First

Hold it not against yourself
Hold her there instead
You never know when loss stand right round the corner
Round the corner of your head

I cant complete this rhyme.
It is for once not about me ....................... but about you

BOTH

I rejoice and suffer in your sense of loss.
Rejoice for the mistakes I made narrowly missed making-
the mistakes you must now learn to call your own.

Suffer as I see now how
the idiosyncracies of a lonely mind
can cause and lead one to wallow in self destruction

Your current death feeds my current exhilaration
But these are the poor words of contentment
Not the infinite richness of loss

You are privy to the arsehole of the universe
knowing where we end up
I am only at the beginning

And so my friend knowing
That we shall one day meet
at the unceremonious end of all that we take in

I ask you to suck it in one more time
and come back to the beginning so
we may slide - winding slowly back to what we know will befall us in the end

friend

Super Cilious

1. Jeero cut again. All these months of saving keratin have yet again amounted to nothing more than a black scab in the middle of ajay (the barbers) floor. Might the flying arthroppods that populate my scalp miss this black cloud? Gone are the days when they could soar above the clouds and marvel at the expanse of everything beyond. Will they ever land with such grace again and coaster down my curls to the scabrous comfort of my dandruffed scalp? Not likely. Its all himalaya oil and pi radians from now on.

Ectoparasiticus major stands atop my pate and speaks in heroic tones.





"The world has changed.......... again! Those who survived the last crisis and the few haircuts between will know what i am talking about. Those only a few shampoos old will have this vauable chance to learn."





The tikki master grunts as dismissively as he gathers what is left of his flakum pile. "Hah!" he exclaims as he impatiently throws about black inklings of hair left behind by the carnage in his part of what used to be the woods. Interns are shaken by the vigour of his activity as he starts to dig back into his garden of scalp. Spiracle deep, he extricates himself momentarily to give his students the eye. Kangi, his seniormost student, turns attentively towards him and then makes obvious his change in attention towards Ectoparasiticus.





Tikki shakes his head in disbeleif and then turns enquiringly towards the newer recruits.



"Go!" he bellows. "Flake off you good fornothing flakesurfers........ How many generations will be lost to the ill advice of these frivolous quiffriding flakeflyers? ...... Think one thing only, would we not have wings if we were meant to fly." He dips back into his excavation, then resurfaces. "Would we not?", he growls. My scalp twitches and my ears move awaking the wolf in me. I eat chicken and am sated.





Meanwhile the freshest of the pack have moved into action taking Tikki's lead while the breakaway to be are pretending to clean up while focussing less than secretly on Ecto's words.

Tonal Tea

Atone antonio! for tone and tone alone
Will fill your quill of few and far betweens.

Till then, till well your fields and farms
strive and seek to yield
till when? will then i wait
for wait and wait i will

Sow seeds, so seeds can spring and bring
new leaves to leave the ground
so mulch and sow, so much and more
dont spread your seed around

But now dear frau i frown a frown
this frown i frown alone
For far from ripe i rip the fruit
from my only tree of tone

The pretty blenny

The clerics watched in awe. The weaver birds anticipated as wise men stroked their varying shades of grey. There wasnt one man this side of Shindaga, who with an honest soul might watch her dance and proclaim it to be anything other than a message from the man up there himself. Some cried out in praise of his creation. Others tried hard to move away from her flowing hands and down to her streamlines; so they might find a hint of the unholy. That was not to be. Her dancing was pure. Not celebration nor seduction nor whimsy nor venom. She loved the way her hands moved and her self love thus manifested was what sucked so many in. All but Al Bilini and Al Jamilah who turned their faces away in disgust.

Truth be told, under the make up and bed sheets they wore they too were quite smitten.Al Bilini -less beautiful but with a magnet for the common mans eye- because of the way she danced. Al Jamilah - wish-listfully beautiful - because of the way her dancing had inspired all the musicians into silence. All the takht (orchestra) except Karim the blind rababah player, who took the opportune silence to sroke his string with a love uninterrupted by the pedestrian bubbling of hookahs. Silence grew with every passing movement in her dance and Karim fell deeper and deper in love with his solitary string and bow.

