The glass door pushed open as he leaned into it with his good hip.
“I don’t think they allow canes in here,” said the man with him.
“Of course they do. It’s a restaurant. Restaurants allow canes.”
He looked down the narrow lane leading to the counter. Three people were waiting in line. Beyond them a young attendant pressed buttons on a cash register shaped like a shoe. The lane leading up to the counter was dim and narrow.
He pushed open the second glass door, entering fully into smells of grease and meat and cleaning chemicals. A woman in shorts carried a tray of paper-wrapped food from the counter to the napkin bar to a brightly colored booth, where a man and two boys were waiting.
He leaned forward on the cane. The spring mechanism recoiled, causing him to sink down and bob back up.
“You can’t bring that in here.”
A middle-aged couple was sitting in a half-sized booth by the entrance.
“What?”
He was self-conscious about needing the cane. Whenever a stranger took notice of it, he felt like a fraud. He felt that he had to prove to this disbelieving person that, Yes, he was only 27 years old, but he needed that cane. He wasn’t carrying it around as some unholy statement of fashion.
“Do these people think I’m trying to look cool?,” he wondered when he spotted strangers giving him sideways glances or rolling their eyes. “Do they think I’m mocking a whole race of people who use canes–like I’m showing off some hip accessory? I happen to need this cane.”
“Can’t I bring a cane into a fast food restaurant?” he called, maybe a little too loudly, to the woman in the booth.
“No. You can’t.” Her husband pointed to a tiny bronze-lacquered sign on the railing of the entranceway. Engraved on it were the words NO CANES IN RESTAURANT.
“Do you think I can help it that I need a cane?” he said, letting himself collapse to his knees. The diners seated throughout the restaurant did not drop their sandwiches and let out the collective gasp he expected to hear.
He thrust the cane outward as he lay on the floor. Its rubber foot suctioned onto the linoleum tile like a fat tentacle. Using only his arm strength, he dragged himself forward a few inches. He thrust the cane forward again and again, dragging his heavy legs behind him as he slithered straight towards the counter.
He looked over his shoulder to see the couple at the half booth. They avoided eye contact. They sat still, their mouths moving inaudibly.
“I’m whispering about you,” he hissed at them, “You can’t hear me.”
He saw blood pouring into the woman’s cheeks.
Victory.
the
ability to
INQUIRE
about the importance
of
a
variety
of
subjects
is a characteristic
that–
along with
a
plethora
of
others–
guides
a person
towards
the path
of knowledge.
un
fortunately
being possessive
of
elastic curiosity
undoubtedly
does not ensure
that
a person
will ever
actually
arrive
at
KNOWLEDGE.
“God is the essence of truth.”
People, as a whole, naturally gravitate towards what they want to think of as the truth.
Do atheists inherently possess a disposition for irony?
Believers assert that God, with specific intentions, creates all things. Keeping this in mind, it follows that God intentionally created people who want to disassociate themselves from the mainstream conception of truth–people known as atheists.
Agnostics are connoted to be skeptical. They seem to want to believe in God–in other words, find infinite truth and knowledge–but they will not allow themselves to believe because there is not enough evidence to support the existence of inextirpable truth. So is knowledge itself even trustworthy of being infinitely valid?
What has been named God is believed to exist for all times. “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.” But God–though “in” all things–exists separately from Earth and all else it is attributed to have created. Like an artist whose individual nature is evident in his or her masterpiece, a portion of God is evident in all its creations–but a creation is not the creator. All things in existence are said to be objects created by the sculptor of eternal truth and knowledge. Yet they are objects which exist in a universe of just as much or more fallibility and chaos as truth and knowledge. These creations might be reminders of truth, but not truth itself. They are objects with the ability to represent truth; but they cannot project it, enforce it, spread its influence, even explain it.
Perhaps humankind’s “free will” is simply a natural disposition among individuals to dedicate themselves to, or disassociate themselves from, the lifelong search for truth. Conscience, perhaps, is the disposition for steadfast studiousness–what might be called “faith.” Faith, then, is not effortless, but requires persistence in the study of, and journey towards, truth. A person who believes in what is called God must be incessantly rewarded with proof that he or she has found the path towards divine truth. Agnostics do not think themselves lucky enough to have found that path yet, but are looking for the same kinds of signs that believers claim to be seeing to indicate the correctness of their path–“blessings.”
