SUBJECT TO SUSPICION

Trail Dog tries his paw at action - He playing a
Scottish terrier named Falla

My tomatoes and peppers bought the farm. I don’t know how they got the money. They did it last night. Good luck boys. I plan to rent out their empty beds to some Herbs. Big Boy and Better Boy were both gone when I got up.

Its Sunday

But don’t bother

            To flip

Through the sections

            If there still

            Are any

The comics

            Aren’t there

            Anymore

Turn on the TV instead

            And watch sports

           

The paper      

            Doesn’t spill

            Out and make

A mess that occupies

            The afternoon

On a cold country

Sunday after a big

            Chicken dinner

After chugging along to church

            In the old truck

Making ruts in the

            Pristine snow

That are half covered again

            When you return

Change into your ordinary clothes

            Lie in front of the stove

            On your belly and read the funnies

Now you can watch golf

            From Augusta

While the Goodyear blimp

            Hovers overhead

Via Direct TV

            Or lean what the celebrities

            Wore at the gala last night

I refilled my wine cup. I sliced some hunks of cheese. I went back outside to the campfire. I took a bite of cheese and a sip of wine. I almost puked. God, this stuff is horrible. I had filled my cup with coffee insteaf of Merlot. I dumped it back into the pot and made sure that it was wine that I was decanting this time. And now everything is fine. But this morning, I poured a cup of coffee from the pot and put it in the microwave. When hot I sat down and took a sip. God, this is horrid stuff. There was about a third a cup of wine in the cup when I had refilled inadvertently with coffee last night. Now there was a third of a cup of wine in my coffee pot. Yesterday’s coffee reheated is bad enough but with wine, yuk? I dumped it out and brewed a fresh pot. That’s better, but not a much better. It was the bottom of the tin of a cheep brand of coffee, but this is as good as this coffee is going to get.

The winged man likes to jump off bridges, or off the roofs of houses or out of his office window. My commute to and from work is literally a breeze a way, he says – Anthony Caleshu – The Siege of the Body and a Brief Respite, 2004  p59

I’m wearing my Hawaiian shirt. It’s warm (not the shirt but the weather). And shorts (I’m wearing shorts rather than slacks, do I have to provide explinations for everything I say? I think not!). A brid mistakes my shirt for a flower (one of those printed on it, I’m going to stop doing this, this is the last time I swear). All I see is a blur of gray as I hear the purr of its wings. Bizzip plur plur plur. It tries to land on my elbow. I was zoned out. Sitting there vegetating. It’s too early to be fullly functioning. I am fully awake now. The coffee is starting to perk. It won’t be long. It’s dawn – neither light nor dark. The British went so far as to stone Dauchunds during World War I. We renamed French Fries after the French refused to let us overfly their country on some raid or another to bomb some tents in one desert or another. What does Freedom Fries have to due with birds trying to suck your blood? I don’t know but there it is running through the mind. Maybe Freud knows. Bringing democracy one bomb at a time. Liberty cabbage is what we called sauerkraut during World War I. Day breaks. Coffee is ready. Jingoism. There is a splash in the lake. Concentric rings. Here comes the sun. Kerplunp, another fish jumps. I see it this time. It was in the middle of the cove that the pair of mating geese are trying lay claim to. Breakfast – hotcakes, bacon & coffee. Well almost. I only manage to salvage a single dollar sized pancake. The griddle is not hot enough. I’m not paying enough attention to what I’m doing.

When a door is slammed, it’s immediate; but when a cicada’s / legs itch, it takes forever to scratch – Anthony Caleshu – The Siege of the Body and a Brief Respite, 2004  p92

A sudden hail storm comes up. No rain, just a few marbles of ice bouncing off the ground. Then the sun comes out again. I’m still sitting here starring out at the lake. I’m not looking at anything in particular. Zoned out again. I’ve got an image of the Lock Ness monster in my head. Sort of like an earworm but this is a bit of cinema, something like the McGrudder film – Kennedy shot over and over.  There might be one out there in the cove. You can’t be absolutely sure.  I’m looking for anything strange out there. Remember the B&W film of the supposedly monster’s head moving across a placid Lock Ness. Yes, I know that was Scotland. But I’m staring out at the lake and the mind wants to be active, so I imagine a prehistoric monster. Why not? Then I ponder unicorns for no specific reason either. Unicorns are supposed to lead you to virgins (they say a male thinks of sex at lealst once every thirty seconds). No I don’t think Carla was a virgin. Though she did have a nice milky white belly button. She and Misty had been comparing their mid-riff bulges. “Great belly button,” I had sad. Misty says to Carla, “really there is nothing there.” The ranger says that the temperature it is supposed to be in the thirties tonight.

All these were the billboards around him – Don DeLilo

A band plays live Muzak

All terror is local now

All technology refers to the bomb

And people say, ‘Let’s go eat,”

Or whatever people say

When a thing begins to be over

Are secrets a tunnel

To a dream world

Where you control events

Another postmodern sunset,

Rich in romantic imagery

And how do you know that it is

When you’re starting on a project,

You know how you sometimes have to start

With a series of misunderstandings

And what’s the point

In waking up in the morning

If you don’t try

To match the enormousness

Of the known forces

Of the world with something

Powerful of your own

And how can you tell

If this is true

When you’re already systemed under,

Prepared to half believe everything

Because this is the only intelligent response?

Airtime is valuable.

They can’t go into long tortured descriptions

And how can you tell the difference

Between the orange juice and Agent Orange

If the same massive system

Connects them at levels

Outside your comprehension

All these were the billboards around him,

Systematically linked in some self-referring relationship

That had a kind of neurotic tightness,

An inescapability,

As if the billboards were generating reality

Its been raining. Its not raining right now. There is a rumble. One of those rumbles that travels from horizon to horizon. Then the ping ping ping begins. A heavy intense rain then quiet again. On and off since three. The owls were getting their hooting done early. It’s called hooting but its soyunds more like cats fighting.  They don’t know when they have another chance. No Internet. Closest Internet is 15 miles away by back roads. I found my way in here by following the signs.  I don’t think they have signs showing me the way back out. I drink all my wine and eat all my crackers. It will be an early bedtime tonight. I have the heater on. The dog is asleep. He generally sleeps all day when its raining. I would too but then I’d lie awake most of the night. When he has slept all day he has a habit of jumping up on my chest several time in the middle of the night, usually when I’ve just fittully managed to fall asleep. I cratch him behind the ears and he goes and lies down again after turning around three times. I shouldn’t reward him for such behavior. The turning around three times, that’s ok; its hopping on top of me and waking me up that I shouldn’t be rewarding.

Good wine is not acidic

But vinegary wine is better than no wine

And any Shostakovich

Is better than no Shostakovich at all

Potato chips make me fat

            But that’s ok

There’s no lovin’ comin’

            My way anyway

No one to compain of having

            To sew the buttons

Back on my pants

I’m old old and lame

But they still call me honey

So long as I’ve got any money

But I refuse to live

Without my Shostakovich

And I admired Richard Feynman too

            And his goddamn o-rings

If only everything was

            As simple

As that bucket of ice water