Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Nine

fisher gnome, scoots, but there’s no place to scoot to. It quivers in its last shallow. Into the puddle the fisher gnome slides his hand, water pouring into a bowl in the middle of his hand. The little copper fish is heartened to see all that darkness suddenly available and rushes to hide his shiny body in it. The fisher gnome leans over his palm and breathes on the water, ripples dancing its surface. Then he snorts it all up. Just like that! This is how a fish came to be in the back of the fisher gnome’s mind. It

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Eight

In the back of the fisher gnome’s mind there’s a fish. Once the gnome came upon a puddle in which a tiny copper fish was circling. The puddle had been abandoned when a sudden flood almost as suddenly went back to bed, its dreams calling it. There were puddles left after the flood and the one in which the tiny copper fish was warming did not happen to be one of the bigger. The sun shaved the skin off the puddles with a blade so sharp the water didn’t notice. The tiny fish startled at the shadow cast by the

One Hundred Twenty-Seven

unnoticed, “I know. I know. Leper’s gone. Leper’s gone. Gone, leper, gone. I know, I know. One less. Count ‘em all up. And you get one less. I know I know. Why I know? Why why? I’ve got a reason. A reason reason. I know, you know. Do you know? Who but me knows the reason reason? Who who?” This went on rather longer than it ought to have, frankly, the counting leprechaun investigating an uncountable series of minor discomforts, the fisher gnome burbling on and on about some special knowledge, the Lazarusing leprechaun hung up by a power cord.

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Six

his chin, picked his nose and nibbled the finger, pinched his lip on which a ragged nail caught and blood welled at the wound, scratched his ear with a knife, squatted and rubbed his lower back against a broken chair, spat a tooth, and yanked thirteen hairs from his left brow in a precise exercise of hunt down and root out, no one of the thirteen to be suffered, only surprising they had survived to now. The fisher gnome watched this set of behaviors with flared nostrils and a quivering lip, muttering softly, though not so softly as to go

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Five

gnome. He saw in them something distant and misshapen. He squinted. Yes, there was something in them that was coming soon. On its head a city fixed in place with silver screws housed a nation of refugees from a plague that had burned through mountains and avenues. The counting leprechaun yawned again, which gave the fisher gnome a good view of what of the leprechaun’s last meal lingered in the festering pockets of his gums. There was a new sound from the reviving body. It could have been, was it?, a whimper. The counting leprechaun tilted his head and rubbed

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Four

bank (leprechaun), and a gnawed shrub crossed with a toothless beaver stuffed in a thrift shop pillow case (gnome, natch), the leprechaun’s fingers can bend backwards at every joint. “I know what you’re counting for. There’s one missing, in there? There’s a leprechaun be gone, eh? There’s a leper abroad. Eh? I’m right, eh?” The fisher gnome’s self-satisfied chuckle was overdubbed by a whooping gasp and a violent blat of a fart. The dead leprechaun was not, it seemed, dead in the manner one expects of the dead. The counting leprechaun looked at last into the eyes of the fisher

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Three

floor, let’s shake some leaf, let’s let’s.” The body is silent but some drool falls from the mouth and the joints begin to quiver. The counting leprechaun yawns. Ah, wah wah, he says. He rubs his eyes which the yawn made water. “I know, I know,” says the fisher gnome standing right beside him. They are both small creatures, this gnome comes up to the counting leprechaun’s shoulder, the gnome’s nose is bigger both in length and width, neither would make you think of a child, more a cat mixed with a crow and rolled out on a clay river

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Two

for feet for dancing. Head good. Especially you have pointy head like me, heh heh. Spin like a top. Like a top!” From the leprechaun into which life may or may not have been returning, a new sound, a groan, or a creak. Which becomes a snore-like snort. “I like the songs of trees. They need the wind so maybe it’s the wind that’s playing the trees like they big instruments. The creak like that. The long groan as the big limb swing, the wind taking they arm, the wind saying, let’s dance, you me, let’s take it to the

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-One

that sidled into a whistle which rose and rose in pitch until stopping abruptly. “Fish good drummers too. Good singers, you know. If you know fish, not just eat but get to know, you know. Not all fish same, you know that. Silly to think else. All birds same? All four-footy beasts? Ha! And Ha! Crawdads not much into music. Except dancing. Crawdad like to dance, you know. Somebody else gotta set the tune? Maybe. They got rhythm in the head maybe, or the tail maybe. All those feet. Many feet. Better for dancing to have more feet, eh? Good

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty

and the eyes bulged, staring, lightless. “Yep, yep,” said a voice behind the counting leprechaun. “Doing good so far.” A deep, reverberant moan from the hanging body. “I bet he could carry a tune,” the voice continued. “I have some sticks. You could knock on the empty noggin. Bone makes good drum. Notes, not just percussion. It’s the crystalline nature of the structure. There are probably bones lying around here, too. You lepers got not much covering you bones either. You could bang on him with that bony arm of your.” Another sound from the body, this one a hiss

Thousand: One Hundred Nineteen

The leprechaun listened to the sound of the fisher gnome’s skin, his meat and skin. Plap plap. Plap. But he watched the work the breath he’d given was taking on. It was not easy work. The chest heaved, the belly poked out, pulled in. A sickly yellow-green, the color of a healing bruise, began to underlie the ashy blue. The nostrils twitched, the tongue jerked. The eyelids had once settled neatly over the eyes, but the eyes had sunk into the head, and the lids had remained in position, stiff, bloodless, and ajar. But now the lids fluttered, snapped open,

Thousand: One Hundred Eighteen

After giving it a head start, the counting leprechaun warmed another lungful, leaned forward, put his fist under the other’s chin to lessen the slack mouth’s gape, and covered it with his own. The second breath he forced in with a sudden whoosh. Then (as long as we’re counting) he sent a third, a fourth, and, after a pause, a fifth, though this last was slow slow, and finished up what lingered deep in the counting leprechaun’s doughy belly. As he stepped back, someone nearby applauded languidly. That dull slap of hand against hand could only be the fisher gnome.

Thousand: One Hundred Seventeen

his head just under the nose, so the upper lip curled back and the pointy nose jutted out, then from a picture hook strung him up. The counting leprechaun looked at the teeth the curled lip hid no more. They were quite nice. Capped with gold. Even and clean. Dazzled, the counting leprechaun leaned close and tapped a tooth with his cracked fingernail. He smiled a Mona Lisa smile and into the mouth of the blue, unbreathing leprechaun he let a warm wayward breath find its way. This breath knew what to do; he felt it orient, begin to probe.

