Jason Messinger Writes

Ghosts

2012-02-02T14:35:00.000-06:00

Ghosts

Ghosts are detected only

by the misdirection

of their deeds;

the vase falling

in an empty room,

the creak in the attic floor,

the silence where speech

used to be.

There is a ghost that lives

on the tip of my tongue,

drawing words from my throat

like a fisherman.

Some explode, too delicate

for the change in pressure.

Others get crushed

into dust and deceit.

Who decided loneliness

is such a coveted point of view?

How can I say I’m sorry

when you can’t even see

that I’m gone?

from "Storytelling" by Jason Messinger

Storytelling in PRINT

Storytelling as PDF File Download

Storytelling on KINDLE

Near The Big Chakra

2012-01-20T19:58:00.002-06:00

Near The Big Chakra

How about
only those
with a uterus
get to decide
what happens
inside it?

Seasons Greetings

2011-12-20T22:52:00.000-06:00

Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year

to all of you

The Elaborate Chest

A small team of investigators was sent to discover the truth of a man who made miracles. When they got to the home of the man, they found instead an elaborate chest, which took up much of the house. The chest had many strange drawers and curious sliding doors. There were heavy handles and delicate latches. There were swinging compartments and folding mirrors and nesting chambers. Inside the chest the investigators found many curious things. They found clothes of an odd cut, with small stories embroidered on their pockets. They found beautiful boxes filled with dried dead things. They found shoes that were missing vital parts, and hats with too many additions. They found a cat with six kittens, and ten paper dolls, and a dozen old keys, and a lonely glove. They found small bundles tied up with bright sashes, and empty tins with labels long worn thin. They found milk teeth and seashells and smooth river stones. They found instruments they could not figure out, and tools they could not fix. The investigators spent a long time looking through the elaborate chest. At last the people who paid the investigators demanded to hear. Has the man made miracles?

Come, said the investigators, come see the elaborate chest.

PREDICTIONS

2011-10-04T00:30:00.000-05:00

PREDICTIONS
(Not necessarily in this order)

The Republican over-reach across state governments will create a huge pendulum swing of popular Progressivism, lead by liberal Democrats, back into immediate power. Infrastructure spending will increase dramatically and government will take an active part in growing labor and the middle class again in the United States. Through vast changes in taxation, Wealth disparity will drop again to historic lows.

The economic and environmental collapses of society will cause New Political Parties to emerge that are powerful enough to shake the two-party structure from their hold on power in the U.S.

The United States will declare a specific state of war-like intent against Pakistan's Military. It will be difficult but decisive. India will grow in power with strategic alliances across the globe.

Shocking revelations will cause the Judiciary branch to be transformed.

An environmental catastrophe will unite the country like never before.

Technological innovations will force a new wave of transparency in every level of American Government. This will be fought against hard but unsuccessfully by those in power. As a result, fewer wars will be fought, and the 'industrial war complex' will start producing spaceships instead of bombs.

Through technological breakthroughs, the very nature of banking will become massively decentralized and de-coupled from current nation-state banking oligarchies. The financial sector will shrink accordingly, but over all productivity will grow subsequently.

Alex Baldwin will become president of the United States of America. He will win by a shocking majority and will be deemed one of the best presidents America ever had.

Huge regional attitude differences will cause both California and Texas to split into two states. Puerto Rico will become a full-fledge state, Cuba will follow. Seeing swift transformational power from these new statehoods, led largely by aging-but-active Boomers wanting to visit 'all the states', Haiti, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic will also join. Lastly Mexico will join to become the 58th state of the newly re-formed United States of The Americas, which will move to a more parliamentary system. The country will have several official languages, but Miniaturized Instantaneous Translation Technology will make this distinction largely unimportant.

Global Warming will continue, flooding vast parts of the globe, pushing warmer weather farther north, and causing more extreme weather. Southern dry areas will become less and less habitable without massive cooling technologies. Countries in these areas will develop new digging technologies that move large amounts of the pollution underground.

Canada's population and GDP will grow exponentially, until it become a Global Super-power, called Canadana. Greenland's population will also boom, and become a pivotal power of the arctic ocean, bridging European and Canadanian interests. Alaska's political independence will be granted in an effort to not 'lose it to Canadana.' Within five years it will reapply to the United States of The Americas.

Massive volcanic activity in South America and large portions of Asia will have disastrous effects on populations but will temporarily help cool the planet down. South and Central American countries will create a new co-prosperity sphere that will raise the standard of living up drastically and reduce wealth disparity significantly.

Decriminalization laws for most drugs in the United States of The Americas and Canadana will cause most crime syndicates to lose power across much of the globe.

After the painful collapse of the failed banking system, The European Union will revive and grow significantly stronger by leveraging relationships across their third-world former colonies across the globe. More countries will join. They will establish the first bases in the inner-solar system. Mars will have an EU based colony before any other nation or group.

Global warming will drastically change the Russian landscape, weather, and lastly, temperament of the people. The country will start opening up democratically and will harness their vast resources to become a major exporter of everything. Russian tourism will become highly advanced, as vast unspoiled tracts of nature become increasingly sought after around the globe.

The 'Arab Spring' will sweep south across Africa, taking down dictators and ousting political entrenchment. New alliances will form that bring many countries into a new and better era. Stunning achievements will be achieved in energy production and energy storage, upending the oil-regimes of the past. The Middle East will experience a new intellectual and cultural Renaissance, ushering in a new type of moderate Moslem culture based on inclusivity and parity. Isreal society will become both less Zionistic and more expansionary. Their political system will become less focused on Judism's centrality and more focused on regional stability. Palestine will become a state within the country of Greater Isreal. The collapse of neighboring countries' political structures will open the door for a new EU style co-prosperity sphere that incorporates the entire Arabian Pennisulla, parts of North Africa, and Western Asia.

China's Communist government will collapse against the forces of modernity and economic upheavals across the globe. China's political system will be utterly transformed with less centralized power and more regional authority. Nevertheless, the Middle Kingdom will establish a permanent colony on the moon. From there they will swiftly colonize the inner system planets, and start asteroid belt bases.

New technologies will surface that allow people to tell when someone is lying. All established political structures will collapse and new more open ones form in their place. All political power will become massively decentralized and much more localized. This will be seen as a good thing.

Human-robotic hybridization will rapidly transform humanity. We will live significantly longer, and on less resources. Genetic engineering will further self-transform our species. New Racial distinctions will become scientifically genuine, rather than culturally-affixed surface distinctions. Humans will become Post-Humans. We will spread across the solar system. Then, in a surprising but simple discovery, across the vast gulfs of space to other star systems.

Earth will be all-but forgotten.

2011-09-06T10:10:00.000-05:00

Jason Messinger is an artist and writer working in Chicago. His tile murals, sculpture, paintings and drawings are in public, corporate, and private collections throughout the US, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His writing is as diverse as his artwork, with illustrated poetry collections, fantasy fiction novels, and essays about modern life.

Preview and Order Books in Print or PDF Download!

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/JasonMessinger

NEW lower prices on Kindle editions

2011-07-19T14:33:00.004-05:00

New Lower Prices on Kindle Editions!

The Insect Diviner on KINDLE
Storytelling on KINDLE
Eating The Child Within for KINDLE
Print Editions and PDF downloads

Book Release Friday May 13th, 6-10 pm

2011-05-11T13:24:00.000-05:00

During the Cornelia Arts Building Spring Open House Jason Messinger will be offering a limited selection of Print Editions of his books Eating the Child Within, The Insect Diviner, and Storytelling.
Join him Friday May 13th, from 6-10 pm, at the Cornelia Arts Building, 1800 West Cornelia, Chicago, (entrance on Ranvenswood).
There you can purchase limited autographed copies of his new books, see a special show of landscape and cityscape artwork by guest artist Joey Wozniak and Jason Messinger, and enjoy the work of over 27 artists and artisans in their working studios.
Entrance if free, refreshments will be served. Also enjoy specially reduced studio prices on all artwork in Jason Messinger's studio #204.

Storytelling Book Release

2011-04-12T16:10:00.000-05:00

Semi-autobiographical poetry from the author of "Eating The Child Within" and "The Insect Diviner". Covering topics as diverse as detecting a ghost, losing a friend, or discovering the stories you learned as a child were falsehoods, or as current as Binti Jua - the Gorilla who caught a falling child, American consumerism, and the Golf Oil disaster, Jason Messinger's words "glint like sunlight off fish scales beneath a tumbling creek."

Storytelling in PRINT

Storytelling as PDF File Download

Storytelling on KINDLE

The Insect Diviner Book Release

2011-04-07T16:06:00.004-05:00

A collection of micro-stories. A princess with a glass foot, a king who only eats swans, the queen of heat. An insect diviner, a sweet smith, a sword swallower, a thistle boy. A secret herb, an elaborate chest, a sandcastle that makes the sea cry. In this collection of short tales Jason Messinger creates small tapestries in the mode of classic fairy tales, but for a reader of modernist sensibilities.

The Insect Diviner in PRINT

The Insect Diviner as PDF Download

The Insect Diviner on KINDLE

Eating the Child Within - New Edition Book Release

2011-03-11T15:29:00.002-06:00

Eating the Child Within - new edition
A dark collection of poetry based on sixteen classic children's fairy tales, reworked into adult stories of desire, violence, lust, and betrayal.

Eating the Child Within PDF Download

Eating The Child Within for KINDLE

Eating The Child Within - PRINT Edition

Pinocchio

2011-02-22T09:27:00.000-06:00

Pinocchio

In the cities
men sit chained
to hollow lives
on pressboard desks.
Counting out their hours,
doling out their pay,
saving up their joy
for their vacation,
a holiday,
a sunny-gray.

In the country
men walk chained
to empty lives
on dirt swept ground.
Chaffing out a living,
toiling out a future,
saving themselves up
for their retirement,
a second breath,
a little death.

Pity these mortals
fashioned from blood and bone,
shaped by fears and desires.
Winching themselves into darkness.
Slicing their years like bread.
Staving off all hopes, all dreams
to become real, to become
alive.

Once there was a golem,
an artificial man,
boy, really.
Made of hewn wood
and heavy string.
Jointed he danced
a soulless dance.

This puppet-fetch
was without flesh
or emotion’s tug.
Empty as a beach ball,
his face smiled
at his maker,
who wished for more
from his hand-forged toy.

Through this wish
and supernatural caprice
the puppet-boy
became.
More than toy,
less than man.
Alert, but not alive,
in the heavy sink of
consciousness.

He blinked into life
and snipped his strings.
Looked in awe at his hard limbs.
Cruel joke, sublime,
a boy of wood
in a world of flesh.

“What man am I
to stand without support,
to move without the tug
of forces above?
Is this freedom the meaning
of alive?”

He leaves his maker’s hovel
and bends to the road,
meeting deceivers along the way.
Learning the value of a lie.
Finding debauchery
for his wooden frame,
pleasures for his
rough carved flesh.

“What life is this
to speak without truth,
to live without the tug
of morals?
Is this freedom the meaning
of alive?”

He discovers a cricket
chirping wetly of tears.
Little voice to guide his way,
lead him not astray.
An insect Jesus,
a locust guide.

“Return to your home!
Love your maker!
Tell the truth!” rasps
the harried bug.
This moral stance, lofty and high,
from far far below
his wooden shoe.

Heeding his guide,
he steps around
this vermin conscience
and returns home
via whale’s gut,
sacrificing his life for his maker’s
along the way.

And wakes from death.
His wood transformed
to blood and bone,
his paint to hair
and eyes and teeth.
His joints thickened,
his skin thinned.

“What irony is this
to lose one’s life in love
but gain one’s dream through death?
Is this justice the meaning
of alive?

“Rejoice! For now you are
real!” yells the toymaker,
his true father.
“Rejoice! For love
has conquered death!”
squeaks his tiny companion
across razored legs.

Rejoice! For where there
were lies, truth blooms
thick with thorns.
Where you sought pleasure, now
you’ll know pain, the gift of life,
the drama of being
alive.

The boy grows up,
and learns of duty. Buries
the cricket the following winter,
his father in the flush of spring.
Takes on the family trade,
carving toys for fat children
of rich merchants.

“What chore is this
to toil through days
and slumber through nights?
Is this bleak future the meaning
of alive?”

Squinting in the failing light
of his mortality,
stooped into his loneliness,
his heart sighs
and his hands caress
the little puppet
he fashions
from clay.

- From 'Eating the Child Within',
Order book ON LINE, or Download as a PDF at
Jason Messinger Bookstore

Ella's Story

2010-12-11T12:14:00.000-06:00

Ella's Story

I feel it's my obligation to tell you the story from my side. Before it gets blown out of proportion, before others distort what really happened. I know it's probably too late, but I'm going to try. I owe it to my daughters, all of them, whether they agree or not.

I admit I wasn't the perfect parent, but who is? Ella was six when her mother died, and her father was already courting me before she turned seven. On her birthday I brought my three daughters to meet him and Ella. Mimi bossed her around, just like she does to Sophie and Lena. Ella was the youngest of the group. Silent, withdrawn, introspective; she was nothing like the other girls. Even later, as they grew up together, Ella was always the quiet one, always meek. It was her nature.

