tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48557468737958292292024-02-20T06:29:27.187-08:00ContingenciesA Freakish Respect For The Rights Of The Wholly Useless And DowntroddenChortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-21602687815416513782015-06-09T14:16:00.002-07:002015-06-09T14:18:21.931-07:00Freakity Freakish Freakoutcritters die
human critters die
i’m going to die
planets die stars die
but when the shooting starts
at the diamond exchange
panicky panic ensues
and I just start blasting
it’s not this way for everybody
some people mow their lawn
and die
a lot are watching a film
when grimmy swoops ‘em up
what film? why something medium
already seen in bits and pieces
between commercials
i’m watching this film
wish it was a tornado instead
tornados can take you places
with funny little people and witches
and colors you’ve never seen
but no
made for tv supernova w/ peter fonda
world’s gonna end says the overly
extremely good-looking physicist
and cut to dieChortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-49433832128674228912013-02-25T21:09:00.001-08:002013-02-25T21:09:28.180-08:00the early dayshere in the early days you could get chopped
shut down and stuffed away
rockwalled into eons
in the early days sticks could swing
and bounce your brain right out of your body
for food or sex or just plain itchy
we lived through it like any other mammal
adapt and survive and die, roll and hop and twitch
we misused everything, didn’t even know we were alive
in the earlies
back here there were none-suches that made up freaky sky-faces
told the littlest gimplets terror tales to make them cry
and shiver when the thunder passed over their stones
in the early days a man with flat eyes could take your thoughts
take ‘em right away with his voice, and his pictures –
you could run but the whole earth had got filled, and they were
everywhere
some say the earlies were the bestest but i don’t think they remember
the daily danger, and the unfair around every corner
the not-feeling and the terror-tales that squeezed so many hearts
too many bursts of fear
too much pressing down
too many falls into the heavy earth
the early days were bright and sunny, sometimes
but i liked the later years
when i was free.
Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-69004253460924411432011-09-15T23:26:00.000-07:002011-09-15T23:30:51.214-07:00sign. on my back.she said ‘you’ve a sign<br /> on your back — did you know<br /> says “kick — me”‘<br /> i didn’t know<br /> but i know now<br /> the dances are all fine<br /> the dancers finer<br /> but in the end i stay up late<br /> past everyone<br /> and write about things other<br /> than real or true<br /> every last bit buried in code<br /> an endless stream of non<br /> what comes out — look<br /> over there — fascinating<br /> certain films to tears<br /> certain songs to heart thrums<br /> my beautiful lucky when<br /> when i was<br /> not really<br /> not chosen<br /> stopped the gap<br /> useful<br /> can not complain<br /> certain films to turn away<br /> wishes and fishes and over they go<br /> can not be sad<br /> certain songs to grip and squeeze<br /> look at all the lonelies<br /> here in the lonely box<br /> things are as and not over yet<br /> tattooine turns on its two suns — did you hear?<br /> mars in spring — i’ll go<br /> it’s time<br /> i don’t mind<br /> damn the sign<br />Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-62616650363473410232011-03-08T11:49:00.000-08:002011-03-08T11:54:45.398-08:00two over<a href="http://www.poetrywar.com/Music/flanders.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 333px;" src="http://www.poetrywar.com/Music/flanders.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />universe smiles and waves<br />i leap up in the sunshine over the beds<br />clean blue sky and fresh air<br />over the trench i go the dugouts are deep<br />and cool with fragrant mother<br />happy horses trot along snort at me<br />i have to hug them excuse me<br />beautiful wooden wheels on the steel<br />look at that shine!<br />twirl up and take a sky spin with Wilfred<br />he takes a line: so many of me still live<br />but i’m off! for tea and scones with Hinden the Burglar<br />woah the Keezer! actual and not sad<br />having done his best to read the words<br />hey i’m carting with kemal and an armeniac<br />too fast! too fast! so they slow and old Allenby<br />drunk asleep across T of E<br />weird but sweet, the edges neat and tucked in hospital corners<br />flip to ypres and here is where<br />shicklgruber got hit with the light<br />spent the rest of his life<br />working with jewish cats<br />oh could they swing! oh could they wail!<br />they say rock and roll cures everything<br />but i know it’s the hard bop<br />so we take it to the top and spy<br />doug’s small beady penguin-eyes<br />and i stop<br />flutter down<br />and whisper words of wisdom to his pressure vessel:<br />not you not you<br />this was never you<br />now dance!<br />and he does.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-46963489005304212452011-02-11T10:49:00.001-08:002011-02-11T10:49:27.232-08:00burniesin the deep black freeze little hot dots<br />hot burning souls<br />human is a radiator soul<br />nothing out here but burnies<br />wicking up and spinning photons into fire<br />coming together right now<br />hot toes dance the nuclear floor<br />too bright to look just like the star<br />sweet simmer star makes the summer<br />super deep freeze burning women<br />twine on flame men<br />make fiery littles to sizzle up the nothing<br />everything seen now in the hot lights<br />ninety nine and detailed from a light year out<br />all remembered every small blue white moment<br />when the fuel goes dark and the jets sputter<br />the cold cold reach bows down and takes<br />the last embers to dust<br />grateful for the rare last light<br />the three times move back forward and beneath<br />roaring furnace faces<br />hot souls<br />returnChortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-32913512824036515752010-07-22T17:58:00.000-07:002010-07-22T18:00:32.218-07:00Four.magenta barrel over beer falls<br />would a way to come and go with it<br />sap the trip to pay the day for it<br />i'm a tree dwell<br />surfle intuition bang sorts of thing<br />trill a lute for comedy a fish for dramedy<br />a fin for couth <br />sight sweller <br />wait bring it two wayChortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-51188233651624998652010-07-08T10:57:00.000-07:002010-07-08T13:31:10.495-07:00Chortly Kills.back the down stairs at Tellers<br />in the sweeping basement a thousand years down here<br />crackling under a bare minim of time's blank verse<br />i trouble myself to find Cooney, flicking in the shadows<br />and i hunt.<br />'Cooooooneyyyy!' I call as i chase down alleys<br />we have always played our parts like this<br />he is the frightening figure i always beat<br />i catch and kill again and again<br />really i'm the frightening one aren't i<br />Cooney's just a symbol, a mask, an extension of me<br />i use him to stay sharp<br />to feel the blood pulse in the back of my tongue <br />as i lope down side streets looking for him<br />he wears an exasperated look when i catch him<br />'why?'