SHADOWBOXING CALIGARI Pieces by Alex S.

Johnson (2009-2011)

The Shwibly Press 2011

Waiting for My (Ice Cream) Man for Rob Chrysler and Cat Beland We heard his tinkling truck from afar and, as children, swarmed to meet him on the road. It was an ultimate theater. His sweets transported us to a realm of enchantment. As we grew older, his tires got thinner and he replaced the tinkling sound with waves of cold blue radiation spat from an organ grinding monkey. The monkey was almost skeletally thin and had the grim, crunched visage of a meth head. Around his neck hung curtains of incandescent jewels that he clutched with ghastly black digits. The ice cream man lurched from his truck, smelling of graves and sour blood. His voice creaked and hissed like an old jalopy giving up the ghost. " Don't you want my ice cream treats?" he said with the sinister elan of a defrocked priest. The ice cream man opened up a trunk in the back of his vehicle and unscrewed the top of a chattering skull. Inside the skull were syringes, wads of cotton, streaks of purple blood, 30 Dilaudid tablets, a bottle of paregoric, gore candy, a revolving cinema embedded in an elephant, and, delicately interlaced with quivering drops of spinal fluid, a revolver loaded with a single bullet made of ice. "Who's first?" he asked. "What the shit," I said finally. "Sign me up for some of that gore candy."

KRISPY POPZ! I. Not Exactly the Satyricon. And they shall eat Krispy Pops with lances long as appetite; and They shall dream oh see them dreaming Still Parked in Vesuvius cars Gray and ashen, fissures of men Hunched as they were, still Fondling the wheel, which never Their ribs are withered and their jaws Stopped long ago, like an old clock. Crossed the Acheron in drag Huffing from a plastic bag. And in their dry and Rattling brains the withered whorls shake once It was over before it happened. And it never was as good as we anticipated (though we could feel it baking in our bellies) those Many lifetimes ago. Like suns on our tongues. Cheer up. Think of Trimalchios feast, those lush and lavish eats, those fast. Violent. Dreams. Centerplace of a skeleton. Flesh removed. Camera motors long gone. Still rolling, rock it to the web in Vortices of spin, rolling Quick as pluck. Faster than mending. Faster than these Constant mirrors. No.

We are what we eat. No. Cant let go. Ever Even now the Popz are Sinking down. (Some call it Hell I call it Hades) It isnt Mindmovies eyelid cinema Fellini It isnt Nothing clothed as something with the Perfume from a mummy whore. Husks, dragged away the Kernel before our time. Raw, gave it the last, best Shot. Oh dim, giving it the final Barrel. Past the gums and down it comes. Faster than fame faster than fame. No. Slick like Jerry McGuire Placating the air No. Not there anymore. Fast as (Torn as) Lovely as (Dead as) Taut as The body The body The body machine. Eventually Pales. Dessicate and dry. No Paschal lambs to Make a sacrifice. Its cold as. No honor in our time. And shelved, Archived with the rest. And in some

Time (unpeel, roll back, unspin, yield, make it pretty As it was or might have been) NO. The wheels clatter down Strict parallel lines and we Who hung here like winter sticks, gave up. II. The Church of Suburban Krispy Popz They shall spring with antic vigor down the chute, and roll tight as bullets and Twist up like spirals of root and DEVOUR KRISPY O DEVOUR KRISPY POPZ. Lets visit Camp Empty. The Popz are no longer krispy. And I cannot amend Those turns, I am not faster than Recoil. I cannot outstrip the Doppler effect. I cannot eat these Ruins. I cannot breath this Iron. I cannot steel myself. Away. Oh empty. Head over heels recycling long lost lips and Artificial cherries. Children go and eat their long lost krispies. If only in your right mind, do the dream yoga: peeling off slippers in velvet houses, riding horses made of cloud. Riding horses that swallowed your head. In a land of dripping poppy seeds, light on light, and smoking candles Doused to scare the Horses and

