FERMENT!

Ferment!

Cats and Crazy Razors

Roy Lisker 8 Liberty Street #306 Middletown, CT 06457 rlisker@yahoo.com

Slithering the length of a drainpipe, ( which, not having been fashioned to support human weight found human weight insupportable, ( yet supported it nevertheless ) ) , a naked rapist, escaping through a window left open by careless attendants at the local extension of the state mental hospital system , ( a feudal manse in the heart of the dying town , ( near the banks of the great river dying, ( and churning quietly downstream ) ) ) , descended the drainpipe by noiseless slithering.

To support the insupportable and to support it well, to do it noiselessly, ( without the slightest soft groan ( or sigh of complaint ) ) , was the drainpipe_s outstanding achievement . All other things, ( such as transporting water from gutters ( clogged and unclogged ) on the tin roof of the feudal manse , ( wherein were locked up so many minds thrashing about in hopeless perdition ), to gutters ( clogged and unclogged) on the ground ) , it did badly.

As he had chosen to make good his escape in the demonic fury of an unpredicted thunderstorm, ( in the course of which more water fell onto the terminal moraines of the river valley than at any other time in living memory ) , the naked rapist, ( long before reaching , ( by noiseless slithering) , the base of the drainpipe ) , was soaked to the bones.

Therewith , ( skin bitter and wet, hair jutting in stiff frozen spikes ) , ran he howling into the wilderness of the world, roaming through the valley seeking God or shelter, until he came ( eventually ) to the woodshed under the bedroom of the lovers_ house. Here , once more he, ( beside the velvet glow of a hastily improvised peat briquette fire ) , fell asleep , cradled in sweet dreams of rape.

For the world is connected in just such a fashion.

____________ 2.

At the time that the woman , ( after watching a moving moving picture about a woman ruined by her love for a man ), stepped through the door of the cinema into the street she saw, running up the street, a man for whom she conceived a love that would ruin her.

In such a fashion are the incidents of this world connected .

The woman_s lonely eyes followed his movement , ( alone, in the dying urban settlement , ( by the banks of the great river dying ) ) , up the lonely commercial thoroughfare, even as her heart yearned for the love of the lover , ( portrayed as living in an urban settlement , (dying by the banks of a great river dying ) ) , in the movie she had just seen . Her melancholy slow walk directed her, ( slowly moving on the cobblestoned quais ) , against the current of the mighty river and its quiet downstream movement , its belly churning with angers for grievances unresolved from ancient geological epochs .

Shedding its spectral wan, the great eye of the sun stepped through the door of heaven to cast its dazzling love over all things ruined, preserved or resurrected , all creatures dying and yearning.

At the time that the man , ( deeply involved in litigation ) , stepped through the door of the courthouse, ( having just received a verdict confirming his total financial ruin ) , and , ( running up the street ) , saw the woman , ( who, having just seen a moving moving picture about a woman ruined by her love for a man walked alone in melancholy fashion on the cobblestoned quai ( against the churning of the mighty river and its quiet movement downstream ) , and who, ( upon seeing him ) , conceived a love that ruined her ) , conceived a desperate scheme , ( involving her and not devoid of cynical calculation ) , that would restore his shattered fortunes, ( though in the end it would cost him dearly ) . Her family, ( everyone knew ) , was wealthy .

After awhile one becomes accustomed to just such connections.

Several hours later , ( while the full moon dropped its frenzies into the fat night, ( as feathers will drop out of a slit mattress ) , the cat sat on the fence chewing razor blades under the moon and the couple made love , ( on the antique wooden bedstead in the attic of her elegant home ), all the fat night long ) , their agonized shrieks, ( even as the mattress, ( swaying with grief and misfortune), pushed against the antique wooden bedstead, ( that, dreaming sweet melancholy dreams of glorious stays in farms, manors and granges , softly groaned ) , and softly groaned ) , slit the air, ( chill with the frost of power ) , like razors slitting the throat of a cat.

