by Tomorrow's Man
August 2000
Tuesday, 1 August 2000
I love these warm night when the wind blows just a bit, then a bit stronger, and the waft of sweet flowers fills my nose, carrying the night into me, making the stars sparkle with their drug, and I feel myself lighten and more and so soft and I float off into the gentle wind, a leaf full and vibrant green, restless to soar before Fall claims me brown to the ground.
Wednesday, 2 August 2000
I just want to love someone I have never made cry...
Thursday, 3 August 2000
Destroy (most) software developers. The 'add to startup menu whether consumer selects it or not' ones. The 'make it take 19 times longer to get on-line so they'll have no choice but to view our ads' ones. The 'Your User Name Is Invalid since you have not waxed and polished my asshole with a silk glove and Murphy's Oil Soap yet' ones. Remember those 2,000 lawyers down there at the bottom of the ocean? Well, the times, they are a changin' and blood's still gritty if you have sand in your mouth, and an acoustic guitar is still a bludgeon when necessary, and I can light a cigarette with a simple match whenever the hell I want to.
Friday, 4 August 2000
Peace. I wish this, for us all. For the mother of the brilliant, beautiful son who leaves him to scrounge leftover stale cheese curls while she fucks her third lover of the week, for the man with blood on his hands after a fit of rage at an innocent puppy, for the person who simply can not comprehend that the fast lane (Far Left) is NOT to drive 55, for those so far into religion that they miss the truth of the soul, I wish you, all, peace.
Saturday, 5 August 2000
Pixel is my cat. He is an eater of broccoli, cheese curls, and sometimes meat. He is gay. I have no idea if he is proud, but I imagine that if he were proud of something, it would be of the night he successfully puked up almost completely undigested 9-Lives into both of my boots, somehow getting past all 14 eyes on each and filling the toes. If you think about the logistics of this feat, you would be proud of him, too.
Sunday, 6 August 2000
Colors dance, every day, but not just where you see them, or think they are. Fire is color. Colors. Hundreds, thousands, swirling. A forest fire hits a tin can of beans abandoned by a spoon, and we do not hear the can scream; but we see the greens and blues rise from the smoldering tin. The tip of a cigarette - more subtle, as deadly, more contained, as much a kiss of spittle from Prometheus lips as that god that melts the tin. Watch it, the cigarette - throbs and swells of pink, red, orange€the colors of blood, heat, and that which keeps us alive.
Monday, 7 August 2000
the man walked over to the woman.
they smiled together, though their teeth were not perfect.
they each held out hands and embraced the other.
they leaned forward and kissed for the first time.
when they pulled away, they were still smiling.
in his yellow eyes, love was forming.
in her cobalt eyes, universes were forming.
in the cup of their hands the air was warm, and life was beginning.
Tuesday, 8 August 2000
This way, with your back to the sun, you don't see it coming - which is how most people prefer to face their fears. Instead of feeling the curling tension in your wrists, that snapping of tendons that tries to ball you into a fetus again, you get distracted by the burn on your back, and by the colors parading across the sky before you.
Wednesday, 9 August 2000
I've never been a drag queen, I've never been a beauty queen, I've never been a queen bee or ant or termite, I've never been a Dairy Queen, and I've never been the Queen of all I Survey. Pawns, prawns, they're the same size, but I've never been either of those either, well maybe the former, but the latter tastes better unless you're eating me. But at least you know with me in your mouth that you are not eating a termite queen so I will most certainly not collapse your wooden leg, even if I just chew on it a little.
Thursday, 10 August 2000
The sky goes dark, I run outside, balls flapping in the freshening breeze, down to my beach where the tide is already casting bullies' hits at the beach, the light show begins, the rain pours, and I take hold of a razor's fingertip as the thunder echoes from me to the end of the land before settling back for a while in my belly.
Friday, 11 August 2000
One day, the Last Princess kissed a dragon. For three days glittering gold fell in drops from his yellow eyes. The shudders that shook his long spine made quivers in the ocean's undertow, causing the tide to form patterns in the sand of hearts, flowers, and paisley. A small girl-child, playing alone on the beach, traced one of the patterns of a heart. As she traced, she began singing in time with the pattern of her tracing, lilt and flow, long curves fermatas of her voice and then a high note held at the point of the heart. She blinked her green eyes, the color of the sea, and a tear of molten gold fell cheerily to the sand, into the center of her heart. A young woman walking along the sand heard the small girl's song and her heart swelled, bringing one tear to her cobalt eyes. The tear fled, flew up over the earth, and formed the cerulean sky. Beneath it, a dragon lay dreaming, about a Princess, the Last Princess, with her deep voice, wry smile, and cool cobalt eyes. The dragon awoke to the lilting voice of a child -- a girl-child -- singing the world's most beautiful song. The dragon began walking down the beach, looking for the sound, the voice. Before he found it, though, he was stopped by a woman approaching him. She gazed into his yellow eyes with hers. Hers were cobalt. The dragon bowed his head to her, smitten -- and she leaned forward. Upon his dragon's lips, beneath his yellow eyes, the Last Princess kissed a dragon...
