machine quick to the killing.
first off:
hey, it’s me. i don’t know why i keep on the line when this picks up, i mean, i thought if i listened closely, i mean, really awfully close, i could hear you breathing on the other end. i’ve got this problem, with you, not being home, or, being home and not answering the telephone. and even now i’m listening to your breath, hear you breathing on the other end of this
line while i talk to myself. that’s a whole other problem, though. and - click.
no-structure here. the answering machine answers, with ardor, all questions feasible.
i am myself, pacing this apartment that shakes when i walk, when the doors open and shut, presumably also do some shakin’ when the radiological explosives detonate.
her on the telephone i’m not sure of. i’d met her watching a movie from the nineteen sixties. we both crawled beneath the same desk where somebody’d written in ink the word safe. other bodies had done some underside decorating, with wrigleys. her eyes were awfully pretty mid-duck & cover. we kissed in the dark while the projector shook over, bombs elsewhere detonated.
pacing the earthquaked carpet in my socks circles about the pulpit located at midsection of apartment. answering machine sits on top, seems to glow, laser targeting my form my self with on and off red light. in it’s sights i know there’re messages to be checked, voices referenced from photographs with less to say than the shaking lights.
it rings and doesn’t stop ringing. i wonder if these headaches are caused by friction, by static electricity, i rub a balloon over my hair and it stands on end.
i stand on end. the ring continues to a halt. abruptly the machine, it answers.
look, i’m staring right at you. look. all these pictures and sketches, they’re starin’ right at me. i don’t know what to do. i hallucinate when you’re not around. let’s talk, we’ve got balloons to deflate, we’ve got - click.
no no no (if you pop the balloon the headaches won’t stay). i wish there she were capable of understanding something. she isn’t, A.Machine confides, but you didn’t hear it from me.
i grind my teeth and pace the shook-up rug in my socks, my hair on end buzzing out tiny holes in my skull. a button called Play on a different sort of machine starts with an arrow the music steady dial tone. beats and environ in signals, busy, and my hang-ups hang up with a buzz on the ceiling where the balloon’s laid to rest in upsidedown-land. i wish i could get there and could, with some rope and a step-ladder.
one day we were duck and covering below covers in a closet. testing reaction time in case of emergency (i.e.: earthquake, hurricane, temporary power-out). it was safe there, most of all the boxes, heavy with stuff and things, scarcely secured to several shelves above. she smiled sweetly and i remember all the danger i wanted to be in with her.
this next ring so sudden reminding head to: ache. with a grin pacing peculiar circles about pulpit, the laser red dot points to my forehead, says that’s where the problem is, in synch with the carpet my head shakes no. this machine like a parrot has what to say and does just that. and then it’s her turn.
okay. where i’d had three (,maybe four) sides i’ve now got just one and i can hear you breathing in then out when i look at this phone and still when i try to hide it in boxes under more boxes, i hear you breathing now and later at once all the photographs fell down off the wall screaming breathing i dream all the way awake that you’ll asphyxiate - click.
a calm i notice this time, in a drowning dead-pose, this moment exactly where which the red light went mid-blink to blank, and the voice of voices, in mode of answering, said nothing with a sharp sigh (click.). a calm and the hair on my head that stood then stopped, and my feet that had been my feet for as long as i could remember then weren’t.
myself shaking and my carpet not i lay in my socks with feet not my own. the box on the pulpit glowing and glaring flashing red light that sure as hell hands out cancer clears it’s throat and asks nervously of me hey, pal, you’re not gonna shut me off, are you?
and i scrawl on a scrap of paper
yes
then do. kick the plug out the pulpit with somebody’s feet inside socks and the carpet shakes as the podium crashes to the floor as do the lights and myself for a moment or two moments. a ring i think is quite just in my head, though much else is there, too, and i clear a throat, note into the receiver that
there’s an a bomb sure to go off, maybe we can talk
breathing in, and, also, breathing out.
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keep it offthe cat's, yes out of the bag but who put it there in the first place?
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