The river, ( heaving against the banks of the river ( which, ( swollen by grief and misfortune) , overflowed its banks ) ) , rolled its waters, ( swollen by grief, and also by misfortune ) , downstream. Clasping the full moon to its grieving busom, the river heaved and turned, heaved and turned, heaving and turning some more, turning over and over like a couple of lovers who, ( forsaking their dinners in the mighty grip of carnal appetites ), make love on empty and groaning stomachs .

The rainbow trout teeming in the belly of the river, ( churning with angers from grievances unresolved since ancient geological epochs ) , and rendered spasmodic by the imbibing of curdled psychogenic medications , ( the contents of boatloads of bottles dumped nightly into the mighty river by the sinister local extension of the state mental hospital system , ( located right here in the heart of this dying town, not far from the dying river_s flooded banks ) ) , leapt wriggling in rainbow arcs, joyous and ecstatic against the full moon_s ruinous dying, ( which , stepping through the door of heaven, cast its bleak and blighted love over all things , spectral and wan, blessed or wretched , joyous or grieving across the amplitude of the broad river valley.)

Already several times has it been stated, ( yet cannot be stated too often) , that the state_s mental hospital administration had sited a sinister extension in this county, ( in the very heart, in fact, of the dying town near the banks of the great river dying, ( whose quiet passage downstream soothed many a mind locked up in its feudal manse and thrashing about in hopeless perdition)) .

And if the two hungry lovers ( who , ( having forgone dinner in the pursuit of carnal appetites ) , had been making love on empty and groaning stomachs and who, ( motionless after too much and too moving moving) , now lay motionless, bereft of all misanthropy, delusion or rapture ) ) , had strained to listen, they would have heard the steady plop- plop-plop of boatloads of bottles of curdled neuroleptics being dumped into the river_s churning belly, ( angry through too many grievances unresolved from ancient geological epochs ) , blighting future generations of river trout and poisoning all people who would have the misfortune to eat them.

But the couple heard nothing , ( that is to say, nothing beyond the feverish hum of moonbeams gamboling about the face of the earth, ( spectral and wan beneath the beaming moon ) ) , the cat dying over its razor blades, the microwave radiation buzzing at 3’ Kelvin from all directions of the universe, the belching of the rocks in the terminal moraines , and the gleeful warblings of the skunk cabbages infesting the alluvial plains of the river valley. )

Out of the woodshed under the lovers_ house a naked rapist fled unseen , running along the river banks back to the safety of the ( albeit sinister ) corridors of the state mental hospital extension, ( from which ( unseen ) he had but lately fled ) . Lacerated by thorns, glass shards of broken bottles and a shower of razor blades , ( dropping with a steady plop-plop-plop from the mouth of the cat, ( sitting on the fence against the light of the full moon) ) , the blood spurting from his grim cicatrices laid down a trail , ( as a crimson carpet of moonbeams will shine upon a forest floor swarming with ants ) , of blood .

Thickly colonizing the alluvial plains of the broad river valley, the infestations of skunk cabbages furiously farted jungle crime. Rainbow arcs of broiling moonbeams melted over river banks, ( flooded by the river in flood ) . The devious trajectory of the rapist, ( devious as the shedding of white leaves off willow branches , ( from which dangle the mutilated corpses of hanged lovers ) ) , criss-crossed the breadth of the heaving river, ( heaving and churning mightily downstream past peaks, pinnacles and dungeons of abandoned castles, ( profoundly angry with grievances unresolved from ancient geological epochs ) ), in numerous places. Leaping and plunging, counterpointing the rainbow arcs of the ecstatic rainbow trout, he greedily drank the drug-saturated river waters, ( each globular moonbeamed drop frosty as aThorazine tablet in the freezers of sinister state mental hospitals, ( whose many locked-up denizens thrash about in hopeless perdition)) , soothing his nerves in the night_s fatty balm.

Early the next morning the woman , ( following through on a resolution , ( silently resolved while splashing about in the billows of that interminable and delicious night ) ) , slinked , ( quite early the following morning ) to a splendid California town . Thereby did she confirm the possession of her adored lover. On the day of her arrival on the West Coast she took an assumed name and married a complete stranger.

