naked bullet on a merry-go-round

magical pigeons butt nests with surveillance, forwarding anonymous transvestites from inside liquor's religion into squalor of bravery's frozen exposure

12:48 PM Thursday, June 07, 2012
Blame it on your closest friends,
loath their indifference but
keep them apprised for later blame.
Spiral into sleepless torment,
boasting of headaches and false diagnoses,
ripping hearts from the chests of mothers,
where blood burns like gasoline.

I boarded a subway from midtown to the Dominican Republic for to see Miguel Figueroa.

I do not know Mr. Figueroa. I do not know who he is or why I have his credit card, but when I saw his name I got off the plane and found the closest subway. I typed his name into a commercial search engine, finding that "Miguel Figueroa" is a common name assigned to numerous human beings.

The aeroplane which I left was vast and spacious, more like the waiting room at an airport than a flying machine. But it was a plane. It flew in the air, a cylindrical tube of people shooting through the skies in ways that would make the ancients ill or homicidal to contemplate.

The trip to the Dominican was necessary, though I did not know why. On account of the dueling urgencies I found myself ambivalent about the trip. Mother wanted to go, but she was unavailable. She had some conflicting plans in Los Angeles, which is the only connection I have between myself and the name of Figueroa. I stayed at a hotel in Los Angeles on Figueroa Street, a fact which I never remembered.

I expected to go by myself, for 10 days. The boarding process for the subway was extraordinary for a city subway, albeit one designed for international travel. I went through the boarding process, travelling down numerous escalators, some of them semi-circular, most of them long and very narrow. I got to my seat on the subway and immediately thought about leaving. Nothing about the seating was uncomfortable, I just did not want to go to the Dominican Republic. I had other things to do, and as I looked through my bag and pockets I discovered I had no money, no credit cards, and no MetroCard. Evidently this subway ticketed like commuter trains and buses, gathering tickets after the train leaves the station.

I thought about how that would work, how I could verify that I was who I said I was, and that the use of scraps of paper as tickets was but pablum in the logistical theater of international subway travel. Without cash I knew I'd have to have a credit card and ID to purchase and then verify the purchase of the subway fare. All I had was an unusable credit card belonging to Miguel Figueroa, whoever that was.

I had to get off the subway. I gathered my things, which included a bag with unsatisfactory amounts of clothing for a long trip. The clothing included my girlfriend's black panties, and not much else. I caressed the black panties and punned to myself about having "baggage".

I found the escalators, and on the exit from the subway encountered some moving sidewalks. These moving sidewalks were all going my way, and it appeared that other passengers were using these sidewalks to board planes. They treaded against the motion of the sidewalk, and some of the folks made a grand old time of it, considering it ironic, and hilarious, that the mundane task of boarding a plane met with this conspicuously fouled up conflict.

I made it back to the airport terminal, where two women who worked for either the MTA or the TSA stopped me. I told them I couldn't take this subway, and that I intended to go home. They responded with prepared doubletalk, gibberish words of no substance but of a joyful, engaging sound that I wish I could replicate. This was some kind of MTA or TSA trick designed to fool me, to hypnotize me into re-boarding the subway to the Dominican Republic where I would meet the mysterious Miguel Figueroa. I saw their game immediately, though. It was the same sort of lawyerly double-talk that blossoms when you call to cancel satellite TV or other subscription service. Their words seemed to bounce off each other without moving, like the in-between metal balls smashed like gritted teeth by the swinging metal balls at the ends Newton's cradle.

I felt no obligation to continue listening to their rhythmically vacuous speech. They continued juggling words as I walked away, uncontested. No physical force was used. Only words.

I wandered the airport a little longer. I had no ID, no credit cards of my own, and no evidence that I existed.

We disike that term, "Success." 
It requires failure to exist,
but we do not know 
how or why to fail.

Success is a skinny, paunchy man 
wearing outsized underpants, 
tempting himself with 
congratulatory questions 
feathered with 
unnumbered treasures of 
a nemesis' failure.

Victory laps at a
trough of influenza,
wraps its legs around
dangerous backwash,
roars its feelings at a
brittle sunrise 
at which we stare,
confused, unsure of the
solar system's
meaning, we are
unsettled by 
armies of
inaccurate timepieces.

Handwriting on 
ancestral walls rig
last year's 
exploded failures with
infinitesimal microphones,
boring through 
bleeding tundra,
braving starvation with
schooled expertise,
heroic discipline,
fleecing shallow lakes for
reversible indignation,
scraping earthly terrains of
boneless litter.

SOME WORDS TRIGGER OTHERS IN MY MIND?

MACARONI = SPAGHETTI = MOTHER'S MISERY. THIS IS BECAUSE OF THE DINER, THE PHONE CALL FROM THE DINER, I CALLED MOTHER, HAPPY, TO REPORT SOME MOMENTOUS NEWS, BUT SHE WAS SICK, HER STOMACH FELT LIKE A ROCK. SHE ATE SPAGHETTI FOR DINNER.

DETAILS OF MOTHER'S DIET MADE ME FEEL MISERY. WHEN I SHOP FOR MOCROWAVEABLE EDIBLES I REMEMBER HER REMARKS ON INTERESTING NEW FROZEN FOODS AT THE SUPERMARKET, HER CHOICES OF THE BEST ITEMS AND HER SATISFACTION IN REPORTING ON HER VERDICTS. SHE SIGNED UP FOR CONSUMER TESTING OF NEW PRODUCTS AND MADE LONG LITANIES OF HER EXPERIENCES WITH THESE FOODS, SOME OF THEM BEING AVERAGE, NONE OF THEM EXCEPTIONAL, AND SOME SO AWFUL AS TO DEFY COMPREHENSION OF THE CORPORATE DECISION-MAKING-PROCESS THAT MANIFESTED SUCH HORRIBLE FOOD.

