The Loser’s Guide to Street Fighting
I found a bloody cap lying in the grass. So I doused it with gasoline and set it on fire. I told everyone it was for a new podcast, called “Songonauts,” about a band that travels through time, undergoing uneven and unpredictable aging. Then there was the glare of phones being checked, e-mails being sent. I was in a headspace that felt sort of dreamlike. But, in fact, those trees still existed. So it reminded me of my grandmother, when she would sit outside reading letters. I don’t think it’s something I’ve ever fully solved. Maybe calendars should have tear-off squares for each day, until you reach the end.
*
You say, “Yes, yes, no, yes.” And it happens. No one planned it. Mothers dump raw meat out into the street in protest. There are rules, but why bother to learn them? In this place, you can be the sort of person whose skin is just a mask. Stupid shits are everywhere, their faces floating past with all the energetic aimlessness of dandelion fluff. “Always keep a gun by your side,” the expert says on TV as if this were reasonable advice. Fish and birds exchange spheres. Only the guy who runs the souvenir shop in the basement next to the bathrooms seems unimpressed.
*
I wasn’t born with issues. I acquired them the way fish acquired limbs in order to walk on land. Soon I was stumbling around like a babushka who drinks a fifth a day. An angel descended via the traditional system of ropes and pulleys. My first thought was, “Run!” Others chose suicide. What is it with angels? They never speak above a whisper. Perhaps that’s why a dog’s ears twitch. “Who would you rescue,” the angel asked in a barely audible voice, “your wife or your child, if you could rescue only one?” Then I remembered cavemen depicted running animals by giving them eight legs.
*
It’s 4 a.m. Your body’s trembling. After you die, it’s not yours anymore, anyway. Die knowing something, a monster, a devil in his giant motor vehicle. That’s not quite what I want. You need to leave. You don’t belong here. Ooh you are going to fuck yourself. You can hear them — you can hear the gas grenades all up and down the streets. The crowd is being pushed back, and the gas is coming.
This Bag Is Not a Toy
Is it evening? The weekend? Another time when few people are around? I begin to hear voices. Some have mistaken this for “enlightenment.” Only the elderly can know what is going to happen. I take a walk on the Boardwalk. A woman has placed herself in the light under one of the infrequent lamp posts. “Tear here,” she says with a wink. Don’t worry. My decision totally.
*
Someone stabbed S. Beckett in the chest, narrowly missing his heart. He just shrugged. I didn’t actually go to art school. So, to me, this was art school. Yeah, every day. “Who’s the bad man?” the police asked as they went door to door. “What’s he look like?” He looked a little like one of the Twelve Apostles, the tallish one with dyed blond hair. And that hadn’t happened before. The police couldn’t catch him. He will still be here, whispering to women on the street, “Your egg, my semen, we change the world.”
*
I’m not usually this angry, six inches of my knee extended to six feet. No one warned me before I stepped inside the room for the first time that things pass by in the night. Who are we anyway? I’m afraid of human beings. We run things in the forest while the wolf is not around. Eyes that do not want to close at all times ruin everything, pretty much every word. The lightning does not go out. The sadness will last forever. I can’t remember now why I ever thought it wouldn’t.
I found a bloody cap lying in the grass. So I doused it with gasoline and set it on fire. I told everyone it was for a new podcast, called “Songonauts,” about a band that travels through time, undergoing uneven and unpredictable aging. Then there was the glare of phones being checked, e-mails being sent. I was in a headspace that felt sort of dreamlike. But, in fact, those trees still existed. So it reminded me of my grandmother, when she would sit outside reading letters. I don’t think it’s something I’ve ever fully solved. Maybe calendars should have tear-off squares for each day, until you reach the end.
*
You say, “Yes, yes, no, yes.” And it happens. No one planned it. Mothers dump raw meat out into the street in protest. There are rules, but why bother to learn them? In this place, you can be the sort of person whose skin is just a mask. Stupid shits are everywhere, their faces floating past with all the energetic aimlessness of dandelion fluff. “Always keep a gun by your side,” the expert says on TV as if this were reasonable advice. Fish and birds exchange spheres. Only the guy who runs the souvenir shop in the basement next to the bathrooms seems unimpressed.
*
I wasn’t born with issues. I acquired them the way fish acquired limbs in order to walk on land. Soon I was stumbling around like a babushka who drinks a fifth a day. An angel descended via the traditional system of ropes and pulleys. My first thought was, “Run!” Others chose suicide. What is it with angels? They never speak above a whisper. Perhaps that’s why a dog’s ears twitch. “Who would you rescue,” the angel asked in a barely audible voice, “your wife or your child, if you could rescue only one?” Then I remembered cavemen depicted running animals by giving them eight legs.
*
It’s 4 a.m. Your body’s trembling. After you die, it’s not yours anymore, anyway. Die knowing something, a monster, a devil in his giant motor vehicle. That’s not quite what I want. You need to leave. You don’t belong here. Ooh you are going to fuck yourself. You can hear them — you can hear the gas grenades all up and down the streets. The crowd is being pushed back, and the gas is coming.
This Bag Is Not a Toy
Is it evening? The weekend? Another time when few people are around? I begin to hear voices. Some have mistaken this for “enlightenment.” Only the elderly can know what is going to happen. I take a walk on the Boardwalk. A woman has placed herself in the light under one of the infrequent lamp posts. “Tear here,” she says with a wink. Don’t worry. My decision totally.
*
Someone stabbed S. Beckett in the chest, narrowly missing his heart. He just shrugged. I didn’t actually go to art school. So, to me, this was art school. Yeah, every day. “Who’s the bad man?” the police asked as they went door to door. “What’s he look like?” He looked a little like one of the Twelve Apostles, the tallish one with dyed blond hair. And that hadn’t happened before. The police couldn’t catch him. He will still be here, whispering to women on the street, “Your egg, my semen, we change the world.”
*
I’m not usually this angry, six inches of my knee extended to six feet. No one warned me before I stepped inside the room for the first time that things pass by in the night. Who are we anyway? I’m afraid of human beings. We run things in the forest while the wolf is not around. Eyes that do not want to close at all times ruin everything, pretty much every word. The lightning does not go out. The sadness will last forever. I can’t remember now why I ever thought it wouldn’t.