A Cordial Welcome

Cosmik Wolfpack is a playground and laboratory for flash-formed poetry and nanofiction written by The Debtor, a white cisgender male and citizen of the United States.

If you have something to say to the author, send it to cosmikwolfpack at gmail dot com.

9.02.2010

Chard, Lemons, Iceberg Lettuce, and Meat Fat

Here is the shameful little one: the primary blue piglet with a cocktail sword and email account password in his fake-looking pocket. He's drawn check marks in permanent marker all over his canvas sneakers. He secretly loves the smell of a cigar. His dreams are swamps.

The reason we're walking away in this silence is obvious, is it not? As obvious as the dry yellow grass. The little telephone I carry in my pocket starts making a racket and to a distant observer--our piglet, let's say--I begin inexplicably smacking my hip. I whisper "I'm embarrased it's orange." But you hear, "Time for ass, it's on."

Now I'm in a pickle, attempting to explain the unlikely sexual congress that transpired in my recent past. I cannot reconcile the easy lapse of inhibition as our encounter occurred with the disciplined way that I normally conduct myself. LOL

8.26.2010

Shallow Guy Eating Chips

There's something lonely living here. Everyone feels it, including all of the teachers.

I know about the teachers and the things they believe because I have a hiding place in their lounge. Ever since my early student days, the teacher's lounge gripped me with fascination that couldn't be fully realized in glimpses through the cracked door. I found reasons to stay at school as long as possible: extracurricular enrichments and playing the volunteer. I became the child ghost of the waxed linoleum.

Mrs. Linkage had me assist her with the decorations for Mr. Tolbin's retirement party. As I hung crepe paper owls and twists of tiny incandescent bulbs about the room, my breath was thick and fruity in my chest and my eyes felt heavy with tears. I also felt Mrs. Linkage's gaze upon my deliberate child arms. She felt such happiness in my presence. I was an awed child, calmly appreciative of these teachers, a small walker with gentle footsteps. There was a natural goodness in me that she never recognized in her own children.

None of this is conjecture; my aforementioned hiding place made me privy to such things. In my old age, the ache in my knees is the legacy of my crouching teacher's lounge hours.

8.25.2010

The Ice Melting on the Hood

There are things to cling to, like the clean pebbles in the pockets of
my jackets. I have too many jackets. In the last two years, I've only
worn one of them, on less than a dozen days altogether. It makes more
sense to wear sleeves long or carry a sweater. Also, most days there
are only a few minutes in the naked outside for which a jacket might
be preferred, and those minutes are only slightly more terrible
without one. So the closet stays closed, and the jackets and the
pebbles are forgotten, dumbly clinged to with hands that aren't mine.

It occurs to me that the path to work has become wild with thorns and
tough little vines, pleading calls from birds in unseen shadows.
Sometimes the scabs and pale scars on my sun-darkened arms startle me.
I'm not getting used to them and the people I know ask if I've tried
this lotion or that salve. I don't prefer to do that, though. The same
as how I squeeze my head in red hands rather than swallow something
benign from a plastic bottle. The only things I actually treasure are
irrationalities, anyway. The way spitting makes me feel in control,
the way spitting fingernail splinters makes me feel like some kind of
victor, the way a terrible mug of coffee validates this whole
enterprise.

7.25.2010

The New Mormon Boy

In the convention center, Genevieve Reed and Steven Hart Brindell compare expensive new DSLR cameras. The woman's hummingbird mouth speaks soft, moldy words. The drowsy-eyed man has trouble following her; her voice cannot compete with the constant rattle of pitchmen and projected animation.

Mr. Hart Brindell has been in similar situations countless times: situations in which he is unable to fully comprehend the verbal information he is receiving. His mind, given to automythologizing, has decided that some party is actively working to block critical information from him. Fearful of succumbing to paranoid delusion, he has taken care to formulate a plausible hypothesis.

He has assigned blame to time travelers who need to prevent him from making certain cognitive links that will add up to an idea that creates a reality they oppose. Desperate to maintain a sense of decorum, Mr. Hart Brindell refuses to voice this hypothesis to others, or seek assistance of any kind. After all, who is to say that these future-folk are wrong? And who is to say that they couldn't have simply killed him? He has taken this as a show of good faith, and though he is an affirmed atheist, decided that if there is to be an invisible force influencing his actions from a distance, this one is acceptable. It is this ability to compartmentalize his paranoia that allows him to seduce a woman like Genevieve Reed, to involve himself in sex stuff with her, and to father several children with her.

Unfortunately for the future-folk who so boldly meddle in the affairs of the past, one of Mr. Hart Brindell's descendants will do some really rotten shit and make a mess of things anyway.

7.21.2010

Sean Michaels Became a Professional Wrestler When He Grew Up

I am compelled, on occasion, to disturb those ladies with whom I engage in the sex acts. "The sex acts" used to be my favorite term for naked times with women, until I heard famed cable television opinion generator Bill O'Reilly say "sex stuff" while interviewing the Insane Clown Posse. So, sometimes when I'm doing sex stuff with women, I'll say something jarring. For instance, I might say one of the following phrases.

