That Vague Cabbage At The Frontier Of The Soul

When new moments of pleasure arise that might otherwise be summarily dismissed as something thin and linear, place a wax mailbox in the center of an aromatic peccadillo and wait to see what happens. The imagery of life is preponderantly indelicate. Guns, penetration, and hardheaded subtleties too stubborn to shout Madeira. Power has a cosmetic effect by the pool. It helps mask inner frailties. If you can imagine the heat of the sun in a Hollywood bungalow, you can imagine electrolysis. And if you can do at least one credible push-up you can distinguish a membrane from a bone. So I ask you: why are you here? Don’t answer that. I’m just glad you’re here. Don’t let that monstrosity in the corner intimidate you; it’s an inflatable Picasso. Somebody needs to blow it up. Someone with a lot of breath, and artistic instincts, like bug-eyed Jack Elam in Once Upon A Time In The West. Dueling a fly. That vague cabbage at the frontier of the soul is really just a section of time folded in half. Or maybe the Sunday Times with another boomer exposé. What will become of that generation of youth who knew how to set a needle down in the vinyl groove of Like A Rolling Stone, or Layla, or A Whiter Shade of Pale? What, exactly, was their legacy? They reinvented pleasure. They dug graves and filled mausoleums with the ashes of war. And a lot of other stuff I’ve long forgotten, but feels like something underground making newspapers and manifestos. Can you hear it? It’s a herd of metallic clouds stumbling over a line of poetry. There are things in this life that cannot be put into words but must lifted to the gates of heaven like the musk of a voluptuous afternoon. I'm tempted to say something about overflowing panacea wheels and how to deflate an ego with the prick of a desperado, but I’ll leave that for another time. A time less leaden than what passes for time on this plane and all of its self-destructing machinery waltzing around the language in a black negligee and a stovepipe hat. If I ever get to Tulsa I must thank my lucky stars. Because the highways at night get weirder each passing year. If I had more time I could deepen the vision and come out the other side holding an old lampshade and the frantic sugar of a failed laxity, but for that I would need a magnolia and an archaic southern theme to set the stage for more knickknacks and fluffy rhetorical hardware. Stencils deepen the secrets of abstraction. It’s one of the reasons I don’t own a horse. I listened to the engine turn red. Everything twists inside and stops holding on. This isn’t the first time I've plunged into Baudelaire feet first. I enjoy chattering streams of myriad sugar just to arouse some bacteria. I say yes to the advent of pomegranate I will never allow it to seem hollow or misunderstood. Go now and tell the conductor there’s a fire in my brain. Get yourself a banana split. Let the moment be distressed by something visceral and hungry. Catch yourself under the fireworks as various feelings emerge. Upon arrival I’ll want to ask some questions. We all do. Life moves too fast to figure it all out. Listen to the rain smash against the hectic undertones. The sound of greed as it slithers among those alert to its sorcery, and the elegance of its dismissal.