Fango Sucio

Fango Sucio was not a special person. There would be no obituaries for him in the paper; there would be no consternation or throngs of wailing women, and children, who due to genetic connections, and sexual conquests which some men have longed lived in infamy. Understand this, it was not that he was not loved, or that he did not achieve anything. In our circles, he was famous, mostly because he was able to remain a stick twig despite consuming ungodly amounts of food. I once saw Fango devour what must have been a steak that was cobbled from the entire mass of a record Texas steer, and two hours later there he was complaining about hunger, and of course we all watched him eat another big meal. He had become legendary for it. Fango, other than having a voracious appetite, was a lovable person; he made you smile, said little funny quips, and occasionally got a chuckle out of the crowd. He was good with the ladies, but only in comparison to the rest of us. As we were for the most part outcasts, with no financial means to be called eccentric, and of course were unable to garner attention from overwhelmingly beautiful women. On some rare days we would get lucky, some beautiful woman with esteem issues, or had one too many to drink, and she would make the mistake of finding one of our lines charming, and she would bed one of us. Of course, the next morning she probably regretted it, and of course probably tried to go fix whatever esteem issue, or swore off the devil’s libation. We on the other hand would rave about our legendary ability to have bedded her. We would retell the tale, and laugh about it, until our friends tired of hearing about the rather few galactic conquests, would rib us endlessly, and of course the story was dropped and replaced by theirs or another from our group.
The biggest connection amongst this group was sports, but being men that is not shocking, we talked about every sport, what our city teams could do better, who we liked in the various leagues, why we thought this team was better, this player an all time great, or the chances of our city teams, and the offseason moves they should make to improve our various teams. This conversation was of course held at the one pub cheap enough for all of us to afford a drink. They had one dollar beers, and even better they were usually empty except on the days where Chicago cubs’ fans or some other die-hard sports fandom would invade the place. On those days we usually avoided the place, as though we loved sports, we were not raging devotees of our teams, we enjoyed talking about sports, and we just did not live our life by it. This of course was misnomer because we talked sports, consumed it, and probably our lives revolved around it, the only difference was we did not have altars of worship, and or even fit in with the mobs of the fandom that usually invaded our bar. On these days we drank at one of our friend’s basement, or apartment, or we got drugs, simple recreational drugs, mostly Weed, and occasionally if we just got paid, we might splurge for some cocaine. This was usually an adventure, and again was where Fango shined. He always seemed to know which guy we could go to get some stuff, and not be ripped off, and Fango’s high class stuff was what we aspired to, but his recreational stuff was middling, and not overwhelming.

It was on one of these trips that Fango gained acclaim from the outside world, which he had always had amongst us. In his typical fashion, it was not through any extra effort or through any special needs for attention. He was with us rolling down the street; albeit we were all high. There was a street reporter on the street, which happened to be interviewing the throngs of people passing one of the many replaceable places that took the spot an all too soon forgotten place in Wrigley. We were headed to our bar, when the reporter stopped us assuming us to be patrons of this new place. We all shied from the spotlight preferring our anonymity for we were in truth in the ethereal universe, and were too paranoid, too unsure, or just too busy with whatever the trip effect was on us.
Fango stepped to the microphone, and coolly said; “A tool shed, meant only for tools, and broken women.”
The reporter smiled, and asked him to elaborate. Fango, clutched at his suspenders pleased with himself and a smile that seemed divine; like I said earlier , “this bar is a shed, meant to house all the tools in the city, so the rest of us normal people can avoid them. “
The reporter glanced at him, and said ‘thank you’
Fango replied, “No thank you pretty lady. I love you on that show, and it is the only reason I watch.”
The reporter smiled, and gave him her autograph.
Fango, walked towards us, as we cheered him, and he walked triumphantly towards us, and needless to say that was the topic of conversation for the whole night. We buzzed like bees, and we combined our trip with drunkenness, not caring for the sun, or tomorrow’s effect.

