not far from New Orleans by lisa pasold

after It's a Fine Line by Jonathan Regier

Mobile and ramshackle, motorized vendors seek and hunt in their lust to sell without someone yelling “Taxi?” on foot. We are unheard of with almost equal frequency, establishing rapport with virtually no chance they understand. I ask them, "are you one of the tribe of Seraphim?" The next evening, I understand the situation better. Go hype thyself is the worser fortune. Without exception in the Mata Hari shopping mall, really fine coffee worth is almost half our lackluster currency, miscoloured by repeated cycles in fate's unsteady washing machine. At the final language barrier, Napoleon pastry in hand, the driver refuses the big yellow sheet, so we veer impolitely around the roundabout, striving oh justice not to fall from the bike.

It's a Fine Line by Jonathan Regier

after Tones are lickin' under by JKD, Approach Misled (Translation) by Sue Chenette, Distillations by Geo Vance, The Music by JW, The Greyhound

In the city night, it looks like a fine line one hundred kilometers away. It has nothing to do with the laws of perspective: it looks like a fine line up close. A homunculus is riding his bike along the line.

I ask him, "Are you a Virtue, a Cherub, or one of the tribe of Seraphim that hide their multitudinous eyes behind peacock feathers?"

Falling off his bike, he shouts, "Be quiet! I'm not far away. It is a ... 'fickle gulf'!"

When he says, 'fickle gulf', the heavens shake as if a tremendous Scrabble piece had been turned over. I cover my head, running to the shelter of a nearby tree.

The next evening, I understand the situation better. It was indeed one from the class of Virtues that I met last night. They must be so tiny because of the very fine lines that they navigate in the world. The winds doth rattle the hand: one must slide one's finger along the creases of the petal or dangerously lose the sense.

The next evening, I approach him from far away. (Although it's difficult to know when I've gotten close enough, because he doesn't change size.)

I holler, "Orchidblues!" A storm cloud appears beside his head. A yellow bolt of lightening pops from the cloud and shocks his hat, and all the felt and stuffing explode.

He looks up at me with terror. He begins racing along his fine line.

"'Hello-tropic'! 'Hype the love'!" (I'd prepared all of these that morning, noting them on a morsel of graph paper that I folded up in my pocket.) A milk truck flies out of the intersection with its horn running so fast and long that the doppler effect puts a shiver in my spine.

I laugh deeply and bellow, "Thou dost ride thy bike like Job himself!" Then: " 'Please relax', 'Shaft of salad', 'Writing about snow'" . . .

A greyhound--which had been hitherto the stone adornment of an ancient fireplace--springs to life and speeds alongside him.

"The spheres turn and comets whizzz, but nothing can out-pace the greyhound! He is faster than television, he is the fastest of all the arts! He is faster still than even Virtue!"

Tones are lickin’ under by JKD

After Sue Chenette’s Approach misled (Translation) and seeing this youtube video of The Passenger: Iggy Pop & the Stooges 70's (click names of authors/vid for links)

Passenger-woven incapable of culbability… high…
remainders understar shoots-up out sun-sin scarred
Heliotropic morrow of bone-thinned sliver slur:
a gold lime, a hunt purr welded carnal step or
steeped up to the mike, perched, poled Iggy
Pop-over to slim down to the slither grounding
Wet-fishers, stitched-eye-shut hutch of hunched
back caterwauling wing he snags cult roan
scenes seen to seem seamed seeing throat-slit
zigzag ziggernaut zip-bag pre-authorized Matilde
-waltz loss, the groan duck blind hexed disc offered
manatees or hands, palm-up, frond of fickle gulf
dreamsounding hooch: mary jane’s flicked-laugh
ground giggle file sandstoned, paperscribbled,
limed botanist’s orchidblues, eyes, a pent need
rent forth note snowed over, bland obliquity
to puddle body ululations aromatic angst
he-snagged in the preceding laugh-loom pulse hop.

Approach misled (Translation) by Sue Chenette

After J K D's Approach mislead


Mail me actual captured arabesques: bitter sin-snug scarves,
the hello-tropic marrow bone. Cult or scene? Zigzag
to ask, snag aromatic undulations of pork tenders:
in weather woods, catch trout. Caterwaul purr in oblique
carnal call botany. Slant repair, dew hut, hi-
jack the laugh loom, love, proceeding aweigh with fishers stitched
ten per cent hooch wild, a swim fin the hunch of a need pent
sounddreaming, awakedrumming. Pulsed hop. Stilt alp
or alpen-perch shock a snow storm grain-forage trick
a spin or wheedle on the accused tincturist’s go for gold lime
in a gulf gloom, holiday brought to test integument.
A paisley manatee disc offer, pre-authorized. Waltz roar
satin-sway slipping tiptoe blue? Tones are lickin’ under
the hexed or lost duck blind. Woven inculpable of morning.
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx

Distillations

after JD's 'approach misled'

by Geo Vance

Daily fractural; it, in cards, holoscopic whats.

Sign through map, volcanic, as in words, out.

Her, the Brittany. Go do. Hype the love. Away fissures!

Represent child. If the ( ), of seed downstreaming, closed, set;

or in acupuncturist’s, a line, a game; a ( ) outta disfigurement,

personality reorganized.

Your shaping to -? A( ), into, next-last. Open of: ( o f).

–––––

Approach mislead (New) by Jennifer K Dick

After reading “the science seemed so solid (poems from Graceful Degradation)" a Dusie Chap from Dusie Kollectiv 5 by Betsy Fagin

Daily factual, fractured fractalesque : it is in the cards,
the holoscopic horoscope. What’s your sign? Signal
through ash, map the volcanic distillations as portended:
in other words, cash out. Catapult her in the Glee
cannonball Brittany. Can’t go there, do that, hype
up the lifeline, love, secreting away the fissures which
represent each child as if in the husk of a seed sent
downstreaming, awaycoming. Closed shop. Set up
or open each chakra glowworm green-orange stick
a pin or needle in the acupuncturist’s got a good line
on a golf game, on a way outta this disfigurement.
A personality disorder, reorganized. What’s your
Saturday shaping up to boil? Time’s a tickin’ into
the next or last decade. Open incapable of mooring.