Thousand: One Hundred Sixteen

familiar faces drinking turpentine and less familiar faces drinking turpentine with cream. Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five. Number thirty-six was an ashy blue and displayed no familiarity with breath. The counting leprechaun rolled this one over and kicked the empty tequila bottle thus revealed. With a slow yawn, which exposed black and yellow teeth chummy as headstones in a pioneer cemetery, the counting leprechaun pissed into the tequila dregs. He grabbed the blue leprechaun by his matted scalp and poured the piss-tequila mixture down his cold throat, then he shook him and pounded him against the wall, tied a power cord around

Thousand: One Hundred Fifteen

snoring in a pool of green vomit, his beard wrapped three times around his neck, cold vodka dripping from a cracked vase onto his chest. Number two hung by a toe twisted into the beads of a chandelier. Numbers three and four were squeezing hallucinogenic pus from the sores of number five who had been tied to a fireplace grating. The blue slick fingers were then lapped at by whichever tongue happened to be closest. Though tempted, the counting leprechaun only paused for a connoisseur’s sniff before moving on to the flooded bedrooms. The hours passed as he checked old

Thousand: One Hundred Fourteen

to a wall or toadstool and slump, sigh, drool a little, sniffle, rub his eyes, one of which had invariably wandered away from its brow and had to be nudged back, then pinch his cheeks until the red in them gleamed like apples slapped with a strop. Taking courage from a swallow of fermented aphid juice and a chaser of deoxygenated brown recluse venom, the leprechaun would rub his nipples absently, squint at least one of his unsteady eyes, and return to the scene of the count. A square-tipped finger picked out the first of his fellow leprechauns, this one

Thousand: One Hundred Thirteen

kind of whimsy an office manager would enjoy, or a VP in charge of marketing, not a five-year-old. The daughter sniffed the turtle’s diaper (smelled clean) then returned to the kitchen. Meanwhile among the leprechauns one of the least inebriated began counting noses. He had done this a few times and each time had come up with a number. Just when he grew confident that he had the right number, the next count, a count merely to confirm, a count to make sure there was no mistake, would turn out slightly different. The leprechaun would slap his forehead, stagger over

Thousand: One Hundred Twelve

could not restrain herself from the most elaborate and various whims. They ranged from elephants made of cotton candy to water in anatomically correct globes that do-si-do’d with smoke armadillos. Even if none of this lasted more than a few minutes it still sounded dangerous. Disruptive anyway. How did multiplication tables get memorized? Besides, didn’t this seem more whimsy than whim? And everyone knows that whimsy doesn’t come on until middle age. A child’s whim is more along the lines of smearing eyebrows with lipstick or pouring lemonade on the dog. A ballerina made completely of paper clips was the

Thousand: One Hundred Eleven

mobile into a spin, tossing off a comet that hasn’t yet been reattached. Later, she learned, her baby was merely going through a rock dove mood. They do that. Moods, phases, whims. The mood is of relatively short duration, usually passing within an afternoon. If the turtle was a phase it could last weeks. Infants typically don’t experience whims. Whims are too sophisticated. Whims tend to come on sometime around 30 months. The daughter’s cousin, a school teacher, once had a student whose whims had to be separately housed, with attendants. It wasn’t that they lasted long, but the child

Thousand: One Hundred Ten

check on the baby who usually woke from its nap at about this time. In the crib instead of a baby a dusty brown turtle was burrowing under the fuzzy blanket. The daughter pushed the blanket aside and lifted the turtle to her shoulder. She patted its shell gently. A month ago the daughter had gone to the nursery and found a rock dove nestled under the blanket, its head neatly tucked under one wing. She had screamed, which caused the dove to burst into flight. It rushed about the room, brushing knick-knacks off the bookcase and sending the star

Thousand: One Hundred Nine

ablution team at the World Ablution Championships, an event that comes around every six and a half years. Cheering for spiritual cleanliness seemed to have a greater social import after the bloody unrest. Or so she thought aloud, while washing the baby’s bottles, her left hand smarting from a speckling of freshly boiled water. When she shook the bottles out and leaned them in the dish drainer, she turned to her father, and found he’d left the room. The daughter sighed, pushed behind an ear a few strands of auburn hair that had been tickling her nose, and went to

Thousand: One Hundred Eight

also was a pleasant spring with lots of flowers on the hedges, the Truth Commission hearings were winding down (the ratings for which had hit a nadir), and the new Red vice president (the former rebel commander) and the Blue president (the previous administration’s minister of argument) had been seen at state dinners civilly passing a basket of sourdough. The farmer’s summons likely involved jury duty, ceremonial guard duty at one of the nation’s monuments, museums, or sacred cenotes, or drinking. None of these, the daughter reasoned, was high risk at present, what with the recent victory of the national

Thousand: One Hundred Seven

you were a Red this did not necessarily mean you got your old house back, as someone might be living in it who now considered it their house and the government wasn’t interested in pushing people around, but it did mean you could apply for compensation from a special fund created by an additional tax on the importation of milk, milk being a product the country just held its own on producing, which meant as supply fluctuated money would move into the fund, though not as much as was needed to cover all claims or even very many claims. It

Thousand: One Hundred Six

The very next day the sheep farmer received a summons. His service was requested on behalf of the City of Reds and Blues. The farmer’s daughter tried to look on the bright side. The civil unrest had recently been decided in favor of power sharing. The army of the Reds having been demobilized and disarmed, their followers were allowed to reclaim the homes and property that had been stolen from them when the head general of the Blues went bad in the head and sent his soldiers on a killing and looting spree that no one could have predicted. If

Thousand: One Hundred Five

mix had been the first one to the ewe, the lamb she was birthing still stretching out the wet birthsack. The dlgs mix grabbed the lamb by one hind leg, while his buddy got hold of the other, and, not wanting to share, each pulled in his own direction. The ewe wailed. The farmer was on watch as he knew the ewe was sure to drop any day. He’d even patrolled the fence, but the feral dogs found a hole hidden under a shrub, and the farmer came running too late to save the lamb who hadn’t opened one eye.

