No Face Pete

No-Face Pete skids off the road in a snow storm and ruins his cruiser. He doesn't consider that having his eyes in the palms of his hands had anything to do with it, though it necessitates handless driving; he steers the wheel with his forehead, hands raised as if in surrender, or a friendly wave if he is resting one eye. 

No-Face Pete arrests the offending cloud, but instead of taking it to jail, he deposits it in the bank. When the bank manager shakes Pete's hand, it makes Pete seem to wink.

In the place where a face would normally be, Pete has a Coca-Cola advertisement, eternally urging people to "stay fresh with Coke." This can be ticklish for a law officer. Pete's mouth is on his chest. He must unbutton his shirt to speak into his radio, or to smile at Hattie, the waitress he secretly adores. It gives her nightmares. This is unfortunate. 

On the Tuesday following the storm, a busboy and a nail tech rob the bank, making off with the cloud. No-Face Pete jumps into his new cruiser and follows the snow, hoping to catch them before the trail goes cold, but of course, it is cold to begin with. The cloud will later claim to have been suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, but for whatever reason and by whatever motivation, the cloud joins forces with the young bank robber lovers. Putting on gloves against the frigid weather, No-Face Pete blunders around blindly, discovering nothing. 

What can we learn from this story? Is it ever really possible to "stay fresh with Coke"? Why did Pete deposit the cloud in the bank, rather than escorting it to jail? What would you say if I told you that the nail tech is Hattie's sister? Can a cloud be held morally or criminally responsible for the weather? How does the story make you feel? How does it compare to other stories you have read? Did you care about/ identify with the characters?

Closing haiku:

car crashes in snow

but each flake is light as air

oh baby that's jazz
___________

I wanted to write something using surrealism. This is it, I guess.  

The Farm For Critics

At the farm for critics,

the soil is rich,

and the poet sleeps well.

______

for Mag 208. 

"Poet's Sleep" image by Chang Houg Ahn.

Please click on "older post" for the poem I wrote late last night. It wasn't up top for very long. Bless you.

Sunflowers

On an afternoon that chose us
like picked blooms from the roadside,
you wore jeans and a purple shirt.

You did this to make me mad as the moon to get them off you,
so that your skin could preach gospel to me
smooth as a Gypsy barker.

Afternoon light came through the sectioned windows,
as you put pasque flowers on the turntable
and I poured last year's red maple leaves from a wine bottle.

The shirt, the jeans, they fell,
swooning angels drunk on honey and sunset.
We were a bowl of sweetness gone caramel, warm as bees.

Outside under the arriving stars,
an owl stood sentinel on a cherry branch;
your laugh made her swivel her head to capture the sound.

That day, into that night,
we made love bold as summer sunflowers,
then wore each other's jewelry under the stars, near the corn rows.

You went home in the morning,
with puffy lips, hickeys and your half-lidded smile,
pungent as new earth, smug as a cat.

How was your visit with your friend? they asked you.
How nice you know a girl like that, a pal like that, they said, 
blind as bats, not even listening for the answer.
_______

the lock

There is a small lock inside me,
kept close between my ever-folded
ever-hidden
falcon wings,

and it keeps beating,
keeps keeping me here,
bless it.
Bless its tireless devotion to this life I've made

from scraps and blood, sugar and hope.
I don't think I'll see the summer again,
but I remember her as she was when I was young--
long, careless, cicada-buzzed and deep.

What have I done, with all the cloud-changed hours?
Have I loved you?
I have.
Have I told you?
Yes, constantly and every chance I got.

I want to finish this book, and then one more.
I want to enjoy a few more meals.
I want to see these mighty snows made meek and melted.
I will miss my dog, but he will rejoin me in time.

The falcon inside me is worrying the ties
that keep the lock in place.
I can feel her working, and the sky, waiting.
It will be all right.

If I am a little bit melancholy, it is because I am surprised,
astonished, really,
to feel the catch loosening
and I wonder what it will be like, when the door swings out,

and I leave this place for home.
______

 

 

Madness

Beautiful One,
committing rabid bloody murder
out on the wind-howled dust flats
of this dismal place, come back.

I have repaired the roof of the Environment,
and gotten some of the circuits to work again.
The hours here are intolerably empty without you,
like space, indifferent and suffocating.

At the Program, when we still had futures
fragile as the ecosystems on rocks that circle dying stars,
you were the only Scottish-Asian woman there,
or maybe anywhere.

I should have known then
that I had no chance of discovering anything distant,
when the only launch I cared about
was of my fingers through the black tracklessness of your hair.

Each heart is a rider contained
within a human ship of beauty and bone.
How fragile, how vulnerable we are
to a touch we have longed to know without knowing it.

How defenseless we are when the right face appears, 
making us feel everything,
or the virus which can disguise itself and enter
without being felt at all.