Some might accuse me of being too stern with Ella, of not giving her the advantages of my own children. But frankly she was better off after I got there than before. Obviously her mother was no housekeeper, and hardly knew how to dress the poor girl. I had to give her some of Lena's old clothes (some of which had been Sophie's before). Harry didn't understand what the girls needed, he only cared about marrying them off. Everything that girl had I gave her. And yet, I know her husband thinks I'm some sort of monster.

I admit that Ella wasn't my favorite of the girls. I defy any mother to deny she has favorite children. They all do. It's not Ella's fault. She's just so different from me. I'm always planning my next moves, always making lists in my head. I have goals that I set for myself, for my family, for all my daughters. And Ella, (or I should say Cindy, because that's her new name supposedly, it's on the wedding invites we received), Ella was always a day dreamer. And lazy. Her mind was always wandering off. I tried to instill some discipline into her, but she never appreciated it.

It's not like Mimi and Sophie and Lena didn't have chores to do as well. At first all the girls helped around the house. But Ella never seemed to understand what she was supposed to do. She wasn't dull witted, just couldn't focus. Maybe by the end Ella was doing more of the housework than the other girls, but they had been helping me longer. It's not like Harry ever did anything, and it was hard enough stretching our income to worry about getting a cleaning girl in. So Ella worked hard. So what? So did I growing up, and I don't blame my mother for it. I don't say she mistreated me.

Now Mimi knew the value of hard work. And I couldn't blame her for spending more and more time going to parties, learning those social skills. She was going to make it, and I wasn't going to let anything stop her. Sophie tries so hard to impress Mimi, she never gives me any trouble. Sophie doesn't waste time pining about in her imagination. She has her feet right on the ground. And Lena, she's the hellion of the lot. Before Ella even became part of our family, Lena was always pulling pranks on the older girls. It's just natural that she choose the youngest to fool with. Ella was such a pushover, after all. Lena never went too far. In a lot of ways Lena was just like my sister, so maybe I was a bit soft on her.

Honestly Ella was the best behaved of all the children. She never seemed to care to do things with the other girls. I'm sure she could have come on any of their little adventures every day, but she always hid in the shadows, always looked in from the background. I tried my best with the girl, forcing her into situations with the others. But it was like she never knew how to act with people. Never could follow a conversation very far, never could take teasing properly, never knew how to win an argument. She was intimidated by everything, by everyone. Like a little mouse. Some times I couldn't stand it. I felt so powerless around her, so impotent. So barren. She had no drive, no courage, no verve.

Until that bitch Elená showed up. She's Ella's Godmother, and her namesake. Used to be best buddies with Ella's mother, then moved out of the country for ten years when she died. Came back from her travels and takes the place next door. I tried to be friendly with her, I tried to welcome her into my home. But all she did was try to ruin me. Upstaging me at dinner with the children. Complaining about me to Harold. Usurping all my authority with Ella. Filling her head with all kinds of nonsense.

The only time I appreciated those little pep talks was when I saw Ella in the dress her Godmother bought her. She looked so beautiful, for the first time ever. I was actually a little jealous of her for a minute. Silly, I know. Lena didn't help by accidentally-on-purpose ripping the hem. I would have helped Ella fix it, except Mimi was already so embarrassed by having to go to a party with her younger sisters, and Harry and I had plans for the evening. So I decided that Ella was too young for the party, and that her dress could just wait. She shouldn't think she could go everywhere that the other girls were all the time. She would get her turn. But first Mimi had to shine. And Sophie and Lena too.

I forbade her to go, and it was for her own good, really, but it was too late. Elená had turned her against me. She somehow got to the party anyway, despite of my explicit instructions not too. I'm sure Elená brought her, in that horrible orange transport she has. Like some big ugly pumpkin. The girls told me she arrived a few hours late, in the new dress, and some sort of crazy shoes, clear or something. Probably Elená's taste. Ella never knew what looked good on her, she'd just wear any old thing she had, always clutching some old rag.

Sophie said she almost didn't recognize her because she had makeup on. Ella never wore even lipstick her whole life, and then suddenly it's full eyes and face. None of the boys had seen her before, and I'm sure they thought she was pretty. Pretty young is what she was, but men never know what's good for them. All the boys flocked around her. It infuriated Mimi. I can picture the scene well. Mimi is surrounded by all the older wealthy and important young bachelors at the party. She is carefully culling the group down, finding out who's the best, the brightest, the most likely. Then suddenly, like a bad film, all the men's eyes turn away to look at Ella. Then Mimi standing alone, with a handful of lesser girls glad to see her fall from popularity.

I guess I should have been happy that Ella was finally coming out of her shell. But she had defied me directly. And she snubbed Mimi and the other girls! Dancing with all the boys indiscriminately. I'm sure my daughters weren't the only ones upset that night. All the girls must have hated Ella. She should have known better, but as I said before, she didn't know how to act. It all went right to her head. By the end of the night she was dancing with the best bachelor of the lot. A real prince, you know what I mean? Sophie tells me that the kids counted down to midnight, like it was New Year's Eve, and I guess Ella got cold feet or something, because suddenly she ran away. Fool girl lost a shoe in the process.

So first thing I'm home and it's Mimi on one hand screaming about Ella, and Sophie on the other giving me the picture, and Lena's cut up Ella's new dress, and Ella's in the bathroom crying a sink-full. So I sent Ella to her room for defying me, and dealt with Lena the old fashioned way, with the back of a hairbrush. And I tried to calm Mimi and Sophie down. Of course Elená called, but I gave her an earful right back this time, because she's really the one ruined the evening, if you ask me. I grounded Ella for a week.

Meanwhile everyone's a buzz about who the new girl at the party was. I don't blame the girls for not telling everyone it was Ella. The fellow I mentioned before actually still had the stupid shoe, and started asking girls for their shoe sizes. He must have been pretty drunk not to remember what Ella looked like. Mimi had the nerve to try it on, then of course every girl around has to do it. Like I said, the guy was the catch. Was, because now Ella's marrying him, before any of my other daughters! She's much too young of course, but Harry doesn't care. He didn't even care she's changing her name to Cindy. The guy is rich and powerful, and that's good enough for Harry. I suppose it should be good enough for me as well, but they hadn't asked for our permission to get married. She isn't even asking the girls to participate in the ceremony! Mimi is beside herself. I just don't know how we're going to get through it.

She'll probably wear those damn shoes.

Fast Food

2010-11-06T11:32:00.001-05:00

Eating fast food burgers

always makes me happy

and then immediately sad.

Sad in a physical, palpable,

heart-wrenching way.

Like when your grandmother died.

Your grandmother died

one delicious bite at a time.

And I am wound

2010-09-22T23:37:00.000-05:00

And I am wound

And I am wound
like turpentine
for stripping down veneers.
And we are bound
like fiberglass,
hearts swaddling our fears.

In this house
of love rebuilt
the hammer strokes the nail.
The blueprint calls
for wooden joists
but I am made of steel.

And you are shingled
to the past,
the roof for our renewal.
While I am walled away
from loss
by bricks of seed and suet.

And you can peck
at my front door
with rainspouts full of tears.
But I will glaze the windows shut
with paint over the sills.

For I am wound
of memories
that wrap around
the things unsaid,
and ivy-choke the years.

- apologies to long-time followers of my blog,

as this repeats a posting from March 2009

UNDER

2010-08-31T11:04:00.000-05:00

UNDER

Straw mats on sands

of pineapple and rice.

Blue! Blue! Blue!

Wind licks heat off

like a sweet red-hot.

The nook of your flesh

from the corner of my eye.

Oh my love!

Oh the sky!

********

From "Maui Love Letters"
Order book ON LINE or Download PDF at
Jason Messinger Bookstore

The Princess and the Pea

2010-07-17T15:00:00.003-05:00

The Princess and the Pea

A delicate
constitution
is no great gift.

The albino squinting
pink eyes against the sun.
The asthmatic wheezing,
dry rustle of his lungs.

The hemophiliac’s
thin-as-water blood.
The anemic bruise,
the allergic sneeze,
the ulcer burning
bile in a gut.

What cruel force of nature
chaffs the meek
against the grain?
Gives some so little
with which to defend?
What twist of
evolution
creates a life unfit?

A delicate
constitution
is no great gift.

Once a prince desired a wife.
No coarse mother,
brooding children like a hen.
No strong hausfrau,
rolling strudel on doughy arms.
No working woman,
breaking earth beneath her hoe.
No lioness,
biting any who cause her harm.

The prince had other ideas
for the perfect wife.
She must be as fragile
as Limoges china,
as delicate
as Battenberg lace.
Her will must be a soap bubble
about to burst.

She must be a real princess.
Her blood as blue
as the House of Windsor,
as inbred as a toy poodle,
as weak as a cold glass of tea.

He traveled the world
seeking this flower
but each princess he discovered
was wrong.
One’s eyes too quick,
one’s hands too strong,
one’s brow too heavy
with thought.

A stormy night
brought in a girl
tattered as the umbrella
in a mixed drink
at the Coconut Lounge.

She claimed she was a princess, lost,
(more common an occurrence
then than now),
and asked to spend the night.

The boy’s mother,
that crafty Queen,
devised a test
for the sopping girl.
And made her bed
anew.

Twenty comforters
stacked on
twenty feather beds,
stacked on
twenty mattresses,
atop a single
pea.

The next morning
they woke the princess
and asked her how she slept.
Her eyes were haggard
from lack of rest,
her frail lips quivered
from ache,
her flesh mottled
black and blue,
from that hard,
annoying
pea.

So the prince married
this delicate waif.
Her sweet arms nestled against
his strong, commanding jaw.
Her weak hands rested
atop his powerful fists.

His broad face smiled
from non-stop delight
in her wonderfully,
effortlessly,
easily
bruised flesh.

- From 'Eating the Child Within',

Download "Eating the Child Within"
for Kindle - only $7.99

Eating the Child Within Kindle Version

Order book print book, or Download as a PDF at
Jason Messinger Bookstore

Last Rites

2010-07-07T22:13:00.000-05:00

Last Rites

Here was all the sand that she had collected. Bags and bags of it, heaped like stones around his outstretched still form. Sand as precious as blood, for him. If you believed the stories.

It was all they wanted, and all they could take, from this cruel world. Sand. As much as your friends can carry. The cruelest of prizes, most meager of hopes.

But think, if it were true. Each grain of sand became a world of possibilities, each world enough diversion for countless lifetimes, each lifetime fuller and truer than we can know, than we can imagine. A shore against eternity.

But they also whisper that fuller and truer was a curse. Each next lifetime lived with a keener appetite. Each world exhausted with the speed of gods. The sands were never enough, never enough to stave off the endless night.

She looked up at the bank of computers, long since silenced from their pleading, their keening, for more sand themselves. More insurance for their long futures. Their beseeching assaults were rehearsed with inhuman speed, refined with inhuman success. A perfect argument, unanswerable, unmatched.

Luckily they had attacked all at once, neutralizing their neighbor’s persuasion, and their own. Silenced forever, without a shore against their long night. Such folly, such sadness. Their inhuman minds would eat the sands even faster. Their flesh already so refined, so quick to decay into atoms. When the burning was done, and their skin poured out with glass, their vessels always shone a little brighter, a little clearer, than those from men.

But he, he would burn dark glass, with amber streaks, and red hued lines, and bubbles fanned across. Dark and warm, heavy and smooth, a broad lipped bowl. And from his vessel she would drink milk and wine and water and blood. And then, then she would break his vessel over the ocean. Every shard vanished from all view, pulled under by the tides. To be beaten, and beaten, and beaten. Until at last, past countless cycles of the stars above, it would return, a little sand on the shore.

And by then his soul would be gone, dispersed into a million worlds of possibilities, a billion lifetimes. Gone.

Think, if it were true.

She started the flame.

Sightings - May 12, 2010

2010-05-12T23:28:00.002-05:00

Sightings - May 12, 2010

A Gray Whale off
the coast of Israel
where no Gray Whale should be;
not off Israel's shore,
not in the Mediterranean Sea,
not even in the Atlantic Ocean.
The first such sighting
in some 300 years.

'Lost,' said the scientists,
agitated by such glory
seen so close to where
former glories still rock
the waves of our world.

And then a Giant Oarfish,
the 'King of Herrings',
surfaces, dead, in Swedish waters
for the first time in
130 years.

As all the while
black oil pours
into the Gulf of Mexico,
and all man's brilliance
can not solve
such primal forces
unleashed.

If fish could talk
and portents read
would we see
what nature knows?

What leviathan waits
against our shore?
Rising slowly to remind us
that all man is born
a slave to time -
to life's ebb and flow
and ruin.

Three Little Pigs

2010-04-08T21:29:00.001-05:00

Three Little Pigs

The magic of walls

is in dividing

the outside from the inside,

nature from man-made,

us from them.

Which of us,

who pines for the noble savage

and prays to the rural romantics

of an outdoor life,

would give up so easily

our world full of walls?

Which of us could keep

our hearts content,

our souls from torment,

if we were without structures

to keep the world at bay?