She wasn't born to this land of opulence, but was gifted here by travelers from a distant land. Some say that her father, part bedouin part businessman could wander and waste away with equal ease and so gave all his children away to spare them his inconsistency. Others say, the moonlight shining off her smile would give their location away to marauders sitting miles away. Whatever the reason, she found shelter here in the midst of humanity, survival and sand.

"No no" cried Al Nakhra, jilted lover several times over. "This is sacrilege. How can we open ourselves to such corruption? Cant you see the way her hands draw your eyes? Why, they move with such ..... such enticement that her own eyes are drawn to them. Let us cut off her arms and be done with the devils doings. By the man up there himself! even the cats are following her movement"

"Hadash!" Bashkak rasped a shut up across the floor.

"Why Bashkako do members of the royal family now endorse public display of such obvious enticement?" asked Nakhra

Akela, sitting in the corner, marvelled at and beyond her streamlines. Nakhra went on goading the sedated clerics. " I got 80 lashes for the mischief of the wind when it blew the veil off madames face. Here we watch while Karim plays on his strings with the hairs of the devil and she draws our sould away with her fingers." Karim erupted into an erratic staircase of angry notes knocking the rest of the takht out of their stupor. Bake when the oven is hot. Percussion stepped in sounding like an ensemble of cicadas on raw arack and Ghazni blew a desert stormthrough his Minjayrah.

Bilini could wait no longer and lost herself to sexual gyration. Hormones boiled over and bubbled through every shisah in that smoke filled room as Nakhra, still protesting, had Bilini's turn-on rip through his innards and knock at his resounding skull.Ali the big dropped his pipe, shed inhibitions and better judgement and joined the dance. Followed soon by little Ali who was known to do anything validated by Ali the big. Then Ghantoot and his missing incisors and Burzin and his false pregnancy and Khan wali khan with his opiate eyes and Shu Fi - turbaned and too tall to dance anything more intricate than a sway.

Ghazni, one with his Minjayrah and true flunky to the devil, began a dark rythymic hum. Clerics encicled the troop scrutinizing them as if about to pass judgement but secretly tapping their concealed feet. By now Nakhras lament has almost taken form of a song and he sat up on his knees swaying and speaking out against the works of the devil - but never taking his eyes of either Bilini or Jamilah (who was not one to be left out).

Unable to get the groove and irked by Nakhra's rant, general Qasimiyah took a swipe at Nakhra and missed. Instead he put a slant to Cleric Zubair's nose. Not just any cleric - it was cleric Zubair. Cleric Zubair, senior cleric, age old opponent to the instatement of general Qasimiyah and with too many chinks in his noseline to afford another. All hell broke loose and Ghazni smiled at the effervesence of vice from his Minjayrah.

Turbans flew and beards were pulled. Weaverbirds raked in the harvest and Karim made secret love to his Rababah. A senior cleric passed away silent and unnoticed in a corner. Somewhere away, Akela sat alone still entranced by the real poetry in her movement. She smiled and with the serenity of underwaterness moved closer to Akela. He longed for a moment to posess her. Might his pedestrian yet genuine offerings be good enough for her? He had just begun to wonder when she moved to utter her only words that evening.

"No" said she. First pursing her lips and the smiling with grace. Her hands slowed to a gentle halt, and then, with half permission, she disappeared.

Breathing deep, akela adjusted his place on his teal green cushion and settled down to watch the melee with dilated pupils and half a tear. He moved his toes to the percussion and synchronised the cracking of his toe-jonts. He would remember her thus - a fraction of her grace but unique and fresh like all about her. Karim put down his bow and settled down to eat hisbread and blood splatter.