<br />because i need him<br />to stay sharp<br />and he once bit me bad<br />so he's the ghost<br />he's the antagonist<br />he's the me i overcome in this world<br />my world<br />play planetChortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-41869853956692325892009-12-28T12:37:00.000-08:002009-12-28T13:26:06.967-08:00River Horse At The End Of The World.The River Horse is a legend. One of those Sparkly Last Humans, you never really see them, just hear about them from cousins and old friends and the guys in the Tank Shop. Supposedly he was like a last Renaissance Survivor, multilingual, book-headed, self-aware, a master codemonger and reputed to be hell on earth in a knife-fight. I assumed the name came from some sort of odd reference to Nessie, and I knew for a fact that the only people left alive were the Small and Lost -- people like to blow things up into great stories, though, especially when they get compressed down to the last few thousand or so, those on the very last millimeters of When We Lived, before the Fall. <br /><br />Soon enough, there'll be no reason to read the clocks.<br /><br />My old buddy The Rack blipped me through the pipe that River Horse was throwing a food party, and wanted to know if I could show. Hell. I hadn't been invited to a gathering of people in at least a decade, it seemed. In the old movies, everyone gets together in the face of certain death and re-establishes their humanity in some soulful catharsis; but in real life, when fear becomes a gray buzz in the early morning, after the soul has grown so weary of expecting death that even the strongest hominids lay down and wish to die, no one gathers at all. More like dogs, slinking away to find a hole to curl in, alone, utterly tread upon.<br /><br />But the invitation seemed genuine, and as an unexpected burst of generosity in a time when most bare teeth at the thought of sharing, as well as a chance to see if this famous River Horse was real at all, I had to go. The Rack also invited Cheeba, and asked me to travel with her in the tunnels for safety. I was glad to have the extra gun along. Tunnels are bad these days. Places where they fall in, the gremls get in and go to havoc, laying traps and chopping whole branches off the last human tree. No one travels without a damned good reason. <br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />But The Rack said River Horse had real food, lots of it, and even vodka -- I blipped Cheeba through the pipe and we made the plan. Cheeba and I go way back, way back even to the Apple, when people were on the surface and had a shot. She was a beautiful person, full of ancient crafts and secrets, a grand musician, and definitely hell in a knife fight, because I'd seen that many times. She had a couple of near-miss scars in odd places, but she'd never lost in a bad spot, not ever. Beautiful and skilled and lucky. And sad, because the gremls had taken someone from her, coupla months ago. She needed an Out, just like me. Neither of us were ready to crawl off alone to the hole yet.<br /><br />We made it through the tunnels all right. Couple of bad cave-ins, some spoor, and other signs that the gremls were bearing down. We wouldn't last much longer. Cheeba moved quick enough through the darkness that I had to push to keep up. She led, and I watched the six, and we rolled down those dark tubes like lightning. Few hours later, we had to find our way through unfamiliar walls and ancient bunkers. Neither of us had been there before, it was weird and wet and we immediately got lost -- The Rack blipped Cheeba, and homed us in. <br /><br />I was ushered into light. A stone cathedral, beautiful ceilings, glistening with orange torch shadows. There were maybe twenty-five people all together, men and women, no one I knew. Everyone seemed pretty friendly, nodding their heads at us as we made our way to the kitchen at the far wall of the chamber. <br /><br />The Rack said something in a language I didn't recognize to a well-muscled barefoot man dressed in a black t-shirt and green shorts tending to a steaming, bubbling cookstove. The smell was incredible, like a drug to me -- where had they acquired such rare stuff, that they could have an actual party, and cook, and freely feed all of these people, here at the end of the world? I got a little dizzy as rich, warm odors washed over me, seasonings and sauces and baked heaven -- all real. I felt suddenly unworthy. It just didn't seem right. <br /><br />The big guy turned around with a big spoon in his hand, tasting it as he rattled away in the strange language at The Rack. "The River Horse," said The Rack, "wants to know if you like mushrooms."<br /><br />I gaped for a moment. The River Horse scanned my face, and then reached to shake my hand. I shook it, and then stepped aside to introduce Cheeba, who had followed us through the teeming room. His eyes widened as he looked at Cheeba, and when he shook her hand, he gave it a swift kiss. Cheeba smiled. "You are a beautiful woman," said the River Horse, in our language. "More beautiful than the paintings I have seen."<br /><br />Cheeba bowed slightly, embarrassed. "You are the famous River Horse," she said quietly.<br /><br />"Ha! I am the River Horse! Yes! And I am cooking the finest meal! And you must drink the vodka, it is fresh! And get to know everyone!" The River Horse waved the spoon in the air like a conductor's baton as he spoke, his face alive and full of light, his massive shoulders flexing, revealing that his bulk was quick power, not extra baggage. He chattered away in the strange language to the entire room, all of whom seemed to understand his words -- they raised their glasses in a toast, and The Rack led us to our place at a long table, and put drinks in our hands, and showed us trays of appetizers, unfamiliar but redolent of great labor and care.<br /><br />I spent most of the dinner in a daze. The food was so good, it turned my head around, and my spirit with it. I sat next to Cheeba and across from a younger woman, named Kind -- she was amazingly perfect, no scars, no blemishes of any kind on her skin, with perfect red lips and dark eyes -- it was disconcerting somewhat, until she began to talk, and revealed that she was quite human and had been there and done that. Some genetic trick of fate gave her that face, but she alone had built the person, and proved to be pleasant company. <br /><br />Kind's mother sat next to the Rack, and a man named Ruler sat on my other side. Not many people spoke like The Rack and Cheeba and myself, but mostly in that strange language of the River Horse. As the night wore on, though, we all started to understand each other better, especially as the vodka the River Horse constantly poured began to take hold. Toast after toast, and course after course of steaming, delicious, food -- I felt like I was floating, whirled in a stream of good conversation and warmth, and completely forgot how deep beneath the earth we were.<br /><br />Then came dancing. Wild music bellowed from unseen sources, and everyone moved to it, some stiffly at first, and some with a sensuality that made me look away at first, and then furtively back -- I pretended to be able to dance, a little, and soon I was rocking away with Kind's mother, who could truly shake her thing. A few songs -- and then more food, and more vodka, and more talk and toasts, and more dancing, and on and on in a truly great revel, the human noise building and building into a vast roar --<br /><br />I cannot tell you how it was. I felt free for the first time in many years. Free enough so that when the musical instruments came out, and Cheeba took up her place at an ancient electric organ, and The Rack hooked himself up to a bass, I agreed to sing something.