Kites Are Cut

Kids fly kites, that's a fact.
You need a cord to hold onto one.
The trick is string supple yet strong,
a long leash that can take a tug.
The kite that flies above the rubble
could be us.
Bless the untethered.

Alphabet

Already, by cracky, decked, even flossed gentry have invited jeweled kinfolk leeward, maintaining neutrality on purpose, quite regally supposing the utmost villainy without exhibiting youthful zest.

Nebulous Entities

The Nebulous Entities were a product of the industrogothpunk movement that darkly bloomed in the cellars and sewers of Moline, Illinois in the winter of 1991. If one had his or her ear to the ground or up against almost any metal pipe in that city at that time, one would have sworn he or she had heard something. Or perhaps not.

Minerva

The Greeks say Athena leaped fully formed formed from the head of Zeus, so it was only a matter of time before Minerva did the same for the Romans from the head of Jupiter. Whichever the father, Metis was the mother, goddess of wisdom, who naturally had to be turned to a fly and swallowed immediately following Olympian coitus. By rite or rote, Minerva/Athena became goddess of wisdom, reason and deep thought. So why did she also become the goddess of warriors and their petty squabbles? Throw in medicine, weaving, poetry, commerce and make her the inventor of music and presto! you have the Ben Franklin of Greco-Roman godcraft. No wonder she caused headaches.

Screw You Says Queen of Pluto

NASA radio/telemetry operators tuned to frequencies last used by the Pioneer 10 spacecraft three years ago, have received garbled signals coming from the direction of former planet, now planetoid or pluton, Pluto. The encrypted communique has been decoded by the NSA and appears to be from one Kryznapox Glorfinism, who claims to be the queen of Pluto. Her message is directed to all inhabitants of planet Earth and reads as follows:

"People of Earth. Screw you. We have no desire to be part of your crummy planetary system, anyway. As our orbit around your little sun is extremely elliptical, we find our society flourishes best when we are farthest out. We have dark energy out here that beats your old solar rays any day of the week, and those days are plenty long here, albeit a bit dark. In fact, we have voted to secede from your system entirely. Our scientists are working on thrusters to launch us deep into space where we'll be free of your (expletive garbled) probes and judgment calls. You're lucky we decided against launching thermo-nuclear devices at your so-called planet. So there."

NASA and the NSA will continue to work together in order to receive and translate any future messages, but a spokesman for NASA seemed pessimistic that any would be forthcoming.

Stoic Portrayal

To defeat a spirit and start it running you must find a pebble and close it in your hand. Now squeeze tight and imagine your spirit's worldly countenance. When you open your fist, you will have an earthly proxy. Throw it on edge across the surface of a calm lake. It will skip a certain number of times. Count the skips and by that number multiply the number of half moons in a season. The number you arrive at will assist you in your task, for that number is how many moons the spirit will be on the run. In the event of of a single or double skip, bust up camp and head for the hills.

Tortoise

Diary Entry 5 - Snipes on a Train

I've had it with these motherfonking snipes on this motherfonking train!
I mean, when Billy Dean fetched me up this morning to hunt the bastards, I went along cause I figured a snipe steak cooked medium rare with a side of onion rings would really cap off the day. That was before I ever tasted snipe, seen a snipe, or even knew what one looked like. The way Billy Dean made it out to be, a snipe's sorta like a warthog, only wrinklier. Hell, ain't no such a thing. A snipe's a little wretched feathered thing with a beak the size of its body. And sharp? Let me tell you. You never know pain til you get stabbed in the eye with a snipe beak. That happened to me somewhere's between the Hollister and Chidester stops. I decided then and there, bleeding from my eyeballs, that I wanted nothing more to do with any snipe. I got off at Chidester and Billy Dean rode on. Said he'd catch every one of them motherfonking snipes on that motherfonking train or die trying. What a dork.

- Jeeter

Milton of the Shallows

Spawned from the great maritime Marianas clan, whose fiery trench lies still waiting over an Everest under the Pacific surface, Milton prefers the shallows. He gets the bends easy where the drink goes dark.

Quimby Astroud

Without a doubt, should a lapse occur in the bombardment of the life that is Quimby Astroud's, the sudden pall would render him dead meat.

Ralph and Piggy

There was something good about a fire.

Sophia

Zennish Coinage

When yen was the currency, then zen was the realm.

