by Tomorrow's Man
October 2000
Sunday, 1 October 2000
10/01/00
I'm plotting out my day, in digital. I'm binary; there are two of me; one is turned off; one is turned on. Can you figure out which one this is? Or, now, this? Right, we two are one. We too are one. Two, Too, To. You can not write the sentence "There are three [twos; toos; tos] in the English language. There are; but you can't write it. Impossible. It's an aural phenomenon, an ultimate example of minimalist homophonia. What a nifty sentence. Sounds so...digital. I can't wait for the 11th...10/11/00. Looks so much more...chromatic...than '44.' Though 44 has it's own qualities; but I'm not getting into them until April.
Monday, 2 October 2000
Dear September,
I am happy to have you passed into my past. You were a toothsome, raucous, demanding month, and I never said mercy, no matter the frequency of my bashed fingers. I inhaled your planes, I tore my flesh on hundreds of miles of your roads, I choked on your thinning air, and I danced through you, muscles of sand and all.
Here I am, standing on the lip of October, looking back at your closed maw. You ate a lot of me. You took large, tearing bites, digested me poorly, farted out my existence in your troubled sleep. I'm glad I got into your belly, you beast. The rest of me is going to go to October now. There is a Guinness waiting for me on man's extra rib, exactly the temperature of this Autumn air and disc'd in tan the shape of the Hunter's Moon.
I'm stronger already.
See you next year.
Cheers, Chris
Tuesday, 3 October 2000
This is a test. This is only a test. Really, don't worry about it, we are just testing you. No, don't get up, relax, this is not the real thing. Only a TEST. See? That's what you should not have done, because if this had been real, you would be in very, very big trouble. So why don't we just start this over again, and you try to pay attention to my voice. Can you hear me? Are you ready to learn? This is how we will teach. And this is how you will learn.
Wednesday, 4 October 2000
If the walls aren't barking while the drink sings down your throat, then accept that you simply do not have the fight tonight. Turn off the computer, put away your pen, and slip contritely between your sheets.
Thursday, 5 October 2000
Every time the screen shakes I think walruses are playing mating games in my eyes, them big whiskers like cornstalks in a tornado, growp growp they go, now that's what I call dental floss Michaelangelo, get your boots off my bed!
Friday, 6 October 2000
P e e k - a - b o o .
Saturday, 7 October 2000
It starts in the heart, radiates, seeds the spine, climbs, enters the brain, heats, lightens the breath, sweetens, heightens the senses, electrifies, brings sugar to the tips of the teeth, opens the mouth, flushes the cheeks, and you say, "I love you." It takes all of your body.
Sunday, 8 October 2000
On ships at cold sea and in flying fuselages, in snaking trains beneath the city and racing cars along the Northern highways, while hanging from helicopters hovering in the late-October afternoon sun, on my bicycle careening down this hill, on the shuttle Atlantis slinking into orbit, while trembling unbalanced on roller-blades, peering through the ceiling of this green-gray elevator, and standing here on the ground jumping up and down my laughter bubbles and I feel the purest joy of this motion that began at my conception.
Monday, 9 October 2000
tick tick goes the tock lick lick goes the tongue tock tock steeps the clock walk walk goes the time tick tick goes the time lick lick with the clock clock clock clock ticking
Tuesday, 10 October 2000
This morning, around 7:17 AM, I walked out of my front door. The air was very cold and gray, the sun not yet arisen to warmth. The tide was low, and I clambered down the rocks in front of my house and stepped onto the beach. The shock woke me up brighter than the lugubrious sun, and my testicles scurried into my body. I reached down and dug with my fingernails. I dug into the sand. I held the palmful of sand to my face. It was dirty, so I picked it clean, rocks, seaweed, fishshit, bones discarded. My sand was now just disheveled. I put it in the baggie I had been carrying in my mouth. I went inside. My feel tingled and then burned with the warmth. I placed the baggie full of sand in the FedEx Letter envelope I had already addressed. At 8:03, just three minutes late, the FedEx Guy arrived. My package was on its way to Redmond. I got ready for work. My feet were warm.