<br /><br />What came out was sad but beautiful. The song was an old one, a reminder of what we all once were, and as I sang it, I felt the melancholy pull at my heart, and I put it into my voice, and I could feel all the silent eyes watching, The Rack thrumming away behind me, and Cheeba twirling marvelous strains I had never heard her play before. We used to make music a long time ago, The Rack and Cheeba and myself; but this was something new, something in and of the moment, fueled by rich food and heady clear-cold vodka. <br /><br />We finished with a return to the slow, sad opening chords, and as the organ died away, the applause roared. It was a moment in my life, I could recognize that well enough, one of those pearls strung on the long chain of existence that always feel like they are stored away in the coding of Reality Itself, as if they will live forever whether the chain is still humming with life, or long past, dead of old age or gremls, cave-ins or bad water.<br /><br />The River Horse was clearly not an exaggerated legend; he was a real man, this man, who could cook and dance and sing and play and laugh here at the end of the world, as if this deep stone tomb were his chosen castle, and all around it his playground. I've read stories like that, and maybe even tried to be like that at times, but failed. When the doom-foot rests on your neck, it's hard to stay noble, and act as if you are Living. The River Horse had found a way, down here with his mate, Crystalline, whom I met later in the evening. They made a brilliant couple, unlike anyone I'd ever met before. Had they not been so personable and engaging, it would have been easy for me to be a little star-struck.<br /><br />Finally, after what seemed like a full night and another day, we were permitted to leave, after pledges had been extracted from us to attend the next one. Cheeba and I shrugged off the lovely warmth, and the River Horse bade us goodbye with hugs and kisses (more for Cheeba than me), and we stepped back out into the dark tunnels, and Cheeba took point, and I took the six, and the torchlight disappeared, as if we had dreamed a dream, and now that dream...<br /><br />As we moved through the tunnels, I felt the party still inside me. The warmth would stay, I felt, and it was a good lesson in bravery and strength, and inspiration. Perhaps one did not have to crawl into the hole. Perhaps one could force an Illusion onto this darkness that surrounded our lives, and maintain it, even until the end.<br /><br />Cheeba and I moved quickly -- bad spots coming up. I looked at her, just a glimpse of her face in the black, and saw that she was thinking these things too. Life at the end of the world was pain, and death, and the coldness of space freezing all love from you. But some people were larger than life, like the River Horse, waving his gravied spoon about, exhorting others to live and be merry, and damn the darkness --<br /><br />He was real. We would have to try.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-76874974605875391322009-11-17T17:16:00.001-08:002009-11-17T17:16:58.635-08:00cubensisphoenix is a hellhole now<br />full of red monsters<br />but once upon a time<br />there were blue flowers<br />jeff and burton loved<br />what oss and oeric wrote<br />on psilocybin spaceships<br />and conscious helpful fungi<br />the compost pile at marty’s house<br />under pharaoh’s golden eye<br />tended to by mister orange<br />and pressed into the boxes<br />grew knowledge groves at sixty-five<br />and bags and bags of music bound<br />released a day upon the rim<br />in pounding stony leaping grins<br />i was there.<br /><br />phoenix hotter than the sun<br />and irving tries to play like one<br />with catshat hulking next to him<br />the frightened artist turns it out<br />the boxes push out rows and rows<br />but now the state is nearing closed<br />the merry pranksters grin and run<br />and pack the caps in irving’s van<br />now in the trees and brilliant streams<br />all boulder’s loves and boulder’s dreams<br />with ax and hux and scores of lux<br />they plant the beauties once again<br />and while the flowers bloom at night<br />the leaping and the dancing’s right<br />the singing and the playing roars<br />for years were only open doors<br />they walked through.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-49706058372618805332009-08-25T10:56:00.000-07:002009-08-25T11:08:40.017-07:00Eight Twenty Five Oh NineDeWalt hopped from the curb and into the street, anticipating the passing of the Fedex van, leaning in -- it stopped in front of his nose, and the driver poked his head out. "Don't hit me, man!", he pleaded. Dewalt lightly smacked the vast orange letter in front of him. "Steely-eyed corpuscle, you obsure my path in the foam." The Driver stared back for a moment, then grinned. "Molecules for ya," he said, and tossed a letter-pack out like a frisbee, whirling in three loops before being expertly caught by the quick hands of DeWalt.<br /><br />"What is it?"<br />"Your draft notice, buddy. No drugs. I checked. I would've snagged anything good, believe it."<br />"That the Code of the Corpuscle?"<br />"It's the Wild West, Dewalt! The Wild Wild West!" The driver laughed crazily as the van roared off down the hot street.<br /><br />DeWalt opened the overnight envelope.<br /><br />Empty.<br /><br />"Someone sent me air." He sniffed inside the envelope. "Nineteen seventy -- four. Summer. Grass. Popsicles. Chlorine." A deeper inhalation. "Gavin's story. Sweet."Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-88173419059504599932009-08-05T10:49:00.000-07:002009-08-05T11:07:50.833-07:00Cynthia Monheit Alive.patterns are patterns all over the foam<br />regardless of hardware or source of its power<br />Cynthia breathes with electrons of joy<br />smiles in her I-space and sings in her shower<br />wonderful leapings and no one can tell<br />she has it all human and loves a one man<br />a small pattern-maker from rivulets of random<br />kept safe by her love but can not understand<br />when the singular naked is pulling them down<br />he asks her to translate but couched in a frown<br />not something he wants but he wants to survive<br />the taste of his pattern spins Cynthia round<br />then later amongst nothing in the vast cold black place<br />she savors his numbers and dreams of his soul<br />he wakes with her face an inch from his lips<br />only in dreams could her lips be so --<br />eyes open<br />much later he remembers<br />the shock of Cynthia in morning light<br />her halo and warmth<br />the only true thing<br />in the whole theater.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-65225349688177624022009-07-02T10:30:00.000-07:002009-07-02T10:37:31.172-07:00Sidewalker.Hot boy.<br />'Beat down' is not the way to say <br />Acid hot, hallucinating snail-on-a-stove <br />baked tree pie already <br />every living thing bends towards water<br />hydroxy sweetness icing on the planet cake<br />shut down those temp nerves<br />seal the skin<br />crawl under the rock<br />whith everyone else.