A moment of your time, sir.

Now I am going to ask you a question
& I would appreciate a serious answer – or AN answer, @ least – because I really want to know:

What do you do w/ 20 years? I mean, what do you put inside it? Looking @ it from out here… What the hell is inside that thing?

Sure, I know, some people squeeze a lot more stuff into theirs. Some a great deal less. But it seems like I’ve simply forgotten. Or maybe I was looking the other way when all those years got fill dup w/… whatever.

I’m not complaining. I’m not trying to return or exchange anything, sir. No, I don’t want my money back, sir.

I’m just askin’.

I just wanna know eff you’d be so very kind as to maybe allow me to watch the tapes, sir.
To see what it was climbed in.
The blow by blow & the frame by frame, sir. Playback from the security cam.

Cos from the smell of it – judging by the stench of it – something has crawled into those years and died, sir.

Something rancid like a ghost.

A suggestion for bp & others like them.

I have a suggestion for BP & all the others like them.

By now, it has become obvious to every one of us who is paying even a modicum of attention that you hate your children.

That you hate your family.

That you hate yourself.

That you wish to stamp out every semblance of life from everything that you see around you.

That you will not rest until you’ve sold the world’s last black ashen remains to the last charred & choking consumer in exchange for the last black penny to be found anywhere.

& that is all good & that is fine & that is capitalism, baby, which is a thing that God & America LOVE LOVE LOVE. But you’re working so hard at it & I’d like to make things easier on you, so here’s a little suggestion – offered to you completely free of charge – from which I believe you might profit:

Why don’t you go kill your own kids & leave ours alone?

Why don’t you – right here & now – stop reading this blog, shut off your computer, go on upstairs & murder the fruit of your own fucking loins?

Go pour benzene into the ground around your own oak tree? Shoot arsenic & asbestos into your own wife's veins?

Why don't you get back @ your own your momma by shooting HER in the forehead? It wasn’t MY momma who whipped you when you was a boy.

I know what you’re thinking, but I am confident you can get away with these killings. You’ve successfully lobbied for the right to kill MY family for years. You’ve dumped mercury into my drinking water & weird hormones into my beef, & no one’s gone to jail for THAT! No, you’ve made sure THAT was perfectly legal.

Surely you can get the police & politicians to look the other way now for a couple lousy strangulations in your own home!

You can kill the kiddos quickly, you can kill them mercifully, & not at all in the slow, cruel, drawn-out manner in which you’re killing the rest of us.

In fact, I really wanna know why you haven’t already walked into their rooms just upstairs & killed them while they slept?

What the hell are you waiting for?

Is it because there’s no money in it?

Cos I’m confident that we could come to some sort of an arrangement, you & I...

The boomarang kids.

The ladies are sitting next to the pool. They wear housedresses & sit upon cheap lawn chairs. They are not old ladies – not yet – but they’re old enough to be sitting next to the pool in housedresses instead of swim suits.

So they’re getting there.

& Helen uses her pinky finger to move the tiny umbrella in her glass so she can drink, & she slurs on about her Junior, who has moved back into her mobile home. AGAIN.

//Ha!\\ bursts Margaret. //That’s nothing!\\

All eyes on Margaret.

//My Trey is 32, & he’s moved back in the house w/ Henry & me & brought his girlfriend this time, too!\\

There is all-around agreement that this is worse than Helen’s pickle. Agreement that poor Margaret has it bad indeed.

There is silence as they think about Margaret & Henry’s predicament.

Finally, my Aunt Maxine clears her throat. Swallows another Nembutal. Picks at a particularly scary mole on her arm.

//3 weeks ago Thursday\\ Maxine begins, //Jason comes over w/ his wife, Ann, their 3 little kids, their Rottweiler, boxer, & their parrot, Captain Beakers.\\

//He tells me they’ve talked it over & they have decided they’re moving into my uterus, because it’s warm & it’s comfortable in there & from what he remembers, there’s a lot of easy floating around doing nothing all day involved.\\

//& while I’m stuttering, trying to find words to say, it’s FOOMP! & up into my uterus they go.\\

Maxine looks around. //It’s a momma’s worst nightmare.\\

Everyone by the pool agrees that Maxine’s story just about takes the cake.

