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.
When one is inside a living hell one begins to wonder if life is really hell and that we are living as damned souls rather than breathing, beating flesh is it a reversal of reverence? or a carving into a dirty brick wall running along an avenue in some dirty brick town hall where everyone lives and dies at the mall because shopping soothes the grated spirit and machine guns make us heavenly patriotic we all share the same hell, but it’s personalized just for us a little agony here, a little sadness there, a few suicidal tendencies sprinkled in between like tooth-cracking rock candy on a wedding cake spelling out disaster and the peace sign all muddled together painted in a gleaming red of blood and all the crystal tears dry up and blow away in the breath of broken angels slouched at the bar my world is spiral notebooks full of spilled and infinite ink and dreams filling these white, chalky veins dreams of innocence twisted inside out like guts in a blender and the torturous high-speed button is stuck, lashes of a wicked wind like a bunch of reckless bros tossing back Fat Tires at a pub in Nob Hill and smoking black cigarettes with a scent of pine and when will it be time to throw the switch and juice it up real bright and glossy fizzing orange firebombs licking at tender wounds while wearing this metal hat and laboring in the pain of beachside memories of little boys tossing sticks at the water and maternal maids bracing themselves against a chill California wind and then what of him as he shakes bone-chilled against the cement of some dead-end den watching the whispers of a life gone by float to the endless sky, but he never wants to say goodbye
By
Aaron Echoes August
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This frustration of motion this inept spinning of my tangled web all the deceptions we weave all the arrows we sling at ourselves when there is no reason and I am empty without her as lovers fill the home and I still spark the sunset bewildered and alone
I come from a place not known a high hill tucked far away behind the sugar plants and the factories belching out babies in bleached Red Radio Flyers bleached by the sun bleached by the burn of innocence aged and I am an astronaut floating untethered a radio-free lamp ray looking for a light bulb to suck and swirl
I came upon a disillusion a fair lady needing to escape and I have the power at my foot but I am empty and frayed for love is a magic trick something splayed secretly in the shadows and I have knife points in my heart slowly choking on the trickle a scissor slice an orange wave salting the wound and when I am brought down by Paris will I ever be enough?
Where has my patience gone where has the image in the mirror dissolved to and the bottle keeps me warm as I pace restlessly in a chill and maybe when I meet God I’ll just come out and ask her when is love ever real?
So nothing ever works out as planned you see winds up being just Gallo and me my empty need raining through the moon sparks dripping off the razor’s edge and me bleeding helplessly until she comes to me but my fate is drowning so stop being so pained and jealous but I can’t help the shiver inside that nervous twitch of wonder left adopted by the night sweats so why don’t I just give in and count all my blessings in disguise?
I am not an iron cross I am not a thermostat so what am I? the unexplainable the paintable tab in a ghost story the sexed up frolic on a smooth hardwood floor come on give me a moment to explain my reckless stance and I know I feel too much baby broken clouds weep my name
I don’t understand maybe I don’t need to understand this ritual of disturbances I just want to care
I could tell when I walked in the door that I was motionless moving some parade of wrecked divinity caught off guard by the sizzle frying my heart an empty line an empty space a tent stake forced through my handicapped resistance I don’t want to feel the shock again of another love left abandoned just whisper to yourself it’s all right it’s just life it will all end someday soon
So fuck this feeling game it will never be the same I’ll always be capsized my soul is a hurricane aimed directly at myself and I am not some Wizard of Oz with a magic touch and spit my road isn’t yellow brick I’m getting sick in a Denver trash can you can see how my madness wanes then comes back again in waves I’m just crazy about her sticky needles in the haze I’m just a camel with no Baghdad a radio-free lamp ray electrifying the endless sea.
Hello, like the title indicates, today I would like to talk to you about my favorite new television show. But before I tell you what it is, I just read that after three seasons, it’s been canceled. I am pissed!! Why oh why do they always cancel the good stuff and keep the crap going for like 17 seasons. It’s just like that show on Amazon Prime called Night Sky. You know, the one with Sissy Spacek and J.K. Simmons and they discovered the portal to another planet in their backyard. It was great. The story was great. The characters were great, and the finale of the first season was totally primed and pumped for a second season… oh, but no. They fucking cancel it – probably to make way for a show about a bunch of annoying surgically altered social media trendsetters who have drunken orgies on a tropical island followed by over dramatic talk sessions concerning their all-important feelings about shallow relationships. I commence puking.
