Please Please

"Please, Please", he screams
spitting light through the cracks in his teeth.

We, the township, have assembled.

Ed in the corner hangs his head; its dangling
from his tall figure ripe for the pluckin. Mary, Ed's girl,
tries to comfort him, but he shrugs off her moist hand.

Mrs. George huddles little Jeb with one hand
adjusting her glasses with the other;
they've traveled a distance down her sweat lined nose.

One cough because shes nervous,
twice cause she's ready to speak.
A third cough echos in the oaken walls; a soda pop silence follows.

"Dr. Cullen only really knows the time it takes
to deliver a baby, he don't know gun wounds;
why would he?"

A soft moon light beams through the stained glass
throwing a multicolored Adam and Eve on the ripped jeans of
Jesse and Ma Parnell with their messy haired girl Lee.

"I hear he robbed a bank and killed three men"
"I hear he had his way with Mary, multiple times"
"I hear he smuggled alcohol for gangsters "

The Negro Mima Jenkins holds her husband Old Tom's
hand. Both eyes are tightly sealed.
Both lips curled shut.

"I knew that boy would go bad. Didn't I say that?"
"Hush up. The rector'll know whats best".

But truth was nobody knew.
Nobody really knew anything 'cept
the sight of Ed's boy shrieking "Please, Please".

So all 12 of us just watch him slither across the floor.
Thankfully, after another minute he stops.
There was nothin any of us could have done.

3 Weeks Have Passed

I still don't know what I'm doing, but it doesn't particularly matter; there is a new Kings of Convenience album out and my head has split in half like an avocado.

I wish I had things to say about it, but I really don't. I've started about 20 sentences, but even this one I have trouble writing.

This is what I can do, give you an unedited (as unedited as possible) account of my thoughts:

1.IT CUTS HOLES IN MY STOMACH! HOLES AND HALVES!
2.My brain hurts a little from the occasional sting of electroshock numbness.
3.I cant seem to get past My Ship Isn't Pretty without starting over; there's just too much to hear, and I can't get through it.
4.Thinking anything right now is almost impossible. To get these thoughts out I have to trick myself into listing things.
5.Mrs. Cold and Boats Behind were always good songs, but they didn't have a point outside the album.
6.I just fast forwarded through the opening of My Ship Isn't Pretty and had to restart the song.
7.The audacity of Pitchfork! How can you claim to like music if you listen to something once, maybe twice before assigning it a 1-10 value and moving on to the next album?
8.I'd like to build a tidy house with an oak balcony looking out onto water. The geography and design would be irrelevant, but a tasteful balustrade and wicker chairs for the balcony would be essential.
9.I'm at the end of my second listen through of songs 1-6, so I'll give you a quote:

Boys of today write lines on walls
In the streets at night
In suburbs of cities with no name.
Is this destruction or just quiet protest
Against loneliness?

An Epiphany

It occurs to me now at 4:44 A.M. on Thursday October 8th that I have no idea what I'm doing.

Inside Joke

Balthazar does not know how to deal with inside jokes. I mean, he's not obvious about it, he has the politeness of "correct breeding", but I can tell, I can always tell.
"Fuck today. So Richard was out "sick", which is fucking bullshit because we all know he and Maria from sales, also mysteriously "sick", are fucking. Anyway, I of course got stuck cold calling, which seriously fucking blows because who the fuck likes receiving calls from telemarketers ever, but in the middle of the fucking work day? I mean seriously! Anyway about halfway down the call list I hit a Mr. Stephen Latimer of Celsion Inc., whatever the fuck that is. I give him the usual "Hello Mr. Latimer, My name is Tess Charleston with Lehman, Lehman, and Schultz and I'm here to sell you a new way of doing business", and things tend to go normally like this for about five minutes, when all of a sudden I hear a huge dog barking in the background, and some German accent yelling at it to shut up. After about a minute of this Mr. Latimer says 'hold on a sec Tess' and I hear this assortment of noises including a whimpering dog and a slew of German curses. Now I'm never supposed to hang up when cold calling so I stayed on the line through about 3 more minutes of this shit before hanging up. I figured this constituted an extreme case. Anyway, two hours later I get a call from an unknown number, and its, of course, Mr. Latimer. He apologized for his 'previous conduct' and said that he'd 'like to make it up to me by taking me out for a proper meal'. What the fuck?!"
A general cackle rattles through dining room.
"Oh Tess why, do all the good men flock to you?"
"This one sounds like a keeper Tess. Maybe this guy'll be classy and spring for the Dunkin' Doughnuts and Orange Crush this time"
"And maybe afterward he'll invite the German over for S & M; Tess just loooooves being tied up."
"I think you guys are all jumping the gun. He definitely knows Tess was a Vet student, he just wants to discuss the correct way to 'pet his dog'".
"Shucks, guys I fucked up; think of the life I just let slip away: goodbye Mrs. Tess Latimer, ta ta raging pit bull, and to you German Sex slave, auf wiedersehen"
The table vibrates with laughter. Balthazar chuckles stabbing a penne with his fork dividing it into smaller and smaller pieces. Sauce sprays on his shirt, but he doesn't seem to care. In between laughs I notice he's gone to Hemingway land, working through "the ramifications of the 'glacial' language and the search for bullshit within the bullshit". The car ride home will be awkward. He'll insist on windows down, despite the intense humidity, and I'll drive in absolute silence. At home he'll fix himself a turkey sandwich with milk before 'retiring to the library' and locking himself in the garage. He'll wake me up a few hours later coming through the door. The room will quake with our laughter.

2

Song 2
An Adult Lullaby
Day 2
10/6/08

Let me follow you down as you go to sleep
I wont make a sound little bo.
In your hair…

A lovely owl in the windowpane
Her old black eyes
Stay so still and downy

Now the boy
with the blue corduroy pants
is on your mind
hes so much older now...
tracing lines into the blueprint of your
imprint

as you softly gaze

At these days
stitched into the thread count
And those days
are ghosts in the archives
and soon
subsumed by you sweater
It’ll all be much better
in good time

oh...

Let me follow you down as you go to sleep
I wont make a sound little bo...
In your hair…
In your hair…
In your hair…

1

Song 1
Sorta Blues
Day 1
10/5/09

Oh off I-75
Theres a beating and breathing
A begging to come inside

And it asks not are you young
And it asks not are you old
It just to be let inside
to become a ghost

Oh Alachua you’re dead
He said Oh Alachua you’re dead
Oh Alachua you’re dead
He said Oh Alachua you’re dead

And the mourners grieve their loss
Wrapped up in the claws
Of the Spanish moss

And the blind poets
Of the MFA Laureates
All laud the crtics of praise
But the deaf homeless man
Doesn’t say anything of truth
He just strums away on a
Wine bottle guitar

Singin:

Oh Alachua you’re dead
He said Oh Alachua you’re dead
Oh Alachua you’re dead
He said Oh Alachua you’re dead

OHHHHHHH