Jupiter for the Strange

Most days I stumble through this city trying to hold up a little semblance of myself to show off to the rest of the world that I am still here with my ten toes on this planet while I dream of rocketing off to Jupiter. It's impossible, there is no Jupiter. Just an orb you hear of every now and again. Jupiter, oh yeah, the big one. Sterile and brown I believe. Share's the same star as us. That has to count for something. Now the sun, that's a sight for sore eyes. It literally makes your eyes sore. And it's the light behind all religion. Don't believe me? I have a documentary for you to watch. But it doesn't matter. Before the credits roll you'll have decided to agree or disagree or be like me and think there's some place in the middle of all the cantankerous thought that plagues our day to day quests for propagation. You should just be happy you get to ride your bike in this city with all its exotic restaurants and never-ending distractions in the middle of October when the sun is lower and Jupiter, round and sound, is nowhere, not anywhere to be found.

Unless you take a trip to the observatory, in which case good on you you cheeky little monkey.

Ah geez. It's come to my attention that I'm more of a scribbler than a writer. I just scribble, scribble, scribble all day. Nibbling away at pieces of paper but never really filling up on anything. There's a word for it in Spanish that someone very special and very pretty told me once, but I can't remember it. I think it started with a 'p'. I remember her mother confirming that I did in fact eat as if I had been born with feathers and wings. I would argue, however, that my mouth has much more to offer than any beak. The lips alone are too much too handle. Especially when I first come out of dreaming. Swollen with all of my sleep, they usually just sag until I've had my first inspiration to scribble.

No more. Time to feast.

I listen to "The Manifold Curiosity" much too much. It is a sublime collaboration of music and lyric that always inspires this overwhelming sense of wonder and, for lack of a better word, curiosity inside of me.

6-word Stories

- inspired by Sherman Alexie

1. She was my dream girl. Gone.

2. If you hear two gunshots, goodbye.

3. Forget about it, you're still Generalissimo.

Stardate, The Saturn Opposition, Part 1

(In which our lovely hero realizes he can calculate neither stardates nor the end of the world.)

I find myself riding a strange wave

of unfinished business. Nothing

I start will come to completion

though I beckon it from the shores

of my motivation. Food I now eat

without the luxury of flavor.

Something is simply missing,

and so missing something simply

my credit only grows, monstrously.

He speaks from under the couch

next to my bedless head,

says hey, you got an ok thing

going on here. keep at it.

But the thing is I don't listen

to monsters even if they do

sound sweet justifying

their pedagogical arguments.

Would rather just stay on floor

(because I can't stay in bed)

contemplating whether Che

was really more like me

or you.

imiss you.

The boys were born of gasoline,

one spark away from burning

like rocket children into the night

air. And wherever they went, a dense

haze of sweet-tasting yet gag-inducing

confusion was sure to follow. The girls

loved the smell of their flammability.

They captured it in mason jars and

snuck it home underneath their white

dresses. The glass jars, filled with so

much passionate vapor, would clink

from below the beds. Soft noises

that made them feel open all over.

The boys knew this, especially the red

one with the funny face, and they loved it.

Maybe I might taste you tonight

in some empty stinging glass

or see your face like rosy sunshine

in the darkened crowd before the band.

They are swelling with emotion,

everyone around. "Stay with me"

we plead together, "don't want to be alone,"

but we can't pick up the telephone,

or stand the smell of what we are at home:

just ourselves. Our poor, tawdry

ass-dragging backwards little selves.

Sleeping on it, sleeping on it so,

sleeping with it, keeping with it

cause we can never let it go.

carmen bajo

carmen bajo el cielo

andando hacia un grupo

nuevo de olores,

sabores, na na na

no importa, na na na,

no importa si nos vemos

o mas tarde, si, si, si me quedo

carmen bajo los portales

azules de la calle

esa fuente ya no tiene

agua pa tomar

y si murieramos de sed

aqui despacito en la plaza

mandare tus huesos

tus besos por los ciclos

de mis ultimos alientos.

asi, creo que todo

seria bien.

bien? bien. bien? bien.

biennnnn.

They were rejoicing in the aisles

and the supervisors could not believe

their superior eyes.

Champagne and caveats washed away

the weary before they even had the inclination

of begging, "no more."

And all the while I was dancing out of my skin

and you were diffusing threatening conversations

and the workers of the world

were not uniting because if they did

oh man

it would be bad news bears.