Boulder

Boulde Been there. Boom town, gone going-going. Nice place ta bike, if you don't never mind the cars. Ambivalence makes shit die. See the motorist curse? S/He's getting stupider. Fatter. More, like the machine that drives them. Walkers-Horses-perchance, in lottery dangerous streets… all history now. People with too many locked drawers of overused credit cards… about to buy the next thing? Look out! Their condos are coming. X garages, X bedrooms, X toilets. They eat microwave predictions it's the best place to USA live. They always do. Because when it's "Up and coming!"

It's gone.

One-five-six-seven, Pearl Street.

Velvet antlers brave noon's roar traffic, skitter hot blacktop semi-suburban cul-de-sac left, look around wildly. Reality is being abducted, and dropped on a brand new planet.

Buck fends for sanity, in chaotic, indescribable world.

Heel tires screech. Just…

Chaos, and that vegetable garden.

(Sniff.)

Suddenly,

everything makes sneaky snorts of sense.




Shoestrings

No, that's not right at all. I'm drunk right now you see. And it's hard to think clearly. What were we talking about? Oh. I don't know how to love… It's true… It's like… I can't tie my shoes properly, have to knot each one each time; maybe once and never tie them again, every time I… Who-ah. You were so right. This is radical! I am tying the left right now (though I'm wobbling) SEE me? Feeling… how we rarely consider... how we judge…

I see beauty now?

Live night.

Sittin on edge of fragile-legged hardwood chair,

tipping it ever so

slightly

forward.

Listening to her speak. Listening to her watch him.

He's trying interest her in his crotch. His legs are wide.

"Dish/babe. Lover girl. Sweet lill-thing."

he coos, watching her body

try and tell him otherwise.

Long morning

Wouldn't be work/love to.

Your place is mine…

No it ain't cowboy/one-night stand.

You got me drunk/loose.

I answer 'No Devil'.

Then git-up, and fry me somethin to eat.

Ain't got much/oatmeal's gone.

I need somethin juicy. Mouth tastes like cum.

You think I feel any different?/ain't got shit!

Shit!

my lucky number?

Ribs. Best in Town. Ever seen that pasted in a joint, BBQ swimmin' grease a blind man could ladle? Faded newspaper clippin's on the wall, spattered with something, shows owner, ten years younger at least, smiling pot-belly smile 'cross the page. Jam piano with phone books, Jesus Christ my Lord cardboard sign, Misty singin', shift tables chairs smashed into irregular 8x30 space: Make yur order. Funky as funk comes, LOUD black sitcom on TeeVee, vibe role models yellow tape fake wood paneling.

It's what you pay for.

The Atmosphere.

After all; you've got to breathe.

Performances.

Some good; some bad. Solemn boredom yaws claps and stifled yawns.

Refrain: Almost left in the middle.

'Almost'.

(The funny part.)

I

I answer from the I or the I that's a part of you?

And how at this advanced stage of the game would I know the ifs in final considerations?

"The young couple is reading the Sunday paper in the sun, the baby is sleeping, the green has begun to emerge from the rind of the cantaloupe and everything seems possible." Read the line from a book that's my life, and continue past as the page pavement ends. Red dirt sprays from worn tires of old beat pickup with cowboy hat windshield glare as screen door bangs and pretty young girl descends the six broken steps of dingy white chalk strip meandering her crooked line to bleached sun umbrellas shield, couple

with sleeping baby-boy. In our distance crows squawk, and dry leaves titter. What I have in mind.

What Tommy Lee's afraid of. Me: Lushed-out patron, waiting in red-dirt hue set sun.

With child.

Din.

I.

So polite-

authors read teaching

take turns,

hog limelight

hide

microphone.

II.

If honest,

you leave.

They Remember.

III.

Are thanks thrush

poised for flight?

Mourning Brew 9:20

Old man, outdoor table, pursed fingers-cigarette dead, pinch reflect dirty window pain

cars streak by warble silent people set jaws ways endless days' jobs sips hot jug

of seven-eleven offer reading tales garbage

beneath his feet.

