Body electric zapped

lower gastrointestinal tract

wracked with wretchedness

pitted, rocked, and tortured

severe muscle spasms cramp

deathly hallowed deliverance

beseech divine creator to exorcise relief

any panacea trumpeted vetoed

pestilential nausea diarrhea

wreaks relentless havoc

horrid ordeal twists insides

lack strength to live

breathing a laborious effort

bedrest temporarily alleviates

generally healthy ironclad junket

weatherbeaten rickety ship of state

restorative sought trouncing unwell

corporeal self against torture

assailing, castrating,

and drubbing existence

avocations ordinarily promulgating

resplendent joie de vivre

squelched, scotched, and sabotaged,

courtesy minuscule mailer daemons

emotions unlikely culprit,

though times gone by anxiety

tindered, pitched, and kindled

abominable irritable bowel syndrome

prescription medication tempered

badgering, crippling, and debilitating

panic attacks plagued this primate

manifesting feeble endeavor

to experience poignant satiation,

asper simple pleasures nonexotic

endeavors merely passively living

as one organic carbon based

human being finding fulfillment

meditating, reading, and writing,

now fleeced, deprived, and blitzed

suspicious disagreeable provender

perhaps lactose intolerance

after enjoying pizza birthday

fours days prior

celebrating chronological centenary,

sans one frail resident here,

Highland Manor Apartments

suddenly, I feel chill o' rigor mortis!

Clarence walked nonchalantly downtown, nothing especial to do, and while humming a tune he espied a placard between entrances to indeterminate establishments. It read:

Love Shopping? …seeking person or persons to pose in store incognito. $12 per survey.

He didn’t, particularly, love shopping, but the poster intrigued him. Was it a social experiment? A zealous competitor trying to undermine its opposition? A fraud baiting naïve-innocents with a non-fatiguing lure? But then again what was twelve bucks nowadays? A drink and a sandwich, and nothing fancy. So, how many survey’s were they talking about? Doing exactly what? His mind took a cynical bend.

He dialed the number walking. Having already paused too long, he took the call from a distance. Defensively posturing, as others might have presumed-- making a connection-- that he had been, maybe, suckered in.

He expected an automated service.

“Hello, Abott Marketing. How may I help you?” said a polite yet sultry voice of unspecified age, young but mature, or mature but youthful-- very attentive.

Now he felt a reproachful goofiness, a grown man seeking a shopping spree, not worth a dozen singles. And yet:

“Uh, yes. I’m responding to the advert posted,” he said feigning great interest, animating his tone a little extra, unnecessarily.

“What is your location?” she enunciated charmingly. Was he detecting an accent? He couldn’t quite place it. He craned his neck out from the shadow doorway he’d ducked into to better read the street sign:

“Corner of First and Boulder.”

“One moment…” and abrupt silence swept into music.

He started imagining how the face or body might match or contrast the vocal. The elevator tune raised an image of Jane Harlow, then turned a bit more Latina from Rita Hayworth to Victoria Monet, and then she was suddenly an overbearing trench with gorilla arms and low drawn hat not quite in any traditional shape, drooping and uniform grey, barely covering steely grey eyes.

“Ya’ rang?” he growled in a low hoarse whisper.

The wire went dead.

“Yeah. The… woman had me... on hold… “ he hung up and fixed his lip, emotionless.

“Ya’d be waitin’ a long time, heh, heh?” the cavalier sniggered at the dummy.

He had been taken in, a robocall, after all; and this was strange “personal” service.

Just how far was this farce going to evolve?

He kept a poker face. It was well-tanned apeman’s turn to make a false move.

I look at these scars

and think, uncritically

live with love, or do without

none of these

were caused

by anyone

only by carrying on, and caring about

I stabbed myself with scissors when I was little

and have stitch-slashes across my middle

and at the temple a small, raised gash

looking in the mirror in confusion

as to which side it happened on,

Good or Evil?

I still have callous marks on the left

from flailing on the violin

and from squeezing the life

out of my pencil on the right

in pursuit of... I'm not sure what?

little pieces of hearts, always

to make whole again

maybe more fully loveable

maybe only to oneself

trying not to take anything

from anybody,

like it might be theft

I've refused everything,

even advice freely given

and I'd wish for all of us

a skin blameless, and smoothly healing

She had everything going for her, skin deep. She presented gloriously on the stage as the designated beauty from her state. Her buttocks were firm and tented the bikini bottom just so. Her breasts were just so...healthy! Hanging perfectly at attention. Her waist was flat, the perfect connection between her upper and lower body.

Her legs were shapely, sinewy, and begging for the highest skirts possible. Her feet were lovely, like a child's. Her hands were porcelain. Her arms were cantilevers of poetry.

Her face would one day launch a thousand ships. While most noses are noticed immediately on a face, it's the attractive ones that are visited last, and she had impish upturned nose, on the perfect side of retroussé.

Her gait was a strut. Smooth and beckoning to follow, even into the gates of Hell, if she so ventured. As she walked, all of her parts syncopated in an interesting embellishment of her beauty.

This was the quintessential woman, skin deep. Who would care what was underneath?

While it's true the beautiful who walk among us compete in a fake competition for the eyes, age is the great equalizer. And while it's also true that beautiful people may be just as beautiful beyond skin deep and beyond, we train the beautiful to stay beautiful as long as they can, with fake adulation earned in fake contests.

She won the contest.

Deemed the most beautiful. In external appearance that belies the truth. And in twenty years, she'll catch up to everyone else on life's stage.

Elysia fumbles but she fights

As paper snow pouted from saccharine clouds

Levels hedge maze heaven

And the rain’s frowning machinery

Spills grey ghost fables

Through vortex thimbles

Prodding grumbling waves into pelted brick

Wrapping orchid wine carrageenan

Around her silver sailing dance

Skirting stealth menace

Beneath her war tattooed ship

Where glassy sky cutouts

Web their slivering rankle

The toothy reef dragoons

Reaching to stake her briny heart

But Elysia’s tiger pride

Is bronzed furnace creek fire

Throttled and boiled

Death Valley kettle hot

As she coasts high on rebel stride

Heading off with zen quickened sputter

Boundless for sanctity’s palatial mouth

Through grim oblivion’s parted seas

And tarrying never

For what is death’s melted wax kissed fate

But instead

Elysia dives

Into the shark eyed void

And beaches upon Sion sands

Perfumed by hibiscus claret hands

Forever kept in the time emptied hourglass of God.

We're all here dancing

Down this hall of smoke…

A scant few carry a full flush…

The rest of us are broke…

Some of us are dressed in flesh…

While others are long dead…

Every voice is here right now…

Don't matter what you read…

We're all here dancing

Down this hall of smoke…

At the Hakata Dontaku,

Or the Chelsea in New York…

Burning life's wax at both ends

Sacked out at Bronson Park…

On a nonstop bender now

We ache to play our parts...

We're all here dancing

Down this hall of smoke...

A sir with eyes as black as coal

Is reaching in his cloak...

A girl drops off as glasses clink...

A knife gleams in the dark...

The words we say,

The things we do

Are causing tiny sparks...

We're all here dancing

Down this hall of smoke…

A scant few carry a full flush…

The rest of us are broke…

Some of us are dressed in flesh…

While others are long dead…

Every voice is here right now…

Don't matter what you read…

9/27/24

Bunny Villaire

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