Not one coal-black hair, not one lipstick stain, not a single discarded cigarette butt, not one lingering sweat drop, not even one unpaid bill, remained in the moribund town decaying flake by flake into the maelstrom of the heaving river. Nothing whatsoever remained to remind the man, ( who daily walked the quais alone in melancholy fashion, ( against the currents of the mighty river churning quietly downstream ) ) , of the woman ( who had, ( in the fat night ) , made love to him while the cat sat on the fence chewing razors under the full moon ) .

Pinned down for the next decade in the decrepit citadel, ( known throughout the river valley as the source of the ecstatic river trout ) , the man, ( joyous with longing and despair ) , from his encounter with her retained only his dreams : rich, costly dreams; brilliant dreams; dreams to nourish him a lifetime ....

.... until he, too, following his destiny , ( his destined destiny, ( tracking him implacably as the gleeful warblings of skunk cabbages will chorus the lusts of a naked rapist tangled in the thornbrakes) ) , would leave the alluvial plains of the river valley in search of her .

Daily , hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute, the obsessed woman, from the vantage of that splendid California town, ( where for a decade she raised three children given her by a man about whom she knew nothing and cared less , ( until , ( joyous with longing and despair ) , he wound up in the local extension of the state mental hospital system , ( a sinister place, its corridors ringing with demented laughter ) ) , lapping up Thorazine from saucers and leaping with the ecstatic rainbow trout ) , the woman offered up silent prayers to her distant lover, praying with all the force of her wounded soul that he would never be able to find her.

For she wanted him all to herself. She demanded nothing less than total possession. Yet destiny, ( her destined destiny , ( tracking her implacably as the warbling of skunk cabbages will chorus the lusts of a naked rapist tangled in the thornbrakes ) ) , pushed her ... to a rendezvous.... with her unrelinquished lover.... through which she lost.... everything....

____________ 4.

The day arose like cracked crystal , clear and brittle. Soft odors oozed through the crevices of dawn as eagles, infatuated with their own majesty, swooped down in tortured arcs. The heaving bulk of the mighty river curled , ( turgid as swampy mud, evanescent as drying bracken , churning with grievances unresolved from ancient geological epochs) , angrily through the broad valley, over which arose an auroral hum, layer upon layer of sanctified vibrations, like the screeches of scattered flocks of birds, or the din of unsynchronized orchestras .

It happened that on this morning an ecstatic rainbow trout ( leaping and swooping in addled and majestic tortured arcs, pestering the sun for favors, shaking with the chill frost of power , disbursing , ( like trains of rubies and pearls cast in reckless abandon ) , sprays of tart droplets and slurping , ( from drug polluted waters ) , greedily on each downward scuttle ) arced itself with awesome boldness over the turgid muddy bulk of the heavey river , and plopped itself down onto the cobblestones of the melancholy quais.

It was just about then that the man, ( having but recently arisen from his bed, ( which, ( melancholy through memories of past ecstasies of razor blades and love ) , softly groaned ) , and going to the courthouse, ( where each day he learned anew of the total ruin of his fortunes ) , along the way that led to the courthouse ) , rattled his bulky briefcase along the rotting streets of the dying hamlet.

Groaning softly, the rainbow trout heard his approaching footsteps, ( groaning softly on the melancholy quais , ( which, under the approaching footsteps softly groaned ) ) .

The rainbow trout, meekly squeaking, cried to these approaching footsteps, ( meekly squeaking on the melancholy quais, ( which, under the approaching footsteps, squeaked meekly) ) !

The approaching footsteps, approaching ever closer and closer, approached. Nothing even remotely approaching these approaching footsteps had ever approached the rainbow trout before. Thereupon , leaping in higher and ever higher rainbow arcs , it died . Confronted with the death of the trout, ( which by the time he reached it was quite dead indeed) , the man was stopped dead in his tracks.

Curious fish! So to die on the man_s path as he went, ( going to the courthouse on the way that led to the courthouse) , to the courthouse to receive confirmation , as he did every day anew, of his total ruin! It was at around the same time that the captured rapist, ( strapped by the sleeves of his strait jacket to the frame , ( which softly groaned) , of an unmattressed metal bed ) , furiously farted jungle crime.

