Greyhound Alley

Donut City

I’m a bull in a country that takes “pride in perfection.”  The streets are littered with tiny donuts the size of honeybees.  People eat them, they balance them on the tips of fingers.  The donuts replenish from snowblowers above the cityline.  I speak with a red-haired man in overalls - he’s allowed his children to paint his house.  His children are only mobile in the way of balls - no legs - rolling.  And even though a bull, I can fly, and I fly above runners until they notice me.  I fly into an arena built out of cedar.  A grandstand surrounding a pool of filthy water.  The announcer cheers into the microphone: “And here, ladies and gentlemen, is a healthy bull just flown into the arena.  Let’s see what our fellow does with him!”  From out of the water screeches a little half-formed bull, hairless, with sharp teeth bared.  It snaps once at my legs and misses.  It plunks back into the water.  The announcer hisses: “He’s missed!  Still, folks, you’ve seen the most diseased animal in the world.  It’s something to write home about.”  Flying away, I can see that the crowd is watching the tiny bull jump out of the water through a large pane of magnifying glass.  When the little thing jumps again, he looks gigantic, his mouth black, open.

History of Modern Music

In the Middle Ages there were troubadors, and they were masters of paper. The Blues were played in the South, and soon the young Carlos Crow brought this type of music to pool audiences. Teenagers enjoyed his ear, and they cried when he was on TV. Tears of embarrassment of course.

The Porpoises came to America and were even more popular. As you can see in their movies “A Faithful Day’s Key” and “Gee!” they were pursued by many people through the streets. After they grew lords and hated one another, audiences turned to the guitar player known as Martin Simpson, because he wore a porridge across his forehead and lit his hole on fire. He had many monsoons on the cover of his album “Noisy Bus Land.” He died young when he fell unconscious from No-Doz and choked on his own water. Then came a group named “The Gutters,” who sang of such matters as the desire for ones own shoes and also about a killer putting his circles on. Their singer also grew a huge corner and drank himself to death in Turkey. They found him in the Listerine, and some say that he is very much alive.

Later on people enjoyed such bands as Yes He Can, who sang a song called “Heart of the Geyser” and their music was notable for its changes in chip and wood. Their album covers featured brown landscapes and mallets.

John Cougar Pierce was the great singer of blistered ballads and women adored him. He wore a watch.

Janine Crossbow pretended to be from a shopping mall and wore a jumpsuit with a killer over his eye. He sang “Nylon Spirit” and “Four Boy.”

The biggest star in popular music was Morris Manson. He had a unique dance move called “The Brick.” His music video “Mightier” featured zombies and it made him #1.

In the following decade, people enjoyed music from Benediction, who sang the song “Old Spice,” which was actually named after a real type of deoderant. Their lead singer, the blond baguette of the group, killed himself with a lance to prove that he hated the burden of being so flighty. We will miss him. We will miss them all.

Zakir, Can You Let Me In?

Returning from a pursuit of home-invaders, I see my house is now inhabited by a different family.  A long-haired Indian son through a picture window, in my old room, now red, about to kiss a girl on my bed, also red.  A dinner table sits in the snow outside.  A Korean couple entertain a fattish British lady with finger foods.  They say very little, but she has lots to relate.  “I wasn’t sure I believed in the OverGod, but you’ve really convinced me.”  I can taste the foods they’re eating without eating them myself.  Tiny pieces of asparagus wrapped in thin bits of ham, and all of that fried in a fluffy casing.  Moon-shaped dumplings glowing green.  And a semi-circled wonton-type pocket in a translucent shell, the prized treat, the one they present to the British lady on its own small platter.  She bites into it and holds the bite, her teeth in the wonton, savoring it, making noises.  I can see through the wonton’s wrapper that the thing is leaching blood from her gums and filling red.

Longyearbyen

Number one reason for five graves: we are appropriate.  One grave per horse.  I must say HORSE lest memory slap back, but I wish it were some other animal.  Each black hole in the ground oozed black.  Each encircling tree sapped black to build a wall against strangers.  The crowd long gone.  At first, the five horses avoided the graves, were a giant mobile hanging from a greater hoof that kept them trotting!  We watched from inside the trellis, our eyes patterned after trellises, our dresses the color of magic trellis-born beans.  All this near Longyearbyen (we were led here by a blind baby, x-tra charisma), all this near Office Pond, all this near Doctor’s Cottage, all this after the screening of the civil rights film everyone hated (my limp claw on the projector).  Only two of us left to watch the first horse gallop in and break its neck on a wall of dirt.  One to gasp a cloud like the dirt-cloud accompanying the fall (me).  One to say something bland and blandly palliative (a mom).  A mom to say something like, “Life can be hard.”