Rings

"Rings"
a story for Carlos, by Jake Kilroy

Based off of a Facebook comment from Carlos:
"Requesting you write a short story about life on Earth with rings!" - Carlos, with this link.

The rings wrapped the sky like a neon ribbon and shattered the colors of the sunset. Carlos and Jake sat on top of the barn with several empty beer cans between them and their legs dangling. Carlos leaned forward and spit, wiping the foam from his mustache. Jake nearly dozed off.

"What do you think it'd be like without the rings?" Carlos asked.

"Boring," Jake answered, rubbing his eyes. "I mean, what would be left? Empty space and a few stars?"

"Well, we'd see more stars."

"We would?"

"Yeah. Without the rings, there'd be less light in the way, and the sky would look like a diamond quarry, I assume."

"Sunsets would be flat."

"Probably true," Carlos agreed, "but the only light pollution would be from buildings."

"And streetlights. And headlights. And those swirly lights at movie premieres."

"Searchlights?"

"Ah, that's what they're called," Jake said with a snap. "Wait, that doesn't make sense. They're facing the sky. What are they searching for?"

"I don't know. God?"

"The only god you'll find at a movie premiere is the god of fake boobs and fur."

"That's real deep, Jake."

"Would God love or hate movie premieres?"

"He'd probably have mixed emotions," Carlos explained, considering another sip.

"God has emotions?"

"Well, he's capable of wrath, right?"

"Yeah," Jake mumbled with a squint.

"And he's capable of pride."

"Right, but not gluttony, since he can't eat."

"Gluttony isn't an emotion. It's a sin."

"So is pride and wrath."

"Good point," Carlos agreed.

"Is haircuts one of the seven deadly sins?"

"Ok, I think you've had enough to drink."

"Which would be sloth."

"The guy from The Goonies?"

"Now who's had enough to drink?

"How are we going to get down?"

"Hey, do you think you could slide down the rings?" Jake asked, pointing up.

"I doubt it. They're just jagged ice and rocks."

"They are?"

"Man, your high school science teacher should be put in front of a firing squad."

"You're an enemy of science, Los."

"I'm the one explaining the rings!"

"Los of the Rings."

"Ok, well, that was lazy."

"I kind of wish we could see the sky without them."

"We probably wouldn't know what to do with all those stars."

"I don't even know what to do with the rings."

"Maybe we should just leave the sky alone."

"Sounds good."

And so the two men toasted the sky, clinked their beers, and went on arguing about Tim Duncan.

"spirit guide"

"spirit guide"
written with a rusty history by jake kilroy.

i died in the arms of a night one time,
years ago, out in the forest of oregon.
the mist coursed through my lungs,
and my clothes reeked of the pines.
all that was left was a baptism revival
in the long, cold arteries of the river.
an acoustic guitar crooned from the fire.
a girl waited for me back in california.
the headlights popped from my eyes,
and my friends let me disappear
into the woods as a quiet specter.

my limbs spread out like that of a dead bird's,
dragged slowly from the ground to a headdress.
fireflies passed me, curious, and then followed.
the animals winced when they saw me fly,
but they slowly moved, mesmerized, to watch.
the trees saluted me with grace and madness.
and the sky rolled over me like a blanket.
i was a sight to behold.

by morning, i had no answer for where i went.
i was smoke in my own cavern of a traveler's body.
and i remember the sounds of nature's well-wishes.
but i don't know where i ended up.
it was somewhere above life,
but not quite the life above.
that's the last time i remember being magnificent.
since then, i've drank the potions under a few mystic tents
and swam nude while laughing 'til the moon made me dizzy.
but there's always the wild woods of oregon
to remind me i'm forever human
and it's forever a blessing.

"reading a northwestern passage"

"reading a northwest passage"
when considering a million things by jake kilroy.

i remember the copy of east of eden that dried out at the beach house,
torn by the wind, scratchy to the touch, a perfect token of the past.
it was northwest by heart attack blues, up the throat, out the mouth,
and i read a passage from the classic while the surf got up sleepily.
but there was nothing to do but drugs and recall your own desires,
set against a quiet forest road that lead us here one friday night.
i spent two sunsets at the local dive bar listening to classic rock,
hating my beers and loving the prices, and gutlessly praying,
this time for a lack of irony when i penned napkin poetry,
but i was happy. and there was hardly anything to say.