The man picked up the dead fish examined it curiously put it in his briefcase then continued going to the courthouse along the way that led to the courthouse.

The sun_s mighty arms twisted the early morning out of proportion , propagating confusion down the sky_s taffy mass. Ribbons of ecstatic rainbow trout, ( surging in majestic counterpoint against the stream gradients of the muddy river_s bulk ) , intersected the stream gradients of the bulk of the river_s mud . These turbid lines of force, wriggling torsion and contusion, pulverized the viscous maelstrom into millions of drizzles of dazzling sparks . The curtains of mountains in the distance heaved, sighing like cracked jawbones . A grim foreboding of doom compressed the minds of all denizens of the sleepy citadel , dying inexorably by the banks of a great river_s dying .

____________

The woman had seen the movie over thirty times . When, for the thirtieth time , ( at least ) , she saw the man pick up the fish study it curiously put it in his briefcase then continue walking to the courthouse, ( along the way which led to the courthouse, ( to receive ( as he did every time he went there) confirmation of his total financial ruin ) ) , she, ( stuffing a handkerchief in her mouth to arrest the onset of hysterical sobbing) , got up from her seat and quickly left the theater. She knew what was coming next and could not bear to see it.

The sun_s rays diffused a mist of rubies and pearls through the ozone sludge, as the woman stepped through the door of the cinema onto the street. Although she had just witnessed a moving moving picture about a woman ruined by her love for a man , upon seeing a man running up the street, she was possessed by a love that would ruin her.

It is just such connections which determine this world.

While going to the courthouse, ( along the way which led to the courthouse), the man dreamed up a ruse to escape his creditors. He would no longer continue to go to the courthouse along the way which leads to the courthouse, but would , after returning to the cobblestones of the melancholy quais, continue along them, ( against the current of the mighty river, ( and along the way which leads to the local extension of the state mental hospital ) ), until he came to the grounds of the local extension of the state mental hospital . He would then present himself at the entranceway to its_ feudal manse, ( wherein lay untold minds, locked up and thrashing about in hopeless perdition) , and, claiming to be a madman , a threat to himself and others and an embarrassment to his family, demand that he be locked up .

The river concentrated its embittered dreams and parceled them downstream. Impatient foam broke over the waves as agitation reigned in the lower depths.

Yet , as he turned off the street, ( veering away from going to the courthouse, ( along the way which led to the courthouse ) , to go to the mental hospital, ( along the way that led to the mental hospital ) , and turned his head , ( briefly, to glance at the posters on the walls of the cinema ) , he saw a woman who, ( having just seen a moving moving picture about a woman ruined by her love for a man , (and who, on seeing him, conceived a love for him that would ruin her ) ) , walked against the current of the river , the sight of whom suggested to him a desperate scheme not devoid of cynical calculation , that would restore his shattered fortunes, ( though it was destined , ( a tracking, implacable destiny), that in the end it would cost him dearly ) .

Quite late in the late evening of the same day, while the full moon dropped its frenzies into the fat night, ( as feathers will drop out of a slit mattress) , and the cat sat on the fence chewing razor blades all the fat night long , the couple paused long enough from their love making ( on the mattress of the antique wooden bedstead, ( which, in the attic of her elegant home, softly groaned ) ) , to discuss the transfer to his bank account the following morning of most of her property .

Gambling moonbeams cast their feverish bids upon the earth_s pallid rocks , ( while all the fat night long the triumphant warbling of the skunk cabbages ( bedded down in the terminal moraines and alluvial plains of the great river valley ) chorused the lusts of naked rapists , ( who, tangled in the thornbrakes of the world, furiously farted jungle crime ) ) . In long pauses between nuzzling and moaning the man explained to the woman how the county branch of state mental hospital system, ( located right in this town near the banks of the mighty river churning quietly downstream ) , had turned him away at the gothic entranceway to its feudal manse. Alas, all softly groaning metal bedsteads set aside for the use of businessmen whose briefcases stank of Thorazine -saturated trout, and who sought to avoid receiving confirmation of their total financial ruin, were filled . He was told that if his condition showed no improvement he could re-apply in three weeks.

