Ginger engine angina-vagina-genesis-jane
Fortune #430.)
Each wave traces a long smile in the sand. I can feel my body in this rough cotton chair. A fat sheaf of paper,
a big ear of corn settling into the sun’s path: that’s what I am.
Cee: “I can’t believe I’m doing this -”
Sherm: “We should stay here a bit longer …”
Buckley: “The beach closes at … five, I think … we can take a nap …”
I didn’t expect everything to be so bright! All you can do is shut your eyes & feel the sun breathing gently against
you … Put silver on your face; give your shoulders to the sun … freedom in plastic thick skin. … Eyelids scarfed in
fire … I imagine China seething and numerous, past the waters’ far edge … the icy foot of Russia …
(A heavy white dream: a ponderous succession of pale spheres)
Back to that red warm sensation of waking up. It’s a shadier sky than my last hour in the universe. Exhilaration
of the falling hammer; I’m an anvil at work. “The beach closes in ten minutes. Let’s go up to the walk.” Cee looks
dizzy. There are infants running for land or for mother, there are the wide features of beach-houses, white & bearded,
staring with tall glass eye at “- us … we’d better get going.”
& there we were in the road cluttering its blue grey crinkle
Three of us wandering in the dim palm of afternoon: Sherm, Buckley, & Cee … I think Davy went home. “We told him we
were fine.”
In our day you could get hammers in small white bottles. In our day we were prescribed little pills of cement
but we opted later - probably today - for the hammers -
It’s slow going.
Cee: “Where is the next liberty”
Sherm: “I’m not at liberty to say - ha ha -”
Buckley: “Ha ha - give I liberty or give me bread -”
Some worn memory whispers promises of food … here. Three more continent steps & the door opens. Warmth. Thick
heat bread breath. Crackling grayish light. A broad garden of faces like - uh - they’re strung to me with invisible
twine - we must be - odd. Sherm orders. Thumbs are twiddled & spin little mean whirlpools in the greasy air.
Three long napkins later & Buckley makes burbling geysers in his coke. “We should go back to the beach.” “Isn’t
it closed?” The heaviest hamburger ever. “The longest fry.” “Small potatoes - I’ve got chicken in my fingers -”
Cee: “It’s been a - uh - long time since I’ve been here …”
Sherm: “Their america is eating itself. Their america is an embarrassed laugh.”
Buckley: “Borrowed time! Borrowed burger! I wonder if they’ll take it back.”
Somebody calls god a stupid crow for stupid pigeons.
Cee: “Don’t say that.”
Sherm: “The problem is I’m not ready to do anything yet. School …”
Buckley: “School for fools! School for stool pigeons. Stupid … birds …”
Standing up is no easy task. Haven’t walked in five hundred years and it shows. This is the slowest body ever,
these’re the slowest le-e-e-egs - “You look like a robot.” Buckley intones - “Thank you pls. come again” - eyes roll
about like marbles but Buckley is out the door. Cee giggles. Flight. Door. Shattered. Out
I don’t remember it being this cold. I can’t even see the wind but it shir as hell sees us. Sherm does a dog
shiver. Cee points down the road. “Let’s go there -” but I only see an array of fluorescent … piglet lamps. Fluorescent
flower-stalks. Flower-scent rising from the mottled sidewalk. A long floor set with ant memories. Every square has a
swollen queen somewhere below.
Rat faces on dogs. Priests uncollared, bag mothers. A kingdom of crickets. Trees laced with a last taste of sun.
Cee halts. We’ve been here before but I can’t remember when. “Don’t go in.” You could put a scarecrow up top, thumb-tack
him right to that grand old steeple.
Cee: “Don’t say that -”
Sherm: “Have at thee sir crow -”
Buckley: “Ha ha! good throw - Good throw.”
The throw is short. Sherm’s flying grain of fate clatters somewhere unfortunate, unwanted. A thin cape of sunset:
no help vs. a draft from the east. Cee begins to cry. I can't tell if it's singing or laughing.
"Help me jesus I'm starting to lose my sight
Help me jesúúús you're no longer in my sight
I'm wondering where I've been
& where I'll be tonight"
I'm the jack in the box. I have a crucifix on my hand that's almost not there. The sand is like stepping on the
plush bears of - when was it - yesterday or - … this damn-ed breeze pushes us along but my thoughts are back there …
A fence sharp in the evening. ‘West Beach’. I can see our boiling star throbbing red across the ocean. Shh … we’ll
slip down through the … bushes … I think Cee is stuck on the fence … Buckley offers a hand.