Running Down

Life drains in insignificant trickles. That bucket trickling over all night leaving an empty tank behind and todays news to wipe your posterior with. When did we all grow so old? Im still six. When I grow up, I want to be big.

As a true child id watch the RCA pig on dads Lps run circles around the dufer in the middle as the Bee Gees and I squealed with equal porcine excitement. Somehow using the "B" key on winamp to impatiently skip past the bilion files you dont want but must retain, isnt even a close second. Even the Eagles are sick of singing on MP3 and 'In the city' sounds like theyre singing a Lahiri half original squeezing their gonads to wrestle a few dying falsettos to get through with it.

Cycles with their hex keys are sinister now - front forks greased to throw you off everytime you need to slow down. I repent downhills now knowing that at some point I must turn around and climb up. Ashu my trusted cycle mechanic has seen my wallet swollen a few time now. He winks at his apprentice, asking for the special bearings for my mean wheels on their last legs.

My wit sneers at me saving its punch only for when i am self deprecating. It only spits saliva at others. THe phlegm is just for me. Globular green and indivisible.

Winding down I am still a six. Snug under a quilt and vowing to read Seuss twicw more tomorrow with reassurance from when i sat in class with crap in my pants. This too shall pass.

Between lines

For you my love between whose gardened eyebrows lives a mystery so simple yet complete. Some days i see a flower at the edge of the praries of your forehead and the abyss of your eyes. Its heliotropium. Flowers turned defiantly away from the sun yet violet enough to suggest a secret alligiance.
Maybe some mornings a flower turns up at sun - momentarily only but enough to let the sun know that you are watching. Maybe enough to warn the sun away with the monsoon of your skin.

The sun came over for a drink yesterday. Vodka he said was the only thing to take his mind of the contours of your body. I laughed - if only at the thought of him watching your contours. They are to be smelt and not seen.

Were I to eat you, id start with the neck, chicken like in its refusal to be ignored. I thought the toes were a close second but I think ill save them for desert.

ode to a hazelnut

If only to be yours as i consider you mine
If only to posess as i am posessed

Bloginder

Us Narcissus

I think it should be Narcissi.

I look at my reflection in the magic mirror of her teeth. I am both fat and slightly yellow. She is still perfect. Maybe thats because she cant stand beside me and stare at her own teeth. Maybe thats because she cant stand beside me at all.

I long for clarity in thought. I longer (linger along) hoping to find glue to stick together the fragments of my mind -now indistict from years of dissection. As a child, I heard of prodigies who learned to fixed radios just by opening them up out of curiosity. I followed suit and ended up with many broken radios. I am not a prodigy.

She makes me feel light with her round eyes and streamlines as we dance around each other like moths. But its late in the year and the whole business of courtship seems a little poinless. We shall meet in heaven or the stomach of some voracious moth eater and share thoughts and bile juice to kingdom come.

Tactics, have over time changed from a science to an art form. To early hominids tactics were two step mathematical solutions. If you shake the bush, ill drag Uzma away by the hair for which I shall repay you by shaking the bush when its your turn. Tactics today defer finality indefinitely. "Do you love me?" "Kind of".

There is need today for the cavemans "Ug". A single syllable that answers most.

"Hows the weather treating you" ..... "Ug"
"Wheres the beef?"........ (Pointing) "Ug"
"Is this chair taken" ....... "Ug"
"Hey there!" ......... "Ug"
"Do you love me?"......"Ug"
"Help Popeye!"........."Ug Ug Ug Ug" (walks away arm in arm with bluto)

Pish Pry

The weather changed and they hauled in a big catch. A piss off commented that he might try putting a jellyfish on bread and eat it, but Tari was already gazing out Eastwards. She was so exactly across the world from where she first washed ashore as an infant that she was just as far from home anyway she looked (discounting the polar flattening of the earth of course). She shook reminisence out of her eyes and asked the writhing fish to join her for dinner. They all seemed to jump out the container as she apologises "I have place for just one in my oven". She picked up a fish and put him in her pocket. Head sticking out, he looked to the heavens and fish-mouthed a thank you and turned on his headlights to face the tunnel.

