Sandstorms cutting with electrical breeze
Totally parabolic
icy bones mocking a pale face, making
head covered prophesies and disco circumcisions
Totally Asymmetric
Stars shine through to a blind sky on desert cold nights
With 40 Bedouins tracking jackal footprints in the pomelo bush
Wiping their noses in citrus scents, waxing psychedelically
Their dry cactus skin
Cracking red from subliminal coma burn
Scimitar slip:
And there are sheep thieves on the getaway
Heading to border crossing, Shalom Junction
Flashpoint.
Electric fence: Call the guard
A million homos over the sandstone, socialized networking
IDF bomb drops on dried river beds
Calm
abandoned camp sites, hollowed out car shells
bullet-ridden mosque hiding in the Golan
Riding in the Golan
Druze side of the road
Relics of 67, Syrian tank penetrated armor, rocket drop return to Gaza
pocket full of falafel by the Wailing Wall
Breaking blues
Vampire Palestinian fetuses in apple jars, sold on eBay, BBC reports
Morphed monikers, shotgun funerals
Suicidal soliloquy.
Bastard child at the open air market hawking dates by kilo
His telekinetic eyes broadcasting hymnal SMS:
“I got a sperm bottle waiting for you.
I am a knife with serrated edges calling afternoon prayers.
I am a camel dick: smoke hash out of me…
I got ten Ukrainians drinking vodka in a caravan.
Every time you piss.
You solve the equation.
Just a little more.”
Fucked up stories and poetry from the gutter of the Internet!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Love as a Verb
Three superfluous words
hang weightless objects
of affliction.
Breeds helpless logic
a cold lonely bed
cobwebbed kisses
and a numb pubic bone
Fractured by incessant
failed relationship statuses
girl you never learn.
This relentless
falling in love with poets
never to taste more
than words
a curse.
The light preceded
lonely darkness
and you can spread out
like a starfish
Waking up alone
to light seeping
through blinds
accompanied by squeals
from happy children
who won’t witness
another daddy substitute
passing through from
lustful night.
Kick around a ball
then leave before
they had a chance
to remember his name.
Rather save those words
peel away flesh
dance in the mirror
of self empowerment
Then choose that
which you fully
deserve.
Poetess Maria lives in Liverpool, where she howls at the moon and drinks Jameson whiskey, while writing tremendous prose and poetry. You can find a morsel of her work in the Clinical Brutal Anthology from Clinicality Press as well as other online & print publications.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Beloved Friend
Beloved Friend,
I am writing this mail to you with heavy tears In my eyes and great sorrow in my heart because my Doctor just announce to me that I will die in few months time because of extent damage of osephageal cancer. I have been suffering from this dreaded sickness for long, base on this development I want to will my money which is deposited in a security company to an individual who is willingly to build a charity home for orphanage and abandoned kids.
I am in search of a reliable person who will use the Money to build charity organization for the saints and the person will take 30% of the total sum. While 70% of the money will go to the charity and orphanage. I am from Sarawak Malaysia, my husband died 6 years ago as a result of car accident. i don't want a friend or someone i know to handle this project. I want the actualization of my dream to establish this charity home to come in reality even while am dead.
The total money in question is $3.5million dollars. I will provide you with other information's once you indicate your willingness.
Yours sincerely.
Mrs. Razak
I am writing this mail to you with heavy tears In my eyes and great sorrow in my heart because my Doctor just announce to me that I will die in few months time because of extent damage of osephageal cancer. I have been suffering from this dreaded sickness for long, base on this development I want to will my money which is deposited in a security company to an individual who is willingly to build a charity home for orphanage and abandoned kids.
I am in search of a reliable person who will use the Money to build charity organization for the saints and the person will take 30% of the total sum. While 70% of the money will go to the charity and orphanage. I am from Sarawak Malaysia, my husband died 6 years ago as a result of car accident. i don't want a friend or someone i know to handle this project. I want the actualization of my dream to establish this charity home to come in reality even while am dead.
