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My Role As a Formica Tabletop

Pirouetting wild mad into canyon night, lite on my head shines far and wide and spins me round and instead of getting caught up in the inside thick of things, always assuming the thick of things to be the divine way, I pull myself loose of the rising tide and into the sky I fly and fly,

would rather live a life
of marginal infamy than
fade away into mediocrity
minimal obscurity,
passing, the fleeting winds of opportunity
bring with them gold
on effervescent wings
of gossamer substance,
like spiderwebs passing through hour glasses,
the strands of conciousness and threads of this story line

in distant mountain passes, where mountains spread themselves wide, tall and grand, enormous bulks of earthly mountains rising to snowy peaks, where, lost in clouds, await further cities than those on the farthest shores of our minds with towers that twine into the nighttime sky and in bubbles of glass, crystal clear quality developed by the magic of some mystic futuristicly ancient alchemy- there- in glowing simplicity- for all to see: the perfect curve, figure eight, moebius strip, infinite dip and swirl, twirl in the middle mind world, free fall tight lip like strip tip top ship, tup the tip and tip the lip for the lip tye wanna fly the lift for a ride, thumb out and the highway wide, the winds are high like my mind and the great sun shines in a clear blue sky, I could never die on a day like this I could live forever.

A golden eagle circles high, eagle eye spying me in confident stride; we nod to each other in other dimensions. In other dimensions our interaction is much less fleeting and we actually sit and talk and communicate our feelings, what we are seeing. He tells me of the movement he is orchestrating, in which all the animals rise up in chorus, the zebras sing a song, the elphants do a dance, rows and rows of dancing mice. The whales are tubas, the dolphins- the snares, snakes and giraffes and mongooses by the score, it's a musical sire fire hit on Broadway about the rise and fall of the animal world as it became overrun with man, a pesky vermin nature did her best to keep in check, sending his most notorious foe to cut back the weak, and her most beautiful ally- the bacteria, to try and eradicate the vermin. "We all want to get along," says the eagle, "there's just got to be a little collateral damage."

But when we get to Broadway you'll see how we're all brothers, the gorilla and the china man, the polar bear and the amazonian, the white man and the indian viper.

You'll see why your hips gyrate to the snake dancers song, almost in unison and without warning. Understand the subtlties of your desires are the cross platform nuances of all sentient beings. You'll see why your eyes look skyward at certain times of the day and who it is y'all are waiting for afterall- to come down and save your planet from the hands of your nasty satan.

Fire pits and hellish waves, domineering storms and typhoon lagoon blue sky at noon, midnite delight and a frosty at the end of the road, in the end it all gets sold and the toads go home and go to bed to wake in the morning for a fresh start and a new worry in their minds, at the end of the day the alligators and crocodiles all cash in their chips, at the end of the day the lights go out the day shift quits the music rises to a feverish pitch and we all get it.

After midnite we all let our hair all hang down

After midnite.

ocean torrents of ocean outside fall from the sky outside, blasting our house sideways down in windy tides. gulls try to push ahead but get blown from the sky. greysy wavy cloudsy sky cover east to west morning evening noon and night time sky, the every dimension of my eyes. Pacific tides, bays, puget sound is just that way, they say.

Say: what are you doing when nobody is watching you? Fiercely in the forefront, a tiger at noon, whole vast armies and entreaties come around and ask: what are we to do? If we first ask questions and get answers later- if we interrogate a few and take the rest as prisoners, if we get a list of names and out of that extract the code, take every tenth man whose name begins with jose- then maybe we can get some answers they say- line em up against the firing wall- and see who stands and who falls, and those that stand are guilty as charged, forced to stand trial, witches at the gate, and those that fall were innocent afterall, but forgive us, they say, they're in god's hands now and for that we must all be thankful and pray that we too might have chance to live in that abode of love some day. For legal reasons though, we can't say such things out loud and it all goes down without a sound, and everyone's mind is on the higer consequence- some see it as justice, some see it as a dance, some see it as the only way they can get control of the simple civilian lives. Former ghosts and astronaut trainees- chimpanzees and destines- roads untaken stretch out multifold- in golden bricks leading to poppy field cities of emerald green- it can be a lonely planet-

dream child, dream-
drifting
drifting
I'm on a sea and onna me

hoomay hooamay moon bay hoo away hi hoom and zoom koom key lime pie fly by

up til now I have been trying to tell it to you straight but up til now I didn't think it would be like this-

with scorpions tied round my wrists and jungles twisting at my heels, taking root in my gills, wrapping round my wings, into my fins, my necks and my noses

