Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in antipoet's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, May 18th, 2008
10:28 pm	(10 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
10:12 pm	She lifted the glass to her lips and swallowed the murky black water in which an insect, half-dead, flailed its hair-like limbs on her sensitive tastebuds, she spat it out onto the table right in the middle of the cafe, preturbing the juvenile waiter with the apron who offered her another napkin. The manager came out and shouted at the waiter. An infested coffee would not do for "the lady", though she was only a sales clerk at the Birmingham Mall. He apologized, made her another coffee and offered to take her out for a drink that evening. They had skimped her on her tuna salad while overdoing the mayonnaise, so she just stared at him, dabbing spittle off her mouth with napkin. As she left the restaurant and felt the his eyes on her, she turned a corner and felt a pang regret that she pushed back inside. The psychic voyeur who saw this act of courtesy through the eyes of Mrs. Vanderhoff had been eating his lunch, too, in the basement of the warehouse in Atlanta where he worked. There was a ground-level window. The sun had just come out from behind a cloud and upon the newly phosphorescent world, the bright sound of the high-heeled shoes clacked. He sprinted up the staircase and held back the heavy glass revolving door for a woman entering. He carried an old woman's groceries to her car, he offered his seat to a pregnant lady and the grocery store attendant ran after him when he forgot his change. His healthy face was ruddy and glowing. Mrs. Vanderhoff remained like a stone washed over by a river, as psychic voyeurs in other cities, attracted by the explosive, radiating nebula of energy created by the first psychic, lived the inane incidents of her life, and were so affected by them that they changed their whole lives. One day she re-entered the restaurant where she had been so nicely treated. This time she ordered the chicken salad sandwich with her mandatory coffee. She felt a déjà-vu as she felt a squirming insect again on her tongue, and sprayed coffee all over the linoleum. The manager attracted to her table by the commotion of the waiters, stared at the dead insect in disbelief. "You did this exactly the same way last time. I apologized for the insect in your food, I offered you a drink, and you refused. Why?" "I have a condition. I am never able to change my mood, because I would be forced change my reactions to everything afterwards, and I would have no idea how I would respond to each event. It would be chaos." "Where do all the feelings go?" "I just feel numb." "But what about when someone gives you a gift at Christmastime? What will do you do when someone tells a joke, or when someone close to you dies?" "I don't know." A psychic voyeur, in Milwaukee, ran out of a cafe in front of a moving bus. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 28th, 2008
10:14 pm	Stranded in a body, hollowed out by time, emptied of its message, a container, a floating medium, hyperventilating as the lights flashed, fans waved pictures; the pictures were of himself; that were not himself but of makeup and lighting. This image must at all costs be preserved. The public made a saint out of it and to destroy it would be unforgivable. If he did, would he not be responsible for profaning their highest sentiments? In one iconic picture he stared with sullen black eyes, face pale as a god's, large lips, his torso bare. On posters and magazines, this fantasm had lubricated adolescent girls for over thirty years. And to ensure that the foul specter of his decrepitness never haunted the image that sharpened their salacity, he offered his chin to the surgeon's knife. Not a Cobain or a Morrison, he feared dying for it. He looked at them all with eyes slightly wet, as if asking for permission go on living in a body which betrayed their dreams. His head was bright and empty from eating papaya, salad and methamphetamine; the skin on his face and arms electrified by youth-giving chemicals. His hair was a foreign texture: His own hair had relinquished to the bleach. Several thousands of dollars and a weave later he was ready to face the screaming crowds in Toronto. his agents pumped him up like a like cartoon character; forever in the gym, the clinic or the spa, until the excess muscle overwhelmed the radiant soft flesh, the flower of his youth. Bulky as he was he beneath his leathery and veined skin made him seem older than ever, if the same shape was in the photos. in the 60,0000 copies of his face that came out in each magazine, a face that he knew and the entire race knew, down to the pore, for they existed infinitely. He saw them on every street corner. They followed him, ganged up on him. He became a caricature of himself: the plastic surgeon assured it. the pills and the diets and the pills. so much structure existed around his body that it could not stand without its chassis. penetrated his body by angels in white, through his skin, through his mouth, the Botox injections and the enemas; they purified him of all that was organic and rotten. the lipstick and the make up were piled onto his shrunken physique. His body wasted away. They dissolved him by ether, vodka, vapour, and powder: to make him a spirit, make him a soul. He got thinner and thinner as molecules of plastic replaced him. Propelled by fears of a more violent death at the hands of the crowd, he was the most ferverent advocate of this extinction. The public loved its sacrifices. With his gangly legs and shiny plastic eyes, he bounded in a spiritual realm of poetry. this wasted shadow belonged to a transcendent world of pure art. They saw him emerge from a secret world into the night. The concert would begin. The pure air cut into his perfectly manicured teeth, his mouth freshened with only ambrosia. His little heart pumped faster and his tongue dried, and he feared to go further. He heard the mercenary concern of his promoters. A journalist shoved a microphone into his face and asked, loud enough to suppose a response must be expected, "Don't you have anything to say to all your fans in Toronto?" He choked, and could not utter a sound. He had lost his voice. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
8:15 am	A coffee mug in hand, he stood and looked out the window. Yellow light blasted from the soul. The soul belonged to Conseulo Rodriguez, a Nicaraguan revolutionary who had died on Earth in the 1950's. For the last several million years he had awoken early every morning to watch the life-giving soul. "Father" he said. Each morning before work, he took a moment to contemplate the soul: the effulgent incorporeal incarnation of Rodriguez to whom the entire population owed its existance. When he died, he too would become a burning ball of flame. Planets would form around him from rivers of dust. On one or two of these rocks, beings would evolve that knew the beams of his soul as a child knows its parent. These beings would, at the zenith of their evolution, also live to be many millions of years old. At a million years, they would aquire massive souls: their psychological density would become so enormous that a careless thought could puncture a hole in the universe. When they died, the heaviness of their consciousness would repell them with such forcefullness that their souls would hurtle to the other side of the universe. He would gaze adoringly on the planets that surrounded him. And of these very special beings, each person who died would become a soul in turn, giving birth to six billion children. He often looked at the distant souls twinkling at night in the sumptousness of space. How he would like to communicate with the people who lived by the light of other souls. Would they ever learn to contact eachother across the void of space? When there were so many soular systems that they were within shouting distance? Then they would all have to communicate. It would be beautiful. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 13th, 2008
5:54 pm	</center> Laudanum Days I cannot leave this prision until the universe rolls into my head like a great boulder Here in the dark employed to cover the signs of my neglect, candle wax drip, the suicide of a naked apple, spearing of plates, dead flowers mimic anger with their rotten pout, all furious with my self-doubt, I sing to you the curled larvae of an orangeskin, i speak to you my millionth lovely tombstone, brave evidence of my existence, an existence utterly ingrown, random, without translation like the scrawl written across the pages lying half open and stabbed down with two pens, a glass and a grain of salt so as to keep them from slow migration the knife enters the body of whom I love and gloved fingers press the heart that I love and the monitor sings of the life that I loved. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 12th, 2008
