Like a dirty little sob, I found a
balloon buried in the yard. It was the
saddest thing I ever found, sadder
than if it had once been alive, a
pet or a grandmother. Left over from
a party, I guess. And I don't like
parties. But they're fun I guess. And
when they're over it's worse than when
they begin, and when they're forgotten
it's horrible, more absolute than a
corpse. And I found its shriveled
skull, pocketed it, put it in the green
tank with the Stingray and the Tonka
Toys. Everything dies in there. Put
the President in there face down, the
Secret Service, they'd all die and the
news would end. A great place to end
a party. I found a shoe in the yard,
thrown over the fence from a car bang on
dope or wine - just a one shoe fling. I
figured it all out. Two men and a woman
in the back seat, driver sideways on
the front seat, watching, they left the
car back there in the weeds and dried
up mud and trash, and just one shoe.
There were cans of food and filthy
blankets, shit I couldn't figure out.
All of them living in there? Then one
last bang, a party, zip. I threw bricks
at it, I hated it so much I wanted to
grow up and go with them in a straw hat
and sunglasses, down to the welfare.
The shoe went in the tank. The wrecking
yard took the car. You see what I mean
about parties? The last living thing
loses its memory and drowns and unlike
a real body sinks to the bottom, falls
apart into twinkling sludge. Yeah, life
originally came from miles of dead
parties, decomposed cardboard sequins,
rusty noisemakers and mush and sadness.
I demonstrate this in a cloudy green
tank the length of a whole childhood,
poisoned fish, I throw everything in
there, this balloon. Worlds will come
out, bigger than this world. Explode
through the drapery and glass, growling
in the naked street, shaped like a foot,
like a sharp knife, like an ugly doll
full of cotton. Whole worlds like those
things covered with life we don't see.
As apartly grown man I don't understand
my own thinking. It just goes through my
head like a sawblade, a gun at a party.
Everyone scatters, dropping everything
all the time. There is a little thing
left here and there and I find it and I
feed it to the fish. When I die, when
I am fully grown, dump it all in the
Los Angeles river with the cars and the
skulls. This little thing, I am making
more out of it than there is. It is just
wrinkled and blue and dirty. But I like
to think when something disturbs me that
it is important. Goodnight. Goodnight.
Yes, thank you for coming. Goodnight.
Goodnight. It was very pleasant.
Goodnight. Goodnight. I'll see you
again. Goodnight. Goodnight. Standing
at the open door issuing people.
It's over. It just is. I don't even
remember what party it was, standing
in the yard, kicking with my foot.