All posts by manny@savo.us

rather

Rather is an interesting word because it doesn?t exist. It?s an either/or, closer to something of which but unlike, inasmuch there is distance in the like a or of, so where exactly is it or should that be what?
A gun was held
to his head
Always to the head even though I never meant to kill him but at that moment I did want to. My regret is solely in hindsight.
?Don?t,? he said that one time and that was what triggered it. That was it. It had always been a quiet thing, an eye thing, holding the gun to his head. How often, gun was in hand and not a flinch. Not stone faced, not tough, not fearless. How could you be any of those things if nothing changed? If he was talking I?d pull it out, straight on, inches from his lips. Not a pause in rhythm, not even between words.
What a strange thing for a man who could feel everything, the slightest noise and change of wind. He knew what you felt with each moment if moments can be counted as less than seconds and he?d know if you were staring at him from across a room before you?d even stare.
He said, ?Don?t?
What a thing to say when it wasn?t on my mind but suddenly was with ?Don?t? and I pulled the trigger wanting to because he made me into a threat from something that was at first nothing and the gun kicked and it was never a game anymore.
If we were sitting differently, the sun on him instead of me, would he have seen the wind change?
Black dress
blond hair
ample breasts
a smile that has smiled too many times when she thought it would be a little more but the softness is lost to something a little less than the colors that a street would have in walking arm in arm to get lost and not have any wrinkles.
Hurried, hurried half step like there?s a stick up your ass or is it a rash? Take your eyes off the floor, the sidewalk, the street. Just because you don?t look at me doesn?t mean I won?t hesitate in slapping your walkman away and knocking you to the ground. I?ll scream ?BITCH? and laugh my head off because of how ridiculous you look there flapping witless like a wing broken. I?ll break you for real to look at me.
The sensation comes to me and how beautiful you are. I think of coffee and your stripe ans kin, like glaze and
I find people much more appealing when they?re dead.
?It?s not quite finished.? she said, unveiling her painting, a self portrait.
?Really?? I had said and looked at her and the image and even though it was pretty standard, I couldn?t see how the image was unfinished. Unless, of course, she meant it as in she was unfinished too. That made sense because sometimes she spoke like that, like a sculpture waiting for the chisel to finally stop. To be presented.
There many pages in such a little book. I guess I?ll have to say lots of little things.

tension

beyond
that corner
right there
of three
obtuse angles
in space.
(of where she once was)
passing
pulling
through out
the other side
having to pull itself along
at itself
between
lines
of the point
besides the point
the point being
the end.
a vanishing
point
pointed out
in her
thorough
pressure.
that empty grip
of her going
leaving nothing but being
quite tense.
enough to follow her
point by point
at this point
the sharpest
to be cut
by it
through it
out of it
onto the sidewalk
where she fell
in cracks.

of

a sense of privacy..
there’s a child playing with garters
bedsheets over a slain lamb
roundrobin to a guilty place
and a man arches his back.
the raised brow of a wall
belonging and longing
a sigh of rattles and cribs empty.
the priest walks into a bar
and with a tremor orders
“A Virgin-sorry-a bloody Mary”.
melting glass on skin
there’s wax underneath her nails
a candle gripping slipping
slinking down her curves.
blown out smoke choking carousel,
there’s a door playing house
king Queen and Jack’s tumble
spinning out stitches of wick
and a stained chandelier thrusts
denying and spying.
the whore smiles to a waitress
“give me an orgasm on the rocks.”
and the crowds the nervous child,
mommy pours out daddy.
a routine of the unexpected
headline to boiling water,
screaming laughter.
a sense of this
a sense.