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All posts by manny@savo.us
in view of labors twirling on his tongue
in view of labors twirling on his tongue, he writes, he wishes he wrote more, he wished he lived more, sometimes he wishes for a life more than this one, where he was more than this one now writing the lament of writing a little less than one liked to, for living a little less than one liked to, for wishing for more than one would have taken the time to have wished for.
And sometimes, late at night, the terror grips me again, plucks my heart and fingers its valves. It’s only thirty years ahead at worst, but she laughs and says it’ll be like tomorrow and this memory will be like yesterday and i push all the breath out to keep from breathing death in.
I cannot write anymore about not writing or the desire to write or the lamentation of what i was and am and could have been. I should only write and be writing and think nothing else but the pushing on and her and between the sheets the fucking how good it was the other night, not nrew years night where she fucking me to make me cum there at the end tracing her finger along my nuts as she leaned back on top of me and i thought how unfair and i wanted more of it, but i knew she wasn’t having anymore of it and that’s what her on, what brought her fingernails on my scrotum and i thought how terrible unfair and ludicrous and terrifying to be bringing in the new year in this way considering that it marks you for the rest of the year, but not that time, the time before, where she was on top again and leaning out over the bed suspended like a bridge between ecstasy and something else that’s tender and soft and ain’t that just grand to feel something real when you’re holding her in your arms, suspending her across the shaft and you feel her lips, not the lips she smiles at you with, but the lips that accept your manhood for all little that it is, and it was so good because let’s face it you felt that you were so good and sometimes you need just that.
There he walks into a room and see that chairs toss asunder. I had helped him through that rough patch with her when she was stealing from their mother who might or might not have been my mother or aunt as well in another lifetime but it wasn’t the right time to ask about it besides that dog just got amputated from cancer and hobbled around.
I wish for things to stick themselves in my head like in Nylund’s Signal to Noise, where people speak to each other in metaphor’s but there’s also something not quite right about that and even he author himself writes the obvious of our times: the increasing complexity and strength of our communication devices brings about greater degrees of i(n)solation. I wish to be done with endings.
He walks into a room and find the phone ringing. He answers it although he hasn’t answered a phone in a long time. There is silence on the other end, a tangible quality like a back end of a window pane.
No, no that isn’t right either, but near the end of the page and I’m rusty.
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Crimping RJ45 jacks
O-W, O, Grn-W, Bl, Bl-W, Grn, Br-W, Br
gristle
Waking up is the hardest part. Between the dream and the warmth of the sheets, there is a denial of the world outside, there is a safe place from which you do not want to crawl out of. There on box springs and mattresses. There’s hope that the life you are living is not your own, that for a brief moment, everything hangs and it hangs away from your reach.
Then something crumbles away from your eyes. Something loosens and you begin to slip, as if you were falling upward, as if the cliché was true all along: you can’t take it with you, and you suddenly shake with the small fear that this was all indeed a dream and there’s a mild horror in that, that you were falling in love with a dream and that you were safe and now you never were, now the funhouse begins all over again and you can’t do a damn thing about it.
All sleep begins with denial, that you are not in danger, that the world is quiet enough for you to close your eyes to, that you can simply turn your back on everything and not expect anything to happen. That it’ll all still be there when you’re done.
I spend so much time sleeping because what lies in my hands rots and stews and stinks up the inside of my nostrils: the tracks are well worn and the scabs have yet to heal. I haven’t touched a needle, or let a needle touch me for years, but the sores are the same nonetheless. Like yesterday. Like her hands putting the pressure on the thigh and holding the bit between her teeth.