Thousand: One Hundred Four

seemed impossible to the dlgs mix, yet you could not deny that all around there were trees. Packs of them. And that appealed to the social animal. A forest is the most faithful of packs. Only in death does your neighbor abandon you. The dog imagined a tree doesn’t feel the pangs of hunger the way a dog does. A dog feels the pangs of hunger pretty darn pangily, let me tell you. So it was both dogs were given opportunity to cash in their karma on a new go-round by a sheep farmer and the sheep farmer’s shotgun. The

Thousand: One Hundred Three

a deep admiration for patience, not having much himself. There were dogs with patience, he knew, dogs who could wait hours, even days, for the beloved to return, and wait without complaint, patiently, gazing off into a future so assured nothing made them nervous. The dlgs mix knew he could never be like that. A tree, however, was patience. It was essential tree nature. No matter the species, if it was a tree it was patient. A tree planned for the long term, reaching deep for the resources that stayed put, spreading wide to catch the resources more fleeting. That

Thousand: One Hundred Two

pal, a doberman-labrador-greyhound-schnauzer mix, liked the idea of tree, having peed on many a tree during his time, pee for a dog being no insult but rather a prime component of the communication repertoire. Dogs have real respect for trees. The dlgs mix was also tired of having to run around all day, sniffing, biting, scratching. It’s not that there weren’t satisfactions to a good gnaw or to the tingle in the nose brought on by a whiff of dog butt gland, indeed, it was hard to imagine a life that didn’t include such wonders, but the dlgs mix had

party?

“Thousand” has just exceeded 10,000 words. Seems like that should call for a party. Anybody want to set up a surprise party for me?

Thousand: One Hundred One

available), a gnat (brief turnaround time could be an advantage), a basilisk (tempting for the vengeful but may not actually exist), a tree (you are not allowed to specify a species), or a Catholic. The dog, upon its death, chose Catholic. The child did not know he had been a dog in a previous life, although during communion a priest did get bitten. The Catholic position rotates with Hindu, Muslim, Animist, and Zoroastrian. Many dogs go for gnat. Gnat is not as low a rung on the karma wheel as you may think. Plus, there’s little waiting. The dog’s best

Thousand: One Hundred

up the tomato beds. And biting off all the squash blossoms. This was not a good beginning to the dog’s story. However, after it was dropped off at the crossroads in the middle of the night, the dog learned the ways of the country dogs, which was to chase sheep, tear open the hutches of tame rabbits in order to eat them, and steal food from the bowls of cowering poodles, that and rack up karma points for their next lifetime when they would be (and here they were given a choice) wolves (a very limited number of wolf slots

Thousand: Ninety-Nine

drink order the bartender reaches up and plucks from the tree’s branches one of its fine fat fruits. The bartender puts the plum to her mouth and bites. Plum juice sluices down her chin and, as she chews and bites and bites and chews, working her way through the slippery, softening plum, the juice drips from her chin, and the juice runs down her bare arm to the elbow where sweet golden drops gather and fall. “I’ll have what they’re having,” says the tree. Once upon a time there was a dog. The dog had begun its story by digging

Thousand: Ninety-Eight

An elm, a citrus fir, and a summer plum walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What’ll you have?” The elm says, “Water.” “OK,” says the bartender. “Water it is.” Then, turning to the citrus fir, the bartender asks the same question, “What will you have?” The citrus fir thinks for a moment as though it hadn’t anticipated having to answer exactly that question. “Water,” after due consideration the citrus fir says. “Great!” says the bartender. “We have very fine water here.” Now it’s the turn of the summer plum. But before the plum has a chance to place its

Thousand: Ninety-Seven

that might be the better choice, really, considering the unappetizing sway of dried kidneys on a string. A dilapidated cottage in dark woods or that distant thing that might be something. The wear of the paths suggests a preference. Although it could be more travelers than not are lost and a house of that sort encourages one to keep going. Not to say the less traveled path comes to a stop at the stoop. It goes on beyond, too. Above your head evergreens drag needled crowns in a fog. Down in the bushes birds rustle and mice build toothpick houses.

Thousand: Ninety-Six

to breathe, although, frankly, not everyone would. The other road leads to the beginning of something. It will get there eventually, which is why this road is used. The way, however, is roundabout. It wanders, its destination is its determination not to get any particular where any particular soon, and it’s pretty good about making that destination in good time. There are those who like that. Maybe more than like to be healed or who think they are ailing, alone in the woods, with the option of an ugly old woman to save them, or going forward toward the place

no nod

Got the news about the second batch of haiku I sent out at the end of July. (Fast turnaround!) “Though there are some interesting observations here,” said the editor, leading with the positive, “they tend to tell all and thus leave the reader little to discover.” Then she recommends an essay on contemporary poetry, the same one linked from the haiku magazine’s website, so, yeah, I done read it, right. Whatever.

Having read & written haiku off & on over the last 25 years I’m not going to claim I have nothing to learn – there’s always something to learn, isn’t there – but my process is for my purposes. Not pleasing the editors of haiku magazines, while disappointing, is a matter of incidental importance. 20 years ago I subscribed to Modern Haiku and sent work to the editor who was friendly and tried to be helpful. It was then I learned how fussy the idea of haiku can be. Still, I’ve read a lot of haiku I’ve loved. I don’t know that the proportion of haiku loved to haiku bored by is greater than the proportion of other contemporary poetry loved/bored by, but the haiku goes by faster.

Thousand: Ninety-Five

indifferent drummer just off the altiplano. There are so many ways to go. Perhaps you should let a coin choose your path. The road less traveled, though not much less traveled, really, as neither’s been traveled much at all to judge by the grass growth, presents the attraction of being a shortcut to the ancient healer in the woods, a hag of withered countenance and prominent physiognomy, with two cats of dubious manufacture, a haint, as well as several organs and oranges drying on strings next to the gleaming ropes of peppers on her verandah. You are bleeding. You continue

Thousand: Ninety-Four

What metal could prove itself, clean as mercury, toothsome as gold? What joy has been cut to accentuate its facets? But just then, the heroic anthem strikes up and a banner unfurls over a castle just stormed. The rain is falling on a drought-stricken postage stamp. And the sinecure provided an aged actuary proves just slightly inadequate such that he must downgrade his trip to the French Rivera to a trip to the Balkan Riviera, Montenegro’s Adriatic which, he tells his youthful protégé, Elizabeth Taylor thought was worth an afternoon or two. Meanwhile, you hear a different drummer chasing an

Thousand: Ninety-Three

of fate until it hits the sun, sweeps just shy of the heel and touches venus’ mount, before turning back up the life. Oh, what a tickle! And it so knows you. This little bead has bobbed about your ankle and cycled up and down the inside of your nose. This little bead’s been squeezed through the left ventricle of your twisting heart and lingered in a lung to exchange some gases. It knows your prefrontal lobe and your middle frontal gyrus. And, yes, it’s helped warm your hairy genitals. This bead knows you. What gem could be so intimate?