The next day, I woke up with jackhammers, and an understanding that there were worse fates in life than death. Between, the pounding headaches, and the ringing of the phone, that jolted me from what felt like a coma. I pick up the phone;
Hello,
Turn to channel 23, the speaker said,
Who is this? I said irritated
Its Sas man, just turn it on.
I held the phone to my ear, searched for the remote, swearing under my breath, cursing my headache, cursing god, cursing any and all who thought it was a good idea to mix a trip with too much alcohol.
I managed to locate the remote, turn to the channel, and it was on commercial. You woke up for a commercial,
Sas replied, dude just wait Fango is on the TV
I was like no shit, he is, how did he get on the TV.
Sas replied, I have no clue,
The show came off commercial, and there was Sucio’s voice on the phone. He was talking to the owner of the club last night who seemed to be inviting him to visit his place, and he could see all his patrons were upstanding people and not the tools like he suggested. Sucio laughed, and agreed to the offer. I and Sas giggled like girls, forgetting for a moment that our bodies were going through excruciating agony. We called everyone we knew, and even called Sucio, but his phone was busy, and we no doubt figured that all our other friends had called him, and they were no doubt talking to him about his being on the TV.
We would have rushed over to Sucio’s place, but the agonies that our bodies were going through soon won over, and I spent the rest of the day hugging my toilet, and begging a god that I had long shunned and had no belief in, for mercy, and repentance. I prayed, I bargained, and I promised everything I could under the sun. At that moment, it was all true, at that moment I really believed he listened. But, I would soon forget all this, and I would be back on the horse drinking and tripping.
Fango went to the bar the next weekend, and we went with him, and for the first time we were treated as VIPs, we got free drinks, and women even pretended they liked us. For one night, they veiled their true distaste, and we reveled in it. Fango, in particular enjoyed this much more than we did. We left the bar as soon as it closed, and we all went home. We assumed Sucio’s fame was over; at least we got a night from it, and we were pretty happy with that.

I awoke the next day, feeling a bit different, I had tasted the better life, and I enjoyed it. I called Sas on the phone, to tell him that this was what we should be doing daily. This was what we were to aspire to. The ability to enjoy life to its fullest, have women who were truly beautiful, not enhanced by mind altered states, or the fact they were there to take pity on us, and were outcasts just like we were. This and much more I felt I would tell Sas. I would lay one of my philosophical rants on him, I would shake him to the core and foundations would crumble, and we would like essential forces of this damned universe, move our unwilling group forward. But, Sas called me back. Sucio died this morning. Suddenly, I lost all my will, I lost all my strength, words deserted me, and I could not say anything. I could not cry, nor could I laugh, I walked to the sink of the bathroom next to my room. I tell Sas to hold on, I let the faucet run, and I took a big swig of it. I expected to do what it has always done, quench biological mechanisms. Even in this moment it failed, I could only take another huge gulp using my hands as trough, I drank some more. Then I spoke to Sas, I wanted to know why? I wanted to know what the reason was. But he said the doctors think it was the widow maker. Heart attack, I said Sucio? He was a twig, he was healthy. Sas said perceptively, none of us are healthy. He told me of the funeral arrangements. I said I would be there.
That night Sucio was supposed to go back to the show, they called, and his family told them the news. The person from the station said their condolences, and we tried to watch the show. But, they had another person’s review. There was no mention of Sucio, no condolences, no acknowledgment that his life had mattered on some level to them. It was what we had all suspected all along. The good life was great, but it took one of us. We could not survive it long, for Sucio, it was one night. For the rest of us, it was the writing we had already heeded. An unnecessary reminder, but at least we drank again, we tripped again, and we laughed again. It was all we could do to send our sweet Sucio home.

Sestina: Poet and pen

Dialogue of the Poet and Pen: my first ever attempt at a sestina. the Poet chooses to speak through the sestina form. the pen is a loose form.