The total money in question is $3.5million dollars. I will provide you with other information's once you indicate your willingness.
Yours sincerely.
Mrs. Razak
Monday, November 15, 2010
Streets of the Pan-Americano Nightmare I. II. & III. OF VIII.
for: Marko X
I. THE PAN-AMERICAN HIGHWAY TO SUCCESS AND PERSONAL GROWTH
There are one million
salmon-colored skulls
that live in the folds
of silver hands-
golden brain matter
where gold matters in the darkest reaches...
New age tragedies
are playing out in my nightmares
& my insecurity
is making a mule ofambition-
smuggling the "goods"
through a traffic tunnel from
immediate family
to ancestral pre-conception.
"HICE CHINGAL!"
such breeding is a question mark that has bent itself
into an obtuse angle
standing next to a sign
that says:
REST STOP
The theories on virtue & free death
are being smuggled in
from a cartel of Nihilistic
endeavors.
The words:
"Beware wronging the hermit
&
if you wrong him, kill him."
are being melted
in a silver spoon.
A sense of overpowering lust
is being loaded into
a hypodermic
& slowly
inserted into the varicose
veins of a distant future.
I wake up w/
the overwhelming sensation
of the frosty shade of a sky blue.
I am aware
& have never had to shit
so bad in my life.
A costume once belonging to an action figure
packaged in plastic
& calling itself the OVERMAN
-is found in the back of the toilet floating
just above the plug,
before losing itself in the current between brown water
& brain matter
between truth
& wishes
between dreams
& livelihood.
An innate obsession w/cannabanoids & caged
street violence is reviewing the itinerary for me-
that spans the next 20 years or so.
A dark baby boy has been born
too early in the farthest depths
of information-
where long forgotten salmon-colored skulls
are slowly shaped into marzipan &
sold in the costumed streetsof
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS,
while I attempt to pull apart
silver clenched hands.
II.FROM BORDERTOWN TO THE LOWER EAST SIDE
Brute force & lethargic posture
are patrolling
'la burros de la bordertown'.
The real borde
rthat's receding too fas
tin order to construct a proper wall
to keep them in-
el freaks
y' la
tools
(spit).
Something of a mystery
has latched onto a vile of wisdom.
An iota of home
has purchased a small room somewhere
very...very...
close
& while it stares into the darkest reaches,
it dreams of cat turds in rose beds & green diarrhea hanging from
an open window sill
on the freak's side of town.
Shrewd silence is tickling
my funny bone
when someone on the fence speaks up
about corporate downsizing
&
Proposition 19.
III. EAST TO WASTE-AND ON TO 102ND
A meeting somewhere
in the bowels of the Lower East Side-
there's a room of self-absorbed tools,
playing circa jerk
1980 HIGH
& reminiscing when it was just
good wholesome fun
& not
a burden.
They're calling each other addicts
& when THEY disperse-
some gather small armies outside
some become soldiers themselves
in a gang of unmitigated circumstance..
some are falling by the waste side
some are circumvent
some are cum receptacles
some don't even know THEY'RE alive anymore..
An electric snow bunny
has just boosted for the last time
& never bothered to roll over
even during the pivotal moment of survival.
She is no longer plugged-in,
and the batteries die slowly
as the Freaks continue to count the votes:
"And the totals are in!"
54% to 46% majority
have passed the new law
banning further introspection
based on loosely based-faith
and schematics of an influenced brain wave
that is sweeping the fair nation.
This means that 1 out of every 3
cabrons will contract the new-age
illness & attempt to seize control over themselves
through means of sating an intense sadistic fetish
&
immaculate cognitive design.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
I FUCKED A MIDGET
“I’m telling you, I fucked a midget.”
“Dude! No way!”
“Yeah, I’m serious.”
“When? Where? And why didn’t you phone me immediately afterwards!?”
