Tinted Window and A/C

Sitting in his comfortable leather seat, cruising along a highway that leads to somewhere he doesn’t know. Tinted windows of course. No he can’t be bothered to look out into your world while feeling the very same heat you are in, sweating your sweat—no it just isn’t possible. His soundtrack at the moment is something dramatic and indie so he can sort of feel for a condition other than his. He imagines it to be just like in the movies. Where some spoiled rich boy gets out of his air-conditioned life and finds a reprieve from his ignorance. Maybe tomorrow.

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Invasive

My glistening needles are not for decoration. They pierce insidiously without warning, and once inside, my barbs will hook onto your flesh like it was the cheek of an ignorant, juicy fish. If you are the least bit maladapted to my environment, I will cut you down. Negotiation is futile, as is laughter. I was not planted here for your pleasure, or theirs. Your territory is a thing of the past. You’d do best in a nice terracotta pot, or perhaps a large planter in the lobby of a fancy hotel and spa. But not here. Consider your soil mine.

Fortune

            Leroy planted a packet of seeds in a neat row. Five months of careful watering later, he harvested a crop of fortune cookies from the yellowed vines. Inside each cookie was a slip of paper with a phone number. At first he was filled with awe, but soon it seemed perfectly natural that phone numbers might grow from a row of seeds. In September, when the last fortune cookie had been picked, he began to call the numbers. But to his horror, each voice that answered said the exact same thing: “Fortune cookies? You’re crazy, and fortunately, I’m not.” Click.

Text Messages Lead To Very Disjointed Conversations

– How’s your day going?
– Eating sushi. It is filled with eel. How was dancing last night?
– Ohh eel sounds slippery. Just like your mom last night.
– I had dinner with my mom last night jerk. Swallowing wasabi by itself is not that cool.
– You’re not cool. Last night was aight, busted a bunch of moves, you know.
– My self-esteem is in the gutter, thanks. Ever seen asparagus tempura? So good!
– Sounds hateful. Just doing what I can for your self-esteem aka massive ego. Remember Laura?
– Yeah, why? And you need to try this asparagus. And my ego barely exists now. And…

Getting Sick

            If the world lives inside my mind, how can I walk through it every day?

            I dreamt that all of my five senses deteriorated and died, and yet nothing changed. I could still see the grass without seeing the wind pushing it, so I thought that meant the physical universe was a hoax created by my disembodied mind.

            But when I woke up I grew ill and I couldn’t think straight for head pains. Fits of coughing wracked me; with each painful burst my imagination floated further away. I tried to crawl after it, but my throat needed water first.

Guest Author: Dave Herron

“Paradise” 

Scalding tea screams at my left hand. The elevator hums toward the heavens as I collect smiles from suits and ties, cufflinks and pomade. 

27. 

Ding. 

Home is a mouse with a long tail. “You’ve Got Mail” is the enticing nectar of the gods.

Oh hey, Sean. How’s your Mom? 

My diploma relaxes nearby. 

Sunlight sprints between steel towers and runs through glass panes and gasps around corners and collapses, 

finally,

at my ankles. 

But an errant ray crashes into a brown bag. The lettuce sings with earthy charm amidst a chorus of wheat bread and baby carrots. Life occurs.

Just a couple strands of hair

It’s like a couple strands of hair are plucked from your head. The anticipation of an unpleasant event is nerve wracking. At the actual moment of detachment, it is the most tender, and for a while you are left with a throbbing feeling of loss and pain. But then inevitably you will forget about it–perhaps unless you feel the urge to twirl that one piece in your fingers, but it’s no longer there. Or if the breeze blows a certain way and they don’t whisp past your face as they once did. But for the most part it’s unnoticeable.

Guest Author: Liz Parissenti

“Sunsets In Hawaii”

Froth skirts along the edges of the deepening sky,
stirring magenta wisps that stretch, longing,
toward the rich blue abyss,
shirking the sun’s waning rays.
 
Droplets leap from the cascading clouds,
flecked with sparks of sunlight that tear through the seething storm,
easing as they near the patient grasses
and gently penetrating the soft earth.
 
Waves mingle with the rocky shore,
surges of salt and brine that sweetly caress glowing shells,
drifting into eager crevices,
slipping between sleepy sands.
 
