I pulled out a quill from the screeching bird and began scratching out the first story on a black rock about the size of my hand. It was the usual story of woe and I was confident that if I didn’t write it that it would be written by someone else in the next thousand years or so. And then it would be written again and again, with various permutations until it was the story of the land and people would begin to wonder who the original author was and why on earth he or she ever brought it up. But there was no doubt about it… it had to be brought up and spit out so that everyone knew about it and like little suckling animals feeding blindly, they would absorb some idea that they could then keep as a vague notion and then pull up for reflection when things got confusing. And this rock would be read over and over again until the words wore away and it became like any other rock wearing away over the eons down to a pebble and then eventually a fleck of dust. And the moral of the story would be so obvious that you’d wonder why oh why you’d rather go bonkers and throw everything into the air and cause a giant mess, why you’d rather do that than take heed. Well, the answer to that is the same every time. When I finished the story I took the rock and threw it into the borthlake which boiled and rumbled. I pondered the thing I had made, cooked the screeching bird, and began looking for another story while unaware of what it could be, the first smile creased my jaw and I rubbed it happily.

So, as the song goes, we met upon a hill. She got into my car and we headed down to the valley. She told me, once again, about her marriage which began waning the day it was performed. Every once in a while I would look over and see her eyes glistening slightly and the whole scenario of her despair played before me in a few simple unutterable sentences. “How does it happen?” I wondered to myself. She’s a very fetching woman and on the few occasions I’ve been walking down a street with her in the daylight I would inevitably notice the men’s heads turn like toy machines to follow her path. Her husband, whom I’ve only seen a photograph of, also appears to be unusually handsome. They look right suitable for one another and I don’t know about his problems but her problem is that she is person with not a flicker of sensuality to her. So as I listen to the litany of heart wrenching omissions and submissions I try to focus on the horizon which is glowing ever so slightly with an illusion of a distant setting sun. We drive through Raphine, Wade’s Mill, Arborhill, and I listen and look. It’s incredibly dark and the road weaves around sleepy farms, large haunted looking trees, and specks of who knows what dotting the range. I wonder about the people in the houses. Are they lying by their sweet hearts, talking and breaking each other with myths and the corporal punishment of time and time again being unable to understand what is deep inside the other? The more I listen to her the more I want to tell her the truth as I see it. But I find things hard to believe myself. They’re so hard to believe that it makes me want to keep driving just east of the sun until I can escape the fear of these sleepwalking lives. Over and over again I have the feeling that people want me to lie to them and make up a story that will offer some relief. I don’t really have those stories. I try to appreciate that someone sees me as one who might help. I would be thrilled if I could help. But the truth is I am bound to the same troubles and I can’t really imagine to whom I would tell them because I can’t imagine who could help. So as we pull into the subdued town of Staunton I tell this woman that she’ll be fine and it just kills me to know that I know just enough to believe she’s doomed. I drop her off in a parking lot where she will meet her friend and go back up the mountain. I decide to have a drink somewhere and find a lounge the size of a bathtub on the third floor of a restaurant. I learned about electric cigarettes and about how dreadful a certain whiskey is. I made friends with the bartender, the manager, and some punk from Liverpool who were the only people there. I listened to their stories and watched the girl with the electric cigarette puff out long vapors of flavored water. I felt pretty good by the time I left. The whole way home I kept telling myself that I don’t know anything. I’m pretty sure I’m right.

I began with linear A and moved to linear B for no reason. With dreadful predictability the entire system began with accounting and that is why, more often than not, a lovely ancient find will simply be a list of grain weights or what king Magg has in his coffers. My first poems were lacking in not only poetry but prose and often went thusly: You– five hundred cubits of twine, you– three hundred bags of white chicken feathers and a spool of cord and, you–three vats of wine. They got me no where and poetry began as it ended with thorough confusion and much eye rolling as well as an occasional punch on the snout. But then someone did come up with more and more words and symbols that spread myth and propaganda. Soon there were so many words that you could describe the love life of a twig with a depth and precision heretofore unimaginable. And we DID describe those things thereby plucking them from their natural habitat and throwing them into the uninhabitable realm of incessant parsing and tearing at the seams. I believe I have an uncomfortable relationship with my thoughts. I have an uncomfortable relationship with words. I have an uncomfortable relationship with everything and everyone who can speak or write. Ultimately, I know I have nothing to say but unfortunately… I say it anyway.

