DROOLING WITH COALS
The yellow of the sun. The power of men. The cold yellow heat which burns some men. The truth of all things said. The truth that is nothing said. The weakness of men. Events which change men. Events which flip over and change nothing but men in the eyes of men...
Looking up and out of a length of neck with eyes held open. Eyes pulled open. Weeping so wide, rested on wet wood. Looking into the sun. Seeing all there is and nothing more. All through time. Eyes held out, then further out, almost to lick the sun.
He saw again the haphazard events. He saw, laughed, and fell back to the prisons. He rested in prisons. No matter. No walls were whole; no wire, cutting sharp. No stretch of time, wide or narrow, deep or shallow, filled the massive space.
Only the prisons, crammed and hollow. Prisons of mishap. Prisons of shame. He saw them through a tunnel's vision. Filled to the beams with badly drawn escape plans. Numbered and sealed. Halls of tattered scrolls, stuffed into pockets with guilty hands. Buried in sand was he in this place. He marveled again and burst. Barely remembered to curse.
There in the bedroom. The pin-cushion bedroom. Sunk in the legend. Back at the moment of over-dressed sleeping, of indiscreet dreaming. Of shamming. Of frankly deceiving. Under the current and over the stones. Pressed down hard in the sheets of illusion. Thirsting and drooling, running and losing. Bloated with living, he thrashed again and fumbled for the wrong keys, hands in those pockets.
Later, driving home quickly, he never arrived. Elated and fooled, he cancelled his stride. Tomorrow he would fall again, hallucinating in silence, back to the prisons.
He wandered back and forth, back and forth. Raw and scorched.
Now, counting press-ups, he floated across the sea beneath his old pair of wings. And as the sun burned deeper, ONE burned deeper. Burned a sprig of naked flesh into his. There, in the room with shoes. There, under the perfumed gown. Intimate at last. Telephone in one hand, ankle in the other:
"This one or this one?"
"This one."
"No, this one."
They spread themselves happily, knocked themselves out.
Later he would gibber like a fool. Would speak to be revealed. He wrenched himself back with a slamming jolt, to the echo of a giggle. Then trembled and wept like a Bad Thing. Back and forth. Blood and coal. Lust and jail - the prisons.
"What must we do tonight?"
"Let's get lost."
"I think we are lost."
"Silly! Get in the car."
"Where is the car?"
They looked for the car. Under a sky split into day and night. They walked without touching - mouths jammed on solitary prayers. Selfish, blasphemous prayers. The great building, the school: it's silhouette rose... and fell away. Turned... and folded away. The upper most hour sped... and leaked away.
Heaven lounged... and sank away.
Until they sat once more beneath the fat branch, under the fat tree. Boldly regarding all the others, under their fat trees. Drawing comparisons. Drawing none. Salivating through thin armour. Explicitly yawning, holding back nothing. Revealing, more or less, nothing.
Delivered again and passed through the mesh, he whimpered. The others, now, yawned in chorus. For they had lived in silhouette, the others, and he was glad of it. Tired of it now, though, and years from it.
Just so, he nursed himself stranded.
Something pulled at his ear-lobe. Urged him open. Rocked and fibbed and charmed him open. He knew he must wait, knew that the rhythm he heard, and the odour he drank, would rise from the bottle he found on the beach. He would simply have to lull himself and ease himself. Open out his ribs, all wide as wide. Expose himself on doomsday.
And wait for them to come,
BOOM!
And wait for them to come,
BOOM!
And wait for them to come,
BOOM!
While he waited - and it was a long wait - he cast himself back again. He held himself steady, strapped himself down. Dashed himself back once again.
To the short hair and lips that promised to do the dirty job. It had been easy in the puppet room. It would be easy again. Light would come, jealous now, flooding through the window. The long winter coat, repeatedly dropped, was back on the hook. The breath had been clean, tinted with beer. The navel healed over.
He had learned to avoid drooling in that place.
Rising now, he imagined two figures changed into stone.
But he had not been careful, all had seen; and he tossed himself back to the prisons.
As he gibbered this time, a guardian reached in and pulled out his balls, wasted and bloodless, up, up, and out, through the baby-cavity in the top of his head. Tied them off and stood back. He crouched in his corner too painful to move. Glued himself down again. Sent forth his eyes again.
They worried him faithlessly, ever more. Dared him to jump again.
He locked himself in again, settled, and snored away the minutes.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