The hunger (so thick it fed upon itself) Growled for worthy food. In some magical suburban grove Where lurid foods stood worthy stewards Before the grouches bit your head off Before the grouches bit your head off The head were still removing And its gone. And the TV set was never wrong And the TV set was never wrong And the TV set was always on. And it was always warm and there were tiny Elves upon the shelves and unicorns shivered into bowls, elaborated In milk and formed for our tongues, for our tongues we have Demolished them, weve changed our chemistry. NO more Krispy Popz brew in the dark of our skies now so helpless. We invent them now the strained light of old churches. And these are the people. And this is some kind of dried host. Though we are not Worthy to receive them, theyre here already Pounding at the portals, shoving at the gates Threatening mutiny unless we let them in. And who could look these Wee folk in the eye and say, youre done already, go home, theres nothing left here But black walls and sagging furniture and empty sockets and scuttering insects. Whod tell the childrens hope to abandon itself? Our ships not lost even in this Vile weather and our hands are ready even when theyre shaking so lets have The biggest party youve ever

Imagined because Krispy Popz are ready A breakfast of sheer magic. Krispy Popz never let me down Even if I want to Even when I need to Even though Id like to Just leave them alone. III. New Foods, Post Krispy. Energized beyond belief, beyond accounting: Cant you hear me calling? These are the new conditions. Not necessarily art, were far beyond those frail shells. Outside the ruins, we camp in silver spotlights where archangel showers gently fall and covert laughter forms elaborate patterns, frosted glass knitting up the insides. FOOD is necessary for our kingdom. BEER brought by foamy maidens. DELICATE MEAT that cant be gainsayed. Wall to wall of CHOCODROIDS BALLS OF EVAPORATED MEN AFFECTION BALMY OR CARNIVORE MIST Tapestries of old science and maps and plots you ate this Thursday REARGUARD OFFERINGS OF TORQUE LAMPS BREWING ON THE HILLS SHATTERED BY IMPRESSIVE SILENCE Why do you dive behind these walls? When all I want is a short, convivial rainbow, all I want is cold cuts, all I want is ice cream, all I want is fish fish fish, all I want is a slide down the slippery slab of you, the arty choked hearts of you. When I hear the sirens calling each to each and all whorled into a trumpet announcing: A future of sauces and butters! A rain of soft organic engines; Im calling out, Im wonder-dosing all with Drops of synthetic laughter. Tinkling on what stoves, tinkling on what glass,

Ladled with what spoons, drooping paralytic heads, a caution woven from The terribly dark soup-surround that fogged us many years ago, past the point of No recollection and no time for tea. Painful memories that blast us from the easy chair, the comfy table and the bruised blue auditorium, thick with the faces of ruined children, palpated as we eat in silence. Krispy Popz never wanted us here. Krispy Popz are dialectical. Krispy Popz make good pets. Krispy Popz are artificial, cold, benedictions to all the animals. Writhed in familiar forms. Wrenched in artificial ways. Glowering at our pretense. Laughing at our vanities. Relaxed enough to tell the truth about the meat. Shower. And so can you with syrupy megaphones and candelabras plucked Methodically as scalpels, grunting helplessly in the dark in a shower of Putrid organs. Gone sour gone sour, all the days we sat in the bower, romance churning, Lights that flickered only for Your radiant inner thigh and golden globes (Lit and loud and so can you with sculptured meats Vying for truth with Aristophanes) And have you tried them lately? Dark, benighted, necromantic Lanced and futile, wounded, rejectednever taking In their morning splendor, crunchy Spoonfuls made of wonderpile a load of Krispy Popz from The box to the bowl, from the bowl to the mouth, from the Mouth to the head, to the Sea to the mouth of the sea.