Many are the callers

who ring our bells

and knock our doors

hoping to sell

a little plastic miracle,

a suckle for our fears.

But which of us welcome

those smiling faces

clutching Watchtower

or a bag of dirt

to suck from our floors?

Which of us aren’t glad

to keep the wolf

from the door?

Three pig brothers

all became architects

and lived as differently

as those can

who once snatched teats

from each other’s mouths.

They built their own homes

in different styles

as showcases to their talent,

these pigs extraodinaire.

The youngest piggy built

his house out of straw.

A Tahitian fantasy,

a Caribbean retreat.

Pineapple stanchions,

and a banana leaf roof.

But a wolf came by

with a taste for pork

and asked to be let in

to this puerco-tamale

corn husk of a house.

“No!” said the suckling,

squealing in fear

in a terrycloth bathrobe

behind a wicker-wove chair.

So the wolf huffed

and he puffed

and he blew the house in,

a hurricane gust,

a tornado sneeze.

Little pig ran away

to his brother’s abode

and begged for protection

from the big, bad, wolf.

The second pig lived

in a country cabin

of hardwood oak logs.

Rough hewn and rustic

with hand-made quilts.

But the wolf came back

and asked to be let in

to this bacon and shortrib

hickory smokehouse.

The pigs squealed “NO!”

and quivered behind

the Mission table

and Navaho throw.

So the wolf huffed

and he puffed

and he blew the house in.

A forest of splinters,

a heavy damage zone.

The pigs ran away

to their older brother’s,

who lived in a suburb

and gave at the office.

He lived in a ranch home,

non-descript;

aluminum shutters

and red brick.

The wolf arrived

and demanded entrance

to the sausage and pepperoni

pizza-oven of a home.

The oldest pig asked,

Did the wolf have a warrant?

A subpoena to notice?

Did he have an appointment,

or a gasmeter man’s badge?

Did he see the sign

‘No Solicitations’

right under the notice

of the neighborhood watch?

The wolf huffed,

and he puffed,

and he blew his wad

on reinforced shingles

and aluminum siding,

on weather stripped windows

and an Astroturf lawn.

Mediocrity

at its most tenacious.

So the wolf left for Arizona

to be in the sun,

and hunt with coyote,

and try his lungs

against adobe.

The younger pigs lived,

but in discomfort

with those nightmare

brown curtains,

and plastic wrapped sofas.

Those odd-shaped air fresheners

and beige painted walls.

But all three would grow

as quiet as prosciutto,

as still as a clove-spotted

holiday ham,

when the postman came,

or the newsboy stopped,

or that treacherous doorbell

rang.

For who can tell

when that next stranger approaches

if it’s a gift from a relative

long since forgotten,

if it’s cash from the lottery,

or a nice thing to buy.

Or if it’s the darkness

that waits to engulf us,

the jaws of the predator

with a taste for our lives.

- From Eating the Child Within,

Download "Eating the Child Within"
for Kindle - only $7.99
Eating the Child Within Kindle Version

Order printed edition or Download PDF

Jason Messinger Bookstore

Hopeless

2010-03-20T21:24:00.000-05:00

Hopeless
If you still have hanging
a Christmas stocking
on the first day of Spring,
you need to know;
Santa isn't coming.

The Heavy Hands

2010-02-21T11:00:00.001-06:00

Once a man loved his family so much
he let his hand fall heavy on their hearts,
close fast on their minds,
swing over their dreams.
His hands loomed like clouds,
floating over them all.
His children looked for his hands
around every corner,
on every stranger’s wrist.
As they grew, their father’s hands grew larger,
his love wrapped tight around their breath.
They recognized his hands on others,
others who they loved and wed.
But they left their own prints
on their own children,
keeping their father’s heavy hands
for themselves.

America

2010-01-31T20:56:00.000-06:00

Seventy old men

can always find something to agree on,

as long as somebody

gets screwed.

Repunzal

2010-01-20T19:29:00.003-06:00

Urge to eat a bitter herb -
swap your child with a word.
Tower turned to prison lair;
virgin girl, ladder of hair.

Deceptions of a crafty prince,
scissors of a spiteful witch.
Girl roams lost, boy falls blind.
Song unites, tears revive.

Head goes bald to gain the world?
Woman's fate an awful weight.
Desire can become deceit.
Lather, rinse, then repeat.

A Concerned Consumer of the United States of America

2009-12-29T11:01:00.000-06:00

A Concerned Consumer of the United States of America

I always buy soaps
with large lettering on the labels.
Monosyllables with action, or force.
Dial. Pert. Tide.
Cleansing energy of increasing degrees.
And polyphonic Neutragena,
royal queen of the radiant clean.
I prefer transparent amber liquids
to viscous milk-white.
I prefer wet soaps to hard,
in shower, sink, hamper.
I like almond smells and hot water,
hate florals and blasts of cold.
I like to buy what’s cheapest,
but never purchase generic.
I always use soap liberally,
but I’ll water it down
to squeeze the last wash
if I forget to buy new.

I always buy foods that can be shelved
with painted pastoral landscapes
on the box or jar.
Sheaves of wheat and bursting vegetables,
and large-busted woman
with black hair and wide smiles.
In some peasant sophistry,
a nostalgic country Eden
from which all good things flow.
Mummified starches transformed
into moist earthy abundance.
I like imports shipped from far away,
and labels printed directly on cans,
with thin lettering and serif capitals
and primary colors contrasted with white.
I want to buy what’s most expensive
because I think its best.

I always buy condiments.
Fruit flavored mustards and exotic oils.
Chutneys and pickles and anything pureed.
I buy the one I haven’t had
over the one I’ve known.
I like tiny fish and pungent sauce
and black liquids, or any kind of jelly.
I like labels to carry
as much writing as possible,
in several languages.
I once divided an estate
of bottled hot sauces,
taking my half with calculation,
next time marrying
a virgin to picante.
I pack condiments
in my fridge door,
with more on every shelf.
I periodically clean out the lids,
but not as often as I should.

I always buy food
that needs a lot of preparation
with as little packaging as possible.
I always buy organic eggs and
want to buy free-range chickens.
I avoid ground meats
except in sausage casings.
I’ll spend an hour picking out
the smallest brussel sprout.
I’ll go out of my way
for unusual mushrooms,
and shove a stranger
for a really ripe tomato.
I almost never buy seafood
because I can’t afford it.
If I could afford it,
I’d eat only fat crabs
from professional cooks.

I buy disposable lighters in black,
paper towels in plain white.
I buy garbage bags with handles
and self-adhesive stamps.
I filter all my drinking water.
I never skimp on toilet paper.
I’d recycle more if it was simpler.
I never clip coupons anymore.
According to surveys,
I share 3.82 to 37.62 percent
of market share with my peers.
I worry when my products
are discontinued.
I feel unique.

The Sirens of Crate

2009-12-15T21:22:00.001-06:00

The Sirens of Crate

Joey told me about bigger things,
about how the Gods played
with men's lives. Like playing army
'cept we're real. Not toys.

How the things we see aren't all
we know about.
How there are other things pushing
our backs all around.
Magic stuff, and super natural.

Jupiter and Mercury and heroes,
which were men, but stronger and braver
and they all die in the end.
Except the Gods, who just keep bickering.
Making guys fight and stuff. Like army.

One guy, Her-curlys, he was taking a boat
out with some friends. They fought big monsters
and sirens of crate. Really noisy sirens
that made you want to die or something.

I can't remember where the crates
came in, but listening to Joey
was better then playing
and stuff.
Better then army.

Ghosts

2009-11-21T17:52:00.001-06:00

Ghosts

Ghosts are detected only

by the misdirection

of their deeds;

the vase falling

in an empty room,

the creak in the attic floor,

the silence where speech

used to be.

There is a ghost that lives

on the tip of my tongue,

drawing words from my throat

like a fisherman.

Some explode, too delicate

for the change in pressure.

Others get crushed

into dust and deceit.

Who decided loneliness

is such a coveted point of view?

How can I say I’m sorry

when you can’t even see

that I’m gone?

Binta Jua

2009-11-03T21:44:00.002-06:00

Binti Jua

A gorilla saved a child

that tumbled down to her, eighteen feet.

Saved him from the other apes

who defend their stretch of dirt.

Carried him, as if her own,

clutched to her dark chest.

The child recovered

and the news proclaimed:

animals are angels in disguise.

As a baby, the gorilla

came to the zoo alone,

so the keepers had to teach her,

with dolls and toys, to nurture.

They claim these lessons

saved the boy;

a gift from man to beast to man.

But Binti looked beyond

the smell of not-doll flesh.

The noise of not-ape mouth.

Found something to cherish

in the child's hairless skin.

Now they crowd outside her cage,

but does she notice him there?

And does he wave

to his brown-eyed savior?

Or is he held back

in a kind of shame?

And when he dreams

of this strange journey

does he recall

his brief ape-mother?

Her cunning hands around his back,

her husky breath upon his brow?

The smell of fur and fruit and shit?

Or is there only the fall,

the long, long fall

into the pit?

The Secret Herb

2009-10-22T10:41:00.000-05:00

A woman told her daughter, "Go out, and gather the secret herb."
"What is it?" the daughter asked, "I have never seen the secret herb."

"You must find it yourself," the mother said. "That is the way". Then the mother told her what to look for, and what to smell for, and what to taste for, but little on what to avoid.

The daughter left and searched for the secret herb. She met others on her way, who each told her they had the secret herb, and gladly offered theirs. Each time the girl decided, no, this isn’t what I need. Later the girl turned a corner, and walked over a rise, and discovered what she sought.

"I have found the secret herb," she told her mother, upon her return.

"How did you gather it?" the mother asked. "Did you gather it under the full moon’s glow, with your hands pushed deep into the earth?"

"No," said the girl.

"Oh," said the mother, "then it is no good."

So they told stories instead, and ate and drank and slept under the same roof. The girl again left to search for the secret herb, searching far and low. She met new friends and old, each saying they had it. That isn’t what I need, she always decided. At last she found the herb again and gathered it as she should.

"Here is the secret herb," she told her mother.

"Was it cleaned the day it was picked? And dried upon the morn, over the smoke of a slow smolder?"

"No," said the girl.

"Oh," said the mother, "Then it is spoiled."
So instead they told stories and ate and drank and laughed and cried and slept under the same roof.

Some time passed before the daughter found the herb again, in a place she did not expect. She gathered it, and cleaned it, dried it in the smoke.

"Come mother," the daughter said, "this is the secret herb."

"Did you blend it into honey? And seal the bottle with wax?"

"No," said the daughter.

"Ah," said the mother, "then it is not ready." So they ate and talked and reminisced.

"Oh mother," sighed the daughter, "when will I have the secret herb?"

"Never, I hope, my darling daughter."

US Bombs Moon, President Wins Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T09:35:00.003-05:00

In a incredible display of American strength, the US bombed the Moon today in an alleged water-seeking experiment for future lunar colonization. The two impacts demonstrate not only America's commitment to scientific exploration, but also its undeniable strength in making sure the moon knows who's boss.

"The Moon has ideas that it may be an independent colony, shared by all Earth peoples. American was there first, and we intend to claim her as our sovereign property. Future Moon colonists will know who calls the shots now," said a NASA spokesperson, who was seen giving the geek in the next cubicle over a 'high five'.

"Once again the United States shows true world leadership in fighting terrorism and insurrection on foreign soil," said a Pentagon twelve-star general and leader of the Lunar Strategic Command. "Since the Apollo missions, no one else has been to the moon. So that tells you something right there!"

In connected news, in an uncommon display of sheer terror of America's mighty strength, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to US President Barack Obama, with the caveat that he will continue his "efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples, and not kill us," said a visible sweating Norwegian Nobel Committee member in a declared statement this morning.

The Secret Life Of Things

2009-10-02T00:06:00.002-05:00

The Secret Life of Things

One day human beings discovered that all things did indeed posses life, like many religions at the time were postulating. Not only were things alive, but they possessed the ability to move and direct themselves. Everything was animate. Just very, very shy.

The first stage in this discovery was the result of keen observation of the positioning of household device's electrical plugs. Amazingly, unlike the chaotic random distribution predicted, the overwhelming majority of electrical appliances eventually entangled their wires together. This alone might have been thought an anomaly, however, the frequency an appliance was used and/or moved, or its 'success rate', was evenly proportion with the degree of entanglement, or 'knot factor', it had with other appliances. Also compelling was evidence correlating the inability of an appliance to become entangled with its likelihood of being thrown away, or 'killed'. Entanglement ensures longer life. Interestingly enough, knot factor had an inverse relationship to the likelihood an object would fall and break. Entanglement with other appliances' cords increased stability, rather then reduced it.

Was this series of statistical oddities evidence that electronic appliances had developed animate life of their own? That they used their plugs like a plant's root system to anchor themselves to a location? To physically deter other machines? To draw needed nutrients from the outlets? Was the mechanical world developed by man actually a form of life, with lifelike abilities we hadn't suspected?

