little loops
www.thegateless.org
Not his real name Con/Jur/d, 5/12/2023 We used to eat so much we coulda rolled down the street like a bowling ball, maybe a stone things have changed now, although we did it just the other day and the day before that, funny the lies we tell ourselves, about existence, I remember the time in Alaska, Tim and I were drunk of course, 18-hour workdays, sleeping in a gravel pit after, tossing tons of fish into a basket, subsequently gutting, scraping scales, filleting, all at a temperature, as close to freezing we could be and still survive although every year someone didn’t -- drink was the only reasonable method of exiting consciousness -- and we decided to visit the two Vietnam war vets who had adopted us or we had adopted them In Oscar’s van, sitting always in shadowed profile, night and day radiating cocaine rays, so when you approached, you were always a bit blinded, unsure how to get in or how to get out, and being of a particular flavor of youth we were ranting about existentialism, while Jack who watched Oscar, took care of him, held him close, leeched his money and blood hovered protectively nearby, until Oscar had heard enough From 2 kids said, “ Let me tell you about existentialism, I was sent over there as a UN agricultural aid, to help them to learn modern farming, and I got to know the people in my village, I got to know them!” With an uncontrolled bang! Half seen through the cigarette haze a heavy hand slams the table disturbing a tiny mirror, ashes, and cocaine contribute to this fog of too-close breaths, the putrid funk of salmon innards, providing a base for whatever unholy revelation, “I heard I heard, I heard the Viet Cong had come, to our little village, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t, could I? tell them apart, and I knew them man, but not well enough, Enough, so I had to, I had to I had no other I had no other Choice, and I killed them all Tim and I fled, He started wailing Jack enfolded him, and the sound of the van door closing was mechanical and lifeless, but this isn’t what this is Rather, you’ve heard this story before we tell it again and again, changing in small details, but always with horror with a certain thrill, and why is it we are stuck in these loops of repetition, desperate to please, to be heard, to be understood even with our false names, our addiction to oblivion, Why, why, why? Do we polish again and again these small corners of truth?
The sound poem the unseen creature made while I was eating a pickle pizza I got for free due to it being my birthday when it was too early for amphibians and lizards while the insects arising at this time of year shouldn’t have made a noise unknown and unknowable Con/Jur/d, 5/12/2023 wirrrrrrrrrrrrrrirrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiic
Much love,
Con/Jur/d, 5/12/2023