Doubt, fear, terror, carnage--
these are the commanders we answer to now.
Madness sprung from alien chemistry--
destroying us golden gods of science as if we were cardboard.

Cruelest of all, each infected madman here believes themselves sane;
it is the others who have clearly become maniacs.
Honey, if you have disemboweled Anderson from C Deck,
you had to do it. It was self-defense.

At the Program, our lives and our passion had possibilities,
lined up, sparkling and precious, like gem stones in a row on proud display.
My collection was always only
your warm skin, your wicked smile, and the seeking of them both, eternally.

I hate to think that we have shared our last moment
of strictly illegal carnal sweetness.
What I mean is, if I can never kiss you again,
then freezing under a too-distant sun is no different to me than living on.

Eckhart, from supply, looked so crestfallen when he saw what I had to do,
yesterday when we met in Pod B.  
I didn't know that it would be so gory, so awful,
or that he would just stand there, waiting for the blow, his mind already gone.

The rest of the crew is either dead or reduced to
quasi-human, semi-ruined caricatures, carrying flamethrowers and bibles,
ever-present and ever set on the complete destruction
of all that is still good, and gentle, and ennobling.

Listen to me ramble, I sound mad myself, don't I sweetheart?
I'm not though. We are the last two, the Anna and Eve of the end of the world,
and I cannot bear it here without you.
Come back. I'll leave the airlock unsecured,

to let you in, and on the monitor I will see your face,
like a picture of home, or of our days at the Program,
when madness was a delicious thing, the high we wanted again and again,
and if there were consequences, well My Heart, what a way to go.
______

For Get Listed with Kenia! I used the entire list, and kept the sci-fi theme of her book from which the list was taken.

Image from the movie Another Earth.

Come

Come up these stairs,
down this hall--
There's nothing to worry about--
hardly anything at all.

Remember the fire escape,
The window's too small--
and if anything should happen,
I'll try to stall.

Now, this is Bessie.
Give her your bag.
She knows what to do,
should we hit a snag.

It's all right, I'm a doctor,
and also a priest--
with city hall connections
by arrangement with police.

Do you have the money? All of it?
A tiresome detail, it's true--
Ah, that's fine, thank you my dear.
Right this way. After you.

Your dress is remarkably lovely,
and naturally must come off--
then, please, lie on this table,
and breathe deeply from this cloth.

I'm here to help. 
I'm here to fix.
It's normal if you're feeling
dizzy and a little bit sick.

Science! It's wonderful.
Medicine! The same!
I'm seeing a slight inflammation
originating in the brain,

flowing through the limbs,
and settling in the womb--
Bessie, would you kindly
set up the other room?

Can you hear me? Miss?
All right, she's out.
Let's get on with it, Bessie--
the same as the others, no doubt.

Hand me that.
Dammit, woman, the other one.
Did you hear the joke about the midget,
the rabbi and the nun?

This is getting a little dicey.
Come on, you little rat.
Hell's bells, I guess she won't be
having another brat.

All right, that's it,
can't put the bark back in the hound--
put my tools back in my bag,
then bring her back around.

Hello, how are you feeling?
We're done, you did just fine.
Others have lost far more blood.
Others have lost their mind.

With Bessie's help, do you think you can stand?
I'll help you with your coat.
Go home and rest, drink some tea--
and, perhaps, a little toast.

Tell no one of this. Forget you were here.
Forget this place, 
this room, my face...
and the shame of it, my dear.

Ah well, she's gone, that went all right.
She'll live to ninety if she lives the night.
Did you know her fiance is a financier?
Clean up, then Bessie, let's get out of here.
_______

 for Mag 207

Leap / Revival Season

LEAP

A salmon sees the bear and leaps,
whether to safety or surcease.
Please don't pretend you know its mind--
You can't know fruit from watching rind.

While fish-brained babies softly sleep,
a salmon sees the bear and leaps.
Say "baby mine and baby sweet"
and kiss its tiny foreign feet.

O world of ease and world of woe
reclining in a gob of roe;
a salmon sees the bear and leaps,
the gateman waves, the gateman greets.

Little bubble on the surface,
rise or sink and think you've cured this
fever's damaged dreamy heat--
a salmon sees the bear and leaps.
_____

REVIVAL SEASON

A singing skull knows just one song
and sings it, flays it, grinding on;
agreeable to itself it is,
screeching musical sentences.

Nerves nestle hot in fireplace tongs--
a singing skull knows just one song;
the ear can bleed a fine red rose
and trickle crimson from the nose.

Come dressed for evening, gown and hat,
and take the arm that's white and fat;
a singing skull knows just one song
and sings it, brings, it, on and on.

Pose and smile, promenade and grin,
and be damned glad you're not like him;
bat space of eyes where eyes are gone--
a singing skull knows just one song.
_____

2 quaterns for the Real Toads Sunday form challenge. I'm really pleased with the first one, and I include the second one because, hey, today is BOGO day at Shay's.