Elliot T. Lyngreen
Inextricable Knot
AWAKE ALONG A 4-LANED ROAD, turnpike, superhighway, a picture of perpetually accelerated motion around, 91 within a fleet of semis, on one side… to Garrison Grantley when he’s playing with a bug saying, “when you see giants in movies they always terrify people and are real scary and dominate, but most giants and King Kongs should actually be skittish about humans, like people are spiders and bees and such… H-igh! Heehee, fuckin little thing” (squashes it from moving and wipes it across a pantleg). “Unfortunately, we don’t have all the anecdotes on our person,” says Bowen, “so that is why we are jumpy—why’d you do that man?! Yea afraid It might have diseases?”…to the other side; so Garrison rages the lightest browns thinly out from within. I fly a brown wing off a “baseball bat,” sucked outside between automatic seatbelt and crack in the window, and go, “maybe the giants just don’t know any better,” too softly for them, but Garrison, he squints another answer, and they don’t hear me, or probably don’t understand all that I truly just jumbled together with my unusual scraggly mumbles. “Aw aw it’s so different—it’s a different world for us man. Them fuckin little bugs, like ticks, yea…I tell you…,” what he continues up there to Bowen near carelessly lane changes simultaneous amongst the blurred wheels neighboring. Bow swerves vacuum passing semis and specialized vehicle transportation, around a rock band’s bus, past a little kid glaring from a bucket seat of an S-10 with Transformer decals in depth cab acute window corners.
He, Bowen, at the helm (and THIS IS IT! It is truly amazing and euphoric to know the huge influence of THIS; and I was figured--fated/Destined/Directed?-- to rather leave HERE all mangled and unfinished, unwritten. Yet I am still here. With that said, no one knows this is heading toward(s) them here from that road; to have that power in my hands is incredible…so, ummm-here goes!!!) amid silence because so so much is always about to emerge, mostly only I see, converses clear across the other side of the car, barely hear Garrison, who is straight ahead of me; yet Bowen, he extends an arm from it and pinches off clean, cherry vacuums from Garrison exhaling, then lets loose a snaky smoke stream concurrently, gulps in; and admonishing semi country --with a sky-blue fender weaving the slower traffic into lanes to stretch for miles and miles, Bowen finally punches up to 100, coasts by these forearms wrestling down the highway and the swaying Great Danes, flaps in the highway multitude; behind OVERSIZED LOAD tape huge, another taillights, signals in with swift communication drizzled through our wipers swishing fast, at equally random Poisson intervals with off-wired white spots, smudges interpose with headlight pairs from the way other side; the trailer’s smoking tires frame slippery gusts as Bowen never loses controls with the wheel moving all sweetly formed in his own tiny antennae to the shoulders, stones, epic edges maneuvering indifferently with the sirens following. He gets back, another taillights in and 360s a clip of an SUV and the chain reaction just unravels simultaneous to the reading. Bowen, who has no chance to deter, plunks then counters another, a mini-van to instantly spider-glass, webbed carnage as the side impact erupts three car-lengths ahead; Ford Explorer and 95’ Lumina with the fin on the trunk, slams, plastic parts carom; as a heavier passing truck, lingering piss, pigs and shit, packed, big, pink, goods inside huge aluminum mesh, carriage ---crashes, breaks from contact with the ordinate rig; and the full shipping, the exchange, the animals spill to the concrete.
Hauling, weathered, stenciled-out exhaust stacks, their cover flips fly. To the side of the road another swirling 18 wheels peels over, them dual exhausts spear into two cars. Amidst hi-cubes with handprints swiped over their tall doors turning to dust behind themselves in rain-fog mists, double length trailers start smoking; metallic violet rigs, their tanks pierce against diamond-plated corners, steps drizzle surges, ambient toiling, annoying nerves…and I’m just basking clammy hands to what you read world…as we travel, wild from all that which explodes, and the cicada remains.
They begin talking about the time period we live in and how we have conquered so many diseases, bugs, and outbreaks. You know how they can’t think of so many except the major ones. How we cured everything. How we could. Those two, all calmly so; up front, even amidst this high speed chase, and the swirl of swerves, the speckled shimmies of low profile enervations, the speedometer tremoring, eyebrow differing, perspectives; not even aware guts mine disfigure; when the dark exhausts, dustclouds, vents, exhumes in forms of like a wagon’s wheel but enormous and diversified steel folds; and at other lanes, never sensing this in me, Bowen lets the gas off, presses this crush due to what Garrison Grantley tells us. So we could bend, turn upside down and inside out, burst in the pinched gratings, mash, climax in the commercial soundtrack glass and shit kaleidescope [like the alternative passion in my veins] and fearlessly still arise here into the last year of our lord nineteen hundred ninety-nine to begin a classic theme on this HERE weekend, before Thanksgiving all sunglinting with air so crisp began clouding. Or maybe just I would. Not until Bowen just chews off quickly do these miles come with a trooper; gaining, fading, in-between, gaining, multiplying; and now showering our shoulders. There is always something trying to stop THIS.
