Lancelot Schaubert's Blog, page 79

Hallow’s Eve

Chad W. Lutz over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

I am a box of crayons.
My little brother is a dinosaur.
My older brother, Jason, is a spider.
My dad is probably a Native American.
My mom is Minnie Mouse.
We’re probably handing out the best treats in the city.
Water bottles stuffed with candy.
The sixteen-piece.
The doubles.
Dark chocolate.
Nougat.

It’s snowing.
We’re wearing long sleeves because our costumes don’t conceal us enough.
No one can tell I’m the kid Freddy Krueger with my Starter jacket on.
We can see our breath on the air.
We’re probably watching Nightmare Before Christmas.
We’re probably listening to Spooky Sounds.

My dad helped me build a casket we use for decoration.
I was eleven. He was fifty-three.
We don’t talk because I’ve tried to kill myself.
I lean on him for support.
Not because I love him but because I need him.

The way a snail needs moss.
The way loved gets tossed.

The way some people hand out apples.

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Meet a Girl at a Bar

Srijan Dubey over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

You meet a girl at a bar. Here’s how it goes.

You came for the gig straight after work because that’s your deal. You work, listen to some music, sleep, repeat. Sometimes you don’t eat but you do your three albums a day like musician does practice. So you go to the gig. Alone. Like always. In any case you don’t want to talk to people in general and especially not when someone is playing.

It’s a good act. A singer-songwriter with a full band. You wish you were like them, but it’s alright. You have other ways of contributing to the world, perhaps not as beautiful but it’s there all the same. The people at the bar are loud, clicking pictures and doing half bro-hugs and making promises to meet that they’ll never fulfil. But it’s just the noise that bothers you. Human voices are treble and that’s messing up the guitar in the mix. But you aren’t the kind who speaks up. You stay quiet and try hard to concentrate on the rhythm section, and your body grooves with it. You get a drink, then another, then another, and you feel nice.

You’re leaning against the bar because your bag is in the way of everyone and you’re tired of saying sorry every time someone drunk bumps into it. There you are, nursing your drink which is now mostly water because all the ice melted.

That’s when you see her.

She’s pretty, like most others at the bar. For a moment you reflect on your messed-up hair and the fact that your shirt is creased. But that’s okay, no one came for you anyway. You try and sneak a glance at the guitarist’s pedalboard to see where the compressor comes in the chain when you feel a bump.

It’s her. She’s been dancing. She stepped on your toes. You pull your foot away when she turns with a flourish, brown hair swinging in their majesty as she looks you straight in the eyes and says sorry. You nod. She says she’s extremely sorry. You do a thumbs up. Then she turns away.

Pretty, like everyone else at the bar.

The compressor is at the end of the chain. Strange, you think.

She bumps into you again and gives you a look. You decide to make space for her and ask her if she wants to move ahead. She says it’s very sweet of you and moves right next to you. You feel exposed, naked, and can’t hear the mix. Her loud friends keep calling out to her but she says she’s gonna get a drink first.

“What’s good here?”

You don’t respond because you think the question is for the bartender. But it isn’t. She’s asking you. You, with the cheapest straight whisky on the menu.

“Um..” you say, searching. You are suddenly conscious of the sweat on your brow. The place is crowded after all. “In this weather, I suppose you’d have a gin” you manage. It’s what you would do if you weren’t just trying to get bombed and listening to the music.

She nods happily. “Good choice”, she says. “Tanqueray or Bombay Sapphire?”, she asks. Oh boy. This is jeopardy.Like the game. And the situation. You can’t tell the two apart. You toss a coin in your head and tell her that Bombay Sapphire has the prettier bottle. She smiles wide at this, and orders one. “One for you?”, she asks.

“Nah I’m good” you say, out of habit. But then you decide to go for one. “Alright, miss.”

“Miss! That’s so cute, “ she says. You don’t have a response. The bartender arrives just in time to save you and you clink glasses.

“Do you know the band?” she asks. You do, actually. But they don’t know you. “Yeah, I’ve heard some of their stuff.” you say. Standard response, yes?

Now they have to set up again for the next part of the set. Silence ensues and bro-hugs and squeals run aplenty. She’s looking at you, the rest of her friends too engrossed in flashlight selfies that will turn out terrible. You have to make small talk. You down the rest of your drink and tell her that gin and tonic was invented in India by British soldiers looking to fight malaria. “Wow, you’re a geek!” she says and you’re relieved. Perhaps she’ll leave. But she doesn’t. “What do you listen to”? she asks.

