Eric and Tony play knives by rivers under bridges.
High above, a bridge spans across the river valley-- treetops barely reach halfway along the towering concrete supports.
A cold river cuts the middle. Shoes and socks piled at the banks, jeans rolled to their knees--
Eric takes Tony by the hand and they wade to the river's center.
Tony shivers from the cold, slowly he turns his palms to Eric-- who takes the kitchen knife from his pocket, runs it deep, across middle. Blood spreads through the creases of his hand like a red city map.
Eric and Tony hold their breath, as the blood drips and falls. Blood dips thick heavy drops into the river. Where it touches, the water boils.
Thick smoke grows from the bubbling river and rises to the boys' faces. Black fog fills their eyes, ears and nostrils. Eric and Tony cry, tears ragged as can lids.
One, then the other, the boys plunge their heads into the roiling river waters. As their faces touch water, cords of smoke solidify in their throats, beneath their eyelids and down their ear canals, curling as roots burrowing through hillsides.
Then vision:
A spanning tree reaches above, its branches thick with leaf-veins' skeleton frames. In the tree's shade, an elderly mother crouches-- her hand gnarled around as a hook, gouges at her crotch, teeth set clenched as though masturbating. An old father, kneels over a puddle-- tearing flesh from his torso and legs, shaping them carefully, and adds the bloody clay to a half finished mask of his childhood face.
There is a sound, like the unhinging of jaws. A strained rumble, like the swallowing of stones.
The tightness passes and the dark lifts-- the boys, Eric and Tony, drift down stream.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
The Foreskin Papers
It is a shabby mind that allows room for coincidences. After only a moment's thought, spider webs of truth shine like gold in the sun. Every rock casts a shadow, but every shadow can hide a murder.
--Charlemagne Elm
A doctor, a friend of mine, through a sad sense of humor decided to name me executor of his estate years back. At times it feels like a stroke of convenience, these momentary favors we provide one another, but I signed the proper paperwork. Remembering the casual circumstances of that agreement is only natural after his death-- like looking down an extension chord to where it is plugged to an electric outlet.
In his office, I guessed rightly the numbers of the combination lock guarding his files (54321), files that were already my own property-- as per the arrangement.
What follows, in brief, is the most "sensible" re-construction of the notes, reflections and confessions that my dear friend, the doctor, left to this world.
-----
I have spent my entire 25 year career within maturity wards, as an internist, assistant, as a specialist and then finally lead perinatologist. It was only in the past year I have come to be ashamed of 25 years spent complicit in what must be called a Crime. Crimes too humanly literal. In this past year, I became aware of just what part I have played-- a revelation that spurred me to peak behind the veil, to try and see how deep the pit of this world lies.
It begins and it ends in the foreskins of infant boys. So often an ugly truth veils a greater more terrible reality. Foreskin by foreskin, a nightmare was built. On the average day our maturity ward collected 10-20 penis tips (numbers well within the mean average for a hospital servicing a small city). It was casual knowledge that these bits of skin--these miniature chicken necks-- were the most desirable form of "medical waste." Packed and preserved, a weeks worth of foreskin was collected from the hospital each Monday (strategically planned, I'm sure, so the inevitable plethora of weekend births would provide a host of the freshest foreskins possible). It was known that the Cosmetic industry was eager for the commodity, used for all manner of facial cleanses, cover-all and rejuvenative washes. It was common knowledge. But as leading perinatologist of the ward, as I became more involved in budgetary planning-- I peaked a page too far. I was startled to find that nearly our hospital's entire operational budget was provided through these skin sales... all other modes of payment, carefully filtered through insurance companies, ended as pure profit checks in the hospital trustee's pockets (hardly a revelation to anyone). But, learning that a multi-million dollar institution might be run through the price of foreskins-- I was astounded!
And so I dug deeper. To protect my family and sources, I have outlined as best and unattributedly what information I have found:
Foreskin's curative and anti-aging aspects are decidedly their least desirable trait. When separated to their molecular elements they produce other, near miraculous, results. These qualities have been known, closely guarded and cleverly employed for nearly a century. It was a Polish scientist, Alojzy Adamczak, who first discovered these attributes-- he then mysteriously immigrated to Hoboken, New Jersey in 1919 apparently fleeing the aftermath of World War I.
Adamczak's discoveries sent silent ripples through his adopted country--it was no coincidence that the United States was first to embrace an Industrial model for its hospitals. Numerous health and wellness campaigns throughout the early 1920's cultivated a cultural climate perfect for industrial-level circumcision. By the mid-late 1920's an entire social apparatus had been constructed for the purposes of foreskin production. Yet in this time, the world's other major powers had discovered the secret of foreskin technology-- an international scramble began.
Germany's relationship to the foreskin will perhaps be noted as one of history's greatest ironies. The racialist theories of Aryan propaganda engendered cults of Teutonic phallus worship that made foreskin collection all but impossible. It was for this reason, that the German Wehrmacht turned upon minority cultures with predilections for circumcision. In the early days of World War 2, Germany applied foreskin technology in their Blitzkrieg offensive with devastating effects. But as Allied shipping blockades slowly smothered the resources of Germany, the country's foreskin production collapsed-- leading to the development of synthetic foreskin alternatives. These proved ineffective.
