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The pint glasses throw long shadows across the bar, chin fizz, and overhead, a harrier's thin shadow blanking out star after star. They used to use tin cans set out along the fence rails; now they'll take a shot at darkness, at the refraction of heat blowing off the black stickum of the high- way. It's a Second Amendment Nation out here and the landscape is dotted with that punctuation, a rifle crack and few words. The silent bluffs draw a bead right down on your heart. Calamity's that same way; quiet, nothing but a stare staining the desert. But when she she draws iron, she don't generally miss. posted by Reen at 5:54 PM | link| versify 0 comments
posted by Reen at 5:54 PM | link| versify 0 comments
A rotary telephone, a gas mask, a pig with implements, emblem dried pufferfish sport spectacles behind the shop windows each, walking to the appointed place at the appointed time, wonders at the other are you stealing my thunder but we have subtler methods the length of a needle now in existence. Jealousy's certain development, the heavy metal element, now decays to water, the cupboard sound of snow, of hard rain. Pinky swear? Hardly, but I won't arm wrestle you for it either. Once I would have thought "Her foot's in the stirrup, she's already gone," but today she's waiting where the bodiless notion of patience, soft working through of the ocean, where the ocean, undeserted, hangs in the wind. posted by Reen at 5:43 PM | link| versify 0 comments
Calipers, pulse, heavy footnoting of German monographs, they've done everything but put her in a particle accelerator, an action which would almost be sure to merit the curt description, "Bad idea!" Her feet do not reach the floor but scientists don't turn up their noses at small packages. The transcription factor of disaster. Hands folded in her lap, watching the slides show the banister curve of her constituent proteins. They look like anyone else's and that's the most surprising thing, that and what her discoverer said upon realizing what he'd done. Such a shocking cliche. As she looks at the audience through the spotlight, her mouth turns upward into a smile under her flat-brushed hair. One listener, a Professor B, looks on, mouthing Hey, Oppenheimer said it, not me. posted by Reen at 10:28 AM | link| versify 0 comments
I that is not I, no I at all, but she in all her deserty cool, the chill when night falls over level sand and rattlesnakes whisper under the stars' lucite teardrops. Far from any ocean, coast or storm front, without peril of nor'easters, though dust devils kick up what fuss they may, while I incubate big boats of sleep, of idleness of plain chores and waving, she rides and walks and fights, and what's more, she does my fighting for me. posted by Reen at 10:23 AM | link| versify 0 comments
The sailors cry to you from the jetties. You can only pretend to be out of range, Pretend the wind blows their words away, as the shrimp trawlers, racing the sunset, trail back into port. Scent of ammonia, scuffed terrazzo and the awkward body of tears. These and a thousand other humiliations would all be revenged by the same girl in a different hat. Have you ever been scared by a dream? What your mind sews up from boredom, land mass excised and stitched to the endless border of sea, you will someday come to resent. Boredom and spite created her, the same will destroy her. I built her from frustration, like a shadow, projected larger than life on my living room wall. Her hat rumbles in the corridors and crinkles of my brain, synaptic stretch, cancerous fantasy. I tell myself, when I wake up, the storm will be over, the sea will no longer be there. posted by Reen at 5:36 PM | link| versify 0 comments
Painted aqua, doors no thicker than cardboard. There was a spectacular series of rapes here in the sixties. Now the front desk, draped against a series of cubbies and matching brass keys dissolves in the sound of the world's loudest air conditioner. Passing cars make a dim thunk against an uneven piece of asphalt, and the ice machine leaks over broken bottleglass tucked in the corners. Out in front, a local crazy named Arthur takes filmless snapshots of passing traffic, his flashbulb popping out into the dusk. Eyeing him against a backdrop of vacant lot and an abandoned fire engine, the clerk harrumphs, "That guy is like a unicorn, man. You can never find him when you need him." posted by Reen at 6:09 PM | link| versify 0 comments
Glad-handing it up in locker room, The whoop-whoop-whoop of the cavalry Back when freaks were freaky And cowgirls drowned in their revelry, They say she matched lipstick to shadow And took joy in changing her hats While Calamity railed through the desert Toting guns over alkaline flats Looking different each time she did it. So a cowgirl hung out to dry And a suburbanite dreaming in lilac Might finally see eye to eye: Revlon revealing belated congrats For learning persona is always ersatz. posted by Reen at 5:58 PM | link| versify 0 comments
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