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/ wasteland & further; waiting for a slaughter

/ november is a month of ghosts

a grey knive lurking on the corner of the bathroom counter, incongruously balanced on the edge - just about to fall - the light of day leaked into the room like dish detergent being squeezed gently out of a bottle, and over in the corner, rats rustled in a paper bag. he walked into the room to the sound of the ceiling fan slowly misunderstood. his left sneaker squeaked slightly. paper in his pocket crumpled up and a blue crayon behind one ear. a muddy cigarette in one hand and no lighter. his eyes are silently stained-glass windows inside a church with no congregation, waiting for the hollow bellpulls - the doorbell of the Almighty. he takes out a sharpie and marks an x on the wall. moments later a fly buzzes fatly in and lands on the ��������������������������������������������spot, preening and humming to itself. below, at the baseboard, an ant trundles in. he looks at the mirror. he looks away. outside, a bird hits the window, and all things still, in hushed������������������������������������������mourning. an ignorant cricket looses a selfish mating call and
2003-07-06, 1:56 a.m.

atlas escapes, and the world levitates.

��������� �����chasing a star that turned out to be a dumbly blinking plane. i ran (like i always wanted to) right down the middle of the road, not-quite-tightrope walking on the yellow line. dark but not enough. i look up and the stars are there.

alleviated spirits and the timpani in my eardrums, no sound but what i was listening for - and i wasn't listening for myself. it was a syncopation of the wind and the click of cicadas, like remote controls on/off the channels of the panorama. the trees blow this way, then that, the scene changes. i am there for a camera-blink and then out.

down by the fieldhouse, a road that is marked clearly DONOTENTER and i entered. i keep doing that.

&

russian breathing (cossacks over the hefty urals, mustaches tickling and frost snapping like feral dogs) my lungs have become grunting beasts, snarling at me, as alveoli expend themselves in a hideous mass suicide - the brain pounds like an angry neighbour on a wall, thudding against the confines of my skull. feeling tightened up, wound like a clock to the point of seizure, left eye twitching and right fist pulsing. the veins stick out -

the human body / is an overhyped tourist trap / an atlas worn with / innumerable creases /

puckered lips and stomach twisting. a squeezed wineskin that only holds blood and pumping breath, a mix of the two, barely even pneumatic, only identifying with systoles and diastoles. i tilt my chin up. inhale a star and it lodges mace-like in one of the bends of my intestines, a hairball clogging a drain. my fist closes around a moth inadvertently, and the life of it seeps around my fingers and into the gutter between heartline&headline,

birch trees looking like worried old women, knitting a shawl of dark leaves all around them. sticklike and frail they shudder and the wind is stationary around them but it moves everywhere else? an old pickup truck, in the glovebox a faded manual 1989, on a red shield and block lettering that rearranges itself to say WELCOME TO THE NIGHT -

soccer field, hurdling over the low metal bench and pell-mell into the damp green. shadows strike out everywhere like a dividing party going west but unsure which tributary to take. i pretend i'm playing the game, and never once fall down, but my shadows trip a few times. look around satisfied. stars are pulsing their approval. one goes out.

streetlights & halogens. all blinking. who is this intruder, they ask,

i don't know, i reply, and accuse the wind.

&

got back and went in the shower, let the thick ropes of water try to loop themselves around my head and noose me up in some sort of murderous intent. the gurgling snicker of the drain and the shiver of the metal showerhead. a conspiracy of entrances and exits. in some hours, when the morning, beach. with the meagre funds i have. but i will be in the water, in the fifty-six degree water, thrusting hands and feet, learning to swim. or laying out in the grass, reading camus. or reaching up to grab a frisbee.

it's the thrill of inactivity rendered inactive. and the sheen of sweat illuminated on the right side of your face, looking for all the world like there's a coat of skintight armour on your body. invincible.

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�SEH