1:13 pm	Upon a mountain there was a village, which rested at the skirt hem of a huge skree of ice and rock. People in the village learned never to shout, for whenever a door was slammed, a huge boulder came loose and crashed through the village. There was born into this village a boy with a very loud voice. At the sound of his first piercing wail, the midwife was tempted to smother him. His mother hid him from the village. She decorated his room in pillows made of rags, old sheets, hawk feathers and stuffed stockings to muffle the sound of his cries. He spent his infancy holed up in there with underwear hanging from the ceiling like it was a Turkish caravan. Eventually his mother became ill and he was forced to leave the house. The whispering villagers realized at once that he was not like them. Although he was lean and reedy, his whisper resounded with its clear baritone. He quickly learned to silence himself. People feared and detested him. That boy, they said, will be the ruin of us all. Wherever he passed the adults held their breath and ceased to whisper as they stared. The other boys shunned him and the girls fled him. Since barely ever spoke, they acted as if he was dumb. The only times he felt human were the days he went to think, alone in the wilderness. On one of his long walks he saw two magnificent black stallions, between them stretched a copper-colored canopy. The canopy was tied back with a golden cord, and through it he glimpsed a noble, and a musician playing a lute. From it came a sound unlike any he had ever heard; it was the sound of music. He listened attentively. The song was called "Are you going, Vladimir," which is about a shepherd boy who gets lost in the woods and never returns. From that day forward he had an affinity for music. He fashioned himself a tiny lute by hollowing a silver birch. Its plucked strings sighed. He took his lute into his padded room, and there he played the faint song. His newfound ear brought him much pleasure, for every rock had a heartbeat. He heard the wind moving in his hair and the blood running in his veins. Even snow had its own melody. There was no better ear to detect and recognize all sorts of birdcall. When winter brought a frozen skylark to his doorstep, he had it for his pet and sat it on a perch in the kitchen. It sang to him as he stroked its breast. If only I had a voice as sweet as yours, he said, I could sing. Though he hid himself away, the villagers could not fail to notice that he was becoming a man, and although he was frail and thin, they correctly feared as he grew so did the resonance of his beautiful, deep voice. They encouraged their sons to beat him so he would leave the village once and for all. As he was out walking in the crags, group of boys emerged from hiding behind the trees. The boys beat him, their eyes flashing. There were no words, just the soft sound of breathing and the cries that caught in his throat. They beat him until he lay on the ground without breath or pulse and, believing him dead, ran off. He lay there like a lizard that fakes its own death, listening to the wind in the trees and the pine needles pattering his face. Soon his breath and heartbeat, which he had made so faint as to be inaudiable, returned to normal. Although every part of him protested, he rose to his feet. He began to climb the mountain. The trees there were scraggly and stubby and finally the clearing opened upon a steep downgrade of grey shale. The precarious boulders wobbled beneath his feet as walked on the skree, leaping one to the next, climbing higher and higher, until he came to a massive finger of rock that jutted out from the highest point. Down through the haze of clouds, below the bluish hills, and at his tiny village, he cast one glance. Then he took out his lute. As the first notes to "Are you going, Vladimir?" cadenced their sweet tune, he took a breath of thin mountain air between his lips. Out came a thick liquid sound that saturated each stone, making it into a molten substance, like flame that leaps from dead wood. He wove the air into silk. The mountain wept great stones that tumbled down to the village, which swept away like ash, until the boy stopped singing and stood on the mountain. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
10:37 pm	There is a kind of centipede that lives on the beans of the coca plant. For its protection, its pupae are green so as to be invisible as they nestle in the coca pods, but grow into scarabs of black. They emerge when one roasts them in the coffee beans and feed on human blood. I know because I used to visit my friend who was a banana farmer in Nicaragua. He was my next door neighbor and we would often visit together to discuss the growing cycle of bananas. He served me coffee from his own store. I'd come sit on his plaited grass veranda and whittle bamboo with my machete and he'd play his Peruvian Charango. Listening to the rustle of banana trees, we'd discuss the season in the spangled shade. One day I developed a nausea. I stared into my soup and felt like vomiting. The feeling my stomach grew regular and intense. Soon the pain was so great, that when it came on, my upper lip covered in fine sweat, flushing hot and cold, I could not think of anything else. Each time my stomach would hurt, I doubled in my chair as he stood above me, holding a glass of ice water, his brow furrowed in concern. It came to pass that I could not hear the playful pluck of a Charango without a cringe, so much did I associate him with the sickness. It was a beautiful day past the last swell of the flood season, and was feeling near sprightly. I went out to walk on my land, all new and muddy, when I discovered a fifth of my pasture was swallowed up by the river. On the opposite side of the river, a new stretch of land had appeared next to my neighbor's orchard. Acres of new rich silt red as blood with iron; perfect for growing bananas. The pain was gnawing in my gut as I thought about that land. It rushed in like an icy tide and then constricted into a fist. The ebb and flow of my intestinal juices was a cycle I lived by like that of the nightingale that only breed by the moon. And now it urged me on towards my friend, who sat drinking lemonade on his deck. We fought over the division of land. He told me the contract our fathers had signed eight decades ago said he owned everything west of the river. The law was behind him, and he had a lawyer from the city. I slammed the bamboo screen so hard it became disjointed. I became estranged from my friend. Whenever I saw him out in his fields with his men I cast him a glowering eye. He contemplated the red mud of the river and inspected his swollen bananas. One morning I awoke in terrible pain, and I saw a long black centipede crawl out beneath my sheets. It was then that I figured there were living beings, parasites, in my belly, that ventured out only when I slept. The long black centipede had entered my stomach and was sucking on my organs. I fantasized that some surgeon could remove the centipede, but the only hospital in those parts was a tarpaulin stretched between two white vans. The only way it could be excised was by busting through my stomach wall. They gave me some asprin but said that there was nothing they could do about it. Whether my friend intentionally put the centipede larvae in my coffee or did not, I'll never know. Soon after, someone entered into his chamber, where he slept like an infant in a cloud of mosquito netting, and cut off his head with a machete. They do not know who it was. I've been lying in my bed, pale in the dark forest. I think about my neighbor’s bamboo cabin, now empty. The convulsions come and go; the pain is getting more intense. I can only imagine that the angry centipede is hungry for more guts than I have, however many of them are in there. Current Music: The Avengers - no martyr (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
11:19 pm	In a room decorated with thought, without the ghosts of women sitting in the chairs, pressed tight by the arms of a man, she thought with this pain that made her the center of the world, of nothingness; her true origin, to whose insensate breast would return again and again, and in her blind tear-filled eyes she saw the nothingness, the world in the absence of herself, like water flowing through the night. She heard crickets. In her mind the flickering idea of nothingness was a spark. The spark represented the absence that was her origin. In her search for the memory of nothingness she remembered the eras before the existence of humankind prehistoric marshes, thousands of years of jungle nights, sunsets in antarctica, All exploding with freedom. In this realm of unconsciousness she landed like a spore on a white corner of ether, where there was nothing in every direction, where she neither felt nor thought, a limitless white plain. "Whats wrong," he said. "I want to go home." "back to California." And she did not respond, but the glistening waters that fell were drank by her hair, so he was unaware that he held nothing in his arms. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