"the good ones"

"the good ones"
written after the wild by jake kilroy.

the lights went out in the canyon,
except for the porch lanterns and stars,
and it was a red summer to come,
but it was a springtime meal
of promises and wine,
lacerating the insides
of every wedding guest.

"i wish it was monsoon season
or that we lived somewhere wet,
so i'd have something to protect you against,"
crooned the man waiting out his own mouth.

what a time it is
to think you're being young and stupid,
when the line you thought you walked
somewhere between reckless and carefree
is tightening around your neck
with each passing calendar tear.

every summer wasted and won,
this year was supposed to be lethal,
the buried truth of it all strung up
and out there to dry in the wind;
a banner year, a welcome home sign,
a protest against the aging process itself.

surely, each crown weighs heavier than the last,
and the royal museum, built of blood and muscle,
waits for new patrons to survey the artwork
and tell you your hands aren't older or shakier.
but it's not true, and you know that,
so you dig through the earth yourself,
hoping it all lasts, that eons aren't dreams,
that something does indeed conquer time.

is it so remarkable to tread lightly on the future?
i should hope so, for what good are we
as words and actions merely reacting to the present?

this is what i wish i had said:
"it is nothing to consider freedom."
truly.

"there, there"

"there, there"
written after a special occasion by jake kilroy.

in my will,
i left everything to the wind,
to distribute my life accordingly.

madness in deep breaths,
with each cleaner organized
under the sink,
i made sure it all flew up
and tore through the power lines
over the city
across the country
into the lives
of the women.

there, out in the wilderness,
one light after another snapping,
the great lengths of a future crawled.

so the baskets of gifts
and chests of treasure
were ransacked properly
with all of my table of contents
spilled in the messiest last meal.

there, somewhere out there,
awards and rewards fluttered to
the one that had the hollywood loft,
the one that always ate licorice,
the one that came from the bay,
the one that read me delillo,
the one that thought she was the one that got away.

and then there was the next one,
waiting for the new empire.

"god help me"

"god help me"
written with a sore body by jake kilroy.

it was a roman empire conqueror’s kiss,
an act of passion that would've been the ocean
after the movie characters drove off the bridge.

god help me,
she punched the eyeballs out of my sockets.
my mouth ended up in a treehouse of a past life.
my body was torn asunder in the great church of nature.

oh, i told her noir stories of my youth,
leaving out the hand claps, the pocketed stars,
and the mangled masochism machismo machine i was,
but i kept in the literary time bomb devices
to explode her heart into a million puzzle pieces
so i would have a magic trick to figure out
when i got too crafty for my own terrible good.

"the poplars of california"

"the poplars of california"
written on a busy day by jake kilroy.

i stepped out to the back porch of vines and tiny lights,
away from the noise and the racket and the mystery,
to have a late-night conversation with myself.
"what good is all this?" i asked.
"who knows?" i answered.

that was the end of it, and before i had time
to drag my knuckles across the wooden fence,
i was gripped at the throat by american promise:
me, in a suit, wind in my hair, driving a cadillac,
woman at my side, picnic basket in the backseat,
down the scenic route through the poplars of california.

back at the patio, a guest in the waiting room of a party,
smoky words left my mouth as i considered my drink,
a sweet yellow concoction made by a pretty girl
with a taste for rum and men of a different class.
it breathed new life into me, and my pupils twitched,
but that was the end of it, here,
a place that smelled of jasmine
and reeked of book junkie spirit.

i caught myself sucking down moonlight next,
peppermint vapors from the heavenly wasteland
that went through my lungs like silk ropes,
tying my heart to my guts to my spine
to my brain that cut loose and cackled.

this was the barest of politics,
mangled in youth, tangled in sex,
wrangled by the hands of a working man.

instead, my tongue sped across the highway of my front teeth,
an inventory of ivory i'm thankful hasn't ever been purged
given my attempts at driving the first amendment into the ground.
what i'd give for another warm bed, i wagered in the soft glow
of a location i could sell to a hollywood scout for top dollar,
but that was where it ended, at the beginning, when i broke,
when i crashed, when i spiraled, when i got that wildest of ideas,
coughed, laughed, and headed back into the party for another.