“Listen, it was kinda fucked up. I… I didn’t want to tell anyone about it.”
“That’s understandable. We are talking about fucking a midget, after all, but still! Tell me about it, pretty please…”
“Alright, alright, so I’ve been using the ‘Casual Encounters’ section of Craigslist a lot recently to meet girls. Well, not meet them, but hook up with them, casually...”
“Gotta love that site.”
“I saw this ad for a ‘petite’ single white female, non-smoker, 26, looking for fun, and I answered it.”
“Usually most of those ads turn out to be porn spam.”
“I know. So I was wary, but the photo looked different than usual porn spam. It was a headshot from a weird angle, looked like it was self-taken from a camera phone in the bathroom, and her head was only in the bottom part of the mirror. She was sort of sexy… though I could tell she was a midget.”
“How did you know?”
“How do you not know? Midgets have very particular faces.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“So anyway, I had just taken some LSD and was watching the Fox News Channel. Big mistake…”
“What the fuck does the Fox News Channel have to do with the midget?”
“Nothing really.”
“Are you on acid now? Have you been taking it again before work?”
“Nah, and I’m not on it now, but I was the night I fucked the midget, some really potent shit I scored at a Dead show parking lot.”
“Fuck yeah! Damn hippies have the best shit. Back to this midget, though, please continue…”
“Anyway, yeah, okay, the midget. So I respond to her ad, and like 20 minutes later she replies.”
“That’s quick.”
“I know! And it gets weird too. Her name’s Bridget.”
“Bridget the midget?”
“Bridget the midget.”
“We shoot a couple emails back and forth, small talk. Then she, yes, she, suggests we meet at the bar down the street. Surprisingly, she lived only a few blocks away.”
“And you’d never seen her?”
“Nope. But I guess it might be easy to miss a midget.”
“You’re probably right. I bet a lot of people have midgets living near them and don’t know it.”
“So we meet at the bar, and she turns out to be even hotter in person. Had the rosiest cheeks I’d ever seen. Looked a bit like a midget Nicole Kidman.”
“A midget Nicole Kidman?! Dude!”
“A prime Nicole Kidman too. Not the cockeyed owl-looking bitch she is today.”
“I don’t know what Tom Cruise did to her, but it wasn’t right! Fucking Scientology…”
“Yeah, and I’m like tripping balls at this point, having trouble keeping a straight face because I’m at this bar slamming brews with a midget who looks like Nicole Kidman. Her voice sounded funny too. Midgets have very particular voices. She sounded like some shit from the Wizard of Oz and starts cracking all types of jokes. A fucking comedian, this midget was.”
“Soon enough I’m laughing so hard that I’m clenching my gut and beer’s shooting from my nose and she’s howling like a wolf and slapping on the table after every joke and people around the bar are looking at us crazy.”
“That’s not right, though. I bet midgets get weird looks all the time, even when they aren't cracking jokes.”
“We’re both pretty fucked up at this point. And she, yes, she, suggests we go back to her place… for ‘coffee.’”
“’Coffee’ with a midget. That’s fucking awesome.”
“You know, it was when we left our table that I really realized I was with a midget. After standing up from our chairs, I was just towering over her. She couldn’t have even been four feet tall.”
“Well, she is a midget.”
“Yeah...”
“So we’re walking back to her place and I’m wondering what it must be like, her place, like if all the doors were tiny, everything’s shrunken, what her toilet must look like, etc… If it’s a secret midget colony or something…”
“But we get there and it was a normal place; a nice, upscale, modern and fashionable one bedroom apartment, except she did have step ladders everywhere.”
“I guess she has to. She is a midget.”
“Once inside, she disappears into the kitchen, and I think she’s going to actually make coffee, as if the ‘coffee’ wasn’t just a euphemism.”
