Channeling the Spirit of Wacky Jacky.

You and I are sitting--O how long we used to sit just being not trying to replace apathy with a sense of integrity--sitting on an old you found it on the side of the road couch that has seen both better days as well as worse. Burn marks--whether ciggys or arson--litter the surface of the so plaid you don't know what hit you. Dale was sitting. Dale the lanky sprout built like some bad Chinese scaffolding you think "How can they work with that--no ways it gonna hold up under" his legs spindly long thing bamboo shoots with half the resistance of real bamboo--taunts your imagination trying to make a moving picture of how it would go down were he to go down. We both were and he says "O so now you want a moral? Now you think it'll be worth it for me to give you a die wreck shun with which to guide your moral come passsssssss" and I can't make heads or tails cats or dogs of what he's saying but I know that if the clock that screams at me to my left earns its honest wage that means I've got an hour before it's my turn to do the same. Foremen are all the same--O they all have their unique bark and style of teeth-baring, growling through clouds of smoke mumbling some shit about "reinventing the goddamn wheel" everytime you uptake your new uptask--how come their bite is all the same? Dale didn't know a thing about it he was not unemployed but I can't remember ever seein' him work or go to work or go work or go--anywhere--always the same listless shapeshifting on that same so plaid you got to get your eyes checked afterward couch that was probably stole or inherited along with a set of baubles so gaudy and magnificent they are too rich for our blood--O Dale was on the up and up as long as the up and up included vagabonding on the west coast. I start preparing myself for the day of work--my personal coffee assistant bubbling and cranking and hissing a little in the corner of the pillbox room I'd been in for longer than I can think about--the smell reaches Dale in the other room "O so you think now to try plyin' my morals with young joseph there--might be I could work some out" and I still fall off the caboose in his thoughts taking little time in attempting to hold his feckless words in my fogged mind--my shoes those ones they are too cold for the winter at home but the west coast is mild so I save some in lieu of a purchase of winters--good thing rent's too high as it is and all for this tiny pillbox in tiny dingy whitewalled building in the flashing neon district among newspapers shopping carts tennis shoes without the aimless driftings of America's former heroes.



Or the days spent in the egg-frying K dot sun peeling the skin off my back while tring to have a few moments of introspection turning my discerning eye inwards--O its too dark in there all the same squeamish color offering no distinction between all or none--how did they do it? the Sorens and Henrys--I would wander those woods were it possible, but as we say "they were different had some backwards upbringing bringing up new abilities, abilities not present in your black and blue-collared cheese head"--if so, how do I become brought up as these? brought up in a backwood with 2 skis for maternal/paternal figures--wax them down sidewards hand deep in the wax of Toussaud's musee. The thick OK grass, as a soft steel brush, bends at the blade--why break it? it will be replaced healthier heavier greener in 7 days time and we'll be back--"hasta la vista" they used to say. The boom-rattle truck hitting that diesel bottle harder than anything on the East side, ignition blown so bad we use rusty pliers to encourage the taunting engine to roll the fuck over--roll over--fuck--roll over--further--fuck--a little more--she burps shakes growls contemplates and then we go. The dirty cab loaded with bygone blades and too many days of useless streaks of blue--it's not his fault--people are people because of other people--I am because we think--"I think we need to divest this truck of the memories of past patches of green lawn we need a fresh start--a chance to" he pauses with a wink and a glance of sly "change who we were"--the stink like warm honey in old bread calling back feelings and memories of a thousand million wasted lunches--"why didn't you eat your sammich"--the children starving "what can I do about it right now in my sitch my place on earth, I hold no sway, say no"--the bumpy jivin' dirt rock rap rock road winds twists tantalizes "just around the next"--then opens a large flat--housemates divulging themselves leaving behind piles of things no longer needed. The large flat not-so-flat with hillocks of beheaded grass wash-machine shaped mounds in section D hills resembling the vulcanized rubber wheels over in area G--"What you got today?" it's the nice one, she likes us young juvenile girl far from tied to the rigid rules and bounds and rules of this yard--no fence holds her save the gate she controls--its stripe ed arm denying/forgiving entrance "Just more of the green stuff" say he languidly out the driver side door--not window its an age ed truck we broke the window--he always captains the ship, driven by his lead right foot--I hate it, my right eye tries to close as we approach intersections or other vehicles concerned with speed--though "always is that way" put your mind in the captain's chair put yourself in control it's of no concern because you know how it feels. Me in the right hand seat determining volume levels of the songs I choose--Dostoevsky on the dash, pages yellowed dry from days and nights and days again bathing up there neighbor to the Slurpeeeeeee cup coated in a film of dry sugar crack down the left side glued there in a messy syrup ring--the loose straw that follows as our compass rather than leading, the rusty pliers alert at the ready atten-HUT for their ignition duties. "Just 5" she smiles knowing she should demand 16, but its only grass--and we look good.