TOWEL

bless me father--it's been days since my last object writing...

sitting on the toilet, seat closed, wrapped in a scratchy wet tongue of fabric like a parcel of prime real estate, warmpth, covering the microacres of your wet clammy body, a slug in april, nearly sliding off the seat, spasming to keep warm. its egg yolk yellow somehow creates a sarcastic psychology of comfort.

a towel is a hand that comforts you. a towel is a warm skin waiting to be used, hanging limply on a hook. a towel is a patch of color on the drab sand of a windy beach, a towel keeps the secrets of the contours of your body. a towel is a servant waiting. a towel is a sponge. a towel throws light onto the eyes of swimmers at the pool. a towel covers the casual shame of TV shower bimbos.

SOLAR SYSTEM

(ugh. so not happy with my writing lately)

servants of the Sun unable to escape its gravity. accepting its gift of light. planets like actors in a great drama dance endlessly around its irresistable pull.
gravity, invisible chains, strings.

like colorful carousel horses careening around the sun.

maps and charts of the solar system line the walls of the classroom like windows into another universe.

a well oiled machine precariously balanced on the edge of chaos. gears rattle loosely in place--an catastrophe waiting to happen.

a baby drags kness across the scratchy felt of the billiard table, reaching out desperately for the brightly blue ball glinting in the overhead light. drawn like a magnet he plants his fat little mit on the ball and lifts. his face reddens with the effort, a little moan of disappointment and frustration bursts from his mouth. he tries both hands and lifts with all his effort against a force he doesn't yet understand... there's only one wsy to understand anything really--put it in your mouth to see if its food. taste it, test it, suck it. his tongue slides slimily over the glassy surface of the ball as he sucks it tight to his lips, a massive child god eating a tiny planet. miniscule screams reach barely register in his ears.

MUSHROOM

Smelling like dirt and slightly moist, I shook the last random mushroom crumbs onto the cutting board. Friends are swirling around me, faces and eyes aglow with happy anticipation. Some faces already flush from various inebriants they’d flushed down their thirsty gullets. There’s a kettle on the stovetop that’s starting to hiss its pre-boil sermon, temper rising by degrees as it rests on its coiled and hotly glowing red stage.

There’s chatter and expectancy in the air, a joyful and relaxed anticipation. Underneath it all electricity crackles from eye to eye and mouth to ear. I myself am engaged in a very important part of this ritual—I reverently chop the pieces of mushroom into smaller bits, being careful to keep every piece from straying off the board. I wonder which piece, which molecules will make their way to the home of my mind, wherever that may be, to be welcome in heartily, given the full tour of the place, allowed to redecorate using only what’s available within—my own mind and all that’s in it.

The kettle noisily reaches the climax of its sermon, delivering its message. Pompous, self-important blowhard.

The tea is drunk, the friends are all scattered carelessly on furniture like a bachelor’s dirty laundry, and all begin to yawn at once. Funny how that happens—you’re talking animatedly one second, hands flopping like suffocating fish trying to make a point, and the next—you’re mouth is a cave wide enough to spelunk into. But this is just the climb to the first big hill on the roller coaster—hang on!

FROZEN

frozen looks like a white crusty jewel. stasis. the cat lies frozen, solid as stone, clinging to the asphalt. it's mottled fur looks brittle, and its eyes are open but clouded over. was it breathing an hour ago? a minute? was it seeing its breath rising up from its warm lungs?
frozen sounds like my tinnitus, a constant no mercy ringing tone, screaming in my head, centered in my ears. it is frantic motion, but it is also a block of solidity in its constancy. anywhere you slice the bologna of my life, you'd find a bright yellow thread of tinnitus running through it. it struck me one day that it is only time that makes the screeching seem like it has motion, but looking at it another way, it is always there, never changing, frozen. so it is static, really.

i walk on main street in Saranac Lake, NY, a town far north in the Adirondack mountains. this is where the definition of frozen is to be found. walking on the street, sidewalk crusted with ice and snow that squeaks loudly underfoot, breath mists but crystalizes almost instantly and ends up forming icicles on you nostrils, eyes frozen shut, the air so sluggish it refuses to transmit sound.

SILVER MEDAL

lake placid, 1980. spandex hugging skin and muscle tightly, breath hissing out in clouds of steam that dissipate in the frigid, crisp winter air, the ski jumper squats slightly at the dizzying top of the jump. balancing his weight on the two slippery rails beneath his feet. feeling the icy metal of the handrails through gloves like a second skin. there's no thought of medals in his mind, which is racing and centered at the same time. his thoughts are held by imagining the rush of sliding so fast down an incline so steep that it makes his head feel detatched from his body--like stanfing on glass above an abyss. silver medal? gold medal? these are just objects given by some obscure entities who's eyes watch him even now. he can fel them, scrutinizing him, feeling their way along every inch of his body as he struggles to look inward for the strength to do this--again. to push himself as far as he can. this is about him and the flight and the speed, the weightless anticipation before stricking ground at the bottom. he smells his own acrid sweat and somehow finds strength in the idea that his body is ready to serve him. silver. gold. meaningless.

SUN-extra credit

Sun is frozen solid in the sky, hung on its hook. the eye that gives growth, feeds, radiates, still. watching statically the tiny races being run below. eye in the keyhole. above but also within.

drying heat pulling cells of skin, pinching membranes tighter, drinking all their water. taking giving sucking spitting shedding light on lies and truths blinding eyes ashamed of their failing

impassive ozonic god beholding armies collapsing on themselves glittering of mountains rising and falling church spires stabbing blood flowing from heaven's mouth. all life reaching

still, it hangs spinning impaled in the sky, wilting toward the horizon. sweet-sour smell of fields in bloom, grasshoppers ratcheting in arcs. particles hover in the gelatin air illuminated, dancers in mid-leap. your head humms in sympathy with the cicadas and with the ceasless frantic sun racing to escape from its own impossible center.

ICE SKATE

Its a knife drawn across butter.

Slides, skims, cuts, carves across brittle ice.

lacing a skate on each foot snugly, standing unsteadily, ankles like noodles, teetering on the thin knife's edge. each tentative step is a step of faith, of off-centered imbalance, vertiginous. But when skate meets ice there's almost no stopping the nearly frictionless motion. the hollow clacking and brittle breaking of ice as the blades plough through smoothness, an oversized etching. fine ice dust sprays out in arcs and fans scatteringly.

smelling the cold and the snot running from his nose, there's a little boy warmly ensconced in thick layers of puff, standing wobblingly at the edge of the ice. Beneath him are two knives—one strapped to each sole. He's holding onto a chair and staring out into the vast expanse of the lake, echoes of other revelers reach his ears from all directions. the chair is his only connection to stability, and he's feeling its solidity, trusting it to help him stay upright.