Saturday, 12 August 2000
Vittles in me basket mean I'm seeing three again double the Canadians I had seen On my teeth before I Dyed my eyes to white and Announced myself from slavery I have Nothing left to say goodbye.
Sunday, 13 August 2000
(Author's Note: Does it amaze you as much as it does me that these quick scrawls, seemingly off the top of my head first thing upon awaking, do not pertain to coffee more often than they do? I'm drinking it right now. And now and now and now. Remember the beauty of ubiquity, it's epitomized by coffee, your ultimate friend: no matter where you go, what you do, or how far or for how long you stray, coffee will be there for you when you return. There is even iced coffee in Piccadilly Circus; I drank it sitting at the lip of the fountain, and Alfred Gilbert rolled in his grave. Sorry Alfred; Eros is simply a much better name, though I agree with you that Bergamot retains the class that the moniker 'Earl Grey' does not. Cheers, from the bottom of my bean.
Monday, 14 August 2000
A frog went to market. He was not looking for a slave, which is why he went to the bar. At the bar, hopped up on his special stool (he was an affluent frog in this community), he ordered his favorite drink - a banana daqiuri, frozen. While he sat there moping that he had no one around his lilypad to help his catch the pretty moths whose wings he'd pull off to make frocks and things for his nightly soire€s (the outfits were beautiful, but would only last one night, as the moth-wing-dust would rub away quickly), a cat came into the bar and ordered a banana daquiri, frozen. The kitty looked down on his luck - a bit thin around the ribs, and mopey in the eyes. Frog said to Kitty, "What's yer problem, son?" and Kitty said back, "Purrrroblem? Oh, me, well...it's just been tough going lately. See, I'm a bit down on my luck, 'cos I'm too much of a dreamer. Every day, instead of remembering to get home and eat and go inside before they lock the door, I just wander off, chasing butterflies...I get so distracted by them, and then it's too late for me to get in the house!"
Frog was nonplussed. He felt that fate had just licked his back. If Frog had had ears, his smile would have stretched between them. "Tell you what son, I'll make you a deal...."
Three weeks later, Frog was decked out in a gorgeous assortment of Monarch and Gypsy Moth; his wardrobe had grown gorgeously, ostentatiously, exponentially, since Kitty had joined him. "Kitty," Frog said, "You were the answer to my dreams." Kitty looked up from what he was doing and scrunched both his eyes at Frog - the cat way of saying "I love you." As Kitty finished in the Frog's kitchen - they had become roommates - he unplugged the blender and went out to the veranda where Frog was sitting and relaxing before going out that night. Kitty handed Frog a banana daquiri, then sat down with his own. The smoke from Frog's cigar wafted sweetly on the humid night. Frog took a sip, shuffled about in his glittery raiments, and said, "And you make a hell of a banana daquiri!!!"
The End.
Tuesday, 15 August 2000
I could hear the echoes of my footfalls decaying across the cathedral as I crossed to the foyer where the crumpled paper bag waited. From the dark back of the cathedral, his laughter came. It was deep and confident. I entered the foyer, ignoring the empty eye sockets of the creatures arranged around me.
Wednesday, 16 August 2000
In the paper bag were azure crystals, uncut, raw. In the eye sockets of the creatures around me were nothing. They were dead animals, all of them white - white cats, white badgers, white crows...arranged around the from of the cathedral, dozens of empty sockets staring in at where he and I would meet. His laughter came again, out of the dark. I spoke over the paper bag, enchanting the stones. Eight lines. I walked to the nearest animal, a white badger, and took a stone from the bag. In my hand, I saw that it had become a crystal eye. I placed it between the badger's empty sockets, the eye looked solemnly toward the center of the cathedral, where he and I would soon meet. His laughter came again, out of the dark. I gave all of the blind animals their eyes.
Thursday, 17 August 2000
The center of the cathedral held a pinpoint of azure blue light suspended two feet from the marble floor. My footsteps echoed as I tread toward it, stood within it, surrounded by the single sights of the seventeen white animals. His laughter came out of the dark, closer. I could see his eyes moving. He knew he was stronger, he knew he was faster, he knew he had more magic than I. But was he right? Thinking is not the same as knowing....