Wednesday, 11 October 2000
I woke up in a shroud of soft pink, covered in decidedly delicious, my fingertips were salted as my arms, my neck, my lips, salted like the sea but a fever to drink, I opened my eyes to a plural of smiles and beamed back like the rising sun.
Thursday, 12 October 2000 - addendum
-tribute to my paranoia wrench down the curtain plastic will not fold at your feet but suffocate your familiar trip on its body as you break its back and down you go the stairs are teeth always biting down down down to the cold of the concrete the darkness of the floor the dust is a living thing that needs to consume to rebuild to re-become what it once was, a dream a creature a final breath here it comes to con-
Friday, 13 October 2000
This is Hallowe'en, this is Hallowe'en...coming quickly, coming quick. Friday the 13th. Full Moon. October. Can you feel it? The sharp, thirsty tongues of every demon is ripping the Veil to shreds, slipping out of the Void and back into this World. They are coming, and they are thirsty, and they are in a playful, randy mood. In their eyes you will see glitters of green and gold, sparks of a molten pink dancing like cells of blood in a stallion's racing heart, ride him, ladies, feel the muscle and the sweat and the cells racing, racing beneath you, between you, feels your own cells moving, salty, thirsty, tiny tongues licking at the Veil, here comes your breath from your chest and pulled up high to the full of the moon, she breathes you in, breathes you in, oh my heart, my heart is a rose red waiting to shed every petal for one breath of breathing you in...
Friday, 13 October 2000 - addendum
All of our envies should be reserved for the perfection of the full moon.
Saturday, 14 October 2000
I looked into the mirror this morning and my face was screaming behind a veil of grey. I did the only thing I could do and swallowed the fear with a yawn, then crawled back into bed. The next person who went in the bathroom was startled to find me still in the mirror, screaming.
Sunday, 15 October 2000
He lives under the sand. When you run your toes through the scalp of the beach, you awaken him. He breathes up in saltwater through his skin, caresses you. You are his lover. You feel him touch you and sigh. You taste him and squint through a smile, fish and salt and heat sharp in your mouth. He loves you for this. He loves you. He is there forever, waiting for your touch in his hair.
Monday, 16 October 2000
the walls of a lotus flower can not only be pushed aside, they can also be eaten.
Tuesday, 17 October 2000
17 17 17......17.
This is the number of every color's dream of being a sound. This is the number that gives you the inexplicable smile when you wake up to a grey morning. This is the number that makes you kiss your lover three more times before leaving. This is the number that reminds you that another day will follow each day and then. This is the number of today, the number of happy dirty, the number of spread sweaty, the number of every aroused salute, every drink of apricot's fuzzy tickle. This is my number, this is ours. Kiss me, this smile. Kiss me.
Wednesday, 18 October 2000
What day is today? Have you ever gotten that sensation, time slipping over your head like the passing of a harvestman's legs? So small you would be...
...so small you are. Good thing their poison never breaks our skin.
Thursday, 19 October 2000
Thirty came first, with his brigade and his lance, Thirty came on hard and did not stop, Thirty did not stop until the last man bled free, then with his army and his lance he moved on again, he became Twenty-Nine, and the world waited to see if it would be rid of its humans at once and for all.
Friday, 20 October 2000
"Her Eyes, Stars" (part 1 of 8)
I went to the sky, it brought me in. I wrapped my skin in steel, I wrapped my skin in the haze of gin, I wrapped my skin in the rush toward dawn. I touched down on the lashes of the sun, decelerated toward the moon. Something was settling in the air; it could have been magnetic. I was pulled. I turned the brass knob.
Saturday, 21 October 2000
"Her Eyes, Stars" (part 2 of 8)
Fits of sleep, phantasms, mists of rain and tears, blood settling, tears, the death of a child, the reluctant sun, neither of us wanted to rise, not into this humanity, but we had a tug, the sun and I, it was a pull toward the Underground, we both had to brighten, we both had to awaken (as we'd done for countless years, the sun and I), I pulled on my boots as Sun raised its lashes, I stepped onto the land of Kings, I turned and I turned and I smelled the sound of the shunting trains, it was time upon the clock, Waterloo, Waterloo, it was time to bathe in the sunlight...