One night I fell three flights out of bed and my body crashed against the pavement. The clock tower struck three times before I breathed again. Its chimes blew like sirens in the windless night. I was three-quarters unconscious when the clouds descended upon my broken body–scooped me up like a steam shovel. My skin twisted off battered bones and splattered to the land below. Atmospheres, stratospheres with flickering lights pounded me to dust as the vacuous heavens drew me closer. Orange winters of seven centuries pierced through ascending powder. There was no calmness, no urgency. Friendless parasites crouched in the shelter of my earthly remains.
i wouldn’t open that door if i
was you–didn’t you hear that screamin?
didn’t you feel that moanin? ah but a real pretty
clear light emanates through the air holes.
Air Holes–man don’t you think you should
get goin? it’s all grey and contaminated in
here–all my hairs’ve been conditioned–my
skin’s all damp with calamine bruises but
that light keeps creepin in–it’s
shinin through the peep hole–it’s
shinin through the hinges–you ever hear a light
ray before? you just block out those
rats on your damp brown floor–it’s
slicing up the darkness, man–it’s shinin like a
elevator or a tube to the past and future or
an airport walkway maybe
you should just crack it–just peek out–just
reach your shaky little fingers out and turn
that knob there–just give a
little squeeze and turn it–go on–
i wouldn’t if i was you
though–you know that light–sounds
like a chorus of wild creatures
who acquaints the rocks with moon beam energy
pregnant with the seeds of ancestors
swallowing our sins in a spinning blood cycle
who sings silent melodies of the heart
who makes a breast mountain monument
around which water flows and sheep graze –
ceremoniously circling goddess supreme
who is worshiped in dark reservoirs
level plains of God and human and Nature
steps deliberately in the ocean’s wake,
who sinks subtly. inaudibly
who signs not works of art
but shares the snares of life
Peaceful and Natural and Continuous –
connected in sacred groves, holy caves
–who freely serves the servant
breed unto the pile.
a cute mental discernment
triggering, went by.
a nice fellow:
said “hello” to my
childhood dog
maybe shooting,
you’ll see it,
down a pyramid
water slide, splashing
sagacious
in the stimuli tide.
if you find it,
release, please,
it from that sea,
you will?
Whose talent is a virtue
who has spat in the dirt
on the mountainside with
ropeless hands bleeding over the rocks
Who has screamed her throat coarse
and had her mouth filled with gravel,
swallowing it, feeling it
make slits and holes in intestines on
its journey through digestion
Whose faith is unfounded
when her heart has healed
itself with no object
Whose eyes are blind when
the backs of her eyelids
paint new murals
every time she blinks
Whose lover is destined
when love is a tender baby sparrow
dangling by a feather,
screaming for a savior
I sometime once hung on memory my mind
fingering by the teedly night limes
It samba scooted out, peeled in
!distractions
unentered tender toots
bellowing about each beep boop
How in fashion
strumming wimple chord corn glimpses
Bumble bee boop bop blid illit
one something awrote the mire
“Who be” says eye to the whump drumming
earlobe fibe.
Comb cone a blistery thigh
I know not needer nor nie
Come corkscrew on too, oy!
KWEhhchk BLA
ahh
hh!!
One indifferent little mouse
Sits up looking at a house.
“This is the place”, he says,
and takes his knapsack up to the door.
Little crackers, a mouse-sized jar of peanut butter,
a picture of his wife–her body was crushed in the jaws of Miriam the cat,
some painting supplies, a rosary of dried peas–
All this is carefully wrapped in a mouse-kerchief hanging from a toothpick.
(The toothpick he uses to snap mousetraps from a safe distance and steal the cheese.)
He squeezes himself slowly through the keyhole,
falling hard on a tasseled floor mat.
He picks himself up, with a groan.
He takes a deep breath and heaves the knapsack over his shoulder.
The house is dark and quiet.
One indifferent little mouse
begins to move about.
Two guys in red shirts,
tucked in,
lips all swollen:
They went down the street
sniffing out some crushed tomatoes.
Another hunches to the dry-cleaner.
His eyebrows grew wild.
The rain taps on his beige windbreaker.
You are it
and I am I.
I is he,
it’s plain a she.
Mothers,
–they’re its.
But later I’s
(I’s in secret)
behind our backs.
Our fathers be
I’s by the clock.
They tick. Tock.
The pendulum cast
strates the I’s.
There be some she’s:
it’s by vote.
Erect by consent.
