Tuesday, August 12, 2014

pablo, king of the juice




Sunday is the cleanest time
for slipping through
picking at stitches, the damp
laundry of mourning sheets
an afternoon drizzle
High Tea and one last tipple.
 

Sunday does the dirty.
 

That first time
I was passing glass
one eye open
on a poorly fitted blind,
called on twice to step outdoors
usher in an ambulance
two undertakers
Noah's boys

           measuring the stairs.

All the bullfighters are pissed
gored
we never much cared for them
regardless
those rained on Spanish sketches,

Pablo was another matter.
 

A cold egg roll
a Sunday broadsheet, a tabloid
laid out on the dashboard.
 

10 years ironing out the grieving
a sparrow's courting
through one Sunday to the next
a constant dash of claret
propping up the Indian in his cups
the Japanese brush
and the ink this time scarcely dry
on unsized paper. 

What stole onto the pillow slip
a groan
a blotted stain the size of Sicily
spilled over the carpet incontinent.

5 comments:

Tim said...

Pablo was a really different matter. I was a little worried you took up the high life at Oxford and left us to swing. Well it's good to see you are back and I like the way you write maybe more for the distance between readings. You asked me where the fuck I am. I am in a swinging old house up in Oregon, me and my wife, dog, cat and a kid who will not be here this year. More later

ib said...

The high life ? Hell, no. I barely made it through my first year before I succumbed to demons.

It took until this year to rein my guts back in just enough for me to stab at the keyboard with one finger. Again.

It was only this moment I discovered Waugh despised his "Brideshead Revisited". From a distance. Well, I despised it too. That it was written in the aftermath of a parachute accident, escaped me though.

Tangled up in string.

Parachutes. Motorcycles. Heavy machinery.

Take your pick.

Glad you are well.

Tim said...

Man, I didn't know, how the fuck could I. I know guys who suffer like you are. Not one of them, not one,ever really appreciated my clownish efforts to "cheer" them "up". The polite guys smiled thinly and said thanks, but the other guys said to leave out the clown and listen to them. I figured out not to judge them myself. because ego aside who the fuck am I to judge anyone else except mass murderer thieving lying ass world"leaders" I figured out for myself I couldn't obviously take myself out except for my own fucking reasons after my wife and kids understood why but it's up to me.
A goddamn road demon grabbed my ass, and my wifes too, driving carefully down a gravel mountain road we have been delivering newspapers up and down and it grabbed my right front wheel and dragged us off the road and for fifteen meters down the side right the fuck into the middle of a tree stump in the weeds. He whooped with the goddam glee only demons can vocalize and took off, thinking he finally had me but fuck him, I got out and helped my wife out
and helped her up his fucking hill to where some nice country people who we give a paper to 4 times a week called the anti demons to come get us. I threw a cigarette butt at the fucker on my way into the ambulance. It has been years and years since someone pumped so much dope into me, it was fucking unreal. Yow. I'll give you a list on request. The bastard broke my wifes arm and believe me, he will pay. I HATE TO SAY HE BROKE MY NECK.....but yeah, he did. I will get Chenrezi on us and Avakaloka on the little prick up there and I'm going back to my,our paper route, asap. And I know right where he was, the sheriff said the road gave way, but he's a cop so I didn't talk to him. Car is totalled, we will get 3 times back for it what I thought it was worth. I'm going to buy a shotgun.

Ian, get some dope and cheer the fuck up. You got it coming. Drink with the working class and make them laugh, you can do it....if you want to.

ib said...

Well, Jesus. All I can say is I'm glad you both rolled out alive. Road demons. Checkered demons. I hope you you got his plate as well as his fucking number.

I lost my sense of humour entirely for a time. Between the psychosis and the heart attack. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I've yet to figure out the punchline.

It will come.

The worst of it was the medication, which I resisted for the longest time, the sedative nature of which being infinitely more mind numbing than was strictly beneficial.

All in all, I think I was hallucinating for something close to five months. Until I yelled uncle. Then came the cardiac arrest. Which was not as bad as it might have been, but entailed angioplasty and the fitting of a stent.

Like the changing of the guard.

Needless to say, I am back to smoking again. The ugly common garden tobacco, that is.

In the meantime I've developed this rattling consumptive cough which has me spitting blood from time to time. The good news is a chest x-ray came back clean. Vital organs more or less intact.

Anyway. All this is mostly of my own doing. The filtered effects of decades worth of ill living, on my own fucking head be it.

The kids are well. I'm not complaining.

If the writing smacks of sorrysadsackness it's down to the fact that I was groping for some kind of continuity, I suppose. By way of explanation. Mostly it's just the attempt at exorcising the bad shit. The prelude to whatever comes next.

Tim said...

I am and will continue to be an ib siblingshot on the bleachers fan. No smarm intended but I missed you and then I went back to not writing anything anywhere because it got hard to put a computer and peace and some quiet together. My heart is messed up too. Geezerdom. What a gas. I can use this thing now so I'm going on a binge.You'll see.
Are these statistics for real on here? It must be fucked up somewhere. I just figured out how to look at mine but I think they have me and some other non piano player tied in somehow. Or SOMETHING....
The "British Invasion" goddam HISTORY, We're in History, IT's being shown as a thing that happened back in HISTORY. Geezers too, and still fucking smoking too. I gotta go man,
Peace be upon you and the whole UK. Do they still give out jacks at the doctors office over there?