“a home where the heart would be... “

emotional void prompts

walking through a desert,

commiserating

with desolation - -

this bleak parcel,

strewn trash akin to

city dirt lot,

all but swallows the brownish fuzz lump

discerned from dead foliage only

by its errant appendage - -

with three quick strides

I loom over baked Teddy,

wadded stuffing once warmed

by a child’s loving breast

now blanched,

brittled,

by Mohave sun - -

so a former child

picks up a decaying orphan:

scorched detritus of growing maturity,

failed sacred innocence talisman - -

but not alone!

the little brown field mouse,

child clinging to teat,

burrows further

into a poly-filled chest cavity,

now sweet and sacred home...

lucky bear.

by M.K.Bullock

“... good for them.”

fibrilating feral tones creep upward

underneath pleading satillite radio proclamaions - -

     “Ahm ready fo’ love, oh baby

     ahm-a ready fo’ love...”

coyotes and cock-rock frontmen in tandem;

sharing separate moments of nuptial surety,

as my discarded potential progeny writhe

within folds of

2-ply septic tank-friendly “Nice ‘n’ Soft”.

by M.K. Bullock

“holding the bag”

arms and face sunburned I

sit upon a small

infirm wooden footstool,

cigarette smoke a spectral ribbon into

uninterrupted desert sky - -

my eyes drift

to the cactus on a slope wearing

a “Vons” logo

upon a weathered plastic sheath,

obscenely juxtaposed over

succulent, spiny flesh - -

sight then grazes

toenails, flip-flops,

and rests upon an oblong beetle

crawling toward me

with warning splashes of

orange markings,

stopping in a stand-off - -

me.

cactus.

beetle.

cigarette and smoke.

sky.

and my live-in love

(lover no more)

last seen yesterday

is keeping company with another - -

and the beetle moves away.

and the cigarette is cold ash.

and under the silent dumb blue

the cactus and I

are trapped holding the bag;

unsavory circumstances - -

only difference being:

the cactus

will be

all

right...

by M.K. Bullock

J.T. Kurtz

     Two vans, three cars, five pickup trucks, one beverage distributor

sporting a rolling "Snapple" billboard, one trash truck, one bulldozer, a

back hoe, and an MBTA bus - - all between 6:14 and 7am on a rural desert

street...

     Rising after repeated ruined attempts at resuming my interrupted dream,

I stare into the mirror after my morning dump at my shaved head, looking

like a Joshua Tree Colonel Kurtz cuckolded by what smacks of spreading Los

Angeles suburbs; a cute young blonde woman dressed in black jogs past my

window down the dirt road with a doberman at her side while swinging a

riding crop as I hide from the city that's slowly coming to reclaim me in my

small room, stretched out upon a futon and staring at the revolving ceiling

fan, a "Jolly Green Giant" en route eastward to government-owned desolation

chopping at the unblemished blue atmosphere somewhere above my prostrate

form while providing me with its hypnotic metronome  - - shup... shup...

shup... shup...

     I lived on Franklin Ave. in Hollywood for years, second floor apt.

overlooking that secondary thoroughfare; cars, trucks, harleys, off-duty

busses, etc.; sills, mouldings, furniture covered in black emission

fallout... I can feel the clouds of soot rolling, with a sentience,

searching for me again. The other day, I went to the window, dragged the pad

of my right index finger across the plaster-spattered metal framing as a

breath of chilled morning air washed over my face through the screen. Hmmm -

- no soot. Not yet...

     Now the cat's on the sill, twitching, staring at foraging rabbits and

quail, then breaks his trance with a lightning jab to catch  a housefly; a

rabbit registers the movement and bolts for the bushes. And with bulldozers

stalking the vicinity, he'll soon have to run much further than that.

     "The horror... the horror..."; staring at the fan, I await the coming

Legion.

by M.K. Bullock

"more strawberry gel marinade, please... "

harassed and beaten down

while shopping

at a Yucca "natural foods" store

by rampant health-conscious consumerism

and

a significant other who

was losing her significance,

I bought...

a twenty dollar frozen chicken.

a week later

that meat sits in the freezer;

the other piece having left

to be with another - -

and I am cuckolded...

but at LEAST

a thawed twenty dollar bird

doesn't complain about

the scent

of my motion lotion.

by M.K. Bullock

The Incoming Tide

     All of the windows are open wide, allowing - - upon the dry night air

that you breathe - - a signature of tires on macadam one hundred feet

distant, to whisper in the dead atmosphere of your darkened drywall box,

infusing the false imagery of hissing surf into numbed senses dulled by

emotional fatigue - - a momentary placebo of relief from the ever-present

muted nocturnal rustlings of the human rodentia that inhabit the surrounding

units of this baked, stuccoed mausoleum for those not yet dead.

     In between these faux-oceanic surges, your mind unwittingly seeks to

separate, and occasionally identify, what should be for sanity’s sake

harmless bumps, scratchings and mosquito-like keenings that seem to seep out

of invisible pores in the time-sullied walls that loom over your limp,

prostate form...

     Bumps and low blunt thumpings become a flipper-launched flesh-and-blood

pinball whose probable methamphetamine intake leaves it racking up untallied

points by rolling over every surface of its encased space...

   Scratchings become a collector of lead paint peelings whose uncontrolled

interest in this pastime directly reflects an absence of certain

habit-sustaining fuels acquired during boon times when payment for such has

been attained by methods better unspoken, yet weathered during the lack

thereof by denuding a residing space of decades-old toxic navajo white

strips, a poisonous scattering of dandruff that passes the time until the

means for acquiring more satisfying poisons becomes available...

     Mosquito-like keenings become the thin liquid whines issuing from a

gaping mouth connected to a body whose musculature functions are being

reduced to the responsiveness of meat underneath a tenderizing hammer by the

ever increasing lunging actions of blind pounding copulation, crescendo

after reedy crescendo swirling like eddies above your pillow-cradled head...

     Then suddenly, with a merciful cleansing surge of white noise, the

incoming tide of tires on macadam washes away the nuances of the ruminant

night, allowing for the barest lull in the low and constant cacophony from

these catacombs - -  where inside of such a lull may be found the sudden

steep merciful drop, with riptide pull, into temporary, humane, dreamless

void.

by M.K. Bullock

Copyright ©1995-2009 The Sun Runner, The Magazine of California Desert Life & Culture
61855 29 Palms Hwy., Joshua Tree, CA 92252, USA
Webmaster: Steve Brown