by Rich Balling
Hello Everyone!
Hello everyone!
Please stay seated, don’t stand up for your own personal
pleasure!
My ego is about to take over this entire room!
Watch me!
Deliberately!
Carefully!
Consistently!
As I daunt you with my unsurpassed competence!
I can juggle!
I can tumble!
I can do anything and everything your humble, skimpy brain
can create!
Just keep your beady little eyes fixed on me!
ahhhh! heeeere we gooo!!!…
Please stay seated! Don’t leave!
I was JUST about to get started to slide down your nerves
and tickle your membranes
into an annoying frenzy!
hahahaaa!!
Watch me!
Watch me!!
I can juggle!
See!
Do you see!?
Are you watching!?
I can juggle while climbing all the way up this tall ladder, here!
See!?
Do you see?!
Are you watching?!
Remember to keep your eyes fixed on me while I juggle,
tumble, and walk across this tight rope, here!
Watch!!
Watch me, I say!!!
Wa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!…
(Thud!)
…uggh…are your eyes still fixed?
Are you still watching me? …
…Is anybody here? Is anyone still here?
Help…
Somebody…
Help…
AJ BROWN
June
DYING FOR A COMPLIMENT
A spun story that would be best WRAPPED AROUND YOUR FINGER
Stumbling on what to say
As if a wanted to
I bet
You’re ROLLING YOUR EYES or just drying them I would have loved to heard it from you to give me SOMETHING MORE OF A FEELING
YOU LAY UNDER THE CATEGORY OF LIARS
IM WILLING to trade if you have what
I WANT
My HONESTY for your
Stubbornness
That’s all I need
Since your selfishness and INSECURITIES Have all been accounted for
It’s on record
YOU LAY UNDER THE CATEGORY OF LIARS
Miss what you want I have plenty of things to remind me
CHRISTOPHER HINDLEY
New Atlantic
Swimming in Lake Erie
And we try so hard to make it up
All of us lay here wasting our lives
The high of night is on the rise
We sit beneath silence
Your zipped up coat, it brings out the best
To analyze shapes behind shoulders
And press our heads together
You pull over the car at the sight of a station
One passive remark just to keep you awake
We’ll forget our past, throw it away
Start over again
Is it too much to give
To be constant and comical
We mix in with the leaves
And stay here all night
We’ll blow up the sun
To keep out the light
CHRISTOPHER HINDLEY
New Atlantic
8/3/05
I think I daydream too much. About 75% of my day exists in my mind and the rest is in the real world. This is especially true when we are on the road. Whether I am driving or laying down with my eyes closed, the endless miles fuel my imagination. I go places and experience things simply to evade my own emotions. It’s mostly inspired by the conversations that I have with people and the music I listen to.
Lately, they have had nothing to do with what I am pursuing out here. I pull myself completely out of my environment. The whole process is very satisfying and unsettling at the same time.
So far today I have been to the ocean, Ireland & Scotland, I have fallen in love, I’ve been to Maine, and I have been home. One place that I have been today, unfortunately, is Alabama. I end up here every time I snap out of it because of a change in lanes or a vulgar comment by a band mate. Paradise.
GREGORY ITZEN
Like Lions
A soft pair of lips for an unforgiving girl, I’m so sorry.
What do we know when we’re this young anyway?
Some cool hands for this unforgiving world.
Let it be young and naked, free as a bird.
Don’t look at me that way, it makes me feel. A little strange,
like that time we took acid in the city and stared at the mirrors
on the wall all in small pieces, where did I go wrong?
We were so happy together in that ford, listening
to the Sunday’s tomorrows, thoughts way too far. So today we
will relax to the sound of our young healthy hearts beating.
Half full of wine eyes half open, smoke swirling the room, “are
you real?” she asked in a shy whisper sort of voice that made
my heart beat a little faster “do i look real?” I replied. Short
and sweet she said “I hope so!” and looking into this beautiful
mammal’s eyes an orchestra started playing in my head as her
eyes opened wider I knew that what I wanted was there deep
inside that haze of green.
When does it stop? The alarming way in which everyone
thinks everything’s going to just become right. It makes us
sick, it makes others worry; you give the answers and I’ll ask
the questions.
This talk of a new life when ours’ is up on earth.
Do you think that’s true?
EMERGENCY
Seized, interpreted, re-organized, and plagiarized with permission and encouragement from “Days of War Nights of Love.”
Think about your direct bodily experience in life.
No one can lie to you about that.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a television screen? A computer screen? Behind an automobile screen? What are you being screened from? How much of your life comes at you through a screen, vicariously while you sit and watch. Is watching things as exciting as doing things? Do you have enough time to do all the things you want to? Do you even have enough energy to?
Do you think for yourself, independently, or do you take others’ word for truth? How often do you find yourself repeating something you heard another say without it having any bearing on your personal experience; your personal truth? How many hours a day do you sleep? How are you affected by standardized time, designed solely to synchronize your movements with those of billions of other people? How long do you go without knowing what time it is? Who or what controls YOUR minutes and hours? The minutes and hours that add up to your life.