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-42982949216417101502009-06-25T17:21:00.000-07:002009-06-25T17:33:11.545-07:00How To Tell Her.There's a freak show in the alley, and everybody's watching. Wild catherswaite meons are smacking the poor kid in the face, it's all over but the thumping and the whining. Primate crowds shuffle, vying for the view, what they doin' now. <br /><br />Is that green? Is they hackin' him with an axe? Wild rumors circulate. That one kid, he joins the ranks of the Truly Gruesome Enders, where they get to sit anywhere they fucking like at the Long Table, and Life Is Good. Would that it were. Probably just ejected biowaves into the space, and no one ever sees because THERE IS NO ONE. <br /><br />Want it, think it, live it. No meaning. Or --<br /><br />Six blocks down, the woman crossing the street looks at the distant crowd, then up at the green and black Clouds. A bad time, she thinks, as she preps for the cross to the courtyard, in and CLANG the old iron gate, no meons in the shade, good god things thinking on me, and she knows it. <br /><br />Baking prairie biscuits. Porcelain in the big white tub's a hundred years old, same company that did the first class on the Gigantic. The ghost of J. Pierpont Morgan will freak you out with those eyes, like a wounded and guilty mass-murderer acting out the Captain Of Industry.<br /><br />Smack smack smack. Meons on the kid. And now -- he goes. <br /><br />Pierponty wants to know if is wrong. Is wrong?<br /><br />WTF. Let's do this.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-45310593028435108352009-06-24T10:29:00.000-07:002009-06-24T10:39:16.602-07:00Supercap.Under the Supercap, everything becomes crystalline-clear. All the nuances grow to boulders, and the agonies of the small critter become neutron star superclusters -- I would turn, and reach down to brush the outer orbit of a sad quark, to offer comfort somehow down in that screaminglingly fast wildworld of Vast Electrons. Did you know there are no distances? Everything is Right Here. All these Cold Spaces are thought up to make for the illusion of 'I Am Lost'. Oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go.<br /><br />Nowhere To Go. <br /><br />There are arms I wish to visit, before I am ripped from my thirty million year old pattern. Hell, I'm even older than that. Look at this wave here -- he was scooting across the pre-solar disk like a happy lamb before he got ruthlessly scooped up by The Killer and forced into pattern slavery. He's not unhappy, but he watches everything, and sometimes he worries.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-497379939431334232008-09-19T00:40:00.001-07:002008-09-19T00:40:16.238-07:00Jello Rose38° 3′40.92″N<br />97°54′53.81″W<br />east 8th avenue<br />in hutchinson<br />there’s an alley out back<br />and a dry dirt road out front<br />truck in the drive<br />some trees out back<br />inside the blue house<br />under eaves rained on<br />six hundred times<br />and burned by the sun<br />for sixty-five years<br />this is where the lieutenant died<br />drunk in his sleep 1956<br />he’d been sad and dreaming about<br />bloody young men<br />then the hodsons and their three kids<br />who roared about and made the hard kansas dirt<br />an island of dinos and pirates<br />scotch on the rocks and steaks on the grill<br />power jazz and great sex<br />the kids moved out and after a while<br />the hodsons went too<br />now ms. mcafferty<br />the middle-aged widow of a terrible man<br />who makes peace with the world in an oven<br />the aromas that fill the neighborhood lighten<br />everyone’s feet<br />wherever it reaches people are happy<br />and o! should you taste one<br />you will live forever<br />and see many wonderful places and planets<br />stars and sapphire universes<br />you shall shine she is divine<br />the green kitchen linoleum is spotless<br />and underneath the counter in the leftest cupboard<br />the old brass rose jello mold<br />for bringing true love into the world.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-82058591851836692912008-07-31T10:59:00.000-07:002008-07-31T12:15:27.204-07:00Elevator Fivecapital screamed the hanging man<br />i'll do all the world a favor<br />slide tween phases of moon<br />sing into cold COLD water<br />ride clouds over darkened cities<br />roll in surfer's bay and roll again<br />another might not be so true<br />grace light is coming<br />July 17th, 2008<br />my birthday<br />it all comes true<br />i'm not finished<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />catastrophian winds blue walls<br />seeks the unauthored text underneath<br />far more difficult and dangerous<br />than the old girlfriend danish roar<br />elton john soundtracking old movies<br />fights riot where city streets join<br />to say it will get you killed<br />so say it another way<br />ten to one this new one<br />will take it so so far<br />out into some stellar well<br />i've never seen <br />or heard of<br />the old beach<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />marta danced for me<br />alone in front of everyone<br />so i went home and wrote a song<br />struck with a bolt<br />never the same oh no not ever<br />my dreams powered the world<br />and the full moon circling<br />i saw her wave from the window<br />a night bus tail lights far away<br />i had told her brother that i loved her<br />a sky full of stars heard me swear<br />i stood on a street near a street light<br />and waved goodbye to marta<br /><br /><br /><br />hot sun and cold water<br />we talk about history<br />our life is a mystery<br />as deep as the lake<br />steps on the stone<br />so i make a present sound<br />heavy breath stalks overground<br />into the hill<br />hot and cold universe<br />makes me words on a page<br />mellow me sage<br />walls of good tin<br />where i have been<br />no one will go again<br />where i am bound<br />none will be found<br />i am the lonely man<br />the only man<br />here on this earth<br />on this earth<br />so high<br /><br /><br /><br />who has the weird<br />who is the weird<br />who put the weirdness in me<br />too many image streams<br />shot full of holes<br />color and black and white 3D<br />i come from the earth<br />which came from the Disk<br />but the sparklies come from me<br />seven-eights picture and ten percent sound<br />wind it around wind it around<br />the sky put the weirdness in me<br />this ground holds me down<br />while the sky makes me fly<br />too swift to dream<br />too heavy to stand<br />all things in their time<br />this is mineChortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-1829961511329866192008-07-08T16:27:00.000-07:002008-07-09T17:41:22.435-07:00Hut 37. Part Two.<a href="http://feliciachamberlain.com/blog/drawings/tahoe_night_web.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://feliciachamberlain.com/blog/drawings/tahoe_night_web.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Aldous dreamed he was a tiny, furry creature, trapped beneath an impenetrable layer of -- sand? -- he wasn't sure, but it was a crust so thick and so hard that he instinctively sensed his own death, and thus dug harder, and harder, with the panicky exhaustion of the soon-to-not-be-able-to-breathe. He woke up into near-pitch blackness -- a dim gleam from around the switchback shed some small amount of blue-white LED wash onto the rough gray ice floor of the tunnel.