I would say I’m hung over, starved, exhausted, scatterbrained and a tad speechless. I’ve become the supercargo for what portends to be a considerable journey over seas that, though charted, are constantly shifting and roiling with confusing currents. I put myself where I am very deliberately. But that’s all I can do… put myself there. What comes about is out of my hands. All in all I would have to say I’m happy despite my body’s rebellion towards last night’s festivities. So be it. Tonight… total health!

Last night I was walking through a restaurant with the LB who was trying to escort me out because I was, for some reason, not supposed to be there. We got out and then were walking down a street  covered by a very dark night and I was astonished at the lighting in all the buildings and the vivid marquees which were blinking with millions of small white bulbs. I was amazed because we were in one of the little hick towns in the valley and I couldn’t figure out why it was so vibrant. And then it was day time and I was on the same street which was now populated by various people that I didn’t know. The ocean was lapping at the edge of the main drag and then suddenly the street was about three feet deep with ocean water and waves were breaking. It was just perfect and I was floating around enjoying the view when some monumental waves started breaking over the road. They were hundreds of feet tall and I would be floating on my back looking up at this giant arc of green water. They were terrifying when they came down but it didn’t hurt at all and I was completely content by the third one. Somehow, I washed away and was tromping around out in one of my fields. It was sunny and warm but there was a lot of water. I noticed some people doing something by the fence to the east and went over there. There were some surveyors taking measurements for the farmer who was named Hudson. I asked them what was going on and they explained some complicated thing about how the cows were all going to have to be moved from the area and the land reformed. I followed them through a trough of water and out into the creek where I kept asking questions about what they were doing. That was when I had the most amazing thing happen. We were sort of under an ancient railroad trestle when I looked down and saw a little funnel of water. I reached down and with cupped hands picked up the funnel which kept spinning in my hands. I couldn’t believe I was holding a little water funnel in my hands. Then I saw that there was a little fish in the bottom of my palms and I realized that the fish was making the funnel. I put the fish in a jar or can but then it became sick. Then I dumped it out and it was fine. Where on earth do such things come from?

I want to go away so badly. I don’t know why it keeps coming to mind but I have this idea that I believe comes from the Canterbury Tales. I’m walking with some friends through the country side. They are not well known friends but rather people whom I met at a station of some sort. We have the rapport that springs from new and unfettered affection for each other and our conversations are bright with energy. The countryside rolls on with long vistas of pale green crops and slowly moving clouds that clip the sunlight into beams which cant down the horizon giving every blink of the eye a spectacular pleasure. The temperature is fine, the road is ours, and the sense is that we are all of a similar mind and see things with equivalent joy. I like watching this scene in my mind and I have been fortunate enough to have had many such walks in foreign places with pleasing people. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, some of the most pleasing things in the world are rare and the walks, which I think of as Canterbury walks, always have a destination, which, though beckoning, are eventually the terminus and therefor the places of goodbye. While you’re still walking you can think, “This is it.” and you’re right. But you really can’t keep it and I suppose that’s why it is what it is.

I was married on a cold day in the month of Slova. My bride, a mere child really, shuddered as the last words of the vow were hissed from between her clinched teeth and as if foretelling the future a pair of blackbirds seemed to drop dead and fall from a high tension wire as we walked out of the church. Her mother and father eyed each other wearily from their group and you could sense the animosity that had leached into the two small tribes as their eyes rolled to and fro between the bridesworks and the enemies.

“What a monstrosity.” Mumbled the preacher as he stuffed a wad of cash into his tunic.

I picked up my bride and carried her down the steps while cold metal clouds sloughed off the horizon and began shooting down pellets of ice. The wind picked up and a hand full of rice flew back over the crowd’s heads and rattled off the church windows. My mother in law’s hat flew off and away.

“We must be living on Mars.” She said as she buried her face in her husband’s lapel and began sobbing.

