Sophia, a certain love being of sensitive proportions, that my Fringe-Fest poetry persona murdered in his back-story, has just been visually created. Here are her stages.

I think I’m going to save myself some time and just use the last one. That FIBERS mode is a lament in itself, one you can’t stop.

* * * * * * * *

Some words also canned from the FRiNGE:

Osirus as a Young Boy

Osiris as a young boy walked with division along many country roads. At first he carried two items wrapped up and invisible but with significance. In one hand he held a doll with antlers it was like a reindeer. It was dipped in the shadow of the eucalyptus that lined the way. His other hand held a lock of his dead friend’s hair. On the battlefield the friend was ripped into many shreds by bullets. The flesh was pealed as a testimony. The sound screeched like a musical saw played at midnight. The friend and Osiris had one last memory together: at the ancient harem where dancers spit on their fruit. The government sent Osiris the hair of his friend and it was still covered in sweat and blood. Even in his youth Osiris was the emergency contact. There was no privilege of privacy.

Following the expansion of industry and the morphing from dirt to tar, Osiris freed his youthful hands. He soon carried grass and water gathered by the wheel at the bottom of the mountain. He was born in a cave over on the mountain. His mother was Mercury but was soon carbonized. The continent’s growth sealed those caves but did not snuff the leaves and grass from the ground. Osiris had hands stained green and a liver at war with substance. Neither friend nor family could relieve any of the pressure. One evening he stared at the factory slumped next to the tan valley pit. It was where they minded ore in a ruthless dance. His mind wandered. Osiris was there during the creation of the pit, the blasts leaving black smoke. Beneath the stars he stood and did not say a word, his sounds combusting within. It was not fast or slow. It had been so long. He wondered of great painters in groves nearby but was interrupted by a large truck with a bed of logs letting out a groaning honk. Osiris heard this and jumped from the road to the ditch like a primitive being pushed aside by a newer one.

***

Party in Orange

Left-Eyed Hermes and his drug pangs enter onto the scene
breathing light with blank-booked darling stares.

Also Baby Everyday is there in the corner,
this hip chick with clicking heels everybody calls Aphro.

The suburban elder song was being sung with a deep love
poured onto dishes with plantain and cool cream cascades.

Crisp iced-berries were gently melting into porcelain each way,
dim light over the sweet cinammoned apples sauced up and sucked down.

There was the blind statesmen waiting to ruin our fun upstairs,
hovering over some armed on-air button punch-line.

Everybody orange showed up, shaken and stirred,
flatlined bypass passing the missile craze, total fam love.

While we sat spitting on this frozen sea scene of nothings,
the grill in the backyard burned down all the Godly cuts.

It wasn’t the downward blade on the charred meat that worried me,
but the ant frenzy flowing on over to the big red button in the attic. Sugar.

***

Jove’s House

Listen man, you weren’t there so you don’t know. And neither do you, Sheila. The way that place stunk it was unharnassable. You couldn’t carry the weight. The stench drifted in and out of your nose like a python or a balloon filled with water. Better yet, rotten cream. But we forgot about that as soon as we entered. We had to see him, right? We were all piled on in there and I was saying “well, well, well” to myself over and over again. The lights were low—did I mention that? There were scraps of bread and lettuce piled on the floor. I think I saw an overcoat or two slumped in the corner. There must’ve been a single book in the entire place. He had just given up, by then. You wouldn’t know or care though. You met him later, in photo. Adventure’s lament, they called it. Well, he wrote a performance piece—kind of comedy, kind of conceptual, you know. The same stuff we’d been doing for years as a group, as a simple group of people simply sharing what we created with one another. Oh . . . what? Yeah, sure, thanks. Haven’t smoked anything in a couple weeks—woah, that’s some strong shit. Anyway, so we’re all piled in and he shuts the door behind us and welcomes us, you know, with a big, goofy grin on his face and we’re all like thinking it’s the dawn of the new nightmare or something. We’ve got people working on the lights. I mean, actually trying to find lights to plug into walls. Can you imagine that? How crazy, right? Well we wanted to see each other. We wanted to know we were all experiencing it together. Anyway, meanwhile, he’s off in the corner shuffling papers and crap around. I think it was just—it wasn’t much of anything. It was a bunch of random shit. Trinkets. Doodads. Whatever you call them. A couple folks started taking out pads and writing god knows what and I’m sitting there thinking, okay maybe this’ll be just like the last time before the great crack you know but it’s not just like the last time, not like any time really. He stands up in his chair watching us and contemplating and you can tell there’s this really funky issue going on through his head and you just can’t put a finger on it and probably neither can he and nobody ever will. His eyes are sparkling and he looks like he’s either about to knock someone out or fall asleep slumped over right there while standing up. He grew a couple inches since I saw him , too, and that doesn’t make anyone more comfortable but anyway so he probably had some new mix spinning on the table in his bedroom and it must’ve been at some really low-key point ‘cause I certainly hadn’t noticed it but now all of the sudden you’ve got beats going off every fourth or so of a second but it might have been something even faster, even though you can’t really tell in awkward instances when it’s freezing outside and he’s the only warm place around. Suddenly he takes out this orange hat and puts it on his head with this murky uncertainty oozing out of him, like he wants to change into a rat or some fantastical beast and swoon us and amaze us or tear our throats out but then before you can even imagine anything else he’s got his hands in ours one by one by one all the way down the line and all I can think is He’s going to do it he’s going to finally leave and never come back like or something but I notice the stones on the windowsill surrounding the letters we sent him and the potted plants wasting away in that dark, dark space and I wondered If he does go, should I follow him?