Posthaste / Post-Punk

Handbills posted in Maria’s neighborhood say:

Every first Thursday Jesus Drinks Free: free Soul, R n B, Country, and Gospel starting at 8pm at the Jeannie Johnson Pub and Grill, 144 South Street, Jamaica Plain.

Another says:

“Baby Born with Sun Ra Tattoo…”

Bubbling brain cells at the bar, the corner pub without right angles or corners, and she’s back in flesh, back in flesh and you can’t tell her what to do. No, you can’t tell her what to do. Well, fuck you!

I’m not waxing nostalgic for punk, post-punk, new wave, or no wave; I’m seething with abstemiousness, rankled by random name generators and somewhere beyond broadcasting at 7am with breaks every hour on the hour and half.

There is nothing I desire but a desire that eats the heart down to its left ventricle, and then hatches out a clutch of stink bugs in synchronicity in a swale near a swag at the foot of a spur. I’m not writing this for nothing. I’m serious here. I’m the writer here.

Maria says posthaste when she means post-punk. It has something to do with the wiring in her head.

“Joyful—now there’s a word
we haven’t used in a while.”

— Louise Glück / “President’s Day”