FRED    By Jeffrey Hart

Fred was dead as nowhere

the landlady found him starved to death

life emptied out like a funnel

stood up straight     still standing!

 

no fingerprints, nothing!

Desert
fairless square

everywhere
sky

nothing but sky and desert

everyone cared at some point, then they all forgot about him, it
whatever it was
it all blew over like an August rainstorm in the desert

curious minds sucked out all loose possiblilties
questions were asked and
all the correct answers were given

forget about flowers    they never came
just quick inhales and short    loud    coughing exhales    STALE AIR!

pieces of hanging stale air with pauses in between

scratching sounds of fingertips against foreheads

rumors were left half told because of not enough curiosity

and also because of much work needing to be done

  

this was well after the word funeral didn't even exist anymore

and PATIENCE was a four hour long movie
that only came to independent film theatres

the foreign film crowd, the high-falootin' curious set

and then it got re-edited into a three minute dance video
and after that it became a car commercial

The WORLD was bored with PATIENCE,
it was just to excruciating to bear

too slippery,       in fact

IT WAS THE HORNS OF THE BULL THEY WERE TRYING TO MILK!

I myself grew flabberghasted

FAST CARS AND GIRLS!

fast cars and girls became the need of nearly everyone

and even PLANTS

plants had to have FAST CARS AND GIRLS!

It was totally insane! But no-one questioned it,

except  F r e d    our hero

who wound up dead............held hostage.....

but    that's    another    story...................



Fiction Sampler