From the pouring in pinch of power windows, interrupting a seemingly longer and more intense version like frisson rifts seemingly longer across the bridge in Bells of Tokyo than I ever heard, the Algebra One I made them put in —; but I go in; the moment; now.. A diamond of a revelation envisioning enormous fabric of this universe—and just thought—an idea—yet it’s in; the light. Now, forever, and because I tried (like when my look pulled all into the wreckage, flee from the end of Time back into HERE…)—originates right there from inside me.
The rain comes in as he leans over, as Bowen leans to turn speakers down and question Garry real adult serious for a second about what they will be doing for New Years so I can’t make it out too clearly because I am in the back and unstill bumps from the 10 inch speakers beat _CallMETOKYO_IMCOMINGHOOOooooome but not enough highs make for incoherent, muffled-in bass; then pausing, Garrison smirks 45 degrees with that ignominious sky and half humors himself, “oh yeah, shit, how much matters when we’re so close to an end, haha?”—amid air filterings that jaunt circles his sockets turn at me back in the seat. And that’s when it hits me. I finger the vast outlet surly, twisted, the weed I thought I would never get a hold of Alex (or anyone else I paged) to get, the big joint we started running for; the same one he held as he finished in twirls, nostalgia, as he mouthed the whole “baseball bat” damp, formed good good. My sucked peripherals singe and dazzle, slightly lighthead sense the reality to right here and now, remembering my sojourn placement along this 4-laned road…the years to go; and of places held together on the other side of this road trip; and the reading before you world.
And now, again, leaning to Garry, who finds longer looks, “yeah, I could fuck,” through long attempts out the sleek windows pie-eyeing me because them lyrics drifted more into a mine, as my body—the patterned aerial view startling ever so beautiful—erupts tingles; young in expectation and dreams; dreams of us changing gears between old workers of the freight, reigning through oil rig shiny vanishing point horizons, catching a reflection this black tarp conceals, something ratchet strapped to a flatbed, and disentangling these prusik knots, unveiling the cargo [THIS] for professionals, business men and women, doctors, nurses, scientists; a sundry to compromise; a feeling futuristically down the highway, expressway, that 4-lanes haste; will steal away the endless glimpse. Loosening excited stares, that, like a mail truck, just grazes an exuberant crotch-rocket wrinkled around its front. Bended fuzzy sparks fray. Hyped there in violent tumbles, catches that heavy dark tarp, which shreds away, that unfolds; outsmarting, outwitting the rush with the touch, my uneven chain hitched soul highs; captures through fragments—since I made the initiative today--- the meaningless reading before you, or, …maybe it, like my sheepshank body, and the mind, merely tingles and entangles in sicknesses only within me.
Yet before I begin tying the loose ends of THIS …or finish, an overwhelming change the world engrosses in, me, the current heavy American voice, the fleeting pop, the speeding ambience all traveling marvelous, cloud loops the rapid train of thought and process and world. And I, my being, round turn and two half hitches, stands against the collision; the end; the Gordian interstate convoluting, the pile up; inside the mangled destiny as it unveils that nothing stops my rapt, invincible character there—the mind and this body—and my body…—which can; influences the whole twisted condition of you world to slow just enough.
Now, like attaining the other side of the womb—and then again, repeat, flutter little butterfly waves across this universe—again—and again; then get back to the television or radio or writing, in mmm . . . .the media, the gathering information, the intelligence, ohh the sponges—ho boy, calm yourself Lynk—ho oh oh but tell them….what it is like; the ever after; the end; the other one…the other side; to come back from the dead; and, moreover, tell them it does not matter if you change your diet every time you break out in whatever this is … and tell them it stood (I did), stands and says. Say - NO!
