Massage Gun

I opened the case and shot myself in the foot with a massage gun. My leg trembled. The massage was intense. Exultation, delirium and Arthur Rimbaud soon followed. I sat in the Buddhism all around me and squeezed alchemies of personal glory out of my spirit. Sanskrit finished the symphony in total darkness. The patina everywhere thrived like words. The streets were dazzling. When I’m empty of things to say I feel wonderful like a cracker. Waves roll in. Waves roll out. Silence dilates into agitated tongues. Pablo leads the Cubist horses out of the barn. The horses are words that awaken in your eyes. The afternoon teems with neutrons and bark. And what was it, this large thing thrashing around in the sentence? It was an idea eating itself. You’d think it was science talking. But no. The idea may be devoured, but the words come back. They always do. With more ideas. Paradigms, spurs and rubber. They don’t belong to anyone. They’re up for grabs. Words are packed in images because science is surrounded by steam, and scientists feel pink and happy with the ambiguity of it all. Ambiguity is the ambassador of amplitude. I think of my father in October. And Kerouac. My dad was born in October. Kerouac died in October. The mood is there, the chill is there, the skulls and pumpkins are there. Kerouac’s Dr. Sax. Macbeth’s cackling witches. Enraged villagers driving Frankenstein’s monster into a windmill with torches and pitchforks. In the Lushootseed language of the Puget Sound Salish people, October is known as the month when many leaves fall. What baffles me every October is not just the bittersweet memories but the wool gloves I’ll be wearing and a wool hat for the benefit of old parchment and the poetry of elves. Whenever I wonder why things exist I try to remember going to North Dakota with Hamlet on my mind. And where did that lead me? Minot, that’s what. Those days turned crinkly and blow harder you fuckers blow harder or this sentence won’t go anywhere. Why is it some old people are jolly and some are like old roads in deep rich forests of gold. This is the speech of leaves. This is the talk of owls and ghosts. And a big fat moon. We shiver in the cold. The fire is hard to get going. Commas cry at the apparitions they can’t pause. We hear the galaxy in the trees all its tragic flaws and scrollwork. This is how we incite our whispers to open a door in the head. One day sooner or later it happens to everybody. The forehead folds into a toaster and I feel suddenly closer to my body than I ever have. I can feel the plumage I grew last night in a dream. A cloud folded the sky into a molecule and Omaha rolled out. The apples are a mystery. I don’t know what they’re doing here. I like to imitate squeegees. It’s chiefly why I’ve chosen to bring these icicles to your attention. The way they drip. And drip. Welcome to the north. Welcome to the trembling of the air energizing your massage. Your message. The massage is the message. The message is a massage. And mercy.