11:18 pm	Ludmilla whimpered under the sheets with her head under the pillows. The sheets smelled like musk and were damp with her own sweat. Rolling crumbs pinched her flesh. She wanted more than anything to leave. Regarding the arabesques on the wallpaper and the sun which poured through the lace curtains, she felt delirium. As the days passed without number, she had no idea how long she had been lying in the bed, but she knew that her body would not let her stand. The moment she did, hot blood rushed to her lower appendages. She felt weakness and burning. Clutching the balustrade, she staggered downstairs, falling several times. They found her sprawled on the staircase. A nurse caught her under her armpits and supported her on her way back to bed. She babbled hysterically as the nurse tucked her into bed, got a strip of rubber out from her breast pocket, and tied off her arm. Pressing a needle into the her elbow, the nurse gave a sedative. Sweat stung her eyes as her eyelids grew heavy. Her once intelligent eyes were dull, her regal visage malnourished and wan, the half buttoned nightgown showed her clavicle. Her hair hung like a jungle garden around her face. The epidemic had people housebound. They wandered their homes stabilizing themselves against the furniture. One of the most serious symptoms was the inability to stand up. Knees would jiggle and shake as though affected with a palsy. The only solution was indefinite bed rest: they spent the rest of their lives languishing between the sheets. If one tried to leave the house and go about normally, they would inevitably land on some bench, crouching in alleys, or leaning up in corners, masturbating until their fingers were broken. The uninfected would cover their children's eyes and walk quickly from the spectacle. A few would stare in disgust. Exposed to such scorn, one can imagine that the victim's intense shame was only mitigated by their relief. Paramedics would come in white trucks and haul them off. The disease was incurable even when one applied the usual remedy. Inventive doctors for a while husbanded some victims, but the end result was always death, if not by starvation, then by suffocation, as they clasped their lips together so tightly that they were unable to breathe. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
10:30 pm	On Christmas night in the city, many people have no lives. A lone car slowly moves past. They walk clandestinely through the barren streets, wondering at the empty mathematical perfection of man's plasticine models, relishing the idea that grand designs, despite their scale, are always foiled. And Ahmed, an immigrant from Liberia, sits amid the tinsel, which has for a month prophesied a celebration that is now nearly over. He is a man who laughs when others laugh and thinks silence is respectable. He does not talk much because he thinks differently from other people, and when he does talk, his words come out awkwardly. He has come to view conversation as a television show, entertaining but without possible relevance to him. He is thinking about the color Vermilion and how, when someone says that color, might they be thinking of a Taupe, or even a Cyan? Isn't it possible that everyone is thinking about a different color when they say Vermilion? These thoughts circle without register as he drinks his coffee. He feels halfway like a martyr and a murderer because they pay him to sit at a desk in an empty lobby. He reflects that perhaps he is a murderer. He just hasn't gotten around to it, yet. He doesn't like working on holiday, but an overtime check adds luster to his sacrifice. His noble justifications cover a hatred of mankind. He didn't always hate people, but work has for so long fatigued his capacity to love that he believes that he has killed it. He goes wandering through the empty offices of his boss, inhereting the domain in a purely physical sense and indulging fantacies of power. At morning's ressurection he will be greeted as an honored martyr. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 24th, 2007
12:41 am	The night had to fall before he could re-conquer the past. In the night the streets were like the dead. He could not face them when light of day makeuped garishly, when his past crawled with people as though made to look alive. The corpse of night was pale, tranquil, definitively dead. He was at its wake. He constructed his memories from fragments. The night was a neutral territory where he could meet his past like a dream, without fear of ambush, from which he could awake. He went back to the private gardens that were the heart of the rich quarter. In the windows he could see Christmas lights, ribbons, pine trees. He had had a one night stand way up there. Then one day, he had walked into the building, up the stairways, to her room. He remembered it by the smell: the honey-sweet detergent smell that came from the shower on the floor. He passed a man in the hallway, and ached to ask him about her, but found a confident silence more tactful. Her door was ajar, and no one was home. He went to the desk, the clock ticking, the papers waiting for her return, and wrote a note with his number. He never heard a reply. What if, though improbable, he should see her walking down the street? He had nothing to say to her. And what of all those that followed, what could he say to them? The person you knew was an idiot, that person is dead. A child with shining dark hair raced across his path. The family was opening the doors of the tiny car. There were many crammed into it, emerging slowly from a long journey, with aspects guarded and sparkling as if for a family reunion. Christmas eve. He went down the streets, he heard the sounds of a party, loud music and jovial conversation, through an open window. A young man was sitting in a car outside, laughing. Innocence reclaimed the streets. He was wrong to steal them for his sadness. He gave them back; they never belonged to him, anyway. He was a ghost in this world. His time to discover and live in this place was over; theirs had just begun. He looked at his feet and saw hundreds of bubblegum stains. the stains must be washed away by rain, removed by the millions of feet. The millions of people who walked there every day had hidden, tucked themselves away like stagehands to create the illusion of a set where, as in his hypothetical reality, all was just as it was four years ago. There were no other actors on the stage, he was alone. They had gone on to star in Broadway musicals. He was getting too old and tired to act: his face had aged and he was now too senile to memorize his lines. He couldn't bear the inauthenticity of recreating past productions. He could only compose a soliloquy. As if by design, he turned a corner and came upon the building where he used to live. He started to walk quickly by it, but then stopped. Perhaps all this nostalgia was all a product of his own negativity. He had to confirm that all of the judgments he made were true. He forced his feet towards it. The building glowed tenderly in moonlight. He looked in his former window, through the iron bars. He heard someone invisible chopping carrots in his kitchen. Through the gate were the trees, which had given him pleasure in summer, with their greenery in the dark where they now stood, watching like peaceful alien beings. They lifted their branches in the air as if they were conductors, tenuously holding everything in silence. He bowed his head to them. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 17th, 2007