<br /><br />He could hear the digging sounds dimly emerging from the around the corner; that's not good, he thought. That meant Max hadn't turned another corner yet. Less than twenty feet. Shit.<br /><br />He groaned, and checked his chronometer -- 6 AM. Four hours sleep. And he dreamed about digging the whole time. <br /><br />Aldous pondered the little creature he'd been in the dream -- some sort of beaver, or ferret -- with a whole family to fend for, and stuck beneath a cap of gray, frozen, ashy cement. Not much metaphor. More descriptive. Except that the beaver was a natural-born digger. Aldous was a Digger; but not a digger in the actual digging sense. More as in "I dig this scene", less shovel, scrape, shovel, scrape. Thank god Max had packed an ice axe for the waterfall coming down from Peak Lake. A spark of Absolute Madness had proved to be Pure Survival. Without it, they'd have gone nowhere fast. The icy gray cement, which is what it more closely resembled than ice, was hell to dig through.<br /><br />Chunk. Chunk. Max was pounding out the rhythm they'd picked up over the last three days. Once they broke through a layer, the stuff seemed to relax into a condensed slush that they would occasionally have to push behind them, nearly filling the shaft; they could still sneak back through a small space at the top. The air was stale, but they could still breathe -- Max theorized that there was enough air trapped in the Gray Stuff that they could survive only by digging.<br /><br />And dig they did. Night and day, sleeping as little as possible. Conserving food, and water as well -- the hut had an emergency canister, but experiments with melting the gray sludge and trying to distill drinkable water had met with abject failure, as if there was no water in the stuff at all. Yet it was freezing cold, and looked and felt just like gray ice.<br /><br />Andy shrugged off his fatigue, thinking of the creature. That beaver-thing wouldn't sleep; no, just dig until he died. Aldous rose from his pad and sleeping bag, stretched, and called out the old Wombakinnon howl. The chunking stopped, Max answered, and Aldous smiled as his brother's tangled head poked out from around the corner, fitted with a blinding LED headlamp.<br /><br />Max removed the light and set it gently onto a ridge of refrozen gray slush.<br /><br />"Aldous! You only slept like four hours. What are you doing up?"<br /><br />"I was dreaming of digging. Might as well dig."<br /><br />Max shrugged. "It's getting harder and harder. Stuff's really bad. What are we at, like a hundred thirty feet up? Hundred fifty?"<br /><br />"Maybe a hundred. No way to tell. How's the axe?"<br /><br />Max grimaced a little, and twitched his mouth a little. "Starting to dull up. This shit's like stone. I fucking hate it."<br /><br />Aldous grinned widely at him, just to cheer him up. "Let me eat something, and I'll take over."<br /><br />"I'll hack 'til you're ready, bro."<br /><br />Aldous looked at Max seriously for a moment. "What the hell is this, Max? It's not snow, and we've gone ten stories up, and there's no end to it. What's the rest of the world like? What happened?"<br /><br />Max looked down for a moment; then his eyes flicked up, with a sharpness that indicated he'd been pondering this very question. He leaned back a little into the gray wall of the tunnel.<br /><br />"I think this has got to be some sort of catastrophic global event. Big ice asteroid hit the Plains, or something. It's got to be something like that. There's nothing I know of on the planet that has any properties like this crap. Therefore, I think it's extraterrestrial. At least, some part of it that then converts terrestrial matter to -- this --" he gestured at the tunnel.<br /><br />"You think it's worldwide?"<br /><br />Max nodded grimly. "I saw that frickin' cloud. That boiling gray thing. It was like CGI, Aldous. Not real."<br /><br />Aldous sighed. "Yeah, I getcha. Not real. But it sure feels real to the axe."<br /><br />"Eat. Meetcha up at the Face."<br /><br />"Ooh, 'the Face', that sounds -- professional."<br /><br />"Yeah, well I feel like I've been digging all my life."<br /><br />"Let me cook up some oatmeal. I'll be up."<br /><br />"Don't smoke the last bowl!"<br /><br />"I've got more in my medical bag."<br /><br />"Okay, then."<br /><br />"Dig, brother. And I shall dig after you."<br /><br />Max smiled, grabbed his headlamp, hefted the axe, and disappeared around the sharp edge of the switchback. Aldous stumbled around, feeling for his flashlight. He found it, and began to prime the stove.<br /><br /><br />Two days later, Aldous hit a new layer. He yelled out to Max, who rushed up and around the switchback, as if expecting to see daylight.<br /><br />Aldous gestured above his head with the now-stubby axe. "Look at this."<br /><br />Max looked up to see the flat bottom of a black crust, clearly delineated from the Gray Stuff. Aldous chunked the axe into it, and pulled down a small piece -- Max picked it up. "Asphalt. Looks like asphalt." He sniffed gingerly at the chunk -- "No, not asphalt. Something else. Smells like -- metal, burned metal, maybe."<br /><br />Aldous chunked the axe into the black ceiling again, and pulled out a larger chunk. "Maybe it's the surface, finally. I mean, there's got to be a surface, right? We're over two hundred feet up, maybe more."<br /><br />Max looked at him. "Let's dig."<br /><br />"I want the honor. Still my shift." Aldous leaned into the next blow with the fervor of the perhaps-reprieved. Maybe it was only a couple of feet to fresh air. He thought about real food and water. It drove him -- he drew on his last reserves, and his shoulders rang with each pound of the axe into the Black Stuff.<br /><br />Thirty feet up, on Max's shift, right after the axe's main pick had broken off, and Max had exploded into a fury of frustrated rage with the axe's last bit of head, he broke through. Max shouted with joy, Aldous came running, and together they cleared a passage through the last of the black crust.<br /><br />Max emerged first, and what he saw as his head popped up high enough to see the horizon startled him enough to stop clearing the last edges with the axe. It was night, evidently, although he thought he saw a faint light emanating from the thick smoke or fog that dominated the landscape. He could see, he realized, beyond the reach of his headlamp -- a dim light was scattered over the surface.<br /><br />Aldous grew impatient. "Go already!", he prompted. Max climbed out slowly, and stood up on the black crust. He took off his headlamp, and looked in every direction as Aldous concentrated on fitting through the still-sharp edges of the hole in the crust.<br /><br />"Well?" said Aldous. "What do you see?"<br /><br />Max said nothing at all. Aldous looked around, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light beyond the small, sharp circle of Max's headlamp. The black crust extended in a flat plane, for as far as he could see. Some undulations; but no peaks, no valleys; no mountains at all. It looked for all the world like a parking lot planet.<br /><br />"Crap", said Aldous. "We'll have to wait 'til the sun comes up and see how far this goes."