Rattling Freakazoids

and there were rattling freakazoids in those days and they said come bork with us on carpet garf come flayed parades of cinnamon dogs come THE esoteric vegetable head come barking flowers and their siblings come poets with quantum guns and berserk conundrums come flavah-minded hipsters heavy with the Shwibly come jesters and art dogs of all sizes come hierophants of the monster eclipse come undulating seismic whores to end all whores come soft detectives with gummy bear devices come awe-struck calibrators of the superunknown come oh come ye gutter snarks! come decaying photographs of shoeshine poetics come winsome Lolas and bring the chocolate come submarine cinema and architects of total ruin! come verdant pastures of the atomic come bearers of the ersatz stigmata! come crank the noise with us, summoners without bodies come sit a spell with the stirred grounds of philosophy come elevate your mood with the special cookies! come horrific grapefruits on stilts and the citric manifest! come calcified puppets of the void come vs. not coming come dance with us in forests of forests come to the mountain where the cucumbers reside come to the mountain of satisfied women and bring fresh cukes! come typewriters that dance the savage ballet once only and disintegrate in peals of laughter come ornamental tree frogs that really got the knowledge come experimental prototypes for dog whistles come experimental dogs come athletes of the random calculus come Pythagoras and bring the holy beans!

come whimsy and Whizzbang (in perpetual copyright by Dominique Lowell) come out come out wherever you are come sup with us on naughty fruits finally, don't come (you're missing out) and please Christ Peanut bless us because we all need blessing. for Xst Peanut is with you always. Yrs., Shwibly.

Romeo and Draculette "Shall I compare thee to a mournful fog?" asked Romeo of his Draculette. "Bite me," said Draculette. "Do you mean that literally?" asked Romeo, suddenly shy. "A bit slow. That's okay, you're a handsome boy. About here," she said, gesturing to a precise spot below her jawline. "Tasty," said Romeo, who had never savored undead blood before. "Now for a recharge," said Draculette, finding a large purple vein in Romeo's cock and sucking him dry. Romeo's charred bones rattled at Draculette's feet. "Damn, I always drink too deep," said Draculette, adjusting her garter belt. "This kingdom is getting light on hot, dumb boys with big...veins. I am outta here." Romeo's grateful bones spiral up to heaven in waves of orgasm.

Sancho Panzer Division "Are those applesauce kisses dotting your forehead, or are you just happy to see me?" asked Sancho Panza of the Knight of the Mournful Countenance. "I have heard from the heraldic trumpet that Dr. Caligari is issuing bloodstained doves from his bunker," said Don Quixote, up to his neck in quicksand. Sancho Panza applied a fuchsia mask to his master. "That will go with the applesauce, revered Knight," said Sancho. There issued burbling sounds from the quicksand and Don Quixote was sucked under, just as a Panzer Division shrieked overhead, dropping the heads of mechanical owls. "Here we go again," said Sancho, never discouraged by the calumnies nature disposed on his master. "I shall apply a complex series of fans to this bog, discharging your bones, which I will preserve in applesauce and mourn alongside my faithful blue dog, decorating myself with chips of gold paint."

Om Shiva I
(just the blakelight to guide us mix) A rope a golden Braid saves time and $ entropy We sucked whales into the Mercedes engine, spouts Expensive vapor These monster viruses spin themselves out. You should have seen Them bleeding to death. Ebolas a bitch but the cleanup is worse. The monsters of time paint the ceiling with worms. SweetJesus did you hear that car alarm shake the three worlds, Lucifer just hit the sidewalk kept on going like a Tomcat with nuclear paws Couldnt stop for Golgotha pantomime. Tridents barred the surface of the Water. Heraclitus got hardcore gat His 9 spitting 9 Black cats. Mutatis mutandis and all That. The spectacular fits of these Silver eagles razed paradise To a thin parking strip. Poseidons got elliptical fits mythworlds forged on a Shoestring. Sprinkled my eggs with Lots wife. the Devil got a filling Station soup you up with Flies and gore. This is the vessel that made the Vessel. Electric are the saints Painted with the darkest blue. They parked in the shade. Doors of worry Creak the light only makes