SPAGHETTI IS A FUN FOOD. CHILDREN EAT IT WHILE LAUGHING, THEY GET THE LONGEST NOODLE THEY CAN AND SUCK IT INTO THEIR TIGHTLY PUCKERED MOUTH, LETTING IT WRIGGLE AND SLITHER AND WRITHE LIKE A STRANGLED SNAKE FOR THE FEW SECONDS IT TAKES FOR THE SPAGHETTI NOODLE TO DISAPPEAR, THE NOODLE HITTING THE CHILD'S FACE AND LEAVING A CURLY TRAIL OF SPAGHETTI SAUCE ON THE CHEEK OR CHIN AS LAUGHTER ENSUES.

SPAGHETTI IS A FUN FOOD FOR SLUMBER PARTIES AND COOKOUTS BUT MOTHER ATE IT IN RETIREMENT, HER SOLEMN, SOLITARY DINNERS ALONE IN THE DINING ROOM.

I DO NOT EAT SPAGHETTI, NEVER AGAIN SINCE THE PHONE CALL TO MOTHER FROM THE DINER. I BOUGHT 2 BOXES OF SPAGHETTI A FEW WEEKS AGO BUT I EXPECT TO LET THEM WITHER AND CRACKLE IN THE CABINET, FOR YEARS AND YEARS, WITH DADDY'S CALENDAR.

A DREAM ABOUT A REMOTE-CONTROLLED MICROWAVE REMINDED ME OF MOTHER'S LONELINESS, BUT NOW I CAN NOT REMEMBER WHY. IN THE DREAM I HAD A WRISTWATCH THROUGH WHICH I WAS ABLE TO TURN A MICROWAVE OVEN ON FROM ANYWHERE. I DID THIS. I TURNED THE OVEN ON HIGH FOR 30 SECONDS, QUICKLY REALIZING THAT THE OVEN HAD NO FOOD IN IT. THE OVEN WAS EMPTY. I COOKED AIR FOR 30 SECONDS, AND THIS REMINDED ME OF MOTHER'S LONELINESS. THE CONNECTIONS IN MY MIND LINKING THAT EMPTY, DISTANT OVEN TO MOTHER'S LONELINESS MADE SENSE TO ME LONG AFTER I AWOKE AND REMEMBERED THE DREAM, BUT NOW THOSE CONNECTIONS ARE GONE.

SOME WORDS AUTOMATICALLY TRIGGER MEMORIES OF MOTHER, MEMORIES OF MOTHER'S UNQUENCHABLE MISERY. SEEMINGLY ARBITRARY SEQUENCES OF THOUGHTS THAT LEAD TO PLACES UNIMAGINED AT THE OUTSET REMIND ME OF THE DARKNESS MY MOTHER EXPERIENCED, THE CLOUDS OF DISMAY AND CONFUSION, THE IRRATIONALITIES AND PARANOID STATEMENTS UTTERED AS FACT AND ACCEPTED BY ME AS TRUTH UNTIL THE DARKNESS BECAME VISIBLE, THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF HER ACCUSATIONS AND THE PREPOSTEROUSNESS OF HER CLAIMS OPENING DOORS FROM WHICH MOTHER'S DARKNESS POURED.


invisible tantrums and
hungry blurbs of
phony radio stars
drop the microphone into a 
	bucket of tan








		sing your song of hollow sin,
		positionless robots in a
		copied world, foiling 
		uncroaked violence with
		rigorous billiard balls
		bigger than your planets.  




		laughter and blunder roar from
		behind the fences of your yard.
		travelling like messages in
		bottles you hear the content but
		can not make sense of the joy.
		this fear does not squeeze at your heart.
		not yet, for you are young.  






dintless 
chips of soil
lavishing bunches of
fleece, plugless
coaxial grab bag of a
naked bullet on a
pedestal, frowning,
slamming eyelids,
frowning,
hunting for thunder,
nonse hornets and
hogwarts, mis-calculated
memories, hourless
definitions for
thunder and jamb,
lost coordinates on a
cramping map of
repetitive dream

	dented
chips of soil  
 lavish wads of  
 fleece upon an 
    unplugged
   coaxial grab bag of
 naked bullets on a  
	  frowning pedestal, 
 frowning,  clowning,
   eyelids slamming,  
 bullets drowning,  
    hunting for thunder where
	 violence breeds
        nonse hornets and  
     hogwarts, mis-calculated  
	memories, hourglass  
	definitions of
	 thunder and jamb,  
	lost coordinates on
  cramped maps of  
 repetitive dream

PANTS AND HATE PANTS HATE GREATNESS JAIL BAKE ROOSTERS
AND VIOLINS OBSCURE PUPIL OF CHOPIN RARE UNCLE OF DELIUS
OBSCENE NEIGHBORS OF GRIEG LISTEN TO THE MARK TWAIN
LOOKALIKE, CRANCH AND CRAKE MY LOVER LYNETTE, BLAST HOLY
POP SONGS OVER FRISKY BLANDISHMENTS, I SEE WHAT
MY FAILINGS ARE, I CALCULATE WHERE THE CONNECTIONS SQUANDER
AND PLAN TO PUT MUSCLE AND MOLES ON THE CAGE OF BONES