away at the prairieville store
away at the prairieville store
by Oscar Smiles
sprinkled some dust onto my purlicue….then took a razor to my rasceta….they said i’d carved up all these notches in her headboard….i’d get to kiss her goodbye one last time…i’d seen her at the church on sunday night…the ambulance drivers said i’d died three times on the way to the hospital….his mother made the best m?lli….it was incredible….she baked ketamine on a plate & then proceeded to cut it up on a fine piece of my aunt’s furniture…ruined it completely….i made love to another woman while she was away at the prairieville store sunday evening…i was hammered & i’d started to chug the bottle of hairspray that i’d thought was gamma….i wrote the piece which included e.t. & xey in the study of her dealers pad…i remember listening to type o negative while we stared out the sunroof in her room….the thrill has gone …phosphenes…ohhhh grawlix…they’d placed an apple in my my mouth…………this time i’d chose the cat’s meow to the fibrosis…my mustache smells funny
Obscurity Central here. “Purlicue” is the space between the extended forefinger and the thumb. “Rasceta” are the creases below the palm-side of the wrist. “Ketamine” is a kind of anesthesia-antiseptic. I don’t get the reference here. Is “gamma” a beer or other beverage? “E.T.” is a song; “”xey” may be one as well. “Type O negative” is the band, I presume. “Phosphenes” are the lights (images) one sees with one’s eyes closed. “Grawlix” is a comedy group. “Fibrosis” is scar tissue.
Now for the poem. He slit his wrists after killing a woman in bed or making love to her, and then carved “notches in her headboard.” He’d been taken to the hospital, nearly died. The segue from the ambulance driver to the driver’s mother to the ketamine and his (the narrator’s) aunt’s furniture is hard to follow, but it’s another incident of mutilation. “Another woman” gets involved, but “the thrill has gone.” If he had to do it over again, he’d choose pleasure (“the cat’s meow”) to self-mutilation.
My sense is he fears the sexual relationships he initiates and injures himself in response, out of guilt. He may not injure the women. The church may be his source of guilt. What ups the pity and fear of the piece is that this guy could be anywhere–even in “prairieville.”