Wednesday, September 27, 2006

pennsylvania autumn time

“Quit starin’ at my mouth, boy.”

I’m staring at his mouth. His lower jaw juts out sharply to the left. Broken bone that never healed quite right? Black, vegetal flecks of Copenhagen stick to his lower lip, a thin trail of brown saliva navigates his significant stubble. It rounds his chin. He sees me tracking its progress. Wiping the juice away quickly with the grease-stained cuff of his untucked blue Dickies work shirt he yells “Quit lookin’ at my goddamn mouth!”

He’s a short, wiry, dark haired man with a mustache and long tangled locks boiling out from under his dirty, boxy, mesh-backed ball cap. He’s got a long, bony face with deep sunken eyes and bushy brow. Big ears and a big nose. His once-blue work pants are now darker with grease and oil. Large black leather boots are out of proportion with his very skinny frame. He’s filthy. A mechanic maybe? Waving the rifle around now, veins and arteries ribbing his skinny, sinewy, red neck. He’s worked up. “You fuckin’ college boys come up here like you own the place. Well you don’t. I own it! And one of these days I’m gonna’ shoot one of you little shits for trespassin’. Now tell me you’re sorry and that you won’t never come up here again.”

“But sir, I just wandered off the trail. I was looking for a shortcut down to the river and I certainly didn’t mean to cause you…”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Screaming this slowly, breaking the phrase into three distinct parts, daa da-daaa daaaa, his voice broke. Frothy pods of brown chew spit sprinkle my face as he pronounces the f. He was clearly drunk. Or completely insane. Couldn’t be reasoned with either way. “Do you want me to shoot you? Cause I will you big piece of shit. You ever see what a .243 ‘ill do to a deer? Blow it’s shoulder clean off from 100 yards!”

“Ok man, ok. You’ll never see me again. I’ll never come back up here.”

“Now start runnin’. If you’re not out of my sight by the time I count to thirty I’m gonna’ start shootin'. Now git!”

The only way to go is up. Open forest as far as I can see down the hill, there’s no way I’d cover that distance. I’ll try to make it up and over the rise. Big strides, trying to run but it’s steep and the new fall leaf litter slides against the old. I slip and stumble and my muscles ferment. Holy shit please don’t let me die in the woods, shot dead by a drunk mechanic. Almost there. CRACK! and a again CRACK! he shoots. The rifle’s deafening. My ears are ringing. Jesus fucking Christ I don’t want to die. CRACK! CRACK! One of the bullets ricochets to my left and sounds like a tightly wound spring being plucked. My body is vibrating with adrenaline. I’m melting. I scramble over large rocks and fall into a tangle of logs and mountain laurel. CRACK!

“And stay the fuck out!” I can barely hear his maniacal laughter over my breathing and heart beating. I vomit a little in my mouth and it burns. I let it run out and into the dirt. A small, bright blue metallic beetle clings to a blade of grass just inches from my face. Precariously perched, preening antennae.

As the African continent forced the rock to fold, a river cut a notch in the ancient sandstone.

One thousand feet deep.

Barree Gorge is a rugged, roadless place where Tussey Ridge is cleaved in two by the Little Juniata River. The red, orange, and yellow of late October cloaks the ravine in autumn brilliance and cold, crisp air makes the fresh fallen leaves crackle underfoot as I walk shaking. The dark blue water tumbles round rocks, swirling in pools serene from above.

I plot a course far west of the trail through the trees to avoid any more unfortunate encounters. I’ll walk along the river back to my car. It’s overcast. I should hurry.

But descending towards the river the water becomes white. Thick heavy cream lumbering through rapids. Red maple leaves swell to plump, fist size raspberries and float in the cream’s current. A pale, beautiful, naked woman sits in a small rock pool, breasts full and bulging. She says something softly to me in a delicate French accent: “I am sorry”.

I eat her slowly with a large silver spoon.

She’s sickly sweet.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

the hangover

my hangover undulates in periodic motion
slowly surging
nausea builds

dizzy shriveled brain unhappy
very gassy
garlic sausage melted cheese
four eh em
bad eye dee

uh

Friday, September 22, 2006

the circumnavigator perserveres

I have finished part two of my piece for Indianabeer.com. The Scottish accent of the Segway gang leader doesn't come through very well because of a formatting error, but such is life. Click on zee picture to read it.

poems for michael, five of five

MB Pell smells
Like Pall Malls Lolly
gagger

Airplane hangers
purple daggers
Ukranians publish pain

poems for michael, four of five

Descartes' abolition of wonder,
We can know, we can know!