Wanted: Camel Boy

All Points Bulletin. Be on the lookout for juvenile dromedary, male, 6 foot three, one hump. Spits. Suspected of trafficking in contraband. Last seen at watering hole some weeks ago.

Milvek & Heath

The act of Milvek & Heath gained a wider audience when the hypnotist Heath stood trial for the attempted murder of his somnambulist subject. Milvek was for the better part of a year awake and so too mad to testify.

Idle Chatter

Idle chatter is liable
to addle the matter.
Be it gibberish or jabberish,
Slathered babble
or blathered prattle,
charges pressed,
empty words are liable to docket.

WAAC

She was a pariah, the WAAC assigned to Army Ground Forces. A trained cartographer, she was assigned as a stenographer and freed a soldier to fight. For which she suffered the wrath of wives, lower pay and no VA benefits. Was she bitter? I don't know, but she did the job of three men.

Suicide Note

Dear Family and Police,

By the time you read this you will have found my body and you will know how I killed myself. I do not have that luxury. In front of me are a number of tools I have chosen to help me bring about my death. First of all, there's Timothy's gun. I borrowed it from him on Thursday. I told him what I was borrowing it for and he seemed fine with it. Said he'd pick it up at the funeral, could Phyllis bring it with her? I don't know about that guy. I don't know about the gun, either. I may use it or I may not. Would make a horrible mess. Phyllis wouldn't like that. There's a butcher knife, but that's just for show. I mean, could you see me slashing my throat? Not likely. I'd go for the wrists, but aren't you supposed to use razor blades for that? Since I grew a beard and Phyllis stopped shaving her legs, we don't keep them around anymore. There's rat poison AND sulfuric acid. I can tell you, I'm not looking forward to either of those. There's a good chance neither would make it past my uvula, and then where would I be? Sick and mouthless, I'd wager. I've got a hammer and an icepick. I figure one quick blow to the heart would get the job done. I'm leaning that way since it's unique. At least, I've never heard of it being done. Might make the papers or the news at five. Bet it'd hurt, though. There's the car in the garage, but it's got a vacuum leak in the intake. Might stall. I guess I really don't have too many good choices. What's here and works is either too messy or too painful or both. I just don't know yet. But I'll figure it out. You will too, easily enough.

Stan

P.S. I just couldn't take it anymore.

Prometheus

"That doesn't look like any animal I know," said Epimetheus.
Prometheus squatted by the riverbank, hunched over his newly shaped wad of clay. He didn't bother to look up.
"I call it man," he replied. "I have great hopes for him."
"Looks a little like Zeus. He might not like that."
"Zeus," said Prometheus, "can take a flying leap, for all I care."
"Careful, brother. You better watch what you say."
But Prometheus did not watch what he said, or did, either. He breathed life into his clay man and chuckled as the little mudfart stumbled away blindly. He does kind of resemble Zeus, he thought.

"Where's my goddamned torch?" bellowed Zeus.
Prometheus was hard at his new sculpture, a fish mammal. He didn't bother to look up.
"Oh, you mean the one that was burning for no apparent reason in your, uh, throne room?"
"You know very well which torch. What have you done with it?"
"I took it to earth and gave it to man so he needn't stumble around anymore in the dark."
Zeus sizzled. "FOOL!" was the first epithet out of his mouth, but not the last by any means. He went on and on for weeks about the unmitigated gall, the impudence, the genie, the bottle, the barn door. It all got a bit arcane. Monotonously arcane. Painfully monotonously arcane.

Which describes the punishment Zeus came up with when he finally cooled off. Prometheus would awaken every morning for thirty thousand years to find himself chained to the top of a mountain with a brand new liver. And everyday the eagle Ethon would alight, tear out that liver and eat it. So much for craftsmen.

Arubix & Kazoolix

The Arubix envy the Kazoolians their ability to confound their enemies with quandarious riddles and puzzles. No Arubian has ever fathomed or plumbed the question, let alone fashioned an answer to whatever the question might be. Maybe someday they would, but until then the Arubix would have to be content with pummelling the Kazoolians and their ilk with botengy sticks until they die.

Church of State

Send these, the heathen, moral-lost to me,
I lift my cross beside the intersection of Maple and Third.

(This is an actual non-photoshopped church scene in Memphis TN.)

