"Sounds Good To Me" (Champagne by Shoestring Dialogue)

"Pussy." The sound of the word used to make me cringe. Something about those consonants is so harsh. Call it desensitization I guess. Doesn't really bother me now unless it escapes the mouth of a drunken asshole. Man or woman, Must it be so easy to say? Funny though, from the lips of a normally proper female, while intriguingly crude from the lips of an honest lesbian. I'm here again, all too familiarly, trying to avoid "Pussy" on a Friday night. To look at me, you'd laugh. Difficult to say in flannel and denim with no real options on the table. More like I'm trying to avoid the thought of it. Sex-drive inducing drugs are floating about in my blood thanks to friends that have release options ready when necessary. Mine consist only in virus-infected "free" porn, and a teasing phone call to a charming fag in Ohio. Charlie's always up for going down on straight guys, especially one's fantasizing about vagina while he's fanatically trying to open their minds. I suppose, a straight capitalist seems out of the box enough to be interesting to a flaming liberal homo who's an activist by trade. Either way Charlie's funny, but not pussy, and porn is just porn. I always have to mute it so I don't hear some terrible actress say pussy, while some asshole with a pony tail echoes as though it should turn the lonely high guy on. It stopped satisfying many Fridays ago, and this Friday is no different than any other since I was 13 or so. Trying to avoid the visual curse of man. Specifically straight man. I just want to rub my nose in Beautiful trim that's dripping naturally from the most basic instinct an animal has: Survival. Stinking wet Survival made possible through an unbelievable desire for me. It hasn't happened in so long that all I can do is try to avoid the thoughts of pussy on a Friday night, and actually accomplish some reading. No luck. The pure ecstasy of seeping cunts always destroys...

Stuck At The Top (Whiskey by Orlo Newbould)

“Sorry I’m so dry. I’m on the pill.”

She was dry. I had been closing my eyes to shut out a headache and sustain a hard-on. The sex wasn’t going well, but I looked up at her and as she bit her lip in concentration my fervor was renewed. A little spit, a little tuck and we shared blinks and smiles until I was ready.

“It’s ok. I’m on the pill.”

It was ok. My seed fell on rocky ground and that was that. Another lay. There was no seduction, the whole thing felt like an arrangement, like every time before, only this time the clean-up onus was hers.

I had always associated sex with love, but the echo of those disenchanting words “I’m on the pill” rattled in my naïve head. She didn’t want all of me, nobody did anymore, what with my family tree now blooming and blocking out the sun. I had become a product of the whiskey night, of desire and rubbers and pills. I would have to learn the art of disassociation and just try to have fun. And not love.

Now I sweat more after sex than before and during. Was it what I wanted? Was it what she wanted? Was it what we wanted? Is there a we? Sex used to be a beginning of adventure and love but sex had become compulsory, an end of booze, hormones and shared sleeping quarters.

“It’s Friday. I’m on the pill.”

Work-week almost done and I’m looking at wines but everything worth drinking comes in a glass bottle with a real cork and is too expensive. Unsustainable. What if I should fall in love and want a second bottle? I remember the Scotch in the cabinet with the waffle iron and leave the wine shop with empty hands. I walk back home. Pour two-fingers and pinch a cigarette. I refuse to brush my teeth. I belch. I fart. I curse. I pick my nose. Just trying to avoid pussy on a Friday night. But she keeps coming after me and whispers in my waxen ear…

“Lay with me. I’m on the pill.”

Tipsy Ambition (Champagne By Orlo Newbould)

I woke up on a Thursday, a lucky day for me, the day I was born. And I woke up on a Thursday, the day I was born, the day I emerged from a gooey egg as an ant for the first time.

Everything was in order, on my birthday, the blades of grass soared into the sky above me just as they should, and nobody noticed me on my birthday because I was a commodity.

I was too small to march to a picnic blanket and carry off crumbs. I was too weak to shovel grains of sand. I was too young and too curious to sleep though my mother insisted. I should stay put and grow.

It was summer, and the mothers were all having children then stomping off to work the watermelon picnics of the giants. We were all, my brothers, sisters, birth-mates and I, expected to slumber until the nectar of juice boxes and chunks of bread crust were delivered to us for breakfast.

Mother had to work. She could not supervise. She was supervised. I noticed the sun ducking behind clouds in alternating warmth like a seductress. The sun trumped my mother¹s milky mandate to wait. I swung my feet out of bed and did deep knee bends in multiples of six.

I was fresh, new, limber, and not one of the joints in my segmented anatomy crackled. I could scurry to the sun.

I scurried to the sun.

Under the sun everything was enormous, but I understood where I was. My perspective was changed, but the scenery was familiar.

I saw with wet eyes the concrete steps and scaled the porch with sticky feet.

Slipped through the threshold under the door.

Slipped through the threshold under another door.

Up more stairs to a bookcase.

One human gulp of flat champagne slept in the bottom of a black coffee mug atop the bookcase.

I shimmied into the mug and sipped all I could, and feeling confidently tipsy, fell out of the mug and down the glass panes of the bookcase to the keyhole.