Thousand: Ninety-Two

setting in the silver dust, untie from the stone the ready pink thread, and begin to add to it the beads of your inner darkness, one by one, to make a necklace? Are you a do-it-yourself type who would snag a curl of cloud and twist it between your fingers into the thread that would pass through the needle’s hungry eye? What better spine for the bead of secrets? You catch one of these ruby beads as it drops from your arm. You roll it around in your palm. It scurries over your girdle of venus then follows the line

Thousand: Ninety-One

you prick your thumb? A trail of blood leads down to your elbow from which two drops have already leapt the gap between your flesh and the earth. It was the rose you fondled. So pretty. It was as though the world, swaddled in its soft red petals, were a sleepy bee. That’s when the thorn gets you, dips its fang into your sap, and draws the poison out. The darkness is drawn to the beckoning needle of the rose. It emerges in beads. You forgot the thread. Thread? Do you lean over now and pluck the stone from its

seeking the nod

Of the two batches of haiku I sent out this past week, I got a response to the one sent Saturday. Two days ago. The response was NO. “While your work is engaging,” said the editor kindly, “it does not quite meet all of our criteria …” Ah, haiku criteria. Yes. The haiku purists have a pile of criteria that have to be met in order for a little poem to be a haiku. Some Japanese are quite contemptuous of Western versions of haiku. The editor did suggest I try again next reading period. If he’d thought me totally off track surely he would have defended himself against further time wasting by fending me off more brusquely!

So I might. If I stick to my haiku-writing regimen I’ll have scads of rejectables seeking someone to say NO to them.

Thousand: Ninety

from his foot, had offered in exchange a limp. Around your feet are the bread crumbs that lead off to the left. Tied to a stone is a pink thread that zigzags away over the rubble, circles a tree, then disappears into a hole. The stars, as usual, have been aligned into a northward pointing arrow. There is an envelope pinned to your collar. Breathe, remember? It’s not the sort of thing one remembers. Breathing. If one were to remember every breath the memory would have room for what else? The action. Breathing. That’s what you have to remember. Did

Thousand: Eighty-Nine

Sighs? “You hurt me,” said the man who traveled across stones hot as tears, who had beaten his camels with a switch cut from a tree that all the time weeps, its sobs shaking it to the hollow. They would not go faster. They would scream, raising their ululations to the camel god who seemed to be taking a mercy fast. “I didn’t hurt you,” you want to say, but where is he? He limped off into the maze, leaning on a silver crutch that had a toe of sore flesh, the hurt man’s own toe, the one that, torn

which continues

I got two batches of haiku off by email this week. Just making the reading period for one magazine, smack in the middle of the reading period for another. I said to Kent, “OK. I’ve set myself up for disappointment.”

I don’t think I’m a great haiku poet. I think I’m better with wild, twisting sentences that gulp at the world and battle with their insides. But haiku has been good for me as a practice this spring/summer. Whenever I have trouble writing one I remind myself that it’s only about the present moment, the here & now. If my brain won’t break into blossom, I just have to look out at the world’s existing blossoms, even if they happen merely to be a pile of socks or the cracks in paint. I put down a few words. A few words is all a haiku can consist of. They’re never terrible. At worst, they’re just blah. Just a note about my environs, maybe my emotion of the moment, maybe the writing.

“Thousand” is a practice. The haiku and “Thousand” help keep me steady, I think, help distract me from difficult things that are going on right now. Maybe they help me deal with them. I’m not sure. I think they do. When I consider not doing them, it makes me nervous. They’ve become a structure for me, and, of course, I end up with something, a created thing, art, which continues.

Thousand: Eighty-Eight

is nearby, after all. Should you reach out a hand? What if a monster bites it off? The Slave’s voice. Remember its landscapes? You begin to seek them. Weren’t they all face? Your feet carry you lightly, no problem. You’ve shed your last gravity. But weren’t you sitting among crazy kids and their dancing and performative nudity, a drug barging through your system, breaking things? You had a box of spectacles of the finest rose. You would offer them to whoever came to the gate. They always looked sad. Who else would wish to enter through the Gate of Heavenly

Thousand explained, 4

Damn. I was so tired last night when I wrote 87 that instead of posting it I reposted 86, which, evidently, was still on the computer clipboard. I saved 86 twice in my master document, it turns out. And I erased the 87 I wrote last night. So just now I heaved a couple sobs for my lost hundred words.

Rather than try to recreate them I incorporated the loss into the narrative, as you can quickly divine if you read 87, which is the new 87, not the repeat 86 that I posted last night.

"Thousand" is a real struggle sometimes. If I'd assigned myself more than a hundred words each day, even 200 words, I bet I'd not still be doing this. The years it will take to get to the goal -- 100,000 words -- seem daunting? Yes and no. I mean, yes, it hits me that I've been banging away at this project for about three months and I'm not even 10% of the way through it. But hard as the hundred words has been at times, it's still just one hundred words. It doesn't take long to write one hundred words. If it's painful, I push ahead, and that's about all it takes -- a push or two. Maybe I'll write a few words, then play a computer game or poke around the internet; when I get back the hundred word goal is in reach. And it's over for the day.

This little rumination, knocked out to relieve some stress, clocks in at 260 words.