“But she comes out of the kitchen totally naked with a can of whipped cream in her hand. And damn, her body was hot. Had smallish but firm little tits with large light pinkish nipples, neatly trimmed blond bush, and was all together thin and shapely. She really did look like a naked Nicole Kidman, just in midget form.”
“Fuck…”
“Yeah, so I’m sitting there on the couch, tripping hard, seeing trails and colors everywhere, and like I’m saying, this midget walks out of the kitchen, naked, holding a can of whipped cream, and of course, I sprout instant wood.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“She sits down on the couch next to me, doesn’t say a word, smiles and calmly hands me the can of whipped cream. I shake it up a bit, then spray some in between her legs, then suck the nitrous right of out of the can, and go in and commence the act of cunnilingus.”
“You ate out the midget?”
“One might think a midget’s vagina would be really tiny or something, but it was normal female sized. She even had a rather large clitoris.”
“Bridget the midget, with a large clitoris, wow…”
“So I’m eating away down there, totally slobbering all over her vagina, my face covered in whipped cream, and she’s all squirming and whimpering as I lick at her private personal part. And dude, I could have sworn that as I was eating her, I was hallucinating her vagina lips moving, speaking to me in a voice that sounded like Fran Drescher.”
“The ‘Nanny?!’ Whoa...”
“Her Fran Drescher talking vagina mouth pushed me over the edge, and I just couldn’t bear anymore foreplay. So I get up and tear off my clothes, kick off my shoes, grab the emergency condom out of my wallet, rip open the wrapper, roll the rubber over my manhood, and dive back down to the couch and mount her, missionary style.”
“Always wondered how someone would fuck a midget…”
“Plunging it in, I feel she’s tight as fuck, and I close my eyes and imagine that I’m fucking her, the midget, and Fran Drescher’s mouth at the same time, which was disturbing, but strangely arousing…”
“Dude, I always wanted to shove my penis in her mouth, just to make her shut the fuck up if nothing else…”
“And so I’m on this couch, pure beast-fucking this midget. Skin slapping skin sex sounds very audible. And she’s yelling loud, screaming and moaning, and I start screaming and moaning and cursing and dirty talking to her.”
“But then it gets even weirder… I’m pulling on her stubby little legs as I’m banging her, and suddenly, one of them comes off!”
“Dude!”
“Yeah, a prosthetic…”
“How did you not notice she had a prosthetic? Couldn’t you tell that she limped or something?”
“I guess I was tripping too hard to notice…”
“Dude…”
“So her prosthetic comes off, and I’m holding it in my hand and wondering if this is really happening or if it’s the acid.”
“Duuuude…”
“But I’m horny as fuck and figure I’ll just go with it and I keep on fucking her and screaming and she keeps on screaming, even louder now, like not even noticing her prosthetic leg had come off, and now I start hearing her next door neighbor screaming and banging on the wall, telling us to shut the fuck up, and all three of us are screaming in unison and then I start beating on the wall with the prosthetic leg, yelling shit at the neighbor and at the midget concurrently.”
“That’d definitely be some shit I’d complain to my landlord about if it was me living next door.”
“Pretty soon I orgasm and collapse on top of the midget, but then I start smothering her, because she’s so small… and I’m still holding her prosthetic leg in my hand too, so I get up off her and lie down on the other end of the couch.”
“And she reaches over, takes the leg out of my hand as if it’s no big deal. Then she reattaches it, picks up the can of whipped cream, and walks back into the kitchen. A minute later she comes out, still naked, holding a huge bong, almost as tall as her.”
“I thought she was a non-smoker?”
“As did I. But she didn’t say anything in her ad about being a midget w/a prosthetic leg, either.”
“Fair enough…”
“So we take some bong hits, listen to some music for a while, and even dance a bit.”
“You danced with the midget?”
“Yeah, she danced pretty well for having a prosthetic too. Did the latest hip hop moves, the ‘Dougie’ and everything.”