“You carry me over the threshold, not down the steps.” Said my bride.

Holding her to my chest with one arm I opened the door and placed her in the back seat. I turned to the wedding party who were torn between glowering down at me and glowering at each other. I just made a brushing away motion toward them with my arm and went to the other side of the car. Just as I began to open the door someone shouted, “But she’s just a girl for God’s sake!” and just as quickly someone shouted back, “She’s a cheap whore!” And that was it. The two groups set upon one another like wild dogs. Instead of getting in with my beloved I opened the front door and pulled out the driver then took off in a huff of black smoke that helped obscure the commotion and disheartening scene in the church yard.

“Well, that’s that.” I said as I sped the car through its gears and tried to wipe the ‘just married’ words off the window. Then I realized that there was something was wrong with the car. “Jesus Christ! What else can go wrong? It sounds like the car’s falling apart!”

“It’s the cans! It’s the cans!”

“Holy Christ, I feel like I’m escaping from prison!”  I said. I pulled the car over and ripped the cans off but when I got back to the door I was locked out. “All right you little rat. Unlock that door.”

“Put the cans back on.”

“What?”

“I’m not going without the cans.”

“What the hell’s it matter. We can’t leave them on all the way to Kentucky. They’ll fall off and we’ll be arrested for littering.”

“We’ll leave them on ’till the hotel then.”

“That’s sixty miles. They won’t last.”

“I don’t care.”

I tied the cans back on and got into the car. On the highway I got the car going fast hoping that the cans might become air born and they did make less noise but after a couple of minutes the engine began clicking so I had to slow down.

“Well, I’m not pregnant.” Said my little wife.

“I knew it! I knew it was a lie the whole time! You little rat! All those people back there think I’m a pervert just because you wanted to be “betrothed.”

“Now you’re my husband and you have to take care of me and buy me stuff.”

“Well that’s where you’re wrong. This whole thing’s a joke.”

“Well you promised in God’s house in front of a preacher.”

“I think you have to believe in that stuff for it to count.”

“Well, you’re a Christian.”

“No. I’m not. I think all that stuff’s a crock.”

“Well, the law’s on my side.”

“What do you know about the law, you can hardly read.”

“I know my rights.”

“You don’t know much at all. I knew you weren’t  pregnant when you refused to show me some test results and if you think I bought that ‘don’t you trust me’ crap for one second you’re crazy because no I don’t trust you and I never have trusted you. You’re a complete rat. I’ve never had sex with you–that I know. I may have been drunk on pills and faulty in the head but I knew I didn’t do anything with you. Now, I’ll give you credit for this… you definitely manipulated a confusing situation to your advantage because your dad does have some fearsome friends and my parents are definitely fools when it comes to a sob story. But here’s where you made one crucial mistake. We now have the pesos and the law doesn’t mean a thing to me. So, in a nutshell, you’ve purchased the matrimonial farm.”

Looking into the rearview mirror I could see that little face looking at me with her oily black eyes wide open and her sharp little teeth glistening in her mouth. She ran her fingers back over her head and said, “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. I can’t see you doing all of this for fifty thousand pesos.”

“Like I said, you made a crucial mistake. We have a date in Covington with someone who has something that will please me and you’re going to see that 50 thousand disappear in one fell swoop.”

“Hey, that’s my money as much as yours!”

“No it’s not. It’s a dowery. It’s what they pay me to take you off their hands.”

“Right. But you have to spend most the money on me. That’s why they give it to you.”

“Well, that would be partially true if we were living in feudal times and I chose to obey the conventions of the time, but now that we’re living in post inquisition America and the laws are splattered around like chewing gum on the sidewalk and just as insignificant… and in light of the fact that I don’t care for these laws or any other laws for that matter…”

“You’ll care when my dad gets you.”

“I don’t know why you’re going on like this. If you want me to take you back I will. If you want me to dump you off somewhere in Kentucky I’ll do that too. Actually, I’ll do just about anything you want except listen to you. I’ve got too much to think about and not all that much time to think about it.”

“What do you mean not enough time to think about it. We’re going to be driving for hours.”

