THE AVIATOR

THE AVIATOR  PM 4366

As I lay drowning one day in a deep

pool of viscous earth I held my breath

for one more moment, and with the hope of

the ages still ingrained into my soul I

reached my hand upwards, out of the mud

hoping beyond all reason that somebody

would be there to pull me out.

I felt nothing but an empty wind

blowing across my palm and making

my heart heavy, so heavy and tight, it

fought to get out of my chest and escape by

itself up into the air.

I waved, hoping somebody would see it

and come and break the suction that was

holding me fast in the mud.

Once again I felt nothing and resigned,

I waited for my chest to explode.

I began to dream, a hummingbird lit on to one

of my fingers and clamping on to my

fingernail with its' beak he began to

pull me out.

My head rose above the mire and I opened

my eyes to see a hummingbird,

smaller than my own hand he was pulling

yet he was raising me out of my prison.

He pulled until only my ankles and feet

remained entrenched and then he stopped,

releasing my finger and then he hovered

inches away from my face.

As I spat out what mud was in my

mouth he continued to hover.

It tried to move my feet but they were

still stuck. I looked desperately at

the bird, hoping he would pull me the rest

of the way out, he nodded, then spoke,

'What are your plans if I release you from

your prison,' he queried.

'I don't know,' I answered,'only to live, I suppose.'

'Not good enough,' he said, 'you are

heavy, it took everything I had to get you out of

there, I have no strength left, not even enough to

get you the rest of the way out.'

'I'm thankful for that, but I am just so useless

without my feet as I was completely buried,

I can breathe up here, but I will still die

if I cannot move,' tears had begun to wash the

mud off my face.

'I can't help you anymore,' he told me, 'I am going to 

die from my exertions.'

'No," I cried, and then helplessly watched as it fell into

the mud and quickly disappeared below

the surface.

How I watched it and felt such pain wash

over me as I finally knew the meaning of

sacrifice, but could not for the life of me

figure out why.

Had he been sent to save me, had he

just happened along to notice my waving hands

sticking out of the mud,

or had I imagined the whole thing and

raised myself by a sheer will to live?

Or was I already dead, drowned in

the mud and this was only a remnant in

space of a stupid dream that I had once dreamed?

Once I resolved to just stand there in the

mud until I expired my feet became free and

I walked, only I was walking on stumps

for my feet had sheared off at the ankles.

So I hobbled, I hobbled towards the mountains

down the loneliest of highways, that I had

ever seen and I knew what it was to be

alone in the universe.

A lone condor flew far above me, cackling like

a witch, heckling me to die or become so

weak he could eat me at his leisure.

I walked for years but came no closer

to the mountains,

no water, no food, not another human

being in sight, but still, I continued to

walk and walk.

Even the condor had moved on and as I

finally laid down to expire,

the hummingbird returned to within

inches of my lips. He hovered at m gaping

mouth for seconds before plunging in.

I felt him go down and fly into my heart

and I was filled with his spirit,

as blood began to flow through my veins

once again I felt my feet for the first time,

brand new, no callous  or long nails,

grown yellow with misuse.

I arose and took a deep breath of the

freshest air that I had not noticed until

now, it was clean and it was cold but it

was so full of life it made my entire body

tingle.

I had been given the secret to life, I 

had been given the heart and the soul of a 

hummingbird and I knew I didn't deserve it,

I walked on, or sprang upon the path my feet

were alive, and my faith had been restored through

the smallest beating wings.

TUNNELS

TUNNELS PM2747

The walls that surround me are closing

in quickly and they are making me

nervous. Will they fall on top of me

and slowly crush me, grinding downward

pressure that pushes the air out of my lungs

until I can't take in any more and they

explode in my chest? Perhaps, but I

would prefer to be crushed instantly

and not feel a thing. The rage would escape

my body but it would not escape the

prison the wall has made of us both.

By the time the wrecking crew arrives

to save us we will both be long gone or

be one with the cinderblocks.

DNA splicing and analyzing, maybe they

saved one of the shards of my teeth that they

pulled out for such an occasion 

and it can now have its' day in the sun.

A long tunnel, hollowed out by a mountain

but they dug too deeply and uncovered something

that should never have been disturbed.

