Barefoot and Naked

Now, I am a bureaucrat with a broken heart and a dream of a vacation cruise package in the Bahamas pinned up onto the particle board in my cubicle. I attempt to douse the flames and merely end up torturing the terrorist in my liver with coffee in the morning and spirits at night. The sky hazes over like a cataract in my eye and the planet speeds up, leaving me dizzy and drinking joyfully on the emptiness. The detritus of working life cakes up under the keys of my keyboard. I turn it upside down and shake it out, making a sad little pile of chin whiskers, baby dust bunnies, bits of granola, bits of skin, and bits of dried snot. I sweep it onto the ground and have to wait a working day for the Korean Custodial Technician to mop it up the next morning. Everything smells like mothballs here and nobody speaks English. The purgatory I vomit up from time-to-time, urges the surging chorus rising up within my mind and heart, only screaming that I must run.

Induced Labor

I joyfully drink the 2 parts heresy, to 1 parts good fortune with the composure of a masked villain having only the best of intentions. The blinding light, white heat of the sun binds me to the asphalt like a dinosaur tar pit swimming pool.

           “I got nothing”.

           Leaning against the wall and staring into the sky (or the ceiling) when in awkward (read most) social situations has worked thus far in keeping Morty Michigan from gaining the trust and admiration of his peer group. The slosh drizzle of cocktail hour and loud music covers up the growling groans of nervy stomach tussles. Finding himself dressing down to the level of an unfunny clown, quipping here and there in jokes clothed in desperation, and beating feat to be alone on dark city blocks, skirting bleeding light of the orange buzzing drone of the arc-sodium lamps, buzzing the fuzz on his situation, Mort wobbles like an electron.

          Zigzagging through the invalids and sinner saints of the post-corporate apocalypse, with the pungent odor of piss and unclean flesh wafting on the cooling, Sonoran breeze, Mort is busy squandering the little good will he has left in tow on some quick handshakes with the sinister ministers of the street. A Hong Kong smorgi awaits his floating brain. A taste in the air flutters just a touch. The pigeons, tired from their stray French-fry finding missions and their flying-street-rat struts down the avenue, flutter above, complaining to each other quietly in their wretched palm tree apartments.

“Is any of this negotiable?”

Master of muppets in the next bar filled with stranger dangers stuck in obscene poses, bottles to the ground, and Morty is well aware psychic bump and grind of veiled glances and finger tips on elbows on the way to let loose the bladders of debauchery. Cursory retro music is blaring over the sound system. Mort ponders the musical properties of cocaine and queers in that damned decade, or any damned decade for that matter. Stroking the goat growing under his chin, his mind side-strokes through a sea of probable outcomes for lives such as these, there is a chance the focusing on the impossible outcomes would be more fruitful in evading the truths that become to be self-evident when one with such a novel mind goes further into the wormhole of self-introspection.

Mort pointing at his beer, the following is said with the most negligible of slurs and eyes gazing past the external, past the candy-like curves of a barmaid in her prime, and into the depth of those eyes, “Ma’am, could I have another.”

Morty can never get over the eyes. He finds himself trapped like a fly in the blissful realm of possibility and stormy images and emotions rushing about on synaptic highways through foothills and dreams all cleverly compiled by alien programmers that makes spirit flesh; beauty. We’ll fail to fully mention here how the circuits to Mort’s ears cause his brain to cheer when he hears a woman sing in these foul years of our yearning. Years spent intertwined in the illusion is taking its toll on this man.

Bar time breathes down your neck, raising the gooseflesh, despite the warm numbness embraced in the sacred den of the velvet gypsies. The organs wear down like pistons and paint until what you’re basically left with is a sputtering engine, some potato chip crumbs wedges into the cracks and crevices of the vinyl upholstery, a broken Creedence tape, and a worn spot where feet and elbows have long since dug grooves into the interior.

Hand pushes face away. Pride pushes faith away. Night pushes away the day. A trail of tears pushes the fun away. How long will he keep on pushing on this way?

“Mother, may I have another.” 

Social Lubricant

I don't know if anyone else may have noticed that when one picks up a slug or snail and gets the snail sliding lube on their fingers that, even with soap and water, it takes consecutive washings to remove it from one's fingers. I say that we isolate the formula for the substance they use to slide along the ground and market it as a personal lubricant for sexual contact. The product brand name will be called, "Snail Trail."

