Transmission #260

A woman enters the courtyard glances around in her subtle confusion. In distressed spandex, she knows what she hates body first, the rest of the world when she has time. She admires the strong, wide denim of a man to her left. Military. Sewn patches. Biker. She veers toward and sits at the table next to him. In space, a tepid light approaches a rock, which bends it so very slightly in its favor. Race.

Teens at the next table try to talk like adults. Their voices like two long poles in a crowded room.

The woman has switched seats now, the one watching the man. She's moved so she can better view of him. He now has a woman sitting with him. She effuses a spousal aroma. But that doesn't stop the other woman from watching intently. Some are to be admired for the tenacity of their hunger. Survivor

The servers across the court are having to gossip more quickly now with a steady increase of patrons. Loud cheers from down the block grow in timbre. I watch their allure, which seems to grow and darken like areolas. I take a deep draw and envelope my head in a concealing haze. That's when I hear the thing that ties it all together. Cancer

Suddenly. I'm aware. Runners slowing to a walk at the end of the courtyard, their matching pink shirts, the common goal. The no longer unconscious shifting in my chair. My smoking takes on an apologetic air, for no discernible reason. I find myself rehearsing answers to questions I will not be asked.

The runners end their trek and file into the other bar in spasms. Swarms of tanned arms taken up in solidarity. Cropped hair and looks of dogged gratitude. Hope against corrugated time. "Juicy's Juggs" on their shirts call forth no sexuality, but rays of sunshine and a clean bill. Families trundle by like nuclear caravans, wives smiling at the open display of womanhood. Children confused. Husbands adjust themselves in pastel Polos.

Servers are in high gear now, unsure how to temper their typical sexuality in this singular context of what is just beyond their lives. Till the end of their shift, they will pace the gray zone between them. Race.

Within the gathering crowd of runners, a teenage girl plays with her phone, looking up now and again to half-smile at the positive energy around her. It is the exact same look as the server orbiting her. The one with the Eastern Bloc lips and Allied hips. She maintains her pace, her eyes darting to the growing fervor of the crowd. Fleeting glimpses of a verified future, a road not yet traveled. She is drawn and repulsed. It's a conflict now a part of each fake smile she flashes.  

The woman across the way gets up. She stands right in front of the man and his companion. She looks at them both likes she wants to speak, looks back at the runners instead, and absently walks away. Survivor.

Song to Myself

I failed to update the Journal last week. Guilty. I was on the WTP (White Trash Patio) instead. Against my better judgment I transcribe from the night. I make no claims for coherence only melodrama. If you find meaning in it, let me know. To me it is only waves against the shore. Consider it a gift, a reason to point and laugh when we next meet.

THE OPENING PARAGRAPH of "The Night-Sea Journey" is designed, that is composed specifically, to be the very important-creating opening page of any future collection of self-referential writing. I will use it myself, I have no doubt, so perfectly laid out in literature English as it has been done. And I will do it

as others do, unabashedly, to add some arbitrary component of gravitas to my work. And all written work does strive to be important, most so by those who claim to want the exact opposite. The most grass-roots movement is, in fact, destined for momentary greatness. It has something

to do with the fire I'm trying to start. No. I'm not being metaphorical here like Jefferson Starship (why they had to move from an airplane to something grander had everything to do with their fall from grace) and Krispy Kreme. No

I am attempting, in vain it seems, to light a nice fire here on the patio. I should be inside composing my promised Thursday blog post. Who knows, perhaps the two will meet one day. I keep blowing the well placed embers in an attempt to breathe life into their potential. No. This sounds metaphorical again. I'm serious. Because it has to do with the way the almost flames almost catch the vertical log aflame. The approach licking it alive, but without the head needed to make the jump to full fire. Yes, that is metaphorical. The truth is that I. It licks in a sexual attempt to validate itself as agent of change. In truth. I want. I think

