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Filter by Category : Tag : Date

Filter by Category : Tag : Date

Dawn of The Dragons

Invictus

Beast Of A Different Burden

Sonbather

The Snowman

Before I Would

REMINGTON GRAVES

The sand felt soft in its warm coarseness as my toes made fists while she waved to me from the middle of the waves. Her blonde hair looked almost black. She was wearing the bathing suit her last boyfriend had bought her. I pretended not to know. She looked great in it, and it mattered not to me where it came from.  The golden strands from the sun then turned her hair to red as dancing shimmering diamonds bounced upon the water all around her: her smile blazed through the distance between us and her eyes squinted from overwhelming joy. I grinned as I imagined her pretty feet moving back and forth in the murky salt-water scaring all the jellyfish away.

She had convinced me to wear shorts; I never wore shorts–my skinny legs always kept me away from swimming pools and beaches as a child. My right hand shielded me from the sunlight as I bent slightly forward so as to see her better.

 

Her hand touched her lips and then extended to me as she puckered her mouth.

 

Satie’s Gnosienne No. 3 began in my mind but slightly off-key, and I knew…I knew she would say goodbye before I would.

 

 

And maybe, I already had.

∞

 

 

 

My Stripes Remain The Same

REMINGTON GRAVES

The alchemic stupor that lulled then pulled me under, brought with it bright dancing lights that invaded through my ears with such longing in its horrendous hiss, and with a slow frame-by-frame I saw the toilet bowl in my restroom and managed to turn my face leftward as it made contact with my marrow.

 

There, on the other side of that shitty blow, I awoke to find myself a singing bird–me, chirping and whirring violently, music notes of all kinds into the ionosphere, and with them color and shades that painted the trees and skies as they went. Values vitiating the monochromatic monotony of the masses and their complacent mortality. I was poetry pulsing and pushing.

 

The sound of men was cursively cacophonous, and above their heads I beheld them like lethargic moths staring at individual glaring lights–as they walked, as they drove, as they ate, hardly able to help themselves.

My song was so natural, a language all my own. I kept singing and singing, and singing alone was its reward. In such a state I had forgotten that I was ever a man. No hands to ponder upon, no legs to lead me…simply flight and song.

I continued on my voyage and came upon a skyscraper. There I saw my own appearance, an image so beautiful and terribly terrifying: A fowl of iridescent hues haunting the other side of my reflection, no doubt. On the other side was a woman who wanted me for I was of great beauty–but she wanted me to keep me in a cage and never let me fly again.  A thousand monks began to chant in baritones somewhere far below. My wings slowed to a pause and they pointed opposite each other, one to the west and the other to the east. Tiger stripes traveled stridently across the perfect plumage…comely clangor followed as the monks bit their tongues off…and I saw each tongue wiggle like lazy worms into a hole, into any dark hiding place.

 

 

Beeping brightly and sharply lifting my sticky and blood-dried eyelids, I awoke and rose slowly. Breathing calmly with each movement. I hit the light switch and stared in the mirror and mused for a moment at the striped pattern on the right side of my face.

And I wonder, even now, If I, Adrian Vino, was dreaming that I was a magnificent bird, or am I a bird dreaming now that I am a man?

 

Either way, one thing is certain, my stripes remain the same.

∞

 

 

Revenge Of The Nerd

REMINGTON GRAVES

Pink has always been the perfect color–pastel pink preferably; It is the color of soft cake, the hue of babies breath, the slippers that belong to blonde wives married to mob bosses, the tone swirling in the sink after I cough up a little blood, the tincture of the tramp who truly tells you all the things you want to hear…

 

And I hid this affection, this adoration of said tinge, for fear of the fellows fucking me up at the tender age of thirteen. Enter Tom Bruise on the television screen wearing those wayfarers the only way he could, and I saw the Izod whilst my reflection shook in his shades. Such heights of narcissism were risky business, I thought to myself standing in my tidy-whities and sport socks as the apparatus then known as the VCR struggled to clear a thin stream of static on the screen. What great technology, the neighbor would belt out over his fence admiring his own.

 

I knew then, a baby-pink alligator shirt was my next item of order. But how, oh how, would I, a punk, acquire such a fine garment? I wondered.

 

“We’ve got BUSH, we’ve got BUSH,” blared a character called Booger on the boob tube as I sat watching the women undress in a film called Revenge Of The Turds. I must have watched that thing a hundred times. And not just because of the gratuitous nudity, or the beautiful beaver shots, as I imagined Booger would say. I would count off the pink Polo shirts in every scene: four…five…six…Dug the music and the crude comedy. The golden-haired girls cheerleading for their chumps.

 

Now at the bruised age of forty, I own two handfuls of Lacoste shirts, of many colors and patterns…but my pride and joy hangs in the corner of the closet, ah yes, the pink…the pink polo. And every time I slide into such a bad ass t-shirt, I swear I can hear Bary Numan singing in Metal and I turn around sharply, in nothing but mentioned garb and point with both index fingers at an empty space and expect some young kid watching me…as he sits alone in a room because he’s afraid to go out of it in fear that his Uncle might beat him, his cousin might give him the why-don’t-you-run-away face, the world and all the pretty girls in it will reject him and remind him that he doesn’t belong with those spaghetti legs and crooked teeth…

 

 

Films by the Numaninator now kick in with its heavy bass line and sultry, slithering and colossal synth lead, and Lambda Lambda Lambda register by the wacky wizard of this pleasure principle–and now I know the truth: anything can happen–anything can happen. I was a nerd and still am, and fucking proud of it. I am successful at what I do: I have been tattooing almost fourteen years professionally , I have released a couple of music albums, I have painted for a couple of galleries in Los Angeles, girls get giddy when I garble on, I buy myself whatever my nerdy heart desires from groovy gadgets to radical records. I could keep going, but like a Fax-machine, you get the message.