Muddled

     Beating, keeping time like a caveman, the funky drummer pounds deep down in the core of Mickey Moodswing’s ribcage. Guided by voices and the machine gun messages running through his mind, the exhilaration of the current storm front whips his adrenaline into a tizzy. The sheets of monsoon rain keep falling, filling the nooks and crannies of the small city vista with tepid mosquito breeding Jacuzzi resorts. This infraction on the part of nature simply cannot stand, man. The line, in Mickey’s vibrating mind has been drawn, and like shades keeping out the light, all other tasks and chores (we’ll lump personal hygiene into the list somewhere) are kept out there in the void outside the window frame. 

     Goddamned puddles are everywhere he looks as he runs full blast, tears of joy streaming, belying the fertile feelings of frustration simmering ‘neath the surface, jumping with all the dwindling strength he can muster, feet first, into a whopper of a puddle. Sporting a hot pink bicycle helmet and well-worn pair of Scotch-plaid galoshes and a hokey, brick colored cape with a gold (PK) messily embroidered into it, Moodswing quickly recovers and bolts through the driving rain with all of the determination of a bulimic girl ‘scarfing’ down pumpkin pie in another wacky act of futility. The next puddle leers at him with the dour look of a Soviet loan shark. The rain drops dance on its surface as the racing, raging storm drives Moodswing on into his puddle killing frenzy. 

     The local villagers leer then sneer at the funny little man so intent on keeping nature from crowding out the concrete with these pooling abominations. His exploits are well known throughout the village and have become more of a nuisance or tiny headache than anything. Some citizens swear they can see puddles dancing in the maniacal gleam of his eyes. Most people just shrug their shoulders and mutter something like, “The only thing he is hurting is the helpless puddles.”

     And who hasn’t been annoyed, or roused into a quiet rage, at one time or another, by the contents of a puddle slowly seeping into the seams on the side of their shoes? Sometimes there can be an outright sock soaking brought directly from the tyranny of puddles. The tell-tale squash-squeak-squash of a puddle victim creeping embarrassingly through a 7-Eleven convenience store, or a family friendly porn store never ceases to arouse contempt for the puddle in Moodswing’s piddling heart. So, in his own obsessive way, Mickey thinks he is saving the world, one menacing puddle at a time.

     Even a stupor hero with a seemingly never ending supply of puddle fighting energy needs to take a break a refuel his engine. Mickey prefers Carne Asada burritos (plus sour cream, doused in salsa) from Alberto’s taco shop. After necking down his burrito like a pelican at the pier, Mickey takes off again towards the next available foe with guacamole/beef grease/sour cream stains coating the front of his black Dickie’s cargo shorts like some sort of culinary Pollack painting. With the rain forecast to last throughout the day and into the quickly approaching Pacific night, Moodswing has enough work in store to burn off the contents of the last thermo-nuclear burrito injection. 

     The puddles keep multiplying and Mickey keeps attempting to splash them into the edges of existence; however, in the full focus of his hocus pocus, Mickey fails to see the maroon ’78 Buick Le Sabre, with the huge dent in the driver’s side door turn the corner onto Emerald Blvd. Scott and the sub-human crew of ex-High School classmates are well into their second 40 oz. bottles of “Old English 800” and well basted by the roiling smoke of Camel Wides and California cannabis , the throbbing sounds of West Coast gangster rap tingling their minds with low-end bass grooves and sordid tales of savagery and criminal-minded exploits. The minion currently melting into the threadbare fabric of the front passenger seat spies through his drooping, bloodshot eyes our stupor hero clashing energetically with the puddles. 

            “Scott, puddle dork up on the right. Let’s get ‘im.”

            Scotty boy replies, “Done…and done.”

    Scott punches the gas pedal and the V-8 leaps into action and gains speed on Puddle Killer. Even with the fuzzy buzzing bees dancing around in his head his timing is perfect. Moodswing, caught in the throws of his passions, never notices the barreling Buick even as it hits the mother of all puddles in the gutter next to him. The two foot of easement happens to be the perfect distance for the torrential wave to crest and land on his face with great force. The echoing laughter rolls through the otherwise empty street and out stupor hero collapses onto the ground and sobs until there’s nothing left, but puddles of tears.                      

Flutterbies

      The desert sun crept cleverly under Mal’s eyelids. In the distance, the Southern Pacific train wailed its wavering warning onto the dimpled canvas of her threadbare mind. Somewhere in another distance of an electric, nervous highway, down in the pit of her stomach, Mal felt the acid doomy, rumbling hunger of the night before jittering and clamoring its way into being. Grey-blue eyes open, shot with red, burnt by the bright junction of dusty blue skies, she rolls slowly onto to her side, palms down, hot gravelly grit digging into hands.  Mallory slowly raises herself onto wobbly legs into a squatting position and gingerly surveys the desolation of her surroundings. The ocean of desert with its life teeming underground greets her mind and overtakes her with memories of being jostled, of being threatened, of being devilishly drunk with the power of her feminine wolf-mother passions in the midst of a leering crowd of man beasts.