“Um..” you stammer.

In a moment of brightness, you ask her what she listens to. It’s all you know after all. “Everything!” she says, happily.

Wow. For real?

“I would describe my taste as eclectic,” she adds. You nod in approval when she asks you to come out for a smoke. You quit a while back but decide to go anyway, spellbound.

You pop a chewing gum as she lights her smoke. “Don’t smoke?” she asks. “Nah, just doobs” you reply, earnestly.

“You wanna come over and smoke with me later?”

Double-take. Did she just ask you out? Time slows down and the noise fades away as you evaluate. A doob with a pretty girl who listens to everything. What could go wrong?

“Alright” you say. She smiles and takes you by the hand, back into the gig. You’re sweating more than usual. She insists on a dance and you do the bare minimum groove that you can do with a bag, a bad back, and two left feet. She laughs, clear, musical.

Not too bad.

Half an hour later she asks you to open the doors to her house because she doesn’t feel like it. You feel the grooves on the keys and open up. It’s a nice place, smells like flowers and marijuana and perfume. You sit on the sofa but she wants to lie down in her room. You comply and walk in, carefully sitting on the edge. She lies down and pulls over a pillow, shaking her shoes off. She’s pretty alright. You wish you had combed your hair.

“Let’s play something” she says, pulling her hairband out.

“I have Uno in my bag. You stack fours?” you ask.

Like an idiot.

“No silly, I meant music.”

Oh right. Of course. “You listen to everything, how about you start?” you ask.

Everything. Everything. She takes the speaker and you hear it beep as it makes a connection to her phone, oddly poetic.

Everything.

Tame Impala plays first. It reminds you of your ex. But it’s a good band. It’s not the first good thing your ex has ruined. You groove out and make small talk about your jobs . You silence her during the solo.

Everything. She plays LCD Soundsystem next.

MGMT.

Cigarettes After Sex.

She leans closer. You want to start talking about shoegaze but better sense prevails.

Radiohead’s Creep. A warning bell sounds in your head but it is silenced by her whisper. “Your turn”, she says, her breath landing on your ears which turn pink.

Everything.

You begin with some Neutral Milk Hotel and talk about the Holocaust. She moves a little further away.

Everything.

You play some Husker Du, telling her about punk and antifa. She pulls the pillow under her.

Everything.

You now start with Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven.

By the time the the minor chord change comes, she’s half asleep.

Everything.

You play some Quicksand. Then you play Failure, your breakup soundtrack, and look at her. She’s asleep, hand close to yours.

You play some Darkthrone just to check. Transylvanian Hunger, cold and true. She’s fast asleep. You find your own self in the bleak tremolo picked guitar recorded on a four-track, blast beats lulling you to inner peace.

Everything, she said. You get up quietly and cover her with a blanket. No doobs, nothing. You quietly turn the light off and leave. While exiting, you spot the Coldplay poster.

Everything, she said. Why must people lie, you ask yourself. In the cab, you put on some Deafheaven on the earphones and ride home, elated and depressed, happy and sad, confident and lonely. The orange light pass you by and when you close your eyes, you see the pink of the album cover.

Everything, she said. Maybe it’s your fault. In any case, it doesn’t matter now. You turn up the volume to as loud as your ears can take it, and then one step higher.

You wonder what Tanqueray tastes like. You fall asleep to George Clarke screaming about death, and dream of a crowd that boos you as you stand on stage, guitar in hand.

Everything, they say.

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that kiss was mine

Philipp Ammon over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

That kiss was nice
I had a dream
I felt the touch
Whose lips on mine?
Methought, benign
Your lips I felt… on mine
And I was loved by you at last
Beloved, bedeared by you at least…
And glad I was,
I thought of thee…
How sure I was it real to be!
´Twas not a crime:
That kiss was mine!

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Flowers Beauty

Austin Draper over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

A Flower Blooms, despite its surroundings.

With its Stem of Thorns

With it’s Roots of Competition.

Beauty usurps its surroundings

The less to match it,

The more to grasp it.

We are Human

We are blooming.

We don’t have to Kill to be beautiful

We don’t have to Till the ground to be beautiful.

We till our own lives, and our own beauty.

Flowers are so snooty,

It’s because they cannot build their own gardens, our duty.

We Bloom, in full assistance and awareness of our surroundings.