“Damn…”
“Then we sit back down on the couch and watch ESPN for a while. Turns out she was quite knowledgeable about sports. We soon get into a heated argument about who was the overall better quarterback, John Elway or Joe Montana.”
“Who’d she think was better?”
“I can’t remember…”
“But she got really mad about it and threw me out of her apartment.”
“Some people take sports far too seriously…”
“Tell me about it! You realize that when you’re tripping on acid and a naked midget covered in whipped cream, hopping around on a prosthetic leg, starts throwing shit and pushes you out the door.”
“If that isn’t a ‘teachable’ moment, I don’t know what is.”
“Yeah, I liked her though, wanted to call her the next day and see her again, but I don’t think I ever got her number. And I couldn’t remember exactly where she lived, either, because I was so fucked up when I went over there and more so when I left. Also couldn’t find her emails or her ad again on Craigslist.”
“Maybe you hallucinated the whole thing and just stayed home that night, tripped on acid and jerked off to midget porn…”
“You know, I probably did...”
“Fucking hippies, they always have the best shit.”
Saturday, September 25, 2010
an excerpt from the prose novella [sic] Lectura
As a young boy, around the age of six, I had a profound curiosity with the infliction of pain onto others. I was quite fond of torturing and killing insects and other small creatures outside my parent's home-at the height of several mundane afternoons.
Nothing was safe if it happened to catch my fancy. Small, gray lizards. Brown-spotted toads. Field mice. Blue-racer snakes. Black ants. One day my father built a slide in the backyard; perhaps to curb this crude fascination.
"Just be careful on it son. Don't hurt yourself" he would often remind me; as I scurried out the back door with my younger brother in tow. He, of course, wanted only to be involved with whatever sense of play I happened to enjoy-and found himself holding the magnifying glass, survival knife or box of matches alongside me when the URGE had struck.
One Summer, there was a fresh batch of kittens belonging to one of the nine stray cats who had settled into their roles of furry vagrants around our six acre lawn. The mother had recently found her way into the busy strip of road in front of the house, and had been flattened by an oncoming car some weeks prior. She was a gray, long-haired, mangy loafer and my contempt for her during her stay knew no bounds. In passing (her long tail hanging from the edge of one of the marble flower pots around the house-swaying back and forth beneath the hot sun) I would hiss wildly as I yanked that antagonizing appendage-only to receive a reciprocal response and multiple, deeply embedded scratches along my hands and arms.
This hatred I felt for Daisy or Leela or whatever her name may have been..did not rot with her maggot-ridden corpse along the waste side. But was merely transferred to the litter of black, orange, gray and white dregs that sprang from her pink and bruised snatch. I recall..feeling utterly sick at the sight of them leaping through the Summer grass..wrestling..chasing large grasshoppers along the way. Whereas other small children (including my own six year old daughter) found merriment in the observance of their feline exploits; I saw only small, hairy targets for a deep-seeded angst that I could not (and for that matter cared not) to understand. But under the watchful eye of my mother, I kept this murderous intent at bay..until the right opportunity would present itself.
One such afternoon,
my brother Stewart and I had spent several hours running back and forth from the house to the gargantuan, yellow slide; kicking dust and laughing as young boys do on occasion. My mother had just began hanging clothes on the wire a few feet from it and all the while keeping us, her own litter, in constant peripheral view. When she had strung up the last pair of my father's coveralls, she turned to find the kittens licking at her varicose ankles.
"Ohhh. They're so sweet. Look at 'em boys. Aren't they just adorable?"
The sight of her interest infuriated my little heart.
"Yes momma."
"Poor little things. They're so dirty. Their momma isn't around to clean 'em off the little angels. It's a shame."
She reached down and rustled the spine of one of the runts with stripes on his belly. This distracted me to such a degree that I unwittingly, tripped over a large tobacco stick lying at the foot of the slide while Stewart chased me in a game of tag. I rolled to the ground-scraping my knee in the process..and seemingly my patience along with it, as it careened against a brick that had found its way into the lawn.