No No No to the ending, and to the diagnosis. And in this Great Big Makeover, the change we perhaps may end up reaching and touching; the right string like a Christmas bulb plugged in alighting an unseen thread; that one hit wonder type of revealing disentangles the influence of failing against the unbridling; and where THIS might need to perhaps pour more gracefully (ineffablyalong a 4-laned road)---is where Bowen leans in and Garrison Grantley sneaks back into the initial conversation, “Aw-aw it’s a different world for us men…” And what I intended from the beginning, intended to have him but try to tell you world, this tangent, he would say, “you’d think science and doctors would run tests and perform studies on someone with incurable diseases or cancer victims at no cost to them, instead of taking advantage of these people. You know, to save the world and figure these things out; determine causes and cures, or simply do THIS out of fear of a chance they might...”—but then it unzips, the invertebrate portion, the toothed bookbag part opens, and these weighty notes in perforated notebooks rip and lift, release . . . . en route, just spill loose from underneath the felt, the huge black sheath and across the grand one-magnificent-repercussion (flash! and the world become wavy) across these states in sweet paper whisperings, unscrambling the…. nothings…across the … oh oh shitflies. Oh hang on. Oh poop.
This Talon edges a sedan that smears the guardrail and to a dead stop within the immediate, past, zipped, sped, to an immediate stop, concrete median falls into place. Bowen’s car affects another 2-door traveling (in some awkward placement of the angle above) to slam off into the concrete median too. This whip, the sports car swiped off the lot with a coupon Bowen snuck because of his promotion at the dealership and from me working with him to scrub clean the service floors with wasted brooms and wicked soap for extra funds; and bought the thing dirt cheap and on credit and all that “just sign and drive” crap as the usual 10,000 intuitions and inferences went….. it just cruises smooth, smears lengths behind as we head towards Oxford, outskirts, destination; as we intend to tunnel overpasses and drop out of sight into the ever-changing world way before anyone ever notices we are here, or meaninglessly finishes the reading, and . . . before I begin typing up that idea, an overwhelmed movement. But me, with the current heavy American voice, the fleeting culture, the speeding atmosphere all traveling through, marvelously onto the train of thoughts, processes a standing against the collision, in the end of the eventual interstate pile up, inside the mangled destiny and nothing that can, stops my bliss; my invincible character here—the mind—but the body—yet my body…—can.
Right there transforms my portion of the unzipped book bag, opens up, the vertebrae separate and these weighty notes into perforated pages from notebooks rip and lift apart as THIS releases en route, just spills loose inside me and not across the land in one magnificent repercussion (flash! and my world become wavy) or crossed with these states of sweet paper whisperings as Nothing… Just sunk. Oh hang on. Oh no.
Lose the everything. The moment; the novel idea; the high; the rage; the energy; the glucose or saccapaphin, the little nutrients not even absorbing through my system. Lose the chase. Lose my interiors, that will never make THIS finish all these unspeakable thoughts complete and logically; yet I don’t believe what I get. THIS is the one I got (back). White Moth flutters dust. Oh, I can’t believe it… Spines coated, nonabsorbent belly folds, the truth affixes; garble bubble holds, inside, traps energy, overloads, and builds upon my organs fluttering cells into wriggled particles always; which crease with filling tremendous aromas made in the space of claustrophobic girth, an inescapable daydreaming too weak or too tired and too worn ever-anxiously stretched out of control—eek! The innards flash! Flush. Oh. Oh. “Oh, I gotta poop Bow. Oh, pull over! Find somewhere to pull off, man,” I slip out from my daydream and thud. The bombs float in the way. The confines curl. Cup the tongue. Wide passages of vacant excretions slip (the joint -crushed out into the chrome-flip ashtray, below the center glove?- nothing; nope). The tongue persuades in pasty sectional paranoid cells clashed with tingles of piss constantly, bursts and gases, detriments, harsh coarse thrush—and slam! stoned! Holy Shit. Holy! Shit! No. Removing the funky, mixed excrement vapors settle in (so many times silently); and these two cringe between breaths, glide windows -twehhhht! the whole way down, then blast out, “Oh my God! Man!” – “Holy Shit dude! What did you eat?”
Because Flash! The high and the life buzzes off the paramount into netherworlds of my own constricted ugliness, painted as transparent and obsolete as the bleak window glass reflections, plunking disappeared refractions like as diesel emitting, like shortens breaths unable to gag anymore away from the scrawny nose reflections crooked in shadow colors, distorted glimpses invariably angled then disappearing again and again reappearances by the sun-break between rigs never as warm as it seems; as both hideous and visionless, ins and outs, here and gone, hurried to leave it as it is without trying anymore because it’s futile. Tense.