Sunday, 22 October 2000
"Her Eyes, Stars" (part 3 of 8)
staring. from afar, from three inches. staring. reflections of each other inverted upon cornea, cornea. all of this in a whisper. coke with no flavor, crowd with no sound, light with no heat, time lost duration. reflections of each other, cornea, on cornea. hand closer, touch; sound with no air, light with no weight, touch with every flavor. each other, reflected, cornea, on cornea. the rush of life. the clock chimes. the moment for the kiss. the kiss. time loses duration, time lost, frozen, time a mirror, reflected, endless, that kiss...
Monday, 23 October 2000
"Her Eyes, Stars" (part 4 of 8)
The rush of sweat, coming! The trains! Thousands snaking through the underground, coming! Stars shocking through the storm above, brightest sunshine and a future of lightning, the scents of curry and lust the future, YES!! Coming!! Stars speed us to the station, we mind, we mind, here comes the gap but no sound, no sound, no shunting train, too late we've come together, we'll be close throughout the night, time sped the carriage away, the rails only sing with the wind tonight, the dawn is coming, coming again! tonight we turn in our sticky tread, we know what is coming, we know we are coming, we know in that tiny bed we will never be closer than this, our first night, coming...
Tuesday, 24 October 2000
"Her Eyes, Stars" (part 5 of 8)
staring. from three inches. and closer. staring. reflections masked by the darkness, the stars coming, milk through the night. closer. the touch. my fingers, where they have been, across thousands of miles of flesh, but none like this, none like this. the stars see my fingertips, touch. the moon finds her lips, kiss. no lips like this. no flesh of breast like this. textile, dissolve. pale, the stars, the moon, we are their milk. touch. taste. rush, the rush of stars, the moon. she boils, yes, she simmers. I drink. no lips like these, no distance too far to kiss, the moon creeps around my kiss to taste. she is worshipped. I salute. I wrapped my skin in steel upon the sun's waking lashes; I wrap my skin in her, within the moon's milk. time loses duration.
Wednesday, 25 October 2000
"Her Eyes, Stars" (part 6 of 8)
I am paralyzed from the waist down. Can this be the same night? Yes...the milk of the moon still coats us. We have not moved in moments, I know...time...time has lost its duration. These are my legs. Those are hers. Yes. Yes. Hers...mine...mine...hers. Looking across our legs on the duvet, I am reading the most erotic of novels. Live, life. Her right leg, a slight lift...my left, a gentle twitch...my right, a delicate push...her left, rising...rising...time...time devours us. We can see his lashes drinking the moon's milk. How long have I been inside? Hours...days...miles. A second a day a life for every mile of my skin in steel. Our twitch; a tiny shift; the tingle, the crush - yes...yes...it will be us before the sun, coming...
Thursday, 26 October 2000
"Her Eyes, Stars" (part 7 of 8)
the tide washes in the smell of salt the funk it comes quickly once it comes this is our rush destiny we are locked tighter than time to its maker these gentle pushes and we are creation in the milk of the night the moon's empty udders we were hungry, thirsty, drank full of energy spent within each other spent as the moon smiles itself to dreams the sun's lashes open the world the rush here we come our lust yes love so quick - is it with time dissolved? we arch, we flush, a body of one we carried the dusk to the brink of the day from dusk through lust and the kissing of stars farewell, farewell, our time is returned this first is the best and never regained I arch I flood in spiraling pearls, paint your skin in ribbons of life, your tears a salty well dam burst the rush, fear, lust, love and its crush like time and its heat regaining our skin our skin our skin our one skin since the touch, the settling of love in the air, the moment of time we stole from the clock, we kissed, strangers made into one, time's duration in our pocket, with our love and our lust, the lashes of the sun settling the air, our kisses salted the land of Kings and Queens and at least one Princess, our reflections in the morning light mirrors painted on cornea, on cornea, staring from closer than bodies can be, I give you this, my body, my life, I give you this, my wine as I drink your tears, our legs twine like broken spider's webs, fine since we've had our feast, arms tight, tears to dry, shaking in the morning light as we slip into sleep, finally awake.
