for Ricky McAlister; recommended reading
Not the beauty
of a sonnet’s lines,
forming quietly.
Nor the excitement
of a campaign speech,
exploding wildly.
It is best seen
when Warhol’s fifteen
didn’t apply to Edie.
The warmth of his smile
with mention of her.
Not just a porch, not just an old porch,
but a beautiful old porch
Even the rotting-away pieces of it
Look at all there is which has not yet rotted
Every caretaker is a craftsman
contributing to the beautiful old something
- Hannah Stephenson, “Craftsman”
Listen to the bees -
their delirious buzz
destroying a daytime’s calm.
I envy their consistency.
The fungus spreads,
the log rots -
the pattern and texture
like old parchment
with wondrous calligraphy.
The surgical glow
of office lighting taunts.
It tells me I’m trapped.
Lottery tickets
lack hesitation.
Coffee goes best
with daydreams.
Maybe, in another life,
reward and escape are one.
But here,
the sun’s quiet warmth
sometimes irritates.
Only the golden
gentleness of dandelions
sways in the wind,
like a wish.
…can’t be said. Or they are already said, but we don’t notice. We never notice. The only way to inform someone is to treat them like an idiot. They don’t think. They never think. Only you think. When someone curses out of frustration, let them know they took God’s name in vain. Ignore the blood oozing from the place their arm was. Make sure they hear what you know, what they might know if you say it over and over again.
Don’t forget, you could be wrong. It could be that no one knows anything because the things that must be said are difficult. You don’t just have to know them. You have to convey them. To persuade someone means to know them and make an appeal to them in particular. You don’t really have time for this, but you could make time. If only you had friends. For some reason, you never have friends.
There are no things that have to be said. No necessity asserts itself that you have to say anything. All you have to do is lead. Get out there, show what you’ve got. Lead by example. You’re fixing a car and someone asks you how to do what you do. You mumble “whatever you do will be good.” They go and pump diesel into an engine that takes regular unleaded.
Maybe the things that must be said can’t always be said by you.
Maybe you have to listen to them first.
“Fourth Shot,” by Joel Peck. Intaglio, 2007. Photo credit: Tom Farris
How a speck disgusts.
A watery, grid-like beauty,
housing playful creatures.
They race, and maybe the blur
they make blurs us,
or maybe we didn’t want to look
from the start.
Fashionable
is all we are.
Slathered in scent,
covered with cosmetic,
concealed through outfits,
we’re an old bird
with pretty plumage.
At “The School of Athens,”
much gawking and cackling.
Up and down and a train
of figures unknown.
Not one of the many sees
the triangular composition
holding the painting together.
VOCAL RECORDING 132-ALPHA. PRISONER/SPECIMEN X27B. STARDATE 67824.21
The chrome of spaceship Xpthis 3 gleamed as it fired death rays into every major American city. Screams came from every direction and were played on the ship’s loudspeaker. I scrubbed the floor, fearing for my life – I was an early capture. Up to that point, I didn’t think the aliens had a hierarchy. They presented themselves as a collective will. But then I saw things that marked jealousy, fear, resentment. Aliens with what seemed more menial tasks laughed harder at our agony. For Kothos Prime, though, this was another day’s work. I began to think those numbers he worked with were not calculations about jumping to lightspeed, but rather his hedge fund.
Before I was brutally probed by our alien conquerors, I worked for an ice cream shop. I mainly got the job because my girlfriend told me she’d kick me out of our place if I didn’t get off my ass and work. She wasn’t worried about my not paying bills, though that happened from time to time. A rich uncle of mine died and left me a bunch of money. I was given that money for college, but that condition was only told to me in confidence.
As a wise man once said, “I do what I want.”
[sounds of laser fire, running, hatch being opened. Recording ends for a short time.]
Where was I? Oh yeah, school. Part of me thinks that my uncle wouldn’t have cared that I blew my brains out with weed freshman year. First off, why the fuck is high school everything? The last thing I wanted to see was every bullshit clique replicate itself like mold, and that’s exactly what I saw right away. The preppy ones who were dressed just a little sharper, kept up a little better in class. You knew they were there to get the paper and go right back to Daddy’s firm. Then there were the ones trying to be smart – god they were annoying. They were naive enough to think they’d actually get real opportunities, knowledgeable enough to plunge into enough nonsense to deny the reality. There were jocks, alcoholics, stoners, drama queens and a bunch of others, but I stopped paying attention quickly. My uncle gave me money to make something of myself. When I started seeing the groups most likely to rule the world, I just wanted to vomit.
I’ll tell you a secret. Smoking was the best. fucking. thing. ever. OK, that’s not a secret, but it’s like this. OK. You listening? Good. I know, I’m not talking to you all sharp and stuff anymore, but that’s because I’ve found some kickass alien weed in this lab and I am a lot more chill. I do not feel the pressure of telling you everything.
