While you're busy deciding whether or not to look at your feet, I'm standing up!

The king stood at the perfect vantage point in his castle, from which he could view his entire domain. And he sighed. Slumped forward a bit.

"If I may, your Highness," soothed his manservant Heath.

"If you do, then I thank you for it," King Grabbardly said.

Heath walked a half circle to the other side of King Grabbardly's throne and softened one of his shoulders back into a more royal posture. Grabbardly maintained it for a moment, and then let it drop.

"I'm afraid I have no desire for kingly attitudes this day, Heath. I should like to be alone."

"Then your people will send forth their wishes for your renewed spirit."

"Will they? But I haven't given anything from myself in years. A bit of benign guidance, but not a lot. Certainly not a great deal."

"Your Highness, your people have cultivated much under your watch. They will not let their king be laid aside by melancholy."

"Then I have become the subject, and they have become something of a teacher."

And Grabbardly pondered. It wasn't long before he threw his robe to his manservant and took a stark naked run through the town. He returned, still naked, but clutching three squirming, struggling, screaming chicken and one baby ferret.

"I've named them all after you, my dear friend Heath!"

Because that's what Kings can do!

For an instant it made all the difference in the world.

"Please, sir, do please square your underwear the other way, in honor of the manner in which His Majesty generously squares his. "

The officer looked bored.

"I do not understand why."

"It is merely tradition. You are found lacking in Tradition 41187961: heading: Squaring Underpants in the Method Used by His Royal Highness."

"Explicate the reasoning behind this. I am a simple man, but a man with the distinction of doing things my own way, the least of which is the way I square my drawers, and I do it in the fashion I do because it is of optimal comfort."

"I shall not. You have been warned. I am tempted to stand here and wait while you comply."

"Then I shall leave."

"Then I shall have to force pleasant compliance from you!"

The struggle was monstrous, the area of devastation was enormous. One man fought so hard to preserve his belief...just as the other did. In the end, the simple man's underwear was no closer to being righted than it was at the start. Only now, there is an overabundance of chaos at Number 5 Openly Road between Berry's Tea Tree and Lonsury's Cattle Branding.

The right to underwear expression and its effect on our composure is being openly debated in court. I should like to see which officials deviate from His Highness' preferred unmentionable wrangling.

That would be interesting for at least half an instant.

In sinking, it loses but half its life.

Steven follows but one rule. One rule that expands upon itself almost indefinitely.

If you cannot dance, you hug.
If you cannot hug, you keep meaning to and trying to express what you mean by that hug.
If you cannot hug, you gamble with a glance holding the truth of what you feel.
If you cannot find a way to get any meaning across, you codify a series of gestures meant to indicate warmth or amiability.
You just keep trying. The feelings are out there. They are just being denied at this time. They will return shortly.

The list of things held as fear in the hearts of us who strive to live is absurdly long. The mere posting of it piques fear of the fear. But how to deal with it straight away? And how to know that the dealing of it has been accomplished?

There are a lot of folks out there. A lot of folks. A ramble off into thought. There are people who are not welcome. There are people who are not liked. There is no one universally admired. Not continuously. Perhaps one day someone will be. There are people who are ignored and who ignore. There are people who squelch their own feelings, and those who revel in them.

There are all types, all sizes, all distinctions, all essences of grace and lack thereof. There are new words. There are old sounds. There are comforting melodies. What is there not?

Is there the opposite sound of a buzz saw? What sound would a shotgun make if it had to pick an alternative voice with an opposite meaning? Will cats ever expose their true intentions?

Will the number of ways we can walk ever truly be capped? Will people begin rough housing in public, causing scenes and dancing in the streets? Will people ever mention that which they mean the most? On what level will we be meeting today? Will candles ever stop being lit?

Will all who have come and gone ever stop coming and going? Will the space of the sky ever truly make itself accessible to us? Can we lift our hearts and our minds to expose what we fear and thus be shaken, but never upended? Are there things we should know, rituals we should perform, experiments we should execute? Should we take to singing in the streets? Should we truly do what others do not?

Will we ever remember how we felt in this moment and the last? Will the gears of power that are turned by the silent and invisible fellows ever be revealed? Will we truly think our own thoughts and know they are ours alone? Will alone ever shake off our harsh criticisms of it?

