Like Static from Woolen Socks

Can you hear it? It’s me calling to you in your sleep. I’m calling you to come and be with me. I need you, not just daily but when I’m sleeping too.
You said you had intentions of stealing words from me. Well, I say do it. I’ve filled my work with a tincture of love and if you use those words you will not be able to resist my pull. You will see me in your dreams because I’m broadcasting on that frequency. Your sleeping partner will be oblivious to the program you are hearing. I told you once my attraction would not be a problem. I lied. Or rather, then I told the truth as I saw it, but I have since found out differently. The problem is I cannot stop thinking about you, thus the imperative of my radar.
You will feel it, and you will see it, the unexpected static from a pair of woolen socks when sparks occur as with lightning bugs, fully charged, passing through a darkened room. Passing, if I am lucky, in this room.
I am nothing if not patient. Years may pass and I will hold to this resolve. Will you change? I’m afraid you will. Will it matter to me? I think perhaps. There is something edgy about the dynamics of the two of us in a room together. You told me nothing can happen but I believe it’s happening already. There are moments when I think I’ve overreached. Moments when I feel arch. Times when I want to smack your face just to see your cheeks redden, to get you aroused enough to smack me back. I think if this happened we would soon have our clothing off. So, we both back away.
Did you feel that?
Fre-quen-cy mod-u-la-tion. aMpLiTuDe mOdUlAtIoN.
In a house that knows no music, an overture will invade. When the doors open, a symphony will erupt. Already through the windows, the instruments can be heard tuning up. Are you prepared to share with me a sum greater than its parts? Touch me anywhere. I’m electric without even trying. If I cry, I will short circuit, thus I cannot allow tears. This is not a sad song, in any case. It begins and ends with Hallelujah.
Someone is calling your name.
Call me when you hear it. Call to me across the night air. This is right. This was meant to be. It may take adjusting but we have all the time in the world. Now.

Chimera

Volumes where the golden insect crawled fetch glory by the yard, but there is no communication between the ink and the eye, for try as they might, libraries cannot express the depth of what they lack in emotion. Sharp-toothed keys assist the explorer in gaining entry to a world renowned for its emptiness, but there is never any action in the quotidian balance. Read, read, read, they said. However, he was left alone to ponder the fruitlessness of his desperation. Sadly, Hugo observed the declination of reason as three virgins giggled and proceeded to retain their innocence, which, by the way, was neither innocent nor retainable. They must have known what was on offer without the experience, he calculated, for there was guile in their laughter. One of them, she of the radiant halo, dipped and scooped up the golden spider leaving only its latest unreadable tome in a web of silky verbosity. Virgin or muse, he could not tell. Still, he was news once again without the slightest perception of validation. Everything he touched glowed and shimmered in an ephemeral way. Yet, he never doubted all was at their behest.
Popping, he shriveled almost immediately and shortly thereafter he noticed he was losing hair again and there were liver spots.

Bits and Pieces Reworked

The most important piece of the puzzle for me was still missing—the starter. I mean, that’s what usually gets me going, and much as I enjoy Sal’s brand of humor, that bin Laden comment did not suggest anything to me at first glance. Million dollar compound, indeed! The great leader’s fortress had nothing over any of the myriad shelters in Pakistan. I stood behind a door, the green one, listening to learn how things were moving along. That those first photos offered as evidence turned out to be doctored was a big letdown. If one could not believe in the details, how was one to take heart in the news which followed? A promise had been made which had not been broken for little more than a year. If one got there early and gathered the information, the business was in his pocket, but if one hesitated and everything current moved off the front screen, one could stand there with blood gushing out of his heart and nobody in the triage unit would take notice until an insurance card was produced. Had the infamous leader already died from his lung disease a year ago, leaving our side to have to relinquish satisfactory vindication to blind Nature? The key worked if you whispered the magic word, but god forbid you put the stress on the wrong syllable, for right then and there you were bound to produce faces wearing that lost look. “Are you speaking Greek or what all? Because it sounds like Greek to me. No offense meant, as Greek is a beautiful language, but it doesn’t work in all situations. Nah, nah, nah. Before the video is to be released, and without its original audio, I might add, to preclude the dissemination of any incipient message that might have lingered beyond death, we are being given the psychology behind a sad, vain old man’s actions. “Look at me on Aljezeera (or a video capture of same), nudge, nudge, LOL! Would the man who dyed his beard to appear in public truly want to be seen in this light, admiring his own performance from at home, under a blanket, gray hair clearly visible? This scene was shot maybe eight months earlier, when the compound stood unblistered by incendiaries, with wives perhaps busy in the kitchen, and some trusted PR man alone in the television room with the old man, who may have already died. That chronology is unsettling. Still, you need the magic word, the prompt in the Universal Tongue. “This is how you are supposed to view this. This is what you are supposed to see.” Incidentally, I doubt if bin Laden knew how pizza tastes, or ever let a delivery person into the compound without a shakedown, though he would have worked perfectly in a triage unit watching prospective patients bleed to death, while he had that, “Who me? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” look on his face. We shouldn’t really make jokes about the man now that he’s dead. May he rest in pieces, bite-sized pieces, so old sharks may feast as well. Everything on your plate is easier to consume when it’s already been cut up for you. It helps with the digestion.