But heed! One thing reigns true!

Flowers bloom, but in old age shine a new hew.

So too, do we have our due.

Wilting signals the end of a flowers life, it’s cue.

It’s fall from grace, live for grace then coup.

Perhaps, we should know better when our bloom is through

And when it is time, we should have fewer eyes view.

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Death of a Dream

Melinda Canny over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

Gotta put food on the table each day
I have a dream, my friends say no way
Have lots of children just have to pay
I got my dream carved out of me.

My Dad and Momma said I was too dumb
“Going to fail boy if you try until kingdom come”
Now I sit here starring at that bottle of rum
I got my dream carved out of me.

Today came another rejection
These people treat me like I’m some sort of infection
Sometimes I feel like I need a street corner injection
I got my dream carved out of me.

Another endless day on a dead-end job
Under the thumb of some toupee wearing blob
spits on my aspirations, slams the door and locks the knob.
I got my dream carved out of me.

Death of a dream, more soul killing than
death of a loved one, be it woman, child or man
Left me feeling like I just don’t give a damn
I got my dream, carved out of me.

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Lass-scorned

Philipp Ammon over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

Alas! my lass was hubris-hurt
And forth she went,
Away she turned:
“And ne´er e´er see me mo
And shun ye me,
Far, thither be!”
A crime, it seemed, had I performed
And clogged her ear from all my talk.
She scorned my heart,
Its swell and naught.
The haughty look
And way I walked
Was spelled to nil
And killed in thought:
“I curse at thee,
Hurl ye from me,
Pray, curl away
Like mist and fog!”

Aye, I for me

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Choose

Melinda Canny over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

Two paths to take
Which do you choose
the one that everyone says
is right for you. It leads straight
true, to security, where you never
worry about clothes or food. A home
you will surely have three bedrooms and
two baths. Spend your time commuting, lost time
But what does it do to your heart, your soul? Do you want
the life others have selected for you?

The second path is not as easy
It wanders up and down.
There are broken stones
Along the way and steep
climbs you have to make.
It twists and turns you
stumble and fall. You look
back and see others there
shaking their heads
you know they
think you will
fail.

You look forward and see
A hand reaching back one that
you’ve not noticed before, you are
not alone on the journey you never
were. Your soul sings as you push forward.
Wanting only something that you can see. It is
not commercial it might not pay the bills but it gives
you something sitting behind a desk never could. You now
feed your soul and others with what you want, with what
you need to tell the world. You are the one who creates the
magic for others to see, you are a musician, poet, writer of novels.
You tell stories of what is, what was and what could be. You record the
worlds ills and it’s triumphs. You do this not for
money or fame. You do this because
Otherwise your soul will die.

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Reach

Melinda Canny over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

One must have a mind of winter
to grow old. I refuse. My mind is
of sunshine and laughter, fantasy
and fate. I reach for the unknown
though my body aches. My soul
flies with my dreams, still to be
realized. I listen not to those that
say, why, aren’t you too old.
I reach for the unknown
though my hair is turning grey.
it matters not what others may have to
say. I watch as the young turn old before
their time. They’ve given up their dreams
and want that I should give up mine.
I reach for the unknown though
tire more easily each day. I wish for more
hours to play. I want to see the dreams
fly to the world. To bring back more than
what I can hold. I reach holding on to the
unknown before they kill my joy and I cease to be.

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Victuals Voyeurism

Paul Rousseau over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

Watching a fellow shopper in the grocery store checkout aisle is a revelation of their palate and a hint of their health. I’m certain anthropologists have studied this communal phenomenon, the perusal of a fellow shopper’s victuals—you know, rubbernecking to see what the person in front of you is buying—because it’s a sociological foible we all possess. Perhaps it’s just a quick glance at the magazines or the candy to cover your intrusion, but yes, we all do it. It’s an innate curiosity entwined in our DNA. In fact, it likely evolved from our Neanderthal ancestors who were always surveying the rations of their fellow tribal members to ensure their own survival—I guess one could say it’s a form of Neanderthalian ritual that has endured and been interposed into the twenty-first century.

But you get the idea, and yes, you’ve done it. Come on, fess up, just admit it, it’s like visiting a psychotherapist and suddenly realizing everyone does what you do and you’re not so odd after all—it’s downright liberating. And besides, you can always blame it on the Neanderthals.

Feel better? Good. But it’s a custom that merits discussion, particularly one with such quirks and oddities.