She smiled as she added haldi and laal mirch to the lacerations she had made in this fish flank. In indian cooking, the wait between the frying pan and the fire was a long one. One smile down and three more to go. She no longer enjoyed smiling and felt a sense of betrayal as fishermen made offerings at temples dedicated to her. Here she was smiling among gizmos and central heating while the tide turned on Konkani fishermen and fish alike.

The day her menstual cycles kicked in, there was a storm. Aetheist fishermen were swept away and swallowed whole by the sea destined to reincarnation as sole fish floundering around at the bottom of the sea with an eyes atop to testify that they had finally seen the light. From that day on, the tides changed each time she smiled.

Bashkako the blind Malabari had fished her out of the shallow reefs when groping around for sea slugs as he was known to do on the exposed reefs of Ratnagiri. He ran home ecstatic to his barren wife catch in hand. Dada - as she now called him professed that he had learned to see with his hands since the first time he held Tari - but that he also saw pain and vowed not to fish again. He still enjoyed the essence of rawas in his par boiled rice but massacred only vegetables from that day on.

She had laughed in the monsoon rains and turned tides to chaos. Big men from small countries took measuremnts and gave fancy names to her mood swings. El nino, La nina, ENSO phalana phalana. When dada died, aai followed his ashes out to sea. They were reborn as plankton - drifting, rising, falling, eating and being eaten. Tari was adopted by a stray anthropologist who took her across the sea to keep her smile away from the eyes of prdatory men. The one story they didnt tell her was of Issa bhai and his penile disfunction ever since the day he insisted on offering her place on his lap in the local bus.

Neap tides came with every period and spring tide with ovulation. She bled every new moon and meteriologists held on to their beleifs a month longer.


She had felt it coming and was only half surpised to note the absence of a surge in tides the last time she made love. "Tsunami Baby number 636 adopted by Konkan family" read a newspaper column. The sea was suspicious of her and seemed almost disillusioned by the predictability with which she had taken to smiling thes last 10 years. For Tari, it gave her reason to live life burdened by gravity on land. She was due a thousand reincarnations high on the food chain but resisted the temptation to drown herself. Her job, thermal underwear and passion for quiltmaking were only ways to mark time. Real joy happened when she smiled.

She savoured every bite of the fish this morning, adding salt as indulgence. Sea godesses binge on salt. She sat down and listed 3 reasons why she might smile today were she to need them. She took a deep breath and prepared herself for the test. Whatever the outcome, she could not afford to show emotion this way or that lest the wives of fishermen loose faith or appreciation for her work.

Her urine sparkled in the glass vial as she swirled it round in anticipation of the colour developer. The first drop was tentative. The second questioning. The third spelt out motherhood.

Walking back to the fishing pier, she sensed a young girls confidence in the tide. It was no longer her. Baby 636 had take over. She asked a Chinese deck hand and joked about whether he could drop her off at India."If you can pay" he said grinning at her breasts. She shook her head and walked on towars the seaward end of the pier. "I'd rater swim" she said and jumped off the end. The deck hand ran to the edge and waited for something to surface too busy to see a manta ray barrel roll away in its new found freedom. It was a short flight from here to India and the catering was good all the way through.

Love story in F sharp

It starts with a mint and ends with one. Mint - accomplice to all evil. Cigarettes and Alcohol shed their machismo and hide behind stunning mint breath as it changes seasons. I am a sinner with winter in my mouth.

If there were a God, I would have congratulated him. That God dosent exist, I can better understand her beauty as freak chance. I can better appreciate the fact that she wears an aura of the improbable around her. Improbable that the day I was to meet her, would overwhelm me with bad luck and beat my bumpy ego into shape to receive the news - the final piece in this puzzle of gray.

