Adventures In Suspension

Last night my suspenders ate the chair. I can't tell you how upsetting that is. It was my favorite chair. I climbed Mount Everest with that chair. I wore it like a hat and fed it pieces of civilization. As for my suspenders, they’re remarkably fat now and shaped like a novel. The clips are metal and click when I put them on, flip the straps over my back and fasten them to my pants. It’s a small thing, but it’s so damn nice not to have to keep hoisting my pants up. Suspenders use tension to support pants. They counteract the downward pull of gravity. This is why they’re always hungry. They’ll eat all the furniture if you don’t keep an eye on them. I recommend hanging them on a hook when not in use. Woe to the negligent who leave them on a chair.

There should be more written about the metamorphoses of aging. It’s truly phenomenal. A man enters a bar and spits out his investigations concerning the enigma of pain. I give it enough attention to learn something new about existence. I keep a little behavior around me at all times. It comes with a script, a smile, and a chaise longue. I get nervous when things grow quiet. You can feel it in the air. The caprice of the gods. Bang, bang. Gunshots were heard in the barn. Minutes later we heard sirens. Chuckles poured me a shot of Smoky Goat. A body can begin the day in a good humor and end the day in a humor so foul with the fumes of evil that a simple walk can prove gestational. We give birth to a new version of ourselves at least once a week. Arguments hone and sharpen the brain, creating cognitive idiosyncrasies. The human milieu swarms with anomalies. I had a sore back in the morning. Wings and antennae by the afternoon. 

I remember when there was an art to letting the clutch out, or working a manual stick shift with the instincts of a matador. I knew when to comb my hair, when to call a cab, when to apply myself in earnest and when to climb into some knowledge to impress my peers. I remember that sudden turn in the Fun Forest when you were running toward me with a reindeer in your smile and a crescent moon in your tiara. I didn’t fully appreciate the full splendor of the Ferris Wheel until a needle helped me find my vertebrae. Things are happening in such a way in the current moment that it takes a pretty big tarpaulin just to cover the lies. It’s not that the truth is buried in éclairs. The truth of anything is visible on any sidewalk. I saw it get dragged through a sentence once fuzzy with description. There was once an art for that. I’m not sure it helped anyone find the truth. But the diversions were thrilling and the poetry crashed words together like cymbals.

Here. Take a look at this photo album. That's me over there dripping with conveniences. I'd just married a freeway. I have crazy impulses. I go berserk at barbecues. I attend poetry readings dressed as a scuba diver. I fall in love with highways. I bring them home and feed them BMWs and Jaguars. I define bliss as the silhouette of a rhinoceros in a parable at the tip of my tongue. I’m not sure I see a meaningful connection there but I feel certain that one will come in time. The splash doesn't recoil when it crashes against a rock, nor does it desire it, but it happens. And is just as wet when it does than when it doesn’t. It all sloshes around in the end, tossing old logs on the beach and kelp and dead skates for the gulls to pick at. If it’s a matter of leaves, get a rake. But if it’s hole you want, get a shovel. Or a telescope. I’m a little spooked by infinity whenever I get near it. It sneaks up on you. Even at your most vulnerable moments. A funeral. Or a wedding. Cathedrals and mosques wrap themselves around it. Give it a voice. And predicaments and bells.