I got into smoking because I liked blowing the smoke. It sounds so stupid, but there you are, and you can just cloud your vision for just a second – everyone can – and you can see the details and the changes in the smoke itself. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the high is awesome. But what’s really addictive is being yourself, without pressure from all around. You know what I mean? I gotta change locations again, I hear a guard coming.
[recording resumes a short time later]
Okay. I forget where I left off. My point was that I never felt I had real opportunities, just money and drugs. My girlfriend works a lot harder than me, but she’ll never admit that she’s not where she imagined she’d be. Straight A’s and an internship and law school: she’s night manager at Walmart. Our money goes toward her debt.
I’ve worked a number of jobs. I think the retail ones best sum up everything I hate. I’m scared to lose hours, scared to not sell enough, scared that the money I make will barely cover expenses. There’s never any time to think positive things when not busy. I quit my last job at Abercrombie after a good manager who made sure we were treated well and things ran efficiently was reassigned. His labor was too valuable to the company; the store was an afterthought. After him, things went downhill fast. I am really liking the ice cream job, though. I get to bring unsold food home.
I encountered the aliens when walking back from work. My girlfriend had texted me some stuff about how much I suck. I’ve gotten used to the anger, but it distracted me. I didn’t realize I was walking into an area that was more fog than sidewalk.
I didn’t realize it wasn’t foggy out.
The aliens definitely were interested in my physical being and my cell phone. It’s really strange – they didn’t ask any questions about governance or history, nothing about society or culture. They did ask questions about diet and exercise, endurance, how I felt in certain climates. They were interested in emotional responses for sure. It wasn’t hard to see that their psychology is very linear: if an object is put in front of me, that must mean a specific thought or feeling. Honestly, after working retail, it’s hard to see a difference in my treatment.
Hup, time to move.
[recording resumes a long while later]
Something’s up. I’m watching the shuttles with what seem to be raiding parties come back to the mothership, and the aliens are always fighting. There was an argument over what was a stolen coffeemaker.
It’s been weeks. I haven’t thought about my girlfriend or my family at all. My time is spent trying to figure out what I’m seeing. What possesses people to take a bunch of ships and soldiers and go some random direction, raiding what they first see? I mean, who does that?
Okay, fine. Laugh. Yeah, we did a lot of that. This is a bit weirder: there’s no pretense of exploration. I don’t even know that they know what raiding is, either. The ships come back with objects as varied as feathered boas and metal from the Sky Needle. It’s like they’re just doing stuff to look like explorers or an army. I haven’t seen any serious attempt at occupation; their transport ships have held steady.
I’m gonna try to steal away on this shuttle. I haven’t thought about the girlfriend or the family because I’ve been focusing on trying to get to them.
[recording, weeks later]
I guarded this device like my life depended on it. I didn’t want it lost or stolen, I didn’t want anyone thinking I was an alien spy. I haven’t recorded because I got back to my girlfriend and family, and they’re gone now. They had a series of devastating mutinies. It turns out the officers were competing amongst themselves in a sport of sorts, a “who can do the most damage and capture the most stuff” competition. Come to think of it, the marks that they were so ridiculously feudal were always there, most present in the things that initially struck me as democratic. What undid them, it seems, was the arbitrary scoring the commanders engaged in. Nothing was ever good enough. If one commander destroyed a whole city by using a ray to create an environmental effect like an EMP, then another stole every fence from a suburb using only genetically modified ninja cats. The men, apparently, saw this initially as unique and worth having pride in. Eventually, they started running out of things to do – yes, even by these pitifully low standards – and the commanders turned on each other, and the men turned on the commanders.
I don’t know how exactly this thing works. It records, but there’s a little sign that might mean I’m on air. We have a chocolate mocha almond flavor at the shop today. It’s a slow day and I could really use the tips. Thanks in advance if you show, especially if you have my coffeemaker.
Like seeing sunlight
strike a Greek temple
at a distance, at an angle.
Light and shadow
on and between blank pillars,
the shriek of an eagle
somewhere.
You sparkled in that
evening dress,
held yourself high.
I kept falling
from one stanza
to the next.
Bathing Venus’ modesty,
the jazz pianist’s next phrase,
the lion and the lamb.
Then weeks, months.
I never saw you.
The buzz of a fly on the wall
always broke what was good.
Others came and went,
and I only saw afterward.
When in the supermarket
you answered hello,
when you nearly blushed,
the day and stars were
too grand.
The old dreams are gone,
but I wonder if they’re yours
as well as mine.
Wedding dress like
a lazy summer day.
Clouds laced, sparse.
Bonus points if you can figure out the video game that inspired this.
You didn’t say
“I love you.”
Instead, happy
to be outside,
thoughts about
ideals and banners,
responsibility
and guilt.
A bird flew by,
not a symbol
but a puzzle
and we wondered
about omens.
Then I was hurt.
Your reaction
was swift,
instinctive.
I only hate
how I didn’t think
I was loved
until distress.
Today
I groggily awoke,
fed the dog,
went to work,
napped at home.
It is your birthday.
I want to bark
at the moon.
I want the excitement
of innocence,
the dawning awareness
your presence
beckons.
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