the game

the children are crying and the adults think we're unhappy because we're doing it wrong. meanwhile, i haven't seen any of them smiling and laughing, the way they say they did in earlier rounds.

it's the strangest game! the rules were lost ages ago, you can't play it properly by anyone else's rules, and if you don't adhere to the ever-changing house rules you'll be in for a rough ride. then again, the house rules are so impossibly convoluted and contradictory that you're almost guaranteed not to have any fun with them anyway.

the rules i remember are awkward, unstable and unbalanced. the only way to win at the game is to cheat, or not to play at all. or to play by one's own rules while convincing everyone else at the table otherwise, which is a different game altogether, and very anti-social. and nobody likes a cheater.

it's not okay to stop playing, either. even though we're all out of pieces - the cards are all worn and discarded, and our bank is left keeping score with pretend cash because we're all out of the fakes - we're still frowned upon for not enthusiastically bringing new friends to the table.

a game for the whole family? it says two to five players on the box. well, we're hovering around six or seven now, and it hasn't been fun in the longest time. the dice are loaded, or broken, we're low on food and booze...

... but the holidays aren't over, and nobody wants to open any of the other boxes until we finish with this one.

this is no time for an orgy

it really isn't. there's a man in a suit and tie at the door, the pizza box reflected in dark glasses that seem a natural part of him even at this ungodly hour. i feel like my eyeball's filling the peephole, as i roll it around to look him up and down. i don't see any weapons, but the box might not contain pizza. he almost looks disinterested.

almost.

i turn to look at my partner, who's half-crouching, half-standing over the petite blonde he'd brought's form. the surprise of the doorbell has turned the evening into a caricature: the soft divans, the candles, the sexy music and the bottles of lubricants all spread around the luxurious apartment now frame a scene of confusion. some of the guests have stopped their thrashing and thrusting, staring at mary and me and waiting for a signal: what's it time for? fuck or flight? the smell of tension mixes with those of sex and incense.

"did you order pizza?"
the faint snort and half a smile are enough of a signal; it sure feels like a friday night with the mitchells, all right.

i silently slide open the drawer next to the door, pull out the small pistol, my first line of defense, and ensure that the safety's on before throwing it to my wife. she resolutely slides off alan, who looks like he was losing his erection anyway, to catch it gracefully and take her place behind the bookshelf. alan reaches under the cushion next to him and i hear the comforting click of his magnum 44. i quickly grab two glocks from another shelf, and with nods and stares direct the others to get into position or take cover in the kitchen.

i grab the handle and smartly step back, opening the door into a whole other movie.

metal mouth

my dentist demands
complete submission, leaving
winter in my face

[context]

thirteen ways of looking at a ______

1
i sit and stare
my future riding on how i complete you
and time is running out

2
we stand together
you and me
so that you can make me seem important

3
i am confined to my wheelchair
sitting at the end of my world
loved ones pitifully arranged around me
as i search helplessly for you

4
i ate too fast
you were consumed
by a stray hiccup

5
you are the real step
between my crazy ideas
and profit!!!

6
i spend months and months
upon a lonely mountain in exotic india
throwing good money
at thinking of you

7
______

8
i veer from the right paths
and you allow it

9
you stand between me
and my bank account,
my house, my car,
my degree, and my job

10
you stand up in court
pointing at me, your accusing finger
shames me
even though sometimes you pull me out of tight spots

11
i drive carefully
and you let me know when i've gone too far

12
when i use you in the sand
you mean nothing to me
and then i feel dirty

13
whose are you, anyway?

[an assignment inspired by wallace stevens - thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird]

evil revision: oilus and crustida

snivelling oilus, and lusty, busty crustida
planning evil plans, to overthrow achaean lords
they don't so much love, as use and abuse each other
unlike noble hector, a fool with a great big sword

even ulysses' cunning cannot anticipate
such a spiteful shafting, no cause to congratulate
if the greeks would have known, if this they had suspected
victory had seemed less, their enemies less respected

the giant horse the second, and who could have been fooled?
to play the trick right back, would dishonour even thieves
but oilus got there first, sent crustida to conceive
great agamemnon's death, she with lovely eyelids tooled

oilus and crustida, their dark arts perfect crafted
he her with black infection intimately painted
their vows of matrimony no more than tempting fate
her trade planned, and required for the king to check-mate

enter, diomedes, and fall to the promises
of this vicious dark vixen, to her sickly sweet sighs
whisperings of a devil's orgy with the on-highs
any man not of white cloth would rise to what she says

slinking into the private tents, of those bejewelled
leaning, with great cups, of which the gods had had their spill
agamemnon, menalaos, servants, slaves, all fueled
even the women's eyes on crustida feasted full

a few smooth words, cups clinked with fairly sinister grins
it may well be that a few gods came down to possess
recursively possess, the evening became no less
than a frenzied, relentless night of all fleshly sins

apollo's chariot dragged dawn into early morn
fading the heroes into a scene of tables torn
shreds of cloth, broken cups, and the aches of tender heads
such destructive debauchery, left no time for beds

is it any wonder, how easily the trojans
pushed the hungover greeks back, even fired their ships?
but that, the smallest part of the plan, had backfired
when patroclus' death brought out achilleus' rage
and that, the largest had gone awfully wrong as well
no achaean heroes contracted the slightest gift
of satan's loins, their pleasure and vice had had no price
but for crustida, whose blood pulsed darker and darker
at each encounter, inner horrors multiplying
large tumours of dark disgust, her favours disfigured
the more she pleased, the less she pleased, until the daybreak
when the last tired beast passed out, and left her grim body
bloated, lost with the other scraps of the night before
to be consumed by trojan fire, and then forgotten

unspring

i awake from icy blackness

winter, sick summer, whose fever breaks
when the clouds break, and the warm air
not dragging me back to bed,
my usual shield from the bitterness,
but instead caressing my heart and skin
as i slowly stretch and rise to breathe the day

breakfast is a white chocolate strawberry
brunch, a banana and coffee
i fling open my windows, let the butterflies in
far away but here, gentle, hovering spring,
i don't need you to be real, to be in love with you
in my now you are true,
that's so real
that it will have to do