on going nowhere

Our driver arrives exactly 4 hours late, at 10 pm, after the Spanish couple had flaked on us. We regretfully inform the man that we must cancel our trip, and pay him 500,000 rupiah for one day's car rental even though we never set foot in the car. We are greatly disappointed with the Spanish, who were the whole reason we agreed to go on the trip, as we could have split the cost between 6 people instead of just 4. Our driver says he will shower and change and then send us text message so he can lead us down to Kuta for make party. As soon as he leaves, we realize he had left the front gate open and allowed our host's new puppy – Kaya – to escape into the night. Exhausted from waiting hour after hour in the heat, we comb the neighborhood on foot and moped, calling the dog's name and searching rice paddy, ditch, unlit homestead, and trash-heap. After a solid hour, the German next door pokes his head over the wall and says, “Are you looking for a dog?” What joy, what joy, the prodigal pup has returned! We call the driver, tell him we go make party after all, and follow him to a lush compound down the street, where we quaff drinks and make friends with local surfers, Putu and Awi and others. At 1 am, our convoy of 3 bikes heads south-east, taking back alleys and flying between ancient city walls, our scooters low on petrol, running on fumes. In Espresso Club, I sing backup vocals on Paradise City by Guns & Roses, elbow-to-elbow with the Singaporean headman. For an hour, a wasted-drunk New Guinean aboriginal man with long dreadlocks rakes his fingernails across my sunburned back, grabbing and pinching Martin's forearms so hard they start to bleed, screaming in our ears in his native and incomprehensible tongue. Security tells him to calm down twice but does not kick him out, even though Martin has already sworn at him in Czech and very nearly knocked his block off. The aboriginal realizes how angry he is making us, and so for a while he tries to appease us with gifts proffered from a small black hand, cigarettes and crumpled 2000 rupiah notes, warm beers and handshakes, scraps of trash and an empty packet of rolling papers. We finish eight rounds of Jungle Juice and then head for the local surfer hangout, meet girls, talk and dance with them, fall in love, meet different girls, and deal with the ensuing jealous confusions. The lights come on in the dance club and I realize with horror that I have dropped my keys. I turn to the first broom-wielding employee and ask him if he found a set; he pulls them out of his pocket. The other workers start chanting “100,000! 100,000!”; my friends join in, and I hand over my last big note, which I will regret later when the Malaysian professional ballroom dancer with braces on her teeth tracks me down on the street but won't ride back to Changgu with me, as she feels I am too drunk to drive. For what it's worth, I am a millionaire in Bali.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

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I retreat to warmer climes will update this when there is time

on Early Spring

The days they grow longer, the evenings wane, and outside the winds now grow warmer again. We've just had the festival of Early Spring, at which we the hopeful did dance shout and sing, and frolic and wrestle and fall into heaps, and tear through a banquet then go off to sleep. Our numbers weren't many – attendance was low – we worshiped fair Oestre in spite of the snow, we bathed in the moonlight and sang out in verse, we shook off the cobwebs of our wintry curse. Now off to our regular lifetimes we go, with bright beaming smiles that aren't just for show, all merry of spirit and buoyed with love, feasting on manna that falls from above.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

Cїĥī×-ш.ĦƸǂƟ¤ȱ¤ƟǂƷĦ.ш-×īĤЇƆ

enamored of flavor he increased his heft, and after his serving there was nothing left

on the calfity

Trust in your ears and believe in your eyes, this fine hollow leg is made solely for spies. It works best with persons, who are one leg down, if not though our surgeons are the best around. The risk it is worth it, the rewards are vast: imagine not having to just use the ass to hide and to contraband things of import, through dim vacant harbor or bustling port. The mission is crucial, as is its success, our products get ratings like Super and Best, they won't warp or splinter – this we guarantee – so order your very own new calfity. Its shinbone is hollow, so slide in some files, then walk on it for a good half dozen miles, then stuff some more goodies where no one can see, a flexible and fillable cavity, located right there on the leg's backward half, where most homo sapiens paw at a calf. Come in for a fitting, please do it today, our supply of calfities dwindles away. Impress your enemies, confound your friends, make every moment a means to your ends, but know that we only take serious guys, not persons whose stories are founded in lies. We do not take credit, just cash hard and cold, gems and stones and of course metals like gold, we're allies and confidants in the spy game, Darkmaster Outfitters of Grig is our name.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on being ready

To be wise and watchful, to weather each storm, to keep bellies full and small fingertips warm, to stand up to chaos with confidence large, is the foremost yearning of persons in charge. They shop with us at one of our many spots, they buy hiking backpacks and flare-guns and pots, they heap up their shopping-carts until they're full, they come to us whose factories are local. We are The Suppliers, or Supp'lo for short, we fabricate items for hunting and sport, our things are long-lasting and good quality, they're made down the road and not over the sea. For all of our products are made here at home, they're cut from our forests and raised in our loam, and mined in our mountains and cured in our air, we're insured and bonded and pay wages fair, so don't get goods made in far Nigeria, or rely on gas shipments from New Russia, but come view our line of goods, then shout Huzzah!, and support our bountiful Grigovia.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

whore-o'-scope

Some men grasp and tickle, others paw and grope, the sly ones however use a whore-o'-scope. They boot up their laptop, they go lock their door, they massage the hollow tube under their core, they squeeze and they fondle it, until it's spent, they wonder aloud where the daylight has went. Some women prefer it, when men stroke alone, that way they don't have to endure lusty groans, or look upon mountains of moist manly meat, or pleasure boys only to watch them retreat. I download and stream it, I fill up hard-drives, it quickens my pulse and makes me feel alive, I wish to escape it, its contents forget, but nothing so far has been able to let me stand up and leave it for good far behind, through each waking moment it laps at my mind. What looks like The Answer is more like a slope, please help me get rid of this foul whore-o'-scope.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