03/14/2010

You there, holiday! We've been fairly busy with things like summer and the flurries of processing requests: separate the red from the white silt, shit like that. In other words, summer!

You, summer, are the ash flying in each replica of my unrealized sons.

I don't know what you are, summer, if you're not barbaric adult care.

Why so obvious in your hidden dying, summer? We're buying clothes and lining up delicious tee shots, you're nibbling listlessly at the acacias like a not-long-for-this-world giraffe. Raise yourself to your full height, summer, and then climb up another step! Your long hair streaked with bad dad is its own thing and belongs within its own brackets.

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You there, TINY LOVE! Such quiet days and for such a long time. So little from you but flatly impeccable.

You, TINY LOVE, are fireworks in a bucket or trash bag minus the cigarette butts littering the spacey gravel that we only wish we had the freedom to live without.

I don't know what you are, TINY LOVE, if you're not itchy eyes, itchy nose, itchy face, itchy, itchy, itchy, eh!

Darkness eventually becomes tired of the hen, TINY LOVE.

* *

You, you, you! Four of diamonds! I ask you a simple question, what is Saturday, Sunday? Four of diamonds, four of the most, the feeling of having a conscious mind is not the equivalent of the cloth-like feeling of being clothed in one-way time.

You, four of diamonds, what do you mean you like hey everyone? Just because you cry over someone doesn't mean it's an adventure.

I don't know what you are, four of diamonds, if you're not rosin mistaken for flour, as in the famous mishap that we mourn each first Friday of the month of Safety Is Our Highest Priority.

Four of diamonds, surrogate cloud, the game is in possession of its own violent shaking of the essentials, such as azithromycin and firewood. Go change into a green shirt, sling an iron bar (rail?) across your shoulders, slide open the sliding doors suddenly and dramatically, tap out your best impression of a Beethoven sonata on the railing that saves wear and tear but restricts the scope of our view from the one and only window. All urbane calm is compromise, tea cake, four of diamonds.

* *

You, you, hey you, long black hair floating on the water, it's 10 years from now and we're still engaged in regular inspections and the repair of specialized communications equipment.

Shelter from the rain, long black hair floating on the water.

I don't know what you are if you're not degraded gotcha and alcohol-chorale farting.

Whoa there, long black hair floating on the water, kohlrabi farting, fatback farting. My kitchen is a winding road getting to know the hillocks moving slightly as if alive. Cosmos, higher road, Ave Maris Stella, the rain is polite in its fellowship, long black hair on the water, okra farting, catfish filet farting, torte farting, gherkin farting, long black hair on the water.

* *

You there, One-Finger Mercy, month by month you strengthen in physical strength, gradually you extinguish the power-outage birthday candle that at first I thought you must have been, ignition gift bag, One-Finger Mercy.

One-Finger Mercy, once you were a 20-minute Sofia Coppola nap on a table-tennis table.

I don't know what you are, One-Finger Mercy, if you're not a curse of two songs on both of your houses! and may justice conferring its sooooo calm dance dance around you giving you the strength to let your blood boil and your sweat flow, make the world exciting, a growing little chip, a guiding little chip and the strength not to throw it out.

Little rose occult doll, One-Finger Mercy, outdo yourself, remember that even a conversation between eternal rivals lasts forever, fivestar beauty, successful bid of goods, endearing looter, genuine Atlantis, One-Finger Mercy.

* *

You, hey you you you you you, double-sided tape, I go out of my way to defend you as fever without the hype, while you lack all heresy and laughter made from straw. I'm not worried about me, I'll shake out, but you, double-sided tape, you're three people posing as one reading a fable about an angered hornet. You do so much to nurture me, I'd pull you by your feet out of an abyss. You're my idea of a soulful lump, double-sided tape! I'm hardly ever reminded of your 25 hour limitations. I go hand in hand with your hand through all the bleached stupid rumors, I endure what you endure, I can eat all you can drink, I disturb you live, I'm singing the same armchair theory of tabloid crystal clear sky blue. At a cost, because you drain me, double-sided tape, I buck you up amid the discord of your passion passion everyone working in 100% real.

You, yes you, double-sided tape, you're the "oops" look that originates at the back of the soft palate.

I don't know what you are, double-sided tape, if you're not the proverbial boomerang hidden up the organ donor's sleeve.

Double-sided tape, I conjure you under the influence of pressure points. I aim a fist at avoiding the moment when your rich internal quality of fleeting moments succumbs to your whoop of dismay when you circle back, as always, to your rich internal daydreams of avenging totally unsubstantiated infidelity. You're clever enough to carry your own two feet, double-sided tape, bitter smile listening, off-center paraphrase, close follower. Double-sided tape, let our arms go back just so, sir. Now we walk quietly so as not to get hurt. Sunlit abundance, dutiful inquirer, modest status quo hibiscus, double-sided tape, if you can manage for yourself, I would make myself happily available somehow.

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Other work by Fortunato Salazar recently came and went at No Tell Motel and is forthcoming soon in The Los Angeles Review and elsewhere.