I never read much as a child. That leaves me disabled to this date. Reading signals wrong in an accent only an alien with a taste for human flesh might relate to, i have a collection of emotional faux pas to pass on to my granchilren. I have booked my one way ticket to mars some distance from the window. I quite content not seeing the Earth disappearing from view.

It went thus. Mint - obsession - mint ..........and all was over. She has a man in her life and I have a row of poetic fragments eagerly lined up whom ill have to disappoint. "Not today Yates ke chhate aulaad - there will always be opportunity in future". I must console myself thus - perfection never knocks twice at the same door. Wait at thy neighbours or repaint your door.

Its a strange ending but after one beer they all live happily ever after.

Teething

If I had a million for every perfect tooth that lived in her mouth Id have 31 million. Not enough for the fortune five hundred but enough to roll many joints with having run out of paper or the use for it. There is that one wisdom tooth thats off to the East, beauty is in the mouth of the beholder. None of my wisdom teeth are currently talking to each other and face away in permanent stalemate.

Were these our milk tooth days, i might serenade her with the strange dizzyness of my head and she might respond with tolerance. But now i make desperate advances lest i be left behind. She smiles and im smitten again.

Double guessing hasnt changed. She loves me - she loves me - she loves me- she loves me - she loves me not. Dandelions in a 5 beater taal. I might never get an odd time signature but these are days of miracle and wonder. She loves me not everytime. Were these teeth new, she might have braces and i might be saved the heartache. I might buy her colour co-ordinated rubberbands to complement the hazelnut in her eyes. I could stare at her eyes till the braces come off but time pulls at my pants like a child posessed by candyfloss .

Another wench, another dandelion. She loves me - she loves me - she loves me not. 3 beater - waltz - oom pa pa, oom pa pa. She turns me on so that I might want to eat masala fried peanuts off the ocean of tan that lesser mortals call her navel. But I waltz with precision. I am a snapdragon not a dandelion. While I wear my inner beast on my slleve, i must profess that my snap is worse than my dragon. Masala peanuts roll off my callused hands into my mouth.

I am as tragic in summer as I am in winter. Then i dreamed of pumpkin boiled golden. Now it is masala peanuts. But its summer time and my fish is jumping. The living isnt any easier and my daddy isnt rich. I might spew blue effervescent venom to blind all who even so much as look at it. Her teeth and hazelnut eyes keep me from erupting.

3 ages of artistic indulgence

Despite art being indulgence, we ratoinalise our need for it with arguments only rivaled by those offered when picking up a cigarette after having quit. Talking cosmos to justify my scribbling comes easy. Today however I balance drunkenly on the ledge that separates the last two phases of literary art.

Alas all ye wasted MBAs, for there are only 3 phases in my component analysis of literary art. No abbreviations can be used to describe just 3 phases without highlighting deeper desires to sound qualified. I wouldnt know my nuts from my noggin when it comes to the history of literature, but being frivolous leaves me expert enough to make as many phases as I please. Three is my lucky number.

Phase 1. (I read in class 2)

Phase 1 must unfortunately must be the polluting of ones mind wirh other peoples verse. Art dosent come naturally to junta - we must learn to waste time in a truly wasteful manner. I often wondered why there exist no good bookd for adolescent boys. I now realise that for those not indoctrinated early into the arts (like me), Jerking off is a perfectly good alternative. To date, I jerk off better than I read. Alas we must learn to read, appreciate, deconstruct critique and then add write more syllables that time dosent give a flying fig for. I now consider what ive read as achievement, while my seed lies unsown and my selfish genes are fast admitting failure. I read Dr Sseuss after a long time yesterday and am quite convinced that since 400 words communicate more to me than the few thousand of other books ive read, that this phase must necessarily have ended..