I would see it all spread out and bend and the corners of her eyes become like snakes, like rabid rats crawling up my crotch and this gentle stroking in my head for her to bite and feed on my scrotum and we would tumble and pass out and the next thing you know awake and starving and sick of each other, sick to our stomachs crawling through living rooms out of houses, into calm morning streets to find some idiot to pay for the next hit. But I had it all together. No one had a handle on me.
air response
hollowed out
by the flight
away from you, the waiting
to return
to you, flying through gutters
the anticipation of waiting
over and over, for this to be over
to be flown over these mountains
in opposite directions
i would go around the world
vehemently returning, again and again
to your embrace, for the soft coo
that everything will be alright
everything is alright
being right with you
sets the world in the right perspective
that is sorely lacking
from this view of rocky mountain tops
and mid-sized cities sprawling
out of despair
scrawling curbside notes
in a nearby kinko’s
waiting, breathlessly
to fly home.
And
In the middle of court proceedings, he muttered.
Her attorney stopped and turned to him.
The judge looked up and said, “Excuse me?”
“Nolo…”, Nick repeated, without looking up.
His attorney whispered, “..Nick, what are you..”
The judge frowned, “Detective, this is not a criminal-”
“Whatever your honor. I’m sorry.” Nick sighed. “I just don’t want to fight this anymore…”
His attorney stood up. “Your Honor-”
“Nolo contendere, that’s it.” Nick placed a hand on his attorney’s shoulder and sat him down.
Her attorney asked, “And the conditions of the alimony-”
“Whatever she wants.”
“Nick.” his attorney pleaded.
“No.” Nick raised a palm and closed his eyes,”..no.”
The judge regarded Nick.
No one knew what to say and that was it.
***
Outside he heard her voice behind him.
“Why?”, she asked and he turned around.
Nick was ready to make a comment about the restraining order she placed on him but no one was there.
He stood there a moment and tried to remember something else about Elsa other than her voice and it hurt to do so. Nick lit a cigarette and took a deep breath. The day was breezy and warm and leaves rustled in the trees around the courthouse. It was a day for weddings, not divorces.
***
He walked out of the hearing a week ago and was standing in front of his captain. Nick’s badge and gun were on the captain’s desk. Nick couldn’t look at them.
“So..”, he said.
“Two weeks suspension.” The captain sighed and opened his desk drawer and placed first the gun, then the badge, and quietly shut it. “Think of going somewhere. The review board thought you were in the clear but the civilians felt you couldn’t just walk back on the street. You gotta remember they knew about the divorce, so that didn’t help ya any”. The captain looked at Nick. Nick seemed bored and his eyes were somewhere else. “What are ya thinking?”
Nick’s gaze fell on the captain. He replied, “I’m tired. I’m thinking that I’m tired.”
“Good”, the captain shuffled some papers around. “See you in two weeks..” He didn’t bother to stand or offer his hand.
***
2 am. Doorbell.
Nick got up, not turning on any of the lights. He picked up his Parabellum from the dresser and approached the door. Other times he awoke, couldn’t place where he was, knew he wasn’t home, he was someplace else, someplace foreign, but it would then come to him that he didn’t live at home anymore, he was living in some apartment in Rego Park. Now, however, he was fully aware of where he was from the moment he heard the doorbell.
By the door frame, gun up and hand on the knob, he asked who it was.
“NYPD..open the door”, a whisper on the other side.
Nick pushed closer to the frame, gun centered right on the door. “Prove it.”
He heard someone bend down and saw something slide from
underneath the door, black and leathery. Staying clear of the door, Nick brought what looked like a wallet towards him with his foot. Gun still on the door, he picked it up and opened it.
His badge. His ID.
He opened the door. In the hallway, a skinhead who suddenly had the barrel of Nick’s gun in his face.
“What?” the skinhead grimaced, then slowly reached in his jacket for his own ID. “Intelligence. That’s all you gonna get,” he held out the ID. “Notice? No name, just my mug, and a poor one to boot.”
Nick lowered his gun.
The skinhead came in, brushing past Nick, stopping halfway into the foyer. He turned to Nick, “Shut the door already, we got work to do.”