The agonized shrieks of the lovers slit the air, naked with the chill frost of power, as razors will slit the thoracic membranes of cats in the grasp of brutal research vivisectionists. At the height of their frenzy, between nuzzling and moaning, even the man imagined he might be in love, a serious error that was to cost him dearly in the long run. The swaying mattress, ( swaying with grief between moaning, nuzzling and misfortune, ( and groaning softly ) ) , pumped the pompous wooden antique bedstead which, ( lost in its melancholy sweet dreams of glorious pasts in manor, farm and grange) , softly groaned .

The woman left the antique bedstead long enough to think through, write out, and sign a document giving to the man all of her assets taking the form of real estate investments around the world. Included was a proviso that he succeed in finding her after she would flee ( unseen) to a splendid California town, ( where, infallibly the great eye of the sun, moulting its bitter spectral glow in glittering sheaths, casts its rejuvenating love over all things ruined and whole, men and women dying and yearning, cat, skunk cabbage and trout ) , in the early morning .

Judging from the amount of blood that had dripped in a steady plop-plop-plop from the mouth of the fence cat, ( under the full moon ( swollen and acrid as a bitter lemon ) ,the buzz of microwave radiation at 3’ Kelvin from all directions of the universe, the gratified warbling of the skunk cabbages infesting the alluvial plains all along the river valley, and the feverish hum of moonbeams gamboling about the rocks , ( spectral and wan beneath the beaming moon ) ) , the writing of this document had taken two hours. She then crawled, trembling , back under the eiderdown quilt , ( contained within a cloth bag, ( on whose surface were crocheted ecstatic rainbow trout drunk in Thorazine-saturated waters and leaping in ecstatic arcs ) ) , and, ( turning on her side , ( clutched in the hairy embrace of her slumbering lover) ) , fell into a profound sleep scarred by many a dream of unmerciful and unmitigated catastrophe.

Under the cover of night, ( from whose eyes seeped black pollution in thick indigo clouds ) , a naked rapist fled, swift as bat_s dying , out of the woodshed of the lovers_ house and into the thornbrakes of the world. Birds, nesting in resplendent trees nestling about the broad river valley, ( wherein rich alluvial mud ambled thickly in terminal moraines to the banks of the dying river) , warbled unutterable melodies awe-inspiring by virtue of their utterly silent silence.

Transcendental hums permeating the buzz of microwave radiation at 3’ Kelvin boggled the universe, disrupting causation, scintillating horrors and holocausts, inducing nightmares in slumbering ghosts , awakening in gods and demons their sharp spectral lusts. Saintly avatars posing as derelicts wandered the desolate countryside, receiving no sanctuary. With fires around the globe devastating territories the size of entire nations , millions hung out in restaurants , reading newspapers, filling the air with petulance and idiotic chatter, feeling bored.

And the lovers slept on.

And on. And on and on. On and on they slept, onward through the ecstatic arcings of boggled catastrophes, corrosion flaming at the heart of the world.

____________

In a time, which may have been coincident with that of the events chronicled above , equally before or after , ( there being no necessary temporal connection between them ) , there did conspire, in a certain splendid California town , a similar drama involving a different cast of characters , ( or a thoroughly dissimilar drama involving the same cast of characters, ( it being entirely a matter of one_s inclinations to acknowledge the greater claims of one or the other interpretation, ( or of none at all ) ) ) .

The author contents himself with merely recording the facts.

Save for a few monstrously thewed Redwood trees kept in backyards like pets , everything in this splendid California town was plastic. In a prominent location, poised on a hill overlooking the valley, stood a movie house . Day by day unremittingly , this emporium of lies seeped malevolence into the community , like a toxin pustulating through cracks in a septic tank, wounding souls, catalyzing crimes, debauching the innocent, wrecking families, driving melancholics into depression, depressives into schizophrenia, schizophrenics into catatonia and catatonics into paranoia, sabotaging careers, degrading the social fabric, destroying reputations, devastating fortunes, inspiring dangerous schemes in the minds of lunatics , denigrating the sick appetites of the poor, vaunting the sick appetites of the rich... and so forth and so on .