A. "I dreamed of a spider last night."
B. "This is like hockey."
C. "I love this."

I know that option C seems tame. It might even be welcomed by my vaginally blessed counterpart, given she's one of those who enjoys verbal communication while doing sex stuff.

To clarify: I'll say something innocuous, but say it in an unsettling way. For instance, in the voice of a cackling witch, Quickdraw McGraw, or a sports talk radio host. I don't know why. I usually don't like these women enough to care, and maybe it will give them a wacky thing to tell "their girls."

I don't even enjoy sex stuff.

7.07.2010

Among White Time

The boxes were empty now. We admitted triumph, finally able to see through the coronal discharges of our flesh casings, and spoke words of satisfaction to each other. The air was prickly with glee, subtle as fine mesh.

The vehicle on the slab was warm when we reached it. You knew how to operate the radio, and I asked you to do it. The pleasure you felt was obvious, though you attempted subterfuge.

Against the sky's diffuse glare, I felt my awareness descend gently. And you spoke seven sentences, seven perfect sentences imparting some shaded emotion. I felt your body's approach and I allowed it. I was willing. And I didn't disagree when you opened my trousers and called what you saw a callow amphibian.

6.28.2010

Welt

The family I remember might now dwell inside a plastic bag on the floor. One smells its moistness as one approaches it, and regards closer investigation with a measure of repulsed respect. Most of us can understand that feeling. The peculiarity of a holiday meal in a dark place comes close.

The dark place is under this theme park, under the shuttered amusements and rusting thrills. It is under the concrete and its accumulated layers of sweat, sugar, saliva, and bird feces. This list of substances feels like a specific description of the stratum between our meal and the empty park above, but as we chew our meager ration, we ponder the indescribable, immeasurable mass of substances accumulating above us. It cannot be without weight.

One of the dinner guests crunches ice loudly and irritates the nervy interior of a tooth. As his or her neighbor silently despises this habit, the offending party momentarily comes to terms with the dreadfulness of the accumulating waste of more than birds and men.

Pain is its own kingdom and the purest ecstacy; it is the orgasm denied summation.

4.26.2010

Funny Calcium Carbonate

Beautiful follicles, bear your peppers in that place of a keen description. Your body in this locomotive is entirely lovelorn. It cannot.

Your delicate goal is closer here, by a shampooed mole outside the false trousers. You offer to appreciate your shirt, seldom smelling of personality but defined especially with its ears. Put to that, the dove's bleating and dried head atop that nowness, or that acquired machismo which when listened to is woven like strands of your voice. Those reported to that to fart between your thin kin and the peculiar window mimic our ruse.

1.08.2010

Unfortunately Yes

But I don't have a choice. I'm hoping. Yes. Can we giggle together? Is he okay? I'll be there soon.

I will be there soon. For the infant we have, I will bring some food. I will bring processed fruit. I will bring salt. I will bring melted ice.

I am copied. I am pasted. I know fax machines and I am good to go.

I'll be there soon, with no choice, but hopeful.

10.29.2009

Half of Some Rice

In the workshop, poets hold a singular sky quietly. Call this the crushing elegy of a haunting blissout. Two. Sharing the finest indie-folk ideas, 14 lone wolves elevate both fire and space. A craft for two. Phantoms of, of, of the last decade lay together in Texas.

Friendly songwriters aimed their tunes together, searing the running tape. Two. Enough dark talents come under this craft to, to, to... to will collaboration and folk performance. Each one leaving the poet’s surroundings. In creativity. Seem to become each other’s match. In between night and Jason Molina.

10.16.2009

Through the Pages

I feel creeping feminine nature
The feeling like ivy
Something like clouds
The other side of a secret
That is on the garden idea
I also prefer a stone
With scene of greenery
Wall, door
But not too wonderful

9.04.2009

With Vinegar

What is that thing on the counter? I didn't put it there. I doubt you put it there (it would be uncharacteristic). So what is it anyway?

And why does it matter? Why do I care? There it is (it ain't taking up much space). It's just a thing there. It's got distinguishing qualities such as color, shape, size, odor, digestibility, number of vibrations per second, buoyancy, blindness, gravitational pull, time it's been there, time it will be there, and hidden love. So I don't care that it's sitting there. That's not it at all.

It's just that in this place we (I) love to maintain an accurate accounting of objects, gasses, and whatnot. We keep mirrors on the walls so we can be sure of our own presence here, signified by our ability to reflect light. I (we) also choose this as the place where we tend our tamed bodies and partake of foreign nutritional items.

And then there is the sex we do and the mental accounting we keep. One day it will be our last day. One day there will be nothing before us but the numbers and dollars and calories we've accumulated. And that thing. That thing will be among them.

That's all. Come.