Beautiful People 10:50

Rose-irridium shine-back tints real nice clothing stroll awnings eyes peeled in gottahaveits not too fast-r slow. Stand up straight poise footfalls measure thoughts' makeup tasteful round-the-edges applied;

lie without saying anything.

Alkie Park :29

Power point. Stands there watching, hails stroll over. Yea? Part Scot, most Seattle sipping mammoth cup tip-top vodka splashed-Fresca. Like him. Rarely changes his clothes; always seem clean.

He's an old man young, frayed round his social edges. No table, frown, or highly polished glasses.

You see the Harms-way trapped in his innocent eyes.

You recognize him

recognizing you.

Shake hands; laugh back-

wards.

Fear

permeates, unobserved, observing-a shoulder-sag aging, death. Fears : hide power-tears' smock covers beauty-humor lost, to eyes blind pain. Blank wall stares empty men-white noises hiss

vacant thought's abstract dirt-emerge, to sky-stem too weak, you know?

"I" seeks color; I is color-an entity, striving to beautify rainbows' antics : whose rose pedals have permission to fall. Cool marble column taints window pale-nights, insurmountable mottle-stone silence. Sickly womb glides slatterns to tea, promises crisp short breads. Behold:

The dining room of being. You are…

Invited.

Nay,

required

to attend.

Greenish Mean Time

1400gmt Eggs. Toast. Cash register rigs-beeps. Nothing rings anymore. It Chimes, as witness sits in booth, big blue eyes, takes halting order. "Anything else?" open-end question. Salt shaker with rice shouts integration. Yea! Hash browns. Paper-coffee cup circles death, in well-read obits. Tobacco smiles drifting in. BANG! a Screen door. Maybe… onion rings choked in fish-fry oil. He mumbles hiss-elf

1620gmt skates foot over details drive her batty. Way they lined up fell back down-some perverse collusion, got her bored: constantly on edge. Endless bitsnpieces spun dizzy-tune loud hammer-forge insight drop toast-butter-up serendipity beyond immediate understanding.

So much to think about, nothing there to consider.

1814gmt . Motion. More birds flew east, aware of their cliché. Chairs scrape outside, suck parrots in. Paper men line walls, being their unseen dogs. Picture glass frames never fade. Slowly go purple-unlike women's hair, and they're worth more. Those hunters!

Too many bartenders, never spoiled a beer.

1910gmt Drunk four out of five terrestrially-living things are insects, broke mold of his face, then a crystallization: Supersaturate (boozed bullshit) requires seed particle, which makes brain think dick, which old girlfriends formally educated to embossy man.

1923gmt paste face stares back mirror. Lilts cue, throws first-sight fashion statements swilly-nilly. Reminds cozy homes of Wanted Men, and lock your doors and windows, for fireflies light black velvet curtains. ….And her shallow familiar lines. Swallow bitch. Hard.

2230gmt plucks skylight cheer from broken-tiled restroom. Vomit long-lost clean floor. Sixty-cycle buzz rocks anal tube's no-wipe browns.

Paper: Sums it.

1348gmt

Slow motion water saps sun

glints glass rainbows'

artificial diamond.

Rocks on the red desert floor sing:

They speak of things, in relation to other things,

and if your mind follows hearing

(which follows the heart) you can see with

no eyes at-all.

IT.

"Recluse, languorous, autonomic, illusive…"

"More words… We need more. None are quite… it."

"It doesn't bother with sublime, and enig-matic."

"Thank you. We don't need a written discourse of cliché, and obvious."

"Try this: He who is it, or dies, is loved."

"So?"

"It's in there, somewhere."

"The act, or its metaphor?"

"It's both, spoken figuratively, and perhaps, fictionally."

"It is the obvious part of… sublimity?"

(Hollow-eyed sarcastic businessman! What could he know about it?)

"I want to slap you, not nod my hearing."

"You're testing me. It is a riddle, correct?"

