4 Hour Hard On

SHARD by John Bennett
(c)'06; All rights Reserved


Making do with what the doctor ordered. A shelf loaded down with pharmaceuticals where the spice rack used to be. Bye-bye Miss American Pie, sirloin steaks and a half rack of Bud; hello Stairmaster in the cellar, a weight set and a Jacuzzi.

Trim and dapper he lies naked on his silk sheets by candlelight and stares at himself in the mirrored ceiling. He longs for a woman to show up, and do the impossible. Deep within his computer behind a chain of passwords--his porn stash. The quandary of crisis in a deep-throat world.

A woman with disrupted anatomy, her clitoris 8" down her throat, the premise of a blockbuster porn flick. Howard Hughes had 8" nails, a long-shot chance for satisfaction, just a seance away.

Listen to your damaged self, it will tell you what you have to do-- to make the best of things.

***

Love is not a many-splendid thing. It has nothing to do with clits, cleavage or climax; nothing to do with freedom or the First Amendment. It's not encoded in those three magic numbers on the back of your credit card. It has to do with enduring pain and a gentle touch.

If your heart doesn't fill with joy when you see a child skipping down the sidewalk with two different color socks and an untied shoe, you do not know what love is, and your chances of finding out are less than average.

My poem is the 3rd one down,
in the post dated 12.06.06. ;)

Merely follow

the dust ... .. .

Hey homey,
it’s Mariano,

you know...

of the pure onyx Orca jet ski
draped with hottie hard bodies,
in Veracruz and San Juan
Capistrano?

You know me
homey by my

rooster tail which
is always studded with
keepsake diamonds from
the House of Zales,

that I
fly-tie
Ben Franklins
to mile-high
kite strings--

and turn
the whole thing
loose like monocle
soap bubbles,

watching
through Lens of
my Hubble, all the
crisp bills

fluttering
in ice blue stratosphere
jet stream like those itchy
bitty hangnails on the toes
of silken millipedes.

You want the skeevy
scoop on my latest Vegas
visit how I burnt those
Mirage Boys cherry brown?--
they were down three quarter
mil in the Celebrity Baccarat
Pit when I started humming

"Raindrops Keep
Falling On My Head ”

and pompadour floor boss he
begged me to quit.

And you...

still surfing the Internet
for cheap thrills in lieu of
Indonesian anxiety pills,

some kind of
Habit Trail
to soften the
voices in that

sand pail you
call a brain pan?

Listen man,

you really need to get hip
to my System,

I make it available
for a limited time,

Just look at yourself
in the Makeover Mirror,

while Tomcat stirs his
whiskers in another amber
puddle on hardwood slats,

and that witless
muscle-bound Jehovah’s
Witness, even now
mounting

your porch, softly tapping
on the torn screen door,

I see his
chuffing brakeman’s breath
popping off the tight little
corners of a heart-shaped
mouth--lauding Jesus,
judging you.

It’s the middle
of December, for
Christ’s Sake!

—shut the door in
his pastry baker's face, place
your cable modem amongst the
mouse turds and comb teeth
of the Popeil Automated
Kitty Litter Rake,

then go to
the telephone
and order my
System.

Me and Her Outside (No No Man)
--by Steven Jesse Bernstein
(from the book "More Noise Please" published
by Left Bank Books) (c) '91; all rights reserved


It is midnight and the sunglasses twirl
my injuries a deaf plant warped
in a Hollywood rockery
of juice cans and hypodermic needles
You're so cool baby you don't know what you need
If the jaundice comes up
get out of the traffic.

A girl with an ass that makes me hurt
all over again
I know that girl's ass hurts
glass and pebbles crunching under her shoes.
The movie goes on and the men go inside
hiding their bottles
These men look confused
like fish getting clubbed on the pier;
what they see in there is better than me.

Pick a needle out from the burnt matches
and test it
blow through it
make a little bubble
There's the whazoo of the strip
put it in with the dust
In the pocket the cigarettes the key
the muffled bottom of the storm
Pull down my eyelids with my fingernails
in a window not made to look in or out of
or to be used as a mirror
though it works as a mirror
There is a yellow line it is jaundice
There is not a yellow line
It is not jaundice
No
The ass that makes me hurt
made to make me hurt
turns
showing breasts that make me hurt
but a face like a butcher board
eyes smeared on
worn out red elastic mouth
the mouth of a sock
waiting to get used

hurts
is a tender thing in the dark
under the shorts
leaky pelvis all over the sheets
Yo baby gotta no-no?
No no-no.
Sick animal glare in skin of the pavement
Oh I do wanna go down right here where
they threw the mop head
the paper towels and rubbers
Gotta no-no whistle is all
Can't make music with that.
Movie inside is big as the wall of a
building and so bright it'd make you
throw up

but they watch it
the men
and they eat
and drink
and eat
and drink.
Actually it is not just
the two of us
her and me
There are the cops
and me and her
in the good for nothing windows
and brown suits and grey suits and
blue suits
cars that stop and ones that go
There are palm trees
and people leaning on the palm trees
scratching reading looking at the trash
which is empty (believe me) from being
looked at

And gargoyles of human beings
hung on the ugly architecture
of wobbling lurching bodies
coming down fast
like dying empires
after the sun is already
dead in their eyes

Rooms full of spooks drunk
on dish soap
spiked with whatever was left
on the tables
when the bar closed
An animal over there with
spotted pants
dreams Google plex like
the chopped up palm
and the broken wall
and is just lost, oh my god
moving like a range of
dusty mountains
dead with nothing
to hold it down
moved by earthquake or
rain that swallows
the stars and moon

Get out of the way off the curb
He pukes in the garden and slams
sideways into the stucco
What are the cops waiting for here
lined up in their cars staring
at their clipboards and microphones
We got some people
scratching themselves,
a man looking at his eyeballs
up under his shades
and a woman with a poochy ass
who keeps turning around and around
Find the hurt place and don't ever
let it heal

Get that fucker hanging on the wall
and tear him loose

The stars are coming out
There is a tv set in a window
it says
"the stars are coming out"
look up in the brassy sky and
there they are
like gloomy pocket change
you bet on something
you wish you had ten thousand
to bet on
something where
the odds are good
Betting all those stars
you don't win shit
not even a dollar
And there is a movie
and another movie
At least she is not ugly
really
And she shares you know
Or if something wrong happens
you know
she will...

