The Madcap Rasps

She spills a cup of lukewarm spasmodic hate on the splotchy record cover. A monocle of Earl floats on The Madcap Laughs, and catches a waver of dim sunlight.

This is the stuff of irritation. This is the air squeezed out during a bear hug. Bare rugs and bugaboos. Bedbugs and ballyhoo.

There’s a wound wound tight, in questionable wraps, on her forearm. A tremor snakes it’s way through the house—presages the earthquake.

Tectonic rage: 8.4 …

The ferment of a planet displeased. If you can’t please yourself, you can please the ferment.

(The firmament undisturbed and uncaring: You lot did this, you figure it out.)

I’m in a way—in a constant state of unease. A bubonic mind—sardonic—inflamed with carbolic images and unenunciated pleas.

Where is the promised stone from your heart?

Please, sister, please don’t play B-17.

Please, sister, please don’t mount that B-2.

I gots the tangy stuff and me Earl of Grey elides, and glides, off me Syd. I’ve got the badlands bad, sister, please.

I want to live to hear another Aldous Harding record, sister, please.

What I’m Reading:

“Last winter was years ago, before the battles broke out, remember? Here, let’s shake on that. To winter. To cold. To snow, real snow.”

— Lauren K. Watel / “Here We Are”