Filled with pokes.
All is my’s.
They make its.
I‘s mobilize.
Its give birth
to baby I’s.
I’s wave the my flag
over the child
who cannot see.
It cries to the child,
“You‘re no penis.”
I’s may not
feel like I’s,
but she’s never
know they’re its.
My’s enable I’s
with genital whips.
I didn’t get my book today. It was shipped last week and it should have been
here by now. But I was supposed to read part of it for an assignment that was
due today. So I went to the university bookstore to see if they had it.
The door buzzer kept going off as people streamed out. None of the cashiers
seemed to care. The book was there. I looked at it and it was the one I needed.
I didn’t have the money, so I peered around. I didn’t see a camera. I didn’t see
a security guard. I walked over to the chairs they have for shoppers’
convenience and sat down with the book. I read it for a while. I even took
notes in my notebook.
I sat there for quite a long while doing this. When I was done, I put the book in
my backpack like it was my own. I walked out the exit. The buzzer went off,
but a bunch of people were exiting at the same time and we just kept going.
They seemed normal.
I started walking deliberately down the corridor. I tried to appear at ease. My
eyes were straight and fixed. I couldn’t stop looking at the door at the end of
the corridor. Once I passed through that one I knew I would be free. It was a
long corridor.
As I got closer and closer, my shoulders began to loosen. My arms were
flopping all over the place as I walked. I drew in a breath and clenched my butt
cheeks. I found the courage to look behind me. Nobody was there. The
cashiers kept on cashiering. I heard them. They weren’t cashiering for me.
One of my butt cheeks relaxed.
I looked at all the people in the corridor. Suddenly people were everywhere. I
hadn’t even noticed them. People standing, people walking, people sitting,
people reading newspapers, people eating raisins. They were wearing bright
outfits. They were talking about geometry. One of the walkers was wearing
high heals, walking rigidly, cringing at the clacking of her footsteps when they
echoed off the narrow walls.
My hands were pulsating. The little white spots were disappearing and
reappearing. I could feel my heart beat in the flap between my thumb and
forefinger. My breath traveled from my lungs through my nose. My longest toe
made a small circular movement. Seemed normal. Like an organism. There
were bones under my skin. I think my brain inverted an image.
I walked past all the people. They passed by quicker once I noticed them.
There was a breeze through my arm hairs. My neck hairs replied
empathetically. I swallowed the saliva reserves in my cheeks.
I walked through the corridor exit and the lights became fluorescent. There
was a brand new book with a brand new book smell smelling up my bag.
Dog in the distance of night,
You’re America.
Your barks keep me from dreaming.
my love flies
filled with Helium…
(knots and pouch strung) serenading
below the crestfallen moon m
outh.
makes soft columned slaves
sour bald and furious.
squeezes mushroom lymph nodes swelled
in libraries of palm glands.
my love fills philanthropically
the banks of Sweden
(the forests of Eden!)
…it curls round a mulberry branch
campaigns to the mockingbirds…
lynches life from the balance
my one branch
beneath window
unknown
Why do I not want to accept that
cancer patients and disease victims
are suffering real ailments?
if the mystery is revealed,
like in the
typewriter poem of Jack Kerouac, then the
final reaction after
the
nice burning
anticipation is ultimately
oh, that’s the big
Secret?
Do you want to make mashed potatoes
said she.
Whatever you want
said he.
We can get the stuff for salads said she.
Sounds fine said he.
Or did you have a hard time making them last time?
No, it wasn’t so bad.
I didn’t know if you said you didn’t like it.
Nah, it was really easier than I remembered.
Okay, let’s go to A & P.
Let me at least
drop the dog off first.
Oh. Okay–well I guess he can go up.
Don’t let him go, though:
You know he’ll
go back there and roll around.
Okay. Clampoupamlo-owen. Sop
Sop Sappalappa firrrrt.
Reh-eer-uank
Firt firt firt firt fermp fielp
it it
it, it it it it it tit tit tit tit
It it it it it it
FAROUNT FAROUNT FAROUNT
PAH-launt.
Nip nip nip nip nip. Screeow Screeeow-ouangh
Okay shouldIgetmywalletnahletmegotothebathroomokayohah-
itsonlywhattimeisit?ahit’sohmybackshouldgoshhurts Ffffffflakakow!
WEEEEAAAAAcaouaouaouaouaou okayletmego-
OhwaitmywalletokaygoodbyeMisterbegooddon’tpeeooph.
