quietly take to the ship

Moving!

2010-04-15T14:32:00.001-04:00

I decided to up and move this project elsewhere, so if on the off chance you're reading this, head over to...

AVIAN ARCHITECT

...for future posts. Thanks!

The Bower Bird, Ch.III

2010-04-12T15:45:00.002-04:00

Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. This change manifests itself in two ways: as a tendency to forget what one started out to say, especially following an interruption, and a tendency to go off on irrelevant tangents. However, giant chunks of the universe don’t just go missing for no good reason, at least not as far as science is concerned. If you want things done the correct and right way, there are other people that will happily offer that up to you. But this phenomenon has hardly been studied at all. Now, attempting to decipher what someone is saying is rather difficult when that one person is really three. If the majority of the results are in favor of a modern/abstract style, then animals would of course not be included. In case no one ever told you, the answer to any question asked in a paper's title is no.

Interlude

2010-03-30T14:28:00.004-04:00

From Maggie Nelson's latest book, Bluets:

67. A male satin bowerbird would not have left it there. A male satin bowerbird would have tottered with it in his beak over to his bower, or his "trysting place," as some field guides put it, which he spends weeks adorning with blue objects in order to lure a female. Not only does the bowerbird collect and arrange blue objects—bus tickets, cicada wings, blue flowers, bottle caps, blue feathers plucked off smaller birds he kills, if he must, to get their plumage—but he also paints his bower with juices from blue fruits, using the frayed end of a twig as a paintbrush. He builds competitively, stealing treasures from other birds, sometimes trashing their bowers entirely.

The Bower Bird, Ch.II

2010-03-26T18:04:00.003-04:00

I am going to give you
a new melodic conception
on a tune you are familiar with. If we overlook
such exceptional movements as earthquakes,
hurricanes, storms, avalanches and waterfalls,

nature is silent. This is very exciting,
because mankind has always thought about being
invisible or having invisibility cloaks. Also, I think
knowing the weight proportionality of body parts
would be important if you needed to dismember
and dispose of a corpse. Everyone wants to be
nice to the animals. Most people are not

willing to pay $300 for a salamander. We know
it's a hard idea to get used to, but
there's no lush gift shop waiting for you at the end
of this museum. The significance of those prints
for human evolution has been debated
ever since. But at least in principle, a perfect forgery
could be a new and important work of art.

The Bower Bird, Ch. I

2010-03-17T23:50:00.004-04:00

You say you are
a nameless man. But
the counterintuitive reality
of multiple minds in a single person
is one most people resist

given that they feel themselves
a singular “me.” For instance,
patients whose brains have
been damaged so that their
two hemispheres cannot
communicate with one another
will consistently fabricate elaborate
explanations for why one isolated
hemisphere acted in a particular
way. And it's not because there’s anything
wrong with them, but because
they were conditioned

to believe that learning is about giving back
the right answer. The effect is especially powerful
if you blink your eyes. As a result,
we hear "dog" and think of nouns
that, in more sober circumstances, would
seem to have nothing in common. These
depressions just smother you. And yet,
students of bird song notice that
certain species at certain moments just go out
on a jazz musician's jam session, taking notes
from other bird songs
and incorporating them into their own,

singing much more beautifully
than when merely demarcating
a territory. This repetitive, cumulative, 'continuous
dynamic' painting process is strikingly similar to the way
patterns in Nature evolve. Common sense is nothing

but a collection of misconceptions acquired
by age eighteen. We don't need to 'stabilize' on
anything: the virtue of this medium is unfettered
diversity. Aristosthenes's only tools were sticks,
eyes, feet, and brains; plus a zest
for experiment. The basic idea is to get two spheres
and put some electric charge on them.

The Bower Bird

2010-03-17T15:40:00.004-04:00

It's been nearly a year since I last posted any work here. There is good reason for that: most of it is crap. But, instead of burying my head in digital mulch and pretending I've never been (or still am) terrible, I'm leaving it as a document of what is generally called "juvenilia".

Having addressed that, I could also justify such a decision to leave it in place as a sort of foundation for all my subsequent writing. Sure, whatever works.

To be totally honest, I'm reappropriating this site as a host for a new project I have called The Bower Bird. Problem was there are already blogs with that address so «zip!» I'm right back here. Perhaps I'll post other work alongside the structure being constructed, but decisions like that will be made later, and on the fly.

