I’ve tatooed you,
I’ve tatooed you on my soul
in a palette bright and garish,
(blue, red, aqua, purple and gold)
and when I close my eyes
it’s always you I see
and I know for a fact, that
from us, I'd never flee.
I’ve tatooed you, you see,
I’ve tatooed you on my soul
and when with age, I fade
and my days grow short and cold
in me you’ll yet remain
warm and constant, glowing and bold.
admittedly,
I’m a verbal pickpocket
pilfering words from the mouths of babes
amongst whom apparently,
it is the currency
that anything for cool is the trade
so much spent
on this precarious commodity
that in those tender years,
even one's own mortality
is nothing at all, but modest absurdity.
rain dust on the windshield glows
green glows
gold retires
red but like the Moon without the Sun's light
it’s really nothing on its own
shapeshifting people pass by with their dogs, traffic
sweeps up first
diamond yellow silver spikes stab
the night, an illuminated ballet
anticipation grows
“Kid,” they said, “you’ve got the gift of words”, but when no one could figure out who'd given it to me, they reached their hands down my throat to grab it away.
On the page he pours his blood, his soul, and his cum, while in bed, his lover waits, patience ebbing.
I’m vacuuming over by the kitchen, and suddenly surprised by the length of the cord, (I’d thought it was only 9 feet,) I look behind myself to see my wife holding the plug in her hand, and she shouts to me over the whir of the motor, “something strange happened to me today”.
“Mommy what does self-righjus mean?”
Gitty took one last drag off her cigarette before stabbing it out in the styrofoam cup that held the sludge from Esther’s hot chocolate. “It’s like your father, not letting us see each other more than twice a month, and not letting you live with me because I refuse to wear a wig and skirt, and keep Shabbes”, she wanted to say, but instead: “it’s self-righteous, and it means, you think your way is the only right way to do something.”
She watched as her daughter tried to select a color for Yogi’s picnic basket from the crayon fragments scattered around her on the floor, before settling on purple. “So what do you think you’ll want for dinner mameleh? I bet we can have pizza delivered to our room, you want pizza?”
As she passed the bay window on the way to the phone, she surreptitiously parted the vinyl curtains and scanned the motel's parking lot for the familiar white vans.
While the two waited for their dinner to arrive, Gitty lit another cigarette, and studied the gas-station map, while Esther continued to color Yogi.
“What the hell do I need with advice from a goddamned tea bag” I thought. I got that fortune cookie on Tuesday night, and it says to me “Good clothes open many doors. Go shopping.” I figured I needed some new interview clothes, so I did. I bought a new tie, a new shirt to go with it, and just for the hell of it, a new suit so I could make the best impression.
Now, my rents due, and I’ve got three dollars and seventy eight cents in my bank account until next month, so I go to the bank to see if I can get an overdraft, and while the bank managers in the back office, I see there’s this bowl of candy on his desk for anyone to take from, so I take one, and I take the little red square Dove chocolate, even though it’s the last one, and there on the inside of the red foil wrapper, it says “Success comes to those who have no fear; simply leap and the net will appear”, so before the manager even comes back, I get up and leave. Just like that. I go next door with my last three bucks, and I buy a cup of tea, the evening paper, and a lotto ticket. I open the tea bag, and there, printed on the back of the little tag, it says “Don’t believe everything you read”.
Each story begins with a choice, one made either by or for its main character. Consider Yaya. Yaya is a 40 something year old man who works in a garage; though he isn't supposed to accept tips personally, (there's a lucite communal tip box for the benefit of the entire staff,) from one customer to whom he's been exceptionally helpful, he accepts the neatly folded five that's pressed into his hand. Later that night, he'll use it to buy himself one extra drink, which will effectively keep him at the bar an extra 17 minutes; during that extra time, he will meet his next girlfriend, or get in a fight. On the other hand, he may use the extra cash in his pocket to buy himself two lotto tickets, a cup of coffee, and a bag of Doritos.
If he chooses to save the bill, and use it that night at the bar, and he meets his next girlfriend, perhaps she'll become his wife and give him two children, one of whom will attend Princeton one day and earn a doctorate in physics, specializing in magnetics, the other of whom will die of leukemia two days before her 11th birthday, or maybe the woman will give him herpes.
If he gets into a fight, maybe he will accidentally kill the man who started with him, or before the first punch, perhaps the two will reconcile and become fast friends, and discover they are from the same obscure part of Kenya.
Maybe one of the lotto tickets will win 2.00, or 34,000,000.00.
