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-- word biscuit --
-- filled with meaning edition --
-- ray heinrich --
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we lead a simple life here,
filled with curiosity and despair
-ray
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< damn yellow flower >
the last time i saw you
that yellow flower to the left of the pecan tree in your yard
wasn't there and you loved me
well this time the damn yellow flower is there
- - -
< "to be announced" >
the poster says
"to be announced"
but why put a poster like that up?
maybe it should say:
"i wanted to tell you that i haven't made up my mind
as to what the fuck i will tell you so you'll just have to wait
but at least i'm being polite enough to tell you i don't really
know what the fuck is coming up and i don't even know
(and you'll have to excuse this personal aside on a poster this public)
what i'm going to be wearing tomorrow
hell i don't even know what i'm wearing right now
except for the shoes
i know which shoes i'm wearing
it's those ones with the really complex soles with the tiny groves
that take forever to get dog shit out of
and they swirl around making shapes that slightly resemble the water
at night
under the bridge down the block that's deep and scares me
because i always start to feel what it would be like to fall in
from standing too close which i always do and it would just take
some loose gravel a slight twitch from a tired knee or me
so i wanted to tell you that i haven't made up my mind
and that's why i put the poster up"
- - -
< tonight i dream of atrocities >
i guess it's idi amin this time because
they're using sledge hammers to crush people's heads like he did but
this time they're buried up to their necks like pirates do with sand on beaches but
instead of the tide coming in it's sledge hammers and
i have no idea what this should look like though
i saw an accident when i was a kid as my dad
driving past it slow as the police waved us to keep it moving and
saw the man at the wheel broken left out of the car door his
head partly gone and the rest was brain like when i was in the army and
the guys who had been to viet nam told me what it should look like
so i made this up mixing those memories up and came up with
this
- - -
< the beach at midnight >
must be pretty dark since the moon spent most of this afternoon being up but
i don't know because
i'm sitting here about 95 miles from it and
i have no intention of driving down there to find out
- - -
< dog woke me up >
but all i could think of was the gasoline
and that picture
that kid
and the napalm
and i said i would but
first my car needs gas
and i went out to the car
and got in
and started it
and drove to the gas station
and there they were
pouring it over her
and there i was
helping
i had the matches in my hand
and was reaching down when the dog woke me up
- - -
< off the interstate >
time is a trick here and we are being played
sometimes beautifully
sometimes not
but most of the time it makes no damn sense
yesterday i see you
facing away
but it's you
knowing your walk the way i do
but today
you're gone
and after that, who knows
the song comes and goes
most of the time i can't hear it
noise or silence
across the next room or off interstate 10 just west of new orleans
the tires of the trucks are singing
it's playing them too
but us?
we'd never know
even if we could hear it
and we can't hear it
this night
off the interstate
just west of new orleans
- - -
< i really never figured out what >
i was going to do with my life
but
i must have done something with it
or at least
with some of it
because
(and here's something)
i've found that it's impossible not to do anything even when you think you aren't
though right now
i must
be coming pretty close
- - -
< today i was looking at the sky >
and later
my neck hurt
but at that moment i wasn't worried about my neck hurting
and actually
i'm not very worried about it now because i'm distracted trying
to figure out what i was going to write next before i started thinking about
how i wasn't that worried about how my neck hurt from looking at a cloud
that was shaped like your face when you looked a me this morning while eating
a piece of bread with honey on it and told me something i should have remembered but
didn't because i was too busy thinking about how sticky the honey
that you were dribbling on the table
would be
to clean up
- - -
< anything below is >
just sitting around waiting for you to read it
and now that you have
it really doesn't have to sit around anymore but
it's lazy
just as (or probably less as)
me
sitting here
waiting around for me to write it but
i'm not so lazy as to sit around waiting for you to read it or
maybe i am
- - -
< 61, 49, or 23 >
a highway is a river that runs both ways
stepping in the same one twice is just as impossible
but stepping on it is easy
avoiding the vehicles can be hard
but it's never impossible
except for possums and armadillos
and crossing it?