The name of my favorite new television show that is now being canceled is Joe Pera Talks With You. It’s an Adult Swim product but I watch it on HBO Max because for some reason they have more of the episodes. Go figure. The more I watch the show the better it gets. It evolves perfectly and the addition of familiar, quirky characters throughout makes it fun to watch.
Joe Pera is essentially a nerdy, socially awkward, slow and soft-spoken middle school choir teacher (who can’t really sing for some weird reason) who talks about mundane, everyday topics but somehow makes them interesting in a strangely captivating way. In the first episode I watched, he talked about the importance of iron and other minerals found in the Upper Peninsula region of Michigan. And that’s another reason I love the show – it takes place in Marquette.
“So,” you may say. Well, I say that Marquette is a pretty special place for me because my wife and I spent part of our honeymoon in the UP and we loved it. If you don’t know anything about Marquette, Michigan, it’s way, way up there, situated on the shores of beautiful Lake Superior. It’s a great little town (Marquette is actually the largest city in the UP, population of about 20,000) and I get really excited when they show places I recognize and have been to.
Let’s enjoy this gallery of photos from our trip:
Ahhh shit! The pictures are on my Mac so I will have to come back to that. Sorry.
But back to the show. I don’t want to spoil too much for you, but you can kind of get a feel for what the show is about just by some of the titles of the episodes. Here’s a few I found in my research:
Joe Pera talks with you about beans
Joe Pera takes you to the grocery store
Joe Pera shows you his second fridge
Joe Pera takes you to breakfast
Joe Pera shows you how to pack a lunch
I’m still only in the first season, but my favorite episode so far is Joe Pera reads you the church announcements. It basically starts off with Joe at church (Catholic church) and he is tasked with going up to the front and reading the announcements. Well, a short while into it he goes off on this little rant about The Who and his favorite “new” song – Baba O’Riley (You know, the teenage wasteland song). It then flashes back to Joe doing dishes and the first time he hears the song on the radio. How has he not ever heard that song!? That’s funny. After that, he keeps requesting the song because he loves it so much and essentially doesn’t sleep for three days because all he’s doing is jamming out to Baba O’Riley, even with the pizza delivery guy and his sorta girlfriend who’s the school band director. It’s great stuff and prompted me to order (on CD, like Joe, so he can play it in his 2001 Buick, but I don’t have a Buick I have a Mazda 3) The Who’s 1971 classic Who’s Next. I actually had my wife order it because she has Amazon Prime and so I basically utilized the love of my life for free and fast shipping. I have a Who CD, but it’s wrapped up in the basement somewhere like a mummy and I don’t want to be bothered looking for it.
The timing of me watching that particular episode couldn’t be more perfect since I had just finished up my serial fiction piece Child of the Cabbage and made mention of Baba O’Riley in the final episode which you can read HERE if you want. (Shameless plug, I know).
So, yeah, even though I haven’t watched all the episodes, I’m pretty bummed the show has been canceled. But isn’t that life, though. The idiots make all the important decisions. It’s frustrating and heart breaking to say the least. Anyways, give yourself a little treat and check out Joe Pera Talks With You. It’s a nice break from the oftentimes shitty world we live in… And in the meantime, let me see if I can find those vacation photos from our honeymoon in Marquette. I know you’re excited about that.
They brought the boat aground on the far side of the island where there was a small cove and a cold, soft beach. Pierre hoisted his supplies over his shoulder and BumBuna O’Brien carried the stone head of Saint Pedro. They made their way into the trees along a footpath worn down by Pierre over time as he came and went. BumBuna O’Brien looked up, and the tops of the trees seemed so very far away to him — the light of day could barely break in as the canopy was so thick.
“How far is it?” he asked Pierre.
“Not far. Is the head heavy? Do you need to rest?”