Phase 2. (Mai bhi Machiavelli) or Yan can write so can you

Phase 2 "my shit is candy" normally happens when we mature enough to realise that almost everyone is overrated. That Arnold can become senator andRabri devi often adds Habeas Corpus to her cattlefeed. So you write 2 lines and someone says he sees shakespeare in them. Of course he was hinting at plagiarism but jo bhagwan karta hai.... woh theek karta hai. And so of course you begin writing. A different age might have looked upon an artist destroying his creation as dramatic/tragic/poetic in some way. Today we preserve every turd of creativity as bits and bytes that this automatised art arsehole churns out. So bankrupt are we that we expect an organisation to confer awards of creativity on authors even though they couldnt come up with anything better than "the booker prize" themselves.


Phase 3 (Painting is creating but im just erasing, crystal clear canvas is my masterpiece)

Returning a thought to the recesses of your mind where it can take on its original form - not tied down by fancy words and rules of grammar. In my mind there exists no place for full stops - just round and round and round and round - like that. No bachche mustnt cage thoughts, after all they also have feelings. On my birdday i will take all the caged thoughts on my computer and set them free. No more fear of entering 'my documents' for fear that i might encounter my self as other see me. Delete karo. If i need to be poetic, I shall spout Jethro tull for he has paid poetic dues for half of humanity. I shall use my backspace to rewrite many pieces. Its amazing how easy brevity really is. I asked ex girlfriends to return letters so I could incinerate them. For once these women seem to have co-operated - in advance.

Cleaned out shelving on my hard disk makes me wonder what to fill them up with next. I no loger store pornography so filling them up will be tougher. I pick my nose as i wonder. Today id like an e-booger to stick on the underside of my empty writing shelves so i can once again proclaim them to be my own while i think.

Idle Worship

My mind has been idling these last few weeks. Slight and continuous tremors keep the ol engine running, but nothing more. Another hour of mind numbing T.V. and there is likely to be a shudder followed by lights out. My idling, of course, is a concious invitation to the devil, who contrary to popular perception, is not a workaholic and enjoys his offs. He comes to mind late and with great reluctance.

He enters smoking a cigarette and spends a few drags at the door just to allow the knocking of my minds half horse power to fade into the background of his hearing. He is talking to Cora on the phone. She was my substitute devil for last week and left things in such disarray that the devil is likely to have a tough time even getting started today. The devil is organised. I repeat: not a workaholic.

"Cora, where have you kept the blowtorch?.... and the chainsaw?... and the goddamned sledgehammer? And just what in heavens name were you up to anyway?"

"You listen here Belzebub! If you want to get anything constructive from me, you're going to have to change your tone and cut down on your references to God. Call me old fashioned or dont call me at all"

He had taken a deep breath for the lambasting that should have followed but before he could let go Cora cut the line off.
"Pfffffffuck"

He picked up a hammer, the tool closest at hand and began banging a long nail into the table-top on which sat the vice. He began with a few gentle knocks to direct the nail towards its ultimate direction. His eyes lost focus of the nail while his mind whirred and saliva accumulated in the front of his mouth - zoning out Monday morning style.

"Hmm" he thought
"Lambasting!"
"Lamb.... basting!"
"Lamb of fucking god fucking basting!" he screamed banging the nail straight into the table top in two blows.

"Whatthe devil ismy problem" he continued, now banging the table-top, for the nail was now well embedded.
"She's right! I can't say two things without bringing Trinity into the picture. ....Fuck it all!" he said overcome and throwing the hammer at a the clock somewhere in the middle of my mind. He missed and shattered a memory or two that were in the workshop for some touching up. He just created more work for himself and as I said before, the devil is not a workaholic. He banged his head down onto the work table in resignation and finding releif in the drama of the moment, continued to bang his head, increasing gradually in amplitude and impact.

Collapsing into a cane chair, he stretched his interlocked fingers across his forhead pushing his head back onto the chair He sighed deeply and brought his joined hands down to the seat of the chair to a place in front of his groin where he sat. He closed his eyes for a moment and then realised that anyone walking in at that moment might mistake him to be in prayer.

