and you were and you were there

and you were there and you were there and you were there and you were there and he was there and I was there and I was holding his clothes in my hands and you said to drop them and I did but it would have been easier with a cigarette. I never get to smoke a cigarette in my dreams. I dropped his clothes as you said but I picked them right back again. 

Super Bowl 2013

I cannot believe
how, wow, twelve billion dollars(?)
was spent on this shit.

Uproarious Green

Uproarious green spreading over stones; the Landowner's wife demands his attention. He mutters back dry pork chops and returns to his work, eating back at the fields, she, crumbling another sunflower in her hands.

Icons, Part Two.

Evenly spaced out on top of a ceramic tiled-window sill in my bathroom, four candles, scentless, but brightly colored, are encased in tall glass containers with various patron saints printed onto their paper wrappers. There is Mary, well, one of the Marys, and also a Peter. One of the icons actually resembles an angel, but I do not read the description of the artfully depicted, so I am not too sure whether or not the entity is what it appears to be. I do know that a large number of people recognize these magisterial symbols as illustrating a big meaning of some sort.

They are there, perhaps even for me, as I use the toilet, shower, and shave. Sometimes, I even light them, although I am not sure for what reason, as they do not effuse the smells of warm sugar, Bergamot orange, and blackberry, like the other candles in my living room, unsaintly, or at least lacking in magisterial presentation, do when I light their wicks. I suppose I might light the heads of these solemn faces as I necessitate a particular ambiance. At night when I have friends over to unwind and drink, I certainly have the saints brightly keeping vigil over my bathroom. I hope, like my friends and I, that these saints are able to revel when I am away.

At night I sleep on my twin bed, pushed up against the wall that my bedroom shares with my bathroom. While I sleep, I lay with my head just a wall away from my bathtub. For the first hour of my sleep, I am more just trying to ignore the erratic thumping and scurrying away of my two cats. Whenever I have managed to fall asleep, my cats will notice they are no longer being paid any attention and will jump onto my body. Claire will bury her face into mine until I open my eyes. Then, she just keeps staring, or, she will inch back up to my face and lick my nostrils. Justine wills start his therapy session of stretching out his paws and clawing them into my blanket (and my legs), as he sucks at the fabric, missing a nipple from which he was weaned too early in his life. Momentarily, they manage to rest and cause minimal noise on my bed. Some nights they might even fall asleep for a couple of hours before jumping back into their nightly groove, their paws resounding off the hardwood floors. We all love each other, I am sure--they are given food and warmth and I am given the pleasure of their company and observing the lively way in which they interact with each other, but there is also resent in the chords. Resent in the cats for the eternal imprisonment and in me for their stench and noise.

I hear a shattering noise from the bathroom, but I keep my eyes closed. I hate knowing what time I am waking up, disturbed in the middle of the night. Minutes later, another crashing sound. For whatever the ruckus, I am determined not to let my sleep suffer.

The next morning, glass. Bits of glass on the tile floor and large cuts of glass in my bathtub. All but one of the patron saint candles have been knocked down to the floor. Mary, one of the Marys is still on the window sill. Torn shreds of paper are hanging by their glue from the larger, more intact clumps of glass. Jesus Christ, I liked those candles! There are dirty paw prints on the brim of the tub and along the tile floor. In an ocean I cannot collect and certainly will not swallow, I leave the mess for another day.

Of course, I know I have to shower, sooner rather than later. I thank Mary and Jesus both that I am not a Catholic who might read too much into this iconic desecration. In preparation for my shower, I pick up the bigger pieces of glass with my hands and drop them in a four plastic grocery bag-layered sack. One of the candles has been cracked in two. I hold the wax up to my nose and then remember that the wax is scentless, so it is quickly discarded and not considered again. I wet several napkins under the bathroom faucet and sweep them all over the ceramic tub, picking up the smaller cuts of glass. At least the saintly candles are not too expensive. If I care enough, I can always drive back to Walmart and just buy three more. Hell, why not ten more? It is impossible to get all the glass out of the tub. I turn on the bathtub faucet to wash the rest of the glass down the drain, off to be dealt with elsewhere and then take off my clothes. My cats paw at the bathroom door, because they find all separation from me unbearable whenever I am home. I can take my shower now, but I will have to keep in mind that my feet enter the water now slightly imperiled.



