half a sermon | pearls before

Last week I found a bristle growing out of my ear. Standing straight on top of it, where it might taper up and out. If one were a pig. It must have been two inches long. The barber - an unfeasibly sweet young woman - had missed it. Or left it there to make a point.

This, and the missing front tooth between two yellowed tusks. And the hair one more porcine reminder on the slab of my neck. I am too tired for this shit, the wallowing in it.

Too old to be a father, maybe, to an energetic tangle of limbs and questions at three and two thirds. That preoccupation with building and taking apart. The indefatigable urge to deconstruct.

And I can't pass a charity shop these days without snuffling after leather. Stretched blistered hides. Uneven aprons, creased and smoked like ripe aged cheeses. It is unflattering, this reaching out for thrice shed skins, it would be better to be a snake. To be born anew.

A damn sight cheaper too. Than hurling coins in the fountain.

Waiting for those licensing hours to coincide that I might up and leave for the chop.

But that is what I quicken for. The wait. Counting out cigarettes between one empty bottle and the impoverished thirst to start from scratch. To bathe under citrus slants. To conjure up jibes from dry heaves all through Autumn.

Time, please. Fares.

Shuttling back and forth between the pointless and the unnecessary. Gnawing on pork scratchings.

Marinating.

Well. Bukowski, it is said, advised to do nothing. Step out and kill it only when it pauses on the pedestrian crossing. Just what it is, is another matter. A lot of innocent jaywalkers have been dragged under the bus. Still, it is better not to be overly cautious when trying to really nail it.

So they did for that Nazarene kid. Twice over, at least.

They got him in the end.

And rolling away the stone, of course, all that was left was a jigsaw puzzle. A Luger and two dice. A Maltese cross. A hot cross bun.

Those Nazi fucking swine never even tried to cover their tracks, you know. They were adept in the art of slaying it. Goose-stepping, genuflecting sons of bitches. Proficient at it, even now.

Of course, at this point I am one third through an agreeable enough bottle of Colombard Sauvignon. Quite too pale to pass for blood. Last night I dreamt of Mexican drug cartels. La Regla de Lukumi. Machetes.

I have a tendency to scarf down anything heaped upon my plate.

It's time to make like Richard Clayderman, brothers and sisters, while the gentry buckles up for war.

▼ JAMES BROWN: GET UP (I FEEL LIKE BEING A) SEX MACHINE (PARTS 1 & 2) from "PROMO" 45 [King (6318)] 1970 (US)
▼ JAMES BROWN: SUPER BAD (PARTS 1 & 2) from "PROMO" 45 [King (6329)] 1970 (US)

▼ JAMES BROWN: GET UP OFFA THAT THING from "GET UP OFFA THAT THING" 45 [Polydor (14326)] 1976 (US)