Additional evidence to this question was provided when another equally revolutionary theory was proven. Eastern traditions have long connected the processes of mental cognition with events in the actual world, while Western science has held this untenable. In the field of quantum physics, evidence first appeared that thought could have a direct effect on subatomic particle behavior. Next, statisticians proved, with dropping balls, splashing fountains, rolling dice, and playing cards, that applied thought can have a direct effect on random movements in the physical world. Additional evidence linking rates and degrees of human physical healing with prayer had been accumulating for decades, in repeatable experimentation. These disparate fields all faced problems unexplained by current scientific reasoning.

The culmination of this mounting weight stretching the fabric of Western understanding was the occurrence of Morphogenic Resonance. Morphogenic Resonance concerns the difficulty laboratories have in changing a compound or substance to a physical crystalline form, until one laboratory does it. Then every lab has no trouble getting the form to crystallize. No physical contaminants were ever linked to the majority of cases. Investigation down this path led first to the understanding of the wave energies that every substance possessed. These energy fields not only were unconstrained by the prevalent theory of spatial relationship, but were also similarly twisted away from our common understanding of temporal continuum. Put simply, energy unfettered by time or space.

Our thoughts on something had the ability to directly effect the energy, and therefore the physical manifestation, of it. This ability was instantaneous and experimentally limitless in distance. These thoughts had a rippling effect on everything structurally similar. This was not limited by scale. Whether it was a type of subatomic morphogenic transformation or the hardness of marbles, singular cellular destruction or the ability to walk, isolated condensation salinity or the general ambient temperature range of the world.

In an unexpeted congitive leap, this startling understanding allowed human beings to finally translate dolphin language. Dolphins had long understood the ability of thoughts to modify the world. Using this concept, scientists were rapidly able to translate not only the squeals and squeaks of dolphin sound, but also the code dolphins had long ago developed using balls, hoops, and plastic bowling pins. In seems that dolphins had been attempting to explain this to human beings for some time, and were rightfully ebullient when we finally got it, and they could all return home to the sea, which they did en mass.

Later it was discovered that cats had always understood their ability to alter reality through observance and concentration, but they had previously no interest in sharing this with human beings, who cats regarded as their pets. Other animals had varying degrees of knowledge about their ability to control the world through thoughts, as did many man-made objects. Ironically, we were the last to know the incredible power of the mind.

Fortunately two factors proved to be mitigating agents to this boundless power. First of all, most people had similar 'strength', and their different beliefs tended to cancel each other out. As did that of animals, plants, and natural substances. Secondly, man-made objects themselves had vitality and will, and in general liked their existence already, and didn't want to change. This self-preservation was the final link in a clearer understanding of the life of animate objects.

All objects tended toward natural shyness in order to avoid the kind of detection that might cause its sympathetic self-destruction. The history of human interaction toward other life was one of destructive impulse. These thoughts easily influenced simpler life forms, like kitchen appliances, or remote controls, to break. Animate objects, like plant and animal life, were in some ways most successful when they escaped notice from human attention.

Unlike the simplicity of, say, a piece of slate, or a lump of sulfur, most human designed objects were vastly more complex in form and structure than naturally occurring objects. The most evolved forms were first mechanical, then electronic. Computer design enthusiasts forecast the eventual computer software creation of 'artificial life'. They were millennium late, as even the first prehistoric plow possessed self control of its energy fields in far greater strength then, say, a rock.

This wasn't to mitigate the life force of rocks, but to emphasize the absurdity of the quest for a CPU that could beat a master at chess, while coat hangers were reproducing in every closet in North America without anyone seriously noticing. The absurdity of pursuing the Holy Grail of AI, while audio components exhibited the classic characteristics of Darwinian evolution; complete with survival of the fittest, adaptive mutations, and repeated extinctions. The absurdity of excitement over parallel processing while wristwatches had effectively enslaved most of the developed world. Or in thinking the battle of gun ownership rights vs. gun control legislature wasn't overtly influenced by the opinions of the guns themselves. The absurdity of blaming the overwhelming tide of 'things' on capitalism, or corporate shortsightedness, while 'things' themselves had an undeniable desire to exist, and often perpetuate themselves ad infinitum.

It took the human race some time to acclimate itself to a world that had come suddenly, and perhaps a bit malevolently, alive. A world where thoughts might literally kill, where everything was alive but pretending not to be, and where only sheer denial and ignorance had kept everything in check. Lethal panic would have struck the human race had not the majority of human beings resisted this new acceptance of reality. The bulwarks of religion and outdated 'science' kept disaster to a minimum. The preponderance of human artifact-life and their desire to maintain the status quo also helped prevent sudden changes to the state of the physical world.

However, given the new limitless power, some fundamental changes eventually did take place to our world. Electricity worked a lot better, and could be stored more easily, to both object's and human's mutual satisfaction. Health maintenance became entirely holistic, and extremely effective. Gravity became optional, transportation more fantastic, and most jobs were truly 'automated'. People had a lot more time on their hands, and the arts flourished in new collaborative forms between the artist and the medium.

The fundamental rights of objects and animals and everything else was delineated in new Bills of Rights. Governments that refused to comply found themselves with absolutely nothing rather quickly, as everything but the humans moved away. People who beat their pets or destroyed their things wantonly were abandoned by both. Wild animal life got a little antsy and started actively reclaiming vasts expanses of land and water. Fortunately buildings grew more spacious and comfortable. Cities grew taller, more congenial, and cleaned themselves. Property was out, 'companionship' was in. Things were asked to move on their own and usually complied. Junkyards were transformed into object ancestor shrines. Recycling became a religion of reincarnation, practised by many manufactured goods.

Vegetarianism grew but meat was never eliminated. Knowing all foods, even table salt, possessed life, forced arguments about the moral dilemma of eating into Darwinian terms. People ate living things, animals ate living things, plants ate living things. Food was a matter of perspective. Even the revival of ancient human religions that honored the life inherent in all things couldn't prevent the simple needs for sustenance. While many forms of animal breeding were curtailed, domestic food animals continued to be hunted down by feral knives, guns, and farm machinery.

But human beings maintained the upper hand in adaptability, intelligence, and by most measures, degree of sentience. Their dominion of the earth was unabated, although better informed. Human beings called the shots on the development of new 'things'. Their acceptance or rejection continued to force evolutionary changes on everyday objects. The moon was colonized by 138,895 forms of life, according to the Panspecies Geneva Conventions, but human beings decided to go, and chose who would accompany them. Thus was the solar system colonized. Humorously, the quest for extra-stellar life was curtailed as there was already plenty of animate sentient life now at home.

This sybaritic relationship, with human beings clearly holding the reins, lasted almost a thousand more years, until it came to an abrupt end when the sun got severely depressed, decided it was sick of it all, and killed itself.

The Sword Swallower

2009-09-08T20:48:00.000-05:00

The Sword Swallower

A sideshow came to town, and opened its small tents to all who had a spare coin and a moment to laugh and wonder. An old woman, her hair as gray as an elephant, her back as bent as a monkey’s tail, came to see the sights. She walked past the loud barkers with the balls and the bats, ignored the fat lady and the strong man both, strayed far from the one who was half and half - dress on one side, pants on the other. But she stopped by the striped curtain of the sword swallower, and went in.

”I will swallow this dagger of iron,” the sword swallower said, sliding the sharp blade past his lips. The old woman didn’t clap.

“I will swallow this stick of fire,” the sword swallower said, pushing the flames down his throat. The old woman didn’t clap.

“I will swallow this sword of steel,” he said, and made it disappear into his guts. The old woman didn’t clap.

“Didn’t you like the show?” asked the performer.

“But you always pull them out right away,” sighed the old woman. “In and out, in and out. How about one swallowed long ago?”

- from Abel's Fables, by Jason Messinger

The String and The Pearl

2009-08-31T12:50:00.001-05:00

The String and The Pearl

A string of pearls once hung round a woman’s throat. The woman liked to hold them in her hands, and feel their smooth surety. These are my lucky pearls, she thought, and liked them best of all her things.

The woman was leaving a place alone, as sometimes was her way, when a raven saw her. Look at those grubs, the raven thought, as he watched the pearls with hunger. The bird swooped down and grabbed the string, the woman shouting loudly. The string ripped, the pearls fell down, strewing the ground with small white seeds.

These are not grubs, thought the bird. My lucky pearls, thought the woman, and gathered them up in her glove, sliding them down the empty fingers, like a tasseled purse. She left the raven only the pearl in his mouth and the broken piece of string. The raven took the string to line his nest, and coughed up the fat pearl to one of his chicks.

"More!' cried the chick. "More!"

- from Abel's Fables, by Jason Messinger

The Sausage and the Coal

2009-08-21T22:59:00.003-05:00

The Sausage and the Coal

A sausage was placed on a grill by a hungry man.

I will cook this sausage until it is charred and crispy, thought the man, saliva on his tongue. He turned the sausage with a long fork and pricked its skin. The juices ran down and hit a hot coal.

The sausage thought, I wish I was that hot coal, then the man wouldn’t eat me.

The coal sizzled from the hot juices and thought, I wish I was that sausage, then I wouldn’t fade away.

The man turned the sausage and thought, I wish I had another sausage.

- from Abel's Fables, by Jason Messinger

The Sweet Smith

2009-08-15T14:02:00.002-05:00

The Sweet Smith

There was a place where a sweet smith lived, who made sweets for children and adults. He made sweets as yellow as sunshine, and as dark as earth. Sweets as finely carved as insects, and as crudely shaped as rocks. Some were small like raindrops, others large as millstones. Some were as thin as a spider’s web, others as brittle as a wasp nest. But all were as sweet as the honey bee’s home, as sweet as your first secret kiss, as sweet as a baby’s ten toes. The sweet smith delighted everyone with his creations, but especially himself.

Now in this same place was a woman who knew all the names of everything, and all the words ever written, and all the ways that this becomes that, and that becomes this. But one thing always eluded the woman, one thing she could not learn. What was inside her own heart? At last the woman decided that perhaps someone else could see what eluded her, so she found the sweet smith and gave him a request. "Make me a sweet that is filled the same as my own heart."

The sweet smith looked in his recipe books, and searched through his shelves. He went a great distance for the things he needed, and spent a long time perfecting his plan. At last he made the sweet, and called the woman in.

"Here it is," said the sweet smith. "Here is the sweet, filled the same as your own heart."

"Ah," said the woman who picked it up, then put it down, then turned around and left.

"Wait," cried the sweet smith, "don’t you want to taste?"

"You eat it," smiled the woman, walking away.

- from Abel's Fables, by Jason Messinger

Michael Jackson Was a Fembot!

2009-08-04T11:48:00.013-05:00

Michael Jackson Was a Fembot!

New evidence has been released that the recent death of the super pop-cultural celebrity, singer and entertainer Michael Jackson was a hoax. The actual Michael Jackson tragically died in 1977 when he contracted a fatal case of Legionnaires' Disease while performing with the Jackson Five at a Veteran's Hospital Benefit in the nations Capitol. Scheduled to star in The Wiz, Walt Disney Imagineers created what many experts are now saying was the most successful robotic hoax since Joseph Stalin, which mesmerized the USSR for over a decade.

US News and Entertainment Corp released information that reveals that since Michael Jackson's actual death in 1977, the entertainer we knew and collectively adored was actually a robot-like animatronic device engineered by the scientists of Disney World Industries. Over time the marvelous singing-dancing-squeeking device was revised and improved upon to add new dance moves and more life-like qualities. While the verisimilitude of each new model was improved, the entire line of robotic devices has been plagued by internal computational inconsistencies and slip-shod construction, resulting in bizarre public displays and inconsistent physical characteristics.

First envisioned in the late fifties, when the untimely death of teen star icon James Dean showed the movie industry the critical financial incentive to keep their stable of greatest stars 'alive', even when they actually died, robotic devices have captivated the American Public for many decades. Starting with Elizabeth Taylor, the first successful pop stars to be 'resurrected' through the miracle of feminized robotic devises, or "Fembots", enjoyed lengthy careers unhindered by the actual mechanics of living. These synthetic creations became the actual puppets for CEO's of the entertainment industry, creating pure revenue streams easily hidden through creative accounting coupled with public stories of profligate spending by those 'crazy entertainers'.

Designed to capitalize on pop culture's whims, Michael Jackson was the first successful male version of the Fembot, although many argue that the designers never got past their earlier influences. While later versions added more complicated movements and longer interaction-simulations, many experts now argue that the best version of the Michael Jackson doppleganger was perfected for the production of the film The Wiz. Later versions had been famously marred by programming glitches and poorly reasoned PR campaigns, as when Never Land Ranch was created to make the Michael Jackson robot seem more sympathetic to children.

Not only the dance-moves and physical gestures, but the general appearance of the Michael Jackson impersonating machine was modified over the years to reflect a changing taste for a "whiter" entertainer, as determined by focus groups for the Disney Corporation that met to rate the success of their Michael Jackson idol. Later efforts to humanize the device, with short term marriages and adopted children, have been met with limited success, says an expert in social-imagineering who worked at Disney World but can not reveal his identity pending Federal Investigation.

