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| tim khal |  | 1. Slow Poisoning I am driving, making a fetish of things that are missing. The highways are clear now in the early morning. Life in the cycle of work is dormant. These damp fields of tomatoes here have been suggesting their collision with the sky-the strange patterns of open spaces both above and below which result. The fruit is ripening on the vine, some of it falling. Great conifers seem poised to prick the atmosphere and cause a major collapse. But the money is good here and there is plenty to do so I have no reason to be nostalgic for friends I haven't seen in years. Blame it on old photographs then-the one of you barefoot in the wild grass of the park with a rash on your calves and ankles, the one of my older brother's Little League team. I have grown jaded, disaffected by the world which scorns my sympathy for it as it comes to me in newspaper photos. And when I see another person who has set himself up to view the disappointment, I want to whisper sweet assurances to him that everything will be all right in the end. We will all find the love we need. We will have the patience and the power to let others be who they want to be. We will be remembered fondly by those with whom we spent a few hours, days, moments. We will endure the slow poisoning that it is to be human here in these damp fields, afraid to give ourselves up to the speed. 2. Bulging Manhood No one should be surprised at the appeal women's underwear holds for thieves. Twelve grand worth of breathable panties disappears in foil-lined shopping bags. No one should be surprised at the effort made to thwart alarm sensors. I hear the whoop whoop go off, and I hide in the bedlam. There's pain meds for after. But what hurts most is knowing I am held slave and hostage to the whims of what blonde women like to wear. You ravaging ravenhaireds are no less dangerous with your boo-hoo faces that belong in the great shrine of lingerie poses. There I sit on a Sunday in a season of vacant staring, considering whether the pouch technology of my new wonderjock does the same to them. I consider whether one's bulging manhood can be patented or whether some mannequin on the boulevard might be stealing my form . . . its reticulated shape reflecting my tense apparatus. I cannot relax. I can't be soothed by my masculine longing. I want to think that manhood can bulge, but I have found it much more pliable. It stretches over a misshapen career. It flattens in the face of the advancing information age. It bends before the will of the monitor. A brash spammer threatens me: Don't tell me why your Johnson is so small. I hear an alarm going off in my life that warns me about what I want, what I see that's made to be exciting. The image is in high definition. I think I can stay ahead of the technology. It pursues me, a race, and like you, I want to know if there's still time to consider a career in shoplifting. | |
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