BumBuna O’Brien lied. “No. He’s just being restless in this bag.”
The path wound on and on, into the deepest parts of the island, and then the trees retreated a bit and the ground opened and that is where BumBuna O’Brien saw the crooked little and gray-washed island hovel, crooked and shiny like ice in the mist.
“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Pierre said as he set the sacks on the porch. “But it’s comfortable enough. Quiet and peaceful, too. That’s the way I like it.”
BumBuna O’Brien stepped onto the porch, but Pierre held him back with his large hand.
“I think you should leave the head outside. I don’t feel good about bringing that thing into my house. It might be bad luck.”
“I’m not bad luck,” Saint Pedro said. “But I would like to be out of this sack. It’s itchy.”
“Where should I put it?”
Pierre pointed to a stump at the edge of the clearing.
“Put him there. I suppose he won’t be able to run off.”
BumBuna O’Brien carried him to the stump, set him free from the sack and set him upon the flat surface.
“I don’t like it here,” Saint Pedro said. “Why can’t I come inside?”
“Not now,” BumBuna O’Brien said. “You heard Pierre. He doesn’t like you too much.”
“What about you? Do you like me?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I guess that’s up to you.”
“You know, I could send you to hell if I wanted to,” Saint Pedro said to him, seriously.
BumBuna O’Brien blinked at him, then his head dipped, and he thought about how derailed his life had become. Even in the midst of trying to be good and peaceful and not stir up trouble, trouble always seemed to find him, get attached to him, like glue or magnets.
“I’m already in hell,” he answered, and then he walked away and went into the house, and there he saw a cozy little place, a bit worn down, but Pierre had made it livable.
The man was busy in the kitchen area, filling cupboards with cans and boxes and little bags by the light of a lantern. There was no electricity, only candles and the lanterns, and there was a wood-burning stove that was already beginning to glow, and now the fire crackled, and the place was getting warmer.
“Do you want some coffee?” Pierre asked as he prepared the pot.
“Yes. And I’m hungry.”
“Well, then come in, sit down. Make yourself comfortable.”
BumBuna O’Brien sat down at a round table in the middle of the room.
“Do you have any carrot cake?” he asked.
“No. But I have something better. Just picked it up fresh today. How do you feel about liverwurst sandwiches?”
“What’s liverwurst?”
“It’s liver sausage. You spread it on bread. I like to refer to it as the poor man’s pate. Here, try it.”
Pierre set down two plates at the table. BumBuna O’Brien stared at the bread, then he peeled the sandwich open to peek inside.
“It looks disgusting,” he said. “Like someone had a nasty blowout in there.”
Pierre laughed out loud, took a big bite of his own sandwich and chewed. “Nonsense. It’s delicious.”
BumBuna O’Brien took a small bite. He nibbled carefully. The taste and texture did not sit with him very well. He set it back down on his plate.
“I can’t eat this. Don’t you have anything else?”
Pierre was somewhat offended. He got up to pour himself a cup of the coffee. “You’re welcome to hunt yourself a fish or a squirrel if you want. Otherwise, it’s liverwurst. I’m sorry, but I have limited options. It’s a peaceful life, but not always easy and convenient. Perhaps you’d be more comfortable back where you came from.”
BumBuna O’Brien sensed that he had hurt Pierre’s feelings and so he got up and walked outside. Saint Pedro whistled for him to come over.
“What do you want?” BumBuna O’Brien asked.
“I just wanted to talk. What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m afraid I offended our host by not eating his disgusting sandwich.”
“That wasn’t very nice of you.”
BumBuna O’Brien snapped. “What the hell do you know! You’re just a stone head.”
“I know enough that it’s rude to complain about the food when in someone else’s home. You should apologize.”
BumBuna O’Brien sighed. His stomach grumbled. “I’m just not myself when I’m hungry.”
“I don’t like it here,” Saint Pedro whispered. “I don’t trust him. I say we take his boat in the middle of the night and leave this place.”
“We can’t do that. He’d be marooned.”
“Would you really care? Face it, you’re not the nicest animal in the world.”
“Why did you call me an animal? Do I look like an animal to you?”
