Sunday, December 16, 2012

4027. PLEIKU AND THE HORIZONTAL MAN

PLEIKU AND
THE HORIZONTAL MAN
I am determined to help the delirious in their
riot of frenzy and chaos. Jump that cab, leave
that omni, travel where no man has gone before.
There are twenty doorways fronting twenty-seventh
street, and I am watching every one : lame
people come and lame people go. Everyone,
with something in their hands, seems ready
for their own, personal dare. There can be
no carapace like the carapace of here.
-
'Swig, man, from that bottle! Didn't I know
you in '74? Wasn't that Pleiku we'd been
fighting for? Then they took the hammer, in
'69, from us, that frosty Nixon bitch, crying
like a lame wolf about everything before.'
-
That was from the lowly man, now settled on the
ground. Around him, there were swirls and lightning,
angelic shit from another place. I figured he was
dying, yet no one seemed to worry about a thing.
The papers in his hand were stained with brown.
His flying spirit, I'd have bet, was already gone.

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