1:14 pm	The sunlight effulged on the silver verandas of the land of the truth and oxygen-coated collonades of sugar sand. Breezy balconies and terraces flew high in the sky. Many a honeyed complexion did feast upon the glow, so that the shadows themselves seemed roasted dark. Into the limpid scene the ocean dropped, a shock of blue. "Born beautiful and not witty, I will speak plainly. The truth that purifies my soul also cripples my tounge, like the angel, wings clipped, falling fully-mortal onto earth to embrace the dirt. Your words tell me I am who I am not, and this must not be. This heresy inflicts sweet raptures of hope. Will you stop your lying speech?" "It is not my fault. I was born in the land of lies, and although lying is my native tounge, I address you in the language of truth." "Now I hear syllables of seeming honesty. Can I believe them?" "My words are honest, lady." "Yet you stumble around as if they were not your mother tounge." "I learned to speak your language by living among your people. In the war between the land of truth and the land of lies, I was captured and enslaved. They forced me into silence. War has raged for so many centuries that no translation of my language exists. "Though no liar had ever learned to speak the truth, I studied by candlelight. Then one unreverend hour, I believed that all effort was in vain and cursed myself as an incourragable liar. With these words a shiver ran though me, a brilliant sound escaped my lips that I recognized instantly as the truth. "I crafted my skill like the softest wax. I cultivated it in shadows, lest I be persecuted. In public I spoke only lies, and was chased by washerwomen raining curses and switch-blows. Blow by blow I collected their language... "But the truth was a creuler master still. If I ever started to decieve myself, I had but to speak the truth to realize at once that my ideas had been false. In fact, all of my ideas were illusory, especially my perception of myself. The more I spoke the truth the more hopeless I became. The truth grew like a cancer, weakening me. "Seasons came and went. Each may, new children were bathed in cool freshets, twilight wreathed the vineyards with raindows whilst smiling slaves put down their hoes. In the soft slumbering darkness, the hawk swooped down upon scratch of a tiny rodent claw, and I heard it. I hear the hawk's wings in my dreams, I feel the suffering and crunching bones, too soft to be detected above the racket of the truth. I long for the motherland, where subtlety is accorded its supernal siege. "I am charmed by your whispering, lying accent, the soothing tones of manipulation. They do not resemble the barbaric gutteral utterances of truth. How shall I endeavor to quit the language that it took all your art to cultivate?" "Elope with me to the Land of Lies. The language can be picked up by anyone." "No, I don't want to come with you." "The accents of lying sound softly on your lips. You cannot decieve me, who has lied for so long that I hear instantly the subtle pitch. it purrs in your throat, a vital rhythum of fear. I know you have told me little lies, under your breath. They were complex, intricately wrapped like presents, so discrete that they passed from your hands without your knowing what they were. I enjoyed recieving them, and giving them in return." "What about my family?" "Let your mother stammer the artless aria of human suffering. We shall start a family in the Land of Lies. The milk of lies will nourish them. In warmpth and comfort you will coo to them the ancient lullabies of my language." (Comment on this)
Friday, December 7th, 2007
1:42 pm	two lines crossing but not intersecting the paths of tears sperm phone wires turtledoves comets planets two lines in deep space "Sorry, we are all out of that" eyes widen in consternation under the lids tight flap her fists hang like lead her voice comes out drunk exhaustion runs through her until I call her jolting her from dream-coma into action its like a lightning bolt that causes her to twist and flinch with excitement and energy it even kills her She will slam the tab on the table as though offended and show me her backside for two pounds razor sharp sensation of tears blood-eating gluttonous heart ever-swallowing thirsty lungs quick as though to save drowning children only to plunge them deeper in cadaver embalmed with living blood coffin heart, rusted shut, Let me shrivel dry as chalk load my tounge full of salt I am heat and water, gas let me rest, like the ash (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
11:25 pm	The sky lay black. The stars twinkled. The desert stretched in every direction and culminated in black mountains. The air was stiff with silence but the engine of the old pickup made a low grumble. Leila was curled in the corner of the pickup. He watched her from the corner of his eye. She seemed to be sleeping. There was an intersection. In headlight beam the stoplight flared from nothingness like a shipwreck underwater. He slowed without stopping then gassed the accellerator which resumed its hostile noise. "does she know?" "you mean, about that?" He said gesturing to the three gas barrels full of nitroglycerin. "yes, that." "I don't think it matters. She is going to her sister, and we are going to Los Angeles." "So did you tell her?" Ramirez was looking at him. "No. Don't worry so much." His voice was quiet. He could see her peaceful black slumbering form. they stopped at a gas station for cigarettes. Leila rubbed her eyes sleepily. after listening to the ring of the motor for so many hours, the light agitations of the plastic parka were a roar against the silence. She stood and swung her legs over the side of the flatbed, and in her disorientation the facile task made her breifly afriad of falling. The fear woke her up slightly, and that instant her socks crunched earthward to the sand. the sand glittered in constellations. She entered the gas station. The sound of a little bell and rattling glass and a squaking hinge seemed far away. Sugary blobs in crinkling film tried to communicate with her. Her socks felt thin and rubbery on the cold white tile. After she used the bathroom she went out again. A blue light had dispatched the blanket of darkness. The world seemed to be a shining white brilliant plate with hard geometric spiky things sticking up like sushi. "How ya doin' rebel hitchhiker?" Poco smiled through his six week mustache. He still looked fearsome. "I'm fine. How much longer to the border?" Her voice was hoarse beyond her years. Her teeth were small and white like a child's. "Not long. You said you were getting off at Tijuana?" "Yeah. I got relatives. Wait a sec, I need to get some marlboros" She walked back into the gas station. Poco smiled. "She's nice. For a cracker." Ramirez's face darkened. "We'll make them sorry for building that fucking wall." (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
9:47 pm	Indecison has a way of deciding, like the ponderous clouds. The purr of thunder where the pitch black sky and the chaste twilight meet. Lord thunder heralds to his his troops, the kamikazi raindrops. And who would not bash onesself against an earthsome object to escape that dreadful voice? Cracking drops make the sound of an orange peeling. And so the lord listens on earth, he hears the wrinkling of our skin like wasted leaves that faint unto the ground. The musky earth starts sweating at the sound. Do they chide us, the dead of yore, whose ‘sploding souls sound sweetly to our ears? the anemonie-rich sea rides a caravan of clouds, to offer up the deep. Sing Dies Irae, Dies Irae, blind and dumb, but beating forheads on the ground. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
2:42 am	It was a hot morning in hell. The sun was shining brightly over the mountains of black brimstone, shredding the low clouds. Birds were twittering and swooning in the heat of the large smokestacks. In a shady grove surrounded by a manicured lawn, in a white two-story house with a two-car garage, the ambassador of hell was preparing to catch a flight. He kissed his wife and got into his white Lexus. As he arrived HIA (Hell Intercontinental Airport), the baggage attendant gave him a friendly wave of recognition. The business of Hell brought him to many places of the world. His work seemed never to be done, as many countries held a negative image of his land. However, he was very good at listening and representing; keeping relations civil. He was constantly requisitioned for their summits, their signings, a number in the multitude of faces present at their inaugurations and their festivals. Today his flight would take him to a country few had ever visited before, a country long hostile to his own. After years of conflict between the nations, relations had finally chilled enough to allow this conference. The conference would discuss the territories which lay internationally, the jurisdiction of which was contested by both demescenes. The plane touched down. He was greeted in the airport by a beautiful young woman with the face of a saint. She introduced herself as the liaison of the head of the state department. In the faint accent of her country, she asked if he would accompany her to customs. Afterward they drove to the hotel arranged for him. In the limousine, the cool blue mountaintops unrolled in the window. In the clear blue sky, the sun never shone so brightly. After he had checked in to the hotel, he took the privilege of strolling around the city. “So this is heaven” he thought. The hotel was a stucco building framed by the glistening sea and planted with roses, which were as numerous as the stars. He saw before him two handsome women dragging water cooler, laughing amongst themselves. He asked if they needed help carrying it to the tennis court. He gazed beyond the tennis court to a glistening ocean shore. There were people stripped nearly naked, their bodies were perfection. He tripped in his distraction. The women laughed kindly at him. He smiled awkwardly in his and his potbellied shirt as they lithely stepped between his limbs and helped him up. His skin lit with pleasure at the gentle touch. “You are so clumsy.” They said, and