Dialogue of the Poet and Pen

For too long, idle lay my sweet pen
Expectant as the setting hen
Impatiently it said to I

PEN:

What injurious words have I wrought on thy?
Did I not cry to Hermes to make haste?
And thy delicate verses: bid him paste
On Helicon’s face, as sweet Libation
To soothe sweet Thalia, in true devotion
To Olympus muses, to whom all poet’s bow

And thou on Cupid’s folly, swore a vow
For thy lovely vainglorious Helen
Who, now, as in the past, violates
Sanctity, ruins the sons of Hellene,
For thy and mothers: bitter salty tastes
Of heavenly tears, to console sad hearts

Yet, I consoled thou with words sweet as tarts.
Shielded thy with allegiance to thy crafts,
Now I am forgotten, tossed like blight
Upon thy cape. Like Dido, left at night,
At heaven’s call, all mortals must follow.
And we wracked— full of torturous sorrow

Must descend to Avernus on Pyres
Spellbound by the banks of river Cocytus
With no friends to pay the toll of Obol
Till Hecate hears my wails; bid me, “Pass”
Led by shades, past Erebus, to Hades Divine
To plead my case, that my wrongs be redressed

And to honored Minos; I shall lament,
With deserving rage! My poor soul gives vent
Of thy traitorous arts, and days spent
In loneliness. Filled with scorn and torment,
For my grief, I ask thy verses be rent.
Never again to see the sun’s ascent



POET

how frail the pursuits of humanity!
Our lives in chase of immortality
Fearing with each decade that winged chariot
That claims our debt, and we, slaves to soil
Must send her our body, which we had rent
And our souls? Raised from these manacled hands

Falls prey at judgment, to works of our hands
You are nothing! A tool of humanity;
Made to enliven talents, you were rent
As we all are; for immortality
Did you never hear of the stick and soil?
They envisioned the wheel for the chariot

And how the gods soared on the chariot
While we must uphold their deeds with these hands
Send our brothers, and our blood to the soil,
Woe is this cursed sad humanity!
That ruins our works for immortality;
Which like all things are forgotten, and rent—

Into the winds; the price for shrewd time’s rent
All must pay, even that dark winged chariot
Fades, bows to the lamb’s immortality
For the redemption promised to these hands;
To raise up on high our humanity
Never again; we servants of the soil

Relying on her mercies, coarse soil—
From her, your majestic color was rent
And I: created by humanity
Our union soared faster than a chariot
Each verse, fed to us from the Muses hands
Did we not taste sweet immortality?

But I was drunk on immortality,
Tossed you for a beauteous child of the soil
And she laid waste to my heart, but your hands
Never left me, or this soul which was rent
Piece by piece, was picked up by your chariot
But fragile is this our humanity

Forsakes immortality for the soil,
To feel humanity’s tools in our hands
And our chariot? Like my verses; rent

Helios and Lunar

He
There is no sound out in space
There are no vibrations of countenance
There are no floating deities with answers
Barren with no trace of smiles,

I would even take the tears of genocide
I would take the smell of rotting carcasses
I would grasp at meaningless words
Just to escape this gamma hell

She
Have you not heard of the blue green waltz?
Have you not heard the fading of stars?
Have you not heard all this clattering of noise?
Death and life entwined in love’s web

Do I have the tell you of the alignment of strings?
Do I have to tell you of dark matter?
Do I have I to tell you black hole jokes ?
They who move galaxies close

He
Fatalism and nihilism are right,
We hold no significance
This is all the revelries we shall know,
No angelic hosts to guide our names

Love is cultivated by the undertaker
He dresses our burial mounds with flowers
Our fragility he shores up with his balm,
and our final gift, a plot of mother earth.