***
“First: forget you’re a cop. Never carry your badge or your ID or your license. They’ll get you another one. Always have a gun. If you don’t have one unregistered, they’ll get you one. If you get bagged, let it happen, but I doubt in two weeks anything will. Oh, that’s right: you’ll be underground for two weeks, the length of your suspension. After that, you can be Nick Pathos again, if you want. You got a choice. You go back again though, no one’ll know about your two weeks, even if you make a bust, which they want you for a big one, by the way. Think about it: you’ll be no one and no one will remember what you did. No clearances, no medal, no credit.” The skinhead was sitting on the couch across from the chair Nick was in. The skinhead fell quiet, eyes on Nick.
Nick put out his cigarette. “I’m in.”
***
Killshot lowered the gun.
***
Pathos was running up the staircase, two by two.
He had ten flights to go and already breathing hard.
***
Killshot, softly, “…you lied..”
She flicked her cigarette, uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “Can you blame me?”
***
Pathos made the next to last flight, his chest burning, and pushed himself even harder, three by three.
***
It was as if she hadn’t said anything.
“..you lied about the child..”
“No”, she took a drag, “I was pregnant. I had an abortion.”
Killshot took a step closer. “..I killed for no reason..”
“No”, she shook her head, “you had a job to do.”
Gun up, at her, time enough just for the cigarette to slip out of her fingertips, trigger pulled three times, upward arc. One to the stomach and brakes her almost in half, into the couch, her hips lock, calves fly up, legs off the floor, bouncing off the back of the couch; second pins her chest, bursting it, straightening her entire spine then snapping it finally in half; the third slams her forehead just over the couch, onto the wall, the wet sound of it.
Silence.
Her feet still tremble for a few seconds afterward, both shoes far and away.
***
BAMBAMMBAMM-
Pathos stopped in the hallway. The breath went out of him. Quiet, something empty in him, filling the hallway, or matching it. What would he have done anyway? He wasn’t going in there to stop it, he was running to it, to see it, to be a part of it. Pathos wanted her dead as much as Killshot, and he didn’t even know her.
***
“…why?”, Killshot said and did not move. His face does not even as he breathes. “..curious..”, he adds.
Pathos starts to feel uncomfortable having the killer here unmoving. Killshot removes his sunglasses in a very slow manner and Pathos knows that he is the first person in a very long time to see those eyes. Despite the smooth face, the eyes were very red at the edges and very dark.
Just as Pathos is about to ask again the killer’s lips move.
“you were once a ‘Happy man'”, Killshot pauses, just his lips had been moving and now suddenly, nothing.
A plane flies overhead, drowning out all sound. The two men are across from one another.
“…imagine..” the killer continues, the eyes have not blinked, “..that you were not always happy…”, the killer pauses, “…details would be telling..”, he pauses again and then resumes, “..things happen…dominoes fall and you suddenly are a ‘Happy Man’…welcome to another life, forget that you are a scarred child…gifts beneath the christmas tree..”
The killer tilts his head slightly, “..you have never been asked, ‘Why?’.”
He stops. His eyes don’t blink.
Pathos slowly draws from his cigarette, thinking how much of this is bullshit and where’s it supposed to go. Elsa pops into his mind: the first time he had seen her, in that clothing store, smiling, years ago.
“you become unalone…”, Killshot’s eyes do not blink, “you’ve become something not what you once were, what you were from…. you are a ‘Happy man’…the sun never sets and the sun always does…everything happens pleasingly…,” the killer’s eyes glaze and seem to shine, “…you learn to smile like the child in your arms…”
Pathos remembers Elsa on her piano on the night of their engagement and they were both breathing hard, laughing, sweaty. She had said, then, her feet on the keys, ‘We make beautiful music’.
“..why..is for confessions.” the killer says and the eyes blink, becoming bone dry, “..and that would be telling…finish and others end and are put away rather quickly, hurried..you are no longer a ‘Happy Man’, no longer where you were from.. all wiped away…but the white sheets stained while you slept.”
