Explorer

. . . or How the HELL Am I Supposed to make Crepes?

For five years I've been the sole operator of a fishing boat on the moon. Its part of a subsidized grad-school outplacement plan called “Expanding Horizons.” Just me, a one-way radio and a jar of instant coffee. Assigned to catalogue any life in the many crater lakes on the dark side. Found: only eyeless, finless wormfish, no telling how they lived or what they ate.
I’d hoped they'd send more people, but in five years there’s been one unsigned postcard from a café in Paris, a recipe for raspberry crepes on the back in pastel calligraphy. I thought it was a mistake, but there’s my name, right above the address.
I sleep seated with an itchy wool blanket so the fish don’t crawl into my ears. Sometimes radio static keeps me awake and twitching; there aren’t days and nights like I remember. The mission completes in ten years. By then my resume will put me in the top 20% for jobs in my field.
Now they’re firing missiles straight for my area; they warned me I wouldn't go to one of the nice bits with a flag or the mouth or eyes. NASA's always hated the moon, so I'm not surprised they're sending bombs up here. Not surprised at all, especially when I heard the transmission that there was enough explosive to "blast that crater straight to hell."
Hell. Easy concept when you’re alone in a boat with cold coffee, watching death advance daily, surrounded by worms.
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The above piece appeared in the first of (hopefully) many in a bi-monthly series of zines called Your Hands, Your Mouth, brainchild of one Chris Gusta. On friday I went up to B'ham and read at the launch of said series with Andrew Cole, Robyn Bateman and Melissa Queen, none of whom I'd heard before, all of whom I enjoyed. Felt better as a whole about my own energy and crowd-response at this one than the one in Everett.

Setlist:
Dentistry is a Delicate Art *
Paintings of Famous Satanists
Explorer
Ferries
A Little Fear of Drowning
Poor Sisyphus *
Genus, Species and Flavour

*these are both new pieces I'd either written down in other spots or not written down at all, and were therefore off-book and at least partially ad-libbed. went better than the whole "space coyote" fiasco.

it was a good night all in all, though every time I go to Bellingham it feels farther away geographically (which is simply strange) and a bit regressive personally (which is to be expected I suppose.) I saw Ryler today and we discussed this phenomenon at a bar on Capitol Hill in Seattle and maybe that seems to be more of what I want; old friends in new contexts. Who knows.