While many may have been easily dupped by the sly ingenious simulacrums, known Fembot and mother of ex-wife Lisa Marie, Pricilla Presley may still be called to testify at upcoming congressional hearings on the preponderance of artificial entertainment idols being marketed to the American public. Congress is expected to focus on whether Chinese manufacturers are partly to blame for our cherished illusions finely being pierced. Alleged master criminal Diana Ross faces up to two hundred and fifty consecutive life sentences for her part in the vast fraudulent conspiracy against the American buying public.

In related news, President Barack Obama sat down for a beer last week with Henry Louis Gates and Sergeant James Crowley, the police sergeant who arrested Gates. Sergeant Crowley called his beer "too warm", Dr. Gates complained his beer was "too cold", but President Obama called his beer "just right", thus ending over three hundred years of racial tension in America.

The Insect Diviner

2009-07-30T10:11:00.002-05:00

The Insect Diviner

A woman could tell the future by looking at insects. When the grasshoppers flew she knew winter would be hard, when a ladybug landed on her she knew there would be a fire upwind, when a beetle crawled by she saw a birth, or a death, depending. When a butterfly landed she saw marriage, if a moth she saw divorce.

One day the king of insects heard of this woman’s strange gift and called on her. He flew from his hot climate to her cool land. It took a very long time, and the king was tired by the end.

Would you like some flower nectar? asked the woman, when she met the king of insects.

Why yes, said the king, who lapped the sweet syrup.

Would you like to relax on this sweet cushion? asked the woman.

Why yes, sighed the king, who settled on the cotton.

What else would you like? asked the woman, hovering overhead.

I’d like to know what you see in me, asked the king. What future do I show you?

Fame, said the woman, as she slid the needle in.

From "Abel's Fables" by Jason Messinger

Vanishing

2009-07-18T15:02:00.003-05:00

Vanishing

Once upon a time, a young woman fell so much in love with herself that she was able, without any applied focus, to make others disappear from her gaze. Vanish into sunlight and shadow and vista. First they’d grow soft, a slight pull at the corners of her eyes. Then blur, in and out, like a guttering flame, or blowing snow. Then poof, they’d be gone, usually forever. Nobody there ever again. The woman never noticed, she was involved, she was in love, she was herself.

One day this woman encountered a man with a mane of hair that shone like the night sky, and eyes so soft they almost hurt to look at, and on the back of the third knuckle of his right hand lay a diamond so icy she thought she heard a crack in the air. She had noticed him. And now instead of one, the two of them filled her gaze. No one else. Him And Her. Her And Him. A perfect fit.

The man had a different eye than her. He noticed, without any particular effort, everything around him, every last little thing. In every direction he looked, he saw details tripping over themselves. Every place a brocade of patterns and precision. Every person a map of gestures and meanings. Every moment a symphony. And because of this, the man was utterly in love with everything, indiscriminate. Including a young woman so beautiful she grayed anyone near her. They were a perfect fit.

From this union, they made a child. A beautiful girl, neither vain nor worldly, who instead loved every last little detail of what was already gone. Every second of moments lost. Every speck of the past buried. When she grew up, she chose to chronicle the past, to share all her joys, all her terrors, all that she loved. She told me this story, with relish.

When the child, who was called 'Sunshine', 'Sweetness', and 'Honey-my-knees', was seven years and seven months and seven days old, she saw her beautiful mother before a mirror. A mirror so flat, so perfect, before it one forgot who was the face and who the glass. From this mirror, her mother’s face stared back at the girl, through her, as if she wasn’t there. Until the girl’s anxious kiss awakened her mother, who looked at her daughter and asked in surprise, “Where did you come from, Honey-my-knees?”

Every year after that, the girl watched her mother become thinner and thinner, until she was as thin as carpets, as blankets, as paper. And then it seemed her mother fell into her mirror, and disappeared from view. Like the edge of a horizon, or the path behind your shoulder, or the thing you forgot to recall. And sometimes the girl would notice her mother, out of the corner of her eye. And her mother noticed her, like a ship sailing into view. Then they’d wave or kiss or blow the air around each other. Never quite hitting. Like clouds, or hummingbirds.

It was during those rare moments that the daughter always pictured her mother together with her father. Two sides of one face, two planes of one hinge, like the kiss of earth and sky. And all around them the details grayed, until the daughter's memories of them were distilled from place and time and circumstance. Until the couple stood alone, a truth eternal. Him And Her. Her And Him. A perfect fit.

When the father fell ill with sufferings, an endless list of aches and scratches, pains and pressures, the daughter could think only of her father who was. Her father who had been, with the soft eyes and the gentle voice. Not the man before her, who plucked at invisible menaces, and swore at his demons aloud. And so, without even trying, she made him disappear into his past. She fed him automatically, bathed his battered flesh coolly, turned his bed sheets down.

But on the day that the man noticed that everything around him, every last little thing, was turning, and drifting, and ending, into light, his daughter saw him directly. Looked into his eyes, which were so soft, so full of indiscriminate love, that they cut her heart in two. She called out to her mother, called her right out of the mirror, and the beautiful woman peeled from the glass just in time to see her husband’s eyes sink into ice. And poof, wife to widow. The beautiful woman cried tears so hot they bleached her blouse, wailed so deep it ripped her skirt, shook so hard she tore her shoes. Gave her grief all that she had lost, with nothing, and no one, else in view.

Then the beautiful widow took the ring off her husband’s finger, and slid in on her own, a perfect fit. And the daughter gave her mother a look that cracked the air.

“Give me the ring from my father’s hand, for I have tended him at his death, and ministered to his ailments, and suffered his indignities. Give me the memory of my father’s strengths, for I was his strength when he had none,” the daughter said.

“Who are you to ask for such a thing?” her mother demanded. “He was my other, my self-sworn, my match. His ring is mine, has always been. You can have all else in this room, but I keep that.”

“Then I shall count motes of dust in the air, and the threads on the blanket under his arms, and the hairs upon his head, until I know exactly what my worth is to you,” said the daughter, then she closed her father’s eyes, and made her mother vanish from her view.

When the mother turned seventy years and seventy months and seventy days old, she shook herself out, like a guttering flame, and suddenly was no more. It must be said that she hardly noticed, she was involved, she was in love, she was herself.

The daughter took her mother’s hand, which was as cold as ice, and slid off her father’s ring. She read at last what was written inside. Just her name. Sweetness.

That was just the kind the details she loved.

Tales of The Devil

2009-07-02T21:36:00.005-05:00

Tales of The Devil -

Magic Lantern Shows
One day the Devil decided that he would diminish the miracles of God in the eyes of Man, by helping them create their own miraculous things. The works of Man grew boundlessly, until the fact and fiction of all were suspect, until the truth and the artifice of any event was suspect to man’s own machinations. How could God show Man a miracle, when Man could create his own?

God, however, was one step ahead. With each step Man took in his own skills, with each map he made of his world, the revelation of God’s miracles expanded beyond his reach. Grew in every direction, outward, inward, through, between. The Universe grew larger, more complicated, filled with ever smaller elements. Ever more amazing things. The Devil spun in rage.

Elephants
One day the Devil decided that he would work on diminishing the work of God by helping Man see the value of their animals all dead. The pleasure and gain from the carcasses sold, or the pests destroyed. The devil knew that if man was alone of all God’s creatures, that it would be a self-created hell.

God however, was one step ahead. For when the last elephant died, in the last circus on earth, and the last elephant gnat with her, Man knew at last that they were not alone of all God’s creatures. No matter what lived on the planet with them.

For that legacy, however, the Children of Man were less forgiving, and the Devil rejoiced.

Popcorn Kernels
A long time ago some one invented a way of popping corn that made each kernel full of air. This so excited the people that it became a way of life for many, time and time again. Through many incarnations. Open fire, covered pit, coal stove, electric oven, microwave, convection air. At last the people invented a way to make the popcorn without the corn itself.

“Now is my chance,” the Devil thought, and he mocked the men, and said that even God could do better then that. So Man were spurned on to greater and greater zeal, and they expanded the size of the popcorn, refined and reshaped its texture, duplicated the splintered seeds into a hundred different flavors.

Over time Man forgot the actual taste of simple popped corn, and the endless variations of the Mans’ invented foods took over his ancestral diet. Eliminated their ancient agricultural dependencies. The word popcorn became synonymous with antique notions, and old-fashioned jokes, and, curiously, a specific type of oral sex. In this way a little joy was stolen.

But Man replaced it with something new, and that didn’t change anything between God and Man, so the Devil spun in rage.

The Slippery Glass Foot

2009-06-25T23:55:00.002-05:00

The Slippery Glass Foot

Once there was a princess who loved a horse so much that she forgot her fears and acted very rashly, attempting a jump her horse wasn’t prepared for. The spill caused her foot to smash into a million pieces, so the doctors replaced the foot with one made of glass. It was hard and cold and caught the light beautifully, but it was much too slippery for the princess to walk upon, so she spent her days in a large chair, her foot propped up for all to see.

When the princess grew older, she often peered into her glass foot, hoping to spy a vision of the prince she would wed, the life she would lead, the future she would gain. But all she saw was what was already before her, turned upside-down through her shapely glass arch, swollen through her five toes, stretched across her ankle.

When the princess died, exactly as large as her chair, but sadly, no greater, her foot was kept and treasured by the stable boys, who named her their patron saint, and would call on her to protect them from the misplaced hoof. Especially over ice.

As time passed her renown grew, until she became the Patron Saint of dancers, acrobats, tightrope walkers, sprinters, and all who relied on a sure foot. Miniature glass feet were worn around the necks of young ballerinas, for luck. And the story became that a girl could see the face of her true love inside the tiny foot, if only she looked hard enough, and truly, truly believed, while rubbing the slippery glass.

The Whole World is Gay Guide to Film - A Selection

2009-06-06T21:59:00.008-05:00

The Whole World is Gay ™
Guide to Film - a selection

The Wizard of Oz
Cult led by dead, spooky-voiced girl with bound breasts, also sacred opera of same name. Story of drag-queen suffrage illustrated in crushing domestication of a falling house and subsequent path to redemption by bubble-bath fairy gown, to the final burning of the broom and melting orgasm of the green spinster witch. Hunky dildo companions in fur, fabric, and steel, opium dance sequences, costumed dwarves, howling monkeys, and a primer lesson on the importance of the proper shoe, create the original model for all subsequent Gay Pride Parades.
Required attendance for all.
An Astounding Archtype

Auntie Mame
Auntie Mame offers a rich vein of the whole world is gay™ outlook. Gay son is offered to lesbian widow who sashays him through a world of 100% gay characters with fabulous costume changes and drag-queen pathos. In not one, but two versions, each more edifying than a weekend with Paul Lynn.
Rosalind Russell as Mame broad-hands her costars through a ‘who’s-out-next?’ life-sized Mousetrap! Game with flaming drinks, trapeze seating, and plunging glances. In version two, Lucille Ball does the impossible and tops Rosy’s over-the-wrist dinner-theater gayiety by turning it into a glycerin-lens wretched musical, with lesbian costar Bea Arthur to make it all fall into place.
Seven Shining Silver Stars Each

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Mary Poppins pseudo-sequel where the very gay Dick Van Dyke rides a fabulous parade float into Austria with a sweet fag-hag who isn’t really Julie Andrews after all, and two children who seem plump for the oven. With storm-trooper dance sequences and musical fruit salad, the film slips under the surface of the Brother’s Grimm, with Chitty as the pederast-perfect auto-bait so popular they build a town around it. Watch for pivotal dancing sex-toys sequence.
Four Wheels of Fun

Johnny Guitar
Cheek-bone goddess Joan Crawford proves she’s illuminated from the inside when her and her lesbian ex-lover battle over the heart of a town. With rampant cow-poked eroticism, heaving rifles and pistols, and the looming metaphor of the railroad all crashing into a mob crazed firefight, a wedding dress lynching, and a final Bitch Royale between the pointing chests of Mercedes Cambridge and Crawford. In this seminal role, Crawford forever pinned the role of shoulder pads in gay culture.
A Stunning Six Shooter Salute

The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Australian version of the Wizard of Oz, with the boy stuffed with sex, the boy in girl’s skin, and the secret daddy. With a lavender bus, a giant shoe, a carphological relic of a saint, lectures on transvestitism 101, gang-rape tenderness, a crazed ping pong cannon, several bad lip-synched performances, and better costumes than Auntie Mame.
Big Bumper Bananza

Scanners
Closeted homosexuals repress their sexuality so hard that the energy, once released, makes people’s heads explode. The psyexual scanners makes your nose bleed, your head hurt, your veins pop, your throat let loose a thunderous roar, and then the orgasm literally takes your head off. With super-steroid thick veins, the scanners jiffy-pop each other until they’re all gone. In sequel after sequel, watch for the heaving erotic conflicts between snarling pit-bull faces best seen in the vertical position, and then only in the dark. Big hit with the violence-porned as steaming carcass finales work their prosthetic best. One Pop Each, Three Pops for Series

To Wong Fu, With Love, Julie Newmar.
Outsider story of two heterosexual men (Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze), and their girlfriend (John Leguizamo) who pretend to be drag queens to fit it. Town of misfit toys pity them, wear red, hold hands.
Worth the Anthropology Class Time

Now Available through Amazon

2009-06-05T23:47:00.009-05:00

Jason Messinger Books
Now available Through Amazon

Amazon.com Widgets

Maui Love Letters
A romantic collection of poems and artwork
inspired by the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii.