giggled. “The sun is beautiful today” He responded. “It isn’t really so beautiful,” one said, “it was more beautiful the day before yesterday.” “yes," the other quickly concurred, “Today the sun’s light is too hot and white,” She said, glancing quietly at the cloudless sky. “Yesterday the sun was a slightly pale gold, and the light was yellow, softer to the skin.” Said the woman, whose radiant tan skin seemed to suffer little from its effects. He was led, smiling, by them to the edge of the tennis court, where they offered him delicious beverages from the cooler, unlike anything he had ever tasted. It was sweet, yet not cloying, light and flavored like jasmine. They started to play tennis and he could quickly see that his skill was matched. Their small bodies shot the ball farther and faster than any of his, they swayed lightly on their heels with each shot showing the delicate twist of the torso, the easy movements of the limbs. He stumbled over his footsteps. As he went chasing down a ball as it rolled into a corner, he wondered if it was a n effect of the climate, the heavenly fragrance that hung in the trees that enhanced their performance of the game. When all had finished the women invited him to dine with him at the hotel. They went up to their rooms to change and came back in light and elegant clothes that revealed the beauty of their slender bodies and lithe shoulders. Over dinner they discussed their professions. The women were doctors visiting for a conference. He remarked they seemed young for so high a degree of education. “We are both geniuses. I have an IQ of 330 and I hold three PhDs” “That’s suburb. And you apply all of your talents to the care of the sick and ailing?” “There are no sick people in heaven.” “Remarkable. Where do you practice, then?” “We only work abroad. Pro-bono.” “Why, that is astounding!” He exclaimed. “You are philanthropists.” “Yes”, she said, “But there are many people in heaven who do humanitarian work.” After talking with them at length he discovered that the people of heaven lived a much better life than those in hell. The weather was always fair, the harvests plentiful, and the citizens worked only when they wanted to. They dined on dishes of such an exquisite appearance, brightly colored vegetables and simmering velvet brown sauces beautiful cakes and golden buns, deep red ambrosias and bright fruit cordials in rims thinner than fingernails. At some point the tables were cleared away in heaven, and a piano and violinist were brought in, the people began to dance, while others stood to the side watching. The ambassador took turns dancing with each of the ladies until the night got very late. He thanked them for the lovely evening and returned to his room. The conference went more smoothly than he ever could have hoped. The ambassador of Heaven was civil, diligent and loyal to his word. Several important treaties were signed. He rather admired his colleague's bearing. His stark intelligence and sagacity concealed a deep congeniality and warmth. He felt he should like to be a man such as that someday; esteemed, wise, dignified, yet with a real human likeability. They shook hands cordially at the conclusion of the meeting. On the way back to the hotel he felt he should see more of the marvelous city of heaven and he hoped he would run into the two women who he had danced with the previous night. He slipped his wedding band into his pocket. The most radiant city spread out before him, its towers like icing on a white cake, Wild berries grapes, strawberries, and flowering cherry branches mingled with the purple wisteria. The fragrance of lilies carried on the sea breeze. So many lilies trumpeted orchestral from the grass. In the cloudless sky the leaves of the trees clucked with the laughing sound of paper. The city itself was a masterpiece of architecture, the elegant buildings, domes rose over high arches supported by columns. The white marble edifices with white filigree and beautiful statues lunged at the sun against the blue sky and soft sea breeze stirred the air slighter than a breath. In the parks, strawberries and manicured trees formed hedges, White heron flew about on china wings that the sun shone through. Happy couples, lounging half naked in the grass, and watched the fair children play, and so many long necked, serene faced people, strolled by the glass lakes tinted black by dusk. All around him, beautiful people were walking in directions which their bodies delighted in taking. As if the statues had come alive, beautiful women, carved of ivory and gold, stepped out from the buildings, light footed on the silver stones. Their smiling faces reflected happy thoughts, their heads held their eyes alight. The tastefully and simply dressed people there were long and lean and lightly muscled. Their childlike bearing and gait, they strolled with small dogs or walked in silent pairs, eyes resting in quietly on all that they saw around them, lost in happy reverie, smiles on their lips. Older people of surprising youthfulness in their faces and manner curled their elbows around those of their loved ones. He wondered if this wasn’t the most beautiful place in all of the world. ++ The next day, he sat waiting in traffic on his return to Hell. The smog was riding at low tide on the horizon, and the territory of Hell swept out flat and colorless before him. The traffic was bumper to bumper and he had time to reflect on all he had seen. He already missed the elegant and learned people of heaven and their astonishing beautiful city. How could he possibly return to his former job, his former life, knowing that just beyond the horizon lay a land so exponentially better? When he saw his wife again, it was with dismay that he remarked the wrinkles beside her eyes that he had never seen before. He could not help but compare her pudgy, homely figure to those of the vixens of heaven. Her clothes were dull and ill fitting, her hands were veiny. Her makeup looked like sticky melted plastic. “Hello, honey,” he said and barely kissed her cheek, without looking straight at her. Had she put on weight since he left? “Did you have a nice flight?” She said that he was looking rather well, that his eyes sparkled, and suggested the trip must have done him good. He did not feel his powers of description were worthy to any of what he had seen, but at length he said, “It is a truly beautiful land.” He regretted that he hadn’t had time to do any tourism or meet the locals. At work the next day he finished his report on the conference and sent it to his superior, the chief of state. In his conclusive remarks he had written, “Heaven is a technologically, culturally, and politically superior nation to Hell. We must do everything in our power to foster a good relationship with Heaven. I would recommend creating a program to research and adopt the policies of Heaven, which may lead us to such an advanced and peaceful populace.” Shortly afterward, his supervisor called him into his office. He stood before the maple desk at the heavy-jawed veteran before him. “What is this? A joke? We’ve been at cold war with Heaven for fifty years. All of our intelligence on their country shows they are a backwards, old-fashioned, and snobby people. Not only have they resisted our military expansion, despite our superior might, have they deliberately aided our enemies. They are surely communist.” “It’s the truth. Just listen to me.” He nararated in detail about the women, the hotel, the people he had seen, the tennis courts and the flowering bushes and the beautiful architecture. His audience listened deafly, staring at an object somewhere over his right shoulder, unwilling or unable to understand. When he had finished speaking, his superior castigated him for filling his ears with nonsense, for not representing the interests of his country, and for dancing with women while on government payroll. He told him to go home and rewrite the report so that it reflected the facts. “Do they have eight-lane freeways that stretch into the distance? A burgeoning industry in sulfur production? Do they have two car garages, live in a white houses and drive Lexuses?” The ambassador was too dumbfounded to reply. “No! I didn’t think so.” He handed him the report and said, “I want you to go home and ask yourself ‘Am I a patriotic citizen?’” Feeling shaken, the ambassador went to a bar directly after work. There he met one of his childhood friends, Jeff Buckley, and he recounted what his supervisor had said, and then, glowingly, how impressed he was with the citizens of Heaven. The friend listened attentively, and when he had finished, said. “I think you’ve had too much to drink. Everyone wants to come to live in hell. Look at the constant wave of immigration.” He was born in Hell and therefore no other land could possibly approach its greatness. The ambassador disputed this briefly, but every time he would bring up the superior life in heaven, his friend would scoff