If it wins 2.00, maybe he will count himself lucky, bless God, and buy himself a muffin to eat later for desert, or maybe he will buy himself two scratch-offs, win nothing more, and curse himself for having wasted 2.00 when he could have had a muffin. Or maybe he will win a million dollars a year for life.
Maybe guilt, or honor will get the better of Yaya, and before moving onto his next customer, he'll quietly slip the bill into the lucite box himself.
Each story begins with a choice, and with each choice there are a million stories.
You're drunk, and the cold feels like something else, as you stagger out of her basement apartment, barefooted and bloodied. "Damn it", you think, "she should have listened when I told her to keep her mouth shut."
The book in your hand is already falling apart, but you do your best to keep the pages from scattering in the wind. "Just once more", you tell yourself for the seventh time now, when behind you, just a bit to your left you hear the click.
Applicants must be at ease accepting criticism, take being misinterpreted and misunderstood with aplomb, have a high threshold for stress, and be comfortable making life or death decisions. Extensive knowledge of world history, politics, philosophy and religions required. Executive experience preferred. Must be multi-lingual, able to multi-task, and have advanced problem solving capabilities. Work schedule is for 6 days a week.
Interested applicants may leave their curriculum vitae at any synagogue, mosque, church, temple, ashram or ancient grove.
I had a dog named Shorty once. I got him from the pound, because they said they were five minutes away from killing him. Shorty
had one eye, a coat of about 7 different colors, and his back legs were
just a little longer than his front ones, making him look like he was
always in the mood to play. My friend Meiron said he looked like Frankenstein’s dog. When
I went to pet Shorty for the first time, he took a bite out of my left
hand, but he must not have liked the way I tasted, because he never bit
me again. When
we took him to the park on Saturday afternoons to play Frisbee, he
would always chase other people’s soccer balls instead and pop them,
and when a lady soldier was bending down to get something out of her
backpack, Shorty bit her on the ass. He
must have liked the way she tasted, because he didn’t let go for a
really long time, even though she was screaming, and it took her
boyfriend, Meiron and me together to pull him off. Meiron said we were probably the first people in the history of Independence Park, to be kicked out and told never to come back.
When I met Neta at “The Moon” one Friday night, it was love at first sight. Three days later she moved in, with a footlocker full of her CDs, Books and clothes. When
I picked her up from work on Tuesday night, we came home to find her
locker pried open, her CDs scattered and scratched, her books torn to
shreds and her clothes piled in the four corners of the apartment: one
pile had been shit on, one pissed on, one vomitted on, and on the last
pile was a very tired dog, sound asleep on his back.
“It’s him or me,” said Neta.
When we took him back to the pound, the lady smiled at me, took the leash without a word and led Shorty into the back. As we walked out into the bright afternoon sun, we heard her say “Poor thing, we were starting to wonder how long you'd be away this time”.
Never one to give up easily, you slowly ease your left, then right foot into your own mouth and swallow. Now, if you can just manage to get your legs down, you think, the rest will be a breeze, you’ll show them all, and you slurp at your knees, but you can’t seem to make any headway. Your back is on fire, and your jaw, throat and stomach feel like they’re going to burst. Tommorrow, you tell yourself, tomorrow you’ll show them what happens when they tell you "impossible”.
The song “Ein Li Eretz Acheret” comes on the radio, and it reminds you of her, and on the movie screen of your mind, you see her sitting alone on the corner of her mother’s bed, listening, like you are, to Gali Atari, and moved, like you are, because it reminds her of her childhood in Israel.
Fade to flashback she’s lanky and nine, sun tanned, pigtailed, sandaled and shorted, and her brother, Tzion, is there; carelessly they’re devouring enormous yellow and red summer peaches that drip down their chins and stain their shirts. Though you're not there, she looks at you and smiles a drippy smile, the peach’s stone apparent beneath her cheek.
As the song ends, she’s there once again, sitting at the foot of her mother’s bed: neck bent, head down, face obscured by that mess of curls, waiting for something to begin.
Let’s just say, the bus you’re on goes boom, and you survive, not only survive, but you’re totally fine, like, not a scratch on you… now, let’s just say, all around you, everyone is dead, there’s no way they’re still breathing, and let’s just say, you’re walking through the corpses, and instead of blood and guts all over the place, there’s half a woman lying by your feet, and hanging out of her torso, where her guts should be, there’s a bunch of CDs and a Walkman, and there, to your left, is the chest of some kid popped open like a pan of jiffypop, and where his heart and lungs should be, there are two slightly deflated soccer balls, and a Sony PSP, and over by what used to be the front of the bus, you see what used to be the driver, and he’s got a book sticking out of his chest… so you pick up the book and open it, and amidst all the sirens, and the smoke, and flashing lights, you sit down on the street and you read, and it says “Let’s just say, the bus you’re driving goes boom…"
When Fidget was in kindergarten, his teacher gave him his nickname because he couldn’t sit still. He kicked his feet through naptime, drummed his fingers through story time, and, rather than coloring in his coloring book like all the other children, he’d play rockets and missles with his crayons.