8.12.2009

Cephalopod Swashbuckler

These words speak to our fantasies, those we share in the darkness hidden by kitchen appliances. The fuzzy shadow behind the range. The rough-hewn gray-red behind the refrigerator. The cool cowardice beneath the toaster. Our hands sit naked atop our laps. Our tongues are suspended between our jaws. As if palming a tack.

In these tasselled lawnchair moments, varieties of anger concocted over hours of stiff labor settle like tin shavings in the bottom of a jar of glycerin. Let the houseplants sit wanting as static mimics the moonvoice. Let the glue dry to crust. I really mean that last part.

We don't need glue now.

8.10.2009

Periods Correspond

These religions is the mystery
Who has parched this land under this mountain?
The nature of the cult is secrecy

Who gathered the unchosen heresy?
New faith concluding the narrative fountain
These religions is the mystery

Cradling scraps of garments to chests, fiercely
Who felt with their tongues energy undaunted?
The nature of the cult is secrecy

Who undertakes the promise of our sincerity?
We all shall be revealed to the crowd and taunted
These religions is the mystery

To be newly arrived is to gain one's longevity
Who knows the desperation for hands to be counted?
The nature of the cult is secrecy

Who has overtaken me with such parsimony?
Bleeding from gashes, hobbled and hounded
These religions is the mystery
The nature of the cult is secrecy

Perfect Stick

One blue-mouthed woman, silently waiting
Waiting for words to fulfill her intent
Flesh inside flesh, insistent creating

Dying, the coward's voice is fading
Wisps of sugar vapor, toward ears are bent
One blue-mouthed woman, silently waiting

Television is investigating
Emissaries to the brothels are sent
Flesh inside flesh, insistent creating

Our emissaries, giddily braiding
Their languages together, bleached and bent
One blue-mouthed woman, silently waiting

The cowards and emissaries shading
Their flesh under skin stretched tight into tents
Flesh inside flesh, insistent creating

Here we engage in more fruitless mating
Displaying these organs, purple and rent,
One blue-mouthed woman, silently waiting
Flesh inside flesh, insistent creating

Watching the Program with Children

I am a dude,
A rich broth of contradictory thoughts
When I am nude

Parents are rude,
Demand confirmation of what was taught
I am a dude

Humble and crude,
Devouring the lunch meats (which I have bought),
When I am nude

Shielding this brood
Teaching my body things others will not,
I am a dude

Eating more food,
Opened and bloodied when it has been caught,
When I am nude

Endlessly shrewd
Owning the property which I have sought
I am a dude,
When I am nude

8.09.2009

The Singer Oriented

Our companion mammals are made of noise
And swaggering we walk to the kindness we know
Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

Hands filled with hands filled with these broken toys
Created as bodies for the ones put below
Our companion mammals are made of noise

Hands for the labor of milking this noise
Sheathed in plastic, sweating, cold as reflected glow
Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

A golden seepage encircles these boys
Creates an eternity to know and unknow
Our companion mammals are made of noise

Swaggering with kindness, words soft and coy
Summoned back to the places where ash blackly blows
Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

Children will sleep clutching these broken toys
Lidded eyes perceiving the residual glow
Our companion mammals are made of noise,
Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

8.07.2009

Under Blown Leaves

The earthworms give us red bracelets. The goldfinches give us new flavors for unsatisfied tongues. The origami elk gives us a virgin's wisdom. The somersaulting children of immigrants give us anger to wield. The earthworms give us red bracelets.

Sandstone and limestone.

Cumulus and cirrus.

Scissors and tweezers.

Steel and aluminum.

Lizard hips and bird hips.

If you can know these things you can grasp the difference between, between, between Muddy Waters and JL Hooker. You can wander free of memory and labor.

The mallard gives us a clean thirst.

8.05.2009

In Hair, Words

Don't tell no one, not one other or each other, not one another, not a man or a woman you see. Don't tell no one of my presence or the sounds my body makes. My voice ain't not a thing at to see or hear no more than rocks and food are things to be noticed or matter.

Don't tell no one. Don't tell no one. It's not a thing right to do. Don't. Do one more thing when I hide behind you. Behind my back I'll hold this rabbit skull and behind your back you'll hold me so don't tell no one that nothing is behind your back.

Back behind the shed in the wheelbarrow we flipped upside down before winter, in that wheelbarrow I made tracings so if you betray me don't tell no one but that would hear you about the tracings and I can forgive betrayal and I can feel your heart beating under the palm of my hand and I have the rabbit skull in my other hand. It's clean.

7.07.2009

It is Our Only Way to Imagine a Tongue

Crows are little things in the sky and the gold in the ladies' pockets feels cool and happy. We have time here to let thoughts play quietly like slow water, lingering on subjects like the kinds of scissors we've used or the way airline tickets have changed since childhood. We have time for subjects that feel like nonsense and beauty and ultimate meaning all at the same time. Our bodies click and the shelves of our homes moan with the weight they bear, the weight of accumulated sentiments. The weight of our prosperity.