For example, I’m certain that the number of people in a store affects our selection of products. If the store has few patrons, it’s easier to buy that bag of potato chips and six pack of sugared sodas, but when it’s crowded and the checkout lines clogged, we may think it best to forgo a display of our most intimate and unhealthy preferences. Or if we just crave that high-fat, high-calorie, artery-clogging bag of cheese bits and nacho chips, and our grocery store has a self-checkout counter, we’ll linger and pretend we’re considering those high-protein, low-fat chips that taste like cardboard until no one is around, at which time we’ll make a mad dash to the self-checkout aisle, scan the product’s barcode, and quickly place it in a bag to protect us from the sylphlike athlete/anorexic that just arrived moments after our covert purchase.

Then there’s the fear of public humiliation. If there’s a svelte salad-chomping, BPA-free bottled water do-gooder in front of us, placing our groceries on the conveyor belt is like walking nude through the streets of Manhattan screaming, “Here I am, folds in my abdomen, cellulite in my thighs. Go ahead, have your laughs!” To counteract this societal shame, we could place our healthy products on the conveyor belt first, and then wait for the person in front to pay for their groceries and walk away before unloading our unwholesome foods. And yes, we have done that. The only problem is the person arriving in line behind us. Their view will be tainted by all of our insalubrious foodstuffs that will surely bring condescending looks, unless of course it’s an adolescent below the age of eighteen, who will assuredly greet us with an approving smile.

And finally, when we’re in a hurry and really want to make our purchase and leave, the embodiment of healthy eating arrives behind us, carrying soy yogurt, carrots, bananas, apples, almond milk, whole wheat bread, and earth-friendly laundry detergent. Our mind hesitates; what should we do? Should we let him go ahead so he doesn’t see our whole milk, caramel-covered banana chips, chocolate mint ice cream, and three bags of Hershey bars? Or do we take a deep breath, look down, and unload our cart?

But wait, there’s more, the ultimate indignity: we’re out of cash, we forgot our debit card, and we only have a personal check. If we have to write a check, that will indubitably delay our exit and allow ample time for surveillance of our purchase, not to mention the disgust of fellow shoppers for the time wasted writing a check—but if we don’t write a check, we’re consigned to leaving and returning later.

However, there is a distraction that just may lessen our embarrassment: the tabloids. Yes, the tabloids. After savoring the repugnance of our purchases, our fellow voyeurs often turn their snobbish eyes to the tasteless tabloids that line the gauntlet to the checkout clerk. But this is not necessarily a surefire solution. We may have to make cruel comments about the face adorning the cover of the tabloid to direct attention away from our food. Unfortunately, this can work against us; now, not only does the person behind us think our purchases are utterly pathetic, but our worth as a human being may be questioned amide our snide remarks about George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Barack Obama, Jennifer Aniston, or Donald Trump.

So, after much thinking, I’ve concluded that these grocery store dilemmas are detrimental to our fragile mental health. And not only that, they have fostered an attraction for fast-food restaurants and contributed to the epidemic of XXL clothing and the pandemic of obesity that eats at our country—no pun intended. Seriously, think about it. Where else can you find the comforting presence of a homogeneous group unified in their love of food irrespective of caloric or fat content, unencumbered by grocery aisle cynics, and grateful for the blissful opportunity for obscurity, than in the drive-through of a fast food “restaurant?” So, pass me the ketchup please, and another order of fries.

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A CRITIQUE OF SONNETS

Pamela Sumners over at The Showbear Family Circus - Lancelot Schaubert's and Tara Schaubert's liberal arts circus. said ::

Shakespeare, you’re your own jester, or a poor counselor.

Love bends constantly, or it snaps like sugar in the canebrake,

bows each day in these marshy thickets domesticated by decree,

springing tensile, erasing from memory all the stray words, slights

to that fragile and faulty soldered daily repair that improves each

day the grievances it lines out, shreds to confetti, removes. Love

alters every day, and some days it turns the eraser upon itself.

It is not death that parts us, but all the interstitial spaces between

the sugar rows, the intermezzos, when we’d rather carry the

melody forward. We choke on elegant prefixes of love, all thanks

to him, when a simple “I do” would have sufficed quite nicely,

he who left us dumbstruck to learn that suffixes are brutal.

But I’ll give the bard his well-earned recompense:

Pardoning breasts of dun is a compliment to common sense.

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