When Fidget was 22, he won a trip to London by being the millionth customer to walk into a supermarket, and when he visitted Sotheby’s, unable contain his fidgetting, he accidentally bought Queen Anne’s sleigh bed for 93,000 dollars at an auction.
When Fidget went to a benefit dance for Hadassah, he met his future wife, Na’ama, who thought he was funny because, even though he was sitting on his own, he seemed to be enjoying himself, dancing in his seat; when she introduced herself to him, she told him how impressed she was that even though he was there without a date, he seemed to know how to have a good time by himself, not like all the guys who just stood around, lined up against the wall trying to look cool.
Every night in bed, Na’ama would think that Fidget wanted to make love, because he would shake his leg against her; she interpretted it as him reminding her of his presence, and not wanting him to feel rejected, she’d start to stroke his thigh. Six months after they were married in Cyprus, their daughter, Miri was born.
When the terrorists broke into their house, they hid in the attic; While the terrorists went room to room, shooting their guns, throwing handgrenades, Na’ama held her hand over their daughter’s mouth, and Fidget sat crosslegged, holding them both tightly, but his left foot was free to fidget.None of this was in the brochure they give you, but I guess it’s true what they say, you really can get used to anything, like how wherever you look, just on the fringes of your vision, everything goes all fuzzy like, and it's really only real the moment you reach for it or something, otherwise, it's just like a projection or something, and I mean, other than that, it looks pretty much like my old place, except, you can’t find anything good on tv, only Nora Ephron movies and Disney cartoons, and even watching boxing is pointless, because at the end of the game, both guys win and all they do is hug each other, and you can’t get really hot charif on your falafel, no matter how much you put, it’s just never that hot, and even though I threw myself on a grenade to save a bunch of the guys in my unit, the girls around here are never that impressed, so I haven’t gotten laid since I’ve been here, but at least the beer’s cold, and like I say, when it comes down to it, I guess you really can get used to anything.
“It’s the speckled white ones that send you into the next world” says the candy lady with the pretty blue eyes. You hold the little wood box in your hand. It’s made to look like a miniture orange crate, and it’s full of different colored jellybeans.
“What do the purple ones do?”
“That’s a mystery” she says, “I’m only allowed to tell you about the white speckled ones".
You take your candy home, and the first one you taste is like a trip to New Mexico; small octagons appear on your ceiling in vibrant shades of silver, yellow and white, and you go through them. There’s a vague taste of blue corn tortillas to this one, you think.
Back at your kitchen table, you choose the next one; its surface looks like liquid opal, and you think to yourself, how could the plain white speckled one be more special than this? Tentatively, you taste it, and you’re sitting in a movie theater in Pittsburgh, Pa., and it’s 1943. There’s smoke swirling around your head, and Micky Rooney is just about to lay one on Judy Garland, when you feel a Jujyfruit hit the back of your head. You turn around, and see your microwave flashing at you.
Now you're convinced you have no choice, and you pick up the white speckled one, and pop it into your mouth. When the neighbors complain about the stink, the super breaks down your door, and when they find you on the kitchen floor, you’re still smiling, with a chunk of meteor sticking out of your forehead.
When Daddy died, Grandma moved in. Since she had a hunched back, she couldn’t sleep in a bed like normal people. Instead, she sat in our old easy chair in the corner, so that she wouldn’t be in the way. As Mom and everyone grieved, she sat. She sat through summer, when we had a blackout, and the air conditioning stopped working and it was 100 degrees in our apartment, and she sat through fall when we had company over for the first time since the funeral.
One day Grandma said, "I feel like this chair is swallowing me", as little by little she became smaller and smaller.
When I asked Mom, she explained, “it’s just her scoliosis; she used to be much taller, but that’s what happens. You just shrink. Plus, she doesn’t eat much.”
One day, when we were doing spring-cleaning, Mom handed me a broom and told me to go sweep the living room. When I got over to the corner where Grandma’s chair was, she wasn’t there.
“Where’s Grandma?” I asked. Mom came into the room, with her yellow gloves, carrying her bucket and sponge, and wiped a stray hair out of her face with the back of her wrist. “I don’t know,” she said, “she must have gone home or something.”
I sat down in Grandma’s chair. It was much cushier than I’d remembered it. I leaned on the handle of the broom and cried. She never even said goodbye.
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