It_s because of such things that the world is connected up as it is.

A woman had sat there from early morning, watching a deeply moving movie three times in succession, the story of a woman ruined by her love for a man. Finally she stood up, walked through the lobby and stepped out the door into the early evening. The sun, formerly dazzling as a supernova bobbing in galactic foam , had been reduced to a glum little cough drop melting into the horizon_s taffy mass. Standing at the edge of a super highway, she stared across grinding maelstroms of countless vehicles racing about in all directions. Lifting herself up on the points of her toes she craned her neck in a desperate effort to avoid seeing what she so desperately sought, ( that image which, for a decade, had filled her heart with longing and fear ) , the sight of a man striding up the hill for whom she nurtured, like a serpent suckling at her breast, a hopeless love that would eventually ruin her.

The world_s connections operate in more or less this fashion.

Later that same evening the woman, ( walking ( alone, slowly against traffic ) , down the melancholy streets of this splendid California town ) , made her way towards the regional branch of the state mental hospital system, ( a fairly sinister place), to pay a weekly visit to her husband, a man whose mind was thickly entangled in strange delusions . The forlorn clatter of her softly groaning high heels, ( meekly squeaking on the concrete embankment of the Interstate ) , disappeared beneath the pounding surge of vehicular traffic ( which, ( like the hearts of passionate lovers pounding on antique wooden bedsteads in the attics of elegant homes ) , raced madly in all directions ) .

Poisonous smog dusted the adjacent settlements like a fine gossamer of angels_ wings. The noise of klaxons from ambulances racing to the sites of frequent accidents blared across the chaos. Discord reigned irrevocable as the vehicular flow churned mightily downstream.

Her husband had strange delusions : he believed himself to be a rainbow trout, leaping in ecstatic rainbow arcs under the gamboling of moonbeams spectral and wan, feverish off livid rocks. In his imagination his ecstatic dance was in continual intersection with the stream gradients of the mighty downstream passage of a heaving river, angry with grievances unresolved from ancient geological epochs.

Furthermore these delusions had been translated into action: apart from those rare occasions when it was necessary that he be constrained ( in a strait jacket and bound by leather straps to an unmattressed metal cot, ( where he might lay for days at a time , furiously farting jungle crime )) , he was domiciled in a room all to himself. There, saturated with trout essence, he was at liberty to leap about at will . This room was connected to an adjacent corridor by a single window , which was only opened when his wife came for her visit . From a chair in the corridor she sat, and talked to him , with knitting in her lap.

Their words floated back and forth through the opened window like giddy minnows vaulting misty rainbows. Having nothing to say to one another, they employed a great many words in not saying it.

Even as they conversed her mind remained far away , ( on the East Coast , ( back in the little dying town by the banks of a great river dying, ( where the man ( towards whom, obsessed with love, she ceaselessly rendered up prayers that he would never be able to find her ) , might still be living ) ) ) .

Soused on Thorazine, Prolixin and other psychiatric drugs, her husband hadn_t the slightest notion of who she was. He_d forgotten how to relate as human to human, or even as trout to human. Only one mode of relationship was accessible to him: trout to trout, gleefully warbling with the skunk cabbages infesting the terminal moraines of broad river valleys , gloating over the bloody death agonies of razor-chewing cats atop fences under the full moon_s spectral wan, or chorusing the lusts of naked rapists, ( hopelessly entangled in the thornbrakes of the world and furiously farting jungle crime ) .

The life and death of the river valley flowed through the room to the rhythm of his joyous dance . Trout, skunk cabbages, lovers , rapists and bloodied cats, the buzzing of microwave radiation at 3’ Kelvin pouring down from all parts of the universe, and the churning of mighty rivers flowing quietly downstream, flooded the overheated and sinister gloom.