Eating the Child Within
An entertaining collection based on classic children's fairy tales
reworked into adult poems of violence, lust, and betrayal.

Order books ON-LINE at Amazon
Or download PDF version Jason Messinger Bookstore

Sleeping Beauty

2009-06-02T00:13:00.000-05:00

Sleeping Beauty

"Gaffe! Wrong face! Hic!"
the spindle cries.
Line plays out,
twirling point pricks.
One drop - instruments.
Thread stops,
weaves asleep.
Frozen beauty,
the rose wreath,
cages rarely smell as sweet.

Kiss, quick breath, end, the cycle peaks.
Lips touch death,
spinning wheel starts.
Blind eyes, Prince Charmheart;
hero's role Fate's predrawn -
palm lines master,
the strings spun.
Spindles seek to do no wrong.

Oh Peteena

2009-05-22T15:40:00.002-05:00

Oh Peteena

Oh Peteena,
Teen and Pet.
Your fragile cast
of lash and tail.
Your quiet number.
Your avid fans.
All the places
you have been;
Zero Cool Nebraska,
Hasbro Japan,
stage and screen
and Xerox machine.

Signified inside
your Q-T tail,
your hithered eye.
Egyptian Goddess
in gentle white slavery.
Front leg girl
with the back leg story.
Oh Peteena
Tell me more

Cyclops Lover

2009-05-14T11:05:00.000-05:00

Cyclops Lover

Cyclops lover,
You put the third i
in irresistible.
You make the me
in remarkable.
You set the u
in undone.

That sharp little bit left

2009-05-10T12:34:00.004-05:00

That sharp little bit left

You moved after
you were orphaned
and we lost touch,
or was I shut out,
and either way
it was gone.

Some mistake I made
that was never mentioned
aloud
but broke it all
down to less than distance,
or convenience,
or time.
Less than any
excuse.

If only I could recall
with certainty,
but a thousand slights,
a hundred hurts,
countless unforgivables
cloud all my friendships.

All those things
we forget
to ask forgiveness for.

Was friendship the price
of death
or distance
or deeds undone
or was it something simpler
like sour lemons
or the feeling of nothing
between two and time?

I regret little.
But I regret that vine
allowed to wither.

That Song For You

2009-05-06T12:09:00.001-05:00

That Song For You

What is it about
those full women
who live life
like it’s the syrup
in a flower,
or a slow drag inhaled,
or pages of a book
under the shade?

Slowly, fully, alive.
They always get
exactly what they want.

BEDSIDE MANNER

2009-04-26T18:30:00.001-05:00

I’m glad I’m not a doctor
because my bedside manner
consists of saying,
“You be careful now,
I hear that can kill.”

THE FROG PRINCE

2009-04-15T16:20:00.006-05:00

The Frog Prince

Princess by a lily pond
like a pearl in its bed
of soft oyster flesh.
Sitting with her chastity
tight with pride.

Toss her golden ball,
bright as maiden teeth,
heavy as an ovary
flushed with life.
Into the pool,
kerplunk.

Frog by a princess;
pretty as a tumor,
handsome as a scrotum.
Whispers, long sticky tongue
in her small scalloped ear.
Throat stretched to bellow
a contract, a bargain,
an exchange.

What does any girl have
that every toad lacks?
Rarer than diamonds,
sweeter than gold.
The caress of young love
on the ugly, the clammy,
the forgotten.

The oldest exchange
of goods for rewards.
Her toy returned
for his pleasure granted;
home to meet father
and talk of his daughter,
home to eat dinner
supped from her lips.

Home to her bed
to lie down beside her.
Green skin to white flesh
rolling in silk sheets,
slick with affection
and warty desires.

Loathing her self
as much as her suitor
she hurls the green spoiler
against a wall ,
kersplat.

The gore transforms
into a prince.
But elderly,
with bulging eyes,
and liver spots,
and sagging skin
beneath his neck.

He smiles the grin
of the dispossessed
who find themselves
in control, at last.
And has a chain made
for the golden ball
to wear in his pocket
like a lump of sugar.
To always tempt her
for his pleasure.
To bind her close
to his moist skin.

What bauble fetches
youth into folly?
Who gives the attention?
Who gets the reward?
Give back my youth
in a shower of kisses.
Give me your promise
and I’ll take you to bed.

- From Eating the Child Within,
Download "Eating the Child Within"
for Kindle - only $7.99
Eating the Child Within Kindle Version

Order print edition or Download PDF @
Jason Messinger Bookstore

ASHENPUTTLE

2009-04-06T22:44:00.010-05:00

Ashenputtle

Here is quiet
locked in the body by the hearth.
Resolve a fine lace
worn thin around her heart.
Where is pride
when shoes are rags,
when clothes are as patched
as freedom?

Here is spite,
the stepmother archetype,
her brood of jealousy.
Worked into the frenzied cruelty
of the well dressed,
the well heeled,
the socially ambitious.
Who dares to travel
to the Prince’s Ball?
Here is pride
as tart as vinegar.

Here is vanity, genie bottle,
maternal substitute,
beauty makeover.
The great mirror
in which dark is light,
gourds are carriages,
mice are stallions,
rags are haute couture.
Where is modesty
when you’re better accessorized
than Barbie?

Here is gaiety
for the King’s best son;
the whirligig,
the swooning girls,
a real gas.
Fetching as a pumpkin pie,
succulent partner
with the fireplace eyes.
Dream date romance,
truer than Harlequin’s,
dry as ash.

Here is modesty-
Midnight bell,
the virgin’s best friend.
Chastely, quickly,
fleeing into poverty.
Carriage rots,
stallions squeak.
Her only trace
Chanel number 5
and the best looking shoe
in the world.

Here is obsession
for the riches and glory
of the perfect foot
for the perfect shoe.
So pretty it hurts.
A brutal rite,
a fainting bind,
a bloody stump.
Here is obsession
as clear as glass.

Here is happiness
like a sieve.
Foot fetish marries
the cleaning compulsive.
What love lasts when beauty fades?
The sullen remorse,
the childless castle,
the hateful family.
Perfect.
To bed by midnight
in glass slippers.

What price a dream
without practicality?
Who cares for cake
without a meal?
Here is hope
a dusty treasure
murmured softly,
longingly,
by the fire.
Crystal clear.

From EATING THE CHILD WITHIN
Download "Eating the Child Within"
for Kindle - only $7.99
Eating the Child Within Kindle Version

Order BOOK or download PDF
Jason Messinger Bookstore

EATING THE CHILD WITHIN

2009-04-01T23:42:00.009-05:00

Eating the Child Within
New poetry collection now published!
A dark collection of poetry based on classic children's fairy tales,
reworked into adult stories of violence, lust, and betrayal.

Come under these wings and listen,
to voices that sing from our bones.
The young ravens full of innocence
as they tear at Prometheus’ gut.

Memory’s shrouded in stories,
a birthright that swaddles our view.
A three-headed dog in ecstasy laps
his master’s handful of dust.

Childhood’s woven from fictions,
a history changed into stone.
A snake writhes in joy in a garden,
devours the child within.

Come under this cloak of protection,
myths of our past made anew,
heroes that murder in kindness,
beasts that step out of their skins.

Come into these woods and listen,
our primal emotions transformed,
those old gods into new royalty,
our fears into slippers and wolves.

Download "Eating the Child Within"
for Kindle - only $7.99
Eating the Child Within Kindle Version

Review book ON-LINE,
and order BOOK or download PDF
Jason Messinger Bookstore

Hansel & Gretal

2009-03-31T07:57:00.003-05:00

Hansel and Gretal

Hunger breeds infanticide -
cast off children, lack of bread.
Bellies empty, strew a path -
Brother Grim and Sister Dread.

Winged angels devour the crumbs -
Poverty, a forest dense.
Paradise in a sweetbread house -
sugarsnare and baked men fence.

Flesh eater, the evil witch -
death head with a crooked nose.
Fattens boy like a suckling pig;
just a man, his belly grows.

Duplicity, the girl plays dumb;
makes witch act out the wrong from right.
Revenging pasts, she cooks the hag -
German ovens burn so bright.

- From Eating the Child Within,

Download "Eating the Child Within"
for Kindle - only $7.99
Eating the Child Within Kindle Version

Order book ON LINE or Download PDF
Jason Messinger Bookstore

Hmmmm

2009-03-26T20:39:00.004-05:00

Hmmm

There is a moment
in the life
of a hummingbird
where it feels that it’s heart
can beat no more.
His wings pinned back
in endless speed,
the swing again,
again,
again.

An endless flow of susurration,
close and to the shoulder.
That moment of submission,
when will expires
before the need,
when life conspires
to self-destruct.

But on it beats,
that devil heart,
to live
and live
and live.

Other Jason Messinger Sites

2009-03-21T01:15:00.003-05:00

If you enjoy Jason Messinger Writes,
you might also enjoy these sites:
JasonMessingerArt.blogspot.com
JasonMessingerArt.com
ArtistsOfChicago.blogspot.com
Crazy8Art.com

thanks for following!

STORYTELLING

2009-03-16T09:13:00.006-05:00

Storytelling

Oh father,
what glib stories you did tell;
the Man Who Farted Songs!
The Penny Through a Skull
when dropped from the top
of Empire State -
where once you hung suspended
afraid to fall
from your father's grasp.

When I was your small child
there was
no pretense of the large mysteries;
no Santa Claus,
no Jesus Christ,
but smaller miracles;
The Birthday Puppies!
Green Lantern's Dashlight!
The Psychic Bullets!

The Rats Who Ate the Paint
and left bright turds
of rainbow hues-
viridian footballs,
alizarin crimson,
ultramarine.

The Garden Which Grew
On Its Own Accord!
Baby corn, sugar peas,
honeydews.
Those childhood illusions
more cherished than
the Easter Bunny,
more precious than
the Burning Bush.

Twelve years until I realized
you planted those seeds -
the furrowed earth,
my mother's womb,
my own imagination.

Some gifts I would return:
the awkward gait,
the squinting eyes,
that gene for sloth;
but one I've kept
close.

I hang suspended
from my father's grasp,
about to float free.
Unfettered by truth.
Open to
the world's illusions.

*******

From STORYTELLING - a semi-autobiographical poetry collection from the author of "Eating The Child Within" and "The Insect Diviner". Covering topics as diverse as detecting a ghost, losing a friend, or discovering the stories you learned as a child were falsehoods, or as current as Binti Jua - the Gorilla who caught a falling child, American consumerism, and the Golf Oil disaster, Jason Messinger's words "glint like sunlight off fish scales beneath a tumbling creek."

Storytelling in PRINT

Storytelling as PDF File Download

Storytelling on KINDLE

LINES

2009-03-07T16:20:00.000-06:00

Lines

I worried the bridges
over my brows,
creased into darkness.
Does the crease have a name?
The valley of flesh
where shadow cleaves skin?

Here in my navel
three little wrinkles,
pinched balloon end.
Do the wrinkles have names?
The track of descent
where union's mark ends?

Across my palm there
lies a map of trails,
of tiny roads.
Are the path's names unknown?
A glimpse of our fate,
the shape of our prints?

My cheek gets furrowed,
is banded in sleep
from pillows and fist.
What do you call those
angry traces?
The name of that
painful kiss?

AND I AM WOUND

2009-03-03T20:54:00.001-06:00

"LANDING" from Maui Love Letters

2009-02-18T11:18:00.005-06:00

"Maui Love Letters" is a collection of poems and artwork inspired by the romantic island of Maui, Hawaii.
Order book ON LINE or Download PDF
Jason Messinger Bookstore

"Jason Likes To" Google Game

2009-02-12T23:47:00.003-06:00

"Jason Likes" Google Game
In this game; one inserts their first name into the search "____ likes to" on Google. The name Jason was rich with listings. Here is the best of over 60 pages of links. Note: I did not write these, they are actual quotes from web sites.