How do you feel in large crowds of anonymous masses? Do you find yourself blocking your emotional responses to other human beings? Can you put a value on a beautiful day? How many dollars an hour salary does it take to stay inside and sell things or file papers for someone else? What will you get later that will make up for this day of your life? How many days have you given to such things? (years?!?)
Do you have ideas or do ideas have you?
Who prepares your meals? Do you ever eat by yourself? Do you ever eat standing up? How much do you know about what you eat and where it comes from? Do you trust it? Of our many time and labor saving devices, do you find yourself with more time or ironically less than ever? Is it even possible to “save” time?
They’re buying your happiness from you
Steal it back
How are you affected by being moved around in prescribed paths, in elevators, buses, subways, highways and sidewalks? By moving, living and working in two- and three-dimensional grids? How are you affected by being organized, immobilized, and
scheduled… instead of wandering, roaming freely and spontaneously? How much freedom of movement do you have— freedom to move through space, to move as far as you want, in new and unexplored directions?
How often are you waiting? Waiting in line, waiting in traffic, waiting to eat, waiting for the bus, waiting for the bathroom— learning to punish, ignore and control your spontaneous urges? How do you feel when you suppress your desires, when you delay or deny yourself pleasure?
Do you ever need to be around nature? Have water, leaves, foliage, and animals been replaced by your pet, aquarium, and houseplants?
Do videotapes of yourself and your friends fascinate you, as if somehow you are more real in image then in life? Would a movie about your life be interesting? How do feel about the non-stop barrage of audio, visual, print, billboard, computer, radio, and robotic voices that guide you through a forest of advertisements? What do they want from you?
How often does your happiness come in conjunction with buying something?
Do you feel like without the mainstream stimuli that you will miss something? Will you? Does it make you tired reacting all the time instead of thinking on your own? When was your last true moment of silence… not white noise but pure silence?
Have you ever asked yourself these things?
Do you feel violent impulses?
Do you feel inexorably lonely?
Are you really happy?
Do you ever feel like you are going to lose control?
Do you have the energy to create change?
CHRISTOPHER ZERBY
Helicopter Helicopter
I’ll Kill You If You Don’t Come Back
Howland, shirtless, walks slowly in the heat toward the liquor store that seems to shimmer in the distance. People are everywhere: standing on the steps of the beat-up houses that crouch too closely together on either side of the street, hanging out of windows, and sitting on the green wooden benches in front of the bus stop. Others drive by anonymously. Howland steps around two small, caramel-colored girls drawing pictures on the sidewalk with chalk, crooked rectangles and squashed circles. He stops. One of the children shades her eyes and looks up at him, squinting against the sun.
“What’s that?” Howland asks.
“That’s our money,” she says. The other girl nods. Then they bend their heads back to their drawings, kneeling on the pavement in baggy shorts and tank tops.
That must hurt, thinks Howland, imagining their tiny, skinny knees scraped up, raw and painful, pebbles sticking to the sore spots. The girls are around the same age as Howland’s daughter, Tina. He hasn’t seen her, or his wife, in at least a month.
Howland wipes beads of sweat from his bald head with a shaky hand, and wonders, briefly, when he first started going to get his drinks when it was still light out and there was so much of the day left to get through. When he looks at himself in the mirror, he doesn’t see a guy who drinks everyday, who needs to drink. What he sees isn’t so hot though—it’s a guy who looks older than Howland thinks he should.
Inside the liquor store, several things are happening. First: Sandeep is changing the tape in the cash register. It’s a pain in the ass. The machine whirs and kerchunks as he holds one end of the paper delicately between his fingers while the other end is fed into its slot. Second: Mrs. Tilson is taking a six-pack of Bud Light out of the beer cooler in the back, the same thing she gets every day. Third: a kid who Sandeep thinks he has seen in the neighborhood is standing at the end of the whiskey aisle, alternately looking at the beer cooler and Mrs. Tilsons large, sunburned breasts, straining at her white halter top.
Howland stops again to light a cigarette. There’s no breeze, there hasn’t been any in days and his underwear sticks to his ass and bunches between his cheeks. He looks around to see if anyone is paying attention, and picks at it, annoyed that small things like that, dirty things, require his attention. He begins moving again, his white belly jiggling in rhythm with his walk; ten years ago he might have cared, might have been ashamed of it. But not now, not in this neighborhood. Gradually over the years, Howland has felt his center of gravity move ever downward. He remembers reading how men are balanced at the shoulders and women at the hips, and as he ambles down the sidewalk, he feels his haunches sway to counterbalance the weight of his stomach, and he thinks, fuck this; it’s not really fair.