"OWWW." I moaned, as I stood with a fresh hole in my Levis-small trickles of blood staining the white frays of the rip.
"Are you okay son?"
"Yes momma. When can we eat lunch? I'm hungry."
"Well, I got some white beans and cornbread in the house I can make. Is that alright with you boys?"
"YES" we said in unison. But my particular taste exceeded the hunger for slow Southern cooking. Deep inside that 3"6 frail piece of matter and bone, blood and muscle..I wanted vengeance; for what deed I still cannot say or really fathom. But the world owed me something wet and pure. It owed me many small lives..all at once, and I was to be satisfied. No quarter given. No mercy shown.
"Well, lemme go put the rest of the clothes in the washer and I'll start the beans. I still got half a plate of that cornbread yawl didn't finish from the other day. So it shouldn't take too long to fix everything. You boys stay out here and play; and stay away from that road where I can see ya' back here. You don't wanna end up like that old momma cat do ya'?"
"No momma. We don't."
The screen shut and I could hear momma starting the dryer..hear the pots and pans banging in the bottom-right cupboard of a four burner stove.
"Hey Stewart. You wanna play a new game?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"Let's call it Conan or He-Man or Hercules. I'll go first and show ya' how to play."
I picked the tobacco stick up from the ground and handed it to him, his smaller shaky hands unsteady as ever could be.
"Hold this and don't move. You stand right there."
I sauntered over to the litter, who were still in an innocently-blind stage of development; letting any old/young pair of mits (tiny, callused, soft, evil) hold them for a few precious seconds..preoccupied only with the high grass that year and the ritualistic nibble on a stale slice of bread crust left for the cardinals and blue-jays that frequented the bathes. The silver bowl of community water was more or less a well where they would gather and lift their tiny tails to the sun and speak amongst one another, oblivious to the dangerous and approaching world around them.
"Here kitty kitty kitty. Dtttkk. Dtttkkk. Dtttkk. Here kitty kitty."
I squeezed their little backs as they wiggled to and fro in my palms; softly at first..and then a spontaneous, momentary iron grip-just to feel their insides roll around behind fur in my hands. I managed to round up five within the confines of my puny arms, while Stewart stood in position with a blank look and chubby splintered fingers. You could see the blood rise to the top of his Casper-white knuckles-both hands clutched around the end of the stick..as if he knew what I was going to do before I had any clue.
"What are you doing?" I said as I lay the kittens at his feet. "Give me that. Now take them" one tries to slip away, but the escape is thwarted by the inside of my foot "Gotcha! Now take them to the top of the slide and hold them there for a second. I'll tell you when to go."
"Go? What's this have to do with He-Man?"
"Just do it!"
Stewart reluctantly walked to the seven-step, iron ladder and began climbing to the top as I took my stance below. My brother and I were baseball fanatics. My father had instilled that much in our upbringing. Stewart and he liked the Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers..and men like Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddox. I was a Mariners, Reds, and Oakland Athletics fan; idolizing the greats like Ken Griffey Jr. and Jose Canseco. Home-run hitters all the way; knocking that bandaged, 'white piece of shit outta the park..outta the sky, speed and trajectory aligned..outta sight, outta mind..gone..into infinity..blackness..space..never-was.
"You ready up there?" I asked, as Stewart (loyal and stern) waited with the first runt of the group. Puny. White. Ocean-blue eyes. Ears fuschia pink shade like a pussy should look; staring down the yellow railway at an ugly stick and none the wiser.
"Ready." he murmured.
"1....2....3, push her down!"
It slid at a slower pace than anticipated, its tail skidding along the hot yellow plastic. But still, with enough force that I was able to aptly gauge the distance in correlation with the width of the head and the length of the stick..
It rolled violently through the air..approximately four feet to my right and as its head turned my way, one Pacific-blue eye dangled from its socket while tears of blood gathered in the corner of the other.