incredulously. Seeing that further discussion would get him nowhere, he paid his tab and left. That his oldest friend, Jeff, could be so ignorant made him realize he had never liked Jeff. He was sort of a stupid clod. As he drove home he felt saddened. No one in hell could ever understand the thing he held most dear. It was unlikely that few if any of the people he had tried to convince would ever visit heaven, they simply weren’t interested. As for himself, he would never enjoy life in hell again, endlessly comparing it to former pleasures, former beauty, the true beauty of heaven. The land he had loved in childhood now seemed poor and pathetic. The mountains of brimstone held no pleasure for him now. The light of the sun was too harsh to the skin, and the smokestacks fouled the air with their repulsive smell of sulfur. Even the birds were now unlucky travelers sent from heaven, trapped in a world of ugliness and filth. No one in hell was interested in philanthropy: they lived from day to day working jobs that left them exhausted and spent on their children with what little remained of their human sympathy. Their hearts were so selfish and cold, so de-sensitized that they rejoiced only in the momentary sensations of fear and violence. They lived only for the next battle of hell, which was perpetual in several regions of the world. They sat and watched the violence of television with the bloodthirsty avarice of carnivores. They rejoiced in toilet humor, hateful rants, fearful shootings and the dissection of whatever famous personage on the television. They were a people who fed off the most negative and repulsive of human characteristics, living solely to accomplish acts of cruelty and stupidity just as Jesuits do acts of good and learning. Since he believed that outer appearance reflects what is within, so the people became monstrous to him. Their faces bulged and their noses were grotesque and mean. Their heavy limbs were graceless and when they walked they lurched and limped. The elderly wasted alone in old person’s homes, dejected and miserable. The rich and the poor, the famous, the politicians, the intelligencia were all deformed by ignorance. Even the young women seemed primped to an artificial prettiness, years of apathy and stupidity on the brink of rendering their youthful bloom old, fat and saggy. Blinded by the brilliance of heaven to all but the most terrible and worst of hell, he felt as if he had been cast into a permanent darkness. Already he felt shame for his hellish origins. He noticed his own face chiseled with sadness as he woke every morning in depression and greif. He had to return to heaven, or he would die. ++ In two months, he had quit his post, left his wife, and prepared his papers for his immigration to Heaven. Upon his arrival at the heavenly airport, the two beautiful women from the real estate agency came in a carriage pulled by white horses to chauffer him to his new home. He moved in and admired the beautifully wrought furniture picked out from catalogues in heaven and the spectacular view from the bay windows. Then he went down into the city to do some shopping. In the grocery store he ran into the two women from the hotel, invited him to dine with them once more. At the restaurant, he sat giddily surrounded by his beautiful entourage. Suddenly, a group of gaudy ugly tourists entered the room, chatting noisily and happily. The women shrugged their heavenly shoulders. “Immigrants” One said in a low voice, “Nobody here likes them, but they flood in all the time. They think heaven is so great.” She rolled her eyes. “Where do they come from?” The ex-ambassador inquired. “Earth. They come here to live, take advantage of our beautiful parks, and leave trash everywhere. They leech off of the welfare system and have tons of children.” Said one woman. “I hate immigrants” Said the other, biting the words with contempt. His face quietly changed color, he sank further into his seat and said nothing. “The truth is that Heaven is too soft. We need tough laws so everyone must work for a living. We are voting to make heaven more like Hell.” “We must modernize“ The other woman agreed. “We are investing in sulfur.” She said. “But if you build sulfur plants and eight-lane highways you won’t have any beautiful parks at all!” He tried to explain to them how much better life was in heaven than in hell. They appeared to be listening intently. However, without having seen hell, the high smokestacks, the sickly birds and the trashed out freeways, experienced the ugliness, nastiness and ignorance of its people, they had no comprehension of what that they heard. “We don’t care about our parks. We want eight-lane highways and two story white houses.” Try as he might he could not convince them of the value of beauty and all that they held. They only laughed at him and called him old-fashioned. After the meal, he bid them farewell. He was too depressed that night for dancing. He went outside and got what lingering pleasure he could from the image of the sunset over heaven. (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
5:16 pm	I am a virgin I do not know it where your stare cuts me like a cake I will blind the world with prophecy I am not an animal yet I am a pet I do not exist except in your imagination you all want to be me I do not know it look at nylon bondage kill us now (2 Comments |Comment on this)
1:15 am	This cosmogony was written to describe the true origins of the universe and to reveal the myth of dualism as an instrument of the hierarchical, patriarchal system. This is indeed the stratum of all human thought, because the minds who have benefited from its dictates have so long exercised it that it has evolved, from generation to generation, informed our every concept from social to linguistic, so that our very understanding of being is profoundly imbrued with dualism. The dualist concept remains psychologically persuasive by the dint of being the sole propagated representation of humanity in the visible world, just as the ideas of monism and heterogeneity are repressed. This schema is by no means true or inherent. The cosmogony described in the following pages will outline the universe as it was made by the “female mind”, the universe which is the birthright of us all and may rightfully be inhabited by all who choose. There was no beginning: for there was always being and being did not oppose itself nor nothingness nor any other thing but existed peacefully. The transformation which came about was not something of will or voluntary thought, but something which appeared in the universe as thoughts appear in a dream, unconsciously mixing and matching heterogeneous parts without hierarchy. Thus the components of humanity did not come into existence but always existed, in parts or assembled in various combinations, an infinite multitude of other existences worlds lives and beings unimaginable. The heterogeneity recombined in an equally different and no more interesting species of life that came to be known as humankind. But this species introduced a sort of rationalizing, codifying mechanism that existed to feed its greedy, self-serving purposes, and thus to extinguish the natural heterogeneity of the universe. This evil was called the mind. Frequently humans would see the deleterious effects of the mind upon nature and upon itself, noticing the flood of war, poverty, death and disease. It was then that the mind invented dualism to account for its own failure to achieve supremacy over its environment, as well as other minds. The duality it created was between itself and the living, heterogeneous universe, and proposed that the mind, which was itself, was the “white, known, rational, and good” and the unknown was the “dark, irrational, universe, bad”. The rest of the universe was thereby the cause of all of its problems. However, the mind noticed that the troubles only existed when it existed, since the troubles were self-created propelled by selfishly motivated desires for homogeneity, thus it needed to claim that the troubles were not self-generated. Thus it attributed all the universe as existing beyond and before the mind, a universe of “chaos” and “evil”. Then, to give itself an illusion of power over a universe which seemed to it so fatally aligned against it, the mind dared to ascribe its own powers to that which surrounded it, to claim that it was all fabricated by a mind known as “god”. In the mind’s quest for a mythical monism, it used its own substance as the medium for homogeneity. The mind irrationally and blindly discounted the obvious presence of other opposing minds and of the heterogeneous universe around it. its only quest was to propagate itself, so it invented language in a delusory quest to infuse itself over other minds, and to a large extent, the mind was successful. The written and spoken word became the primary force with which one mind bewitched, confused, and misled the others incongruent with