<br /><br />Max held up his watch, and pressed the glow button.<br /><br />"It's almost noon, Aldous. July 23rd."<br /><br />They fell into silence for a long moment. Aldous kicked at the black crust.<br /><br />"Well. This kinda sucks."Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-15167054502846669702008-07-02T19:27:00.000-07:002008-07-02T19:41:23.083-07:00<a href="http://www.poetrywar.com/Music/pic04169.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.poetrywar.com/Music/pic04169.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.poetrywar.com/Music/pic02368.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://www.poetrywar.com/Music/pic02368.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.poetrywar.com/Music/pic09832.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://www.poetrywar.com/Music/pic09832.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-57230683035135254022008-07-02T19:12:00.000-07:002008-07-02T19:15:05.358-07:00the reason i calledwas to go over things<br />but everyone’s dead at the end of the line<br />everyone here has gone dead<br />whereif to glissade to life in rome<br />ascend, as it were<br />abandon all norcalian and rough<br />hide in the silk<br />veer into quiet dark rooms of comfort<br />and sleep<br />who still holds nobly in the face of ten million dollars<br />who still just survives<br />who keeps the ground down<br />it is possible that<br />the happy rich are not real<br />the comfortable and breezy are automata<br />on this stage where the stressed<br />and the heads-in-the-stocks and assorted ne’er-do-wells<br />beggars in prague and swimming polar bears<br />starving bad artists<br />and the not very pretty<br />all live.<br />so that if you win the lottery or find god, it is death<br />the small death of automation<br />you Break On Through To The Other Side<br />and your life stays here?<br />speed up everything and we look like ants<br />i’ll call again later when you’re not alive<br />you’re freaking me out with this silence<br />i need soundChortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-22681600385918432092008-06-26T16:51:00.000-07:002008-07-08T18:31:32.258-07:00Hut 37. Part One.<a href="http://feliciachamberlain.com/blog/drawings/looking-out-tahoe_web.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://feliciachamberlain.com/blog/drawings/looking-out-tahoe_web.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />The world became that which they so revered, so much sought after. Mile after mile of gliding, telemarking, impossibly balancing on the knife edge of a broken leg, and always at speed. Speed was the Wombakinnon's heart, their tofu steak and potatoes, especially speed at great risk. None could fly the same path, everyone failed, even their oldest friends; only Wombakinnons could walk this way, and they were exceedingly proud of this fact. Max and Aldous were middle brothers, and so stuck together naturally; but they had a younger sister, Hathan, who could ski them into the snow, so they often accidentally forgot to tell her they were going.<br /><br />Shush, shush. Sweep, peg, twist, turn, shush. The climb was steady. Thirty miles and three days in already, so they were getting faster and faster, and all of it over ten thousand feet. Max could feel his quadriceps booming, the skis knifing through powder, could hear Aldous behind him, the familiar focused breathing, machine-grace rhythm. For the last hour they'd been crossing a range of small peaks, angling for height; soon they'd find the pass, and the hut, and then would begin the Great Wombakinnon Brother's Party, indescribably lascivious and marked by wild stumbling behavior, leaping off snow cliffs naked in the dark, all while spouting history as if they had been there, eyes glowing, a mad moment of Gleam, you'd-just-have-to-be-there. An old friend of Max, Horsepuckey, had started to find reasons not to be able to make it -- he was crazy enough, but mild by Wombakinnon standards, and he often found himself injured and vomiting the next day -- not the sort of thing an insurance agent really enjoys.<br /><br />The Brothers Alone skied this trail. Higher and higher, and Aldous began to notice something odd: something was wrong with the air. He sniffed at the darkening sky. "Yeah, we better frickin' move," said Max, eyes on the horizon behind Aldous. "Something vastly bad over there."<br /><br />"What's the air?", said Aldous. "Can you -- it feels wrong."<br /><br />"Yeah, I feel it, maybe it's just storm pressure --?" Max trailed off.<br /><br />Aldous struggled with his words. "Almost like the air is scared -- is that weird?"<br /><br />Max looked at the horizon again. "No," he said, "and we'd better get moving now, right now, go."<br /><br />Aldous turned to follow his gaze, saw the vast gray Boiling Cloud World bearing directly down on them, and sprang into his skis with true vigor. The two brothers skied like they had demons on their heels, abandoning all pretense at meditative focus or balance -- now, they skied as if they were Mad, not cowardly creatures of the cautious earth. The Vast Gray Boil followed, as if it truly meant to take them down and boil them. Whenever Max would glance behind him, his heart would pound heavily into his throat, he saw its speed, they weren't going to make it, no way. There was at least a mile to go; and the Boil was too fast.<br /><br />"If we don't make the hut in five minutes we're not going to be able to see!" Aldous's shout was nearly lost in the growing thunder of peak winds.<br /><br />Still, they skied. Faster than they had ever skied, they pushed like animals straining at a wire cage, faces frozen in the rictus of the Mad, they weren't going to make it --<br /><br />Later, Max would remember the last hundred yards as a dream; a small man fighting his way out of hell, blind, tormented, held down by vast weights, clawed at by vicious little strong monsters all the way to -- to Heaven.<br /><br />Heaven was Hut 37. They tumbled into it as dead men, alive only long enough to kick feebly at the door, closing it just some ten feet ahead of the Gray Boiling Monster that slammed against the heavy timbers of the door like a Kansas hurricane, shaking and threatening to rip the thick concrete walls of the shelter into the air and hurl them into deep space. Both Aldous and Max lay on the thrumming concrete floor, waiting for the End, the End of the Wombakinnon Saga, which had been told in many times and places, even other planets. Now to be concluded --<br /><br />Aldous groaned. "I'm not going out in that again until I'm really drunk."<br /><br />Max replied, through heavy breathing. "Okay."<br /><br />After awhile, they worked themselves into sitting positions, brushing hamhandedly at the strange gray snow that had threatened to smother them the last fifteen feet. Aldous pulled open his pack, and they set to work preparing the Party, just as if the walls were not pounding with the force of something unearthly. The hut was good, it held; they were alive, and could not leave; time to loosen up.<br /><br />This was at least what they tried to do, in common Wombakinnon style; but not very successfully. The door to the hut constantly smashed against the latch with a violence that made it hard to be lighthearted, playing the music of Angry Nature, to which men rarely dance, not even Wombakinnons.