 

As much as I love to wax on about my favorite decade, I need to stop here and get some sleep since it’s almost three in the morning, gotta be somewhere early. I will jump out of bed and moonwalk over to the crapper and commence the morning due. When I’m enshrouded in Polo and Ray-Baned, I will climb into my car where I feel safest of all.

 

But hear this: Your kids, the pathetic punks at the convenient store, the video-game-nerd of a nephew, the incessant reader at the park, the black-clad demons smoking cigarettes in empty parking lots with a little too much eyeliner…they will one day take over the world–they will bloom into your doom.

 

And I close this with one last thing…my ultimate revenge is: a happy life…without you.

∞

 

 

O Me! O Life!

WALT WHITMAN

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

 

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

 

 

Face To Face

REMINGTON GRAVES

I stepped into the tub and turned the plastic knobs to somewhere between lukewarm and hot.

 

The splashing mild roar of running water noise pacified my anxiety, and tamed a bit my tension.

 

With eyes closed and face down, I stood with arms outstretched, one hand on the shower door and the other on the opposite wall.

 

The voices tip-toed in and painted the pretty faces of the women who crossed my path, the weathered countenance of the old man needing one more dollar to buy his Greyhound ticket out of town, a blond-haired girl who cannot be, the grey lioness-eyes of a siren that won’t sing, the forlorn hiding behind a feigning facade, the curious clamor of half-conscious cocksuckers, the blood I spill from men who have nothing left to fight for…

 

 

The endless text messages my cell phone receives remain inside that flat, cold rectangle–tiny monolith with bitten apple–and it tries to be my god. Why can’t I bow down, it wonders.

Some are lengthy from an old acquaintance explaining the new things they’re doing. Others belong to my sister, also endless, divulging information about our unimportant family. Clients who want me to do a particular job, and they wantonly wax on about their needs; the new window-shopping.

I try to keep up with them all.

 

The knobs are hard to find when I go that deep in the rabbit hole, but eventually do. And the water becomes scolding. It helps my tension.

 

 

But I can’t hear their voices.

I can’t see their faces.

 I can’t read their gestures.

No hesitation marks to spot.

No flirting to be flattered by.

I can’t be taken by the way their hair exults their stare.

I cannot be seduced by a tiny chip on her tooth.

I won’t wonder what if when those hips sway by accompanied by a biting lip.

No wonderful perfume to assume or warm vanilla to lead me to my doom.

No soft giggle to decide if to approach and then collide.

With pleasant platitudes and stumbling attitudes

I yearn for the old ways

of

 

face to face

∞

 

 

You Is Fucking A

REMINGTON GRAVES

I’m looking out the window of a Greyhound bus and dig the dirty glass, the cursory cacti with its bruising blur, the waving and bending of the summer heat on the hellish horizon of Nowhere, Texas. My holy turquoise converse scarcely shield my gaping toes and wiggle inside the dried and dried again films of sweat accumulated through the past whatever miles of forgotten road behind me. My heroes on small sheets of wooden slabs and neon-green gummy wheels leap down flights of stairs, magically levitate over fire hydrants, over park benches, into swimming pools, off the roofs of houses…and land gracefully, these feline fiends then grunt in glory as their comrades all in unison leap from their seats and wooo and wail–yes, they wear their shoes without socks.

California. That’s where I’m headed. In a film called Smashin’, you get groovy glimpses of blonde and honey-tanned beach bunnies hopping aside a beckoning bike trail near the ocean; the fellas are handsome and charming with a devil-may-care charisma as they elude the authorities, chase skirt, and speed down mountainsides atop their four-wheeled surfboards.

 

I came back to my seat and the cute girl I was talking to got off as I was dropping off the Cosby kids at the pool. How long was I in there? I wonder. Rosy? Rosa? Shit, who knows. Maybe I should just call them, “baby” from now on–save me from trouble. Why not?

 

“Anybody sitting here, young man?” Said an old white man with a beer gut glancing from under a “Life’s a Beach” T-shirt.

“Just me, dude,” I replied with a smile.

“Where your parents, kid?” He asked as he shoved his bags overhead.

“That’s an old song on repeat, man. Who knows and who cares?”

“All right, man, I get it. You moving, huh? New adventures and all that?”

“Sure am. What about yourself?” I said inquisitive and excited for a new conversation.

“Visiting my sister across the country and checking out this You Is Fucking A, kiiid!”

“Sounds like a blast. Hey, seen the desert outside these windows. Just fucking beautiful. This world has me drunk…everyday I behold the sublimity of my ephemeral existence.”

“Huh? Listen, kid, don’t go reading too many books, you hear me? Get some pussy, bud. Contract an STD or two. Get on drugs, steal a Harely and live with two broads. You know, live a little.”

 

“Yeah, live a little–no, I want to live a lot.”

 

“Here we go, little dude. You Is Fucking–”

 

“A!”

∞

 

 

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