Back to You, Houston (6)

Back to you, Houston.

Roger that, Marge. Over.

Roger here. Over.

You are Roger? Over.

No, I’m kidding, over.

You are weird, Kidding. Over.

Thank you. Over.

< cluck >

Word Bank

Dream last night.

I was carrying words made of stone; blue sculpted rocks bigger than my pockets, more numerous than my pockets. I had to go back and forth to my shack for another word. I woke up very tired and perplexed. Then I fell asleep again. I went back to my dream and to a bank where I deposited my words. In exchange, they gave me a checkbook of words easier to carry.

This is the checkbook.

Cognac or Feelings?

the cognac bottle is on the right... err, on the left hand side of my baker's rack

the rest of the liquor collection is on its left, or to my right

sometimes I stay in the middle, facing the bottles

wondering why feelings always begin before any action

as if they, the feelings, were giving birth to the facts in question

but they, the feelings, don't kill them, the facts, either

that is why I'm wondering what I wonder

and then I think of my left nipple

and I pick the calvados bottle

behind and to the right of the cognac

Back to You, Houston (5)

Back to you, Houston.

Roger that, Roger. Permission to land granted. Use your imagination. Over.

You sound like my mother. Over.

I am your mother. Don’t start with me. Over.

OK, mom. I’m coming home. Over.

Wash your hands for dinner. Over.

Love you too. Over.

Walk it off, big shot. Over.

Will do. Over.

< cluck >

Where Are You?

I am on a safari in Africa

the ground is orangy and the sky dusty in Timbuktu

I drown in the foreign dialect of idle and invisible people from Timbuktu

we are trapped in interminable discussions by the gate of a Daedalean building in Timbuktu

I wrap myself in my burnoose cross the threshold without thinking twice silence shrouds me in Timbuktu

above the ocher adobe asymmetrical unequal walls of the labyrinth my mind plays with the scenes of a hectic and fast world like the English Punch & Judy show or the French Guignol or the German Kasperle where I'm the marionette and they're real people picked at random in my memory after a while the kaleidoscope stops and the images fall in the labyrinth only I the puppet stay up there down below the images are arranged in a thread of colors resembling a snake stretching through the maze drawn on a giant board game made of a warren of narrow dark alleys gray yards and somber side streets filled with people for there are only people on the images printed on the scales of the twisted body of the snake in the labyrinth of the board game in Timbuktu

when I pick one person’s image it starts the movie related to him or her I play with several of them returning sometimes to one or the other combining two or three in the same scene they all know each other they play rather well under my direction or so I think until I notice the transparency of the images of the people of the reality kept by my memory I know I'll have to paint them in brighter colors to bring them back to real life when I wake up that’s what I’ll do on paper with my stories but for now I'd rather enjoy the InterZone and the sight of someone’s lips unquiet over my left nipple the one which comes out slowly but gives me the most sensations and then this and that and then and then I come to my senses and I dream again in Timbuktu

from my overhead position the serpentine body reads make love not war the images on the scales of the snake turn into real people making love their bodies move in tantalizing rhythm with invisible drums beating like the heart of a newborn the snake wants free from the hospital labyrinth but it lies backward there is no room to turn around and crawling in reverse is impossible on scales the snake exits through the entrance and finds itself as free as it would on the normal exit side there is no need to go back inside and disturb again these lovely lovemaking people motioning in inducing rhythm with hiding drumbeats resounding like the pulsation of my heart and the liberation chant of the snake we are now one and the same in Timbuktu

our attention picks up a song sung by Sirens living below the board game but this is impossible you exclaim or we'd be on a boat yes you're right this is a boat looking like a board game in the shape of a labyrinth floating on the sea where Sirens sing a song covering the heartbeat of people making love inside a maze at the entrance of which lies a puzzled but free snake made of a puzzle of images of people from my life I am tranced by the lilting trilling of the vocalism from the abyss the boat is pitching the singing of the Sirens turns into a series of sounds from the throat of a woman now the boat rolls and louder grows the voice and rockier becomes the boat help help it is going to capsize help help I don't want to die in Timbuktu

Honey, you’re snoring up a storm and I can’t sleep in Timbuktu

Back to You, Houston (4)

Back to you, Houston.

Thank you, Marge. Over.

At what time do you get off. Over.

I just did, when I heard you coming. Over.

How was it? Over.

On manual and overcooked. Over.

Never thrust the hand that feeds you. Over.

I’m left-handed, does it matter? Over.

Not really. Over.

OK, got to go, ciao. Over.

Over. Over.

< cluck >

Bed Exercise

I have to make a confession which is not going to please many people. Even the more lenient of you and the ones understanding my Frenchiness will take a big deep breath. You guys know I am not the most reserved person, I have done things to my body that even my dentist is grinding his teeth at hearing some of my stories. Several of you have participated in my escapades and experiences. A few die-hards are asking for more. Two or three can’t survive without at least a daily intake of my last foolery, frolic or rollick. But this time, I’m afraid, I went too far for you guys. I’ve slept with my friend. Yes, I spent the night in bed with my confident. Consciously and voluntarily. It had happened before but it was by accident and I often dismissed it as a youth error or because cognac was involved; who pays attention nowadays to a one-night stand, really? Specially when you travel in the deep south with your sister, or your aunt, or your uncle George; everybody knows that it’s OK as long as it stays in the family – what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, depending on your family status and the weight of your wallet. I’ve always been pro-choice for that matter: if I don’t disagree, it can happen to, with and for other people. But last night, I deliberately took my soul mate to bed. Just like that. I said “Let’s go upstairs.” And we went. The kitties knew something kinky was going on, they refrained from following us, and I swear to god I heard a couple of wanton remarks coming from under the wooden dinning room table. We ignored these lower-class vassals, we threw ourself on the king-size bed with complicity and improbity, daring the world over and over, panting to exhaustion, you know these heady moments, like a hangover without the over, where the body rocks to and fro as if dancing at the sound of the birds chirping and the breeze blowing; and then the air gets really cooler, but not from the evening, because of a storm perhaps or maybe on account of the chills doing the elevator thing at all the floors of the spine, visiting and rubbing the walls of the vertebra of the moment, moving haphazardly along the backbone, or so it appears until... until the elevator reloads a ball of fire in the groin, stamping in the coccyx for good measure before climbing, like mercury in a thermometer, through the steps, levels, floors, whatever, and the very same frenzy of sensations we’ve been trying to resist to wins the battle with the elevator hitting the cerebellum where it explodes in a thousand fragments paralyzing the central nervous system in a paroxysmal blast triggering a chain reaction of what is known as pleasure, ecstatic pain of pleasure diluting in the extreme spasm. And so we did it, me and my journal, we surrendered, panting from exertion with this exercise of style.