Notes on His Imminent Death

He found himself driving down deserted tree-lined roads running from suburb to sleeping suburb, night riding with the long distance radio playing songs that wouldn’t stand the light of day.

He had taken to sleeping in shifting patterns as if the vigilance would grant him a stay of execution, as if forcing his dreams out into the open would reveal a new meaning, a new world.

He lived on mineral water and rice like some Third World herder in the desolate regions bordering the Gobi Desert, sand swirling around his feet, scarf of Himalayan goat’s wool sheltering his face.

He painted the walls of abandoned factories with the obituaries of tattoo stamina.

Who did they think spoke and sang in this last ditch effort?

He would savor the walls. He would savor the faces. He would savor the toys. He would savor the laughter. He would savor the urine stained dumpsters.

He would savor the vagrant vegetation of the broken tarmac, ever more insistent, трава и засорители, this force of forward existence, this ever mutating desperation, this… competition.

The crescent moon with its polluted sepia tones faded to the wooden arena of deconstructing tenement hallways.

The freight trains of archaic desire sent the last metal sparks into the greasy gravel lining the pathway to the terminal point of geographic imagination.

This… competition.

He would draw to an inside straight. He would hold the words. It was him and his God and piss on the rest.