“I don’t expect it to take hours to travel sixty miles.” But just as I said that I turned onto a highway that was packed with cars as far as the eye could see. There were people milling around on the berm and some cars even had birds sitting on the roofs. “Well, we’re not going this way.” I said as I began backing down the entrance ramp. The car was rolling backwards and the cans must have become caught up in the brakes because when I tried to slow down the pedal didn’t move at all. Then I tried to get the car into some gear so that I could use engine compression to slow us down but the gears just ground and would not engage. And, unfortunately, my little one had an excellent grasp of automotive mechanics because as we developed a truly terrifying head of steam going backwards she said, “You should have left it in reverse instead of being so impatient and wanting to roll faster than the law allows. And I can’t believe you forgot about the cans again. You can’t run over something like that and not expect trouble. Also, here comes a car.” And sure enough there was a car coming up behind us that didn’t seem to apprehend that we were coming at them at 30 miles an hour. “What idiot!..” I shouted just before we slammed into the car and sent all sorts of metal bits skittering down the road. The accident didn’t much phase us and, in fact, left my wife sharp enough to tell me that we’d just crashed into her family’s car.

“This is a living nightmare.” I said as I ran off into the woods with the bag of money. I ran for about a minute before stopping to catch my breath by a small pond that was evidently close to the main highway since I could hear radios playing and people talking. Looking behind me I saw my bride coming up fast, jumping over logs and ducking under branches like a real animal. “God, why can’t she leave me alone?” I wondered. She was not at all my girlfriend and really, I don’t think anyone that knew either of us would for one second claim that we were even nice to each other. The entire marriage thing was a joke and the only reason it happened was due to one fact and one phenomenon. The fact was that my bride was insane and the phenomenon was that she had a streak of lucid thoughts one fateful day that allowed her to say just the right things to just the right people. She was obsessed with getting married but to whom really didn’t matter. She could have married Chairman Mao for all it mattered to her. She just considered it to be something that had to be done. I had no desire to be married but I didn’t mind the idea of collecting a small pile of money from the parents if they were so foolish. When she got over to me she grabbed the bag of money and threw it up in the air where it blew all over the place. Then she jumped into the pond just before her dad came bounding over the brush like Danny Boone. “He threw me in the Pond!” She shouted. That was that. That was also fifty years ago and we’ve been discussing things ever since.

Sometimes I try to get right down to the fundamentals in order to bring clarity. For instance, the other morning I walked out of the concrete facade that hides our ten thousand residents from the blight of nature and I was immediately struck with the idea that we were crazy for having to go anywhere at all. The air outside smelled like ammonia and bleach which is rather ironic since those two substances, when mixed, can make chlorine gas which eats membranes and scorches the eyes. The sun is making things crackle and burn and the perpetual fires of the wastelands issue a choking black cloud that never seems to disperse since weather, as it used to be known is dead. Anyway, as I lumbered down the street looking for scraps of commodity, I realized that we have always been trying to remove ourselves from the vagaries of nature by enclosing ourselves in cubes and recreating a world more copacetic to our senses. It was now possible to lie in repose for twenty four hours a day and yet imagine that you were flying to distant planets and galaxies. Bodily functions had been tamed by the so called “mastic cuff” and there were some people who were vying for the world’s record of not moving a muscle in years. Every day gangs of kids would collect bones that had been drying out with the mastic cuff lying deflated and crumpled around a femur or humerus. Why they did it no one knew. Kids were the last bastion of natural disorder and the powers that be were worn out with trying to whip them down since they were born somewhere secret and poured out in droves whereupon they would cause havoc until they became tired.  So I was walking down the street wondering about why we had to go anywhere when it hit me that I WAS going somewhere even though I didn’t have to. Every day I went out. Every day I went into the acid and the smoke under the illusion that I would find something of interest just lying on the ground. I had never found a thing and I knew I never would. I just wanted to go outside. It was such a ridiculous notion to want to go outside that even to myself I had to lie. Just walking out the door was the equivalent of the old going homeless and pushing a grocery cart. So, when I began to seriously ponder this inside/outside dichotomy I was overcome by a wave of nausea as it dawned on me that the “outside” had been bred out of us. The drive to domesticate had finally gone completely around and run out of victims so that it had now come back to the species of origin where it would clearly roost until we were completely still. What a plan! Who thought it up! After pondering this for awhile I purposely set out for the wild lands and began to feel better as I realized I might never go inside again. Ironically, I kept having the recurring dream that I used to make buildings in another life and the first thing I did when I got deep in the gray woods was to make a tiny shelter. What else could I do?