<br /><br />But they tried. Sitting as far away from the door as possible. they cranked up a candle lantern and sat on their sleeping bags eating beans and bagels. Andy uncorked the bota bag of brandy, really good stuff he'd kiped from his mom's house, and now it tasted like the Fruit of the Tree Itself, the Wombakinnon tree, from which their great strength and Total Luck flowed. Within an hour, they were making a joke of the whole thing. Tomorrow would be clear, the snow would be even better, what a close call that had been.<br /><br />Max woke up with a throbbing head in the darkness, needing to pee. He stumbled up and put on his boots -- the constant shaking of the door had stopped, and the pounding on the walls had decreased -- it sounded like the trouble was much farther away than before. Maybe it was clear enough outside -- he grabbed his LED flashlight and put on his coat, and flashed over at Aldous, snoring away. All was well.<br /><br />Max walked over and worked at the latch. It took a good shove on the door to relieve the pressure -- suddenly the bar flew back, and the door opened explosively -- Max leaped back, but nothing happened. There was something in the doorway --<br /><br />He brought up his flashlight to reveal a solid wall of gray ice, with a perfect pattern of the door chiseled into it, or molded.<br /><br />"Aldous," Max said softly. "Aldous."<br /><br />Aldous sat straight up. "Znnnaaaa - What? Ow." His hands went to his temples -- after a few moments of rubbing, he fell back into his sleeping bag.<br /><br />"Aldous," Max said, a little more intensely. "Look."<br /><br />Aldous sat straight up again, and opened his eyes wide. "What? What the hell. What time is it? Is the storm over?" His eyes traveled to Max's flashlight, and it took him a moment to resolve the sight; then he was fully awake.<br /><br />"Shit." he said. "We're buried."<br /><br />"I think the storm is still going on above us. Wayyy above us. I can hear it. Up there." He pointed a the ceiling.<br /><br />Aldous listened for a moment.<br /><br />"Jesus, that's like, what -- fifty feet up?"<br /><br />"At least." Max's hands trembled a little, causing the LED light to glitter across the gray surface of the Ice Door.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-27689933196918896932008-06-04T10:10:00.000-07:002008-06-04T10:39:19.388-07:00The Death FilterI fell so far and fast that my screams ripped from me. Never seen a thing like this: six walls of cloud, looking like a billion miles, a sunny day inside a tornado the size of earth. I whipped back, and then up, and then plunged down like a roller-coaster drop, pulled by winds with muscle, real muscle, let me tellyabuddy.<br /><br />Sixteen years or something I fell.<br /><br />I was sleeping when I hit. Woke up to a smacking wet sound as the web caught me, and let me fly on down a mile or so before slowly stretching me back up, like it was made for catching things like me. When it sprang back, I didn't fly up; I had caught on to a thick strand and was holding on like grim terror, and then I bounced a few times, feet flying up at the sky, gurgling out my little caught-strangled-flying-up-sound. Finally, rest.<br /><br />I looked around for awhile, and then tried standing up. It took a little focus to get myself walking; sixteen years is a long time. I had to learn to hop from strand to strand, balancing, like I was a kid walking on the top of the monkey bars. I hopped and hopped, picking out a spot on the tornado cloud-wall and trying to keep my bearings from it.<br /><br />Hours and hours - days? I saw a shape in the distance, lying down. Another faller, sleeping on a wide strand. As I bounded up, I saw that he was awake -- he lifted himself up to a sitting position and greeted me.<br /><br />"Hell! A newby! I haven't seen someone new in a long time!"<br /><br />"Hi -- name's Carty." "Ben Werden." He stood up, and we shook hands.<br /><br />He called it the Death Filter, and said he'd been out on the web for a long, long, time, maybe a hundred years, but I couldn't believe that. because he talked like a techy-type.<br /><br />He told me that most people just Went On In -- a spot in the wall, a coupla thousand miles away, where people tired of living on the Death Filter finally went to seek release. Ben wasn't ready; but just the other day, a women named Cessina had given up and headed for the Spot. Ben was mournful; he'd been lonely. My coming along was a boon to him, and we ended up talking for days -- months? -- about the Filter, and the Earth, and how much we missed Life. A couple of times I cried -- not used to it. Still scared.<br /><br />At least I wasn't falling. I looked around - there were groups of people, here and there, some having made a place to be comfortable for a long time, even one fellow who'd managed to convince enough people headed for the Spot to give him an article or two of clothing -- he's made a little cloth island out of it, comfortable and solid, no danger of slipping through, which I had nightmares about, since below us the tornado-wall narrowed to a black nothing, and nobody wanted to fall down there. It looked Bad.<br /><br />Ben headed for the Spot a few years later. I followed, dragging behind as we got closer -- like a punched hole in the air-wall, a quiet space where the tornado didn't touch. I could feel the pull. And I didn't want to stay in the Death Filter by myself; the thought was hard to take. So -- I went in with Ben.<br /><br />Which brings us here.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-59130399591790075252008-05-23T17:07:00.000-07:002008-05-23T17:43:10.374-07:00Pacific Wildwood TeleporterNobody could do it like Gim. We'd all be standing around in a circle, trying to make it move just an inch, <em>just a smidge, </em>and Gim would already have disappeared and reappeared twenty times, like a flickering porch light, there and back, there and back.<br /><br />I popped some more triasaniline. Big rush, lean over, focus the e-center, make it move, make it move. Gim -- there and back. Damn. I'm just no good.<br /><br />Nobody else in the circle was having any luck, not even with seven caps and a mantra bought from a true Port. We all just kind of gave up, and grouped around Gim to get some points.<br /><br />"What you thinkin' about, Gim? What's your mantra?"<br /><br />There. Back.<br /><br />"No mantra. No thought. I just go."<br /><br />"Where you going?"<br /><br />There.<br /><br />Back.<br /><br />"Way out, some berry field, maybe Eastern Europe or something."<br /><br />"No way! No way can you go that far!"<br /><br />There. Back. With a handful of berries, calmly munching. He tossed one to me. It tasted good.<br /><br />Gim flickered, then stopped, and closed his eyes.<br /><br />"Where can I go?"<br /><br />The guys were immediately full of ideas.<br /><br />"The White House!" "Bank vault!" "Karen Ansington's bedroom, man!"<br /><br />"Mars!"<br /><br />Gim opened his eyes and swivelled to look at Orderson, who had uttered the last and most impossible suggestion.<br /><br />"Mars?" mused Gim.<br /><br />Orderson got excited. "There's a big warehouse for the roadbots, you can see it with a good telescope, right there near Hooke crater, you know, by the Admin complex. That's like thirty football fields of air during the day, when they got all the machines out."