The throbbing in her head is like a post-millennium cataclysm caused by the small pond-worth of Corralejo Anejo she guzzled to tamp down the tumult of two years’ love lost. Benny may as well have shot her in the heart with a six-gun and left her lying on the floor of the ‘Tap Room’ with an old 45 of ‘Ring of Fire’ blaring out above the cacophony of Tuesday night on the corner of bedlam and squalor. Shit. He said he didn’t want our child. He didn’t want the life she yearned for. Why doesn’t he want me the way I want him?

     “He fucking promised me!” 

Mal screams this to nobody in particular at the dead end of the dirt road she blindly ventured down the night before in the drunken stupor of her harrowing sorrow. The thorny mesquite shivers in the wind. The potential offspring of its seed pods litter the ground and crunch under her feet as she heads back towards Speedway Boulevard. The cicadas begin to whir and stir in their lustful buzzing song as the oven begins to slowly climb to its preheat temperature designed to bake brains like fried eggs in drug fear propaganda commercials the electric babysitter bled into her mind as a young girl.  She sobs loudly, disturbing the lizards and cactus wrens only ever so slightly. They have their own physical survival to attend to.  An unending, wailing symphony of pleas clatters through her head...

    

    "What am I going to do? 

    "Why doesn’t he love me?"

    "How did I get here?"  

    "What am I going to do?!”

Her purse is missing, but thankfully her cell phone is wedged in her pocket, nestled between her throbbing, fatigued thighs and the dingy denim. Mal slowly rocks the phone up and out of her pocket, raising it up to eye level. The sun is furious now, so she shades the screen with her hand, and strains to see the time (9:23) and her heart hurts more than ever as she discovers that there are no missed calls. Ben didn’t call. Ben doesn’t care.

A Pocky Lips

I think maybe everyone with a glimmer in their eye should make an end-of-the world music mix as a soundtrack for the next time child minds misguided by anachronistic misinformation get their belief soup amplified by the misguided media, megaphone apparatus.

Perhaps, the mix would be a soundtrack for the feelings of sorrow when we see the evolution of consciousness being shunted into back alley abortions of logic and common sense. Perhaps, a music mix of this nature would court the dread with humor, love, and intelligence, thereby bringing us to focus and spend our energy on actual problems. A wise man told me once, "The solution to pollution is dilution."

The particular particulates the original string of words addressed were probably physical in nature, but in the technological stage of economic and cerebral development the human species is currently in, outdated memes seem to be more dangerous and distracting than ever. Perhaps, I joyfully see a silver lining in the fact that most of us have the wherewithal and the temerity to cautiously approach these freaky sidetracks with a sideways gaze and some hearty belly laughs that will echo down the canyons and null out the noise of the babbling brook.

AwKwA Man

Frighteningly photogenic, in the dirt, under fingernails, wrinkled, up-skirt, clean shaven, sheep shorn, clap trap, howlin’ wolf mystery blues…screamin’ J truck stop anthem, somethin’ ‘bout , “I was born without you, baby but my feelings were a little bit too strong” and all along I have been pretending that the flowing sounds of the Seoul whooshing-pollution, vortex traffic is really the tidal purificación San Diego ocean beaches, water, wave-pounding shoreline ever stretching out to the ends of my mirth. What lies beyond the blunder dome?

Every dog needs a home-brew tincture remedy distilled from the ingredients of its roots and subsequent globe sodding, maneuvers itself into position, squats in the city plazas, shitty squares, broken cornerstones, token beliefs running liquid.

Wicked bullet finds its mark. 

Rube, the patsy, just bluff tough enough in tooth-worn confidence game spouting carnie barker, binding to bilious foam insulation, mad dog, too dark park, clouded 20/20 vision, oh so nearly impossible to see right through these foul fears of our fnords. 

Go scraping crystal canyons in awkward silence for the glittering gold, foolishly fumbling with the keys to find the field; perfected embrace. Electron circles nucleus. Be bolder. Spurred into action by the photo fading, the paint chipping, offspring eclipse, the cowboy wells up, digging no further than his backyard barbeque, punching his stomach, govereeting up his droogs, and sexting his attorney. 

The sordid, sun-burned past is permanently seared into his memory and fossilized there; taking karma payments in perpetuity.

Pirate name?

Red-Blood ‘The Weary’. 

Ship name?

The Fall of Rome. 

Lesson learned?      

Not a chance.