I don’t know why I thought it would be the thing to do but I went into the most exclusive restaurant in town and ordered two crazy little chickens and a bottle of fermented bacon fat. I was trying to impress that little critter that I’d had my eyes on for several months by being a unique customer who had a sophisticated palate. I figured, “What can she know? She’s just a server.” When she asked me if I was kidding I tried to pretend that I was from somewhere rather exotic but that didn’t work either. After a slight palaver I said that I was an ABC agent and I was just out funning around and that I didn’t care at all about whether her restaurant was or was not in compliance with the law. At that point she went and got the manager who came and threw me out. I waited down at the door for nearly six hours for her shift to be over and when she came out I told her the truth. “I have a huge crush on you and think we should go out together.” Oh she was fast on her feet. She said, “As opposed to going out apart you mean.” I didn’t have a quick answer for that so I just walked along beside her down the street for a few minutes and then said, “Look, I don’t know how to put this but I think we should get married as soon as possible. I’ll give you everything I have and bring you coffee in bed every morning for the rest of my life.” She didn’t slow down a bit but after a minute or so she said, “Did it ever occur to you that you appear to be crazy and insane?” I replied that I was only crazy about her and that if I was insane it was news to me and that, furthermore, I had been interviewed by a health care professional who deemed me to be in excellent mental health. “Did you pay that interviewer?” She asked. “Yes, as a matter of fact I did.” Then she told me that you can’t trust anyone you’ve paid money to to give you an honest assessment of anything. I said, “I’d sue him if I thought he’d lied about me.” Finally, when we got to her car she turned to me and said, “Look, I have a boyfriend and he’s waiting for me right now. He already brings me coffee in bed every morning and he has better things to do than hang around at restaurants trying to meet someone he hardly knows.” Well that stung but I tightened up my breath and said, “He’ll never love you as much as I do.” She looked at me for a moment and then asked why I had picked her of all people. “I don’t know.” I said. “I do know this though, I’ve never felt this way about anyone in my life. The second I saw you I knew that you would have to be my wife or I would simply die.” She put the key in her car door and said, “Well, I guess you’re going to have to die then.” She got into her car and took off leaving me standing by the curb scratching my head. The next night I went through the same routine including being thrown out of the restaurant by the manager. When we were walking to her car I said, “I’m going to come after you every night until you give in.” She kept walking and then stopped and turned to me. “Look,” she said, “If you keep bugging me I’m going to get my boyfriend to come down here. He’s big and strong and he’ll knock the teeth out of your mouth.” I stood up tall and said, “Bring him on. I’ll fight anyone for you.” She went to her car and this time before she drove off she rolled down the window and said, “You may not know it, but you are definitely nuts.” And then she once again drove away. Well this same thing went on for a few more nights. But on the third or fourth night she did bring her boyfriend who came out of no where just when we got to her car. She smiled and said, “This is my boyfriend, Ansgar. Ansgar, this is the nut who has been bugging me.” Well this Ansgar character was definitely a bruiser and he looked like he would enjoy tearing someone’s head off for the fun of it. He stood there cracking his knuckles while he glared at me through his deep sunk eyes. “Listen Ansgar,” I said. “You don’t want to get messed up in all this. This girl’s crazy about me and she doesn’t even know it. We’re going to be married and that’s about all there is to it. Why don’t you go buy yourself a pit bull or some tickets to a monster truck rally?” Ansgar didn’t like that at all and he swung at me with a mighty fist that would have taken my head off if he’d aimed better. As it was he missed and smashed a big dent in the girl’s car. The girl looked at me with fire in her eyes and said, “Look what you’ve done to my car!” I smiled and said, “You saw who did it as well as I did. You’re going out with a monkey! I can fix that dent with some Bondo in about a minute.” Ansgar came after me and I ran around the car staying just out of his reach. We ran about four laps and then I jumped up on the hood and climbed onto the roof which immediately dented down a little bit. I crawled over to the girl’s window and hung my head down. “We’ve got to get out of here. That old boy is going crazy!” She rolled up her window but not before I stuck my hand in it. She kept rolling it up until my hand was clamped between the glass and the top of the door. “Oh baby!” I said, “You DO want to take me with you don’t you!” She started the car and pulled out of the parking space in a very uncontrolled manner. “Careful.” I said, “I don’t want to fall off this thing and be dragged to your house.” Ansgar was running behind us and I could hear him huffing like a bull as his bowed legs carried him across the macadam with a clickety clack from his cheap shoes with old fashioned taps on them. I leaned down to the window and said, “Is your boyfriend cheap about replacing his shoes or is he a baboon tap dancer for the city theater?” She rolled down the window enough for me to retrieve my hand and then said, “We’re going to drive to a nice dark place where Ansgar can kick your teeth out.” I turned around and saw Ansgar about fifty feet away. “Look at that brute.” I said. “He must drink a quart of testosterone a day. Is that really what you want in a man? I’m more of an aristocrat…royal linage and all that. Wouldn’t you rather be treated like a princess than a cave woman?”  She slammed on the brakes and I sailed across the hood and onto the road where I scrapped off a big swath of forearm skin and tore open the knees of my pants. “Good God you’re a bad driver.” I groaned while I rolled around in a writhing tribute to pain. “I think you need to take me to a hospital.” I said. But she just ran over my foot while I was trying to crawl to the shoulder. Ansgar came panting up to me and proceeded to kick me in the side while I spit and cussed at my helplessness. Then everything went black. When I awoke I was swaddled in bandages and it hurt to breathe. I looked over at the bedside table and saw a little thing of flowers with a card. It nearly killed me to reach over and grab the card. I opened it and it said, “You are a turd! Ansgar and I were arrested because of you and now I’m fired from my job. Also, there is anthrax in this card!” Well she was lying about the anthrax because I’m still alive. But I’ll say this, she really blew it. I’ll never ask her out again! I can read people like a book and she really didn’t like me!

