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