Thousand: Eighty-Seven

letting go of the breath that is moving into you. There’s a long moment where what happened, you realize, has been destroyed. Something was here. You were making something or something was being made for you. It’s gone. It was something that took a lot of effort. You were tired, you didn’t really want to do it, but the effort produced something, and, you remember, it wasn’t too bad. It was worth it. You look around. But something closed. Yes, your eyes are closed. You are just noticing that your eyes are closed. Perhaps here in the dark the thing

Thousand: Eighty-Six

forget to breathe. It’s an intricate process, requiring vast attention. The sky, again, is vast, though day after day, with its coin-sized star and it’s battered button of a moon, it can seem small as a leaky boat. There are some things that take too much attention, that would best ignored. The smell from the leaf is heady. You blink and gasp. The pipe’s warm mouth touches your own and you begin to suck from it. What comes at first is harsh, even bitter, and you want to cough it out, but your lips tighten on the brass piece, not

Thousand: Eighty-Five

skin. You look back at your childhood, which you haven’t thought about lately. Where is it? No, it’s okay. It’s okay that you don’t remember where you last saw it. You were carrying something, something important?, or you had to make a call, and there was your childhood, crystallized in a pure nostalgia. You put it aside in order to take care of that thing, the call or the broken cup, whatever. You could retrace your steps. One of the art students breaks a stiff shining leaf and rubs it between his fingers, his hand curving under your nose. Don’t

Thousand: Eighty-Four

curvy as a girl, glints from the middle of a blue carpet, its pipes slinking out to soft young mouths, including yours. You feel young again, if you ever felt young. You feel young in a way you never felt young, you just know it’s new and young and fresh and innocent, naïve, immortal. There are stars in your eyes, comets even. There are bangles and coins rolling on the carpet, catching the light and letting it go, playing with it, tossing it from concave to convex to concentrate on the dimple of her cheek, his chin, the hookah’s polished

Thousand: Eighty-Three

superhighway of his gaze is empty, isn’t it? Or is there something traveling it? There’s a. There’s a. A shadow? Is it him, his caravan, the camels with tasseled blankets over their humps, bells strapped to their knees, cavorting ivy leaguers and kids charging toward their bliss? Is that what is resolving from the mystery of his distance? You blink. He is offering a muffin, a dark muffin studded with raisins and dried cranberries. Then there is the black coffee sweetened to the depths of its ground. You are sitting on a round cushion. When did that happen? A hookah,

Thousand: Eighty-Two

dust stirred by its edge, by the movement of the body hidden behind its swirl. The Slave is speaking. It’s not that his mouth moves and nothing comes out. If that were the case you’d just be amused or confused, instead of seeing things, landscapes, the transport of bodies, the tearing of the heavens, a new hurt or comfort. A Harvard grad turns a somersault. It’s cute. An art student strips off her shirt and another fills in the color of her dragon’s eye tattoo. What is he saying? You look at him again, the Salve of your pain. The

Thousand: Eighty-One

myrrh. His lips are moving and they remind you of the shapes of clouds at sunset, the way the last colors give them strange dimension. You think of light lingering on a lake, the earth gone dark, stars pricking out their patterns one by one. You think of sheep-cropped knolls, hills pocked by ancient rock recently exposed, and the dawn still cold. You might be looking down on rivers that have cut their own routes, that will cut new ones, entirely new, when they’ve tired of their beds. Or perhaps it is the hem of a dress you see, the

Thousand: Eighty

and shrubs, gnarled, with bitter black berries (from which is made a sacred tea), have twined their roots through those cracks for time out of mind. There is much here out of mind, sharp and blunt objects, sour fruits and slow syrups, the lost eye, the wandering knuckle. The Slave taps his staff and a parrot you hadn’t noticed squawks from the carved lintel above your head. The Slave speaks. “Have you have hurt me?” he says. You look down the interstate of his gaze. I would soothe you with sweet unguents. Somebody famous said that? The Salve smells of

Thousand: Seventy-Nine

with good luck, bad choices, and adobe bricks. A comet has been hanging in the midnight sky for weeks. Who will climb the Tree of Divine Convention to tickle the comet’s tail? A white plume from that tail would make a nice accoutrement to a tall helmet. The sun must be walking, too, in no hurry to cross a sky bleached sand white. Perhaps the stars have been smeared together. Night will show. Night hides so many things, until it’s ready, itself prime among them. How many years have dripped down these walls? There are cracks ancient as the bricks

Thousand: Seventy-Eight

at the Gate of Heavenly Aches. Allow to pass only those who fit. Look yonder, lo!, approaching, a caravan of Harvard graduates and art students led by a bold slave, black as Denver, his glasses smoked blue, his staff of office twined with crepe serpents and capped by fleur-de-lis. He wearies, his tread thickened by the flour of age, his wisdom clear even across mirages, his camels bound by ancient contracts to this road of ice and tubers. A divine spirit tugs him by the nose, and the educated children of privilege bounce behind him, even beneath their packs bulging

Thousand: Seventy-Seven

and heart-stopping heights. Are you roused? Is the blood within you surging? Good. Pretty good. Pretty fairly good in a nice fashion. Terrif! Splendi! Perfec! Whatever is new is new is now newer is no. The old no. Good. The old no. Good as gold gravy. Good as golly. Good as gone. Good as the way through the wild wood by the old fair path. Good as a foot. You are the measure. The two fingers of whiskey in the glass. The rain gauge making inches out of water the sky’s done with. Stand up for the rain! Stand sentry

Thousand: Seventy-Six

loose and bound for glory, glorioski, rounded with an O! Do not flinch from your duty, nor ask not, nor sasquatch that joint, my friend, nor end where end and commencement bend to mend, but sally forth, rally, excelsior! Take on the next take with the true zest of grit! Expound, propound, and make the hills resound! Draw your word from your sword as a blade from a sheaf of pleats and brandish its might with meat and main, for foe nor feckless friend may stay the frightful will from its progress, in deed, in derring-do, in delights and nights

Thousand: Seventy-Five

as a Winchester, the frantic immigration control official raves over the market rates. A night, then another night. Two abut. A third lingers somewhat near but a fragrant day intervenes, brief and bare, but not to be denied. It has denial written all over it. NO stitched among its stars. Not one of its thous shalt. All for naught, all for naught. Do not ask for room for the bell’s bowls, they nestle, one outside, one within, then within, then further in. Do not howl for the tongue, it’s wrung for free, all its speeches free, lost and fast and

Thousand: Seventy-Four

gives oneself up to the gods, who poke around the piles of human souls like heaps of fruit at the harvest fair. Another sanctuary burned to the ground and out of the ashes phoenix flowers bloomed, burned like sterno cans. What city was situated at the mouths of two rivers, at the feet of two mountains, at the elbows of two kings, and at the ass end of the universe? The rain-wet boy helps The Tomato down from the biplane while lightning sways her serpentine dance and thunder his big bronze gong bangs. Some soaked seed bursts its coat. Wild