Tomorrow, 18 March 2010, a member of the family Ptilonorhynchidae will begin construction. I don't know where this will head, only that it should be fun. The premise should become obvious in short order, but the practice will be ongoing and subject to change (possibly without notice, even to myself).

Oh, and one last thing, this isn't an attempt to attract a mate. The lovely one I have would likely disapprove.

Hope you enjoy what follows. Or at least find it interesting enough to keep an eye on...

Emergency Exits

2009-05-13T22:16:00.002-04:00


I ran face first into last summer 
while sorting out 
a repeat of last spring
in line for lunch,
for a concoction conjured 
to relieve the humid boredoms
designed in spite
of distaste for (melo)drama—the kind now
tugging at my leg
in prophetic visions starring
bill murray and an alarm
clock that sets off
cold sweats and forethought—excuses 
to get out of this pollinated
mess of new leaves
grown in animal heat.
and considering lust lacks a conscience for us
it is fitting I’ve already cooled off
and moved on.

Good Reasons For Leaving

2009-05-13T22:05:00.002-04:00


there are few distances
          that can’t be breached
today, old longing memories
          are usurped electronically
by trickles of youth’s data
          turned to streams
reunions become clicks hello
          the update’s nice
          but could you all
          go back to when
you regularly ignored me?

Cataracts

2009-05-13T21:58:00.003-04:00

It may almost be better to go on half blind
and wander aimless away from the gaze
of the shepherding legions who are paid to mind
out of coffers opaque and untraceable when
all the interested parties appear intertwined

in mahogany smoke rooms of shadowy men,
the popular figments that time has refined
as the image of gilt, ostentatious display.
Relief at the ease of displacing our sins
onto secretive men with nefarious ways

has the helpful effect of making a pen
out of what was a hive. And our playful signs
become empty rituals for passing the days
averse to the risks taken out on the limbs
and accepting of what’s seen with atrophied eyes.

Untitled (Static Fragments #2)

2009-04-01T01:20:00.003-04:00


These dead eyes, this blank stare
Do not lie; they are mirrors,
Reflections in bulletproof windows
for you.

Little narcissists take in,
But they don’t project or give
So don’t forget when you gaze
into cold,

Sodden nothings, those
Unflinching pupils with irises glazed
It is you, that is your own fear

Watching you reach toward this
Pair of fogged, bloodshot jade
In time to remember it’s me
who’s awake.

November

2009-03-30T20:50:00.003-04:00


you make it so hot here,
i sit back and sweat. let’s
not let go, our eyes
prisms we'll rust together
in pieces to get out
the salts of raw thighs.

i taste your oils—
please, savor the steam
condensing on walls
where windows thrown wide
it smells of lighter fluid,
you smell like wine.

if there are traces left
later I’ll play detective
just for a last taste of
any lingering suggestion
before the whiteboard’s erased
of incriminating links
just to make future space for
your invisible inks.
                                   let’s
hope teacher knows
to draft fresh air inside
lest the students get wind
and melt in their hides,
from steam that we made
with windows thrown wide;
that spyglass made fire,
you still smell like wine.

Dreams of Better Jobs

2009-03-30T20:20:00.003-04:00


you were in need
of tiny arms
embedded in a chain
of subterranean gears.
he’d been caught
drinking straight
chlorophyll again
on an overcast day
like a ring of reflective puddles.
and too many
podiatrists were
receiving office calls
for anyone to recognize
the ordinary
nature of their shift
in gait.
              it’s all
the heavy lifting
you’ve done and I
can understand
the adrenaline rush helps
but maybe, just
maybe, you should
let the kid learn
his own tune. sweeping
the floor is american
              zen.

(Static Fragments) #3

2009-01-11T22:37:00.000-05:00

I have days
when my field of vision jerks
and shifts. That blind spot
in the middle
that the brain makes
up? It’s always fine
while the rest, the processed
input shatters.

One time
I thought all the light
fixtures loosed toward
the floor. Another day
an entire room
jolts to the left.
I just stand there.

Now

2008-12-20T23:17:00.002-05:00

Then..., what of it?
It just passed, is over, is always
The future, is six months from
Used to be flying cars and fear of
One-world government
Is a fractured nuclear age, is the deli coffee
I drink, café-outpriced
Makes me feel like
An old man of twenty-seven
...elderly adolescent.
It matters if I do or do not
For anyone can try anything.
I'm done
For...