"Hail Mary, full of grace, get down on your knees and pray. Jesus Christ, hanging on the cross, died for our sins, it's such a loss. Saint Christopher, find my way, I'll be coming home one day. Saint Sebastian, don't you cry, let those poison arrows fly. Saint Anthony, lost and found, Thomas Aquinas, stand your ground. All those saints and holy men, catch me before I sin again." --Madonna, 2012.

Untitled Project on Sibling Actors, Part 4: Marriage and Fabric Shears

Mr. Charles Yardley married Mrs. Yardley, previously Mlle Melanie Clement, on one of his business trips to France twenty-five years ago. She had been modeling for Lanvin's first haute couture collection in 1985 and Charles had a 1985 Porsche 911 Carrera convertible parked outside of the event. Both were bewitched by the other's presentation. Charles Yardley, ten years her senior, made the right choices in life and cultivated quite an astounding wealth. The soon-to-be Mrs. Yardley recognized a tremendous opportunity for financial security. She made the right choice and married Charles and, from that point on, never again had to worry about how she would come to take care of her parents, who, up until then, had been shoved away into a home, stinking and clinging, but more importantly, she would never again have to beat herself over the head on how she would manage to support herself. She got the whole Yardley package. Charles and Melanie purchased a mansion together in the Riviera and in came both Mr. and Mrs. Clement. Charles did not have to worry very long about the complimentary, weighty, and intrusive spin on his new and fragile marriage to Melanie, because Mr. Clement died of a heart attack two years later, right before the birth of Sister, and Mrs. Clement's departure from the mansion followed shortly after due to the stubbornness of her colon cancer. Her body began rapidly deteriorating, her organs, already discombobulated under the stress of Mr. Clement's death, were not for or against her, but they were dying. One day a rigid, iron grip that had mercilessly held Mr. Yardley pinned down to the floor, an inane nagging from the old who can smell their own death approaching, disdainful and made bitter towards all youth and beauty, was lifted; Mr. Yardley's estate--his accumulated millions in capitol--was no longer stretched to cushion what was soon to be a pair of old, pale French vegetables. Mrs. Clement had died. Mrs. Yardley mourned appropriately, but not for any longer than absolutely necessary, because she had her own life. The Yardley's could eat their duck consommé and live.

The Yardley family moved back to America, keeping their French villa staffed abroad in preparations for future trips of business and for other, more frivolous excursions. Then Laurent was born, crowned by his parents as the future continuation of themselves. A boy to grow up and become a man. Perhaps, even to continue in his father's footsteps and build temples with the Yardley name etched into their facades. He would grow up and become the shining cliff of life that Mr. and Mrs. Yardley will attempt to grab at when they, too, begin to shrivel down to their arid roots, their brains collapsing into an acidic mush. Mr. and Mrs. Yardley are not mush yet, though, so Brother and Sister must at least appear to abide by familial code and lend strong, promising hands when called for by Mr. and Mrs. Yardley. Brother and Sister must look as if they have ambitions, so that Mr. and Mrs. Yardley themselves may shine for some years to come....

The next morning the Cornishes take a taxi back to the airport to continue on their return to London. The siblings stand outside the front door, waving as the taxi drives away to the front gate, sister smiling and brother quickly relapsing into a dead pose of boredom. Martha, kind enough to bring the Cornishes' bags down to the foyer, announces to the Yardley siblings that brunch will be served in an hour and then opens the door for the siblings. Sister walks inside and Brother follows. 

Sister walks to her playroom as Brother diverges away to the back patio. Martha heads to the kitchen to assist the cook in the preparation of the Yardley's first meal. Usually, Sister and Brother do not wake up early enough to have breakfast. In fact, Martha might be able to count the times the siblings have woken and had an early breakfast together throughout the past two years on two hands, her two spatulate, white hands. While the lobster hollandaise sauce is being whisked and eggs cracked, Sister will be wanting her coffee with milk and Brother, his coffee with whiskey. 