a tiny hole, almost a pinprick and the burden of this will be The bibles of tomorrow. A rope saves time but a noose is built to last. Weary yourself of these infernal gains and youll have doomkiss thunder for dessert. Rope yourself to the battle. Save time and the Devil. More ether for your wallet. The flesh is sinful but so is too much of the cake. Ivory was his pathology. Oil is yours. The cake is a saint with a dinner plate. (Soup is on.) Go rangers go trucks go ragers Got tangle got attraction got polarity. Run amok in the Devils sunshine box. Play off lights that dont attach. Please bring me the swollen heads that dont miss much. Football helmets for the missing gravestones. My environment crackles with you. My dynamite feasts and collects you. My angels have seed poisoning bit the bad one. My hair is a furnace of astrophysics. Your lap is a token of dreams. My assembled hearts resemble your Razor Stripped sky Your nightmares are sopped from televised massacres. I devour you so you can sleep.

I bit off the head that couldnt fight back. I made electricity really shake this time. I brought the imps AND the bottles. Baby Titration is the new jeopardy. Wilting all the flowers that doomed in vain. Murk of the golden fruit. Sweet lances the veined juice. Trance gyrations bring the chords. Angels are imps and make bottles. Portions of the system were furnished with elves. Potions made from these golden machines pirouette on the silken palace. Summers drain the energy of winter. Solar sinks free raccoon bones. Shaking trains die. Just die. There is no solace for the railroads. Sordid are the fruits of shake rattle and roll. A burning car in an abandoned lot. A rain of shredded tires. Prometheus skipped bail. Born free forever bound. We made the Predator drone now you make some coffee. Burn up the atmosphere with your silence. I rest in your cool ruins.

I take place in your emptiness. I mask your heat. I am pale and want sun. I titrate your emotion got the tears lined up. In bottles where you live I live in air too. Sweet is the hemlock that takes you out. Bitter is the hemlock that brings you in. Hemlock guards the virgin gates. Wings of madness pace Baudelaire pimped by gravitation All sold out dont worry more on the way. Infinite is the cold regard of capital. Bad and good are twin elves on vacation from polarity. Consequences thin out the closer you get to the empty. Something crooked walks by on stilts. Beware the stars are evil tears. Something has hemlock wings and nightshade eyes to see by Something has datura skeleton Something has pokemon windowpane. Sometimes a heresy, not permitted. Someday blue buckets will erupt from the sand. Someday princes will not perjure themselves for all the forests in all the woods. Some crimes are too sweet for punishment. Some headgames make you smarter. Somebodys been poking around in MY skull. White trash Goldilocks and the

Trailer park bears. Legions of shredded angels kept the good candy ALL to themselves. Enormous pull of this Weight Enormous tug of these Hands Enormous sums are grafted to my Skin Enormous is the energy Without Thats falling In Lexicographers of the future say XYZ is godhead. Lexicographers of the future dont know Jack. Meanwhile the broadsides keep shouting and You are still a dark smear on the bed. My eyes cannot see this light must be polluted. My days cannot cleave through this night must be aborted. Mine sacraments are the perilous fruit Of 9 days of woe 10 days of suffering 20 hours of freedom. A minute of torture. A blind ceremony Performed by owl heads Masked and musky In the cleverest of Moonlight Meanwhile the Chumash runners And the nightside blades Their sorcery still moves Through these new systems

Their data has trance migrated All the way to The end of My spoon. Momentum of the cosmos Never stops humming. Money is the germ. Freedom the foundation. Bones of capital the climax. And you my dear Always and forever Planted. I could not decipher Your epic wounds Today but the light is still good. Maybe by noon I will be able to see them aching And pulsing like War! And why all these chattering Machinelike elves they are worse than Predator drones. A constant of survival hitches itself to my merrymad shoes. A thing of wisdom is a precious. A ring of fire serves two. Seasonal specials.