"Fuck Fuck Fucking Fuck!..... Maybe I should just give up this whole farce and go back to my old job." He picked up the phone and called up Trinity.

"Peace be with you." rumbled a voice with depth of cosmic proportions.

"Get off the fucking voice modifier and stop being a wuss." began Belzebub.

"Bubba!" came the reply; a lot shallow and a lott more cheerful. "Son of a bitch! Hows my favourite man from down under doing?"

"Just great your fuckness. The guys have already begun to doubt my motives and ive had to give all the Gestapo down here regular jobs after they reported phone traffic to heaven from somewhere near where i live. Besides that, Lucifer has been setting fire to every Tom Dick and Harry he meets and though it does well to keep the whole 'hell thing' going, its really pissing the witches off who having being burnt at the stake already arent ready for a second helping."

"Yeah yeah the grass always looks greener........ which reminds me; They sent me this Baba the other day. Turns out hes been bonking his disciples. So im sending him down to you, with the tola of hash they sent along with him into the afterlife. These guys really know how to take care of their dead."

"Sounds good. Why dont you come down for a smoke? I got some stuff from a recent Mahkali sacrifice and loads of Lamb chops from when Tutankhamen came to visit last time. Boy those Egyptians know how to stock a fridge for an afterlifetime."

"Cant. Not today. Have to entertain a whole bunch of Seventh Day Adventists who went off a cliff." They are supposedly really pissed off and im going to have to pacify them and prepare them for when I send their pastor down to you. Is there anything I can ask Gabriel to send with him?"

"Thanks man. The only thing I need right now is good company. Im sick of metalheads and Tantrics. I need to get out, grab a beer,not worry about being scary or devisive enough. You know?! Take it easy for a few days."

"Chill man chill! Dealing with winged, obsessive-compulsive paedophiles isnt peaches and cream either. Besides what with all these down feathers, im developing asthma. In times like these, i just remind myself that Judgement day will make all this seem worthwhile. Just imagine.... the two of us sitting side by side while the world looks on in horror as you pull out a can and we split a beer. Good and evil united over a can of beer! We'll take their lists of sins and good deeds and light a bonfire to tickle our toes. Then we call on the Pope and ask him if he knows to salsa. Its going to be one big riot."

"You're right man. Just a few more years. Actually the condition is that since you've got the cushier part right now, I get to break it to mankind that were on the same side."

"Anyway you want it Bubba. Absolutely any way."

"Thanks a ton. Your celestial balls."

"Anytime Bubba."

"Ciao then."

"Ciao".The devil smiled as he put thephone back into his pocket. He sat for a moment or two up to his fangs in a grin."allright then.Back to work." he said.He sighed a sigh of releif and began to clear up Cora's mess.

A chunk of mind lay where Cora had left it in resignation last time. He locked it into the vice and looked at it with fresh inspiration. This one was going to be his masterpiece.

Can Can Can Can?

Today I opened a can of worms. They werent fresh. They had been lying there for a while. I am a supporter of Schrodingers charas trip today. Basically you cant say for sure that there are worms in the can even if the label says Kadi Chaval. The very event of opening it, by some miracle of calculus (wizardry if you ask me) could convert it into helminths in woucestershire sauce and there is nothing us -the mathematically disinclined - can do about it. Today has been such a day.

I resuscitaed worm one mouth to mouth. Coughing out sauce, he thanked me profuselyand asked me if I had some crap to eat. I told him these were no-bullshit days and so he ate a co-worm out of self preservation. Somewhat sated, we began to talk.

"Hows the writing going?" he asked.
"Going going gone"
"Ah; I see! Still obsessed with our own wit are we?"
"Not quite. I ve come to hte realization that i am of intelligence that is less than the sum of its parts. Added to that is the fact that my casual labour these days have added fewer parts than you'd expect".
"You see! Hence proved....... Shouldn't it be 'proven'."