Sunset gloriously envelops the sighing horizon,
searing it deep fuchsia for an indescribable instant
and the sun sinks to contented sleep.

Portrait

            The doctor held the litmus strip up as if it were the daintiest teacup in England. His hair was swept to the sides in wings and his spectacles rested in a well-worn crease in the middle of his nose. His vest was stretched up over his pleated pants and his feet were the only part of him still slender and youthly. His other hand was now in his pocket, pushing his white lab jacket around to his posterior. That’s all, there was no bustling doctor’s office around him, no harried nurses or pale patients. Just he and the grey backdrop.

The Author

            The author stood fearlessly on the mountaintop, and even the wind and snow sticking in his beard could not deter his steely gaze. In the rest of the story leading up to this climax, he had been trapped in every imaginable trap and hindered by every imaginable hindrance. But in his eyes, on that lonely mountaintop, you could read the determination that got him there.

            Yes, of course I am the author to which I refer. But is that scene real? The reader cannot know for certain. Wait though, neither can the author.

            Because most times, the author is afraid. 

Eyes Of Deer

            The eyes of deer are so wide and cloudless that even the starlight on a new moon night makes them shine like beacons. I crawled on my hands and knees across a patch of forest for nine straight nights searching for a buck. By the ninth night I knew the pathways molded through the underbrush and could hear, far out where homes and suburbs spread, the deep moaning cries of abandoned and rusting automobiles. The buck never appeared, but once, just once, I heard an owl high in a tree above me answer those automobiles with its starlit, resonating call.

Just one of those mornings

She stood at the counter, arranging a bundle of green grapes. They looked juicy and fresh, water beading on their smooth skin. Are you going to the store today, she asked in a voice that could have been used to plot murder. Perhaps, I replied, nonchalant with the newspaper in front of me. The plastic wrap stuck with a satisfying zzzztch and as if to punctuate it’s silence, she flicked her eyes up in one crisp movement. Will you get some fresh strawberries, please? She added. Only if you promise to cut them slowly. She smiled a horrible placid smile.

Cloud pet

If I had a cloud pet, I would name it Petra. She would float by my side, sleep in the fridge, and tumble around in the blue day sky. I might take her on walks, but if she encountered a big dog she might get scared and sprinkle a little bit of rain. I’ll calm her down with a little toy airplane treat. She will gobble it up and feel satisfied. Sometimes she’ll get angry, and perhaps she’ll rumble with thunder and strike the the closest thing with lightning. But it won’t hurt. She’s just a baby cloud after all.

Rocks?

Years from now, I think to myself, what new discoveries shall there be? What new-fangled phenomenon will youngsters be quoting out of soda pop caps without question? Well, I believe that they will discover that rocks—those giant immovable things that seem to just be, are alive. The only reason why we won’t have discovered it earlier was because rocks breathe once every century, and move a meter every 2-3 centuries. They will discover that rocks can laugh, often when tickled by hikers’ feet. They will find that rocks are just another species of living organism like quails or people.

I will drift

I will drift.

For who can say when the eyes in the sky will twinkle my way,

Sprinkle themselves upon the very ground I walk upon

To bring some sort of grain in the wrinkles of my time.

It shall be swift.

If only the warm breeze graces us with her presence

And consents to lift us into the night sky.

But she will not come no matter how many cries I call.

I would like to think, perhaps, that if she’d feel my fall,

She might bend back, and sweep me in her shawl

So for now I’ll drift.

Desert Time

Your mere presence around them, under their simple sun and commodious sky, is an anachronism. Their vast population engulfs you in wild squiggles. When you reach out a dry hand to brush their spines, they are gently maniacal people firmly rooted in dust and flowing rock.

A dollar may be used for research, for resource, for recourse. All disagree on potential uses being unethical/ unimportant/ wrong. But it is impossible to argue either case to a jury of Joshua trees. When the dollar is spent, when its effects are forgotten, when we are gone, they will still stand. In silence.

Reasons

Shells find reasons to twist.
The horns on bighorn sheep find reasons to curl.
Why then can’t I have a reason?
I twist too, I curl until the top of my head scrapes the ground.
I’m an upside-down U, a rainbow, a pouty mouth.
But every moment since my youth, I stretched my vertebrae straight for the stars.
Where is my reason?
My head is not brushed by supernovae, it is dragging where worms can wriggle into my nostrils.
Dirt smells like dirt.
Does space have a smell?
My reason wants to know, but for some reason I twist, instead.