How weird to be fumbling, tumbling among a jumble of rough shrubbery … the best I can do is fall quickly
Someone is sculpting little lizards from the sand. The wind is shaping pale girls from the small dark sun w/ gentle
turn of hand, dim light culled from the waves. Pyramids are giving themselves up from the beach, pulled out & uprooted.
Someone is building babel w/ ocean foam clay. Someone left their hand in the sea. "I'm glad we got out of the womb." "Womb
bomb." They don't rhyme or jibe, slick english grains of confusion
When I speak
dunes form. When you
breathe the sky burns
A man in a blue suit v. far up away, up on the walk, past that mean fence. We can see his skin is gray; he's got a
sharp star crumb of lies blinking on his chest. His eyes reach us before his hand but his voice gropes first: “The beach
is closed.” Did you understand that - ? Sullen lung laughter. Cee drips out sad words: “I can never go home again. Ne-ver,
not ever ah -” Sherm has a plan & suddenly we’re walking - west - down - west - west - “Oh god! Wet!”
I know where planets are real. Take my hand & we can feel the good blue blood swarming, muttering, fluttering,
applauding. If a ship comes will you return to us? If the sun sinks w/ shuddering sigh into the ocean will you swim w/ us
Put your feet in the water - haha - my balls are we-at - Buckley begins to leap - “Think of it this way: no more
TV” - although “if someone throws one in we’d get quite a - shock.” Laughter muffled by the sudden rising sea. I knew
this day would come, I knew this day would come - remember one last backyard game, a red dog -
One last thought: One last flapping fish thought: if snakes are so real then why do they sell hammers in little
wet pills - my mother never baked bread every friday -
Do you feel sad? No, more, uh … confused … when the sun sets we’ll be boiled alive - I don’t understand - we’ll
be boiled - I don’t - when the sun sets - alive - alive - I don’t understand! I don’t understand! I don’t understand!
I don’t understand!
Each wave traces a long smile in the sand. I can feel my body in this rough cotton chair. A fat sheaf of paper,
a big ear of corn settling into the sun’s path: that’s what I am.
Cee: “I can’t believe I’m doing this -”
Sherm: “We should stay here a bit longer …”
Buckley: “The beach closes at … five, I think … we can take a nap …”
I didn’t expect everything to be so bright! All you can do is shut your eyes & feel the sun breathing gently against
you … Put silver on your face; give your shoulders to the sun … freedom in plastic thick skin. … Eyelids scarfed in
fire … I imagine China seething and numerous, past the waters’ far edge … the icy foot of Russia …
(A heavy white dream: a ponderous succession of pale spheres)
Back to that red warm sensation of waking up. It’s a shadier sky than my last hour in the universe. Exhilaration
of the falling hammer; I’m an anvil at work. “The beach closes in ten minutes. Let’s go up to the walk.” Cee looks
dizzy. There are infants running for land or for mother, there are the wide features of beach-houses, white & bearded,
staring with tall glass eye at “- us … we’d better get going.”
& there we were in the road cluttering its blue grey crinkle
Three of us wandering in the dim palm of afternoon: Sherm, Buckley, & Cee … I think Davy went home. “We told him we
were fine.”
In our day you could get hammers in small white bottles. In our day we were prescribed little pills of cement
but we opted later - probably today - for the hammers -
It’s slow going.
Cee: “Where is the next liberty”
Sherm: “I’m not at liberty to say - ha ha -”
Buckley: “Ha ha - give I liberty or give me bread -”
Some worn memory whispers promises of food … here. Three more continent steps & the door opens. Warmth. Thick
heat bread breath. Crackling grayish light. A broad garden of faces like - uh - they’re strung to me with invisible
twine - we must be - odd. Sherm orders. Thumbs are twiddled & spin little mean whirlpools in the greasy air.
Three long napkins later & Buckley makes burbling geysers in his coke. “We should go back to the beach.” “Isn’t
it closed?” The heaviest hamburger ever. “The longest fry.” “Small potatoes - I’ve got chicken in my fingers -”
Cee: “It’s been a - uh - long time since I’ve been here …”
Sherm: “Their america is eating itself. Their america is an embarrassed laugh.”
