The Haze Is
Doug Calhoun
The haze is the smoke from the porch seeping into the dining room from the cigarettes and joints of darkly clad cheap thrill seekers and it’s the banshee scream of the treble of the abysmal groan of the bass from the window-shaking speakers that pound like my heart through the drone as I notice the floor of the kitchen sticks like barleycorn glue to my sneakers.
The haze is new smoke from the oven where someone burnttomorrow’s night’s pizza and its everywhere thickening whilethe smoke alarm shrieks for order through the chaos but it’sannoying and sickening but not as bad as the sound when it’s torn like a scab from the ceiling and the haze is the dimpounding pulse climbing a hill of euphoria and quickening.
The haze is the shudder of surrender after the liquid firesweeps down your throat followed by the simmer of longnecksand the subsequent feeling of treading and then drowning inthe sweaty pools of prospects of sex and the pounding that explodes through your headas it climbs its mountain of excitement to an orgasmic apex.
The haze is the kid in the leg brace who’s crying and bumpinginto the china cabinet screaming “someone gave my a pill” and colliding with the graveyard of empty bottles and cans that spill and dribble their last drips of blood from the chippedwindowsill and the rate of pounding that tires and slows down now that it’s reached the top of the hill.
The haze is the hormone flow that drowns the kind-eyed pock-faced hero until he starts playing the fool and it’s also thelion that snatches away his virgin ruby-lipped maiden so shecan drown in his drool and it’s the steady procession oflemmings that crowd laughing and nude to leap for their loversinto the cold backyard pool.
The haze is your girl’s silhouette intertwinded on the lawn withthe shadowy figure of who was once your best friend and the quicksnap of your heartstrings that took months of cold comfort and patience to mend and the haze is that pound from below, slower,that’s reached the hill’s rocky summit and can only descend.
The haze is the rising stink of bomit from the pristine bathroomfloor and the surprising resistance of your own bedroom’s lockeddoor and the cries of you girlfriend within screaming for moreand a mass exodus of writhing humanity that fruns from the houselike ooze from an open sore.
Now I’m alone with the haze, and it’s the desolation of darkness,and it’s the decadence of the light, and it’s the moke thatstung my tearducts but purified my sight, and it’s the pound thatkept slowing and slowing until it reached the hill’s dirty base,and gave up the fight.