Slipped in without a key and with the ambition of one who is confidently tipsy, reasoned:

"I should read all these books."

The Patient Library (Whiskey By Shoestring Dialogue)

My response has always been the same to these people,"...All these books I've yet to read..." It could just as well be, "All these books I've yet to write", but those types of claims lend themselves to an arrogance that almost always garners a rolled-eyes response with a sarcastic tone of encouragement. The trouble is the instructors.

The fat mother fuckers always telling you to put more vegetables in your diet. The evangelic assholes groaning on about some Jesus to find as if I'm the one that's lost. "Seek and ye shall find" seems to escape the creed of condemnation. "Test the Spirits" takes a belt-less back seat as well when the blind in faith are off leading the blind in heart. Soda pop, pizza, and Christ are supposedly way more satisfying than marijuana, chocolate bars, and Heller. Without lecturing, mostly due to its hypocritical roots, no thank you. The so-called enlightened can stick to the big black thick of begets and condemnation. Quality Proverbial literature aside, it's still just the one book. Point fingers elsewhere while smiling critically and acting enlightened. I'll sit questioning my rotting teeth while the shelf lay dusty with all of these books I've yet to read.

Let's not assume this self defense to be one sided. Anecdotal maybe, but not limited to one group of snotty lecturers. The libs can run away too with their horse shit fliers about the corporate misuses of horse shit. It's always the same, "This is a cause you should get behind" or "How can you turn your back on little Johnny here". Well, my response is nearly the same. Please realize that you attack me daily, and remember my grizzled face. I've got no time to save the world when there are books I've yet to read.

Faces in these crowds so cute

stealing my all of my time and senses

wasting ears while wishing mute

What makes your cause relentless?

Claims Fanning flames of false ambiguity

peaceful protests should not have judgement eyes

your volume suggests an acute fortuity

My shoes wear unfairly from wading these lies

Please shout to an idiot's ears

find hungrier mouths to feed

give me back those wasted years

These books I've yet to read.

Manhattan Pigeons (Whiskey by Orlo Newbould)

I remember chasing birds. Brooklyn Lager and an old friend, a cousin, I followed him between the parked taxis. His half of a baseball ticket hung from a worn back pocket. I misplaced mine earlier and we couldn't go back to our seats. So we chased Manhattan pigeons with our hats.

Manhattan pigeons. Cleaner than the woman. So I was told. My pastor visited the city years ago and told horror tales of the girls. Don't bother he said. Coals in your lap. It was breezy April and our heart rates were slowed by whiskey. Coals in my lap sounded cozy. Instead my cousin and I dove after pigeons, after all we were both wearing wedding bands.

Half the money gone now, no cock-blocks from the pulpit to tame my nature, I dream of another chance to chase birds. In Manhattan. Wouldn't misplace the ticket stub either. Coffee would be wise too, a warm, wide-eyed pursuit of feathers. No desperation. No coals. A warm blanket of glitter-dotted flesh to whisper me tales of tomorrow.

Tuppence A Bag (Champgne By Shoestring Dialogue)

I remember chasing birds. I thought that I could catch them. Never mind the grown-up thoughts that creep their way into immediacy after being so conditioned by warnings from news editorials. I didn't know about disease. More importantly, I hadn't given up yet. Here in adult land you watch the birds, knowing that catching them is near impossible. Should possibility exist, it's far too much work to try and quietly sneak up on a nervous bird. So we've grown into feeding, watching, and talking about their beauty.

I remember chasing birds the way I remember playing baseball. It was fun. One day I would catch a bird, I was certain. I had caught butterflies and lightning bugs, so why not birds?

I remember the ability to conceptualize death at a young age. My sister and I came across a dead bird in the yard. It had not been injured, but it was certainly not breathing. We dug a grave and said a eulogy to pay our respects. We even named the poor creature, and carved that name on a brick with a twig crafting a head stone of sorts.

I remember chasing birds as though their capability of flight could transfer to me the moment that I could hold one of them. I could do productive things with wings and wind. My imagination took me to those heights. I suppose ignorance and innocence played their roles as well. As a city-dweller, a rarely give them a second look. They are such filthy little creatures.

Nothing Eternal (Whiskey by shoestring dialogue)

And oh when that ounce creeps in! The mood will change, households will crumble, and governments will explode from the inside out. Happiness is not forever, just like sadness can not defeat everyone. Love is conditional, and hate is foolish, but even a fool is capable of compassion. Even a fool has a mother.

The Billboards penetrate so that there is no escaping these advertisements. My television is gone, and my radio is broken. I do not look at magazines, and I gave away my car. The billboards still penetrate. But oh when that ounce creeps in!

The emotion is no matter, nor the argument. The action, nor the counter action. The dog, nor the cat, nor the mouse. The church, nor the heathen. The drug, nor the disease, nor the cure. Nothing is impenetrable, especially those guilty of penetrating. And oh when that ounce creeps in!

Will I grow a beard, or shave it?