itself. The mind was successful in persuading others into believing that it was victorious over the force of death, that force which shows the ineluctable power of heterogeneity and unconsciousness over each human being, where it then became disbursed and divffised as each of its parts rejoined the harmonious, natural universe. Again dualism came to the rescue, separating the mortal, fragmented body from the mind, which continued to exist after death in the form of a spirit. The mind built a fortress of invincibility around itself called spirit. It had a new imaginary terrain that extended beyond the grave and the known universe. However the force of heterogeneity bore unconscious witness to the self-delusion of its child…. she came down to earth in the form of a mind who would infiltrate amongst the other minds that craved individual totalitarianism, and show them all how to live comfortably with their own heterogeneous existence. Her name was Anima and she was to teach all the other minds of the world how to be at peace with their individual differences, within the schema of death and the body, and with the unknowable heterogeneity of the universe. She is every force of art and death and plague and deviance. She proliferated during periods of revolution and renaissance. As she touched people, their minds gragmented, their bodies disintegrated, and thereby understood that they were naturally chaotic. Those in her presence knew that all was diverse and interconnected only by time’s rotations, equally knotting and rotting with forces of nature both within and without. She also touched peoples lips in the form of wine, and there were those who worshipped her and built temples to her, calling her “Bacchus”. Still others, at her touch, would learn their own true private language, unknown to fellow human beings, would reject all the false values of egotistical pursuits, and were therefore called the insane by tyrannical minds. There was however born an animus, several animus, known as Jesus and Mohammed and also several great kings. Aided by the dualist idea that minds and nature were opposed, the anti-omni diffused themselves into the minds of more people than ever before. Their minds created a new homogenizing formulae that could reach the masses deeply. So effective were the formulae of the animus minds that centuries after their demise, their same minds were being played over and over again like cassette tapes to new generations, with the aid of the written word. The homogeneity had become cross-generational. The effective mind control techniques the animus were used to force those around them into homogeneity with ever more effectiveness and power. They incite mass mental obedience: Like-minds organized acts of cruelty, as the insane and the animal were never able They were used to build up new forms of mind and body control. The state made people perform the same motions over and over again and this constituted “work”. Not only that, but they codified languages and religious and brought mental conformity to a new level. The new forced behaviors were known as “laws” Throughout the course of history, rational self-serving minds would use the dualistic formulae to achieve their ends. The proponents were those who sought set up a hierarchy of those that would think just as they did. Complex hierarchies devolved from simple dualism and individual dualities, such as the notions black and white and male and female, such as us and them, such as rich and poor, such as catholic and protestant, living and dead, me and you. The minds imposed their hierarchical structures on others to promote their own ideas and importance. The structures required a conformity which is not easily adapted by naturally heterogeneous minds, and therefore created new depths of physical and mental suffering. But the other minds were led blindly, for the suffering was not seen as a product of the mind: Everything was caused not by itself but by one of two things, the forces of “good” and “evil” from without, such that its own individual responsibility for destruction as well as individual creative power were concealed. In the end everyone, to the lowliest and most oppressed person, supported the hierarchies, each fearing the loss of their place in the structure, for everyone was fooled into believing their situation was better than another’s, and that nothing could be worse than the black chaos of the “unknown”, the evenly heterogeneous and interconnected natural universe. The "self" was eternally more precious than all "others". Dualism had become not just the plaything a few minds but the fundamental way of communicating and thinking for the human world. But after centuries of delusion, the second coming of anima is in the form of technology, an organically diversifying and evolving , heterognizing organism. It springs from the mind itself like a monster, as the long repressed side-effect of striving against its true insane nature. Technologies will severally take the place of mental functions, such as the need for morality, then the need for work, the and finally the need for a self-serving mind, which will obviate the need for self-preservation through the idea of dualism. At this point, the mind will cease to see things in terms of the dualism “itself: everything else” and the mind will return back to its natural state of unconscious observation of heterogeneity. It will not seek to induce conformist thoughts or action upon other minds. Capitalism is the final battling ground of the mind’s rational-egotistical impulse and technology’s will to diversify. As self-interested capitalist minds try to control larger chunks of the world they ceaselessly impel their own destruction, as they spur technology. Innovation and capitalism are spontaneous, individual and irrational forces guided by the natural universe, and will return us to chaos. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
4:31 pm	Can you see the way life titillates with first decay As blooming roses seamed with brown And the darkened apple steps into the bruise So death sleeps in beauty’s deepest hues The half-dead eye spark’s brutal breath The warm fruit mouth’s rosy sheath into which gnaw infected teeth against the sunset of the cheek The tree sways side to side, Like a soul it is open wide Pale limbs pend the fruit inside Devoid of youth’s green bitternesses Can you already see dangling from the tree All succulent, life’s mystery The drunken heart that beats itself to death? Not like the thinning, whitening weeds in winter, transparent skins of heel-crushed stems here about fall’s deepening colors are the perfumed richnesses unbidden Is it ripe yet, master? The devils' raucous whine For if it is soft and tender Let us pluck it from the vine. Can you see flaws are etched wormhole or scar encrusted flesh sweet and perfect for the taking Is this body ripe for death? (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
10:59 pm	Propelled by an unusual curiosity, Magnus trudged up the steep hill. Curiosity was unusual in him because he had, for the space of a bone-chilling winter, no interest other than warming his feet by the mumbling radiator and dipping his pen into the jet black inkwell, then scrawling over the pages of his stagnant clutter. The office where he worked was a windowless vault of human odors and ruffling papers where only the eerie darkness that came nightly asserted nature’s presence. Indeed he had forgotten the meandering circuitries of the vast Gregorian park. Spring’s bright luminosity showed him as shriveled and blind as a laboratory rat. Continuing his untraced path among the sedgy hills, he tottered slightly from exhaustion, stopping now and then to drink the cool spring air. The still and twisted branches threaded pale streams of light into the spongy ground seamed with black lace. New strawberries pushed their flimsy boughs over the moudering skulls of last fall’s acorns, and the tall reedy pan-pipes sucked moist soil and cattails whispered softly like the deathly pale ghost of last summer’s glory. He reached the top of a hill and was astonished by the view it afforded him. The black winding tree limbs parted to reveal a view of the village below, the most beautiful church, its arching pantheon of ethereal pale blue, scarcely of this world, hanging tenuously by the misty light. On high granite walls, ornate freizes shone with a crystalline clarity that scraped the hazy sky. A gasp of delight escaped his lips. He held his breath in wonder at the sight, then, remembering himself an incredulous academic, resumed unfalteringly to see what unknown wonders lay ahead. He hurried up the next great hill. At the very top of the hill was a wide opening, where the strange twisting forms of scattered trees sheltered another ruin of architecture. It was quiet, as though the birds did not dare to chirp for the air was especially thin. The sunlight was blindingly bright rather than