November 2011
26 posts
“Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.
I am large. I...”
– Walt Whitman, Song of Myself. (via thetormentbredinrace)
before XIII
I saw something. Something important. Then the car turned the corner to the right, no turn signal, and was gone. What had I seen? The guy in the car. His hair was wet. Was that it? I really needed to get that right tail light fixed.
© Brad Simkulet 2011
before XII
I couldn’t feel the rain, but I knew it was hitting me, and I knew it was warm. It was always warm here. I couldn’t feel it, but I could hear it. It was all I could hear until I heard the sick cough of my ignition catching from behind. I spun in a puddle. My headlights clicked on, blinding me. I heard the waves my tires were carving out of the water in the gutter, splashing on the cement. I...
before XI
I looked back into the office, back to Mags, her eyes were still set as though she was staring at me. She really was dead. She must be. No more blood was exhaling out of the wound I was trying not to look at. Then she was gone. The lights snapped out. I couldn’t see anything. I jumped back up on the step and pressed my face to the window. I cupped my hands and tried to see, but I...
before X
And why the hell was I still dry?
© Brad Simkulet 2011
before IX
I recognized the plants. Dustin’s giant spider plants, hanging from three corners of his ceiling. She was in the office of Dustin’s theatre. How did I miss where I was? She was dead in the office of Theatre Distraction. I’d sat there, in that office, a few weeks ago. She was dead in the place that had rejected me.
My breath fogged the glass, so I wiped the fog away. And before I knew...
before VIII
What the fuck should I do?
© Brad Simkulet 2011
before VII
She was looking at me with granite eyes misting quartz. No recognition. How could there be? Her foot touched the edge of an oak desk, and I watched, fascinated, as blood crept up her stockings, soaking and creeping, creeping and soaking.
That was when I remembered our first kiss. There was nothing in the blood or the stockings that should have triggered the memory. But I remembered that moment,...
before VI
She was Margaret. Maggie. Mags.
© Brad Simkulet 2011
before V
I knew this girl. I couldn’t see her face for the blood, but it didn’t matter — I knew her. I recognized the muscles beneath her nude stockings, thighs tense in fresh death. A telephone receiver attached to an old time cord attached to an old time phone, lay upside down in a puddle of cooling blood. I knew her slender hand, fingers barely touching her cheek. I remembered the touch of...
before IV
I saw her through that rain-beaded window. I couldn’t make out the details of her face but I could see her hair. Her natural gold hair. A color that only true blondes possess. There was a hint of brown, which was destined to take over the gold when age set in, but at that moment it was the gold of wheat in the late summer. Gold dyed by a crimson thickness.
© Brad Simkulet 2011
before III
I wasn’t wet yet, but I ignored my unnatural dryness. I was interested in what lay beyond the window. I stepped up — maybe on sandstone or another kind of igneous rock — and extended my muscles into tip toe. I could see into the office.
I nearly puked. You know that stomach tumbling sickness you get when you fall in love with someone, or see someone you’ve loved after a long,...
rockets
started my harmonics. it’s when you play two simultaneous notes, but even better … i am also playing both hands simultaneously. i warm up with some mexican hat dance, now a familiar song, and i play rockets for my main work. i even get to replay it at a higher octave. sweet! those keys are amazing.
and in case you’re interested, rudolph is getting better and better.
p.s. oops,...
before II
I was walking on a sidewalk filled with old city cracks. Cracks invaded by weeds. Cement chipped away, shedding its strength. No streetlights warmed the avenue, so the moonlight gave the grey buildings an ancient Bastille-like strength. Their igneous greyness was streaked with the tropical sweat of the rainstorm, like some obese Roman, fat hiding muscle, sweating in a bathhouse.
Up...
before I
I was walking along an avenue looking for some theater that I’d been to before. Warm rain was falling, but that was expected. I wasn’t getting wet, though. I was heading to the theater through a tropical storm, and I was as dry as fall leaves. I couldn’t remember the theater’s name or why I was going, but I was on my way just the same.
© Brad Simkulet 2011
The second day I was sitting in your best friend’s room (more like your best girlfriend’s, but maybe I flatter myself), my back against her bed, while she and the two idiots gossiped. I read my book and brooded on your lateness, wondering if your Aunt was hassling you again for trying to have a life or if your boss kept you late because somebody else had died or if you were finally getting that...
rudolph the red nosed reindeer
pianoatforty:
So I bought my first book of music outside of my lessons, and it is a book of easy Christmas Carols. My first, and I’m sneaking this behind my teacher’s back, is Rudolph. There’re a couple of notes I haven’t covered yet, so I am having a fun time trying to figure them out on my own (genuinely).
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. His nose is blinkin’ like a blinkin’ beacon, but he’s...
5 tags
moist
she stands there talking about patients and disease, / but she’s wearing black tights and cut off skirt jeans / so i can’t help it, i drop to my knees.
my tongue snakes out and plunges in / then a finger explores her slippery sin / and i love her cunt all over again.
then i stop / “that’s all?” she gasps. / “no. more later.”
but it doesn’t happen.
It was us those two days.
The first day I leaned against the aluminum mesh of the fence and watched the black uniformed baseballers finish their game against a team I never actually saw. I watched the black pitcher throw, the black catcher catch, the black short stop scoop up a ball and throw it to the black first baseman, a couple of black outfielders field routine fly balls. I watched it all...
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence My rating: 5 of 5 stars WARNING: This review contains a discussion of the c-word, and I plan to use it. Please don’t read this if you do not want to see the word spelled out. Thanks. This is less a review than an homage to my crazy mother (now I have you really intrigued, don’t I?) It was 1983, and I was in my first Catholic school....