Shadowboxing Caligari Wearing a conical hat designed precisely for this purpose, the projectionist sprays the screen with photon bullets that coalesce into walking shadows. From his fingers an invisible ray shoots out, connecting him with everyone in the audience. He performs them like a vast hobbling marionette. A blind violinist from the orchestra pit blunders onto the stage and upsets a violet gel, which becomes uncontrollable, filling the already-wired crowd with storms of psychic madness. Dictatorial and imperious, the projectionist has assumed a robot controlling glove and stands in front of the fluttering image of Dr. Caligari's machine, his mouth peeled back in hideous strain from which bloodstained doves flood out, dazzling the audience into grey pits of ashes. The sounds of a klaxon mix with the demented laughter of a clown on the jibbly fruit, his toes arrayed in a vile sequence. They play the clown like a piano, reaching deep inside him for the bass notes. He giggles and sprays a pineapple mist across the screen. Graves burst through the guts of a prepared piano and Marlene Dietrich sits astride them from multiple angles, oblivious to the cries of Professor Rath, caught in her insolent web. She is wearing only French feathers and emerges nude from a black and white postcard into stark realism, caressing the spokes of Rath's spine like a torture wheel found only in his dreams. The robotized audience descends on Professor Rath and tear him to liquid drops, every drop uttering the same mournful phrase. Goodbye Herr Doktor, we will prepare your orisons nightly, wrapped in Lola's knickers, dunked in a special tank filled with secretions from shark hearts.

poetry is my only real friend you laugh and call me soft. in the head i gather. this language is a prison you have taken for a royal road. and yet. there is no deep poison in its daily draught. no venom lurking like some evil toad in the dregs. no obligation curdling my guts, hands gripping my brain and cock at 3 and 12 o' clock-no more of that. i have only sweet dereliction for solace, and alphabets that roar on impact, producing many more. words than there are things to name: a honeyed liquor, buzzing the heavens, more tender than your velvet breath. it cannot dissolve when hearts stray or the nerves are swayed. so i say with reverence, these words through arcane channels to god alone. a pathless track, never lost, that you can never find.

peace with glass viola The way you move especially clings to the edge of a rest: dawns are aching to speak a word. We are chastised by your solar energies, and moons that came to call last night evaporate like dew.

symphony with smoke A flagon of cool dreams knit from a moment's surrender. A drizzle of gray doves that bring the rain. A tight skirt with your solemn smile dancing all over it. The heat of a scraped double-bass--symphony's smoke for my desolation. The tiniest tricks of fire, and murder. Planting a seed with a scapular belly. Sawed-off heliotropes escape from the womb of the violin. A possibly sinister gloss on any old collapsing dog. My face trimmed in mirrors for the sake of xylophones. Masques of the maddened sea.

hurricane Alex (prelude) Having carefully dusted the edges of solar systems, he pokes beneath the hat. A blaze of shocking butterflies, torn from dreams, elaborates tiny dances, each one more painful than the one preceding. At last, a storm of flowers bound for the moon wave lavender handkerchiefs from a steam trunk, the pretenders having burrowed beneath a final theater. Performing the routine mambo on weird tips from gunfights and a jeweled clock delicately embedded beneath the skin, he breathes the ticktock funeral of any aging bad guy.

frozen handicrafts plucked from the bones of Nothing in the barely creased acidic soil you taunt me with. My damnation rushes to grind against your solar apathy, dimly played on the lute that gleams behind 10,000 rainbow trout. In a conchshell that cannot be gainsayed, the battle begins with the two armies arrayed against each other, equally strong and righteous in their cause. A blue god tells it like it is. My sumptuous beasts have no beginning and no stoppage, bound to the wheel of ice, as your frozen hydraulics gyrate beneath a bloodstained moon.