And for the whoring of my pen, my translucent bathroom wall, and the rapid depreciation of the common thought, I'd like to thank:

And so Ernest, Franz and Miguel observed from the gray, posthumous cloud, shaking their heads as literature evolved itself into its own death.

"language is a constant evolution"

"This careless facet"

"The accidental plot of Tom Anderson"

five ballet dancers (the future, or anti-)
vs.
my last leg (the opinion)

A Play In a Single Act

Our protagonist sits weary in a leather office chair, donning a wrinkled, maroon polo and an obviously self-administered, uneven haircut. On his twelfth and, alas, final (as his employment has recently been terminated) hour manning the front desk of the prestigious Goober Moon Ballet Academy for Young Guns and Complacent Yuppies, he sits in an unaware daze, blinking emptily at a computer monitor before him. Earlier he had been playing songs on an acoustic guitar which now sits idly in its case on the floor behind him. A group of preteen female dancers not-so-shyly creeps up to the desk to our protagonist and instigates a flash-interchange, their contributions to the quasi conversation betray what our protagonist perceives to be startling:

girl 1"hey do you know how to play guitar?"
me"no i just keep it there"
#1"i heard you playing a song what song was it?"
me"uh, maybe john lennon. or neil young."
#1"oh i LOVE neil young"
me"really?"
#1"yeah and oh do you know dave matthews?"
girl #2 "do you know panic at the dicso? i love panic at the disco"
me"uh"
girls#1-5 chatter simultaneously, unintelligible
girls #2"i love panic at the disco have you heard them?"
me"uh, no, never actually"
girl#1"..on a boat on a boat"
girl#2"panic at the disco, love them"
girl#1"..on a boat"
me"oh ist that uh, andy samberg"
girls#1,2 and 4"yeah! and jizz in my pants"
me"what?"
girls#1-5(shouting)"jizz in my pants jizzed in my pants jizz in my pants"
me"shhhh hey you're not supposed to know that word"
girls#1 and 2"what, jizz?"
me"yeah"
girl#2"why? we're not six"
me"yeah, like ten?"
girl#2"uh no, 12"
girl #1"13"
girls#1-5 incoherent excited chatter, during which girl #4's portable ipod speaker begins quietly playing hip hop music
girl#2"so you NEVER heard panic at the disco"
me"no what is that, is that panic at the disco playing on that thing?"
girl#2"no, they're boys'
me"oh"
girl#1"dyou like dave matthews, or jack johnson?"
me"uh"
girl#2"my favorite song is --inaudible--"
me"wait what?"
girl#2"my favorite song by them is 'lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off'"
me"oh thats great"

//curtain//

epitaph for a man i once was

Dear M. / Mme.,

I received in the post your letter of recognition not a week ago. I must admit I waited months for your reply; at the very least I had hoped for some minor, negligible glint of recognition from your vicinity of the postmaster's jurisdiction. In the months between sending out my initial manuscript via DHL and receiving a worn, cordially salutated rejection via the premodern mail, I came to notice a few things.

It was not so much the noticing of these things that deems them mentionable, albeit writeable and sendable, or mailable, but the unforseen clash of circumstance and impregnation that strikes the best of us and the worst of us, that drives forlorn bank brokers to search their back yards in a milky whisky dance, for just five more minutes with their old dog; that patronized the stitch in the unibomber's cerebellum; that was the fleck of dust itching Mozart's nose and having him sneeze out the Marriage of Figaro.

It was a moth that landed on my sister's retired lacrosse stick. At precisely five thirty two in the morning I had not slept. I had reached such ineffable stuckness that I believe Derrida's head might have exploded had he been there to witness it. My hands were charred with cigarette burns and practically half the liter of Clan MacGregor had found its way to my shirt and bare feet. The backyard lay before my eyelids, sunk not from sleepiness but that powerful fermentation-daze, or headlock, rather, and I stood quickly to walk myself back into sobriety.

As I did, though, I saw it, her stick, leaning against the mud- and beer- splattered brick of my rented house. Nearly neck-deep in unraked leaves and a strewn mess of half-crushed beer cans, the sight was the bizarre love-making of poverty and athleticism. And there, perched like boredom on Middle America, sat the moth, and I wanted to cry. I ignored the notion though and nearly tumbled headlong into my wooden gate leading to the street before putting my hand before me and turning the potential concussion into a mere exit of the yard.

The streets seemed different now, and I wanted to know why. I thought about many things, gazing at the glass three sided box of the bus stop. I noticed the haze of yellow without noticing the streetlamp and I thought to myself that I must have been no more than three half-steps from Suchness at which point I was hurled back into the miserable state of Being.

Rounding the corner of my street, I was about to turn back toward my home when a group of three or four Bro-Types found me walking off my scotch. They hollered at me, no doubt mistaking me for a homeless man. I was, after all, not at my most kempt or focused. I tried to ignore them angrily, but they had become intent on a lynching the moment they laid their quivering, empty, bloodshot eyes on me. I must have been twenty five seconds from home when I felt a clammy hand on my left shoulder.

"hey muhammd hows the taxi business?" at which his lead-faced, shave headed home boy swung his fist hard into my right cheek.

I do not remember anything immediately after that. But when I woke, it was as if the dark of early morning had witnessed the event and, knowing it could do nothing to help, had run to fetch the sunrise. I laid there with my sore cheek embedded in the night-cool, unforgiving pavement, and watched an orange globe peek from the roof of the townhouse on the other side of route fifty. I did not move. No cars were driving by and I was so beautifully alone that I did start to cry. It was not the searing throbbing or box cutter stabs coming from my cheek, or my left leg which had been so obviously broken. It was that the sun continued on, even with me here, not pausing in shock or abandoning its post in sympathy. I respected the sun in that moment, and so potently that I stood to my feet and limped, broken leg and face and all, to a dining chair in my home, where I sat and drank cool, day-old coffee from a tall red mug and thought about the moth on my sister's lacrosse stick.

Don't you realize, M. / Mme., that the manuscript of mine you read was from a different hand that writes you this letter? It had been penned by ink drawn from a well filled with resentment, liquor, confusion, futility and road rage. Though it will be some time before the dew of awakening has dried from my grass, and surely even more time before I am prepared to write or even consider sending to another publisher, I send this sort of epitaph for a man I once was, hoping you will see it, or rather, not see it, the transparent envelope that carries it and all.

My best to you and yours,

H.

I just need somebody to hear what I hear

I sit here,
wearing this moonlight like a red tunic.
I sit beside you,
behind a wooden table made for picnics and
we discuss.
We discuss until our ears are numb,
our tongues are bleeding, until
the melted prints we have associated with
words have lost connection.

I forget the scape of clouds
earlier. They did not even look real
and I thought,
"these clouds look straight from a Renaissance
painting"
and I thought about you:
not like clouds but
you are closer maybe
to the iridescent twitch that was in Michelangelo's guts.

In my tunic I sweated over
the pained irking of the obvious;
indoctrination of a riotous crowd
that screamed in our ears

I fantasized about how it
could fit in my hand all along

Yet
this tired moonlight
like fishing nets,
answers our questions;
all of them, if we listen
hard enough

And it lifts these limping legs
as they revel through vendors
in the stink of that city sun,
barely dragging
behind
whispering mouths and minds
that claw at the door,
mad dogs:
weakened with rage/
touched hard by the
blur of no hope

Where are the drivers
in these buses filling
with the curious tourists
of our questions?
dropping them off in some border town
that holds the ribbon tight
between two places we
could not
stand
to look at ever again,
unless in moonlight?

"Show me your body, he said. It only means one thing.""