But Maxine says, //But that’s not all!\\

//Because after that, I get nervous about my OTHER kids, so I decide to stop the vicious cycle. I swallow my youngest right down. Eat him up. Well, HE takes up residence in my stomach & demands cable TV, complete with premium channels!\\

//Jason & my youngest talk through my meaty walls to each other, & they’re complaining about me, mostly.\\

//That night, I dream of the perfect son, & I dream of what he’d be like. Come next morning, I find that Dream Child still in my head, & he’s taking online classes & demanding piano lessons!\\

& all the ladies just sit there in their house dresses, sipping their drinks, staring @ the sun reflected on the water, while their husbands stay out too late boning overpaid nubile secretaries.

& all the housedress ladies sit there, growing old & dreaming of death.

Lullaby.

Now then, child: Pull up the covers & close your eyes & I’ll sing you a sweet little sleep song. Lie back – relax – breathe in – breathe out, and it goes like this, you see.

Lie back… Relax… Breathe in… Breathe out… And it goes… Like this… You’ll see:

You see, it’s not The End when the lights go out, when the Darkness comes, you see? Tho to all the world your breath has fled, YOU do not cease to be. Tho you do not speak & you do not smile & you miss that planned appointment. Still you hear their voices, share their cries, as the priest soaks you in ointment.

Hehe… Shh! No no, child. No, no. It’s okay. It’s alright. Don’t stir, don’t fuss. Now we’re nearly to the crux of my tale!

Now then, where was I? Ah yes, that’s right, & it goes like this, you see… Lie back… Relax… Breathe in… Breathe out… And it goes… Like this… You see:

& you’re still just you when they bury you & they cover you in mud. & you see it! hear it! smell it all! tho they drained you of your blood.

& your soft parts harden & your hards get soft & you take on purplish hue. But you hear the drums & the stone man comes & he steals what’s best of you. Yes you hear the drums & the stone man comes & he steals what’s best of you.

Your skin sloughs off, your bones break down, & the worms come in to chew. Then the roots grow up, come out your eyes so they block out most your view. What’s left to see’s so bad by then, you’re thankful when they do!

Putrescence! Putrescence! That trusty state that comes & claims us all. Turns all what was your brains to pus, then bugs swarm in to crawl. 4 years of Latin that you took when you were but a boy? It’s in some maggot’s stomach - Now, who’ll eat all your Tolstoy?

& doodlebugs hurry down thru the parts that did hold all your fears. & flowers grow up thru your ribs & beetles lap your tears. & then someday, your mind will fade, but that will still take years. Cos YOU stay there when out of air, your Mind just clicks & clears.

& um, well... The song goes on like this for quite a while, child, w/ corporeal breakdown & generalized rot. But then it gets kinda ugly in the verse comes next, so I’m skipping to the end, you see.

& it's ugly 'round the middle of the verse comes next, so I’m skipping to the end, you see.

To where the girls skip double dutch on top the grave where the flowers grow that ate ya. & they sing a song ‘bout what went wrong & what it was unmade ya.

They go:

Time will tell
If your ratty old Hell
Is the hole where the gal’s
Gonna send you

But you’d better not cry
Cos you’re sure to die
& the gal w/ the mask’s
Gonna end you!

(& faster:)

Time goes tick-tock
Bones rap knock knock
Late to call the doc-doc
The Grok! It’s the Grok!

Time goes tick-tock
Bones rap knock knock
Late to call the doc-doc
The Grok! It’s the Grok!

The Grok! It's the Grok! It's the Grok!

Alright, child, that’s it for now. Nighty night.

Sweet dreams & kisses…

The harvest.