Little Movies

Fiscal therewith, I now proclaim this cesspool for all time to be a true example of itself. And so rush to confirm the next lemon with a kiss & an autograph. If I see something I like, I like to put words on it. And if I can’t put words on it, I will put words around it. Some people find this irritating. I find it humid & dark, like a piece of insulated siding. The fop of form comes forth to exhilarate a pioneer with the wonders of modern sciatica. And oh boy, did you ever think such insinuation would get around to bringing us such gorgeous propinquity? Tomorrow we’ll be sharing recipes, so bring your favorite philosophy, & a nice tall glass of bourbon swizzle. 

        Is it possible to have a memory of something that hasn’t happened yet? Is it possible to have a memory of something that never happened? Is it possible to have a memory of something that happened to somebody else? Is it possible to have a memory of something that happened in another lifetime? Is it possible to have a memory of a complication that turned out to be hollow & not worth the time & trouble that went into remembering that problem, but that continued to dangle in your brain like a Gordian knot? I think I once knew the answers to these. But I forget. 

        I search for a memory: when was the last time I went to a drive-in movie? Was it the summer of 1967, A Man and A Woman? And aren’t memories like little movies that get stuck in our brains? A memory of a memory is a reel of irreal reverie. I’ve never acted in anything. That must be strange, assume another identity, give it expression, motion, emotion, caprices, creases, nieces, visas, thesis. I play a woolgatherer playing with a rubber band in a lonely saloon in Missoula. Wyatt Earp comes in sits down & shoves a photograph of Arthur Rimbaud at me. Do you know this man? I take careful aim at the void & then go spinning into the stars, a fist of beginning. 

        I have a covenant I can inaugurate if you’d like. There’s also a little milk in the superfluity floating at the end of this sentence. I don’t know what it’s doing there. I didn’t put it there. I haven’t written anything about it yet. I don’t know what it is. I mean, it’s superfluous, which isn’t saying much, it’s just another intrinsically unquenchable weltschmerz, like a wad of pessimism yodeling in a jar of licorice. Nihilism is like that. It starts out soggy then becomes handsomely chinchilla. We rub ourselves all over with it. I get to feeling infrared & have to express myself as a social construction. Studs for the torment, aviaries for the afterthoughts.         

        Thank God for acetaminophen. I get headaches a lot lately. Stress due to Covid. And obdurate old age. And a general propensity toward acerbity. But who doesn’t? These are dystopic times. Feelings of irreality mingled with disillusionment, buffed to a palatable shine, laced with a pinch of gloom & served ice cold in a tall glass of Irish crystal with Delores O’Riordan’s face engraved on the side. Imagine a vodka gimlet flavored with crushed bits of nihilism dug out of the hard dank walls of Dante’s Inferno. Cirque de Soleil performed by giant spiders dressed in the leotards of a silken monomania. Richard Brautigan shooting holes in a clock.