Now we go into Sister's playroom. Photographs are scattered across the desks against the walls. On one desk, a pair of sharp, fabric cutting shears rests next to a green Tiffany table lamp. Pendant emerald dragonflies with bright orange eyes are spliced with black, smoldered copper that bolsters the glass pieces of the lamp's cone. The cutting shears blush green, glistening at the inner edges. There is a brown paper binder on the floor next to the desk. Sister grabs a couple tasseled throw pillows from the couch and tosses them onto the floor near the binder and then sits down on the floor. She opens the binder and reviews pictures she has collected over the past few months that have been cut out of magazines, art books, and illustrated biographies on actors and artists that are dear to her. She takes a few seconds with each picture. Marlene Dietrich in a white, two-pieced suit, leaning backwards against a stair railing in the street. Catherine Deneuve in a golden seventies' spread for Chanel No. 5. Tilda Swinton, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis... 

Sister holds the the last two photographs in her hands. My Mother told me never to speak badly of the dead. She's dead…Good! Her toes wriggle in her loafers. Davis' alleged icy epitaph, which she so graciously uttered for the late Crawford, sealed the famous actress rivalry in a state of titanic mythology. Two goddesses, one with melodramatically-thick eyebrows and eyes wide on the offense, the other with drunken cheeks, sagging and disdainful of other studio owned actresses. Their lips! Crawford was said to have had a nervous breakdown from the pressure her costar, Davis, hammered down on her head off-set. Finally, Davis sent Crawford off the stage, her insides writhing while her face worked as hard as it could to conceal the stench of artistic jealousy. No one could ever accuse the stars of being undedicated. 

Untitled Project on Sibling Actors, Part 3: Champagne and a Knife

Brother and Sister smile and stroke the rims of their champagne glasses. This is supposed to be a little party. Both siblings deeply inhale the aroma of the pistachio-crusted cannoli on their plates, the fruits of someone else's hard labor. Laurent is wearing a maroon cashmere sweater and gray wool trousers. His sister has a loosely fitted rose-gold dress on with a black dinner jacket she borrowed, without asking, from Laurent's closet that now hangs on her chair. Mr. and Mrs. Cornish find the siblings delightful and entertaining, as if through playing bystander of Laurent and Sister (There are others of a similarly vigorous grain, but these siblings grow out of a most particular earth that can be thoroughly tilled in preparation for a new crop, but will sprout and wither from its own unearthly direction, at its own leisure), they are able to preserve their own lives, much duller and halfheartedly sealed with tarnished silver lids. They are avid fans, albeit generally mettlesome company for the siblings, who have adored the Yardley family for years. 

Whenever Mr. Cornish talks about commerce to Brother, poor twisted and forlorn Brother, Brother, with his head bent towards his drink, fingers his glass to delve into the divine. He hears a choir sing the adventures and moods of Gyrogy Ligeti. The sound is clear, yet there is no clear chord or note. Whenever Mrs. Cornish speaks to Sister about the new street fashions of London that she finds appalling, Sister dips her finger into the bubbly Brut Réserve, looking around the dining room. Ten feet in front of where she sits, behind the chair in which brother sits, there is a stack of magazines strategically laid out, but in some array of incomprehensible order on a glass table against the wall. In front of the magazines, there is an olive-green china ashtray without ash, cleaned by Martha earlier in the day. There is a new Persian blue vase, detailed with tiny painted elephants in a tight, trunk to rear-end line, circling around the vase's pink peonies.  Sister's nose, her mouth--everything becomes an arrow pointing in one direction out of this dinner scene; her thoughts plow through the area, bounce off of Laurent as if to say to him (and herself), "keep moving." Sister longs, as does Brother, to break into the poison cabinet and really smooth things out. The Cornishes, the darlings (friends the siblings have incidentally inherited from their parents), cannot stomach much more than a few glasses of champagne, five tops. Forget spirits. They would not be able to keep up with the siblings. So the cabinet protecting the siblings's absinthe and marijuana remains closed for now. 

Mrs. Cornish:

--This new part you have--such ravishing news. Tell me all about it! 

Sister glows:

--It's a challenge. I'm to work on a Greek accent. My role is that of the friend to a Greek immigrant in France. Yes, France. We're both Greek. It's quite a demanding part to play. The director, as you know, has a way of breaking the actors down to get the most raw and visceral performances--

Mrs. Cornish interrupts:

--No! I do not know any names attached to the film, of course, who is directing it?