Pathos remembers the night after he had killed Estevez. He had awakened and Elsa was sitting in the far corner of the hotel room, away from him, watching him, shaking with the phone in her hand, weeping.
Killshot puts his sunglasses back on. He stands smoothly but slowly, very tired. Pathos remembers the dead open eyes of Ricky Estevez on his couch, looking at the floor.
“I’m going to have to arrest you..”, he says, weak.
Killshot stands over Pathos. “..but I know you..”
Pathos looks at the killer, exhausted. “And?”
The killer tilts his head, whispers, “..that would be telling.”
Killshot turns away.
Pathos’ Browning, the same one that had killed Estevez, right there in front of him, on the coffee table, big black ugly metal. He remembers Estevez, the look on his face, Elba screaming, ‘good god–you jus-YOU-oh god–ARE YOU MAD??!!’.
Pathos hears the killer close the door behind him, gone.
presence
such, such
things in my head:
they demand
(You walk
into a room and I know you
are there)
and everything
in my head,
pounds, becomes light.
I actually feel
the distance
unbecome and
bend
for you coming
towards me, the space
halves itself
and I do not even look,
you are there
coming here,
you are here from there
(and all this
in my head,
happening,
and only in there,
in my head only)
in your leaving,
you remain still,
a picture and a framel.
How you came and rested
so deep
beneath the
nothing to do
with you,
a matter of time
and place
and the such.
What to do, what to do,
I have this
something here
and it won’t budge,
it is too heavy
or light,
or lighthearted,
it makes the heart light,
you understand,
and the head heavy.
Heavy with you,
seeing you come to me,
from there to here,
so to speak
and that is impossible,
the speaking bit,
it’s not in the cards,
so I, simply,
watch and touch this
in my head,
touching you
essentially,
and that is enough.
It is only just,
it only is
what it is,
just enough,
just that,
something
in my head
that isn’t
anything more
than this:
never
more than enough.
Just enough.
enough.
pleasure
sounds a voice can hope for
becoming a matter of fact.
precisely knowing this precious smile
hidden by the quiet quiet embrace.
a sense of open wanting
in the bright tear surfacing.
to enjoy falling & shattering something
that has been vacant until this moment.
gently pushing past without question to be
only & only to be soothed in the vein,
suddenly, wonderfully.
last rites
Would you mind if I sit a bit and say a word or two?
First thanks for the seat, in this city, it’s mighty kind of you.
Oh what? You don’t know who I am?
Just a man, my friend, just a man.
But I know you, yes I do, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.
You were the boy just down the street, the smiley child, the one I had to meet.
It seems I got to you too late though, your skin is no longer the color of snow.
Your eyes are cracked red and you’re breathing as if you were dead.
Hush, don’t say a word, listen: Your lips are dry, they no longer glisten.
Would you mind if I ramble a bit and tell you a thing or two?
First, we missed you when you left.
It seemed the sun was gone, the moon too.
Oh yeah, on us, you left you mark.
You were that good thing in the dark, striking out, into the city,
’cause those other lights were so pretty.
I heard you started downtown but somehow ended up, uptown.
You made some friends along the way, the kind that don’t know the light of day.
Why your eyes so cracked and red?
Did you know you were breathing like you were dead?
Hush boy, don’t say a word, listen: Your lips are dry, they no longer glisten.
Would you mind if I cried a bit, shed a tear or two for you?
You were so young and alive, see what the city can do?
Oh wait, where’s my handkerchief?
I’m thinking about what you did, that mischief.
What possessed you to shoot that gun?
Did it make killing easy, did it make it fun?
Or was it all that drug money that made you act all funny?
For this, you had asked for a priest.
To see a holy man before the chair, at least.
And I came to see your eyes all red before they pronounced you dead.
Hush, it’ll be over soon, listen: Your lips are dry, they no longer glisten.