Gal-lee-lay-o, Gal-lee-lay-o

Lemery, Lemery
Mechanistic chemistry
objects
lawlike
epicycles everywhere

Little Willy Ellis,
Walking down the row,
See the Thames soft water pumped,
infused brown malt mash a lump,
a chemist on the go.

Lay the wort thick through the backs,
entire guile small beer stacked.

Hop it man, hop it good
in ropy, ramous, viscous atoms
rigid acids stood.

"Break up the Fox!"
"Reynard no more!"
Little Willy shouts.
A mechanism for everything,
he has another stout.

Friday, September 15, 2006

poems for michael, three of five

Talked today
Walked today
Made a knife today
Built a fire today
Buried her today
wrote about it all today in Olmec.

Shipping wine down the Euphrates from Georgia: round skin boats loaded with casks delivered to Babylon

Supped barley beer from five liter bronze pots on the ground through lapis lazuli straws

City states at war
Charlemagne no more

Renaissance!
Revolution Newton.

Larry car
Pusher machine
coke side deceit

gas and steel and more I make
a living being beats

Charge the ovens, lidmen move
quench car runs its course

A dirty job, PROGRESS!
it's what it takes to eat

Thursday, September 14, 2006

poems for michael, two of five

Malt sugar in your coffee
The burly way to be

The burly way's the best of ways
the best of ways for me.

"That is just transitively marvelous!"

Parvo virus

Burly beards
burly shirts
burly work
barely there

fairly thee to question me authenticity

for to be burly, a matter of mind alone I doubt

live it bitch
breathe it, kitsch?
get dirty with the cow

PBR doth not a burly man make
without shower and shave 7 days neither

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

poems for michael, one of five

With a little luck and a little life
a little mettle, a little strife
whittle twigs and bid "well gone!"
a tragic end to forgone yawn

MB Pell! The blaze of leather!

across Sonoran skies he rides
one for gun and one for reins
one for woman, one for pain
four hands on him this freak doth has?
four hands makes sense when you look past

1541's the year

conquistador glory and pueblo fear

a town of gold he seeks for Spain
a town of mud, his search in vain

aux chats grise: the poetry of french class

Monsieur Simonet pretends to be a plant
as I storm around the living room pinching people.

To flatter mutually?
The question reigns here to descend along hot cat.

Voilà pourquoi on le garde dans ce cachot chaude chat.
Ce cachot-ci?
Oui, ce cachot-ci chaude chat.

Cachot chaude chat
Cachot chaude chat
a little buddy mine
a little gray cat

a little hot gray cat
clinging to the screen

Clinging to l’ècran du
Monsieur Simonet

Running in la rue du
ville du Cullowhee

Running out of life
Running out of heat
Running out of being
furry on my feet

Running out of being my
petite chaude chat grise.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

a long

Along the watch
along the way
along the deep blue sea

A manatee approaches poaches
eggs and makes strong tea

A little long
a little wide
a little rotund sow

A little rotund for a view
a little pleasant plow

All along the watch
along the way
a long dim light

A long dim light
a piercing ray
into my left eye

Into my left eye I preferred the light to shine because left is best.
Best to get jet set block top cop pop lock.

Chop.

Lop it off cough.
Lop it off cough.
Warm it up Kris.

I’m about to.

Warm it up Kris.

Cause that’s what I was born to do.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

the life of an academic

This little op-ed piece is awesome. I completely concur. The reason I am attempting to be an academic is because I like the lifestyle. I can sit around all day drinking beer if I want to. Then I have to work all night long, but that's fine with me. I get to decide. Of course some who know me well might insist that I need some more structure in my life. Bah! Structure schmucture.

I also need to read the author's book: Tom Lutz is the author of “Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers and Bums in America.”

As my favorite poet says: "I lean and loafe at my ease..."

Saturday, September 02, 2006

indianabeer all up in here

Part 1 of 3 has been posted. The circumnavigator rides.

Friday, September 01, 2006

breakfast log #A-4659

Alas, I have run out of both my primary jam AND my back up jam.

The breakfast log phenomenon catches fire in the midwest!

the undercut bank

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