This Room

            This is the last 100 words I will write in this room. Now the walls are bare, the furniture austere and strangely wooden. How did so many stories and poems emerge in this space? Where, in the straight white and beige lines between floor and ceiling, were jellyfish and copy machines waiting to poke their heads out and invite me over to watch their story unfold? I am leaving this room and will probably never return. The air seems flat now; could it be that all those things came from my head? My imagination waves goodbye and leaves for Washington.

Signs I Wish I Would See While Driving

“Pilgrim Crossing”

 “Garage Sale! Two-car garage with remote control door, $1200 o.b.o.”

 “LOOK”

 “Watch out for huge boulders that may fall on the road at any moment. Hopefully you are lucky”

“Free firewood. U-Kut, U do all the work. Conveniently located in the virgin forests of Siberia.”

“River crossing ahead. Prepare vehicle for fording or caulking.”

“Disco zone ahead”

“Free car wash! Every time it rains”

“Beware of evil chortler”

“Traffic advisory: animal crossing from 7 am to 4 pm 5/15/09 as Noah’s Ark unloads”

“Heavy snowfall. Convertibles only beyond this point”

“Prepare for battle”

“Enlightenment. Next 4 miles”

Sometimes I don’t understand you, but I need you (For Liz)

You’re so convoluted sometimes and I just can’t figure you out. You twist and turn and then all of a sudden you descend back into simplicity. But then there’s the silent treatment. I can no longer rejoice in the richness that used to course through you. Instead, dessication. More and more so until around the bend, you seem to snap out of it. Grow! Ascend! And expel the stuff of tears out of you with force. But, you are now deserting me once again. Into another convolution of mazes and densities. But, I must admit, you are necessary and sufficient.

Princess and the Pauper

The sonorous note floats a côte to what he wrote but who can say anyway what it might have been today. She sees the words but all is blurred, so torn in thirds and tossed to th’birds. Surely, it was purely written poorly. But the goal of his soul was to avoid the whole and take the rolling toll to create control. And create he must, as he had previously discussed, that the implied trust of the rotten crust is indeed mistrust. And so unjust, she thought with disgust, away with the base, ‘twas never her taste.

What a waste.

In My Mind

            I will hijack your imagination! Ha ha ha it is mine now and it will do my bidding. Your imagination is mine and whatever I say goes, the sailboats popping up in your mind were birthed in my loins and any thought you have was mine first. Ah ha ha! You cannot escape my clutches! When I think, planets jump into their orbits and wandering ants suddenly have purpose. You have purpose, my dear reader. Stop wandering in the desert with your oasis delusions, my thoughts will be yours and anywhere you find yourself it will be in my mind.

Pity

I see you there, piles of mess. I see you and oh lord do you see me. I birthed you. I brought your filthy coagulated head into this chaotic world. The turmoil that defines your very being threatens to destroy the sanctity and peace of mine. Though I cannot really hate you; no father can ever really hate his child. All I can do is stare at you disgustedly and hate myself a little more each time for creating you. You are me, my extension, in misplaced paraphernalia. My mind unwarped, uncompressed, unfurled, and undulating across all surfaces.

Oh, desk.

Song for a broken wife

She doesn’t whistle

because she loves me

so.

But

perhaps the desire is clear,

yet she cannot bear to see me leave.

I put it out of my mind,

mostly

because I can’t stand to think of it.

What about the establishment.

Does it mean nothing? It means nothing.

Na na na na na

And yet,

we push and pull and even though

two is better than one,

we stay.

She stays.

Despite the purple days.

And nights.

I can’t breathe

sometimes.

And I am what I am

I can’t hide, can she?

I’m sorry.

Na na na na na

Inevitable

There are things that will never have any bearing on anything remotely significant, but seem to contain their own movement. Like a single chip of ice, melting slowly but surely on a metal counter top, inching closer and closer to the edge. Reflecting the metal, the white room, the yellow light, it contains a world in itself. Inevitably it will melt before it can accomplish its lofty goal. And like the progression of things like this on earth, the water will pool, resolving in a quiet drip drop onto the floor, where the process can start again—this time in fluidity.