Mrs. Tilson smiles at Sandeep as she places the six-pack on the counter. Sandeep frowns back. He has no time for this big white woman who is in his store almost every day. They all show up more or less every day. Sandeep doesn’t drink. When he has no customers he spends his time working over the crossword puzzles in the Globe, learning words like “gala” (a big bash) and “rill” (a small stream). I speak better English than most of these people, he thinks. In the round fish-eye mirror, he watches the boy as he opens the door to the cooler, shuts it, opens it again. He has on camouflage pants and a gray sweatshirt. It always amazes Sandeep that the neighborhood kids think they can buy beer from him with their pathetic fake I.D.s
Mrs. Tilson hands Sandeep a five-dollar bill. He snaps shut the plastic case that covers the register tape, pops open the drawer with the push of a button, and takes the money.
Howland can’t believe how hot it is. He wishes for his Ford Ranger, useless and rusting out, the transmission shot to shit, now parked at the curb in front of his apartment building. The fuckers wanted $800 for a rebuilt job with fifty thousand miles on it. No Goddamn way. But the truck could take him out of the city, up 1:0 Gloucester maybe. He could spend the day at the beach. He could get some fried clams and eat them outside at a picnic table, drink a Corona with a lime and watch kids run around with their mothers in pursuit. Young mothers hopefully, in bikini tops with towels wrapped around their waists. He is; sure he has been to a place like that before with Tina and his wife. He has done those things, but it seems like a long time ago, even though it’s not. Lately, all those memories seem fuzzy. Two boys blow past him on the sidewalk on a bike, one furiously pumping the pedals, the other sitting on the handlebars. The bike wobbles and tilts from side to side as they struggle to maintain their course. No mother chases after them.
Sandeep watches Mrs. Tilson make her way toward the exit of the liquor store, one hand holding the six-pack, the other scratching at her thigh, causing her shorts to ride up, just enough so that he can see the beginning of the generous curve of one ass cheek. Maybe she’s not so bad. She pushes the door open and exits, allowing the sound of passing cars to enter for a moment before it swings shut. Sandeep looks for the kid and spots him in the mirror again. He stares intently after Mrs. Tilson, then opens the cooler and pulls out a forty of Old English. Okay, thinks Sandeep. You want the beer. I would take your money if I could.
Up ahead, on the sidewalk coming toward him, Howland can see Mrs. Tilson, unmistakable with her dyed red hair. And her breasts. She lives across the street from Howland, and he knows her old man Bill is long gone, everyone knows, it’s no secret in the neighborhood. He picked up and left about six months ago, walking out one night with a bag in his hand, slipping on the icy pavement, and struggling to step over the snow bank that had been pushed three feet deep along the sides of the road by the plows. Mrs. Tilson, Anne, screamed at him as he opened the door of his Buick and threw the bag on the passenger seat. Howland had seen and heard it all from his second-floor window. Now he waves at her as she comes closer and she smiles and gives him a nod. What the Hell had she been yelling at her husband that night? Howland can’t quite remember.
Sandeep watches the kid walking up the whiskey aisle toward the register. Keep coming, he thinks, keep on coming. You won’t get that beer. No way you’re more than seventeen. The kid approaches. He has a fuzzy red mustache and zits on both cheeks. He takes small quick steps. He glances behind himself several times. “Furtive,” thinks Sandeep. “surreptitious.”
“Hey Anne,” says Howland stopping on the sidewalk and throwing his smoke into the street.
“Hello,” she says
. She kicks at the ground with one sandaled foot. Drops of water bead on her bottles of Bud Light. She looks up at Howland, looks him in the eye. Howland tries hard not to stare at her breasts, at the dark spots of her nipples, which he can just make out under her top. No bra.
“Jesus,” he says. “This weather is going to kill me.”
“Can I bum a cigarette off you?”
”sure. Yeah.” Howland reaches into the front pocket of his cut-offs and pulls out his slightly crushed pack of Marlboros. He hands her one and lights it for her. She looks all right. She must have been pretty great a few years ago.
“I would buy a pack, but I don’t want the boys to see me smoking in the house. You know.”
“Yeah. No need for them to see it in their own home.”
“How’s work?” she asks.
“It’s good. It’s work.” Howland works nights as a security guard in the local Foodmaster. He stands around smoking cigarettes by the entrance while the stockers roll huge pallets of groceries up and down the aisles. Most of them aren’t big talkers; some of them don’t even speak English. Sometimes Howland just shows up, punches his card, and gets through his whole shift without saying anything to anyone at all.
He can feel sweat running down his bare back. He remembers Mrs. Tilson standing on her step yelling at her husband, hugging herself in the cold as he’d driven away. She had kept on yelling even when the car was way down the road. When Howland had left his wife she hadn’t yelled, she hadn’t said anything at all. She had just sat there on the couch watching the news, her feet up on the coffee table, the remote in her hand. Tina was at her grandmother’s when it happened, where she had been spending more and more time. When Howland thinks of that night, he likes to picture his wife upset, in tears. She grabs him by the shirt and he shakes his head, sad for them both, sad for his daughter, but sure he’s doing the right thing. He pushes her away gently, and as he goes out the door she’s calling after him, “We can make it right, don’t go.” But he does.