"Next!" I screamed. "That was awesome!" Another came. This time a meaty, orange-fast pitch..
'right
down
the
middle.
The lion has escaped the confines of the slaughter below, and lunges for Caligula's testicles!'
The crack of its fragile skull sounded like the smack of a bat against a stone in a carefree game of stick ball..the backyard with the neighbor kids. Even then, there is the temptation to knock it back in the pitcher's face and even at such a young age, I knew this..looking up at my younger brother (adopted) holding another gray victim scratching its way up the slide and away from the pit of brains and tears that awaited at the end of the slope.
to be continued...
Nothing was safe if it happened to catch my fancy. Small, gray lizards. Brown-spotted toads. Field mice. Blue-racer snakes. Black ants. One day my father built a slide in the backyard; perhaps to curb this crude fascination.
"Just be careful on it son. Don't hurt yourself" he would often remind me; as I scurried out the back door with my younger brother in tow. He, of course, wanted only to be involved with whatever sense of play I happened to enjoy-and found himself holding the magnifying glass, survival knife or box of matches alongside me when the URGE had struck.
One Summer, there was a fresh batch of kittens belonging to one of the nine stray cats who had settled into their roles of furry vagrants around our six acre lawn. The mother had recently found her way into the busy strip of road in front of the house, and had been flattened by an oncoming car some weeks prior. She was a gray, long-haired, mangy loafer and my contempt for her during her stay knew no bounds. In passing (her long tail hanging from the edge of one of the marble flower pots around the house-swaying back and forth beneath the hot sun) I would hiss wildly as I yanked that antagonizing appendage-only to receive a reciprocal response and multiple, deeply embedded scratches along my hands and arms.
This hatred I felt for Daisy or Leela or whatever her name may have been..did not rot with her maggot-ridden corpse along the waste side. But was merely transferred to the litter of black, orange, gray and white dregs that sprang from her pink and bruised snatch. I recall..feeling utterly sick at the sight of them leaping through the Summer grass..wrestling..chasing large grasshoppers along the way. Whereas other small children (including my own six year old daughter) found merriment in the observance of their feline exploits; I saw only small, hairy targets for a deep-seeded angst that I could not (and for that matter cared not) to understand. But under the watchful eye of my mother, I kept this murderous intent at bay..until the right opportunity would present itself.
One such afternoon,
my brother Stewart and I had spent several hours running back and forth from the house to the gargantuan, yellow slide; kicking dust and laughing as young boys do on occasion. My mother had just began hanging clothes on the wire a few feet from it and all the while keeping us, her own litter, in constant peripheral view. When she had strung up the last pair of my father's coveralls, she turned to find the kittens licking at her varicose ankles.
"Ohhh. They're so sweet. Look at 'em boys. Aren't they just adorable?"
The sight of her interest infuriated my little heart.
"Yes momma."
"Poor little things. They're so dirty. Their momma isn't around to clean 'em off the little angels. It's a shame."
She reached down and rustled the spine of one of the runts with stripes on his belly. This distracted me to such a degree that I unwittingly, tripped over a large tobacco stick lying at the foot of the slide while Stewart chased me in a game of tag. I rolled to the ground-scraping my knee in the process..and seemingly my patience along with it, as it careened against a brick that had found its way into the lawn.
"OWWW." I moaned, as I stood with a fresh hole in my Levis-small trickles of blood staining the white frays of the rip.
"Are you okay son?"
"Yes momma. When can we eat lunch? I'm hungry."
"Well, I got some white beans and cornbread in the house I can make. Is that alright with you boys?"
"YES" we said in unison. But my particular taste exceeded the hunger for slow Southern cooking. Deep inside that 3"6 frail piece of matter and bone, blood and muscle..I wanted vengeance; for what deed I still cannot say or really fathom. But the world owed me something wet and pure. It owed me many small lives..all at once, and I was to be satisfied. No quarter given. No mercy shown.