Aspirin For An Aching River

2008-12-20T23:07:00.004-05:00


if there is feeling more pronounced I must
         know it
for now it evades and, frankly,
         I doubt
it’s my most fulfilling enterprise
to gain from the plenty of persons near
and yet the right person never near
still I sit alone to read, reclined
as blood drains out my lifted legs
         ‘til I can’t stand
and tea goes cold
though when the nerves return
reheat the kettle without stumbling and drink
to the sirens outside
my window always open
even in dead of winter,
needing to feel that chill breeze
         on my feet

Untitled (Static Fragments part VI)

2008-12-07T22:34:00.000-05:00

I recognize you in the print,
framed and boxed and closeted
to hang unbecoming whispers,

it was always –who?- so it sits
back boxed and closeted. You’re not
really there, you’re behind, but

I know what went on along
the paths through the reeds and sea
oat and sumac. How many burned

out carcasses did we count
for posterity; thieves’ getaway
landfill sculpted from another

man’s sunken treasure. Robert
Moses never met a golden calf he could
not leave his name upon but this

brackish arm meandering a warm
November? It’s a long bus ride and
a longer hoof-it to find your way out

there so no, I’ve yet to make it back.

There Were Warnings

2008-11-07T01:09:00.002-05:00

we gnash with a mouthful of broken teeth; eat
each other whole. bellies with no room
for remorse; not instinct, but ingrained, inbred

crushed like statuary amidst unhewn stone,
the gap between what marks the spectrum’s ends.
mottled bleedings inhabit muddied pictures,

otherwise straight lines, any definitive scratched
into lenses; these cameras covered red swirled
on hands, on faces, on everyone: pray

and find solace in the end of the world if
this empire crumbles surely it is the last
and greatest

Bureaucrat As Religious Scribe

2008-11-05T22:40:00.003-05:00

it’s an expressionless face in a
three-walled hole of reflection

druids believed that
writing compromised secret

mass long lost to desire,
unresponsive as trained

and memory; for all their work,
only Roman accounts of them

that’s how I imagine him
definitely a him

survived, whatever that’s worth
when I write, my memory

he, who will pass on the orders
to begin the immolation

failed; will the only traces
in fifteen hundred years

any traces of us that we don’t
keep ourselves, gone

of any of this come
back to light as the hand

emperors never light the fire
it would be unconscionable

cuffed stiffly at the desk
producing reports and documentary

but the ashes on an unthinking
lackey’s smooth fingers

satisfied, however, so when the works
of the eternal volunteer elapse

grant a pass in the eyes
of the gods, the state, enduring

without conscious notice the fury
rages inside, demanding to be acknowledged

Untitled (10/9/08)

2008-10-18T00:38:00.001-04:00

My friend Sophie knows
all the names for god
even if she says she doesn’t

I don’t believe her
just like I don’t believe
in god. But if

it’s real it probably
doesn’t want, or need, me
to believe

Because how relevant
to its aims
could I possibly be?

Then This Is A Dance, I'm Dancing

2008-10-12T21:32:00.001-04:00

I thought I could dance
everyone said
because I had rhythm
I thought I could dance

But all eyes were on me
and I fled the scene
they said I could dance
since I knew how to sing

Alone in my room
I was ready to dance
with two curious knees
just holding me up

I could sing with my feet
if I knew how to dance
and because I had rhythm
be the life of the night

Now all eyes are on me
joints stiff as a line
unbending to will
and the threat of clapped hands

These curious knees
as unsure as first kiss
to chance with these feet
thinking we can all dance

(Book 2, pg. 128)

2008-10-03T23:40:00.002-04:00

Something thicker filled the air today than water it was leaves, dry, and apple atmosphere. granny smith. No the next day is cold, wet, without lingering trimmed autumn grass. That’s all been smothered tomorrow into the soles of children’s shoes. They want their games on the wet field, they hate indoor gym class especially the ones with overzealous parents ready to sue over a lopsided game of dodgeball or anything with probabilities of pediatric peril. Like walking outside. Take away the processed sugar but god forbid the boys use sticks for swords. I should have gone outside more then, make up for it in thunderstorm bike rides today my gears are slowly rusting.

