Archive for the ‘Trent Walters’ Category
God’s Disco: i) Driving to God’s Disco
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
My friend is sad. He is driving us to a poetry reading. I have just shown him the glossy back-cover photo of the poet reading tonight. My friend holds his head in his hands and rubs his face. One would think driving in this posture would be difficult. Grabbing the steering wheel, I ask, what ails you, my friend?
I am sick and tired, he says, of being sick and tired behind the wheel of this vehicle.
I allow him to wallow in his misery in peace. People need peace with their misery. Like donuts need grease.
He cries dry tears. I know because he will lift his face, and it will be dry because I will do something he will not like that will cause his face to lift. His eyes will, however, be red from rubbing them with his palms. The only time he has ever cried wet tears was over Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. When the peaceful misery passes, I say, tell me what makes you so sad.
If you don’t know, I am not going to tell you.
I release the steering wheel. My hands cover my face. I say nothing. I need peace with my misery though misery gives no peace. Come here, I say; let me kiss and make it feel better. I gesture for his face.
He lifts his face. His eyes are red, his face is dry, and his elbow, apparently, does not like my gesture (nor does my gesture like his elbow). He says, we will not. We are men.
I forgot, I say rubbing my gesture; I only wished to comfort your misery.
Let us go, you and I, to a poetry-etherized reading.
Let us, I say, and afterwards we can gobble a steak dinner and salad at the casino buffet on the river. The food may not be good, but there is a lot of it, which is good for us manly men who don’t know what we want to eat.
Yum, he says.
Besides, I say, a river is the universal, unidirectional symbol for time because it can’t change directions–except in earthquakes. We will eat on a river of time until our guts explode. Like true artists: everything done in excess.
Thyme, he asks.
Exactly, I say.
My friend cuts across traffic, because we are late, heading the wrong way down a one-way on Dodge Street, which is poetic because the cars have to dodge us. We live art.
Long Live the Dead
Monday, September 15th, 2008
In terms of continuity–although it should stand on its own–this is the last of the Pandora series. The order is 1) “Meet the Extraordinary Ordinaire,” 2) “The Bug-a-Boo Bear,” 3) “Chop Chop,” 4) “Byzantine,” and 5) “Long Live the Dead.”
Pandora scaled Olympus. Oblivious to the world, she snagged her skirt on prickly shrubs and scraped her palms each time a stone slipped out from under. In her right, she carried a knife, gripped blade down. When the climbing grew too steep, she held the hilt between her teeth.
Finally, she reached the Hall of Gods. Apollo, Hera, Zeus, and others lined the jagged walls in colorful repose inside their mile-high, mahogany-framed portraits. Towering above, the statue of Athena was so life-like that Pandora’s footfall stuttered. Should she give obeisance? Only when Athena stood serene as death’s box, did Pandora pass.
Swift-winged Mercury caught up with her and, glancing at the knife, inquired of her business on Olympus, but she sprinted up an unobtrusive spiral staircase built of pearl bricks and silver mortar. Mercury pursued her not. Pandora grabbed a flaming torch from the wall and hastened on.
She paused at a landing to catch her breath and lean out a window. Old Olympus, below, sparkled with the gleam of emeralds and rubies. High above, the tower’s pinnacle was, to the naked eye, invisible. She soldiered on.
Her legs nigh quaked with rubbery fatigue as she reached the topmost stair. Without hesitation, she approached the sleeping figure on the cot–his hair a flowing golden mane–and plunged the knife hilt-deep into his chest.
***
Pandora jerked the torch from the wall and hurried up. On the landing, she caught her breath and, shaking off her deja-vu, continued.
At the top, she tiptoed to the sleeping shape and plunged the knife into his chest. He raised a feeble hand as if in whisper, but she wasn’t interested in listening to this jerk.
***
Pandora’s fingers lingered on the torch before removing it. She cautiously ascended.
At a landing, she saw the Hall wink brightly, sighed and clambered up.
Her legs were spry as she arrived upon the height. She approached the figure on the cot, plunged the knife toward his chest.
A firm hand gripped her wrist before it touched the man. A voice from nowhere and everywhere asked, “Have you learned naught?”
“That you’re cruel? Yes. All blame me if something goes awry, but blesses you if right.”
“Because you lack capacity, you look and think you see.” The figure, whose vague features grew more featureless as she watched them, pointed. “The window.”
Pandora glanced at the floor-to-ceiling window, then the figure–which became a child’s thin rendering of a man–now slept as if it never stirred.
She crossed the chamber to stand inside the window–its frame a cheap, pressed wood-pulp–saw the Hall below; above, the tower rose–if she could believe her eyes–beyond the stars.