4 Eyeball

okay DOC, kindred coughed into a spitoon that turned out to be his lap, momma was a still a virgin when she met me, i'm leaving it at that.

and screw you, i'm talking from inside a lower case of budweisers just to spite your hawk nose, blurred by your latex second hand smoke.

i can roam where i want, janssen borrowed my boxers, the ones w/ the joy buzzer.i can climb atop the ice machine, i need a dental mirror bad

you think i don't know mitch put culhane up to this? the memory retention pond, the time dilation,my sudden interest in 12 degrees separated?

MacRant out there in his '64 Dart, gitbox dangling from strings in the shattered windshield, Kindred scrapin the enamel on his tooth, waiting.

Why the guitar, a wooden missile in his mine mined mind, the car circling the empty lot. Culhane passed out from drink in front of Room 12.

Small, snowy world. Kindred in a snowglobe, puffing effluvium. Spirits of motels & mushrooms past.

Of all people, The Givers of Pain and Rapture check in to Room 244. Hope floats to the asphalt like rancid confetti. No no can't have that.

Once, Sid Skin told me that I must have been programmed by Hell. I still do not know what he was getting at, this was after his parole.

I think about a dark-haired woman in fishnets, vision of a virgin in a cloud of disintegrated earth, disinterested watchers, 12 disciples.

Liquid eyes that melt the sky, the force of the blast a 100 lb. brick hitting your chest. Waking up clutching a pillow that was never yours.

Night again, false dawn.Thoughts of the dark-haired girl, closer than the half-moon.The desert offers too much perspective, his memory none.

Culhane sealed the envelope with paraffin, put it inside the box, locked it and swallowed the key. He keeps the key in his stomach, always.

When the key passes, he sterilizes it and swallows it again. His gullet also contains enough coins to pay for parking meters.

If he needs to leave his truck downtown, he goes into an alley and expels exact change. $6.75. Parking ticket could screw the whole deal.

Brake lights, one busted,wink a trail for Kindred to follow. Culhane wants him close, sniffing and snuffling, overconfident, careless, lazy.

Kindred knows what's inside the box. Birth certificates, death notices, plans, schemes, diagrams, schedules, announcements, news, weather.

And a glazed eyeball. Sugared like spun candy. It belonged to the Watcher, the first to see, the last to know, the blind, bravely dead one.

Frozen on the retina, the image told the story. Her face and form and shape, unfolding, reforming, bearing witness to the almighty power.

Giver of life and taker of souls, bringer of death and singing cold songs that echo dully in the lost chambers of Kindred's ticking heart.

Culhane in the alley, counting out change. Kindred on a fire escape, the glint of fallen quarters flickering in unflinching unblinking eyes.

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