“Every man is an animal. You’re savages. Pigs. The world has fallen because of you — you human animals.”
“You used to be human,” BumBuna O’Brien pointed out.
“I rose above it,” Saint Pedro answered. “Wait. Be quiet now. He’s coming.”
They saw Pierre Moose moving toward them. He was walking softly and carrying a big spear.
“What’s going on out here?” he asked.
“We’re just talking,” BumBuna O’Brien said. “What’s the spear for?”
Pierre clicked his teeth and rubbed at his sandpaper face.
“Self-preservation mostly,” Pierre answered. “But I feel bad about you going hungry — thought I’d try to bag you some fish for supper.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll eat the sandwich.”
“I already finished it for you. Besides, I feel like doing a little fishing. Why don’t you get the fire pit going while I’m gone?”
Pierre looked at him differently. His cold eyes were suspicious now.
“I won’t be too long,” Pierre said, and then he went off down the path and soon he vanished.
“I don’t like this,” Saint Pedro said. “I don’t like this at all. He’s up to no good. I can feel it. We need to get out of here.”
“That’s not an option right now. If we went off in the boat at night, who knows where we’d end up. We’d probably drown.”
“I think he’s crazy.”
“Why?”
“What sane man lives alone on an island in the middle of nowhere?”
“Maybe he’s sane and the rest of us are crazy.”
“He’s upset. A lone man who gets upset is never a good thing. You should have eaten that damn sandwich!”
“Pipe down, Pedro. I’m going to do what he says and build the fire.”
“Well, then at least set me over on that log so I can watch you and not have to be alone.”
“Fine,” BumBuna O’Brien said, and he took the stone head of Saint Pedro and set it on the log. “Now just stay here while I get some firewood.”
BumBuna O’Brien went into the trees and gathered sticks and logs and branches. He dragged it all back to the circular fire ring little by little until there was a substantial pile. He went to work breaking down branches and piling the sticks. He put together a bundle of kindling and put it at the base.
“I don’t have any matches,” he said to Saint Pedro.
“Look in the house. He’s got to have matches in there.”
“Right.”
He went into the house, dug around and found an old coffee can stuffed with matchbooks. Then he thought he heard a terrible scream. He ran outside but saw nothing. He lit the fire and soon it was roaring. The day was fading as Pierre emerged in the clearing. He was dragging something large along the ground behind him.
BumBuna O’Brien looked up at the man who had seemed to have grown larger and sterner.
“Come here and help me with this,” Pierre ordered.
BumBuna O’Brien went over, but when he saw what Pierre had, he jumped back.
“What the hell is that!”
“A trespasser,” Pierre grinned.
“You speared him? Why in the world would you do that?”
“I told you, he was a trespasser. This is private property. I have a right to defend my island.”
“So, you just killed a complete stranger? Why didn’t you just tell him to leave for crying out loud?”
“I don’t have to defend my actions to you. My God, I’ve done nothing but help you! I’ve welcomed you here, to my home, and all you ever do is complain. Now, are you going to help me with this or not!?”
“What are you planning on doing with him?”
“He’s going to eat him!” Saint Pedro cried out.
“I am not!” Pierre yelled. “I don’t ever eat them.”
“Them,” BumBuna O’Brien wondered.
There was silence. Pierre looked at them. His eyes were wide with madness. “I don’t ever eat them,” he repeated.
“Then what in the hell do you do?” BumBuna O’Brien demanded to know.
Pierre’s head drooped. “I collect them,” he answered.
“I told you he was crazy!” Pedro yelled out from the log.
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Pierre said. “It’s like a hobby, really. I give dignity to them. I honor their memory by preserving their bodies.”
“I would like to leave,” BumBuna O’Brien requested. “Please take me back. I won’t ever say anything to anyone.”
Pierre slapped a hand to his forehead. “No! You can’t just leave. Not yet. Please. You must understand. It gets very lonely here. Let me just show you, both of you, and then you’ll get it, and then in the morning I’ll row you to wherever you’d like.”
“Don’t listen to him!” Pedro called out. “It’s a lie. He has no intention of ever letting us go.”