Friday, 27 October 2000
"Her Eyes, Stars" (part 8 of 8; conclusion)
I went to the sky; she took me in. I learned the truth of the touch of the softest skin. I learned how to dissolve distance with a kiss. I stole time from the webbed lashes of the sun and hid it in my pocket, deep beneath my matches and crumpled receipts, far away from prying need. With time having lost its duration, I kissed her again. We entwined tongues and licked the sun. (Spicy!) We climbed the ladder of cavorting stars and tickled each other in the glittering dust of the moon. She tickled us, too, the playful moon. We came home and shone like secrets you can not wait to know. We wandered the land of Kings under the gaze of a Queen. The streets had seen so many, so many, and now held our feet to the ground, together. Our steps were in time, syntonic. Our fingers - of course - entwined. I gave her my words. Then, a kiss. Her smile; her melancholy. But - her smile again. Her smile, the sky. She took me in. We stared. From three inches, and then two, and then one; kiss. Connect. The sun does blush, as hot as it gets, to see such passion. One inch, then two, then three. Our blush. Hands, clasped. Sun, risen. Street, firm and fast beneath our feet - the only quaking came from the hollows of our chests, where butterflies danced; cavorted. The sun, risen, the rush of sweat, heat, the memory, her scent, rising, again, from my lip. My blush. Dusk arriving, the moon hurrying to see. The scent of curry and lust, and now, and now...oh, this scent...the scent of...? Time's duration. The scent of the sun's blush. The scent of moon-milk. The scent of our breath, mingled, as we climbed down a ladder of stars. Mingled. Night, light, stars, moon, the sun dreaming (about, yes, us), it always does, the moon...the moon...the moon, lactating drops of the purest human feeling. You and I; we will never be closer than this.
We will never be closer than this.
Saturday, 28 October 2000
On the stage, where the lights wrap you like spiders and the gazes of dozens out there breathing through their eyes do the same, that is where you feel your heart beat the hardest. A fingertip touch to your chest is a hurricane; there are thunders and tympanis that rage in you, on the stage. You kiss every face that you've enraptured. You disgust. You arouse. You entice. You enlighten. And it only takes one set of flickering eyes, one twitch of a smile, one sigh at the right moment, at the right completion of a line, at the right word, that one sigh, to get your heart drumming the thunder in your soul out to the waiting, thirsty world.
Sunday, 29 October 2000
In three years, I will be introducing Seasonal Adjustment. On the last Sunday in February, we will turn the season ahead to May. Arbitrary, sure; but if time can be fooled, then why not the rest of everything?
Monday, 30 October 2000
Feel it coming on making me stronger no making me die eating from the inside on out of my mind through the eye the neck stiff crack swelling of throat fire and sore pain every muscle a flare a flame i am not awake i can not sleep i need peace i hate being sick
Tuesday, 31 October 2000
The Thinness of the Veil
Measure your breath; feel its girth, its weight. Now understand its importance. Such is the Veil. At its thickest it is barely seen, but always felt, always gravitious. It is the breath of our collective soul, the breath of our species - and theirs, and theirs. Cats - cats watch things pass across the threshold every minute that blurs by for them. At this time of year, with the Veil at its thinnest, our cats see the demons. This is their holiday, their time to travel, become tourists, visit our cities, our bodies, our hearts, our souls. They are here today. They are feisty. Feverish. Horny. (In Genesis 6:1-4, some demons even begat offspring - careful who hands you a drink tonight).
Go outside tonight, at least for a moment, into the cold, raw air, and look at your breath. Look at how thin it is - and how gravitious. Your breath is your Veil between life and death.