Notebooks

2008-09-15T00:51:00.001-04:00

I know I’m nowhere but
that nowhere would be even less

knowable if there weren’t
stacks of you keeping track

the passing thoughts in pen
instead of doodles I have a record

what was in my head almost
never what a professor professed

and every year since a calendar
to mark the holes in my memory

whatever I failed to write or forgot
or flippantly left out of your mouth

Breakfast

2008-08-26T22:11:00.002-04:00

we wake gripping hides
shaking the sleep from our eyes
digging nails reach for
pleasures inside
kicking and screaming the silent
waves that emanate
two prone surfaces stretch for days
every inch struggles to make its way
under the fingertips
under the crushing weight of heightened state
under the sheets that wrap us tight and aware
and when we finish we stare,
fall back
and dream

Eschatology

2008-08-17T22:15:00.006-04:00

A fortnight
is but the lull between paychecks,
the family vacation’s patiently
collected days, maybe
to some the loss of
forty three names for lichens or
another’s recipes
for tree root alchemy.

Over that span somewhere
instinctual knowledge of the river’s
fluid mechanics, a herd’s migration
unwritten, goes missing
afar, isolated
or conquered
as the lost knot language.

One more phrase has dropped
golden and wrinkled, withered;
the gods who brought rain
no longer called upon,
their names cease to be relevant
now, those limbs bare
come spring.

Worn stone inscriptions,
pass the lips of the last
remaining elder
whose world was shaped by this
dying grammar, these breathing
vaults filled with knowing turned
to bide time as artifacts

by the young, who learn
like Dacians, Mahicans, Huns
the tongue of another;
the tongue that promises
work, new life, new phrases
to define a world, a universe
a missing afterlife

while whole galaxies collapse
in the failed hunt, the bad harvest
in that final breath
of the ultimate speaker
the echo,
the silence,
the vacuum on the 15th day

(updated 10/28/08)

Sleeping In A Crime Scene

2008-08-15T23:54:00.001-04:00

Insomnia rides these sheets
minds never cease
without white noise,
incantations,
lullabies of distraction
so that I may have some peace.

She's always lurking right behind me.
Any time is better;
rest my eyes and
let it go
but night will never
leave me satisfied
to know

If I had maybe gone and killed this.
Someday, someplace
we both get over it.
I'll say
your name again
the way I always meant it.

Six Hours

2008-08-04T00:46:00.005-04:00

Go ahead, lay yourself down
upon the ochre sheets
spread for you, the sated king
undead, unshrouded, waking-
dreams on procession
towards the head, its tractable
project screens.

A sparrow alights
in the near maple, watching
hidden
from the oncoming torrents
only to disappear.

He, she? knew
where you were now
friend, serpent, naga; guardian
knowing, unbound
by stumbling infant
limbs; whispering secrets
in virgin ears newly exposed
to wind.

Hush, hush
and rustled branches, the sparrow
has come and gone and surely
will return
at its enviable
whim; hush settled
in this blue room
seedlings glown
with calm, green
as your new ears, new
eyes, new fingertips
however calloused feel
as you did before
taking repose
on those ochre sheets.

Yet know to walk
in the sulfurous liquid
depths life shielded
for eons no good no evil
just the currents and the
Vulcan urges burst through
feeding, enrapt—
unwrapped
by the chaos where
for a moment
is still.

(updated 10/18/08)

Sea Shanty; Barely, Simply

2008-08-03T10:51:00.003-04:00

picked her up gently
tuned and de-tuned and retuned
plucked a harmonic

peal of a string bell
rings, it rings in her voice that
one note that she hits

is the ambient hum
of the planet she hangs just
above, out of reach

of my finger tips
of the violet stretched tongue of
the tallest giraffe

so this round i’ll sing
and i’ll sing in my deep voice
how many octaves

lie between mine and
hers between eyelids unwedged
by the last dream this

morning when that hum
lays down stone for subconscious
libretto writ meme

into meme enfolds
chords into phrase calling back
in a round to that

note she first sang; her
hum, her wave on that string in
that spot it just is

it just hangs
it just hangs
it hangs then it fades

(updated 8/24/08)

Excerpts From A Conversation With A Houseplant*

2008-07-23T02:15:00.001-04:00

Coleus, your green-rimmed, purple leaves are not an optical illusion

You're not even convinced and your argument
is not convincing. I know painters
who took color class in college

That's not a shade of blue, it's really
rather violet. Even I know violet.

Yes, the blueberry girl
from Willy Wonka.

No, that Amazon tribe doesn't recognize
a distinction between blue and
green.

Well, I'm not a shaman, so
I'm not quite sure how...

Yes, the roots talk to them and let
them know the proper combination, but...