--(Mr. Cornish, aside to Laurent) Not that Michael Flasch-Fliescher?

Laurent:

--Fleischer and he is a god.

Sister:

--Yes, very "Cannes," very challenging. Anyway, she's a woman. Catherine Broussard.

--(Laurent, chesty and mockingly, with a critical finger directed at Mr. Cornish who scoffs in response) Catherine Brutal. 

Sister knows that, in reality, out from under Brother's stage pretense, he points at her to undermine her successes. This little display gives her also a generous window into the leaning stack of Brother's jealousy. Underneath the table, Mrs. Cornish rubs her left hand with the palm of her right in her lap. Sister feels this energy rolling over without direction and motions across to Laurent to grab the ash tray behind him on the glass table. 

Sister takes a silver rectangular case out of a front pocket from her dinner jacket:

--Cigarette, anyone? 

The guests thank her and take one from her case. Sister then slides the case across the table to Laurent:

--L?

Laurent shakes his head without word and Sister lights her cigarette, knowing that he would also love to have a smoke right about now. Cigarettes can compliment or change an atmosphere and, because this conversation excludes Laurent to some extent, he needs something to cover himself in to occupy his thoughts and hands.

--(Mrs. Cornish to Mr. Cornish) "Elle?" Is this a new nick name? Oh, you are both so "hip."

The word that comes out of her mouth is a contrivance.

Sister, while keeping her eyes on Brother, expounds on the name:

--I've been calling Laurent "L" for months now. As long as we are here at the house, he likes to go by "L." It's much shorter and doesn't call attention to itself. His full name comes off the tongue so languidly. 

Brother, nonplussed:

--Does not call attention to itself?

Ever since they had moved into the house two years ago, Sister had never once called Laurent by this double entendre. Sister has now played Laurent, but brother will claim this name as his own and attempt, in his best effort, to let Sister know that this condescension has now fallen beneath him and will not be able to move him again. 

Mr. Cornish, with an inelegant laugh:

--You two are so charming that it disgusts me. 

--(Mrs. Cornish, practically nudging Sister) Go on.

Sister:

--Catherine Broussard is a painter of nightmarishly real paintings composed from delicate strokes.

--(Brother to Mr. Cornish) Delicate as any strokes could be made by a knife, or so she would like to pretend she's wielding. (To Sister) Do you even like any of her movies? (After a halfhearted shrug) No, but it's a role that'll put her in a controversial spot light. 

Sister, as she flicks her cigarette ash into the tray:

--A knife, L?

trash, part one

A man in a slim black suit trailed the prison ward by fifty feet or so next to the highway. He observed thirty men poking at the ground with long metal rods, trash collecting at the base of their instruments, plastic, coke and beer cans, cardboard. Underneath the sun the men operated like drunken, aberrant ants, off the trail, poking here or there, seeking sugar. Every now and then one would pick up a cigarette that had been discarded prematurely from another capricious driver. The man in the slim black suit saw one inmate, large and overweight with maroon skin lesions covering his face, ponder whether or not he should tuck the remaining stem of a cigarette into his palm for later usage, but, the prison warden, disgusted and belligerent, shouted at the prisoner to put all of the litter into their plastic trash bags.

The man in the slim black suit was drunk himself, not deliriously, as these prisoners walking along the side of the highway were in their movement, but drunk off of creativity, off of his craft. He was an artist and he had found his landscape. The early afternoon sky, sparkling. Now, a sudden ubiquitous dimming of the light, the artist had crafted a cloak for the sun.

(The warden to himself) Must be a cold front coming in. Next to his foot there was a cigarette butt. The filter yellow and burned. The edges of the highway covered in trash. Bad enough that there are already animal carcasses to be removed. No caring community had adopted this section of the road, so here he is with his ward. It is good for them to be out and see the bright atmosphere of the world, but now, this sky, an errant observer of the scene, seemed restless. Soon enough the warden was influenced by the sudden purple of the evening (except it was two o'clock just minutes ago?) and he was disturbed enough in the transformation to take his eyes off of his ward. The trash once stuck out incandescently, but was now swallowed by the long emerald grass.

....