Perhaps.

How fanciful to write about the stars while staring at thousands of tiny lights on a small screen! The stars are enormous but appear small. The dots are actually insignificant, blending together in one mass of light. Stars are very far away from my eyes; but the dots grow ever nearer as my head nods forward. The stars were created by a force unknown; the dots were created by a factory in Taiwan. The stars help my brain little but my soul immensely; the dots help my brain grow but my soul aches.

How I wish these pixels would twinkle.

Mouths

Mouths are cool because they eat stuff. Should I continue? I don’t know if it’s worth it. Okay.

But they’re really badass cute. Nothing can smile like a mouth. Nothing can act coy like a mouth. Nothing can bite its lip seductively quite like a mouth can.

Only mouths have lips.

And only lips use lip balm.

And lip balm is really cool. Lip balm makes lips soft and bouncy enough that tiny pixies could play and jiggle on them, skipping like pebbles across a slippery pond.

Zen mouths eat pebbles
But the pebbles are droplets
Of creatures that play

Cougar, Washington

Throw the peanut shells on the floor
They will be swept away someday
The salt stinging the roof of your mouth
Like the ashy gravel on the sides of the road
Where are the homes?
Who stumbles drunkenly into the convenience store
At seven o’clock to call the cashier a babe?
Cars with trailers blink past on the ever-present road
Cougar is an uncomfortable postcard to them
Blowing by on the volcanic winds of memory
The waitress comes by normal
In a little while brings you a bacon burger
The tables fill but you do not see the evergreen people

Outside

Rain drops plop most gently when they’re not supposed to be there at all. They know it’s nearly summer, they feel it, but they sometimes drift on over anyway to plip down from their high homes and reconnect with their roots. The sky births its young and they flee the nest.

Plipple plopple.

Far from torrential, they hang in the air waiting for their turn to descend and dripple dropple. How supple a raindrop must feel as it glides through the wind with gelatinous skin, flying fast towards the ground and rippling with calm assertion.

Rain is softer than tears.

Chris and Liz Play Convergence

Confucius                      toothbrush
toothpick                      mint
breath                            hors d’oeuvres
escargot                         crab cakes
shell                                    crustacean
exoskeleton                        shrimp
crack                                    crunch
cereal                                    squish
soggy                                     soggy
 
neon                                    spots
disco                                    twister
break dancing                       touching
crew                                    dance
Jabberwockies                      Love Boat
quest                                    fantastic
holy grail                        Lord of the Rings
knight                                    epic
Camelot                        King Arthur
Round Table                        Lancelot
Guinevere                        jousting
renaissance fair            A Knight’s Tale
horse                                    Heath Ledger
superhero                        Brokeback Mountain
Harvey Milk                        Dark Knight
Harvey Dent                        Harvey Dent
 
Nepal                                    flower
meadow                        Dalai Lama
enlightenment                      Tibet
Buddhism                        Buddhism
 
pitcher                                   pea pod
dew                                    lunch
picnic                                    sunshine
ants                                    love
queen                                     Pixar
animation                        incredible
superhero                        Hayao Miyazake
alias                                    Disney
Walt                                    TV
movie                                    channel

Condiments

What did the baby tomato say to the daddy tomato when they crossed the road? Catch up! Get it? Like ketchup. I’m going to tell you right now that I only like tomatoes in the form of ketchup. You know how some burger joints have “special sauce I don’t think it’s a real condiment. What is a real condiment, though? Does it have to be liquidey? Dippable? Renowned? What about salt and pepper? Parmesan, or a crunchy pickle? I believe strongly that condiments are anything that adds a twist, another dimension to it. Ketchup is the mother of all condiments.

A Home for Mould

I found some black mould growing on the cap of my water bottle. I was about to be thoroughly disgusted when the little black dots began to move. I dropped the cap on the table, freaking out. They proceeded off the the cap onto the white tablecloth. And there they started to dance. They moved in circles, zig-zags, and jumped up and down. I grabbed the cap from the desk and clamped it on my bottle. All of a sudden, the molds scattered frantically. I let them back in, and this is how I ended up buying a second bottle.

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