Prent. cricklecrackowchitchappopapop. Kee-er-ang,
ank. Kop kop kop kop kop loppopchopkopkopclop
Eeerank. Cick.
Top top top top top topputapapoppop POW!
kicka shik kickalee kip cock cock Cock
lick foop ROWRRRRAINGHH
boof rif reeow ree rawrf roof.
“huuUHHHHH, WHHHOooah.”
Flop Flop Flop Fiff CRICK
ding-ah-ding-ah-dweeiiit
“OOOhhhh”
TWUFF!
Let’s go to The Office and get
some mashed potatoes
said she.
I got this horn for my mouth but my lips dumb gone numb.
This ain’t no rag-time fun-time gnawings parody
troupe goose-steppin’ ‘top a desert a
burnt corpse faces.
I got sand clot spit valves.
No mute-voice tucked home tinks my
xylophone bones.
“We got language solutions
acquainted with an image diluted on ‘em.
Pierce ‘em more’n pin cushions
poked with cruel usual persecution.”
Got no given name, she’s, never birthed.
Made to fire pistol pissed-off at your
vacant profane mirth.
(slave wife torn nightly in the dark
screams mute power guilty to hang)
I can’t blow it, Mr. see I see.
Can’t get it.
Can’t transmit it.
I got breathless. I got a whole cannon ball hole
in my lung.
I get shrapnel-spangled sleep-songs, sir.
I got guns cross’d my chest.
I got a bugle sure won’t toot
the song of justice.
A hundred and thirty one
what a strain
When the mismar splash cats a
wild hen’s uncle, he’ll mother up to your
one cent whistle.
A few haiku, for fun:
Squinch your freckled nose, dear girl
Why fear the forlorn
When fog echoes in your brain?
Moonlight comes sauntering close
snears violent at dusk
peals your clothes away and shakes
Dog, you bark out the window
Curiosity
Makes spears of your curious ears
Malignant spore cells creep close
‘hind the closet doors
Whisper “maybe tomorrow”
If to be verse renewing
Or first canoeing
Paddle near moss dripping trees
The dream voice speaks you forward
Bread crumbs disappear
Consciousness in crow’s mouth beaks
Dew-borne blonde ballerina
her torso stem sprouts
petite epiphany buds
Hot night breath tight constricting
Asphyxiating
Squeeze tight your lungs sweet lovers
Sacrilege of supple night
descends the siren vigil
all night train tunnel riding
‘thin Plato caves
‘thout sunlight
(static torches squeal whimper and leaven)
sit sliding
cyclical
‘tween stations
contorting
transgressing sobbed sinceres
trespassing debt payers
seen stealing sacks of prayers (they is)
exhaling inward out-airs.
Well that’s it
You see.
It’s not though-
t’siderably.
Peeks in feeling
You see
spy spontaneity.
Deceive the sounder box, cuts!
August berries peck-picked outside
the long room window.
Start a phrase beat for two magician
-ical mouths.
Squeak tight your dime-turn tempos
snap attention to the sound lighting layouts
and overs.
Blue fog machine scruffs the throats of
Mud; robs Johnson. Mellows their mind-explosions.
Wanders edited and stuck-cut like
magnet tape.
Take note now: sad sins seep with power to inebriate.
No Hughes abor-drums pound, ‘les you
scratch black blow wax.
Something deep within.
Some portend
tous
tinker-tank tick-tack talk.
Laser lights swift in plastic ridges spin.
Null in the alleys, used to be so toe-tappin’.
None to be, be no more.
Chloroforms ‘em.
Yo Tapeman, strike-a-these!
On the toilet he plays
a little prince in the waves
of the dam periclave
Wonders what a box of mints
could do with a hundred glints
in the wave of cherished blocks
taking cover under a Spanish frock
The improvisation secludes a
wittier gent than two sailors
who could fumble inside the
clock.
What could be the point of the
omnipresent smock? The cultured
little ticker-tock? The bent syringe in the
festering knock on the sidewalk? Cigarettes.
Smears. Indoglytricerine.
Wobbling balls in the mister’s mouth.
Shuddering shallows in the caves of
fouls the fingers of fingerboards and of
kale whale waves in the gentry
morning pillow poems.
Walks in the feet that printed the
trail on the way to the prehistoric zoo of –
Babylon in the mist can’t control a south-sent quip.