You are asking me now if this is
the whole world
and I am saying it is
Check your own fucking eyes
Doesn't it hurt looking down the
sidewalk at night
If that mountain falls on me it's
gonna get you too
and the cops squashed in their
cars gurgling
into their dead microphones
an ocean of mud.
I had a girlfriend
and I never had a car
new jeans that I wore and wore
and I was not good with the plans
because no one
could've planned it like this
But then the same
you might say
is true of whoever
is responsible for history,
and a wide black belt
and all sorts of hats

The stars were much more valuable
when I was a boy
Now it is just
what the no-no man wants
that is valuable
which is green and covered with fingers
What the woman turning and twisting
sees in the night of pockets on the floor
while she hides only those parts of
her nakedness
too scarred to look at.
Let's pretend she is
my girlfriend for now
and she is doing that sidewalk dance
just for me
and there is no pain in her breasts
and our bodies are not battle zones
the stars are worth a fortune
you don't have to look at tv to know
I got a little cigar
and I can hear the music
it's playing right outa that door
There's a man and he's smiling
remembering

"Why don't you kids go down
to the beach where it's dark"

and we get on the bus and there's
nobody else

And outside the palm trees
the houses and lights
Shit what world is that
Don't ask me to remember that
I got a runny nose
and the ticket taker
looks from one to the other of us
then to the black and whites
bites a sandwich in hate

The bite that sets
the universe in motion
A dog
A man covered with
fortune telling signs
Two in white coveralls
Three clean women
getting out of a car
going into a door
One of the cops looks at me
and I shake my head "no"

CHANNEL YOUR INNER PIRATE
by Nancy Churnin and Alan T. Doss
--Dallas Morning News


Ahoy! As one pirate might say to another.

Pirates and pirate talk are all the rage. But you don’t have to go to the Caribbean or Neverland to seek out pirate tales. There are some good ones right in the United States.

Pirate Jean Lafitte built a pirate village he called Campeche on Texas’ Galveston Island in 1817. It had huts for pirates, a shipyard, bars and gambling houses. It also had a slave market and boarding houses for visitors.

Pirates such as Lafitte, needless to say, were not nice guys.

General James Long tried to get Lafitte to help Texas fight for independence from Spain and Mexico. But Lafitte refused to do it. Instead, in 1821, he attacked an American ship, and was later forced to leave his island.

Before he died, Lafitte hosted a party for his pirates with wine and whiskey, and as the celebration waned in the wee hours, he burned his settlement to the ground.

Legend has it he buried treasure on the island, but it’s never been found.

John Mathews, author of a new children’s book, “Pirates” (Atheneum Press) has been fascinated by pirates for as long as he can remember.

“For me, they represent a kind of freedom,” he explains. “However cruel the pirates were, on board ship there was a unity and sense of honor we could still learn from.”


TRUE OR FALSE: PIRATE TRIVIA QUIZ


Did Pirates Use Hooks—Like Captain Hook?

Not usually. Few pirates lost a hand. Those who did might occasionally attempt to fashion a prosthetic out of pieces of metal, but these improvised devices did not stay on the end of their arms very well.


Did Pirates Have Peg Legs?

Sometimes. Pirates often had to have legs amputated if infection set in after they were injured in battle. A pirate might have worn a peg leg, but it was too painful to wear for very long. So most pirates who were missing a leg walked with crutches,


Are There Really Treasure Islands?

Yes. One of the main treasure islands is Padre Island in the Gulf of Mexico, along the south coast of Texas, where some pirates buried their treasures. Sometimes as well, coins wash up on the shore of Padre Island, from the Spanish Galleons that sank during hurricanes.


Did Pirates Make People Walk The Plank?

Not likely.

No historian has found a bona fide example of Plank-Walking from 1680 to 1822.


Did Pirates Wear Earrings?

Yes. Earrings were very popular with pirates, and other persons of that era, as well.


Were All Pirates Male?

Absolutely not. Famous female pirates include:

Irish Granuaile O’ Malley, who operated in Elizabethan times;

Cheng I Sao, who ruled the South China Sea in the early 19th century;

Cutlass Liz and Gunpowder Gertie, the Pirate Queens of the Kootenays;

Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who dressed like men, and raided the Caribbean from 1719 to 1721.


TALK LIKE A PIRATE:
A Glossary Of Translations


Ahoy!

Howdy.


Avast!

Stop and give attention.


Aye!

Yes, I agree most wholeheartedly with everything you just said.


Aye Aye!

I’ll get right on that, sir, as soon as my break is over.


Beauty

Awesome dude, that doubloon / chick, she is so totally hot!


Bilge Rat

Lowest form of life in the Pirate Universe


Bunghole

Victuals (food supplies) on a ship were stored in casks. The stopper in the barrel is called the bung; and the hole is called… well yes, a bunghole.


Grog

An alcoholic drink, usually rum and water.


Hornpipe

Both a single-reeded musical instrument that sailors played aboard ship; and a spirited stomp-and-buck dance that the sailors performed.


Lubber

One who lives inland, on solid ground. Anathema, to the Pirate.