Love in the Desert

7/31/2019 Love in the Desert

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Love in the Desert

Anti-copyright 2012

Mackinaw Spoon

NERE PRESS, Stl MO

To all the girls Ive loved before


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The moon was dark as cancer. Nothing flourishedat night. Solace was an impenetrable dream and

sleep was nowhere, not the bottoms of graves or

bottles


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Hallucinations were more like dreams except theeyes burned and the sun could not dispose of

them. Day summoned desolation such that each

hour crawled like a white and orange worm over

the expanse of a desert. The city was a desert,

a desert of people instead of nothing. The people

were like ghosts because they could neither sleep

nor dream. Because they were hallucinating,none could see me.


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At twilight, people mostly faded from view.(As light fades they presume the nothing

of a desert.) I wandered at night because I could

not sleep. My eyes hurt. The emptiness of the

streets vivisected me. I could not remember when

Id become a subject. I endured because I too

had questions. Because the desert was a city,

desertion crept in through my pores, myfingerprints, my nostrils, entangling my blood,

thoroughly infecting me. No one stuck around.

Strangers were singular subjects insofar as they

were phantoms. They couldnt see me. They

showed up in cafes, bars I drank a lot.

I registered because others always faded from

view I was mortal. I had to remember this. When

I will have died, no one will be able to see meever again.


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One evening I saw a woman looking at me.I knew no one could see me Her hair lingered

round her shoulders as sunlight in a pool.

She smiled (I didnt know her) and it was

peaceful but horrific for the manifestation

just begun to phase into the space of her body.

Her white sundress turned pink and, beneath what

flowed from her like a fountain, red. (So tightlydid her dress cling I could see her underthings too

were soaked.) Cardinal lines had opened along

her arms, her torso, her neck and face. She was

still smiling, reaching out to me. She smoldered

as rubies on a doily. My arms felt wet. I too

was bleeding. My knees trembled. I watched the

woman as she proceeded toward death until her

face was a left over chunk of red velvet cake and was gone. She disappeared. Left was I

with my reflection in a storefront window.

I wasnt bleeding.


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Birds died every day. They fell from wires andtrees. Plastic bags stuffed with them obscured

the sidewalks. The cats began to die after that,

the dogs too. Bizarre particles from outer space

commingled with everything on Earth. Memories

were never the same. Consumerism lulled the

somnambulant with its tasty hallucinations of

being either a part of something significant or happy; it had become a crime not to be

a consumer. Because no one could not be

a consumer, emotional responses to law, religion

and shopping began to be the same.

It was called nationalism. A fog of joy clouded

the city the way a choir sonorously fills church.


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Daylight became severe as halitosis. Inching,horrible ass. Every day the city was born again.

The sun shat light at the city that was a desert

(such shitting is to be expected) Because no

one could sleep or dream or stick around or die,

incapable they were of love (because love

is a gift, and no one cared anymore

about anyone else).


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Love was an impenetrable dream. It was a storyrecycled through the eyes and ears of ghosts via

screens and industry. The television hates it

when I talk this way. The thingwas the object

of desire, not giving. Material ruled. Because

only consumers could legitimately obtain gifts,

art had become a crime. Artists werent people.

They bled inside crumbling tenements, lyingacross one another in columns of smoke opening

and reopening their wounds; they could die

because they had nothing but love for a world

that denied them. Because they knew they could

die, they got drunk and fucked a lot and as often

as possible. No artist would tell you this was love

unless they meant explicitlyfor the world.

The body of an artist is not limited to organicmaterial. When artists spoke, it was whispers

like walls were bugged or as faraway radio waves

the deciphering of which required specialized

technology. People could not see the artists.

When an artist died, the others ate the corpse.


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I fell madly in love with an artist who had fallenout of love with the world, who wanted to die.

A siren was she, all lilt and saunter. She played

with knives like a tattooist with ink. She often

poked or sliced at me when we made love. (She

had not lost her taste for blood.) We made love

fiercely like the world could end. I remember

bandages. We never slept. Her endless hairspread round us like a dark nest. In the blue

hours we talked often of time. Time, which was

mysterious as love. She asked me to kill her once.

When I refused she cursed at me explaining

were I capable of love I would give what she

most wanted. Because I was capable of love,

I didnt want to kill her. I didnt want her to die.

The next time we made love she did it in frontof me. The interior of that gash was so wickedly

red it was black. She gushed like a gutter.

There was so much blood the air turned red,

every surface in the city, up into the sky until

the sun too was red I screamed so loudly

it became a sort of silence. For days, I held her

body. I didnt eat it. (I wasnt eating anything.)I knew no one would ask about her. I burned her

up in an alley. Being dark as caner, the moon

kept light from the fire close to the ground.


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My heart was a lobster boiling inside a crevice.Somehow, the liquid in which it boiled was red

so red the organ disappeared. Because I could not

see my heart, I was incapable of fishing it outfrom an abyss of heat. Because I loved the artist,

I failed her. Because she did not love the world,

I was not enough for her.


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(So intoxicating was my love for the artist thatin her death I became a twisted coil of agony.