illuminating. Straining against the light, he saw what he supposed to be an ancient gazebo, larger than any he had seen before. Its low, squat roof formed a giant octagon. Gulping air to relieve his muted brain which was deaf for lack of oxygen, he approached the structure. The loud thud of his footfalls on the slippery mud brought him closer. He peered into the shadow and noticed a figure lying on some benches within. The bundle was unmistakably human in form. It lay perfectly rigid on the picnic table. He tried to discern what was covering it and supposed it was a blanket of thick wool. He wondered how anyone could stand to be lying covered in wool on what promised to be a warm spring day, sleeping although it was nearly noon. There was no part of the body that was visible, although underneath the thick fabric the softened angle of the nose and the light indentation around the eye sockets hinted at a face. Was the person alive? He dared not come closer… He thought that this was perhaps a transient who had found a resting place for the night. Worried about possibly being mugged, he decided against waking him. His cowardice, in part due his years of sheltering and his incredulously thin, emaciated figure, prevailed over his disturbed conscience in a series of well-sounding rational tautologies. He was not likely to be either very sympathetic or helpful to this poor creature, and if it was dead, there was nothing he could do to help him now. Better not to get involved or else there would be questions. But as he recoiled from the gazebo, his eyes fixed constantly on the shrouded figure, he felt gripped by a terrible curiosity. He must know for certain whether the thing was truly dead. His scientific mind reeled in disgust not as much at his cowardice as at his ignorance. He must be able to classify the experience in his realm of academic conjecture, to attribute meaning to the oddly beautiful symbol of a frivolous gazebo and the decaying corpse within. Was a wily transient putting an obsolete building to good use or a beautiful building sheltering a rotting corpse? He would determine what it was and write about it in a lofty paper on social injustice. If only he could convince someone else to come and uncover the frightful body, they would releive him of any responsibility for the death and shield him from the abuse of an angry miscreant. As he peered over the edge of the hill, he saw a bustling fair below, animated by the colors and shapes of many people gaily enjoying themselves. It was a stark contrast to the otherworldly remoteness where he stood. As the squelching brown grass yielded under his soles, he quickly descended the steep hill toward the buzzing fair. He realized how queer he must appear to the crowds below, a man emerging from the wilderness. He searched anxiously for someone who could assist him. A league away from him he spied a young lad of barely fourteen, standing idly at the intersection. He wore a calm expression and a curious orange striped vest that identified him as a the fair gaurd. As a young family with children approached him, he helped them to cross the street by holding up his right hand and stopping the few poky vehicles of traffic. He stumbled down the last few meters of the hil, determined to ask the young boy if he knew about the homeless man in the gazebo. Just then, a woman tugging her little girl, assiduously avoiding the wild-eyed glance of the stranger, began to cross the street. The orange-clad youth strode gracefully and gently into the street and watched the ambling woman and toddler. Magnus, waiting at the edge of the road, examined the boyish face. It was handsome, although humble, and its owner seemed little preoccupied with worry. No doubt he was merely working a summer job, living with his parents, and had little experience with the evil of the world. Magnus watched the boy’s calm face and wondered suddenly how he dared foist upon this innocent youth all the horror of death. He turned and headed toward the fair, in search of some older attendant who could aid him in his quest. He walked up to the ticket booth and a guard greeted him. “Do you want tickets for the fair?” She asked politely. Magnus hesitated. He felt the absurdity of the request he was about to make. “How much are they?” He said slowly. He thought about the words he wanted to say and how he would say them, with the lighthearted and baffled air of a pedestrian. But he looked at the clean young woman whom he had posed the question, and did not dare to ask her to accompany him to investigate a dead body. “They are six dollars each.” “They aren’t free for members of the University?” He said, stalling. “They are free for students on the weekend.” She responded. “No…no… I was just looking. Thank you.” He said and wandered off with an expression of intense distraction. All around him children tottered in a sickening sea of bassinettes and stubby legs. They flooded in and out of the fair, their disembodied balloons jerking up into the bright sunny air, their plastic animals careening from their dainty grasp at dizzying angles. The lazy gait of their parents slowed as if already tired from the activities of the leisurely day. Their clothes were bright colored and loose-fitting. They knew nothing of the dead body lying a few yards from them upon the scraggly hill. In dismay, he turned slowly from the fair and the parents and young children in their gay indifference. He decided to return alone to the gazebo. As he climbed the hill, he felt a mounting dread that weighed his steps like the thick black mud. He hoped freverently that when he returned the man would be sitting upright, or that the frightful bundle would have disappeared. Reaching the top of the hill, he saw the body lying in its familiar position, only this time, it was not alone. There was another man in the gazebo, sitting on the bench across from it and speaking on a cell phone. At once the normalness of this scene relieved him, for it all pointed to a mundane causalness that did not permit the intrusion of a body. Still, it did not answer conclusively his most persistent question. He passed the gazebo slowly, straining to get a better look and ascertain whether the body had moved. He flared his nostrils in an attempt to catch some bitter odor of death. The man on the phone ignored him, it was no use to ask him any questions. He seemed so intent on his conversation he felt it improper to interrupt. Feeling the awkwardness of the situation, he left. His head was full of questions as he retreated. The man’s ignorance of the body seemed solid proof that it was either living or not a body at all, unless the talker on the cell phone was in outrageously unaware that the shape on the bench across from him resembled a shrouded body. Maybe the man on the phone was responsible for the appearance of the body. Impossible, for then why would he have seemed so unperturbed by the advance of a witness? Shaken, he went home. Throughout the day as he worked his thoughts were continually interrupted by the thought of the strange shadowy figures he had witnessed in the gazebo. With mad intent to reveal the truth for once and for all, he set out from his house at sunset and hurried towards the park. Magnus crossed the deserted fairground, littered with the flimsy things of youthful insouciance, and struggled on his weary old legs up the hill. He wanted to reach the gazebo in time to catch a glimpse of the body in the last light of day. In the empyrean skyways peachtones dipped into the inky night just as paper dipped in ink. He breached the hilltop. The gazebo leered before him, swarmed by nighttime shadows. As he peered a third time into the depths, he noticed giddily that there was no one in it. He was so thrilled with this discovery that he began recklessly laughing to himself in relief. If there was nobody here, then it had all been the product of his disturbed imagination. He was delirious with hope. There had been no unnatural death, no spectre huddling in the black haven of the gazebo. But soon this faded and was replaced by gnawing skepticism and doubt. Could it be that the body had simply been moved? Perhaps the man on the phone was responsible for its removal, and had been enlisting aid for its disposal. His burning curiosity was more intoxicating than any wine he had ever had in his dull and pale life. He was so accustomed to the certainty of knowledge that at the first taste of true mystery he was addicted. He sat on the bench, determined to wait for the men to return, either of them, and provide some justification for all that he had seen. He waited, waited all night, watching the darkness dim and the mad trees thrashing at the blue sequined sky. Yet he was unaccustomed to do so much walking in one day. Towards the early morning he felt the irresistible urge to sleep. Feeling sleepily around in the darkness, his hand met something soft. He covered himself with a woolen blanket. (Comment on this)