the rattle of loose screws

On the shore, slammed to the sand with the nature of the valley
at Lake’s eye view i felt the reality of what they metaphysically mutter "sacred"
in times of fingerpointing dissociation from the feeling of
ground-down granite under their shoes, wind ripping at their shirts
grass talk conferring colour in the floodwade of tributary
glacial weight and veins of rain evaporating like innervessels on vitalgressions
through the heartbeat cycle of human hertz, wave form white caps
on the frothy edge of the over-arching-organism, quiet
undeliberate breath decaying in flowers of filth
with every exhale, what magic really is, alone in the
coliseum of undeniable sensation

but the chainsaws reminded me of the realities
that i also can't deny when i seek comfort
in the circus wonderbread electric msg
and my divorce from society in the routine i can get away with
in this slice of life i've scavenged for myself like a scaredy little rodent
backed into the corner of a plastic-patched condominium
with these distracted tenants who haven't paid their rent
who are consuming like there's no tomorrow
cause there's probably no tomorrow, since oil is order
and chaos is death for the majority
so we stuff ourselves with the snacks they sell down the road
still reasonably priced

and i still won't kill for my food

someone owns a piece of everything
it's business, you know what would happen if they threw the guns away?
capitalism is more civilized
except when it's not


*


He was a drug buddy for a while
that's how we got together, mutual interest in mind-manifesting
or just plain old-fashioned getting high
drinking, drugs, art, philosophy
whisky mystics and men

then
i learned the natural progression of paranoid paradigm

he sprung a leak
he's leaking springs
his brain's a broken toy

he can't be my friend anymore because i’m trying to convince him
his perception is bogus, he's taking on a solution of toxified sludgewater
infected with some synthetic parasite the conspiracy dumped in our lake
dwindling thimble full of ecology brought to us by Larame Cigarettes
as Groham's billboard reminds us

nancy drew figured me out
i'll apologize to him about working for
The International Campaign to Defame the Only Human that Exists
of which I'm a high ranking member
having worked undercover two years
slowly gaining his confidence, buying him tickets to raves
tempting him with my hot horny girlfriend, collaborating musically
only to use the information i've slowly acquired about him
to mess with his mind by saying things that sound like innocent conversation
but are diabolically tailored to trigger his deep-seated anxieties
because the world is fundamentally a malevolent place
and rich powerful men want him to suffer for their amusement
he's the chosen victim of the universe's glistening steel mindgrinder
and i'm the sharp edge of one of its teeth

i'll apologize about that
right after he apologizes to me for being part of an illuminati plot
to get me to burn my brain out on ecstasy
don't think i don't know, agent Orr
that you were the mastermind behind
somehow tricking me into buying those pills
all those times, the author of my ills, i blame you
even though this exact same pattern has repeated itself
with five or six different people in three different cities
it’s the world that’s wrong, not myself! ha!

now i'm part of his "campaign"
i won't call it a campaign, i'll call it a "conspiracy"
to sever his terminology, the word that give it the fingerprint veracity
to make it go down easy, sanction his psychosis

suddenly
i'm the dark matter in his nightmare universe
was i paid off by another member of the conspiracy
or have i been in on it all along
planning my chess moves from a Vancouver penthouse
with my laptop, using my network of operatives
to swoop down on him in Nelson, placing agents
on every streetcorner for strategically-timed comments
that can't really be heard at that range
but could theoretically be about him, and therefore must
malevolently be, must be the "kootenay phase"
of Operation Enduring Defamation and
when we're done, his character
will be flatter than fallujah! chortle chortle chortle!

he's flattered we've wasted so many resources on him
he loves his solipsistic self-righteous sob story

too much coke?
too much acid?
too many beatings?

his trauma is real
his delusions are not
he told me the fact that i was making rational arguments was evidence
of my involvement in the conspiracy
it betrays my intent to manipulate him
i wonder what i can say that won't be evidence
should i make irrational arguments?
then i'd be playing on his eccentric thought patterns for real

he’s waiting for a letter to explain it all
he’s sure one day he’ll see the twisted tell-all faces
in his father’s fractals
it gives a structure to the universe
something that explains his pain
he’s not gonna give it up
over the trivial matter of
our two years of friendship
and my insistence that i’m innocent

quite a bind
makes me want to go back to the lake
tune out the chainsaws
and forget about people
and how they cut themselves
and how they cut themselves off from me

i thought i was weird, fucked up, paranoid, neurotic
and then i actually got to know other people
like my fucking friends
now i think i’m alright.