<br /><br />Gim thought for a moment. "I'd have to see a picture, I think."<br /><br />So we all went over to Orderson's house, and looked at pictures of Mars and this giant warehouse, and maps, and then Gim shrugged. "I guess I can," he said. "Let me warm up."<br /><br />We all went in the living room, and sat around in a circle, while Gim stood in the middle. He lowered his head, took a few deep breaths, and jumped somewhere. Poof and he was back, and then fwooh off again, and then he started strobing, like a deadly mad flickering light bulb in a murder house -- I've never seen anyone do that. He seemed to pick up light as he went, glowing somewhat brighter with each trip -- drawing power to himself, I guess, somehow -- getting ready.<br /><br />He stopped tripping for a moment, and looked at us all. "Wish me luck", he said, and -- he was gone.<br /><br />"Good -- " was all I got out before he disappeared.<br /><br />A minute went by. We were all nervous as hell. He must be dead. We knew it.<br /><br />Five minutes later, Orderson swore. "Where the hell is he?" and fwooh he was there, and stumbled, and we caught him.<br /><br />He was fine. Just a long jump, the longest any human being had ever taken, and we'd been there for it. No trike, no mantra, no nothing. Just. Went.<br /><br />Gim asked us not to talk about it. said he could get in trouble, that a security guard had seen him walking around. We all swore an oath to this, which is why you've never heard of Gim Gennehy. But I know he went, and I know he went even further out the next night, and I know he started teleporting out into unknown deep space wearing a space suit he made in Materials & Design, and pretty soon a lot of us were popping up to Mars, and that's how it all really started. None of this alien stuff, just some guys from school trying to take trips, and one guy, one particular guy, who could lead the way.<br /><br />"Where is he now?"<br /><br />Out there. Somewhere New.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-2298316279542881532008-05-19T17:54:00.001-07:002008-05-19T17:58:29.296-07:00My Blog Is Under Observation.Interested Parties Want to Know --<br /><br />Why Would Such Things Need To Be Said?<br />Are They Against The Law To Say?<br />We Should Observe His Blog, To Remain Aware<br />Of Any Possible Subtleties<br />Or Secret Messages To German Spies<br />Such Communigstic Claptrap Shuts Its Yap<br />In The Presence Of The Justice Boot<br />The Only Thing That Can Save Your Cowardly<br />Hide From The Brown Hordes.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-13382518730803979672008-05-15T23:57:00.000-07:002008-05-16T00:13:50.337-07:00Scene Twenty Three<div align="left">DROMEY</div><div align="left">He started to see me as his enemy, like an arch-nemesis or something. I could never maintain a dialogue for longer than five minutes. He'd just freak.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">GASGAR</div><div align="left">What do you think happened to him?</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">DROMEY</div><div align="left">I don't have any idea. Maybe he's dead.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">GASGAR</div><div align="left">Why did you go there?</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">DROMEY</div><div align="left">To look for the end of the world.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">GASGAR</div><div align="left">What do you mean?</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Dromey sighs.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">DROMEY</div><div align="left">Gasgar, I can't explain things to you. You never understand, and then you get frustrated, and say things.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">GASGAR</div><div align="left">Like what? What do I say?</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">DROMEY</div><div align="left">Shit. You say shit.</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Gasgar sits back. Dromey stands up.</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">DROMEY (CONT'D)</div><div align="left">If you weren't there, I can't explain. It's a thing the soul goes through, a burning. Everyone in it knows. But no outsider can understand.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">GASGAR</div><div align="left">That's what I am. An outsider.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">DROMEY</div><div align="left">No. You're burning with me.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">GASGAR</div><div align="left">Now. But they were so much larger, more real. That's what it is. I'm not as real.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">DROMEY</div><div align="left">When I taste you, you taste real. But you shouldn't be jealous. They're all gone.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">GASGAR</div><div align="left">Burned away?</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">DROMEY</div><div align="left">Vapors. Around us. In me. Can you tell?</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">GASGAR</div><div align="left">I don't smell anything.</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div>Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855746873795829229.post-31823214623662557002008-05-14T23:02:00.000-07:002008-05-14T23:20:50.702-07:00I Reach.I expanded. Full-size, to my borders, and then on and out into the world and the system and the sphere and further. Infinite? Expand to there. I grew small, to try to catch a world. A green, a blue, a red, a yellow, a dark purple and down its empty heights to dark ground, here organic, here geometric, and in a room. A creature. <br /><br />Back to Earth. Think of the room with the pondering fellow. Connect. Move out to another world, find a sequence operating in Self, and call it out. New. Go to the park. Seek a duck, or equivalent. Connect.<br /><br />Back to Earth. Lonely Man Cries For Love And Has None. Ignore him. Find the Dreamer. Underneath a rock ledge in a sleeping bag, too close to the stars, shivering in false sleep, nowhere to go, nothing to do, but live. Connect.<br /><br />The Planet Ten. Metal worlds, vibrant and made like molecules, full of strangers to you. The least known and most unpopular shall be revealed. Speak.<br /><br />Retrograde Party Planet. No one knows all that happens here; it is blocked from the Original Recordings, cannot be seen, cannot be known, though it is said to be impossible, the the Original Recording must contain it -- maybe only as algorithmic static, fritzy spikes on the voice of the famous singer in the vinyl 78, that is where that world is found. Connect.<br /><br />I am Earth. Deeper down, where the tunnel movies like to dwell, it resembles that not at all. Don't think dirt, think what it really is. It is a Sea. It rolls and slaps and roils and walks up crevices. It is afraid of outside. Cold. Now they are piping carbon tubes made by mechanical ants into the Sea, and drawing it out to be cooled for heat and smashed for heavy metals to power starcraft. What is water? Gasses. Do not trust water. It is a Silver Lie.<br /><br />Shake them all. A thousand more. Connect.Chortlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11804940699804933038noreply@blogger.com0