Canto I: Joseph (R)

[abstrect-christ]

okay I've been gone for a bit on personal and writing forays

however I'm back with a new long tale, it's presented in 4 parts

and each part will be posted at night so that members can choose to read at their own discretion or all them as a whole;

enjoy.

 

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"I'm sorry."

 

Muzzle of the Benelli M4

numbing my lower lip,

salivary gland wounded, it bleeds on the

eighteen and a half millimeter bore --

lacrimal gland its exterior --

what remained of my innocence was shedding,

the Red Admiral that emerged curled my finger

undertowing the anima, pulling the trigger:

 

Firing pin caresses the primer that advocates

smokeless powders salvation from obturation,

cushion directing the combustion toward rapture;

shot cup keeping the rifled slug stabilized

as it began its journey down the barrel,

charting its fifty degree angle course

through soft palete, clipping the hards mass

and rupturing the nasal cavity,

shrapnel masquerades the sphenoids surprise

 

living long enough to sense

the osseous of the ethmoid and hard palete

incising the temporal lobe, deaf, dysgeusiating,

and anosmiatic cells cleanse memories as they expand

choking the sylvian fissure, slugs force pureeing

the white and dark matter folding inertia;

wide burst causing Broca’s apharia and further seizes

the identity with space sequential apnea --

requiting, arrow enters the meninges and parietal bone

fracturing, cracking, fletching following;

frontal and occipital attached

permeating the tyrian purple wall;

my terminal vision the wall opposite my consciousness,

dark-slate gray tiles and saddle brown legs.

 

I.

"Joseph!"

Rusbel awaits my hazel immersion --

dim gray, white plaided peacoat harbors

the exposition pantomiming the crowd around her

telicly discontinuing, her arms around my neck,

my own meeting her waist; complimentary embrace,

then a kiss, my lips slightly grated;

tongues curled and conformed in placid ardor;

"couldn't have picked a warmer city?"

Abrading her arms stepping into my black peacoat,

"this place is too cold for hell,"

I leeringly say with a smile,

Olive eyes quelling their own leer;

"got your stuff?"

"Yeah, thank God the baggage handlers

put mine at the front,"

"good, I have a surprise back at the apartment,"

she motions closer shifting carry-ons,

placing my right arm at her neck clinching

as the twelve kilometer wind takes us out of pressurization.

 

II.

Beading transpiration our legs rooted in the organic dark-sea green sheets

lavender mist off shoulder, drape neck tunic,

my charcoal black three button casual jacket, pants

and white casual shirt strewed upon the foot

and left of the king size bed frame;

white bra, booty shorts and dark gray boxers

two inches from the lefts frock;

 

maroon flames stem cinnamon trills

nine feet away on the nighturqoise double dresser

penis retracted, ejaculate dried on its tip,

her labia minora dregs of skene's biochemical,

back to the davy's gray backboard,

my forearm at her scapulas

brushing her thin deltoid with my digitus primus

her head resting at my pectoralis major

arms around my waist, one hand

clenching my latisimus dorsi and both

our hands confluxed at the right obliquus externus

a secondus manus mimicing my primus:

 

"I love you Joseph,"

she turns her attention to see

my lips part, zygomaticus acending,

soaring in her Cellar Door gaze;

"I love you too,"

her lips parting -- cross my own amorous paralanguage --

"those three weeks were lonely without you;"

I tighten my arm across her back,

right breast jabbing my rectus abdominus.

"All that matters is that you're here now,

and the old apartment is taken care of;

your mom caring for Boot's?"

"Yeah, wish she could have joined us,

I'll miss her Houdini acts."

"Yeah -- but we have a busy day tomorrow --

we'll need the sleep,"

digital alarm clock displays 2:18 am;

dark blue cable carpet soft underfoot,

pyres being quashed

and wrist at her left illiac crest

a halcyon motion at her trapezius and scalene seals our conjugation.

 

"Can I have them?!"

She's looking at white smoke Abby III's in Mountains Peak,

the open design of Fletcher Mall's sloped windows flecked with white

the shrouded sun lighting the thousand foot depth of the the three level south building

illuminating the shoppers, tourists, and loiterers

admiring the fountain or resting by the Weeping Fig's, Bonsai Tree's, and Sakura's below.

 

"Those? Definitely not,"

she punches my right deltoid;

"somebody's not going to see what I have in here

the day before he returns to work if they're not careful."

She holds up a paper fold bag, Mer de l'Elegance written on the side in shelley volante,

"of course, sweet Isolde;"

smiling in earnest rebound,

"you should be shopping too you know,

you can always use more suits."

"I've got five -- I did my shopping a week after I arrived,"

leaving Mountians Peak, her left bicep brachii in my right tricep brachii,

"but, just for you we'll stop by Bergman’s for a vest --

your pick. It's cold out so I could use it immediately,"

labium edges ellipsed coming up for a peck at my own elevated sense;

 

"where are we eating supper tonight?"