The United States, at the forefront of foreskin technology, swept across Europe-- using foreskin by-products as key components in everything from early radar systems to precision aircraft. However, it was in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the true power of foreskin derived technology was displayed.
It would be ludicrous and childish to depict the mastery of nuclear fission as a simple derivative of foreskin discoveries, but the molecular elements did serve key functions in triggering/amplifying these massive nuclear events.
Foreskin politics came to define the 20th Century. The United States, with their early investments and commitment to "natural" foreskin resources rode at the forefront of a brutal pack. The Soviet Union, discovering late Nazi research in synthetic foreskins tried numerous hybrid natural/synthetic foreskin systems(projects eventually abandoned, reconverting to pure natural foreskin resources), lagged behind. As nuclear stockpiles swelled, the research continued. The same properties that made foreskins a key components in atomic weaponry proved invaluable once again in the development of micro-processors and modern computer hardware.
Geo-politically, the foreskin race has run without cease-- industrialized foreskins, became synonymous with power. The United States, Russia and Israel stood at the tip of Western foreskin technology. However, rising nations were taking notice and seeking to amend their station in the world. The latter half of the 20th century has been a tale of two nations-- India and China. Through the manipulation of old cultural mores they reinvigorated a modern cultural preference for male children-- the race for foreskins in the Eastern Hemisphere began. These countries' population swelled nearly to bursting, as did their skin resources, in a grand gambit for foreskin supremacy.
This coarse outline... this foreskin history of the shadows. It's darkest chapters echo here... in the United States. In the dark days of World War 2, where the modern ordering of this world first began. Even as it's food resources and synthetic foreskin's failed-- Germany's brutal bureaucracy scraped out the necessary foreskins, through the regimented efforts of the S.S. (short for Schutzstaffel or "Short Staffs" when translated to English). After the war's end, through Operation Envelope-- the same effort that smuggled clandestine German scientists to the United States to work in the space programs-- key members of the German S.S. were brought across the Atlantic to lead a new domestic program. Re-purposing the faded and irrelevant Secret Service, these key Schutzstaffel officers developed new efficiency programs, ultimately overseeing and protecting all US foreskin collection efforts and applied foreskin technology .
These things I have learned. 25 years a doctor... I have silently abetted these crimes in a criminal world. To act now is to die a martyr, earning only a symbolic defeat. But let it be done. For weeks, I have stolen and destroyed every foreskin from our ward-- a small act, but specific enough.
Let them come.
-----
Thus ends the notes and words of my friend, the doctor.
He was too curious a man, and a bit idealistic. But what's done is done.
No tears will be shed. Good doctors are like foreskins, there's always more.
--
Elmer Rosenblatt,
First Officer
Investigations and Enforcement Department
--Charlemagne Elm
A doctor, a friend of mine, through a sad sense of humor decided to name me executor of his estate years back. At times it feels like a stroke of convenience, these momentary favors we provide one another, but I signed the proper paperwork. Remembering the casual circumstances of that agreement is only natural after his death-- like looking down an extension chord to where it is plugged to an electric outlet.
In his office, I guessed rightly the numbers of the combination lock guarding his files (54321), files that were already my own property-- as per the arrangement.
What follows, in brief, is the most "sensible" re-construction of the notes, reflections and confessions that my dear friend, the doctor, left to this world.
-----
I have spent my entire 25 year career within maturity wards, as an internist, assistant, as a specialist and then finally lead perinatologist. It was only in the past year I have come to be ashamed of 25 years spent complicit in what must be called a Crime. Crimes too humanly literal. In this past year, I became aware of just what part I have played-- a revelation that spurred me to peak behind the veil, to try and see how deep the pit of this world lies.
It begins and it ends in the foreskins of infant boys. So often an ugly truth veils a greater more terrible reality. Foreskin by foreskin, a nightmare was built. On the average day our maturity ward collected 10-20 penis tips (numbers well within the mean average for a hospital servicing a small city). It was casual knowledge that these bits of skin--these miniature chicken necks-- were the most desirable form of "medical waste." Packed and preserved, a weeks worth of foreskin was collected from the hospital each Monday (strategically planned, I'm sure, so the inevitable plethora of weekend births would provide a host of the freshest foreskins possible). It was known that the Cosmetic industry was eager for the commodity, used for all manner of facial cleanses, cover-all and rejuvenative washes. It was common knowledge. But as leading perinatologist of the ward, as I became more involved in budgetary planning-- I peaked a page too far. I was startled to find that nearly our hospital's entire operational budget was provided through these skin sales... all other modes of payment, carefully filtered through insurance companies, ended as pure profit checks in the hospital trustee's pockets (hardly a revelation to anyone). But, learning that a multi-million dollar institution might be run through the price of foreskins-- I was astounded!