Driving through West Virginia I feared orcs and

goblins in those tunnels, if the entrances had

been sealed they would have come out of the

air shafts and eaten us all as we sat there in our

cars listening to cds, radios would always cut

out inside the tunnels. I took

Lord of the Rings far too seriously and

let all those monsters into my brain

where they grew and became real right

before my eyes. Cordoba will always be my Shire,

 Laketown and MistyMountains,

Pinawa my Rivendell and Northern Greece could

only be Mordor. In between these place

evil lurks behind every door and every crack

in the floor, only with the dawn do I feel

as though I have survived another day and

as the day gradually moves on I always

feel so painfully the coming abyss of night,

The Shit Abyss.

No amount of hundred watt light bulbs can

cure me of the feeling as the darkness

always pervades,

electricity goes off, fires are doused and

we are left with whatever spirits feel the need

to be close to us, including those ones

we never want to see or feel again.

When feeling around for the light switch

I worry about what I will see when the

light comes on but I worry even more about

whether the light will come on at all.

The Fear exists, inside and out.

THE STONE RAGE

THE STONE RAGE  PM9674

I read One Hundred Years of Solitude 

for the first time when I was in high school.

I reacted at first to the dirt-eating with mild 

shock and distaste,

until I remembered that I had done the

same thing, in the garden, in Pinawa,

it started by picking carrots and eating them

without washing them first.

It was repugnant yet the dirt had a cleansing

effect, I wasn't aware of it at the time but

my body new it. I wouldn't eat the worms, that

would be disgusting but I would pick them out

and then toss them aside, not knowing it would have

been like a dirt sausage, a treat perhaps to the

untrained, destroyed palate of a child.

Pebbles and stones were great because they came

with so much pain,

so much sweet pain,

another feeling to think about over-riding the

foulness I so desperately needed to rid myself of,

later on came the sharp knives, slicing through the 

gums and helping to eradicate the disease,

festering twenty odd years it had become even more

cruel and brutal, more than you can imagine.

I spit into the sink, mix some water making the 

coriolis effect spin the water into the drain and

out into the sewers where it belonged.

But I never got it all out and what remained

festered and festered until the pain became too

unbearable even for me and so much rinsing

with anything but mouthwash could not remove

the film that remained and still remains

fixated to the insides of my cheeks, upper

and lower and the cancer which is my tongue.

A long slit in my tongue speaks of an old hockey injury

before mouthguards were mandatory,

an errant stick to be sure, helped later on by

razor blades and steak knives, a secret pocket

which will never feel entirely clean. I prayed the monster would be killed,

it would fall down and be run over by a bus and I would get my

salvation, a dance on the grave, jig in the moonlight

but age tempered all and while I couldn't shed

a tear, neither could I celebrate what I had been

desperately waiting for all my life.

I am not strong and now I have to fear everything,

she has come back to haunt me in the form of a witch

hiding in the backyard and flying away on a broom

when the sun comes up. My only protection is

a pane of glass and I breach it often, just to

try and get that taste out of my fucking mouth

along with those memories in my brain

that I cannot seem to erase,

I must be hitting the wrong button.

Three long months off the valium and

the rage has begun to return, I ignored it

at first, but it has once again taken over

I feel it inside me all the time but

I don't feel it escaping until it has made good

on the disappearance.

It wells up inside me so strongly now,

as I sit in the dark watching for the

sun to come close and the dawn to break,

when the witch flies away.

The valium gave it substance and weight

and kept it down where it belonged,

it no longer anchors in my soul, it flies

put at all hours, whether I want it to or

not,my anchor has been broken and it

lies heavy in the pit of my stomach.

I feel wretched or like retching, I can't be

sure and I can't feel safe, even about

talking, what comes from my vocal chords

is out of my control and I suffer at the 

hands of maniacs that have taken root

in my brain.

How many calls to 911 do you get in a lifetime

and how many are answered by the proper authorities.

I don't question the fact that there is a knock at the

door but I have to query as to who is on the other side.

What sane person flings the doors open wide

and allows the wind to blow in all the

evil culminated in the breeze.

Evil can easily slide through the holes

in a screen door,

there is no injury done to evil,

screens were invented to keep the flies

out, maybe even the errant bird,

but a squirrel or raccoon could chew through

it easily enough.

Close all the doors and seal them tight

with masking tape, even the smallest crack

could mean the difference between life and

death, the microbes, mitochondria, amoebas

and legless snakes turn you to foolishness

when the only one you are fooling is yourself.