I can hear you just fine.

It's late
I'm going back to sleep.

(*Inspired by a weekend with the family)

A Few Changes

2008-07-08T01:05:00.002-04:00

I've been taking the time to edit some of these poems in preparation for journal/review submission, so they may change (hopefully for the better) from time to time until I submit them. In the meantime I'd love to get (serious) feedback from anyone who stops by here and takes the time to read anything. If you like something, let me know. If you hate something and have a good critique, send it my way. Consider this "peer review" and you're all my peers.

Thanks for stopping by.

Everything Unmade Into One

2008-07-08T00:03:00.003-04:00

"And will never be any more perfection than there is
now."
-Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

It was suggested
That all those tiny imprints,
In wafers metallic and thin,
By concentrated light
Would lead us through

The ether holding hands
The world round, in remote
Corners to dawn a new age
Of improved mankind, unhindered
By the laws of flesh and disease

And DNA. A prophet
In some waking dream
A simple equation foresees
The real second coming of man,
Of new form beyond the crippling

Fear. Encased in stacks, row
Upon row, fans buzz
The sound of work, the machines
Work so we can move
Beyond bodies into programs. But when

Was the last time I was entranced
By that glimpse of a forever
Without collapse, just to find
All the things we made
Were seen already to have breath, to live

Outside that single point
So fervently wished forth
Of those unwilling to accept
Of imperfection or the mystery
Found in flaw. The flesh so weak

And apt to tear and stretch
Sending nerves into frenzy, perhaps
But also ecstasy. I need no tomb
Of museum exhibit life if that, indeed,
Is what is sought inside a conscious box.

A Beneficial Marriage

2008-07-06T22:31:00.003-04:00

A reasonably romantic mind would wonder how
it is that, while we on the ground bathe
in the soaring words of our generals,
the world caves around, unsaved
by unreason, unloved in rations, digesting
only those bits watered
with feelings and logic. Since when
do unoiled machines work? And how

does that neglector of thought feed
himself? A universe in the hands of
technocrats grinds itself to grey mud while
the pastoral artist's eden starves
in love. A little change could do
you both some good; though I'd hate to
see the split of such a rigid embrace,
that dance of death
where you both look the other way.

(updated 8/24/08)

Mandelbrot, Woods

2008-07-06T01:54:00.002-04:00

Pick up that descended leaf mottled
in golden pixels, the traces
left by forked veins. Would the caterpillar see
before his meal
the ragged edges of living green?
Those sugars later turned to dye entice
legs and legs to crawl,
for the perfect bite awaits him while
perfect cast delights me.

What fauna feasts on coiled fern
the way my eyes do? Nestled
in wet shade and spread to sun rays poked
between branch over branch above
the mosaic mirrored in the colored
leaves and holes eaten through, pierced
by sky.

Absent design, shapely accidents
layer themselves in scale; pebbles
aligned with sand to mark
an immeasurable end to land, an infinite
line with definite form
plying the space between water and air, blurring
distinction of branch and vein.

(updated 8/24/08)

Commuter Vampires

2008-07-03T00:59:00.000-04:00

The heads found here
Bob with need of sleep
For they can't at night
Knowing what they've done
What they do and what they will
So this is their time,
When they can

Each one who sleeps well
Has plenty of time to rationalize
Their actions in bridge and tunnel
Safe at home with heavy eyes
And neglected children who
Will grow up to sleep away
Their rides the same

With Uncertainty

2008-07-01T23:20:00.003-04:00

Last Day in Paris

2008-07-01T01:05:00.001-04:00

at 9 a.m. the knock came thundering through the neon
flash; it had been there all night. all four hours of it.

we thought the deadline was loose and had new friends
to spend the dark with drink. how quickly to learn

otherwise and snap up. gather bags, pay and go. this was
no time for hangover. it was far too soon, far too early

for such intoxicating language in a sidestreet supermarché
buying bread and cheese and water. i think it's monday, how

many hours til the flight? god, where do we go now, up
the wind of this hill, these marble flights. does the city

glisten in the morning sun, or be it the alcohol
lulls me like the sirens back to sleep, here nestled with

my backpack on the steps of Sacre Coeur. you watched
the vendor of misspelled haiku postcards while I slept

this headache back to a dull thud. no more of the jarring
aftershocks from the morning knock on the door between my eyes.

