cut-corner

    there was a certain feeling along the narrow streets and stiletto alleys.  it was the second day of December and the dusk hovered steadily around too-warm-for-a-jacket-degrees.  a man dismounted from a still-rolling bicycle and wipe the sweat from his brow.  a dribble of snot went along for the ride.  the dusk hovered steadily at don't-bike-wearing-a-jacket Celsius, and the asphalt exhaled a laden breath of day cares, what-for rush, eight-hour frustrations and twelve-hour delights deferred.  there was a certain implication in mute glances and barely licked lips as another man, seated outside the café on the corner, watched the first man walk in to said shop and softly request vodka in the coffee and cream to boot.  there are certain stories that draw in a short breath, lips parted over white teeth in anticipation of a secret spilled, and then think better of it all, and leave only the delicious shiver of a need unfulfilled as they contemplate the ripples of restrained words on a glass of Italian soda.
    "My kingdom for a cigarette," said the second man to the first as he settled into a chair for a white Russian and a smoke.  the first half-glanced over and readied a noncommittal "no" before eyes headed off language at the pass and turned the truncated sound into a weak cough.
    "Certainly," stumbled out the response.  hands clumsily rooted around inside of a purple leopard-print bag, fingers fumbled excitedly for purchase on two slim cylinders, eyes darted somewhat nervously from pack to coffee to interlocutor and back.  meaning is seldom as easily found as a lighter, so the lighter served as a surrogate, the cigarette as a stalling tactic, inhalation and combustion as cheap imitations of coherent thought and successful expression, as number two gave thanks to number one, who in turn gave confused gratitude to whatever serendipity had landed him next to a handsome stranger with a need easily fulfilled, and on a lonely and uncertain evening.  presently, when internal monologue had almost built a strong enough springboard to leap unfettered into the brighter airs of the spoken word, a clarinet riff sounded from the bag and scattered the whole nascent colossus back into pebbles and sand.
    "Excuse me," said number one with a healthy hint of annoyance.  he had already turned his attention from any forthcoming response to manipulate a small, balefully glowing screen into revealing its contents, a disinterested prestidigitation that started at the fingers and spread quickly to the face.  an erstwhile lover's sister, seeking the company of souls named Molly and Cid.  of all the boneheaded impositions: an attempt at a drug deal, seeking merchandise he'd lost the art to acquire some years since.  he did not attempt a reply for fear of losing the tenuous thread of attention which bound him to the tousled man in the seat opposite, but that one had already turned to resume a listless conversation with a frumpy girl pacifying a distempered dog.  he sighed, and put down the phone just in time to unwitting, serendipitously hear the man's last remark:
    "And then the stupid fuck had the nerve to send his sister asking if I'd sell some of the best acid I've had since The Crystal Method was a household name.  The nerve of some twinks, eh?"  This last volley he aimed panoramically, beginning as the girl turned to slap the dog away from a raspberry scone and swinging a full 180 degrees to find its terminus on the first's face in the precise moment that it collapsed from a mask of disbelief into a barely concealed, smoldering ruin of thwarted hope.
    "Pardon me," said he, rising from his seat distractedly to pull his jacket back on, almost departing before he recalled his pack of cigarettes, which the second had begun to eye with mild avarice.  the smoking, decimated remnants flared into a stony wall of silence.  he slid the box into his pack, nodded fraternally to the second, and rounded the corner to the busier street.  the text would go unanswered as a certain feeling that crept along the gutters stretched out, reptilian, and laid itself down beneath rotten leaves and midden detritus to wait out the cooling night for the inevitable sunrise.

a brief message from Alfonsina Storni

Subconciencia
Has hablado, has hablado y me he dormido.
Pero duermo y no duermo, porque siento
que estoy bajo el supremo pensamiento:
vivo, viviré siempre y he vivido.

Has hablado, has hablado y he caído
en un marasmo... cede hasta el aliento.
Tiempo atrás, en las sombras, me he perdido:
estoy ciega. No tengo sentimiento.

Como el espacio soy, como el vacío.
Es una sombra todo el cuerpo mío
y puedo como el humo levantarme:

Oigo soplos etéreos... sobrehumanos...
Sujétame a la tierra con tus manos,
que si el viento se mueve ha de llevarme.

Subconscience
You've talked, you've talked and I've fallen asleep
But I sleep and do not sleep, because I perceive
that I am beneath the highest thought:
I live, I shall always live, and I have lived.

You've talked, you've talked and I have fallen
into a paralysis... even my breath stops.
Some time ago, in the shadows, I got lost:
I am blind. I have no feeling.

I am like space, like the void.
A shadow is my entire body
and I can rise like smoke:

I hear ethereal sighs... superhuman...
Bind me to the earth with your hands,
for if the wind blows, it must carry me away.

translated 6th Nov 2013

further deliberation

"but this," he gestured helplessly at the letter crumpled on the counter next to the stove, "I just can't understand..."

the small iron assembly on the stove began to burble and hiss. he pressed his fingers to his eyes, and watched thoughts emerge swimming in the warm saline darkness. a hope that had gently lain trailing atop the waters grew heavy and broke the surface tension to sink slowly in a coiled spiral, a hungry twister's tip seeking the airless deeps.

she pressed her lips into a mute line, exhaled through her nose, and glanced sideways at the clock on the wall. its dim insistent staccato stuck and then strained as if clearing its throat, minute hand jumping angrily in place until with a sharp click it regained the customary rhythm.

"well," he gestured to the folded letter laid neatly beside the coffee service, "some stories write themselves, and all the characters don't appear in every act." the steam gasped forth from the spout of the small percolator as out tumbled two cups of coffee. he waved her to hers and carried his to the front door to stare out into the brittle light of the freezing afternoon.

amid watery shadows the doorway was a burning rectangle framing an immobile, gouged-out blackness. she moved the empty pot from the heat and fixed her eyes on his occluding stillness as she held the paper from the tray over the unwavering flame.

the hissing candescence rendered the contents forever irrelevant, wordlessly concurring as she whispered "a caesura."

6er: deliberation

"a caesura," she said simply.
he turned from the stove and looked at her inquisitively.
"brief pause, you know: do like the natives, let a full minute pass before you respond."
"malarky," he sharply retorted. a moment later, Understanding cleared its throat.
he looked chagrined as the coffee began to percolate.

leakage to the left

When Jon Smith was hired as executive director of the French Market Corporation in late September, he came into the job with some big ideas and harsh words that aren't sitting well with some of the vendors in the 200-year old flea market.

"200-year old", though it obviously modifies the market, creeps back to "vendors" in reading this sentence, and makes one think of highly venerable and agitated peddlers from 1813 going into fits of apoplexy.

letter to a cousin

epistles sent to dead men's daughters
quite rightly; our last names rhyme
trees with roots in cloudbank quarters
all earth gives way to air, in time.

Zhenya in the tropics

 the wind had been mild all morning, but Yevgenia stood at a second story window and frowned. a mighty gust tore up the avenue, sharply convulsing the trees, smooshing her face back and up. cue the stationary roller-coaster. an unsecured cat atop a marble-rimmed peristyle in the adjacent park gave an indignant squawk, fumbled vainly for purchase, and toppled off into the rhododendrons below. 

she felt a momentary pang when the sudden rain came, drenching, insistent, yet soft; pang turned into reverie in an open window as the wind sliced the rain into mist through the mosquito screen. how auspicious the day a cold front rushes down to meet an oncoming hurricane.