Pierre grew angry. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! You damn head!”
BumBuna O’Brien tried to soothe the tension. “All right, Pierre. Just settle down. You can show us. I understand.”
Pierre looked at him. “You do?”
“Of course. Loneliness is a terrible thing.”
“What are you doing?” Pedro demanded to know.
“Just give him a chance to show us,” BumBuna O’Brien snapped back. “If you don’t stop making things worse, you’ll go back in the sack.”
They followed him by torchlight as he dragged the body to an outbuilding behind the house. They heard the body hit the ground as he released his grip so he could fumble with the lock. They heard a chain rattle, then slide. A heavy door was moved to one side and the metal material made a loud clanging noise. Pierre disappeared into the darkness.
“Wait here,” he said.
Then one by one, lamps were lit, and an orange glow began to blossom forth from the blackness. And soon the reality of Pierre’s madness came to light as the bodies became visible. There was an entire group of them, nearly two dozen — men, women, children, even dogs — and they were stitched up neatly, clothed, with grotesque upturned smiles and shiny lake stones for eyes. Some were positioned in chairs, others left standing. Some were made to look as if they were engaged in conversation with each other. Some simply stared out into space.
Pierre came back to the entrance and pulled the body up and into the building. He let it drop to the floor near a large table.
“Come in,” he insisted. “Take a look around.”
BumBuna O’Brien stepped over the threshold with Pedro clutched tightly in his hands.
“Well,” Pierre wondered. “What do you think?”
“It’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Saint Pedro said, and BumBuna O’Brien quickly clamped a hand over his cold stone mouth.
“Go on,” Pierre encouraged. “Take a closer look.”
They moved forward, and then the metal door boomed closed behind them.
“I don’t want any wild animals getting in here and destroying my work,” Pierre said.
BumBuna O’Brien looked down at Saint Pedro. The stone head’s eyes were wide with fear. He kept his hand pressed hard over the mouth.
“That’s quite a collection of people you have there,” BumBuna O’Brien said.
“Thank you. Come here. Closer. I want you to meet my best friend in the world. He was the first.”
Pierre guided them to a tall man in the very front. He was dressed in fishing clothes and had a round hat atop his head. The face was full of fear despite the fact Pierre had stitched the corners of the mouth up.
“His name is Rick,” Pierre said proudly. “Go ahead, say hello. Don’t be rude.”
BumBuna O’Brien looked up at the frightening face and tried to smile. “Hello there, Rick. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
There was no reply.
“Ahh, he never says too much,” Pierre said. “He’s the quiet type. Actually, they’re all the quiet type.”
And then he came forth with an insane, seething snicker that sent shivers up and down BumBuna O’Brien’s entire being. Saint Pedro’s head slipped out of his hands and dropped to the floor with a thud.
“You fool!” the head cried out. “You could have cracked me in half!”
Pierre suddenly reached down and scooped Pedro up. He held him before his face and studied him.
“Put me down you lunatic! Put me down!”
“You know,” Pierre began. “You really, really grind my gears. I don’t like that. You’re starting to upset my friends here as well, and I’m afraid I can’t allow that.”
Pierre quickly walked across the outbuilding to the door. He slid it open, tossed Pedro into the darkness, and slid the door shut again with a bang. Then BumBuna O’Brien thought he heard him pick something up. Then Pierre was walking toward him, slowly, calculating. BumBuna O’Brien was more afraid than he had ever been in his life.
And then it came, a searing pain right in his guts, the inability to breathe, and finally complete darkness.
Pierre sat in a chair in the outbuilding. He was eating a liverwurst sandwich and drinking a glass of milk as he admired the newest member of his clan. It was BumBuna O’Brien’s body, but in place of his own head was the stone head of Saint Pedro. The mouth was completely chiseled away now so that he didn’t have to listen to the incessant talking.
“Oh, my yes,” Pierre said. “You’re much more agreeable to my nerves when you don’t speak, my stone headed friend.”
The mouth didn’t move of course, but the eyes did, and they frantically darted from side to side as if Saint Pedro BumBuna O’Brien was screaming some never-ending scream.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 