Unperturbed , the woman sat , quietly working at her knitting , content in the possession of a husband completely out of touch with virtually everything . In her own fashion she loved him : he gave her all that she needed . With deep-set satisfaction she watched him leap and dance like the spray of tart spume off river foam. In a leaden voice, a voice devoid of all emotion she fed him quotidian banalities , to which he responded with sweet trout whistles. Between them at these times , there the profoundest communication subsisted , that species of communication which delights in the total frustration of communication.

____________

On the upper floor of the local extension of the state mental hospital administration, ( located in the dying town not too far from the banks of a great river dying , ( whose quiet passage downstream soothed many an inmate , ( locked up and thrashing about in hopeless perdition ) ) ) , the doctors were doing crazy things to cats with razors. To the meek squeaking of eyeballs crushed underfoot , ( shrieking under the full moon_s spectral wan) , and the droning plop-plop-plop of quarts of blood spilling off the rubber sheets covering the operating tables, orderlies and interns , ( all of them deeply dedicated to the suffering inevitable for scientific progress ) , made , ( as the full moon will drop its frenzies into the fat night ) , their institutional rounds , ( through the night_s fatty balm) .

In the first room they discovered a rapist , cradled in sweet dreams of rape. Although bound to an unmattressed metal bedstead by leather straps , and , ( save for a strait jacket) , naked , his wrists had been slashed with the rusted needle points of unsterilized syringes.

His left hand had broken free of the straps and dangled out the window, ( through which the moonlight, bleak and bitter, gushed in an icy stream ) . Blood dripped in a steady plop-plop-plop from the deep cuts in his wrist onto the branches of the white willow , ( holding the rope on which were suspended the mutilated carcasses of hanging lovers , ( wildly careening through the pounding of the valley winds ) ) . Blood trickling through the tresses of their hair dripped onto the open blades of skunk cabbages which,( in joyous approval ) , furiously farted jungle crime.

In the adjacent room, steeped in the chill frost of power, they uncovered a pair of lovers in the clenches of coitus. Their shrieks slit the night air, ( as feathers will drop out of a slit mattress , ( swaying in grief and misfortune, and softly groaning )) . Their brittle laughter slithered about the room like the tails of electric eels slithering against antique wooden bedsteads ( dreaming of glorious pasts in farms, manors and granges, ( and softly groaning )) .

The observations of the deep gashes on their torsos where razors had been applied were dutifully recorded by the interns in notepads attached to clipboards. Their commingling blood, ( coagulating in puddles and pools, ( and falling with a steady plop-plop-plop onto the rotting floor boards of the feudal manse )) , dripped onto the faces and bodies of the inmates ,( locked up with their minds thrashing about in hopeless perdition ), below .

On the top floor of the local extension of the mental hospital, ( located right in the heart on the dying town near the banks of the great river dying), doctors doing crazy things with razors slit the genitalia of masturbated cats. The shrieks of these wretched beasts fanned out over the terminal moraines of the broad valley, ( ambling thickly with rich alluvial mud , and livid beneath the indigo sheen of the placental moon ) . Across the amplitude of the broad river valley arose an auroral hum , layer upon layer of sanctified vibrations, like the screeching of scattered flocks of birds, or the din of unsynchronized orchestras.

The staff entered the third room. There they encountered a man who leapt about , dancing in ecstatic rainbow arcs. He believed himself to be a rainbow trout, wriggling and bouncing through Thorazine-saturated waters. Deep razor cuts had flayed open his throat at the level of the gills. His blood pulsed through these openings in spasmodic belches, ( flowing through the room with the same anger that grievances, ( unresolved from ancient geological epochs ) , will churn in the belly of a great river ) .

Having completed their rounds, the interns returned to the upper floors of the hospital to report to the doctors that nothing was amiss. All of the patients were showing signs of progress. The doctors, ( wiping their feverish brows with hands stained with blood , ( streaming in all directions, ( like the evanescent scent off vermilion wildflowers on moonlit forest trails carpeted with ants ) ) , nodded their dissolute and weary acknowledgment .

Across the broad river valley , ( crouching in the fat night, eloquent in its utterly silent silence ) , cats sitting on fences and chewing razors under the full moon scream through the void_s immensity . ____________

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