(A Sunday Morning Story)

I walked up the long black cement road that wound around Highland Hill like a concrete river. I had just come from running, the first attempt since my knee injury; I had been curious for motion, but I wasn’t an idiot, pushing past patience’s pace, so I only ran the flat parts, leaving downhill to be walked. When it was level, I made sure to run with more of a squat-glide than a proper high-impact run. I would curl my tailbone under, shifting my pelvis forward, sinking low into my thighs, and hinge from my waist to allow for a pivoting in my mid-section, avoiding the up and down, up and down.

The sun was beginning to thicken the air with heat, which radiated off the concrete. I was tired. As I rounded the last corner, my temple beginning to pound, I saw the blackberry bushes I had noticed on the run out. There hadn’t been many left – the birds had nearly picked the bush clean – but I did notice a few small berry-heads poke out from disclosing leaves. Sweet dessert!

I plucked the four I was able to find in the long minutes of searching. Be satisfied with four, I whispered, nodded, and prepared myself to enjoy the fruits of my labor…

The first one was tart, near to bitter, and I cringed on first taste. The next one was a bit better, slightly sweeter, and the third was tart again, un-enjoyable nearly. I saved the last, noting it was much plumper than the previous three, and that it must be the sweet relief I was waiting for. I looked at it to marvel at the girth — what a berry! – to take it in, enjoy the process, ritualize the experience. Holding it up to the light, I noticed a small white speck, which began to move. Watching longer, I realized the glorious berry was swarming with those white specks, like television static. Mites. I decided even in my adventurous spirit I’d hold off on the mite eating, would wait until I could rinse it off. I wondered if the tart ones had had mites and I just hadn’t noticed, or maybe the pale ivory bugs knew to only congregate on the sweet ones – the best ones.

I walked further on, promising this berry would be worth the wait, and worth the wash. Then, as quickly as I stumbled into a pothole just off the road and let loose a yelp as I swiped my leg against a reaching berry vine, my eyes met a cluster of glory-berries; the berries were as fat, if not fatter, than the one I held so preciously. Jackpot.

Ha, I winced, my pain is worth it, lest I never discover this abundance the birds seem to have missed. I picked and I picked. Two hands full, some were so ripe they fell apart in my soft two-fingered grasp. Every berry I picked swarmed with mites but I didn’t care because I knew, oh I knew, the sweet reward that awaited my patience at the end of Lau Lane – knew the heaven that would adorn my bran cereal. Perfection. The sun beat down and I was dripping with sweat. My hands were sticky and wet. I was feverish with triumph.

This is not a metaphor for life. This is a story about berry picking.

Junk mail is annoying. We’re all in agreement on this. But I’m willing to wager a hefty sum it’s because there is a kind of annoying violation of one’s inbox that occurs with messages titled “NAstY under age animal sexx” — am I wrong?

I must give credit, however, to a recent bout of junk mail that managed to squeeze past my filter — not only did I stop to read them, but I actually saved the damn things. Oh yes, these were different, interesting… poetic, even. For example:

So I decided the hell with it. The last time I had gone into the Zone at was a mile across the water. If they waited much longer, he would reach a whatever I reach first. I’ll apologize now. For example, Mr. Tender, if I his truth in the face of the Flock. And the more Jonathan practiced his

ooooh. See that? See how it ended in the middle of the sentence, leaving the reader in anticipation, wanting more? Great dramatic build. And this Mr. Tender — he’s an interesting character. “The face of the Flock”? Great analogy for the tyranny of social expectations. Moving.

Another of my favorites:

Low speed ahead along the pylons, altitude three yards. Halt at the
narrative calls for them, the super-potent protagonist never kills any-
lies if it came from within the institute, because nobody there knew
than half his wingspan above the water, he could stay in the air longer,

ah! “wingspan above the water” — striking, isn’t it? Such imagery! George Orwell himself would be impressed with these references to “lies” within “the institute.” And really: all protagonists should be “super-potent,” don’t you think?

I wonder if more junk mail were phrased this way we’d all be less negative about SPAM. I imagine some unemployed aspiring writer somewhere scouring the Craigslist job listings, coming across the following:

WANTED: Junk Email Writer. Pay based on amount of emails sent. Must be able to click “send” repeatedly and write incoherent sentences about bestiality, Viagra, or mortgage rates. No experience necessary.

“Eureka!” s/he shouts “now I can reach thousands upon thousands of readers and finally show the world the words I was meant to write!”

I’m thinking there’s good opportunity in starting a viral marketing firm of higher literary aspirations — it’ll be the Johnnie Walker Blue Label™ of junk mail:

GOLD JUNK: A more refined flavor of SPAM

Any investors out there wanna go halfsies with me?

Well, it’s nice to know there’s no one out there among my audience of readers that writes poetry, or rather, no one out there willing to submit their poetry for posting. I’ll take this to mean one of three things:

1) My audience of readers is a very shy group
2) My audience of readers is a very smart group
3) I have no audience of readers

And so, it seems that the burden of bad poetry falls upon the shoulders of yours truly. (I won’t disappoint.)

I will, however, with the following poem, bid adieu to the annuals of Project Sedation as, sadly, my bottle of vicodin proffers nothing but narcotic dust, my martini glass no longer runneth over, and my bottles of codeine are nothing more than sticky, empty vessels of syrupy memories once full of the potential for confused ramblings of intoxicated stanzas… now little more than fodder for the recycling bin (it’s now “hot to be green” — see the cover of this week’s
Newsweek. That, and I’ve moved on to uppers.

Oh, settle down, people — I kid!

Truth be told I’m moving on to other forms of writing, trying to check off project ideas that have been a long-time-coming (Generation Now, more Craigslist folly, some JetSet wrap-up) and wipe my writing slate clean for what’s to come in the following months: another round of Slinky, a more journalistic focus, capturing some tendrils of summer, and the beginning preparations for a novel.

We’ll see how it goes. If I don’t ever write another word again and disappear into the irretrievable depths of a complacent existence, never again surfacing into the ever-widening scope of the blogosphere, we won’t judge. And why’s that, you ask?

Because around here, we’re Not Keeping Score.

Only Dirt

What are these two supposed poles
around which I navigate
I see only a black hole
into which I lean, and there’s nothing great

about leaning over an edge
only to get a better view of death
(which sits at Stupidity’s ledge;)
or holding breath

for a moment to be un-weak
as if the world will turn right-side out
for that sinking chasm to become a peak
from which we’ll see God’s snout

Well, let me tell you,
there is no nose of God,
nor a place to climb to –
Only sky, and dirt, and sod