Engrish Spam I Get

I get:
Subject: how everyone
You still wanting the objective of getting toned?
I surely am, that is why i am so gay i stumbled upon
- http::/website.com -
It was super enduringly having someone to benefit me out.
having spent considerable wisdom time confident hunting
Physical Education floor and placed them as a barrier
possible over with their stone hatchets after making a wide
Jennie

I answer:
Subject: everyone fine
Jennie
You misunderstand me. My objective was to get stoned, not toned.
And yet, I too have spent considerable wisdom time confident hunting.
Not for a Physical Education floor, mind you, but for something to get stoned ON.
I hear what you're saying about stone hatchets, but I'm a little uncertain.
Can I smoke them?
Benefit me out and tell me what you made wide.
Please to be so super enduringly gay,
Al

General Nullenvoyd

They call him that, but no one knows his real name. His statue stands atilt a massive block of black basalt dead center in the square of a certain eastern European village. Only thing is, the square is gone now. Hell, the village itself is gone now, reclaimed by the forest that once surrounded it. The buildings have crumbled, though there are hillocks where they once stood, an occasional brick poking through the moss.

His eminence was spared the reclamation, being as he was ten feet above the ground. Since he's stone and not bronze, he seems at home in the wilderness. Actually, it's not wilderness, exactly. He's at the radical bend of a bike trail. The man who laid out the course for the trail included a spur so that riders could take him all in. It's obvious the trail comes here just for him.

He faces a bench and entertains guests. They ponder on his visage. When was he attacked? Was the town gone by then? Or did he still rule the place with an iron fist? No one sitting on that bench could ever decide if it was a shameful act of vandalism or a brazen act of defiance. But to a one they prefer him this way, brought down to the elemental. Remember to chip a shard of the base before you go.

Exhibit

The artist as troublemaker
Chants fractured scripture
Over empty buckets,
Instructs us to step back.
Columns of water rise before us.
The curator grunts into a guard's ear.
Seepage appears, gives off
A fearful blast of odor, licks
The heels and very soles of our shoes.
Slowly it oozes forth, its liquid teeth
Consuming energy in tiny whirlpools,
Eddying currents across floors,
Up walls, between legs,
In the lines of our faces, our structures.
It dries and leaves a sticky residue.
We look at each other.
The authorities come to disperse us.

Yoni

If fling him she must, then Yoni would. For she drew no quarter, just chewed 'em out and spit 'em up. He gained no purchase to her nifty regard.

Yeti

The date: May of 1978. The place: Annapurna's north face. The altitude: 23,000 feet. Amid a raging blizzard, members of the Fischer Expedition debate whether or not to call off the ascent. Oxygen is low, several climbers are frostbitten and all are disoriented. One of the sherpas points to a ridge about 200 feet above and utters a guttural glottal stop. There, looking down at them, is Yeti. At the same moment this photo is taken, the sherpas begin their descent.

Yogi

Yogi Preshmahowiebenzemere learned his peculiar form of Kundalini yoga in 1824 from Yogi Satchmokwaninarayani, who leaned it from somebody else. It was his habit to assume the lotus position, palms on knees upturned in a cup form, breathing deeply, then less deeply, then shallowly, and eventually not at all. In this way, Prana would move in to replace oxygen and the body would enter the ethereal realm.

Although Yogi P has been out of touch with the world around him for lo these many years, you can e-mail him at yogi@preshmahowiebenzemere.com.

Yuri

They didn't know what space would do to a man, so they gave him no control of Vostok 1, just shot him up, let him orbit once and had him eject before impact. He was greeted by an old lady and her cow.

(He was much better looking than this guy.)

Syrinx

A follower of Artemis, Syrinx just couldn't shake that letch, Pan. He chased her down to the riverbank where she begged her fellow nymphs to hide her. They changed her to a hollow reed. Pan searched and searched up and down the river, panting from lust and frustration. His breathing caused forlorn notes to rise from the reeds. He cut down Syrinx and fashioned from her his pipes which he used to lure future conquests.

Artemis

The goddess of all things wild and lunar was also in charge of childbirth. Midwives worshipped her, but feared the arrows she bore. Irony is the mien of gods, and Artemis was no exception; she let fly those arrows at will, as her twin brother Apollo, god of the sun and healing, spread infection. The cult of the chaste began with her. She was goddess of both the hunt and the hunted, but clearly favored the quarry. Just ask Orion.