Thousand: Seventy-Three

born of fragility and wine. A theater of excellence engages the rabble in a dialectic of forms. A house of pencils rubs wrong the testy fabulist of fate. A husky youngster lugging lug nuts to the pizza place wears on his fair face an expression usually fit to the margins of a dog. Goofy? Or melancholy? Which day will see the end of the rain? In her younger days the grandmother was known as “The Tomato.” Once upon a time there was a dog. It had to be disclosed, that secret. Her buddies still, joshingly, call her “The Tomato.” One

Thousand: Seventy-Two

about things, the things like that, the things like it, what carries and what follows through. He wants to know the ABCs of the saturated fist. He wants to know the fantastic apperture, including the welts but leaving out the field trip. A noggin of wood versus a capsule gradient. Those among the chariots versus those uglies flopping in the gullies. A lightning strike is followed in rapid succession by a lightning demonstration, a lightning sidewalk, and a lightening of the burden the thunder must labor under. The tenderizer of the heart sprinkles over the virgin liver with an insouciance

Thousand: Seventy-One

them into patterns, weave a thread to a thread, a cloud to a cloud, press them into bends, and bend them into bows. After everything the airfield, pocked with puddles, rutted with runnels, let the machines rise and caught them when they fell. A youth, naked to the waist, sploshes out to the biplane as its heavy propeller strikes a few more raindrops. Fire waits in pockets. A pot of coffee. Animals. The two transepts. Banished fangs. Absolute fortune composed of carhops. Hit the whisk. Farther in the distance a near thing throttles down. He wants to know something

Thousand: Seventy

the savage fair cost little. What shouldered in the average tin, the friendship had to bear. A vile exhaust and a pleasant ancestry had separately been compiled, posted on the ages, and returned as the years wrinkled. The wind fills the sock. It is a size twelve wind, a red-and-white striped sock. After everything, even after the stumps had been blasted from the field, and the holes filled with gravel and compacted, the landing was rough. Rain wasn’t falling but hanging around in several loose sheets, as though waiting to be creased, as though waiting for hands which could direct

Thousand: Sixty-Nine

be deciphered. Tomorrow or days from now the sign of the zebra will take on the greatest of significance. In the meantime, Eula, Emily’s sister, scoops vanilla ice cream into a cup. Over it she splashes lemonade, just enough for the yellow and the tartness. She takes it out to the porch and sits down to eat. The birdseed boy is being pecked apart by robins. Somebody lives purely because of a terrible illness. The sentient bastards, parsed by the tailor and lined up along the city limits, fade exactly. A newly built catapult shivers with presentiments. What elbowed out

Thousand: Sixty-Eight

Cats is a burning beacon, by night a tender ember. By day she is the ends to the earth’s means, by night the meaning of this end of the earth. By day she is tall as a rocket, by night squat as a candle stub. Fluffy Cats is out of the boxers. Fluffy Cats has moved the goalie. Fluffy Cats claws the bejeezus out of the social order and pees on your grandmother’s dicta. Her secret identity is classified by thirty-two governments and in each bureau a drawer is set aside for passwords to the programs that allow her messages to

Thousand: Sixty-Seven

carriage, the other to the top like an airplane sandwich. There’s even meat in the middle in the form of a pilot. He is wearing lettuce and is slathered with mayonnaise. A large slice of tomato occupies the passenger seat, which is in front of the pilot, interfering with visibility. The little girl’s tummy growls. She could bite an apple or a sandwich or swallow some of that lemonade sitting in a pool of condensation on a table in a house over which the sign of the zebra is being drawn by a clandestine operative, codename: Fluffy Cats. By day

Thousand: Sixty-Six

bit more heart-shaped than spherical, dangles from a stem. But what’s this? A door opening in its face? The door inclining like one of those castle doors that drops down to cover a moat. A line of tiny lights begins to flash in sequence along the edges of the door. Emily leans forward, adjusting the focus on the binoculars. Something is moving on the door, a spider? a gnat? No. It’s an biplane, one of those early 20th century planes with a long heavy propeller on its nose and two broad wings, one wing affixed to the underside of the

Thousand: Sixty-Five

sort of tree has decided on this sort of year. I imagine once winter has crept in, all the leaves having drifted away to their earthly reward, a burnished red bundle hanging by its long toes from a high branch would look apple-like from a distance. Emily raises the binoculars to her face again. She’s not training them on a bat. But is it an apple? It’s another of those way up in the tippy-top twigs, that, were this an apple tree, could easily have proved out of reach of the most determined and resourceful apple-picker. It is red, a

Thousand: Sixty-Four

screamed or sizzled) harmlessly past. That is my problem. Emily, however, is yawning. She lowers the binoculars and rubs her eyes. It is not an apple tree, this tree she has climbed high into the skinny branches. It is not a fruit tree at all, unless you mean the bats. Nobody knows they are there. Being green they disappear among the leaves. When autumn comes around the bats fly south for the winter, except for one freak who lingers, having the chameleon-like (or, why not, octopus-like) ability to change its colors to whatever gaudy spangle of yellows and reds this

Thousand: Sixty-Three

leave such speculations to another. For now, it is enough that Emily has her own apple. Yes, everyone has an apple all their own. No doubt the apple tastes like knowledge, provided one can ever get it to the mouth. My own apple is shriveling on a high branch beyond my reach. I have shot at it with various small weapons, graduating from an air pistol to a shoulder-launched cruise missile, but it has, as yet, had the ally of a gentle zephyr, which, each time, has nudged the apple aside as whatever projectile I’ve sent up has zinged (or

Thousand: Sixty-Two

thorns or needles, and tall. She’s way up there. She has the binoculars. That’s what you get for standing put, all stiff like a dummy. A little girl comes back and gets her binoculars. Then again maybe she always had them. This could be a version where she gathered them up quick, just as she dashed from the porch. In this version maybe she didn’t give a rat’s ass whether you followed her flouncy yellow skirt as it bobbed around her like a splendid jellyfish rising from the midnight depths, its yellow brilliance shocking the upper waters. But I will

