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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Use the Word "Agenda" in the Title If You Ever Write a Thriller

Business schools are loud places with bookstores, coffee shops, and plenty of restrooms. The toilet paper is generally required to be two-ply but some states have different regulations. I've seen women wear just about every color of necklace at business school, including blue and white. I have also seen an exterminator spraying for pests at a business school.

There is usually a gas station near a business school. Sometimes public officials visit a business school. Typically, a mayor of a city is a business school graduate, which uniquely qualifies him or her for the task of cutting the ribbon at the grand opening ceremony of a new business school which signifies his or her dedication to improving the standard of living in his or her city. After the ceremony, the mayor might attend a luncheon with the business school's board members. Sometimes a local student who has received a scholarship will also be there. This is a convenient photo-op for the mayor and the student.

The student's family might frame the photo, place it in a scrapbook, or simply file it away with memorabilia of the student's other accomplishments. Doing this is of little consequence, ultimately.

This has been a general description of a common event in modern America. Specifically, there was one time when the mayor and the student engaged in a torrid affair involving sexual intercourse of a deviant nature well-suited to colorful verbal descriptions. You may assume that this situation brought a generous amount of infamy upon the lives of the principals. This actually wasn't the case; instead, the minds of the entire population of the small Midwestern town in which the affair occurred were opened to the mutually beneficial possibilities of fiercely raunchy actions between lovers of very different ages.

Checkbook Frenzy

I don't know why my fists are full of dead air and nothing with no weight in them and no blood. There is a place for them, for both of them, in my pockets but I'm not putting them there again. I am going to hold them up for these people to see and I am going to try to sell them. These fists are useless and stupid things and I do not want them any more. I will ask twenty dollars for each, thirty five for the pair. That will be my firm price because I can then eat at a casual dining restaurant. And this time I will eat the dessert on the tabletop placard, and this time it will be a real thing in my stomach.

Chalk Wit

Our goal here, in this place defined by its peculiar nowness, is to appreciate that which you offer: your entirely false machismo. Woven between the seldom shampooed follicles atop your head, delicate strands of acquired personality, smelling thin like dried peppers. Your voice, reported to mimic that of a locomotive outside the window, cannot bear that description when listened to with keen ears. It is closer kin to a dove's fart or the lovelorn bleating of a mole. But put your body in that shirt, and those trousers especially, and the ruse is beautiful.