"Well, lemme go put the rest of the clothes in the washer and I'll start the beans. I still got half a plate of that cornbread yawl didn't finish from the other day. So it shouldn't take too long to fix everything. You boys stay out here and play; and stay away from that road where I can see ya' back here. You don't wanna end up like that old momma cat do ya'?"
"No momma. We don't."
The screen shut and I could hear momma starting the dryer..hear the pots and pans banging in the bottom-right cupboard of a four burner stove.
"Hey Stewart. You wanna play a new game?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"Let's call it Conan or He-Man or Hercules. I'll go first and show ya' how to play."
I picked the tobacco stick up from the ground and handed it to him, his smaller shaky hands unsteady as ever could be.
"Hold this and don't move. You stand right there."
I sauntered over to the litter, who were still in an innocently-blind stage of development; letting any old/young pair of mits (tiny, callused, soft, evil) hold them for a few precious seconds..preoccupied only with the high grass that year and the ritualistic nibble on a stale slice of bread crust left for the cardinals and blue-jays that frequented the bathes. The silver bowl of community water was more or less a well where they would gather and lift their tiny tails to the sun and speak amongst one another, oblivious to the dangerous and approaching world around them.
"Here kitty kitty kitty. Dtttkk. Dtttkkk. Dtttkk. Here kitty kitty."
I squeezed their little backs as they wiggled to and fro in my palms; softly at first..and then a spontaneous, momentary iron grip-just to feel their insides roll around behind fur in my hands. I managed to round up five within the confines of my puny arms, while Stewart stood in position with a blank look and chubby splintered fingers. You could see the blood rise to the top of his Casper-white knuckles-both hands clutched around the end of the stick..as if he knew what I was going to do before I had any clue.
"What are you doing?" I said as I lay the kittens at his feet. "Give me that. Now take them" one tries to slip away, but the escape is thwarted by the inside of my foot "Gotcha! Now take them to the top of the slide and hold them there for a second. I'll tell you when to go."
"Go? What's this have to do with He-Man?"
"Just do it!"
Stewart reluctantly walked to the seven-step, iron ladder and began climbing to the top as I took my stance below. My brother and I were baseball fanatics. My father had instilled that much in our upbringing. Stewart and he liked the Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers..and men like Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddox. I was a Mariners, Reds, and Oakland Athletics fan; idolizing the greats like Ken Griffey Jr. and Jose Canseco. Home-run hitters all the way; knocking that bandaged, 'white piece of shit outta the park..outta the sky, speed and trajectory aligned..outta sight, outta mind..gone..into infinity..blackness..space..never-was.
"You ready up there?" I asked, as Stewart (loyal and stern) waited with the first runt of the group. Puny. White. Ocean-blue eyes. Ears fuschia pink shade like a pussy should look; staring down the yellow railway at an ugly stick and none the wiser.
"Ready." he murmured.
"1....2....3, push her down!"
It slid at a slower pace than anticipated, its tail skidding along the hot yellow plastic. But still, with enough force that I was able to aptly gauge the distance in correlation with the width of the head and the length of the stick..
It rolled violently through the air..approximately four feet to my right and as its head turned my way, one Pacific-blue eye dangled from its socket while tears of blood gathered in the corner of the other.
"Next!" I screamed. "That was awesome!" Another came. This time a meaty, orange-fast pitch..
'right
down
the
middle.
The lion has escaped the confines of the slaughter below, and lunges for Caligula's testicles!'
The crack of its fragile skull sounded like the smack of a bat against a stone in a carefree game of stick ball..the backyard with the neighbor kids. Even then, there is the temptation to knock it back in the pitcher's face and even at such a young age, I knew this..looking up at my younger brother (adopted) holding another gray victim scratching its way up the slide and away from the pit of brains and tears that awaited at the end of the slope.
to be continued...
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