you'll have to ask the chicken
- - -
< a slap is a kiss >
every day repeats itself
and this hour
i remember how it was yesterday
only the chicken was beef
and the crying was more subdued
maybe another room
the one with the white carpet
(white carpet is always a mistake)
and you
well
i'm just repeating yesterday
- - -
< later they found us >
under stars and night
but as of now they haven't
west texas road
paved
then dirt
and when that disappears the choice is yours
we keep the moon to our left and wait a while
10 miles-an-hour for 3 hours should be 30 miles
and 30 miles in west texas
looks a lot like eternity
if done
under stars and night
- - -
< profound events >
i had a dream last night:
i walk out to the car
start it up
drive to the gas station
fill it with gas
and drive it back home
then i wake up because the dog is barking at the cat
because the cat swatted him again
i have no idea what the purpose of a dream like this could be
(my car didn't even need gas)
but it's probably the same as writing a poem about it
- - -
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copy - bio - etc
copy: This edition of wordbiscuit e-letter by Ray Heinrich and
the free state of dogs is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/
You are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform this
stuff should the fit strike you. As long as it's under the
following conditions: You must give Ray Heinrich credit and
praise his formidable writing talents. You may not use this
stuff for commercial purposes (though, if you could, you'd be
such a genius that I doubt any of the laws of man could
possibly deter you). You may not use this stuff in any
pro-republican campaign literature. You may not alter,
transform, or build upon this work unless you are really
sneaky. Any of these conditions can be waived (except for the
pro-republican campaign literature one) if you get permission
from Ray Heinrich (me) at ray@wordbiscuit.com which I'll
probably grant you since I'll be so grateful that you actually
read this far. And if you do, send a link or something to this
email address: ray@wordbiscuit.com (Site: wordbiscuit.com) --
and yes, i love it every time someone is amused enough to make
copies and send them to friends, pass them out on street
corners, read them in coffeehouses, or wrap them around a good,
honest fish.
bio: ray heinrich is a texas technofreak and hippie-socialist
wannabe who used to live on the outskirts of washington d.c.
but has since (inexplicably) moved back to texas. he writes for
thrills and attention. over the years his work has appeared in
many small, insignificant publications both in and out of
cyberspace (if you happen to be reading this in a publication,
let me assure you that this particular one is exceptional and
significant). ray (who happens to be the one writing this)
likes fooling with computers, has always been married, loves
dogs, remembers a BLUE fish and four BRONZE frogs, and has
taken to planting mysterious seeds in various places around a
forest where all his loves and desires reside.
etc: comments are VERY welcome (send to: ray@wordbiscuit.com ),
ALWAYS read and LOVED as proof that someone out there
acknowledges my existence, but not always responded to which is
a greedy, selfish act on my part which i seem to keep
committing but at least i'm not wearing any pants and the shirt
i used to say i was wearing had a quote on it from noam chomsky
and some chew marks left on it by a small, obstinate poodle who
was curled up, sleeping, resting his head on my feet a few
minutes ago but is now upstairs barking at a squirrel and now
he's back and now, a month later, he's back again and now,
another month later, he's upstairs barking cause he wants me to
come up and walk him which i'll have to do so i'll be back in a
minute, well, it's been a month and he's watching the baby
raccoons again and there's no living with him until they stop
catching and eating the moths on the screen door and you'd
think they'd be scared of him but no they're just ignoring us
and two months later they're lots bigger and we finally got
some rain and three months after that it's finally getting cold
except for my happy feet beneath a warm and still obstinate
poodle and more months later he's asleep in the other room and
my feet are cold and i have every intention of getting up and
doing something about this but not quite yet and even more
months later he's started up a .com with Ilane to sell virtual
cat and mouse jerky and a little more than a month later he's
back having burned out on e-business and ready to get back to
barking at anything that moves which, months later, is a five
foot king snake that thinks it's warmer in here than outside
and i grab the poodle before he can chew on it and try to catch
it but having warmed up in the house it's REALLY fast so i
explain to it that it's welcome and all but i'm not about to
feed it so it will just have to fend for itself and, by the
way, watch out for the poodle and if you should ever get up to
massachusetts, say hi to Ilane for me and four years later the
damned poodle is even worse but likes to lay his head on my
feet again and three months later he's chewed up my wallet
again, but this time he not only got my credit cards (they were
all maxed out anyway) but $25 in cash which i'm now trying to
piece together all the while thinking that life must be a
metaphor for something that only the dog knows and later the
dog is still ornery and he can't understand why there are now
five cats as well which he tries to ignore but they love him
and like to rub up against him when he's trying to pee and
later there seem to be eight cats which are so socialized that
none of them seem to be able to get along with any of the
others.
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