(updated 10/29/08)

Thinks to Self

2008-06-30T21:37:00.002-04:00

In this chair, this streamside vantage
the steady migration arrives in increments

to tease almost daily. You look to me
well read, as if while you studied

page after page pairs of eyes studied you
like I do. I'd fancy a chance with
that hand, but darlin', I'm as broke as you are

beautiful. What's the point in trying
then? ha, maybe you could love me

for my money, the adventure we could steal
while thermometers peak, or some trivia

I've had stored away for the occasion;
a squirrel for a useless fact, but a tough
nut to, oh you've lost patience already.

This spell is broken with unclenched
jaw so you'll never know how much
the practice is lacking. Stowed away up here.

(updated 8/25/08)

Flyover Country

2008-06-29T22:18:00.001-04:00

Where the clouds have cleared the big sky
I can see grids orange-lit.
In black they burn at night
a few have winked my way.

Signals lost six miles on high but marks of hope.
Sprawling towns reach desp'rate to the next
like they reach to me towards the moon
towards some end.
Any chance to not be so alone on these plains.

Light gets smaller and further and won't
reach so far,
float like nebulae we imagine
the picture they make.

Each vision as good as the next one
must possess,
a vision out here where
I've never seen the ground I stare
forward through cabin, walls blink
blue green formica of headrest tvs.

Single lanterns pass for urban,
my night will last for everlong.

Oh, who gathered these towns,
this god's great joke
on the conquerors.
Spread 'til land's end and county line
into the hills, disperse
for wave after wave of the good
life to settle a future
that modern youth escapes.

Sit Too Close

2008-06-28T18:51:00.002-04:00

Caught out in, it's refreshing
these interior monologues
to help remember, a sunshower.
Not too wet, just enough
to compensate for the ablutions
I missed. Again, today,
maybe tonight for a turn. But for now
I lift high my arms; head left,
head right, breathe deep. Ah, I'm alive
I can feel working deep.

Too much product, too sterile. I'm not
a lawn for fertilizer
or other 'cides of the kind. A pitch
like that is only good for kicks
and slide tackles. I prefer to be
left untrampled
by cleats into my ego.

At the chance I've gone too far
I read the bodies nearby,
they say before the mouths
what's in the air
between my soiled armor
and your delicate skin.

Though I hate umbrellas more
there was a time I loathed
my clothing in the rain
drenched to the core. Perhaps
a day will come when you
have left it late for musk
and ruddy cheeks to give
secrets away. My skin
is often sticky,
if you're unready I can wait.

Saturday: Early: Humid

2008-06-28T10:47:00.005-04:00

I fell to sleep covered in bites
I wake up fine
get out on wheels and catch
an old friend, 'hey ol friend
what's good' let's get a drink
this week, we say
we will, it's been too long

the heat keeps the bridge empty
today or maybe just the empty
offices keep it that way somewhere
beaches fill with 9-5s and it's 10:30
I arrive drenched and happy
and unchained
to sell a book or two

Hematophagist Phalanx

2008-06-27T21:58:00.002-04:00

It's Tuesday morning and it's just about 12:30am. On a normal night around this time I'd still be reading a book or wasting time on the internet. I'd probably be up for another hour at least. But man, tonight I'm actually exhausted. Tonight I just need rest for this summertime head-cold I picked up. My throat's a bit sore despite the constant flow of water I've been providing, still, I shouldn't have any problem getting to sleep. It's so hot and sticky, though. No need for even this sheet. Just keep the fan on me and I'll be fine. Lights out. Click.

Ladies! Listen up! We've been practicing tactical maneuvers for some time in preparation for such a situation as tonight presents us. Our scouts have located a prone, weary male body with little in the way of armor. Given the temperature and humidity, we can be fairly sure that skin is going to be left exposed to the air.
Now, let's not fool ourselves into thinking there will be no casualties tonight. We face perpetual danger from our "hosts", but our numbers should guarantee the drawing of blood and the infliction of torturous itchiness. A dazed and sleepy human will find it difficult to track you down and smite you, so keep that in mind at all times.
Okay, get in position for take-off...

Something's not right here. The dread of punctuated sleep hangs on a night when insomnia had, for my benefit, casually sauntered off elsewhere. I don't mind that sort of adultery. In fact, I'll take it whenever i can get it, and that isn't often. On the verge of comfortably dozing, my foot began to itch.

Remember, teams of two! While one of you makes the diversion run, the other swoops in for the bite. He's groggy enough already that he won't realize there are two of you. Wait until the lights go out and then I'll be sending the signals for the first team to go.