the wood is upset. Wet. Impotent even. There are those who may read this who know they could fix it. I'm sure you could. Sexual and energy morphed into Promethean skill sets. You'd think. You'd think I could, the way I like to ramble on. Something is amiss. it is because you. I'm certain it is because you are not here. There is but one person I hope reads this. They do not even know who they are. It is senseless. I know. But there

it is, redeemed by your strongest effort, but not your drive. The night is taking over. What strange lives we lead. What pleasures denied and deny. Things watch us and I turn away. But I see the power that instills those eyes. Do you want beyond subterranean consciousness, like the other I know like you? Alpha and Omega, once revered, now reduced to subsequence. How sad. To promote

life beyond the standard. What noble guesses glide to the edge of indiscretion?

Those who realize. Distant shores of knowing. Speeding caress that fuels them, but I want more. No. No and Gide's attic. I was there once. Parts of me never left. And it is in moments like these I try to go back and retrieve them. What fire. Strange the flame most deny even the notion of breath. I will no succumb, subscribe. Lead! What pleasures sustain beneath the lowest and basest of defined desire? To those. To those I secretly prostrate myself. Do you know? Do you adhere to the filament that has made me this?  You. You do not answer. As if silence fulfills you more and places you beyond me. And suddenly. And suddenly

this becomes about the wave I wait for, as I float out beyond the breakers. It is dark now, and I fade with the final glow into the horizon. What wan filigree to which I am prematurely reduced. I imagine you evolving as I sit stuck in some phase between liquid and gas. A sad and quiet fate. Sad and sad again. Yet I rebel. I fight it. With these words I do not go gentle... I strive to set into motion what you leave to reverie. What means I have used to approach. Strange. Seems I should have progressed so much further. The Night. That Wanton. The Day. That Convener. The reason I cannot stop this

because I haven't the strength to do it myself. I rely. I rely on the will of the body of the soul of the corpus of the mind. But none of this will be the relief. Come morning it will stand, the Convener wins, stands outside all just knowing or execution. And so do I, jingling cap and dance, the innocent sin of this all.

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Transmission from the Center of the Universe #259

There is a subtle difference between the sports bars drinkers and the better off homeless who traverse the pathways here at the Center of the Universe, specifically the Infinite Courtyard.  At first I believed. At first I believed it to be one single thing. While their attire is often remarkably similar in screaming color scheme, brand, and style, the former are lighter on their plodding heels. Drunk on booze rather than fatigue and dark brain hauntings, they transport themselves from table to street to wall to tab with a kinetic their counterparts don’t seem often to muster. It is an attempt at sobriety, this springy gait, an attempt at sobriety shoved into motion. They have plans and have every intention of wending their way to and through them. These plans, which grew shapely legs from bar napkins found at the base of their skulls, penned evenings facing endless times jukebox memorial and flags raised in a/c reverie. Plans now enacted, they are not more, but less real, vying for attention against the wind, breasts and the sweat of new laughters. And perhaps it is in the glow of this attention that the weight of their lives is lifted—if only the slightest—to keep them keeping on.

But their foils, equally aimless but without end of the trail abode. Their steps seem emptier but with more weight. Step. The earth around them bowing its head. A respect reserved for those having borne so much life discarded by the other side of luck. It is in them rivers empty, replete with detritus thought that genius could equal, yet rearranged. Step. The wraiths know which part of the food chain is proper, and it is against same they must defend themselves, turning the trip step corner for not home.

I have seen them collide on the street, these Doppelgängers. No, there. Just beyond the Great Arch of Eternity that bridges present and future. It is a rare and engaging encounter. An attempt at covalent bonding gone wrong. Watch the mirrored look that assumes both faces. Observe the connection, like a lightning or a sucker punch, as each countenance tries its best to deny the other and itself, attempts to negate time by reaching back, jumping forward through a tunnel created by the existence of the other. Sometimes it ends. Sometimes it ends with a voice from one or the other. A line cast through the haze of recognition. A line which never lands. An opportunity always lost to what is upon us. A scent. The hopeful spark of neon. Ass swing flower pendulum of the Holy Grail.  Ascent.