Will someone please, please, please sink the spout of dread far into the ocean so that its intentions never mix with ours. Of the multitudinous ways to live, wow, there are many.

And the hurt. And the separation. All the things that we can name will pass away forever. And all we've read, all we've learned, all we've thought, all we've striven for will turn to something else. And what will that be? I do not know, but here, today, it fills my mind.

There is no more need for language. Can we now see beyond it?

Written 11-25-05

Exit Portals
How does one find their way
To the mysterious Exit Portals?
I thought they were so well hidden
Because for one thing, they mean danger.

Why should one choose
To seek the very final Portals?
Is something too large? Too tall?
Too obtuse or small?

What enters the mind first,
Before one knows it is a portal they seek?
Have they finished all their work?
Wrapped it up, bows galore, a precise order?

Or is it because things are so askew,
That options can no longer be tried,
Or all other doors have closed,
So we see those left are the portals.

It seems a most viable option, does it not?
If you or I should need a break,
Who'd not allow it?
Portals for rest would be best.

Or what is all the fuss about?
Portals or not?
It's because what leads to the portals,
Are hallowed halls of sadness.

Each hall is built for a reason, for a person.
Each hall is built to last, so the sadness
Lingers, teaching others to stay
If only for a hushed, anxious minute longer.

My door is jealous. Of you who have already left.
It has not gotten to use its recently sharpened teeth,
A once a year occasion, done by some great Aunt
Or other. They're trying to get the message out.

The sharpened teeth tear away the flesh
That we have forfeited. What else is no
Longer ours once we pass through
The cold and lonely places of quiet air.

Disturbed by some state of mind or act,
The door men and women assigned to us
Will hurry into action; building or tearing down
Bits of our door so it will be ready exactly as we need it.

One man jumped through his half finished.
His choice was both accidental and full of purpose.
That door man is out of work, building his own door,
Through which he will pass, though no choice of his own.

So, where is this sadness again?
That makes it so terrible a thing
To pass through the door for you?
It's waiting here, you dial it simply.

I was unavailable, so I dance for you today.

Before you start tap dancing about how much money I owe you, or how much glue I poured onto your seat and which is now stuck to your hind thighs, I would like for you to look high up into the skies. Just for a moment. Do you see any stars? Which ones? What impact do they have on your life? If they were to fall all around, which constellation do you reckon we'd be plummeted upon by?

I have space to let. If you need any space, I have some which you may procure. It is scattered all around, but if you were to add it all up, it would be a sizable amount. You could raise a family in it. But of course you and your family could not be in the same physical space together. As I said, it is rather spread out, so you are better off adopting, for how could you change a diaper if you were never within reaching distance of your child? And how would you discipline them if swatting range was unavailable? So it is your decision to make. I rent reasonably, you shall see. I rent quite competitively compared to my peers who let space much more conveniently, but alas, the cost searches the heavens without end. I await your call.

Humbly,

Alfrabottoms Cauldronmouth III

Great Thunderous Blubber, What Have We Wrought?!

"If you are in fact serious, as I suppose you must be given the expression you've let fly across your rude and biting face, I shall have to disagree further! And I choose no other tactic than to exhort you with strange and rare meanings, the likes of which you shall hear of but once!"

Randy was stumped. He stepped back a pace, helpless as the flow of words washed over him, draining him of fair retort. He was struck mute. He stood there, dumbened for a series of moments, and then his mind began to race, while his body remained paralyzed.

"I shall leave you be for now, young man. A continuance is in order, but let us wait a little while."

Our Host gave Randy a pat on his left shoulder. A pat that nearly shook loose his attempts at grasping sanity. Each sinew and muscle tensed and remained so as he turned and walked toward the room's far corner.

Everyone was staring.

Someone offered him a drink. Randy preferred the spot his nose had found in the space where two walls meet. He sniffed and caught a cooler sensation. He was relaxed a bit. Someone tapped his shoulder.

Whirling, Randy felt his nose warm to room temperature. Who had tapped him? Everyone stared, but no one was within arms length. A beautiful woman could not stand the tension any longer, and so she made attempts at distracting her date by giving his scalp all the attention her fingers could give it. A rigorous massage. Other guests did likewise, only in varying manner and technique.

