#hsalexander

H.S. Alexander

  i put the wet pot

filled with grey water

on the burner

and as the coil reddened 

and the wheezing hiss

sang about my insides

i started washing dishes

because i have no more nails to bite off

and it was rhythmic

the bubbling boil

but i was covered 

in dirty water

once i’d finished

i grabbed an old mug

and threw in a tea-bag 

and poured the boil

and discovered two tea-bags

so i had to take one out

i waited in the kitchen

amidst the boiling and the hissing

and stared with all fiber at the fogging windows

where an elephant had formed in the vapor

no, really, i mean it

an elephant in the vapor

uplifted head

sweet trunks

big African ears

which I remembered

So this is a new thing

turned off wifi

miles davis shhh/ peaceful or in a silent way playing

in the all dark background

yeah so i turned off all the lights

and turned my comp screen black

and now my eyes are shut

thank god i took key typing class in middle school

pretty cool i can type perfectly in the dark

i’m going to write some stream of consciousness right now

long languid sentences that try to just put down onto the page what i am thinking and feeling

i need to let my thoughts wander

free them

enter a sort of dream world let the music take you there

don’t worry about misspellings

they can always be fixed

what matters is your intention

your thoughts flowing like the river you are

like the river i am

i am a river that flows against rocks that beat backwards upon my waves but i beat onwards downstream and no one will stop me, not the mightiest boulder or the most determined kayaker shall stop my torrent.  in my quieter sections i reflect like black glass water and in the noonday sun you can see the verdant glow of the trees that have been my close companions for hundreds of years and they tell me stories about when they were young and i tell them i remember because i was there and then i tell them that i love them and they tell me that they love me and i know it. with some other members of the river i don’t know if they love me the way i love them or if they love me when i don’t love them and what that means for me as a river that must always be moving and never be the same twice when you look at me, such a responsibility has lead me to have to cast many a flotsam down the current while i pour over the old stones that were chucked in long ago by  girls with huge strength, amazonian strength, and these rocks and sometimes boulders i must beat upon beat upon beat upon until they soften or they move, gliding down further and further until the death ocean but they are never really out of my river and if new boulders and rocks come into the water, well then isn’t it obvious that my life flow will be slowed, hampered, hindered? 

i am the river alexander and i have a cousin in israel, but who cares?  i am the the river great, the great river alexander and there seems to be nothing except the springs which feed me and the mountain melt which nourishes me that can stop my downward cascade to the death sea.  the bits of life that are cast into my stream, my torrent make me, they become a part of me and its so very hard to take something out of a river when you are the river and as a river you don’t have hands.  parts of me are dark and icy cold, other parts foam and bubbly joy, swirls and crashes of durability and determination, and other languid low parts where tubers will rest their fears before the next outburst of aquatic fury that i unleash upon their sorry asses.  that’ll teach you to fucking float in my river, in me. get out.  

i’m never the same when you look at me. even within a second, or a minute or two, you’ll never see the same river as i approach, ever inching, towards the death ocean.  you may see me from a thousand angles, through various patches of undergrowth and muddy rush that line my shores, my banks, but you will never see me the same as when you first glanced upon me. curious as to why> it is my intention, my sweet, to keep you guessing and aloof and unsure of whether or not you are gazing upon the same river.  that way i stay incongruous  and you will never know why or how or why you are looking at this river but i know: it is because i am striking, formidable in my headlong headstrong power and i will take you in me in my warm lagoons and sandy shallows but be warned do not venture out into deeper, softer waters even though they look pleasant and i may let you, because you will drift with me down the life river until we meet the death ocean, or before then you will smash your frail white body upon one of my dark charcoal boulders and your skin will turn bruising and my river will run pink for a while until a bear picks you out and i am clean once again.  i shall rejoice then, because i will once again become the river and not a river with a girl in it.  

sometimes i marvel at my own beauty and i don’t know where i’ve gone after some time, either awaking from a nap or from a sort of trancelike nothingness where all the river, I, does do is drift and drift slowly through the heat of a day and the fog of a morning and the calm death of twilight and in the night time i will move slower, for i will be asleep, yes rivers do sleep, believe it or not, and i will sleep mightily, for in the morning i must move boulders.  

and women will come into my river and drown.  i will try to warn them that they will drown if they enter this river, go enter another river! one with softer rapids or maybe one not as deep or frightening. but they will come into my river, into me, toe tap by left kick, splashing playful drops of water into my river, onto my skin, and we will laugh, she in a high song of a laugh and i with the trickle bubble of a calming movement over rocks and through a deepened in my belly. 

the smart ones will get out themselves.  for then i don’t have to smash them against my rocks. the dumb and lovestruck will remain in the river until there’s nothing left of their broken bones and slashed hearts only meat for the piranhas and nutrients and other junk for me to use? fuck that, all I need is nothing damnit cuz I’m a river.  

I’m a river

I am a river

a river damnit

another ten minutes?

until the Miles ends

deep breaths calm my throbbing head

and i’ll begin to type slower

i bought today 

a harmonica

and a pair of round sunglasses

with a hat i found in my friends’ flat

Alissa’s flat

i look like the coolest dude I know

really 

if there’s one thing that feels like a mirage

its June fifth

if there’s one person who feels like a mirage

its me

if there’s one mirage that feels like a mirage

its that damn lagoon oasis one with the fucking palm trees and the bikini lady handing out mojitos and asking you to come take a dip with her in her, likes the secrets to what i think Columbus was searching for. She is america incarnate, the vast and buxom beauty who should be on every school flag pole, a huge, naked breasted woman who looks like down at you with wolf eyes, red and beaming that bleed when the wind gets high and the cold nor’easter blows down from Canada, and yet, in the snow and the wolfs snapping at your feet, she remains posed even while her ankles turn to processed chicken meat and she sings ‘battle hymn of the republic’ in a jazz tempo and she sways, stumbling here and there as the wolves bite a bit more away from her ankles and her feet, they are REALLY going to town now, mauling and feasting upon prime bitch flesh, soon they will stop, and America, my sweet woman, will cry over and plummet the 100,238 feet she has been standing up with her head in the clouds that high unaware of the love and adoration i’ve been shouting from below, even from within the treetops! and then the mighty goddess will teeter and totter like a teeter totter and she will fall down across the country, her buttocks landing upon pittsburgh, her breasts poked by the rockies, and her hair will soak up the pacific while she rests on a bed of snapped conifer trees which bulk up Oregon, and her toes will stretch across the atlantic and squish Ireland and her toe will come right right RIGHT up to my flat and i will run outside in my red flannel t-shirt and J. Crew polka dot boxers and kiss her toe and rub it and hope that thousands of thousands of miles away she is smiling, and i will kiss her pulverized flesh and say I love you I love you and start singing ‘my country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing...’

i don’t believe in an ending for this shit

this was too pure of an experiment to formulate an end for

so it’ll just end

while ghosts parade through my streetlamp lit window

like car headlights used to do when i was a kid

and all i see is their heads

and in the morning there will be more

but the sun will make them invisible