4 Hour Hard On

What you see above is the cover of
Patry Francis' debut novel, "The Liar's Diary."
Today I'm calling on my loyal readers--to purchase
and read this amazing book by a tenaciously talented
author who's recently come up against a very hard knock
vis a vis her health.

Below is an Amazon Link for buying her novel.
I've included also a link to Patry's blog. Please
stop by when you have the time, give her some
encouragement, feedback, prayer, etc. I'm
counting on you, Four Hour People!


Okay then.

Here are the links:


The Liar's Diary


Patry's Blog

From The Collected Poems of Philip Larkin
Published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux
(c) 2003 ; All Rights Reserved



Wires

The widest prairies have electric fences,
For though old cattle know they must not stray
Young steers are always scenting purer water
Not here but anywhere. Beyond the wires

Leads them to blunder up against the wires
Whose muscle-shredding violence gives no quarter.
Young steers become old cattle from that day,
Electric limits to their widest senses.



Wants

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards
However we follow the printed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the flagstaff—
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,
The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,
The costly aversion of the eyes from death—
Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.

put your
landing gear


here

in which
a kitty cat

& a coffee pot


steal the show

Time passed, and Nostradamus grew pensive and restless. Our flash-in-the-pan You Tube wonder hit was nothing but an amusing memory now.

“Fuck, kid,” he said, “if we don’t get on the stick before the feces hits the fan, we’re gonna be stuck in the middle with our dicks in--”

“Our hands, and Egg-Land's Best on our faces… Yeah, Nostry. You’ve said that about a dozen times already.”

So, he ventured out to this upscale Wallingford salon, and got himself a Mohawk. Then he coated it with a whole can of silver spray paint, added a couple of eyebrow piercings, Botox for the brow, a half-dozen shots of collagen for his prescient lips.

“Have you lined us up an agent yet?” he irritably asked me one day.

“Relax,” I said. “Our wave ain’t hardly crested. Not yet.”

Meanwhile, I introduced the geezer to the game of Texas Hold ‘Em Poker, and pestered him for some valuable insight into March Madness, even though it was only the middle of January.


Then we seemingly caught a break, and it was on account of the highfalutin Hollywood Writers’ Strike. It seemed that Conan O’Brien was desperate for material, so he invited Nostradamus to appear on his sad late night talk show. The atmosphere on the set was, for some reason, tense from the get go—and it didn’t help matters one bit when, right in the middle of taping, the lanky Irish huckster pulled out a twelve string guitar, totally catching Nostry off guard. Conan wanted to cull some impromptu deadpan Call and Response from the soothsayer, using the Carly Simon song, “Anticipation”— as backdrop.

O Brien played the opening riff with a smirk, then said:

“Okay, you know the words, old man… Sing with me!”

Weeee
Can never know
About the days to come…

Buuut
We think about them
Anywayyyy…


The upshot was that Nostradamus spit in Conan O Brien’s face, on national T V, effectively sinking our precious clipper ship in a glob of hot caustic phlegm.

He was escorted off the stage, and out of the building, by three beefy Samoan security guards.

“Fuck, man,” I said, later. “There goes your Good Morning America gig, and the spot I landed you on Celebrity Jeopardy. We’re fucked, do you hear?... Do you even care?”

“No Piss Ant Mick is gonna yank my stick. Matter of principle, boy.”

“Well I guess it’s back to square one, now.”

“You guess? Well, I guess you guessed right! Now, let’s go over the rankings of those silly-ass stud poker hands again… And you can stop cold-calling agents. You need to line us up a Bookie, instead. For real.”



Do you wish to read the previous
installment in the Nostradamus Saga?...


Click
Here In Time