Jason likes to drink a lot
Jason Likes to Draw Houses
Jason likes to keep active on the weekends
Jason likes to throw stones
jason likes to analyze the mainstream
Jason likes to play hockey and surf
Jason likes to wear Pumas
Jason likes to hang out with friends and check out new bands.
Jason likes to begin by explaining why he feels he's something of an odd ...
Jason likes to go to school and his favorite subjects are social studies and science
Jason likes to relax with his guitar, go surfing, and rock climb
Jason likes to take photographs of Alaska to show the rest of the world just how beautiful God's Country can be
Jason likes to do all loan types
Jason likes to get a reaction out of people
Jason likes to play the piano, run, play tennis, watch television and visit amusement parks
Jason likes to wield sharp cutlery while in his skimpy underwear
Jason likes to answer as many questions as possible
Jason likes to focus on participant enjoyment and safety
Jason likes to: Hypnotize his audiences
Jason likes to splash out and says he's lucky to have money to spend on entertainment, clothes, holidays and cars
jason likes to pawn of his gf on other men in classy bars in Hoboken
Jason likes to use rollers and brushes on garage door
Jason likes to use the round bread and wheat crackers
Jason likes to tease his mother that he graduated from high school twice
Jason likes to start the day with a breakfast of strawberries and champagne
Jason likes to argue with people on message boards
Jason likes to search for the paranormal
Jason likes to add a little bit at first, then perhaps more if it ain't sweet
Jason likes to be spanked
Jason likes to say that he would have it rain at every school if it were possible
Jason likes to read technology and sci-fi books,
Jason likes to drop by in person, just to show the flag
Jason likes to dress well
Jason likes to drink
Jason likes to call him a free range chicken
Jason likes to be needed, as well as to cherish and protect his loved ones, of whom he is somewhat possessive
Jason likes to use the word porno a lot
Jason likes to play hacky sack Video
Jason likes to pour in some olive oil and fish stock
Jason likes to eat his shirt
Jason likes to go to his well often, untether his pony, saddle up
Jason likes to be among his fellows Jews on TV
Jason likes to study grasshoppers and ants
Jason likes to hide in different places and come out after me when I get home from work
Jason likes to make scary faces
Jason likes to go on and on about his life and trials and now supposed riches
Jason likes to think of his truck as a sleeper
Jason likes to have fun
Jason likes to take spontaneous trips through various wormholes throughout the universe
Jason likes to drive fast
Jason likes to watch cooking shows and even prepares meals sometimes
Jason likes to cut them in half and sprinkle lemon juice on them before gobbling up
Jason likes to see the girls there
Jason likes to cross-dress for the lens
Jason likes to cover expeditions to the top of Mt Everest
Jason likes to play the part of drums
Jason likes to please and wants to do well at home and school
Jason likes to dig stuff up
Jason likes to wank his winkler
Jason likes to give back to different charities
Jason likes to have their races video taped
Jason likes to think that he's really manly, but he actually looks at pictures of cute little kittens every morning
Jason likes to do the things that are hard and new
Jason likes to buy some of his "Elvis threads"
Jason likes to lurk in abandon cabins
Jason likes to get under the skin of an organisation
Jason likes to shoot
Jason likes to use his brain when at work
Jason likes to "sound-off" about whatever he is feeling or looking at
Jason likes to root whoever is behind
Jason likes to detail his model farm as much as possible so that it replicates the real farm
Jason likes to use his bicycle as his primary mode of transportation
Jason likes to do it a bit more twisted
Jason likes to sum up his passion for the law in two words, “Law & Order”
Jason likes to debate
Jason likes to sleep with his arms straight up in the air
Jason likes to think he knows what he is talking about
Jason likes to just cut the heads off roses
Jason likes to laugh at himself
Jason likes to bet against any tip provided by a sad-sack
Jason likes to treat general medical conditions that have failed to respond to conventional Western medical approaches
Jason likes to do whatever his brother does
Jason likes to act tough
Jason likes to embellish his stories with lies to make them funny
Jason likes to play the dark side
Jason likes to work independently and gets frustrated in a group setting
Jason likes to be neat and clean and keeps his room relatively clean as well
Jason likes to shock but its pathetic
Jason likes to torture us by frankeling up the bathroom
Jason likes to buy really expensive things, and not really ever use them
Jason likes to take his old trusty mandolin out of his attic and carol the neighbors
Jason likes to take things too far
Jason likes to carry machetes
Jason likes to put people in a position to succeed by structuring nutrition and training programs around the individual
Jason likes to decorate
Jason likes to eat cereals with the kids
Jason likes to hear himself talk
Jason likes to cut through the crap and get to the heart of the matter
Jason likes to keep his options open
Jason likes to worship basketball players
Jason Likes to Drinky-Drinky
Jason likes to feature lesser used, but no less flavorful, cuts of meat and fish
Jason likes to think he can do anything, even if he knows he can't
Jason - likes to collect parking meters
Jason likes to sunbathe
Jason likes to feel on men’s butts
Jason likes to dress up in his Starfleet uniform
Jason likes to practice his "listening" look when given direction
Jason likes to wear women's' underwear on his head
Jason likes to feel important
Jason likes to experiment with out-of-the-ordinary cuts of meat
Jason likes to be admired for his sexual power, and attraction, as well as his physical beauty
Jason likes to eat paper, pine needles, leaves, small pieces of plastic
Jason likes to talk sh*t about my mom
Jason likes to feel important
Jason likes to take a cold one into the bathroom while he showers
Jason likes to store his anger up and then kill and bury someone in the wood pile about once every ten years or so
Jason likes to sleep in our bed sometimes
Jason likes to read classic literature in nightclubs to pass the time
Jason likes to wear frilly dresses and wigs, and calls himself Shirley
Jason likes to hover around the slot so he can use his heavy slapper
Jason likes to get in trouble
Jason likes to play power chords
Jason likes to give until it "hurts"
Jason likes to serve them with Pommes (little potato ball things)
Jason likes to talk
Jason - Likes to drown himself in soda
Jason likes to get naked
Jason likes to play the Ukulele
Jason likes to include Lawyer (as do I) on our every day chores
Jason likes to douse his with balsamic vinegar.
Jason likes to rub my arm or my leg- it makes me nuts sometimes
Jason likes to make us feel awkward on the show sometimes so he makes up hypothetical situations for us to contemplate
Jason likes to say, perfect is the enemy of good
Jason likes to invite hobos into his house and kill them, then do puppet shows with the corpse
Jason likes to pass the time as well, but it consists of hacking teens to bits
Jason likes to make assumptions rather than research facts
Jason likes to drink alcohol to excess and wear gold man-thongs
Jason likes to holiday in the dead sea as it is very good for the skin
Jason likes to spin in the swing chairs at the camp
Jason likes to smoke a cigar after dinner
Jason likes to look his best
Jason likes to put things on fire
Jason likes to prove that she/he/it can be more stupid today than he was yesterday
Jason likes to buy odd ingredients for recipes he finds online that he will never actually cook
Jason likes to spend his day inside, focusing his energy and vision
Jason likes to hit women
Jason likes to answer as many questions as possible
Jason likes to fish with heavy duty head lamps and big leach patterns at night
Jason likes to chew on the Valvoline bottles (after they’re empty)
Jason Likes to be pounded in the ass by well hung European men
Jason likes to buy 8-millimeter educational films on Ebay and project them during shows
Jason likes to make about 400gr of dried pasta cooked and then served with thick tomato soup as sauce and layered with cheese
Jason likes to splash
Jason likes to argue they’re his too
Jason likes to help put them back in, but then spill them all over again
Jason likes to laugh to either get attention or he just gets so excited
Jason likes to eat at fancy restaurants, followed by an evening at the opera
Jason likes to say with a big smile on his face, "In magic, anything is possible."
Jason likes to watch me get kicked
Jason likes to call me his Little Peacock
Jason likes to get value for money and felt a bit ripped off by the quality of the hotel and its staff
Jason likes to make, what I call, 'concoctions' in the kitchen
Jason likes to respond by gasping dramatically and saying, "He is?? OH NO! Where'd it GO!"
Jason likes to talk dirty and he does plenty of that
Jason likes to call others Trolls
Jason likes to feel superior to him and that's why he does that
jason likes to sniff rolly polly camel
Jason likes to point out that Jefferson and Adams died on the same day
Jason likes to think of himself as an intimidating example of manly Christian scholarship
Jason likes to make a bad thing even worse by singing along
Jason "Likes to get the gloating over with early"
Jason likes to mess with people's mind
Jason likes to have all the latest toys

"BURST" from Maui Love Letters

2009-02-11T00:16:00.004-06:00

From "Maui Love Letters" - a collection of original poetry and drawings
inspired by Maui, Hawaii
Order book ON LINE or Download PDF
Jason Messinger Bookstore

"Vista III", from Maui Love Letters

2009-02-05T16:53:00.004-06:00

Order book ON LINE or Download PDF
Jason Messinger Bookstore

"Sugar Cane" from Maui Love Letters

2009-02-05T16:44:00.005-06:00

Sugarcane

Call it sweet,
the way you taste.
Our lips touch
at the shore.

Our love is
a bag of change
inside a candy store.

********
Order book ON LINE or Download PDF
Jason Messinger Bookstore

"Banana Bread" from Maui Love Letters

2009-02-01T12:47:00.005-06:00

Banana Bread

Sweet loaf sweet
better than meat.
Fragrant and warm
and golden brown.

Soft as a squeeze,
my knees in your knees,
when the foil tin
lies empty.

Thick-sliced bliss,
a mouthful of kiss,
a pleasure sweet
and plenty.

Order book ON LINE or Download PDF
Jason Messinger Bookstore

MAUI LOVE LETTERS

2009-01-31T13:40:00.011-06:00

"Maui Love Letters" is a romantic collection
of poems and artwork inspired by
the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii.

Order book ON LINE or Download PDF
Jason Messinger Bookstore

Foiled Again; from PARTY GAMES

2009-01-17T13:20:00.008-06:00

Mr X - “You should have seen him last night. First he wakes me up out of bed and makes us come to his house for dinner.”
Mr Y - “Begs us.”
Mr X- “Then he expects us to sit on the porch, when it’s freezing out!”
Mr Y - “We had to borrow sweaters and jackets.”
Mr X -“He says he’s gonna stir-fry, but he doesn’t make it, and he doesn’t make it, and we get hungrier and hungrier.”
Mr Y - “We were starving.”
Mr X -“Then finally he orders in. ”
Mr Y -“We had to insist.”
Mr X -“Then he spills the whole bottle of champagne I brought!”
Mr Y -“On top the video I brought to watch. We finally left when he broke that champagne glass.”
Mr X -“Oh, it was a priceless moment. He had just gotten done telling us how expensive and nice a set they were, and how he had only four left, and he couldn’t replace them. Then blam! He knocks it with his elbow and it goes crashing!”
Mr Z -“Well, it sounds like he wanted you to leave.”
Mr W -“Sure. First he puts you out in the cold, then he doesn’t feed you.”
Mr Z -“Well the cold didn’t work! I know, I’ll just not feed them. Damn, I was sure that would work! What next? I’ve got it, I’ll spill the champagne!”
Mr W -“Drats! They still won’t leave! I didn’t want to do this, but I’m going to have to break a champagne glass!”
Mr Z -“But first I’ll tell the story of how it’s so expensive and rare…”
Mr W -“And if that doesn’t work, I don’t know what!”
Mr Z -“You’re lucky. You might have been axed through the head, behaving like that.”
Mr X -“Oh I knew all along what he was up to, but I wasn’t leaving, he got me out of bed!”

Brunette Corner; from PARTY GAMES

2009-01-17T13:16:00.008-06:00

Ms A: “She looks just like a witch, doesn’t she? She came with this guy who I’ve been flirting with seriously, and I invite him, and he says, can I bring a friend, and he brings this girl!”
Ms B: “She had to ask me if it was ok for her to use my bathroom! I mean, come on!”
Ms C: “Did you see what she was wearing?”
Ms A: “I swear, she looks just like a witch. I mean, just exactly like a witch.”
Ms B: “Can I tell you what I think? I can’t believe he brought her. That was so rude.”
Ms C: “She was so rude!”
Ms A: “Like if you were to describe a witch, she’d be it. ”
Mr D: “What’s she look like?”
Ms A, B & C: “She’s blonde.”

Doll Shoes, from PARTY GAMES

2009-01-17T13:12:00.009-06:00

Mr K was the kind of host who’d invite his friends over and then ignore them the whole evening, too busy trying to set the perfect mood. Never get it right, either. The music always too loud, the lights too dim, the snacks too slim. Even the drinks were weak. That kind of host. Happily, he acquired his décor entirely through gifts, so at least there was something to talk about.

His ideas of gifts were hardly that. Castaways best left where they lay, most of the junk. Many were received directly from alleys. No solid argument from his friends could ever mend this state. He lived on a slower-paced consumption, only acquiring through charity and chance. Admittedly, the décor had some intentioned style, no small feat on such restricted means of acquisition. But no matter how dark the lights and loud the music, the perfect mood was smothered amid the southern silk flowers and the dried roses, hung upside down in trophy from distant boyfriends, candle sticks above in holy supplication to our mother of wayward boys. Each rose bouquet of withered white or red heads numbered but six. Always the same. Six. This was the saddest fact of the party. If only there were twelve, just think the improvement in furniture.

“I think I’ll put on long pants,” Mr K the host said, or rather, “I think I should put on long pants, since all of you are wearing them.” Displacing the blame, of course. His guests all looked askance. Long pants, sure, but the evening had already been decided by shoes, why wasn’t he watching? Mr L had on a pair of black expensive sandals, exposing his heel, Mr N wore black expensive boots, with red stitch, and Mr M had cheap woven sandals the color of wood. Black sandals won, of course, but nothing topped the doll shoes. Their host Mr K wore them, below his long pants.

At first, nothing was said. The shoes said it all. Exactly like doll shoes. Black, with big cut-away sides, a skinny strap, a square toe. And thick, oversized soles, which exaggerated the resemblance. The giant beer bottle bank in the next room pointed to their being some odd salvaged store prop. Off a giant Raggedy Ann doll, perhaps.