I'm sneezing out minutemen by the score and still they come, still there's more

In armies and parades, contingents of them- motorcades

Waving grand banners with their simple symbols of power and glory, with their freedom chants and their give the power back to me stride along the peak of things wave riding mirror tiding in the back seat theorizing about the state of things- maybe we should all just take a nap, let ourselves dream- maybe the planets in circumference and the stars in their heavenly dance and the electromagnetc eclipse of the moon around the rings of satrun, by the by and by the tides then and from them we go back to the great and glourious ocean- where tides rise and we ride the waves and swim beneath the sea to the great and glorious cities of old presrved in saline solution, solution of our tears and wombs and the vast ocean currents of our lives

come with me here, under archways of triumph and golden harpsichords. Here in the bulk of the city, this here, amongst the sea weed and coral is what was their "downtown." See there: the old Atlantean cafÈ- where they used to have their Atlantean lattes there- beneath the bridge is where homeless hobo Atlantean joe, the merman of the rags used to live. So sad a case that man. But noble. A noble fellow. I, personally, know that he had nothing to do with the crimes of forty nine. Say what you will but he will always be an innocent man to me. Here above the ground though, but still under the sea- there at the cross walk the old Atlantean street sign, the old scrwal on the lamppost, same scrawl it's always been, "fuck the mother fucker fuck fuck fuckers."

Ah those poetic Atlanteans. They were a mystical and magical creature who knew the ways of the stars and the depths of the oceans. Here, if you don't mind, an old Atlantean tune let us hum a few bars...

hmmm... mmm. Mmm. Mm. M. ml.

Mkk, mmmf, mmmmdgfhk...m.

mmmmqwed,..... """ ,,,,,,,,,,,KKKK. Thbbbbt. Dd dit dit dit dit

Hallowakifatichagitalicatimaticalipoctiliktipofthigkitd fiortimattion gotstigation.

Those creative muscial atlanteans.

Here, here look: at art gallery. An old atlantean art gallery, shine your light closer here now and what do we see?

Old atlantean works of art based on the rhythm of the tides and the way the patterns of barnacle growth on old schooner undersides. Look at this piece here, a gem of it's era. A stark reminder for modern times. Note how the black of the old chain is directly proportional to the rusted out WD-40 can, rusted though it may be- and look at the way the color of the rust has slowly and over time corroded what was left of the coral upon which it is now embedded. Touching. Poignant. Provacative.

I am reminded of my brotherhood to my fellow man.

Atlantean.

Next door here, and continuing down the old boulevard, yes this is where the Atlantenas ate ice cream on Sundays and shopped at outdoor bazaars where old Atlantean hags pushed their wares selling coral teapots and patterned shawls. And down in this section here- What's that? Who's that?

I had not expected anyone to be down here any longer! My word this is a find! We have a live Atlantean! Here! On film! Er- radio- live streaming internet broadcast sattelite rendition- Mr. Atlantean- Sir- do you have a few words for audience at home?"

"Yeah, brother man, can you spare a dime?"

Well! How do you like that! A real Atlantean hobo!

"Say, yah, yeah- hey man, c'mon down here, man, down this alleyway, man, I show you something good, yeah- then- my bro man, he got brews man, he sell them to you one dollar a piece, man, good brews, man c'mon, man, man, smoke some of this seaweed. The sea weed man... come man-"

The hospitality floors me! To my audience at home! I am going to join this man! He is offering to take us back to where the locals hang out! As an anthropologist but moreso, as a famous television personality, I must go, yes you may remember me from such films as "James and the Giant Squid" in which I played the rogue clam who assasinates the goobers who are trying to make off with the royal jelly from the holy and consecrated Temple of Isis, or the beautifully animated children's movie "The Brave Little Cuisinart" about the kitchen that came to life and I, yes, I, was the absolutely stone zen silent formica table top. I never had a speaking role but my stony formica silence was enough to give even the most jaded hitchcock fan thrills.

But- as it were! My good man! To the brews! The locals!

"Yes my friend, down this alleyway where I will proceed to bring you, and your television viewers, around into the shady dark corner out of sight of all passerby and where all the windows are boarded up and no one will hear your screams. That world won't be missing any wanna be jacques cousteaus. Now give me the fucking cash."

My word. I'm dead. Some kind of knife, dagger, a sharp stone? Stone tone own

Stone? Sharp

Slowed down sudden

cold stone world
blue
cold stone blue
and stone
stone stone
silent
rising white,
this thread
a sliver
a silver slight white sliver light paraphrased
prayer ah ophase draped in light
linened white silky night
thin threads forming
passing through
cobwebs of mind
there goes ben
my childhood friend
what is he doing here?
There goes me
what is i doing here?

There goes and there it goes
there goes family vacation on the lake and the job I had in high school
there goes the first love
and there goes the last
there go all the heart attacks
I'll never have
there go the burger kings and mcdonalds
i ate as a child
out here we don't need them
such cheap charades
they don't last

there goes all I wanted and
all I ever needed

it too didn't last

wasted away

I am eternal

Not even this conciousness shall last
it too
ends

in the I am I am

void bliss
nirvanic spaciousness
one word describes what is left:

vastness

without end

emptiness

there is no one word