And so I dug deeper. To protect my family and sources, I have outlined as best and unattributedly what information I have found:
Foreskin's curative and anti-aging aspects are decidedly their least desirable trait. When separated to their molecular elements they produce other, near miraculous, results. These qualities have been known, closely guarded and cleverly employed for nearly a century. It was a Polish scientist, Alojzy Adamczak, who first discovered these attributes-- he then mysteriously immigrated to Hoboken, New Jersey in 1919 apparently fleeing the aftermath of World War I.
Adamczak's discoveries sent silent ripples through his adopted country--it was no coincidence that the United States was first to embrace an Industrial model for its hospitals. Numerous health and wellness campaigns throughout the early 1920's cultivated a cultural climate perfect for industrial-level circumcision. By the mid-late 1920's an entire social apparatus had been constructed for the purposes of foreskin production. Yet in this time, the world's other major powers had discovered the secret of foreskin technology-- an international scramble began.
Germany's relationship to the foreskin will perhaps be noted as one of history's greatest ironies. The racialist theories of Aryan propaganda engendered cults of Teutonic phallus worship that made foreskin collection all but impossible. It was for this reason, that the German Wehrmacht turned upon minority cultures with predilections for circumcision. In the early days of World War 2, Germany applied foreskin technology in their Blitzkrieg offensive with devastating effects. But as Allied shipping blockades slowly smothered the resources of Germany, the country's foreskin production collapsed-- leading to the development of synthetic foreskin alternatives. These proved ineffective.
The United States, at the forefront of foreskin technology, swept across Europe-- using foreskin by-products as key components in everything from early radar systems to precision aircraft. However, it was in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the true power of foreskin derived technology was displayed.
It would be ludicrous and childish to depict the mastery of nuclear fission as a simple derivative of foreskin discoveries, but the molecular elements did serve key functions in triggering/amplifying these massive nuclear events.
Foreskin politics came to define the 20th Century. The United States, with their early investments and commitment to "natural" foreskin resources rode at the forefront of a brutal pack. The Soviet Union, discovering late Nazi research in synthetic foreskins tried numerous hybrid natural/synthetic foreskin systems(projects eventually abandoned, reconverting to pure natural foreskin resources), lagged behind. As nuclear stockpiles swelled, the research continued. The same properties that made foreskins a key components in atomic weaponry proved invaluable once again in the development of micro-processors and modern computer hardware.
Geo-politically, the foreskin race has run without cease-- industrialized foreskins, became synonymous with power. The United States, Russia and Israel stood at the tip of Western foreskin technology. However, rising nations were taking notice and seeking to amend their station in the world. The latter half of the 20th century has been a tale of two nations-- India and China. Through the manipulation of old cultural mores they reinvigorated a modern cultural preference for male children-- the race for foreskins in the Eastern Hemisphere began. These countries' population swelled nearly to bursting, as did their skin resources, in a grand gambit for foreskin supremacy.
This coarse outline... this foreskin history of the shadows. It's darkest chapters echo here... in the United States. In the dark days of World War 2, where the modern ordering of this world first began. Even as it's food resources and synthetic foreskin's failed-- Germany's brutal bureaucracy scraped out the necessary foreskins, through the regimented efforts of the S.S. (short for Schutzstaffel or "Short Staffs" when translated to English). After the war's end, through Operation Envelope-- the same effort that smuggled clandestine German scientists to the United States to work in the space programs-- key members of the German S.S. were brought across the Atlantic to lead a new domestic program. Re-purposing the faded and irrelevant Secret Service, these key Schutzstaffel officers developed new efficiency programs, ultimately overseeing and protecting all US foreskin collection efforts and applied foreskin technology .
These things I have learned. 25 years a doctor... I have silently abetted these crimes in a criminal world. To act now is to die a martyr, earning only a symbolic defeat. But let it be done. For weeks, I have stolen and destroyed every foreskin from our ward-- a small act, but specific enough.
Let them come.
-----
Thus ends the notes and words of my friend, the doctor.
He was too curious a man, and a bit idealistic. But what's done is done.
No tears will be shed. Good doctors are like foreskins, there's always more.
--
Elmer Rosenblatt,
First Officer
Investigations and Enforcement Department
Sunday, June 15, 2014
New York City Man
Bloated and summer
Don't know that I can say the start to the finish of it
I still have yet to come to some term with what I can and what I have ready
Mornings are fine, afternoons grow forward grotesque
Where's there some edit, some pen in hand to shape present as it's lived?
Any one cut seems far too monstrous, far too quickly
So that none is never made
Right back to start,
And so
we continue and we boil
And nothing much seems to change besides date and weather.
But rolling, some new comes to mind.
New avenues, new songs and new angles
New energy, new projects, new faces, new conversations, the next beer
New numbers, new rhythm, a new line.
If this can't be new than nothing else,
Can't we start someday?
Fresh as we're old, ripe as the calendar states
Permanent as the cigarette.
Malleable as candles in cake.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)