Scrambled, captured in so many fragments coming back and forth from subconscious to conscious fighting, adjustments to the edge of a seat ready to keep pace with the parallel stinging moments; but the laboring --divides. The programs’ rearranging; millions, aired on-line, in a matter of seconds probably gone; gone like the construction of these lines, cramps muscles. Lose the concentration. Stretch and strain, pulls on the testes and hips, coxa, where the legs bend, hell I do not know; dehydrated shrivels --wash lethargy instantly across veins, arteries; feels like bugs that keep mutating in me (that the FDA thinks a week of antibiotics, maybe FODMAP diets, and PPI’s will get me on my feet –Ha!). But I have to live and work and survive like THIS with an everyday sense that I need to see someone in the ER. Yet the specimen’s turning, winding locations, its whereabout’s never known as it writhes but to endure turns toward stones just compressing; but I don’t want to force the hard hard well up between. I don’t care to push out the stinging energy. And I can’t eliminate the growths anyway, the exciting rampant furls, the zings in me shimmying these brains, the inside. The body. My short impatient panic built around that little inextricable knot.
So, to tell the truth, I only wrote THIS. To get your goddamn attention. To figure it might make more sense that just telling everyone. To show that I have a mind. To be a man. To be a human. But I am too tired, too weak, too poor anymore. I am the plague and the outbreak, the fear so explored in fiction right before the new millennium. I am the result of long suffered anxiety sitting in the stench of feet, and shit always following me; possessing only two old pairs of shredding underwear I can wear without aggravating this burnspot in my belly; thinking of reaching to science and doctors again and again, but every time it is nothing. And every day, all day; at the mere bottom of that eerie unique; the novel’s premise remains; but the complete argument and story awaits to be unveiled in some new museum of voices, worming from something capable of finishing.
Change your mind instantly. Change the television, the machine, the unit, the contraptions you’re actually carrying; the connection wherever you read… but, so recommend you close those books romantics; and everyone; you won’t make it uncover either. You’ll need a machete to penetrate the edge; but when THIS becomes so wrapped around from behind and in every which way you are cloaked inside, crawling through –hoping— you won’t make it come out. When this immersion (there is no reversing the bleaching, release of algae. Likewise candida infestation, thrush turn hollow, lyme circulation of chills, H. pylori putrefied blinks gasping for color, for life. From turning long into foam)..when this immersion swells like retaining an infection; when you are reduced to drinking only water; and the claustrophobic girth becomes mold, clogged, coordinating spine quiver sucks continually throbbing, adrenal glands like gooseflesh, the bleak light dusts of breathing; when vacant waves of vertigo constantly bend surges blankly rearranging filthy like cauliflower brains…. No. You won’t emerge. Like the intangible moment a cold blends (and you want to stay home), you, in through my eyes world, you will finally see how I live? So turn, turn away.
The true miracle, though; this is not your pain. The drooling at the myth; however; but the legend of my idea pouring out of that into a beautiful butterfly-like existence, still muffles my thoughts to keep explaining; however…………..long……..it might need to be, to make it begin happening. And the grip remains clenched to the strange attention to it, to not have any reaction, to ignore the ever occupied deterioration (that is what I been told to do). Distract my mind from my inner bottled-up acid eating cringes, keels; from thoughts about not sweating that ensue—from the bizarre atmosphere that modestly murmurs in some crawling, some junk withdrawals of being… ---that just came to me too; and went filtering smooth for a metaphor of how it feels— … Thoroughly and exhaustively whips me away. As I struggle, just crawl out and around as an unquenchable or unsatisfied dry swallowing shell, ground wrinkles, overwhelming and splattering in me until the great empty heaves shove and shove and shove, pushing out of me what is not even there they tell me… at the toilet; now. In rural America nonetheless. In reality – yet further; in the heritage in my heart headed for Pennsylvania, and this out-of-network doctor of internal medicine; back then, I’ll say.
So, if THIS other realm has you intrigued/disturbed/inspired to cure this fucking thing too ….. . . .yet careen into a divergence undone like déjà vu of these birds released in full force from the roadside of our roadtrip. As we have exited; yes. But to where the accident’s completely obliterated. Where the weed cannot cure anything. Where the medical bills have me just completely sad. Where the formulated imagination reconvened unto a rest area. And just me, writing like-- ‘please help’.
Displaced poetry to define THIS better; to not allow another to experience such exploited debt; where the inextricable (right colic flexure) enflamed appendix that never bursts, has become a hardened Zeppelin bend upon the tip of my fingers searching in.
My jagged pituitary spikes in this rest stop sitting, beholding over everything I could’ve had (today—or any day, for that matter) . . . yet carved into a million pieces. So take my pen and etch ‘MERCY’ (like OK if we are going to dismiss this as a disorder merely, then let’s call IT Irritable_BoDY_Syndrome …, at least..?) into the stall wall.
And IF so, if we entertained this far, flip me a quarter eh.. Thanks for ragin.