Thousand: Sixty-One

as you remember it, at least in so far as what is there is happiness, the very happiness you expect. That may not sound like sufficient velocity to break free from the present. Walking wouldn’t get you off the earth even if a ladder stretched so high. Would it? Drink your lemonade. Ah. Isn’t that refreshing! The girl’s sister, Emily, is in a tree. It’s down the block a piece. A sycamore. Or an elk. I mean, an oak. Or elm. I don’t know. What’s the difference? Anyway, sturdy limbs, few really vertical, bark not painfully rough or sticky, no

Thousand: Sixty

you can find anything. A basic grasp of the cataloging system is, however, unattainable. A hit-and-miss blind grasping is about the best we can achieve. That’s okay. This makes it not much different than most of our strategies. The rewards can be great. Or disaster. Tonight there will be no disasters, you might intone as you unfold the transdimensional shift and take the lemonade from the hand of the very patient little girl and answer the door where a dear friend is waiting, worried, calling your name. You walk back to the place you were happiest and everything is exactly

Thousand: Fifty-Nine

meal by the ancestor of the flea, or, being less parochial, the first manifestation of the clockwise-turning gyre in a storm on a yellow-orange gas giant circling a star so many billion light years distant from the John Hancock adding his flourish at the bottom of a hemp parchment while wearing knee stockings. All of that and, as they say, more! An unwieldy book. If not written transdimensionally! The transdimensional index is, like the transdimensional map, essentially indistinguishable from the universe. The advantage the transdimensional index has over the universe is that, with a basic grasp of the cataloging system,

Thousand: Fifty-Eight

its gravitational negotiation with the galactic core, not to mention other stars should she happen upon them (not that that’s likely, apparently, considering the paucity of stars and the great number of non-places to strew them), the first drops hitting the table would have entirely different coordinates than every other point in the milk spilling process. Let’s say these coordinates were plotted. And that there was a book to look them up in. Everything from a child stamping its foot in anger to the signing of the Declaration of Independence to, let’s face it, the happy discovery of the blood

Thousand: Fifty-Seven

an event not just by date but by where in the universe it took place. The toppling of the milk bottle from which, even as we speak, milk is glunking out, that toppling took place not just seconds ago but some hundreds of miles away at least. The earth having continued to rotate, the bumping of the bottle would have taken place some fraction of a rotation away. The earth having continued to move through its orbit about the sun, the leaning of the bottle would have taken place some fraction of the solar cycle away. The sun having continued

Thousand: Fifty-Six

got to clean it. Unless you don’t. You can choose not to. It may be flouting the conventions of the time. On the other hand, there are plenty of eras (and areas) where cleanliness is next to the sort of godliness no one has any respect for. My point is: you do something and it doesn’t stay done. Except in that moment in time and space the earth in her peregrinations has spiraled away from. It may be that each thing that happens has as precise a place as a time. We could log our history by coordinates that affix

Thousand: Fifty-Five

too small to make a meal of it. Did you know the dragonfly larva, which lives several times as long as the end-stage flying version, is the real dragon, gobbling up baby koi and tadpoles, and, no doubt, little frogs, as it lords over the bottom of the pond? Perhaps one of them big koi would eat a nymph, which is what a dragonfly larva is called, but somebody gotta eat somebody, else a belly go empty. Poor belly, always wanting to be full, and always going about emptying itself. That’s how these jobs go. You dirty a dish, you

Thousand: Fifty-Four

tired hand, while savoring the starches as they break down into sugars. It is true, though, that there is the occasional grain of rice that captures the monk’s attention completely, and he gazes, transfixed, as the world’s possibilities, the intricate connections of the cosmos, unfold and refold. After eating, the monk puts the bowl aside, closes his eyes, and lays his hands loosely upon his knees. Bloop! goes a frog into the pond. It plops out immediately on a lily pad and one of the larger koi spins just beneath. A dragonfly’s thrum hangs over the frog, which is far

Thousand: Fifty-Three

the others. And it’s not like he’s a metronome, measuring each grain its own morsel of time in which to be ruminated upon. No, he may pick up only one at a time, he may give each some consideration, but that does not mean he spends an equal amount of time contemplating every grain. Most of them go in, pop pop pop, the tiny ends of the sticks nicking into the bowl, snatching up the eyed grain, and with an almost invisibly quick flip sending them to a ready tongue. The monk will save a batch there, then rest his

Thousand: Fifty-Two

round hat perched on the side of the monk’s shaved head a soothing hum emanates. The monk eats the rice grain by grain, picking out one at a time, plucking each from the mound in the bowl with red enameled chopsticks. He regards the rice with affectionate interest, reviewing the available grains for the qualities that will make it an appropriate choice for the next to raise above its fellows. The monk is not seeking perfection. He does not want to hold up one particular grain of rice as best or even to pronounce one ever so slightly preferable to

Thousand: Fifty-One

good kiss from a fat koi. Or a monk. You know, I think I’d take a kiss from a monk over a kiss from a handsome prince. Although, generalizations being what they are, I suppose one should refrain from predicting and go by the individual case. Koi are bottom feeders. They eat algae and snails and smaller fish, including baby koi. But they don’t begrudge the rice the monk offers from his bowl before he’s had a bite himself. The monk gathers his robe and sits on the boards beneath the roof overhang, sunlight striking his knees. From a small

Thousand: Fifty

kingdoms, the kiss that wakes mountains. The kiss, once planted, grows in concentric smackeroo circles, ripples widening, widening, until your life is contained, the world, too. I don’t know. Velma, what do you think? Ask the girl? I should ask the girl? The one with the lemonade? Isn’t she the evil twin? I don’t know. Personally, I think we need a change of scene. A pond. A monk is sprinkling rice among the lily pads, red and black and silver koi touch the surface with their mouths and the grains of rice disappear. It’s like magic. Maybe you need a

Thousand: Forty-Nine

briskly they shoot sparks from their silvery fur! And they have sweet human eyes in their canine faces, kind of like bears. I mean, I get that a lot of werewolves are angry, and not all of them effect the transformation from man to beast in a voluntary manner but there are medicines for that. There’s a pill for everything! I bet there’s a pill for this frozen quality you’re exhibiting. One must go on a quest for it, I suppose. Or a kiss, perhaps? The handsome prince planting a big smooch on those cold lips, the kiss that rouses

