of god’s heart to percolate and breed as the handmade souls rise, wash and run.

And it was a hot day in the desert, a blowtorch sky was blowing up my eyes as I steered the ship down hot highway grace and peace, the vast and beautiful wound, an Irish pub in my lap, the steel wheels of a Santa Fe hulk grinding away to the east. A mystery and a fear twitching in my belly, a calm anxiety described only as sickness in my nerves.

We all have addictions in this shitstorm

I drove mine to the desert and wiped its crucifix clean

And it all came undone again

My legs heavy with the sweat and sand

Constructing a sundial and a time machine for the Swede

Near the apex of the Ink Pot porn shop

When the deer came through the brush in a rush

Followed by a pack of wild coyotes tripping on bloodthirst

I jumped down into the mud of the fleshy soft creek bed

Found that crown of thorns and spelled out someone’s name

Large enough for the spaceships to see

Those ancient alien gods shaking their yellow heads

At the world we’ve stained with sin and greed

Americans too fat to walk

While others shiver in a blanket of their own bones

And there’s no sympathy anymore for the broken

No desire but thy very own

The royal ice cream lady back from Haiti

And her eyes have changed

They burn with images and swirl

Now eclipsed by fucking REALITY TV and all the other brainless passions of my AMORIKA.

And then there was a dandelion

Sitting in white Tee on summer lawn

Watching the hot orange blossom take its final bow

Getting up, running to the tracks

Like a bullet, flying off

A new world calling

Like a hit of dreamtime opium

And a red, savage bar.

By
Aaron Echoes August
The Moon Has Its Own Scars

Photo by Romain Kamin on Pexels.com

The moon has its own scars, just like the sun and all the planets. Most men and women have scars if they’ve lived any, if they’ve breathed any, loved any, hated any.

I stood out in the yard last night because the moon was big and bright, and all those scars were visible to me and the entirety of the world. The alien invisible wounds brought to light, along with the green streak that went past us and them.

Police helicopters hovered above the interstate a few miles away. I watched them go round and round in a tight circle, casting their watching eye. I tried to peer through the winter trees for any sign of fire, any sign of destruction or the usual dismay of the world. Instead, I saw the electric pearl eyes of white-tailed deer. There were four, and they were as still as statues of dead men as they cautiously watched me. The slightest fall of a foot and they would dash off.

Here where I am there is grave darkness and then plumes of light dotted around. This place is tucked away and most of the world is unaware that this is where we sleep, we eat, we laugh, we love, we wonder in quiet. The outside world is so unaware, but here we are, right up on it, but not in it.

This morning my wife turned in the sheets and went back to sleep as I got up. I looked out a window in another room and the sky was colored in layers: white, pale blue, oxygen yellow, a wanderer’s green. I fed the cat in quiet, save for the chirping purrs of hunger and excitement. I made myself some Guatemalan roast coffee and the aroma filled the kitchen. I looked out that same window again and it looked like winter with spring waiting in the pen. It looked cold. But there wasn’t any snow.

I reread the birthday card she had given me the day before. Her loving words give me hope and peace as I eat vanilla yogurt and sip my coffee, the meditative sleep sounds still coming out of the small stereo. I fire up my computer and try to think of words and how to string them together. Some days they flow like Niagara’s waters, nonsensical and with a rabid heartbeat. Some days they linger at my feet and are unable to come to the light. Some days it’s a little of both. Some days life halfway hurts and halfway heals. I never know what the end result will be. Not until the review when I return to my bed at the finish of the day, when I’ve run down my battery and crawl in and hold her. I always look toward that and the dreams beyond.

By
Aaron Echoes August
Velour Beans

Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels.com

Velour Beans hid deep in The Garden of Carrots in Laos. His uniform was made of unicorn fur and torn. The remnant war bombs in the wet, green Earth cornered him into a basket of worry and long-lost wonder. Code name bath and bask and the tribulations of mind grains… The gongs in the hills washed down a hollow, haunting soul from the temples above, the ones cradled in snow-capped mountain guts, the ones that sparkled in her blue eyes. Immortal blue eyes like rare crystals.

Now that memory from the times in the summer sheets, the winter comforter with its mandala pattern, the delicious smell of her lingers on the pillow, her nightshirt applied to the skin and dreams of the man with the strange name, the strange purpose, the strange reason for being and breath. The demigod of dictators and shaman.

He was looking up at the sky that moved so slowly, like a marijuana brain. He smoked an invisible cigarette. It was a deep blue sky with lacerations of periwinkle in between, where the world was rubbed wrong and raw and the windows to everything open to a parapet of princesses in flowing gowns so neatly tapered to their royal souls.

Garbage and granola, French lessons from her mouth, fingers tangled in the work-swept hair. He couldn’t get enough of her. He will never get enough of her. He was addicted to her taste and her laughter. Velour Beans was in love beyond any kind of love there ever was or is or will be again. Not even universal gods of immortality could love like that. Not even when they throw marbles and talk about Hollywood.

She clutched him tightly in the cold of a February morning. It was the beautiful crushing love of animals with true hearts. Suddenly, there was no more helicopter Laos. He had retuned from his dreams, carrot stains on his hands from all the handling and peeling and stabbing of the enemies fueled by a delusion that was a neighbor and a friend, a bad friend.

But then he thought: The enemies linger throughout history like the smell of burnt toast in the morning. A morning where a sunburst orange fog molested the hills and valleys but not in a felonious way. He wanted to write an opera about that. He wanted to write about the sky and the landscape getting heavenly humped below, but he didn’t know where to begin. (Take a step, and then another).

He needed to unclog his muddled, overcast brain of sizzling worries and frenzied dissipations left to fecundate. He tried to eat a simple man’s plunger, but it didn’t work. So, while she slept, he went out for Chinese buffet. The silver spoons were big. The sauces bright as orange blood from a capsized ox. The plate was bleached white and still warm from its time in the commercial dishwashing machine. Why did she smell like that?

Velour Beans was suddenly taken back some 30 years when he wore a white uniform in another Chinese restaurant in that other time and life. The Wongville Orchid. The restaurant had nearly burned down. He could have killed people. He was being careless with the tins of blue methanol gel used to keep the buffet platters warm. Some had spilled in the hideout room and the flames took hold like liquor on fire light. Velour Beans quickly grabbed a busboy’s dingy yellow plastic pitcher of water and threw it on the blaze. It worked. It worked. But his heart was never the same again. The stem of fear. Those rattled nerves that came about from a rough birth were always there. He would never be normal. Except in that love with the forever girl with the eyes like a primordial, clean ocean. Deep waters from a time before man soiled the Earth with greed and war and hate among the same.

To think of Laos 10,000 years ago. It wouldn’t even be Laos. There would be no arbitrary borders. There would be no remains of bombs, only bones, only chiming monkey gongs. The world would always be better off without the cruel minds of men. The guardians of the space above dropped them here billions upon billions of eons ago. They had to rid themselves of the prophesized downfall they would bring and so cast them out to the outer rim of another astral plane. The third pebble in God’s eye.

Then there was a puff of reality, like looking at her morning loved lips in the bathroom mirror, and someone shook Velour Beans’ shoulder and said, “Sir… Please bring your seat to its full and upright position. We’re beginning our last descent.”

“Vientiane?” he wondered through eyes of dreamy dust.

“Why, of course not, sir. Chicago.”

She smelled of Khao Niaw Mamuang.

END

By
Aaron Echoes August