What a falsetto moonlight lamp lingering
leer preposition queer. Can’t control a
quanti-small quatrain quartering the
quail grazing the friar in fear of
fizzling.
Bar Williams’ Corso’s torso
counting under a rubber fence.
Howling to the chickens’ white fickle
flints. Barrowing under the wheels of
red moving forward falling fleeting
fellows far and still and constant.
In motion. So much depends on your
underwear under-wire motion sickness
rat-race choir Dylan’s lyre
leaks over the pyre in Morrison’s
sultan’s sire counting covers of modern
mismal Mick Jaggering malcontent
kill Kaddish Kiplinger’s lawn
flamingos fickle fawn, dear
Prudent pillows talk of Denver
dawn and nickle’s non nerry
never nipped a nipple’s nack for
quarry men. Beat the Jacks
Sack the hacks Howl the Powel in the power of
Ginsberg’s testimony for three.
Breathe the Buddha Seize the Noodle.
Get Sick in the caboodle, click the Hoodle Hap
Harbingers sing on supple sandpiles can you
queef the moonlit mile that clicks the counting
maze’s (f)mile that saves the Indians a
big gem pile that feathers the fountains
in saccharine style That heaves the funeral
under a smile in the eyes and teeth of
a sacker’s denial and lassos the horse
that creeps in a Mississippi
Quantifiable
Can
of
Lipstick.
Stance
and
hhhhhhhHap
in
Ness.
The pee rhythm in the toilet bowl.
Your peach-plums come undone
in the nisty network of your
nebula
breath
Eat your apples
Eat your
Plumb-thumb
Hot-dog
Bun.
Hold your rope
write your writ.
Scatter your matchbox moist militant
mis-ticks.
Tongue your tooth and teethe your
sheath. Sword your gourd in the
pineapple heat.
Come to conclude-
-sions
Rest your
…
Mmmmmm: This water is NICEandCOLD!!
Is it…
do you keep it refrigerated?
Ohhh MY!, it’s soo COLD!
If we had but time, our lady–
to marvel in one world. We have all ‘til your cheeks warp,
‘til your veil of beauty shrieks in bubbles of boiling oil.
We have still the moments in you (which are after and ahead contained).
Since even what’s finite known to me seems ‘evitable
ageless in your rectangle aura.
but I sneeze when I breathe the sweet heat
of our sun’s new day.
And it soaks my powdery canvas in itchy pink!
as he tickles your neck with his hairs?
A mistress in coyness is a colorless quill;
she hums marble-mouthed to the indurate poet as he taps hastily on his pocket-clock.
I would like to know, miss, have you ever giggled into your pillows?
May I cool my palms on your wrinkly silk sleeves?
I’ll take the slow road winding to approach the stream.
Bet this blazoning adolescent dream
will not be the last that you see.
(I suspect you’ve clinched your wrist ‘til your bones birthed crackled crumbs of marrow.)
Inspired by:
To His Coy Mistress
The Mona Lisa
I sat up all night n read Whitman
I sat up all night n read Walt Whitman:
a miraculous cascading of water in the nude.
I penciled his picture forehand
imagined Ginsberg’s fits of Will in advance of that.
Standing ‘hind the bed, sheets stuffed ‘neath the
mattress. (Smelled a burning smell of presence.) Heard
no echoes of voice booming ‘neath the carpet.
I cocked my hat, to frankly forget.
‘tempting
I punched my hip and left it there and stared into the mirror.
I sat up all night dry-mouth whispering.. .. .. .. .. .. ..
‘tween turns
‘f I coul’ be one a’ them ahhh’baseball plairs
I think I ‘ould a-ande’ ‘roun’ ‘n’ spou’
through mah nails ‘boud da dag’ol’ drowt.
I migh toss a-pie in the aiiee-ar ‘n’ watch it clou’.
I coul’ tie a shoestrain’
Wonder what it’s like to own a house?
Sit there and watch it go on the outs.
Pile a tin can window with bricks of the west.
Hold a cavalry hostage in heat with my door.
I can’t pronounce a misspelling.
Whad I do? Wuddie doo? Oo()()()o0O
If ya Can’t twarl a marp; suckalou.
I picked up my guitar the other day and sung
a li’l sickle-cell song.
Wasn’t much I could say ’bout it.
Would have liked tahknow betta, champ!!
It’s not the eyes, though. These could be a-worse.
Bett’er best get stahded.