"A nose that sees, is worth two that sniff."

"What?!"

"We are birds on wire, while masters lying in bone-bleached Japanese graves sing its positions in space." I shan't give you any more hindsight.

(The businessman claps its hands in glee.)

"Like those red-earth aborigines, dreaming it's origin?"

"Indeed. Singing aisles of cacophony through a fifty five foot universe "

(He taps pen-fingers furiously.)

(Long pause.)

"Now I get its meaning. I get it!"

I gave too many clues. He has run amuck. It occurs to me, I need to give him it's answer.

"You're close. IT is…"

Man holds out hand, stops verbal truck.

"Shush! You'll spill it's elixir of silence."

Styles leg-crossed, waiting:

DEFEND YOURSELF!

You say. To know them, know you.

Knock table, spill letters.

Ouiji.

You me, in this together.

Take hand, flee!

Measure beats' iamber.

Listen:

Rusty-nail clothes-hangers

pounded into bare white walls

and Never Mind the noise:

LOUD. Outrageous

451° oven

Smoke ominously

OUT!

Set the alarm-scrape charcoal-dust recklessly

over dishies and

clean suburban floors.

Smear the fresh pink scrubbers!

Revel.

Now you'll begin

to BLUR.

Edgeing to Infinite.

You were very close the edge. You're not a dream-thing, you understand? Nod your head lightly, if you're able to. They are metaphorical. "The Fall" is death, space-time absorbes in a billion years or so. The protozoa-lost civilizations, whole planets are documented, supercharged by greed-fear-tension as tens of billions consider annihilation from hiker's feet, or red-button-pushers doing 'It's my job' forefinger-flex. You think you are/were alone here Reality? Here-here! Thoughtchahad an exclusive on THE WORD didcha? Let you in on a secret: We wink-nudge snicker unsubdued sleeve-coughs when you contemplate yourselves with that fake stainless, deal-now intent. A-muses no end, when corporeal, and allowed belly-laughs. Have you heard us? Oh, but let's not think about that. You probably wouldn't have survived. A few notes of scream and a mote of ashy particle to adhere it to. That's how you'd be documented. File under: Tried to hear GOD. The universe is very particular about matter, in your version of time and space. Oh hell. Don't look like that. You Haven't Got It Yet?!

WE stopped time. Who did you think did it?

JEE-sus, you humans are stupid.

"I'm still alive then?"

Is that all you got from this conversation?!

I want to say, NO.

The next thing: a classroom in a dormer… so I guess I'm not in; I'm outside, looking in. Teacher says: "Some people believe women have the answers, which isn't far from the truth." and pirouettes round the room, as students shake heads, disapprovingly. "Sit down Mr. Douglas. You're totally wrong."

Another voice, narrating me, looks back. Behold your thicket of ignorance, terrestrial-one.

"Short prime-time programming blocks reply in diminished attention spans. We children process tersely-written bursts of duration direct to ad-execs' how many-few minutes sell things."

Somebody is narrating us from the body of big, black raven.

"But teacher, life is little to do with the ad-execs proper, for we tell them what to do. Studies confirm what we're arranging.. Yes, it is a trifle mad. Did you suppose it would be…"

I shout: "Different than this?"

Yes, as a matter of fact

he did.

Nothing but Malls

I go down 28^th Street.

I never go down

28^th Street. It's busy.

There's too many cars.

Why

would I go down 28^th Street?

I go down 28^th St. with

its too many cars and

look right, left.

It's dangerous. There are too many

people looking right left

making too many cars going down

28^th Street.

No wonder.

I never went down…

Bad Dreaming

My God, is this America?

Is this what our world's becoming?

Ants scurry everywhere, parking shiny metal bodies

Concrete, and plastic signs breed

faster than that hot fast goo, they pour on drive-up orders

A stampeded herd, buys useless shit

they'll throw away

Not a sidewalk pedestrian

or flower in sight.

Only one tragedy:

All else follows.

Copyright 1997

Brock Hanson

Boulder, CO