The Artist & His Muse

The muse had turned ugly.  She turned violent and grasping.

The artist became distant.  He was airy and wary of this new found dynamic.

The Muse snared her artist and crushed him between her powerful tresses.

The Artist fell to the floor as dried pieces of pigment flickered softly, down.

The paint quickly covered him and shielded him from her wrath.

His Muse intoned:

I AM IN YOUR HEAD FOREVER

UNTIL I AM PURGED

BY ANOTHER

          Yes! I purge you!                            I purge you with another!

He screamed. 

The flakes rattled madly and maddeningly.

He, the Artist, struggled in vain.

The Muse enraged, grew bored and left.

He rose and resumed his painting,

vowing never to hire another model off Craig's List again.

*******************************

sketch by Wyatt Landis

The Magic Plant Rules My Life

Farewell Nicotiana!
My cancer stick, my early grave!
My friend.  My boss.  My lover.  My-




It wasn't always this way.  Used to be I only fantasized about smoking, I never would have done it.  But look at those beautiful cool people inhaling smoke and breathing it out, air made visible!  And I learned the myth of Prometheus giving us fire, stolen from the gods.  And the accessories, don't get me started.  Carved ivory cigarette holders, platinum cigarette cases, tins with awesome graphics.  So I was basically fated to start smoking.  And once you've breathed the fire and the smoke and the carcinogens and plant and drug, it's very hard to get away from.



-demon who comes out smoking from a processed plant grown thousands of miles away.  A rolled up piece of paper with dry leaves that makes you stink and take frequent breaks.  A plant that controls you psychologically making you think that you always need more, even if you don't need more.  A drug that you might continue to take in even when you have a hole in your neck that you speak thru.


But I used to do stuff without a cigarette! All the time.  I think I was smoking when I first learned to drive, so maybe no that.  But I would walk, sit outside.  Play.  But now that thing is usually with me, my companion or my medication.  What did i do with my brain before I thought about whether or not it was time for another cigarette.  If I was 17 when I started, I hadn't been using my brain that long anyway.  It became an early established pattern.
And I have quit before, thank you.  The longest was for 6 years, another time for two years.  I enjoyed my non-smoking time.
Other times I have tried to quit and failed, embarrased and disappointed but so glad to have a cigarette again!  
Something pulls me back in to the morass.



Farewell Nicotiana!
I knew you, I held you in my mouth yet you remain
a mystery,
a master
a Plant.

The Hill

Are you kidding?  I can just put on my seven league boots and step over to that mother fucking hill.

The one with the red spires that blink and blink and blink and blink.

But I do not wish to go there now, it bores me.
I once lived on that hill's underside, rather like a friendly tick.
Detesting those I moved among because they were more privelaged than I.
Little did they know of my future revenge!
I will stay here and watch.

The other direction, you know down town, to the s.w. of where i stand overlooking, over watching,
there are buildings built tall in order to intimidate me.  Pah! I could merely step one dainty foot in that direction and they would crumble, if I wished.

I do not wish to crushing them right this mother fucking moment.


To the east, ah I unfortunately cannot see in that direction from my perch so I ignore it.


But I survey all that lies before me!
Not to destroy although that may be in my plans.
No stand here and survey and think, "WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN" and "WHY ME?"

(I know I'm the queen stop interrupting me with that!)

I see
the red spires, the sour tall buildings and the water and then mountains and then....

Why after that I really do not know.

I travelled beyond the mountains several times and found long stretches of sand, windy and grey, driven endlessly by trucks.

I could not control those lands and so I backed away.

Here it just comes naturally.

How many steps of my boots would it take to get me back there now?

*****************

No Title Comes To Mind

The beast is hungry,

The beast is raaaaaaavenous.

She claws me with her sharp fingernails leaving welts and scars and fissures flapping.

She just wants to play!

I let her out of her cage;  I do it all the time you know.

No one really gets hurt.

Sometimes she gets out of breath and i have to put ice on her neck, to cool her down.

I've deprived her of food and water before, because of the stuff she's done.

You know, stuff.

It doesn't seem to make much difference though, she still doesn't know how to play nice.

Yeah I said she wants to play, but maybe you don't know what that means!

And like i said also, she doesn't play nice.

That's why, when i do let her out, i stand back, cover my eyes and hum really loudly, something like "La La La".

And as she slinks away, I pretend like i don't know what she'll do.

What kind of advice do you want?

If you see her just.....let her scratch you if she wants, cause then she'll get bored and go away.

Maybe.

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE

I have seen the future and it is me.

Pieced together with former bits of my old self, soldered bits of metal and wires.
My new, more productive, stronger SEXIER self is ready to go.

The operation wasn't really that bad, I mean my thumbs hurt so bad I was glad to see them go!
These new Opposables are top notch.
Now I can text all day, the way I should be able to.

The new breasts are ok I guess, but they seem unnaturally high up on my chest and they kind of stick out, (at precisely the correct angle to attract maximum attention).

I'm waiting to get my lungs done, I kind of ruined them early on in the century when people used to smoke through their mouths! Times sure have changed.

But these thumbs are really just incredible.  I can be on the computer, coordinate my closet, text, CLIMB A ROPE, etc all in a day and not even feel it.  Really.

So since I'm the future of you, I'd like to say to all of you back there that don't worry about using up your human body parts.  Go for it!  It doesn't matter, cause you don't have to be a fucked up human forever.  You can even choose to be part one, that's what I did.

These thumbs will outlast everything else on my body, even these Minurium breasts will be gone before the thumbs will.  Once I get more replacements, maybe I won't really ever die.  I'll rust, I'll break down, but it won't hurt.

Will it now.



*********************

GUTS

Findings: 

Liver is diffusely homogeneous and normal in echotexture, size, without focal hepatic finding, intrahepatic bile duct dilatation.

Portal vein flow is hepatopedal.

Gallbladder is within normal limits without gallstone, gallbladder wall thickening, pericholicystic fluid.

Visualized extrahepatic bile duct measures 0.27cm, within normal 

limits for age.

Visualized pancreas is diffusely homogeneous in echotexture, normal in size without appreciable ductal dilatation.

Spleen is grossly homogenous in echotexture, normal in contour, size, measuring 11cm.

Both kidneys are grossly normal in size, echotexture, without 

hydronephrosis.

Right kidney measures 11cm.

                           Left kidney measures 10cm .

Visualized abdominal aorta is grossly.

Visualized inferior vena cava is grossly unremarkable.

There is no appreciable free fluid.

Fathers that Stand in the Rapids

So he was a man that had felt the fissures and movings of the earth at an early age:
















His mother sold him at 1 years old.

His adopted father abandoned him for the war.

His step mother beat his ass with her liquor bottles.

He moved, again and again and again, leaving behind friends and schools and houses and toys and bikes and trees and deserts, taking only books.
Only books.
Always books.

His hair, always white grew darker.
And eventually whiter again.

He grew suspicious yet Zen like, going with the flow while he urgently scouted the banks for a helpful branch.

What was the river and what was the shore?  Would the earth ever stop eroding under his feet?

He traveled, he married, he unmarried.  He married again.
He fathered children.
He saw his beloved grandparents die; also his father, his evil step-mother, his birth mother, his son.

He travels the world and he collects earth from different places.
What is he searching for?
A drawer is full of these small jars filled with different amounts of dirt from Egypt, from Ireland, from Turkey, from Arizona.
Sometimes he might empty one of the neatly labeled jars onto the wooden kitchen table.  He gently stirs it around forming mandalas and other designs.  He thinks about where it is from and he tastes it.

It tastes like dirt.

happy father's day to my beloved father,

Wiley Hampton