Buckley: “Borrowed time! Borrowed burger! I wonder if they’ll take it back.”
Somebody calls god a stupid crow for stupid pigeons.
Cee: “Don’t say that.”
Sherm: “The problem is I’m not ready to do anything yet. School …”
Buckley: “School for fools! School for stool pigeons. Stupid … birds …”
Standing up is no easy task. Haven’t walked in five hundred years and it shows. This is the slowest body ever,
these’re the slowest le-e-e-egs - “You look like a robot.” Buckley intones - “Thank you pls. come again” - eyes roll
about like marbles but Buckley is out the door. Cee giggles. Flight. Door. Shattered. Out
I don’t remember it being this cold. I can’t even see the wind but it shir as hell sees us. Sherm does a dog
shiver. Cee points down the road. “Let’s go there -” but I only see an array of fluorescent … piglet lamps. Fluorescent
flower-stalks. Flower-scent rising from the mottled sidewalk. A long floor set with ant memories. Every square has a
swollen queen somewhere below.
Rat faces on dogs. Priests uncollared, bag mothers. A kingdom of crickets. Trees laced with a last taste of sun.
Cee halts. We’ve been here before but I can’t remember when. “Don’t go in.” You could put a scarecrow up top, thumb-tack
him right to that grand old steeple.
Cee: “Don’t say that -”
Sherm: “Have at thee sir crow -”
Buckley: “Ha ha! good throw - Good throw.”
The throw is short. Sherm’s flying grain of fate clatters somewhere unfortunate, unwanted. A thin cape of sunset:
no help vs. a draft from the east. Cee begins to cry. I can't tell if it's singing or laughing.
"Help me jesus I'm starting to lose my sight
Help me jesúúús you're no longer in my sight
I'm wondering where I've been
& where I'll be tonight"
I'm the jack in the box. I have a crucifix on my hand that's almost not there. The sand is like stepping on the
plush bears of - when was it - yesterday or - … this damn-ed breeze pushes us along but my thoughts are back there …
A fence sharp in the evening. ‘West Beach’. I can see our boiling star throbbing red across the ocean. Shh … we’ll
slip down through the … bushes … I think Cee is stuck on the fence … Buckley offers a hand.
How weird to be fumbling, tumbling among a jumble of rough shrubbery … the best I can do is fall quickly
Someone is sculpting little lizards from the sand. The wind is shaping pale girls from the small dark sun w/ gentle
turn of hand, dim light culled from the waves. Pyramids are giving themselves up from the beach, pulled out & uprooted.
Someone is building babel w/ ocean foam clay. Someone left their hand in the sea. "I'm glad we got out of the womb." "Womb
bomb." They don't rhyme or jibe, slick english grains of confusion
When I speak
dunes form. When you
breathe the sky burns
A man in a blue suit v. far up away, up on the walk, past that mean fence. We can see his skin is gray; he's got a
sharp star crumb of lies blinking on his chest. His eyes reach us before his hand but his voice gropes first: “The beach
is closed.” Did you understand that - ? Sullen lung laughter. Cee drips out sad words: “I can never go home again. Ne-ver,
not ever ah -” Sherm has a plan & suddenly we’re walking - west - down - west - west - “Oh god! Wet!”
I know where planets are real. Take my hand & we can feel the good blue blood swarming, muttering, fluttering,
applauding. If a ship comes will you return to us? If the sun sinks w/ shuddering sigh into the ocean will you swim w/ us
Put your feet in the water - haha - my balls are we-at - Buckley begins to leap - “Think of it this way: no more
TV” - although “if someone throws one in we’d get quite a - shock.” Laughter muffled by the sudden rising sea. I knew
this day would come, I knew this day would come - remember one last backyard game, a red dog -
One last thought: One last flapping fish thought: if snakes are so real then why do they sell hammers in little
wet pills - my mother never baked bread every friday -
Do you feel sad? No, more, uh … confused … when the sun sets we’ll be boiled alive - I don’t understand - we’ll
be boiled - I don’t - when the sun sets - alive - alive - I don’t understand! I don’t understand! I don’t understand!
I don’t understand!