Having gone to Music+,

"Red Marina,"

passing through the main gates into the twilight

our foot prints fated to be trampled by others in blissful embrace.

 

III.

"This is Curtis, my floor assistant;

Curtis, Rachael -- my girlfriend of two years."

"So, y'ur the one he can't stop talkin' 'bout --

can't blame 'im,"

he lightly touches his lips to Rachael’s held out hand and

blood fills her cheeks as she curls her spine slightly;

"what'd I miss?"

My glare causing a small smirk.

 

"Chris wants ta' speak wit' you,

The Raven would like an interview wit' you --

they're calling th' article "The Man of the House",

an' on saturday a stage light loosened an' fell-"

"Is that what Chris wants to discuss?"

"Yes, an' also 'bout the budget, 'e's having trouble wit' one a' the actors."

"Alright... I'll talk to The Raven and book an interview with them first,

The Winter's Tale is proving to be a classic clusterfuck,"

my look of aversion washing itself as I turn my attention to Rachael leaning in for a kiss.

"Enough shop, now for the Grand Tour,"

she nods gratefully;

"this is the stage area, as you can see

the costume and make up department are here for some of the extras

but whence the actors are in play this is covered by set pieces and backgrounds,

controlled by the steal cables you see on the wall to our right.

The walls are covered in this pigment blue vale to set the tone of the play the extras are involved in

as well as keeps the firebrick wall behind it from dusting up the costumes,

now if you'll follow me to the hallway that leads to the dressing rooms,"

Curtis stalking, his lethargy transparent,

 

"Curtis, go tell Chris that I'll see him after I'm done the tour

and scheduling okay."

"Yes, m'a liege,"

raising his right arm, hand stiff and flat to touch his forehead

then pushing off to turn counter clockwise right,

simulacrum glare breaking the stagnant air around us.

"Ahem,"

"sorry, he's particularly fastidious today, you'd think he's jealous of you;"

"he has spunk, I like that --

and -- I'd be jealous too,"

she smiles, lips motioning up to my own;

 

"this is Leontes's room, played by Arnaud Allard,

Hermione, Augusta McKenna,

the rest of the cast, Perdita, Polixenes, Florizel, etc."

"Perdita, didn't request her own room?"

"No, she feels closer to the production if she stays with the supporting cast,"

"interesting."

"That door down the hall is the door to the administration office

where my office should be and main floor,

but the stage office I took instead is down this hallway,"

we turn right to the first door on the left

of the seashell hall, Rachael sitting on my

saddle brown bow front desk,

"why is the wall on the right dark purple when all others are a dark olive?"

I sit on the right facing her on my black avanti,

“just felt it didn’t have to be changed is all,

"are you having an identity crisis?”

"If the doors of perception were cleansed

everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite."

 

"Make the call yet?"

Curtis appears at the black frame of the matching door.

"I'll get on that right away."

 

by Jeremy Swyck

(11/11/10)

[David W. Parsley]

HI Abs,

 

It is good to see you exercised in a story so involved. Something about the apparently disjointed flow betrays underlying structure, somewhat in the tradition of Marcel Proust. The assassination/execution at the start is savagely well written and speculated. The diction in a few places may be more intricate than the above-average reader will readily follow. But the description is compelling and arresting, in spite of that.

 

When it plunges into presumable flashback (first person!), complexity of the langage seems to go over the top. I understand the need to play in the great sea of words, but one must come back from such strenous swims and think about the tour he is about to guide. Some of your companions will drown if you insist on a repetition of your private feats. I am also concerned that some of the words are actually mis-applied, taken out of their intended context. In any case, you probably do not wish the verbal gymnastics to mask the story, and that seems to happen here.

 

About those gymnastics, I already mentioned potential mis-applications. Also,. it is difficult to distinguish deliberate word invention from mis-spellings and questionable application of verbiage. Examples: innocents (innocence?), amarous (amorous?), avanti (no source produced a meaningful description that fit here), etc. Anatomical terminology loses personality and emotional credibility (does this girl know that his catalogue is running all the time? When does she get to pull him out of the depths of Gray's?).

 

To a certain extent you have to listen to your own inner asthetic. Just letting you know how one corner of the audience is viewing it.

 

Interesting story.

I think!

- Dave

[tonyv]

Very entertaining, Jeremy. As usual, the vocabulary is impressive, and the dialogue is well done, easy to follow. The medical jargon the speaker thinks in is balanced by the couple's vernacular:

 

"I love you Joseph,"

she turns her attention to see

my lips part, zygomaticus acending,

soaring in her Cellar Door gaze;

"I love you too ..."

 

I'll have to read the next one to find out what the phone call is all about.

 

Tony

[abstrect-christ]

thanks tony.