Mosquitoes, hovering as drones above the Afghan mountains that I comprised in my bed, buzzed faintly. Ugh, where are they coming from? I have a screen in my window. There weren't any around before I turned my light out. Are these from some new genus of brilliant culicidaeans that entomologists haven't recognized yet?

Alright Unit4, you float down toward the wrists while I hover near the desk, you copy?
Copy that, Unit3. Heading in.

You can't be serious. I really need to sleep. If I have to turn this light on I'm going to be so mad...

Danger Unit4! His arm is reaching for the lamp! Prepare evasion maneuvers.
Copy, Unit3, heading towards legs...

Click. Ah, I'm never gonna find them if my eyes don't adjust. Just stay focused and watch out the corners of your eyes for any movement. Ooh, there you are. Get away from my feet! I've gotta walk on those, I can't have some bite on them. Do you even understand how annoying that will be?!

I think I'm too quick for him, Unit3. I bet he still can't see anything. Unit3? Unit3, you copy?

This light, this light is strangely attractive...

CLAP! Nice, I got you good, you fucker. Ah, now I'll be able to sleep. Any more around? Nope. Good. Click

UnitCommander, We've lost Unit3. She was distracted by that lamp. I'm returning to base, copy?
Unit4, remain in position as tactical lookout, I'm sending Unit5 your way.
Copy that, commander.

If this keeps up I'm never gonna get to sleep. Should I pull my sheet up? Nah, it's too sticky in here.

Unit5, make your way towards his head this time, he'll find it more difficult to track you.
roger that.

Bzzzzzz. What the? More? I just killed you! Click

Retreat, retreat!
I'm heading towards the window

Oh, you're dead. Smack! Bah, how'd I miss?

I just got out, heading back!
You can't leave me out here naked, Unit5!

Smack! Alright, that should be...what, more? Where the hell do you keep coming from? This is absurd now. That's, like, 5 already!

Need reinforcements, Unit5 is down!
They're on their way, Unit3, hold tight...

That better be the end of it, I can't take any more of this. It's already 1:30. I should have been asleep a long time ago. Click

Unit6, Unit7, listen close, I'm going to remain in hover position near the desk and warn again if his hand moves to the light. One of you should be able to get in close enough to bite this time.
But Unit3, don't forget to avoid the light if it goes on, we don't need more casualties.
I'll be wary, 6, just focus on what you need to do.
Hey 6, I'll assault the feet while you go for the upper extremities.
Copy that, 7.

Fine, just take my blood, I'll try to ignore you. Just take it and leave me alone. Ah, shit, she got my foot. That's really gonna itch for a while.

Got his foot, here. Didn't get a large payload, however.

How'd you? Huh? No. No, there can't be two in here again. Please, please mosquitoes don't make me turn that light back on, I just need to sleep. It's almost 2am for Pete's sake.

No movements towards the lamp yet, keep on target, Units.

That's it, you both have got to die now. I gave you your chance to suck and run but you got greedy. Click

Whoa! Where was the warning?!
He was too quick that time, just get out!
Help, I'm trapped here...

Slap! Yes, one more down. That's the one that got me. No blood for your eggs tonight, ma.

I'm heading for the window, I can make it. Unit3 are you alright? Unit3? 3? Hey!

Clap! Sweet, got another one. No more, right? there can't be anymore, I've already gotten six. That's unprecedented. Nobody's gonna believe I had that many mosquitoes in here. Shit, I can't let anybody know, no girl will ever want to come over here, ever. Well, at least it's not as bad as that old apartment with bedbugs, that was terri...Hey! Another one, motherfucker!

Somebody set up a diversion! I'm alone out here and I'm in his sights! We're all done for if he gets me. SOS, anyone, Commander?!

There you are, thought I'd lost ya. Okay, sit still, she'll land and then...nope, shit. Where'd you....Thud! Yes! Ow, punching the wall isn't the best method. Ow, that hurt. Fuck me. Well, I got you. Are there any more of you? What am I doing, I've lost it, mosquitoes can't hear me. I'm gonna be delirious at work tomorrow. Hey, if there are any more of you in here, this is your chance: I've killed seven (7) of your sisters, or cousins, or whatever. Bite me now while I sleep. I'm too tired to deal with this anymore. I'm going to sleep now. Hear me? I'm sleeping. Goodnight.