"Bugger off ass wipe!" I squashed his first half with a plier and watched his tail wiggle to some ancient tune from the days when darwin was god. "No more mouth to mouth".

Worm two got electric shocks provided by the static in my flannel pajamas. All those nights of hard work finally paid off. She awoke.

"Saviour. My lord and master how can I repay you for getting me out of this soup?" I pointed out that she was in a sauce and that made things less dramatic.(i suspect worm one could have been right about my obsession with wit)
"Your wish is my command."
I examined my genitals. Being anatomically other, i decided to ask her something less predictable.
"Do the macarena" I said."Minus the pelvic thrusts"
"No im serious"
"Hi im Bloginder"
She looked at me, trachea welling (for she had no eyes) and began to wail. A worm wail is more like the high frequeny emissions on bus tube lights; but no less tragic than the ones were used to. It stirred a fat one from the top. Worm three. Succulent and fat like a baby water baloon.

"Whats it like being round there?" I punned. From somewhere deep in the can a laugh sent gravy bubbles rising in the woucestershire sauce. He ignored my comment and began to call for help in worm semaphore - ignoring me entirely. Worm two suirmed closer to the can leaving a trail of worm tears on the grey formica.

"Willie? Is that you?"
"Grace! My love"

The desperation of their attempts to move outside of their natural habitat became more deperate.

"There there willy. Im not all bad. Here let me help you two get things rolling again" I picked him up and placed him just out of reach from Grace. They puckered long and hard but stayed a worms whisker out of reach of each others lips. Will turned to me puckered with expectation written all over his segments. He turned back to face Grace and relaxed into the ball he is. He inhaled deeply and invested it in a sigh.

"You know what your problem is Bloginder?.... You always take jokes to the point where theyve gone to far and then try and backtrack with apologies and the image you have of yourself as a good boy."

I smacked him with my slipper, sending alpha helices of worm protein in a starburst from under my slipper.

"What the fuck!" Worm four was up. "You think your doing us a favour by saving us? You are only interested in saving so long as it adds to your holier than thou self image. Look at poor grace. She made a true gesture of appreciation and what did you do? Drown its intent and goodwill in corny half funny nothings." I looked at grace she was crying.

"Aww! There's nothing worse than the grating cries of a truly distraught lady" I began. "Especially when she runs the risk of dehydrating at the expense of her tears. Here, lets get back some of those precious body fluids back again." I picked her up gently and carried her to the can.

Then i began dunking her. Her wailing dopplered in and out except for the time she spent in sacue as worm four screamed worm expletives at me in an out of control sort of a way.

"He's fucking mad! You might as well kill us all straight away."
"Good idea" replied I, dropping Grace back into the sauce. "Maybe thats what you deserve"
"If you didnt want to hear what we had to say about you, why did you open the can in the first place?"
"Youre right I shouldnt have" I said, shutting the frayed edges of the galvanised tin cover. "I should have done this in the beginning"
The tin sat upon a log as I lit up a cigarette and use d the residual calories in the match to set the log on fire. As the flames caught up. Worm four's voice was fuller resounding in the holow space between him and the cap.

"You cant face us. Not me, not grace, not anyone but the ol taenia at the bottom for she laughs at all you say. And shell laugh! oh yes laugh and agree with every inanity you ever utter till she gets to your bowels - for thats where your soul is. And thats when she begins to eat. You my friend are your own best freind and enemy. And dont dont think that everything will be baked beans and ketchup. No sir! For as long as Schrodinger is remembered, you dont really know what lies in the next can. There could be cats who dont give a fuck, but there could be more of us."

The red glow on the can reminded me of the ripe Persimon I left uneaten. I got up and went to the table. The persimon in all its invitation had a small hole near the base. 'Fungus? Hail mark? Worm!..... wont risk it.'

Now i am warm and comfortable and there are but ashes left. Tea is my partner in crime and i sit reassured.



Many thanks to chuski.blogspot.com for todays "keeda".