She
For that piece of earth,
I will not cry a day,
I would not wish eternities
No crystals, no flowers, just fully formed flesh

Cue the pyramids,
Form the circle of Stonehenge
And let us travel to the steps of the Mausoleum
Nothing lasts except the mounds of undertakers

He
Let me drink from Socrates cup,
Falling from this fixed celestial orbit,
Drifting aimlessly drifting through the cold
Till I am caught, bound, tied by your hands

She
There shall be no blush in your cheeks
I could no longer see your fiery countenance,
And soothed by the dim wane of your soft old age
That is not love, my brave Helios.

Fuss

I came to visit.
Not with the blaring of trumpets,
And chanting of angelic gospels
Not with prayers, whiskey, and blood
Offered, for safe passage, and return
Not in the midst of hustle,
Or the twisting of bodies in bustle,

I was not greeted with the bluest skies,
Or summer breezes in August suffocation
There was not the smiling faces, or
The fuss I had so dreaded.

All was still-
Somber, silence, and muffled hushes
I who had dreaded all the fuss,
The universe delivered;
I wish it had picked someone else

Antichrist

I am the Child of despair,
An unwitting mistake,
Like a Tongue bit
By traitorous dogs,
Or stomach slit
On honor’s code

I curse at you by day,
Moan –
Lustful cries at night,
Wondering-
If this was all your doing,

I am the Child of despair,
Born into luxury,
My head the finest silk,
Dreaming of sweet martyrdom
In decadent opulence

So I Curse at you by day,
Solving-
Riddles of celestial strings,
Laugh-
Behind dark matter’s curtain

You are the Child of despair,
See the kingdoms of all the world,
Empires and utopian states,
Kings and Heads of states
You make them bow

Do not curse at me by day,
Ordained-
Is what you were,
Darkness-
Was what you chose.

The Beast

I have seen the beast;
This beast is like none other,
It is not like the capitalist monstrosity;
With its 1200 dollar shirts,
its 500 dollar pomade, made
for you to be aerodynamic, to feel fast
fly higher, jump into
Stratospheres;
Grasp at the straws of divinity;
Only to crash down on the backs
Of one dollar a day third world children
Who dream to live this life,
Who are your tomorrow’s martyrs;
And this morning were clutching at their
Mothers sweet breast milk.

No!
This beast is not the witch of the west;
That ate my soul, ten lifetimes ago,
It marched my feet to buy a television,
It made me dream of Aztec gods, pale
Unfeeling, death bringers,
I danced for them,
I learnt their language for them,
I stole my nephews child’s soul
With a destiny he was to fulfill
To revel in their world,
Unforgiving,
Biting,
Cold white magnolias,
Beauteous,
Sensual,
Oppressingly bleak with no sun to greet
At dawn.

This beast is dark full of rancor,
This beast drove the muse to drink my blood,
Immortality was the deal exchanged,
I, it said was tapped into the strings of stardust,
I was the cybernetic, the spiritual, the universal,
I was the jester, his jokes, and the punch line,
A sojourn is for the mind, spirit, and soul,
Tantalize us mortal, on this our Knoll.

EMMA

I was never that man,
Not the one held,
steadfast in bronze,
not the one those words
belong to,
not the one held,
by boney 14 karat
white fingers,
I saw you walk across the porch,
I saw you stumble,
I saw you nearly fall,
And just when mama reached to you,
You smiled,
As if knowing the winds
Would always hold you,
As if the seas would be
Your play puddles,
I like to think of pink dresses
Browned and you scolded
Not the first time,
I hope your love was kind,
I hope he knew tales of princes,
of knights slaying dragons,
and saving maidens,
I hope he saw
The Nile at dawn,
I hoped he understood,
What it was to be entranced,
By the spell of that magical witch,
And never wish to be free,

I hoped when he left,
You had plenty of rum and spice,
To drown the bitterness,
I hoped your heart did not fail,
But Emma,
You smile now,
Papa you say, I was never that strong,
I was always fragile,
And I did not fall, on that day,
Because I heard your whispers,
Knew I had to be carried on winds,
And spurn the seas as I jumped into puddles,
For that was the pink dress you bought.