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CHAPTER 4
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CLICKITY CLACK Oh Christ, where do I even begin? Try balancing the scales, baby dragons placed on either silver significant platter, weighing in for professional dragon-tier battle. “So, place your bets, yes, place your bets…” you hear the jester jesting in the wake of all sorts of strange circus bustle. “Yes, place your bets, my darlings!” amongst medieval tethers to time. His voice is so sophisticated and subtle it squeaks through quite a span of side-streets even, delivering nuances of dread syllabic rhythm, nauseous contrived… “If ye but build it, my darlings, my darlings will come!” It was bordering hysterical, yet you still carry the chant, down through dreary alleys, leveling skepticism the whole rank while. “Would ye trust a friendly smile, he he!” And at first, I thought I saw something sinister in it; it turned out only a trick of my imagination. “Oh well, I guess we can see what kind of parties hell is cooking up nowadays, whattaya say?”
“Takes two to tango, so to speak.”
“Yes. Yes indeed.”
“Don’t suppose I’ll be seeing you around any time soon?”
“No, don’t suppose.”
She left me awestruck and emptied. I circumambulated the stage we were just on, dumbstruck, and she left me there panting in utter dissolution. She strutted off, and when she had entered the shadows of her vanity, outside the spectrum of bright blinking boulevard lights, discreetly undid one of the clasps of her bra strap and slid it off. I kept on watching. She coyly glanced round that elegant, slender shoulder of hers, tipping a wink and a curtsy into serendipitous dim. Your father’s honor is beyond words.
A mandatory principal was needed, as if our office in officiating surrogate of the divine or otherwise derogatory quaked forth, unlike a duck quacking… My goals are set, scribbled in stone… My, what a project has to offer… The random clanking of that pan there how it reminds me of times gone by… Whereupon we feasted upon meat platters…
She jittered and twitched a bit whereupon the moment I decided to conduct a quick conversation was conducted thusly. “This isn’t an intervention,” she stammered. “Get along, now.” She took the shot and got up from the barstool and almost flopped over in so doing. I may be an upcoming candidate to undergo my first stroke. My body feels as though it’s being crushed by a semi-truck.
The webbing between thumb and forefinger. A clenched fist. An egg. An agitated frogger. Why in eastern mysticism a mudra? Ever so shapely, and symmetrical. A pressure point? After all, opposable thumbs are in fact among our more recent stages in evolution (science says). These digits that dare, they take some getting used to… Soft lines of paintbrush powder. Silver coins turn. Deep. Deeper. Actively hearing my pockets being depleted. As yet, countless carnival games to play. Obstacles. Overstimulated, wasted on whiskey. Doubt now the hush, coming from her hurt? It doesn't matter much: thumbs up on a merry go round!
Dizzy. Don’t know if it’s the booze or both.
“Look, babe, I’m going in a circle!”
She stood there, standing still. Getting pretty dizzy here. At each round she sneered at me. I couldn’t see too great detail. She did sneer though. That something you can feel. Getting dizzier. Blurred vision. She grows horns, greying over graceless banquet bracelets. Oh, what a poor. Oh, my horny whore. Pray tell, what on earth is all this for?
“I’m going in circles!”
“You’re giving me the ick is what you’re doing,” she mustered to mutter.
“C’mon! Can’t a man ride a carousel in peace!”
Woozily dismounted the porcelain horse I’d chosen to plot atop, bouncing. Clop. Cyclopes. Nice massage for the inner thighs. Really digs in there, if you let it. There’s your sweet spot. Woozily. Try to remember your manners, if only for your own sake. Tripping over my own toes and the rows of stretched straps they use to denotate where the line for the ride is.
“Saw a couple of cockroaches on the carousel. Still find a way to have fun with it somehow. We paid for the tickets, after all.”
She stayed quiet. You could sense her disdain, in a way, that strange way that females use.
“One thing, though, before we proceed. Important business regarding relationships to talk. Express one’s melody in confidence. It seems there may be a misunderstanding afoot. But here, either you wish to be with me, or you don’t. But please, darling, do us both a favor and make up your mind. And sooner rather than later, would ye be so sweet.”
“Splash of cream and a spoonful of sugar, please,” she politely managed to stammer. Moreover, literally the worst order in history if you insist on it with a lisp like she just did. Bit of a spitter, too. “I’m autistic,” she added. “Woe is me, nobody cares…”
“Cute,” the cashier cooed. “What you are is a lovely little bunny, jumping around in the snow… What’s your name, honey?”
“My friends and enemies all call me Jinxy. Though I don’t have many enemies, I guess, nor friends. But yeah, everybody calls me that.”
“Well, your coffee will be right out… Next!”
“Notice something in the mug there? No, look closer. A black dab, sort of stain on the inner lip,” my boyfriend coos, who is also super cute.
“Chocolate?” I ask him.
“To me it reeks of witchcraft. Poison. She must've spiked it. Give you the liquid shits it will… There’s a dog in all of us… Sip at your own risk, and only if you wouldn’t mind going absolute bonkers to tame that selfsame raging beast inside you… In the center of the labyrinth is where the seven-headed serpent sleeping lays curled, and awaits…”
The jester’s chant, the
The jester’s chant, the dragons, the stage, all circling around themes of illusion, temptation, and emptiness like a surreal carnival. I especially felt the tension between humor and dread, and the way the final image leaves the speaker undone. It’s unsettling, but in a way that lingers like a dream you can’t quite shake.
here is poetry that doesn't always conform
galateus, arkayye, arqios,arquious, crypticbard, excalibard, wordweaver