LITTLE VOICE

I woke this morning to the sound of a little voice

saying this life, it was good while it lasted, but I just

can't take it any longer. I'm going to stop shaving

my teeth and chew my face. I'm going to finish inventing

that way to turn my blood into thread and knit

a sweater the shape of a giant machete and chop

my head right off. The leaves had a green

aspect, all their faces turned down towards the earth.

This is exactly how I wanted to act, but I didn't

know where the little voice had hidden, and anyway

who talks like that? What a loss, another tiny

brilliant mind switched off by that same big boring finger.

Clearly life is a drag, by which I mean a net that keeps

pulling the most unsavory and useful boots we

either put on lamenting, or eat with the hooks of some

big idea gripping the sides of our mouths and yanking them

upwards in a conceptual grimace. Said the little voice,

that is. I was just half listening, one quarter wondering

what the little park the window looked onto was named,

and one quarter thanking the war I knew was somewhere

busy returning all those limbs to their phantoms.

THE PAVILION OF VAGUE BLUES

In the airport bar the lady singer’s

voice reminded him of a blue

praying mantis he had seen

in a painting riding on

the shoulder of a very young

knight into battle. She was

singing about how she felt

always full of emptiness. He could

almost physically grasp what

that meant. Then he did.

Then he knew he would never

be happier than when he was

living in that medium-sized

Midwestern city, writing stories

about the lives of the inhabitants

of its highest skyscraper.

He could see exactly what

it looked like then, shining upwards

like an ancient lighthouse

in the snow. He saw a man

with a beer reading a book

called 8 Amazing Things You Do

Not Know. Now she was

looking at him, singing about flying

in wondering circles above your life.

On the placard it said she was

available for all events except funerals.

Her name was Lady McDust.