Who would build a haunted house on purpose? I don’t think anyone would although, who knows? The other day I felt a little twinge of concern because my usually exuberant puppy really didn’t want to come over to the house. Usually, her head can be seen just below the front window peering inside like a baby seal, waiting for some acknowledgement. But then she vanished and when I would try to get her to come to me she would only do it if I wasn’t near the house. Goodness only knows what she sees, smells, hears, or whatever. Several years ago I went across the creek to find my horses frozen in place while looking at my house. I tried to bridle one of them but it wouldn’t cooperate and when I let it go it just returned to being frozen and staring at the house. Walking back to the house I noticed a sheet I’d hung out earlier in the day. It was slowly moving in the breeze and I wondered if they were looking at it. When I took it down the horses were unfrozen within a minute and back to their perpetual munching of grass. How could such a thing be so fascinating to them? Did it look like a ghost? Hmm… So I’ve been wondering if the dog sees something disturbing at the house. Does it think there is a ghost or a spook somewhere in the place? Well, I think the dog needs to take a look around the yard. She has brought home enough to make any ghost think twice about making a new home. There are bones, hardened leather hides, clumps of fur, heads, entire bunnies, birds, half eaten mice, spinal columns, entrails, partial ears, and so on. What ghost in its right mind would want to be seen in such a mess? I find it terribly disturbing to see someone who is annoyingly vivacious suddenly become subdued. I prefer the annoying incessant activity even if I do have to womp her snout now and then. So this morning I was pleased to hear the dog having its early morning battle with the cat on the front porch. I came down and there was her seal head looking in and waiting. What ever was here has cleared out. It’s a rough neighborhood and I’m so proud of my pets for keeping their eyes peeled and bringing all the hex signs home. Still, I need to rake the yard soon.