Now he was not being seen by anyone. There was a path through the room created by the couples. Naturally, and through no intention of their own. Randy walked this path and it lead to the high ceiling-ed Piano Room. 8 pianos were scattered about. 3 were presently being accosted by some half studied individuals. Candles, food and drinks stood atop these grand devices. The candles were unlit, however, and Randy quickly found a method for remedying this.

A quick grasp and an upthrust put a candle securely in his possession. Progressing in short, quick hops, Randy found our Host.

"BING!" Randy shouted, took out his lighter, and immediately lit our Host's shirt on fire. Well, it spread quite quickly, seeing as the room was, until now, quite intimately packed.

"And now I have lit my candle!" Randy whispered, as he watched our Host be consumed.

"BUT WAIT!"

Our Host was protesting! The flames ceased in all but his mustache, which seemed to be fueled by some long burning substance.

"I HAVE NOT FINISHED YOUR REPRIMAND."

Randy did not know what to expect. He had never known an exclamation that was capable of extinguishing a healthy fire.

"I have called you a snob and a snoot. I have rubbed your face in the blubber of your own misgivings and I have spent my time issuing the full truth for your benefit. And you have gained nothing by it! What must I do? What methods must I adopt? What ways must I employ to coax some trembling sense from your humanhood?"

"You should have employed music and dance," Randy said, only slightly functioning above fraught nerves. "A bit of ritual may have helped, too. You must realize that I am here to learn from you, and if you cannot be patient, then I can never learn from you. You see I'm afraid of you now. You've gone too far."

"Too far!" Our host's tone was thought to have peaked moments earlier, but here it scans the loftiest heights yet.

"The distance of "too far" has yet to be traveled, young lad. Demonstration is my only asset, come this very moment."

Fingers raised to his mustache, testing at the still blazing heap of air, he began to nudge it. The queerest look appeared on his long, slender, bony face. Both eyebrows dancing independently of each other. The nudging became a poking. And with the poking he alternated with stroking. The mustache began to move. Slightly. And now more. It was heading north, should Our Host's face be a map. His finger nudged, and into his nose the hairs were being sent. There was ample room. His nose was capable of holding fat cigars. A mustache would be quite easier to compact. Now he poke with both fingers until the 'stache was gone, his upper lip raised past his teeth, and the flames issued from great, flaring nostrils.

"I've had it! You're a slug! A miserable puppy that makes no distinction between a hydrant and the asshole of a camel!"

And in that space of time, the entire earth was engulfed by another sort of chaos. It eclipsed the ongoing chaos only because it was triggered by it and had more flares set to burn. It is because of disapproval, because of resistance and because of hilarious dinner parties that the world must now end. One man will survive of the two, and he will be given a period of time to be right about that which he was speaking. His perspective will rule. He may enjoy it as he chooses with the smoldering ruins.

After that initial space of time has run out, he will be given 30 seconds. 30 seconds he will have to dance the Dance of Remembrance. To leave an impression with his soles and his heart. His voice will be given inspired flight and he is to enact pure creation. But then he will stop. Because his time is up. Because the height of creation will have now been put behind him, and it will grow ever further, ever more distant, ever more lovely in memory.

Then he will be given a word to read. To sum up all that was.

He knows it already. IT IS:

UPROARIOUS.

Purposeless

"Because you were careless and refused to examine the world around you, a sacrifice you shall be."

The thing pointed and laughed.

The man heard the sentence read, but he did not comprehend.

The thing understood this.

The man felt it graze his cheek with a single bony finger. And then he recoiled. And so the thing recoiled, lifting itself high above.

"I don't care if you follow me, but I'm leaving," the man said.

"And to do what?" the thing inquired. "Throw your life, your potential this way and that? Seek and wonder and dream and come up short?"

"You, as a thing, have misjudged me. I hold layers you cannot see. And I refuse to be led down some side angle road or be caught up in your confusion. I have my own. And I sit with it. And I will clear it up."

The thing laughed and looked. And smiled and studied. And groped toward the man. It seized the man's toe and quickly upended him. And it tore his belly with its tongue. And it watched as his insides spilled and poured. And when he was empty, the thing laid the man down, gently.

Both the man and the thing then did sigh.