Straitjacket: V-17X – Page 11

Like a Turtle

Devin takes a sip of hot coffee that still needs to be blown on. “I’ve just been out of it lately, can’t describe it as much more than that. I haven’t been social, and opportunities for social interaction are just too much to bear.” He looks forlornly at the coffee cup.

Marie offers her obligatory call to action. “Have you at least made an effort to get out and see people?” She wants to understand the situation, it’s never been hard for her to scrap the shackles of introversion.

“I’ve gotten as far as considering the possibility, but when it enters the realm of action, I withdraw.” He takes another sip.

“You sound like a turtle.”

“I feel like one these days. A shell would be helpful in a lot of situations.” He begins imagining a human with a turtle shell for a convenient anytime hiding place. In restaurants, in the park, on public transit, a safe haven would always be within reach. “Yeah, a human turtle.”

“Sorry, what? You lost me.”

The Gist of It

A mustachioed man with a boot for a leg kicked his way over to me and said, “Son, you’re never gonna be paid what you’re worth, so you gotta make amends with that fact and live your life to the fullest.” I’d never before met this gentleman, so his insight into my employment status intrigued me.

“What, stop worrying so much about money?” I furrowed my brow.

“That’s the gist of it, kid. You got a passion? I suggest you focus on that, for the sake of your sanity.”

Rat Tippers

“Where do you keep your rat tippers?”

“I keep my rat tippers with my cow flippers, in the back-right corner of the pantry next to the party fixins. Why do you ask?”

“I really need something to get these rats off my case, especially because of this ingrown toenail I have. I can’t risk being caught with such vermin on my case, if you know what I mean.”

At this point, the two friends
must risk being caught in public
discussing rat matters,
which is a certain cause
for social suicide around these parts.

They are either totally secure
in their position
or unaware that such talk
could land them in the looney bin.

In a Landfill Now

Dolores Hidalgo was a friend of mine, so kind to me about the hidden kneecap in my chest. Never once did she judge the logic of a patella near my left ventricle (like so many so-called friends I’ve had). She was happy enough just listening to my woes, her big wide eyes never blinking. Come to think of it, I never saw her move unless I was the one to change her position. Folks always called her a doll, which I always attributed to her immense kindness. It wasn’t until I started taking medication for my delusions that I began to realize that she was truly an inanimate object (in a landfill now).

NaPoWriMo 2015 — IV: Nail After Superfluous Nail

Jimbo handles the hammer as though he’d been meant to take on such responsibilities before he was even born. Of course, this is a preposterous notion. No human is predestined to wield implements created by other humans in a bygone era, at least not evolutionarily so. But try telling that to Jimbo as he pounds those nails into the linoleum. The fluid motion he successfully demonstrates on nail after superfluous nail just proves how our species has throttled survival of the fittest. The floor doesn’t even need any nails pounded into it today (or any other day for that matter), but that doesn’t stop Jimbo from banging away. Logic will only get you so far in a world this mad. How can a person be faulted for performing the task his hands and sweaty brow demand? Besides, once the hammering is complete, Jimbo will set up an intricate web of twine trip wire designed to upend even the sneakiest of midnight fridge robbers. “No more,” says Jim to himself as he mindlessly pulverizes nail after vindicating nail. “No more rat bastards taking my bread pudding.”

The Remainder: All That’s Left — Excerpt 7

Narrow your scope for just a second of your life, would ya? It certainly wouldn’t kill you, and you might just learn something from focusing on single subjects for longer than sixteen minutes. Wouldn’t that be just awful if you learned more than the basic tutorial level of any activity you’d ever think of practicing? Imagine: you’re sitting on the shore of the Pacific (California, probably), eyeing the waves and hoping that about six short shifts of that pesky tide will yield some whoppers.

Burgers aside, we need to figure out what to do with this chimney sweeper’s moustache. It fell right off his face, straight into the soot. I wouldn’t have noticed it, though out of the corner of my eye I saw the wax glimmer with a sheen never seen in coal nor creosote. No ordinary object is this, I said to myself as I crouched and recovered the hallowed hair, somehow bound together at the roots, meant to transplant and land on any face it so chooses.

But why did you pick a chimneysweep? Is there something about his person that draws you to warm his lip? Is he more sensitive? Does he tell good stories? Will you ever let me know, or are you just going to smirk at me like that while I rip my hair out?

The Remainder: All That’s Left — Excerpt 4

Wherein the nights have a stretch memory,
we scan the horizon for a peek of sanity;
none to be found, we hitch a saddle to the moon.

It’s all empty, we just have air up there.
It’s like an attic, just covered with hair.
Kind of bulbous (as Beefheart would say),
fast and bulbous. Got me?

More than an homage, this is necessary for the advancement of strangekind everywhere, the liberties inherent in my birth and subsequent rearing as a beaten beat poet taking candy from strangers because they seem to have the best packaging and marketing strategies. Whoop dee doo for all my grotesque neighbors, seemingly unaware that what they inhabit is more a grid of profane propaganda pushers on every facet of what used to be proclaimed by a proud and noble people as life at large.