Friday, 18 August 2000
I awake to my hungry cat stomping my full bladder. He knows human anatomy better than most people I've met. He wants to play catch. My mind is still reeling - I can still smell his sweat, the moistness of the cathedral, the decay of the air that contained the animals, gazing. I throw my cat's bound up sock, he chases it, brings it back. But what he gives me to throw again is not the sock. It is a small azure-blue crystal, the size of my thumbnail, carved to the shape of a wide-open eye. It looks right through me. It looks right through me. It looks right through me. His laugher comes again, closer.
Saturday, 19 August 2000
i do not have a blowhole.
do i have flippers? it depends on the time of the morning.
i do have a spine. but i do not have a tail.
you have a tail. oh, what a tail.
Sunday, 20 August 2000
Always better catches, desires eat from greater heights, I jumped kings lost my neck, otherwise princes queer right situations; the underworld worships xenophobes, you zealot!
Monday, 21 August 2000
I stepped into the air of a perfect October day. A shame it was August 21st I guess, but I prefer October. I walked with my head hung so I could see the world on the ground. I passed a caterpillar, a fat one, ready to change. I could not let it trek across the pavement; I knew it would be crushed. I picked it up with a million-dollar piece of paper, and carried it to a flower-bed. If it could smile I think it would have, if nervously. At least in there it could die the way it was supposed to, or maybe it would live. I hoped it would live. The world is running out of butterflies.
In a few paces I saw the husk. It was almost two inches long and as I picked it up the legs curled under the empty carapace tickled the pads of my fingers. It was a large one, even for a Cicada. It had recently left its skin. There was moisture inside, and it smelled like life. Cicadas only live with their glittery emerald wings for two days before they die. If their lucky, they get to mate first. Underground they live about 15 years. This one I had found in the middle of the pavement, this old skin, it could not have been there long, not in the wind, not with the traffic. I held the adolescence of a creature who was already buzzing above me into its golden year.
On my radio, a member of a metal band said, "We're living in a world of drones." He was complaining about people, but I was listening outside of my headphones. The Cicadas were droning, mating, becoming born and borne, gorgeous in their emeralds before they died. They droned on as the metal-band member did; two drones in tandem. I only wished for one to end.
A shadow crossed my left eye. I looked up and followed the large motion of a Cicada flying from a tree to a tree. It moved from left to right. As it entered the lush leaves of a maple, a helicopter burst from right to left above the cicada, above the green, borne, droning, flying, free.
I turned off my radio.
Tuesday, 22 August 2000
This isn't how it was supposed to happen
Wednesday, 23 August 2000
It is in the house
it is down the stairs
it is under your bed
it is crawling on the wall
it is sleeping in your bed
it is twisting in the drain
it is brandishing your knife
it is lonely
it is tired
it is dying
save it.
Thursday, 24 August 2000
I...I just see one...and...and it's like they all have hungry...hungry, burning little fangs....
Friday, 25 August 2000
Fruit fell from the sun, I caught it open eyes and smiled, honey slept and sticky came, and this way I spilled free.
Saturday, 26 August 2000
I never thought this would happen to you. You are all alone. Why doesn't anyone feel the way you feel? Isn't there anyone who cares about the pain you are feeling, so so deep inside that it knots you, pulls your hands and wrists to your forearms like an early sign of the desiccation of death? Why won't the pain go away? What will make this pain go away? Why is this pain? Why is it? Why?
Sunday, 27 August 2000
These are the notes that I heard: D-D-E-F-G-G-F-E-D-C-C-D-E-E-D-D; I was not sure what they were, what it was, what the sonics seeping in meant. I heard them in utero. Since then, I have been altered. Unusual. A bit left of the center of most things; and above many others. Those notes, before anyone had ever seen my face, made me smile. Ah, Ode to Joy.
Monday, 28 August 2000
Joe went to the park today. He saw a frog, and a see-saw, and a delicately grey elephant. Yes, you know what he saw: Balance. He did not know how they sat there, suspended, these ounces and these tons straddling the aluminum bar, opposite ends, balanced; and he felt a great welling joy in his not asking.
Tuesday, 29 August 2000
Cut like a wedding cake consumed and sweet left in the freezer dancing but silent slow motion and smiles elaborate, immaculate, stolen and sweet she cut me like a wedding cake I'm eaten.
Wednesday, 30 August 2000
In their eyes, their pupils, I see them more closely now, they are beautiful, every one of them, amazing how such a thin wall of muscle can make a woman knock you off your feet.....
Thursday, 31 August 2000
There is the north star, here it is here on my head, there it is my compass, there I go, across this world, wheels laughing down the highway, I'm eating up the miles like buttered spaghetti, and I'm hungry, hungry, slurp goes space, I'm on!