People killed their pain with meaningless

sundries. I forgot how to eat. Drinking

became very important. I still couldnt drink

myself to sleep. I ached to glimpse the artist but

her ghost would not rise from the stains in the

grain of the floor.)


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Some people hallucinate sleep. So convinced Pain for bark round trees or a hank of chestnut

hair I had become a tree once but lifeless,

scorched white by the sun People didnt

suffer because they believed theyre happy.

Routines made them so. Security, which is like

duct tape or miracle matchsticks peddled on info-

waves In a way, I turned to a television forsecurity, for a bandage. Suffering

had defeated me.


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While courting (Id already brought her home),the television told me she was sorry. She said

once there was a scorpion that wanted to cross

a river. It stopped a passing frog that, upon

seeing the scorpion, began to beg for its life.

No, said the scorpion,Id like a ride across

the river. The frog was skeptical. The scorpion

sensed this, and reasoned, Were I to sting you,we shall both drown. The frog,

being naturally kind, agreed to assist the

scorpion. Halfway across the river, the scorpion

stung the frog. The frog exclaimed, Why why

have you stung me? Now we will both die!

The scorpion offered its apologies and said,

Its in my nature to sting you. I politely asked

that she change the channel.


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A perplexing yet not unwelcome pleasancearrived with the television. I repaired her,

attached cables, plugged her in and for a while

did not look back. We had a nice run. It was like

opium. I knew I couldnt believe anything she

said. I understood her anecdotal style. If love

was a painkiller, the television was tonic.


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It seemed everyones TVs talked. Through shopwindows, the televisions hollered. From colossal

screens, from hand-held devices, from the walls

of bars, vast campaigns unfurled. Peoples faces

beamed as faces of children enthralled by fairy

magic when the televisions spoke. Because the

televisions kept the pulse of the city, people were

never quite sure how happy they were withoutthem. I dont like my television anymore. She

lies. She frequently ran programs that left us both

in tears, enamored. We laughed a lot. Not at love

stories but at one another. I couldnt believe the

stories. She said that wasnt the point. Shes

presumed since I rescued her from a dumpster,

stuck my hands inside her, were She always

got jealous if I absentmindedly mentioneda program Id seen elsewhere.


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Because the television had become an unwantedcompanion, I tried unplugging her. It didnt work.

Her cordI am imagining it came to life in my

absence like a long pricktook aim and plunged

itself into the socket low in the wall. After I

unplugged her, she refused to run anything but

infomercials for a while. I had to lie to her

to get her to stop. Now we were both liars. It gotwhere I spent a lot of time in the desert. Night

in the desert is lunar except the moon is dark;

it is memory of the moon. Since Id never been

to the moon, these memories, obviously

fabricated, were the sum of images and stories.


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Once I thought a man had seen me. He was ugly,old, dressed like a Chinese butcher in a trench

coat which he was in the act of opening to reveal

large kitchen knives hanging round his waist

He walked so fast they moved like fish.

He smelled like fish. He hadnt seen me

a woman had stepped from the alley behind me.

The next evening the television spun a storyabout a woman found mutilated the previous

night. I told her that wasnt possible because

people could no longer die. Said she knew,

A bedtime story, she offered. She forced herself

on me then. It wasnt love.


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Id begun keeping a journal when I drankaway from home. The televisions taunted me.

There were so many promises. I wrote so that I

wouldnt have to depend on memory. Everything

was the same, like in a desert. No one saw me.

Even the bartenders saw only the money I placed

on the counter. I thought about my television.

I knew one of us would not survive this.


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Weeks the television was happy spurred itchesbeyond my reach. I had slowly gone insane

spending so much time with her. I tried

desperately. But we fought. Wed begun to fight

constantly stopping only so often as to make love

Which wasnt. The programs were bad.

She lied so much Inside my apartment,

madness. Outside, madness. Solace was animpenetrable dream


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I split once for three days. Good bender.The television was not pleased with me. She was

wearing the prettiest sundress but she wouldnt

shut up and probably I was still drunk when I got

home so I did it I put my fists against her face

again and again and again until tiny bits of glass

and dust were embedded in my knuckles.

Our blood mixed there. She screamed, kicking.On top of her, I smashed and smashed until my

hands disappeared into her carcass. She exhaled

sparks, flashes of light and smoke before zzz-ing

out. The flesh on my hands and arms flapped

like meat. Blood poured endlessly from them and

I had the distinct impression this is it,

neither of us is surviving so I backed up

and fell onto the couch and for the first timein I dont know how long


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I slept. My eyes closed. I was out. Nothingflourished that night. I woke the next morning

to the televisions cartoons. She adored cartoons.

I could remember a time when I couldnt stand

them. I thought then of my arms, my hands.

Must have been a dream. I thought the cruelty

wrecked on the But I knew no one

could dream anymore or sleep Because I knewno one dreamt or slept, I realized Id been

hallucinating. As if I existed at all. The television

said good morning. Sunlight in through sheer

orange drapes obscured her face.


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Also by Mr. Spoon

The Corpse of Mickey Mouse

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Girlie Night 3: The ScriptCracked, 1953

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I am thanking the muse. I am thanking the teacher.


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Love in the Desert