8/50: Bluebeard

Bluebeard, by Kurt Vonnegut
5/5 stars
This is my 8th book in Rex & Jake's 50-Book Reading Challenge,
which Rex leads 10-8. Full list can be found here.

I've always thought of The Great Gatsby as "The Great American Novel" because it moves and shakes like America. It has the sunsets of dreams in the background, with the hopes and aspirations in the foreground, all meandering like specters among big parties and small conversations.

However, if it were up to me, I'd deem Kurt Vonnegut "The Great American Author" because he's always been able to explain Americans in a profound and understandable lecture while still making jokes. He's sincere and heartbreaking and funny and philosophical all in one paragraph, which is why his books are almost stupefying. They floor me every single time. He's always right. He's right about how America should be. He's right about how people should be. He's right about how everything should be.

And yet he can observe the mistakes, articulate the wrongdoing of mankind, and point out what mattered and why in the great messy history of modern humans. He's what all writers strive to be without any of the ego problems or the stuffy choice of words. He is what people desperately need: a moral compass that is astute and accessible.

There's a sense of beauty and importance to what he says, and he writes like it'll count and make a difference, though it has the humility and silliness of a dinner party comment. He's grateful for what he has and can do, not just for himself, but for humanity, and it shines through in his writing. His words glow when they finally settle somewhere behind your eyes.

Bluebeard is a flawless book. It takes on so much while keeping the narrative short in scope. It never goes astray, as it calmly delivers the scattered breadth of a great artist's life. It gives you the gold along with the gags, and you can't believe how much fun it is, observing the long life of a man who's never existed. It's the fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, now in the sparkling twilight of life, all with his greatest work out in the potato barn that he won't let anyone see. A wild female writer many decades his junior crashes with him and stirs up memories and portraits of reflection come to be his book.

It was goddamn supreme.

"copenhagen"

"copenhagen"
written early in the morning by jake kilroy.

i woke up with thoughts of copenhagen,
breathing in light and exhaling romance.
beyond the seas i've faired and land i've crossed,
there's a city of color with pubs full of mermaids.
at night, the sky looks like a smashed chandelier.
in the day, the world is endless in its airy frontier.
one gorgeous woman charms one generous man.
"you had my attention, but now you have my heart."
bicycles, statues, cafes, operas, affairs - truly,
the summer never dies. it just sleeps through.
and here i am on the west coast of america,
waiting to do absolutely nothing about it.

"bulletin board"

"bulletin board"
written with the windows open by jake kilroy.

with severed nerves pinned to a bulletin board,
these arms flashed and reached out for the bookcase
to learn a thing or two, to take the knowledge in,
to feed the mouth words, to dine on the truth,
to swallow the pride, to bask in the glory.

and so it was that the streets of the mind flooded with women
borne from the sea of a calendar year shoot
carried by the waves of sweaty concert hands
taken to the church of the metaphor-saken holy
all to let this heart pop like a coo-coo clock
with the last sip of rye on the tip of the tongue
as these carousel pupils found the damsel in this dress
waiting for a man to finally read her gone with the wind
in the middle of the night by memory and swagger alone.

then what good were the hot showers so many years ago,
when we were burning off the sunshine that stuck to us?
i'll say it, just like every lover's said it before me, goddamnit;
i traced constellations in the freckles of your back while you slept.
oh, what a future i told myself before i cleaned the sheets and moved.
what a dream i had seen between the second and third glass of wine.

this year, i'm a bounty.
that year, i was wreckage.

oh, then, then!
then there was a drug-riddled assassin at play in my throat
and a sharpshooter drinking himself thin in my eyes.
i waited for you to come home to take you out
to show you the world, to beg for it back,
to carve up the earth, to dig at the past.

oh, how i was a loose cannon firing on all cylinders then,
and you were a beauty.
no wordplay,
no styling,
no joke.
you were goddamn gorgeous.