Once I am sealed off the rage can escape and

have nowhere to go, stealthily it will try and

squeeze out the sides of the window but if you prepare

properly it will be unsuccessful, corner it and

the battle will begin, slowly at first,

but if you can corner it in the basement with

a baseball bat you can administer the 'coup de grace'

and finish it off with a smile

and a large bonfire. Feed the flames, feed

the flames until they rise so high they engulf

the ceiling and only then

will you have conquered fear. 

CONSIDERATION

CONSIDERATION  PM2356

Looking in the mirror I noticed orange and

purple kool-aid stains on the upper lip,

dried sugar lasting the whole day from an

unwillingness to wash my face even when

it made me look like a clown. Wash it off the

feline way even though I am standing 

right in front of a bathroom sink, soap in

the soap holder,

washcloth on the towel rack,

but I licked it off with my tongue anyway,

contrasting to the saline solution mixed with

pubic hair and sweat that still lines

the insides of my mouth.

How long can I stay in the bathroom

with the door locked, not wanting to venture

out into the questionable safety of the house

where there is no where to hide,

not under the bed or behind the couch,

not in an upstairs closet or even in the

basement under the table saw,

not enough sawdust to absorb the moisture,

the fear sweat, perhaps nothing left on my

skin will ever be removed. It hurts my teeth and

I see one has become jagged, one of the big ones in 

the back, but I no longer care,

my mouth is no longer mine.

I am no longer responsible for what goes on

inside there, neither do I care about the pain

that has begun to hollow it out.

It is no longer mine, but the pain is mine

to be removed or to suffer at will,

a crochet hook or a knitting needle are the

most apt tools to wreak my own form of destruction.

Wincing, I accept the pain at the gumline hoping

once I have entered and the blood starts flowing it

will relieve the pressure in my jaw.

Later I mix my own paste of cocaine and poppy seeds,

and apply it to the wounds that I have inflicted.

The wounds have covered the scars,

the scars I knew were there but I could never

see, once, very young, I don't remember

the age, I dipped my fingers in turpentine and

then tried to rub them on my gums. I must

have thrown up for hours, I was so ill, dry-heaving

until dawn, they kept me home from school the

next day, to me a punishment, I just wanted to

get the hell out of the house. Smoke helped after a 

while but the tobacco smell reminded me of that stale

mouth, I even smoked Benson and Hedges Menthol 100's

to banish the memory but it had the opposite

effect and mixed with Laurentide it made me

throw up even more, the inside of my mouth

has become Terra Incognito,

it has seen way too much.

Lost Positive Thoughts

LOST POSITIVE THOUGHTS 
PM14001

I looked very hard for my positive
attitude this morning but it was nowhere
to be found.
It wasn't under the bed when I awoke,
nor on the bedside table where the alarm
clock I had smashed in disgust lay
blinking at me in some kind of bizarre
flirt.
As usual, the underwear and sock drawer
was not giving up any of its' private
secrets, especially on a day like today,
and the stairs once again had nothing to
offer me except maybe a potential way
to break my neck if the need arose.
I looked for solace in a cup of fresh brewed
coffee, made disgusting by adding skim milk,
who the fuck puts skim milk in coffee
and is there anyone else in the world besides
me who has to?
I knew what the answer was before I posed
the question, but nonetheless,
I asked the cat,
I asked her to tell me the secrets of the
universe, the sought after musings of the
mystics of the Himalayas, and most importantly,
I asked how I could develop a
positive attitude just for the day.
She looked at me and smiled, in that way
only a cat can.
She opened her mouth and began to speak,
I waited, the hair on the back of my head stood
up straight......
"MEOW"
Not even an explanation point needs to be
added after that as there was little exclaiming,
I gave her a few whiskas and sent her out
the door where she ran off to chase something.
Dejected, and feeling far more negative I
finished my disgusting coffee and proceeded
out the door, today, of all days,
I wasn't paying particular attention to anyone,
not my surroundings, nothing,
it wasn't until two blocks too late that I realized
I was on the wrong bus,
the wrong fucking bus, I hurried off and
had to walk back two blocks to get on another
one, I wasn't late, but I was disturbed that I
had never done that before,
I now sit at work, eyes open, but I am somewhere
else, and my search for a positive attitude towards the
day, disappears until tomorrow morning.


MCC