Thousand: Forty-Eight

to be a stress position, you know. You could injure yourself, edema in the legs, bloodshot eyes, tremor in the ribs, echoes, octopus hand, vagaries in the vocal chords, excess sincerity, dropsy, ague, unquenchable thirst, and perspiration. Other things even worse. Like transdimensional deshabille. I didn’t want to mention that, but you forced it out of me. You know, it’s really boring you just standing there, big black goggly telescopes jutting from your face, your lips tense in concentration. I know what would shake you from this stasis! A werewolf! Trust me, they are totally cute. If you rub them

Thousand: Forty-Seven

waggled their leaves in spring breezes and bees tumbled out of their blossoms? I bet you’d write poems about how fine the flowers are, white blushing inside, shy at being looked into, at being seen before they could apple up. You’re still not taking the lemonade. Come to think of it, you haven’t moved. The little girl nudges you with a toe. Take the glass already! The wind toys with your hair, just at the fringes. Still, nothing. You haven’t adjusted the focus on the binoculars; everybody does that. You haven’t shifted your weight even slightly. Standing like that gets

Thousand explained, 3

4.6% of the way to the goal. I've just read the thing through. The word "octopus" has appeared three times. That may or may not be a clue. Does anybody have any questions?

Thousand: Forty-Six

a god (or God) were to reach a skinny hand out of the sky and pluck that apple, haul it up to a divine tooth, chomp it down to seeds, then drop those seeds one by one into your satchel, would you come home with them, and plant each reverently in a different corner of the little back yard you get in the city, a yard no way big enough for one apple tree, let alone three. Would you water each with precious bodily fluids or water blessed by a priest? Would you lie down under their shade as they

Thousand: Forty-Five

fuss-fuss when upside down in her arms. There you are out in the yard squinting through binoculars at something high up. The girl walks the lemonade right to you. She stands there, barefoot in the drying grass, waiting for you to notice. Maybe you will at last. You are awfully focused on that apple, I guess. What’s it say? I mean, is there a message scarred into its rosy skin like I thought? Tagged by a graffiti artist bee? Scored by the tongue of a hummingbird? Or is the damn thing that pretty, that perfect a specimen of appleness! If

Thousand: Forty-Four

pauses for a breath to see if it will wander again (it doesn’t), then picks up the glass. She filled it almost to the top so she needs to carry it carefully, and soon it is uncomfortably cold, so she puts one hand under the bottom, the other gripping the rim. Slowly, even dreamily, she passes down the hall to the still open front door. One jacket sleeve from the overloaded coat tree catches on her shoulder, then, ignored, drops away. A porch board creaks under her, a tired old board, its give and protest as familiar as the cat’s

Thousand: Forty-Three

comet coming after it, eating it, eating it until it’s gone. Ouroboros sleeps, wandering in sleep. The little girl removes a tumbler from the stack, turns it over and sets it on the table next to the pitcher of lemonade. She takes a breath. It’s a heavy pitcher and she has skinny little girl arms. She wraps both hands around the handle and tips the pitcher, and the lemonade slides smoothly out, the first splash tossing up a big yellow drop which falls neatly back into the filling vessel. The little girl settles the pitcher back into the wet ring

Thousand: Forty-Two

into new positions. How much water in that comet, you think? How long will it take before it all blows away? A cold mist spraying out from the comet’s body, spreading around the shadow, whether the comet hurtles toward or away from the sun. It’s not like a peacock’s tail, always behind. When the comet’s come its closest, and all that’s left is to turn away, the sun behind it at last and dwindling, dwindling gradually until it burns only slightly warmer than stars that are so much farther away but bigger, hungrier, younger, the comet’s tail hurries ahead, the

Thousand: Forty-One

a radio. She seems to recognize one of the voices on the radio, but the sound fades quickly, its source traveling. The girl lowers her head. She pushes the lemonade pitcher back up its own trail and lets it go again. But this time it doesn’t move. When it continues to sit as a pitcher typically sits, with no sense it’s got anywhere to go, the girl jabs it with a finger. Stubborn thing. She touches it once more, this time lightly, apologizing. One of the ice cubes that had been buried beneath the others breaks free, and cubes jostle

Thousand: Forty

holds her finger up, inclines it toward the pitcher, and brings her finger right up to the pitcher’s side. But she lets it hover there, feeling the cooler air, then, just as she’s going to touch it, the pitcher moves again. Not as much this time, and it turns again, too. The girl sits up and looks over the thick wet trail the pitcher made on the table as it moved. Light gets in it and squiggles but doesn’t stay. She sighs. She is thinking about something, but whatever it is does not show on her face. Distantly, she hears

Thousand: Thirty-Nine

over to receive that cold refreshment. The girl lays her head down on her arm, her cheek resting on the thickest part above the elbow. She’s feeling sleepy, or a little cross. Her eyes close then open, close then open, a gesture as unconscious as her sister’s slow blink was deliberate. She draws swirls on the side of the pitcher and the condensation, gathered together by her finger, suddenly has the weight to rush down the glass. When the girl next touches it, ever so lightly, the pitcher turns and travels two, three inches across the table. Fascinated, the girl

Thousand: Thirty-Eight

a mission! This must be her doppelganger, her evil twin, a changeling. Her hair is nicely brushed and braided into pigtails that drop just to her shoulders, each braid bound near the end with a clean white ribbon, at the end a tuft tidy as an artist’s brush. She has on a flouncy yellow dress, the same as the other girl. Is it Sunday before church? Or is mother planning a party? There is a stuffed bear, clean but not new, propped up on one of the other chairs. None of the tumblers waiting upside down has yet been turned

Thousand: Thirty-Seven

leave to escape across the border of the boundless territory of your inherent limitations that you may submit to a greater other. A wise elder. An oracle. A wind in the pines or willows or the voice of the turtle, song of the eagle, the whisper of the siege machine. The pitcher of lemonade is sweating your decision. A little girl sitting beside it draws trails in its chill anxiety with a pink finger. She tastes the finger. This can’t be the girl who ran off across the lawn, can it? She can’t have got back so fast. She had

Thousand: Thirty-Six

your time next time. Consider the consequences of your actions, even if you have no evidence to evaluate or precedent to refer to. Even if, after racking your brains until it’s obvious no strategy is apropos, consider the apple, the consequences, I mean. If all you have to go on is your imagination and you’re likely to get the reality wrong by using it, thrust forth with it anyway, no matter how distantly it takes you, and wander in that realm awhile before doing a thing. Perhaps then you’ll clutch your pearls a little tighter ere you are given the