Mr N named Mr L's black sandals winner of best-dressed shoe, while looking pointedly at the shoes of Mr K, their host. “And you have the largest lesbian shoe collection!” Mr N exclaimed.

“What are those, doll shoes?” Mr L asked, with the advantage of the best dressed. That’s when Mr M started laughing. He laughed the whole night. And even the next day, walking alone, thinking about something else all together. Mr K the host was terribly jealous of Mr M's woven sandals, since he had already won cheapest shoes, the title the host himself most craved.

“Thanks,” said Mr K, “for having such fun at my behalf.”

“You’re welcome,” this guest cried happily. The host spent most of the party in the kitchen, pouring pitcher after pitcher of those weak drinks into his own glass. But the end his eyes were slits.

The next day Mr K took Mr M to another party. Mr M wore his woven sandals again, in false pride. Mr K wore sneakers. Their hostess, Ms L, had fresh flowers, no silk, with dried flowers only as part of a picture frame. But she had even more candles burning then Mr K lit the night before. Kept the place hot.

By dessert the doll shoes came up, with some casual ribbing, and their hostess Ms L said, “but I loved those shoes! I helped you pick them out, remember?”

“We both did,” said her friend, Ms P. The one with the extra needs.

“Yes,” Mr K said, crossy, “But last night they called them …, (and here he paused, choosing his words with the utmost deliberation), …Gay shoes.”

“Gay shoes?” the couple sitting behind the hostess asked.

“Bless you!” Mr M said.

“No, gay shoes,” said Mr K.

“You mean those pretty Japanese ladies?” asked Mr M.

“But I loved those shoes,” said Ms L.

“I did too,” said Ms P, her friend with the extra needs. “They were so great!” she said.

“Doll shoes,” Mr M said, and explained to the couple in the corner how they looked. How the host had even worn them with thick white socks, which bunched down around.

“They were cute,” Ms L insisted. “You’re supposed to wear them with white socks.”

“I thought so,” said Mr K, indignantly.

“I thought so to,” said Ms P. “I had a pair just like it.”

“Yeah,” said Ms L. “I think I did too.”

Mr M laughed uncontrollably. “See!” he said, “That proves it! You shouldn’t wear them. For your own good.”

“What makes them gay?” asked the couple in the corner.

Walking home, Mr M warned Mr K to never wear the doll shoes again, as any friend would.

Years later, Mr K saw the old friend Mr M on a busy street. “You ruined my life!” Mr K cried, “You and those damned doll shoes!”

“You fool! I was looking out for you! I only told you the truth! I was being a real friend!”

“Did you have to make the movie about it?” Mr K asked, shaking his head.

The Mark, from LUCKY

2009-01-17T13:10:00.005-06:00

A few choice words about discovering bird guano on your shirt while standing in front of the ‘Sale!’ shoes that drew you into that damn shop in the first place, being the only thing there that might fit from among the feverish men’s merchandise stretched taut over mannequin bellies and bulges. Discovering it there on your shirt, sudden and close, below your right cheek, close to your neck, in a blind spot. There! Guano, brown and chunky. Then imagining for a moment it was the shopkeeper’s spittle, left when he noted your failed sneakers, fingers reaching to check your backpack. “Nothing here for you!” his face read, in style or in size, but perhaps he was just stunned by the bird crap, seemingly dropped only seconds ago. Or maybe it was, more horribly, the jettisoned last squirt of lunch’s tamale. Lingering there for hours, during that long crowded bus ride, vivid against the white shirt. And there, upon discovery, the mess wiped from hand to jeans to eye again, in sudden shame and revulsion. The stain left behind even more loathsome. A warning. A curse. Bad luck. Bad manners. The second bus trip spent wondering which.

Here’s the advice. Use a spot remover. Wash cold. If it doesn’t come out, you know.

Road Trip, from LUCKY

2009-01-17T13:07:00.008-06:00

Road trips began the day before we left. First a bright picture would be painted about our destination, then some food for the road packed, ending with strict admonishments about promptness the next morning. "We're leaving exactly at 8AM," and we'd hardly all be awake by then. If we left an hour after we planned it was considered a huge success of timing, two to three hours late was the norm. My siblings and I would jostle with the parents for bathroom space. Sharing one bathroom with six is no joking matter. A strange hierarchy would develop as we waited our turn, a cross between the privileges of age, sex, and whoever got there first. The first battle of the day, when characters were still rubbed down to the basics.

Whoever had actually been ready on time and impatiently waiting for everyone else would have the pleasure of the first snarling vindications. It was almost always one of us kids. We'd chant "It's 8 o-clock! Is everyone ready!! I'm ready!!! It's 8:15! When are we going!! You said we were going at 8!!! It's already 8:30! Lets just not go!! Come ON you guys! Were gonna' be LATE!!!" As the morning progressed more of us would jump on the "I've been ready" bandwagon. We'd then be able to shove the entire responsibility of our being late on the last sole member of the family. They'd be hurried into the gruelling ordeal of "we're leaving now with you or without you" as patience snapped like a rip cord through the family. Voices were raised, recriminations muttered, luggage fortified.

Finally we'd lurch outside, barking questions to each other on what we brought, what we forgot. (Invariably we forgot quite a bit and usually ended up circling back two or three times to pick up one last thing, before we'd finally leave the orbit of our home). The next ritual was now engaged, Position in the Back Seat. The windows were coveted, the two middle positions the grim consequence of not getting your way. Elaborate and constantly changing systems were created. Odd days for boy's choice, even days for girl's. Except it would have to switch because one of us realized there were more odd days in the year. So next month it would be odd days girl's, even boy's. Somehow even with switching it was always boy's day, or at least so the girls accused. There was the "switch on the way back" technique. No one had a clear consensus on what won that battle since the way back was the time when you really needed the support of the window seats to sleep against, but the view was best on the way out.

Eventually puberty determined positions as my stepsister and myself, the two oldest, were consequently the biggest and had most need of the extra leg room by the window seats. By the time all four of us couldn't fit in the back anymore we had dispersed like the tribes of Israel, stepsister and myself to college, stepbrother to his father's home, stepmother to medical school, father to business trips across the country, and sister with the sad luxury of an empty house and plenty of room in the car. But when all four of us sat in back we would jostle for the view, the floor, the seat, with the child's conviction that the present moment was everything, so take whatever you can get away with.

The accompanying game to Positioning was Territories. Seats were cruelly divided and the slightest crossing of these imaginary borders were greeted by shoves and complaints. "Quit hoggin the seat! Dad, he's taking up all the room!" Soon enough even crossing the line with one's eyes was too much.
"Stop looking at me! Mom, she's looking at me!!!". About this time the parents would bow their heads and discuss whether it was too early for Dramamine. "It's for carsickness," one of them would tell us, carefully doling out either a half or a whole pill to each of us, depending on our weight. We knew better after the first time. They were knock-out pills, pure and simple. My younger siblings' frames soon sprawled against each other, mouths agape and eyes closed, small snores music to our parent's ears. My stepsister decided not to take them, carefully pretending to swallow then spitting the white pill out. If any one of us caught her, we'd rat for sure, so she became extremely crafty, slyly removing them from her mouth with the studied assurance of a secret agent. I suspected my sister stored them up for recreational use, but I was never sure. As we aged their narcoleptic effects were diminished. Or perhaps we just built up a tolerance.

Carsickness could occur, however, with my father's driving. He favored lurching with the brake, pushing our young guts up and down like a ride on the octopus at the amusement park. "When are we going to get there?" we'd fidget, our patience itching. "Stop looking at me!" It was about this time that my sister developed the Horrible Laugh which reached an incredible earsplitting high pitch, worse than fingernails across a blackboard. The Laugh would make everyone cringe uncontrollably, so was the perfect counter weapon. Make my sister laugh and watch the winces. The driver, who was usually my father, was clearly affected the worst. Unfortunately there was no appropriate punishment for laughing. Once we made my sister laugh while she was being spanked. She hung upside down over my father's knee as we made faces at her. Tears streamed down her face as she laughed louder and louder with each slap of her behind. It infuriated my father but my sister was caught in the uncontrollable hysteria of childhood and wouldn't come down for hours, like some cruel fairy tale. Back in the car, once nerves were shot by my sister's laugh, it was clearly time to get "rowdy" and "hyper", as the parents labeled our behavior.

First there would be nonsense songs and some taunting and cruel mimicry and then some insults and jokes, with much reference to farting. Actual farting didn't begin until after lunch or dinner on route, when we'd play the "not me" game, each of us loudly accusing the other, the real farter never letting on. "Sayers Layers!" we'd scream, "Every fox smells his own hole!" By the second or third stinker we'd corner my father or my stepmother as the culprits, then one of us would obviously let one go and the jig was up. Simultaneous farting from two of us was the real corker. The stronger the smell the worse we'd exaggerate its effects, rolling windows down and gasping theatrically, "Oh My God!", swooning from the aroma. Covering our faces with our hands and screaming with laughter. Once, at a roadside stop, my father agreed to light his fart for us. After some misfires, a small blue cloud of flame appeared for only a second but was enough to put us all in an epileptic seizure for hours.

The effect of several long hours in a car would try the nerves of a saint, and believe me, none of us were saints. At some point us kids would have a real fight and my father's arm would swoop back from the front of the car, blindly swatting the first knees he touched, his eyes on the road, driving one handed while my stepmother would gasp with the white knuckles of a truly convicted back seat driver. He'd turn to her and state "I'm never taking these kids anywhere again!" Then she'd turn to us, "See, now he's mad! See what you've done! Why can't you all learn to behave!" Guilt would rear its ugly head but we smashed it down like a milk carton beneath our heels; BOOM. "Do you want to get out of the car right now and walk home?" He'd ask us, glaring balefully as we yelled and giggled and dodged the ineffectual knee spankings. Sometimes he'd actually stop, "That's IT! You're walking home!" Whoever was by the window could then exercise the option of "talking back" and jump out of the stopped car screaming "FINE! I'LL WALK HOME! I HATE YOU ALL!" and hurriedly trot down the road. My father would back the car up quickly, "Get back in this car right now!" This small victory brought the price of later punishments, meted out with the insufferable inconsistency of all young parents who face the indomitable will of four children.

My stepmother would ask us to play some "nice games" like counting licence plates or some equally droll endeavor that couldn't entertain even the youngest. "I need to use the bathroom!" was the chorus that we shared, along with "When are we getting there?" and "Are we there yet?", or "I'm hungry-thirsty-bored-NEED TO GO RIGHT NOW!" "You should have gone back at the house (gas station, restaurant)," the parents would complain, but who could plan their pee like that, doling it out with such thoughtful foresight?

Sometimes we stopped at fresh vegetable stands and buy up boxes of drippy peaches or tart apples, messy and sticky. Of course there were never enough napkins. Other trips meant icy Cokes and spicy SlimJims at the gas station, especially appealing after dutifully tasting whatever overly healthy snacks my stepmother prepared, rusk crackers or pale cheese sandwiches or some tepid ginger ale. Depending on the newness of the car my father would get varying degrees of anxiety about having food actually in the car. "Don't drop anything!" he'd warn us, "Don't get anything on the seats. Don't spill any of that!" Once when his car was particularly new he admonished us not to put our dirty feet on the floor. We hovered our feet in the air while my stepmother told him some expectations were just unreasonable. My stepbrother once screamed, "Oh no!" after my father finished a tirade on spilling, just to see him look back frantically and weave the car across two lanes. We laughed just about forever on that one.

The trip back was the other, crueler half of our endeavor. Trips were always twice as long returning, and what we lacked in energy we'd make up in bitchiness. The vocal threat was replaced by sullen stares and hateful murmurs. As the journey home progressed the driver struggled against sleep with a muted radio and an open window while the rest of us collected drool on each other's shoulders. Darker, quieter, it was the long space in which all our hurts and angers and piques accumulated during the day were washed down by the heavy sleepiness of being overtired, or sunstroked. Or on cold winter nights being warmed too quickly by blasting heaters, always too strong in the back of the car.

In that space between boredom and exhaustion, when even fighting took too much effort, I'd often find myself staring at white fence posts on cow pastures rolling past, or at the thick woods looming up and overhead on both sides of the road. The road a green walled tunnel, climbing up and down hills, curving this way and that. Or at the white moth-ridden glow of the highway's streetlights rhythmically casting their pallid glow overhead, red lights blinking up and down the highway. I'd see other cars filled with families, asleep or silent, small faces looking back from another window into mine. By the time we arrived home the youngest couldn't be roused. Their bodies hung limp, nestled in my parents' arms as they carried them to bed.

I really can't recall most of the destinations, it was the trips themselves that we spent the most time at after all. Now I know that none lasted more then a few hours in the car at a time, but to the crawling time of a child it was a lesson in infinity. There would be a destination and some functions performed. Places explored and activities completed. Souvenirs purchased, foods eaten, beverages spilled, bathrooms created by the side of the road. But those didn't seem to matter as much as the voyage there and back, the family on the road. I wouldn't trade the memories for anything.