unop unop unop unop
ened ened ened ened
enve enve enve enve
lope lope lope lope
posted by James @
12:21 PM
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Samstag, Juli 13, 2002  |
You go to college, graduate. You enroll in law school, rent an efficiency. You study, and eat food from cans and bags. You graduate, never take the bar. You enroll in a PhD program, the ownership of your efficiency has changed hands three times now. You eat frozen food, an unidentified red sauce stains the corner of your thesis. You never turn it in. You get blind drunk on your birthday. The bartender lets you sleep in the back room. He drives you home at four am. You teach English at a community college. You drink instant coffee. Your bed is a table, your couch a bed, you wash your clothes in the sink. You take vitamins between bites of a ham sandwich. You walk out in the middle of a lecture. You order a porterhouse and a bottle of wine. You proofread legal briefs. You slide your rent envelope under a door. The leftover steak molds in the middle as the ends dry and curl up. You think about going back to college, finishing your thesis, taking the bar.
posted by James @
5:50 PM
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Freitag, Juli 12, 2002 |
TI99-4A, a keyboard that you connected to your TV.
IF THEN
GO TO
PRINT
To save a program you smushed PLAY/RECORD on the cassette deck, the special data cables cost $5 at Radio Shack.
We lived in a house, next to a pond, beside a barn. We raised calves: Bubba, (who was later saddle broken), Big Mac, and Whopper. We were broken by horses, bitten by ponies, and chased by geese. Summers doors were locked, house doors- to keep us outside, room doors- to keep us inside. We camped, fished, swam, and murdered everything we could with pellet guns.
I was insanely jealous of my younger brother. He was funny when I was mean. He was cool when I was a geek. He had friends when I had broken lips.
TI99-4A, a keyboard that connected to your TV
IF THEN
GO TO
PRINT
Dad worked at home, skip tracing is what it's called. Hours on the phone, yellow legal pads confused by digits and doodles: giant un-blinking eyes, a tree, a bottle. An ashtray that was constantly vomiting Marlboros and Dorals. And a voice, sing-song-southern, that only knew "good 'ol boys".
When we bought the computer, I expected a robot friend with an electronic voice. When it was a keyboard that you attached to your TV and a manual full of IF THEN, GO TO, PRINT; I went swimming. I kept swimming for a week. After showering the mud out of my ears, and the moss from my hair, I saw that my brother and my father had not moved. My dad looked at the keyboard as if it were the face of God, while my brother read spells from its torah. I stood in the doorway, my pajamas clinging to my skeletal form, unnoticed for hours. No. No. Dad, see here it says. A broad hand smoothes a tiny shoulder blade. In the top bunk the tacking of the keys reminds me of someone rattling a locked screen door.
In the morning, the computer was still on. I poured a glass of water into the plastic case of the computer until it smoked.
The dog was locked outside for a week.
posted by James @
4:37 PM
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When I was twelve or so, skinny as the wind, and innocent as a cloud, I wanted to become a monk. I corresponded with a few Trappists, in the days of typewriters. They were patient with my zeal to abandon the world so early. I recall specifically Brother Lawrence from Our Lady of The Holy Trinity, in Ogden, UT. His words held me in his ink stained hands, gently, at arm's length. I never knew why until today. A child, confident in the omnipotence of their parents, will run into a shimmering pool to catch the sun's reflection unaware of the fatal possibilities. I hope that Brother Lawrence is doing well.
posted by James @
4:36 PM
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They sit like petals in table-flowers, ashing cigarettes into glass pestles, sipping from amber stamens. How y'all doing tonight, the jersey at the mic wants to know. Can I hear a hell yeah? With Baptist predictability the crowd refrains. A phone rings at the bar, tube-top girl strokes the back of her left hand, 1960's eyeglasses clicks a tape recorder, tape recorder skidders its wheels, pixie cut looks at the ceiling dragging deeply, chair squeaks on the wood floor, door opens, car splashes. Our first reader tonight is Jeff-a-sohn, so y'all give it up.
The best couplet was
You chewed up my soul like gum.
You mother-fucking bastard, I swallowed your cum.
posted by James @
4:36 PM
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Who would call a miscarriage-
that red earthquake- a son
(if one did, what pity).
posted by James @
4:35 PM
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