{"id":284,"date":"2024-03-05T09:48:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T15:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/?post_type=product&#038;p=284"},"modified":"2025-09-05T12:12:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:12:57","slug":"the-sun-held-the-dice","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/product\/the-sun-held-the-dice","title":{"rendered":"The Sun Held the Dice"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>by\u00a0John Goode<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<style>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t#tab_container_99 {\r\n\toverflow:hidden;\r\n\tdisplay:block;\r\n\twidth:100%;\r\n\tborder:0px solid #ddd;\r\n\tmargin-bottom:30px;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_99 .tab-content{\r\n\tpadding:20px;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\tmargin-top: 0px;\r\n\tbackground-color:#fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tfont-size:16px !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n\t\r\n\t\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\t}\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs {\r\n    border-bottom: 0px solid #ddd;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a, #tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:hover, #tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:focus {\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tcursor: default;\r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a {\r\n    margin-right: 0px !important; \r\n    line-height: 1.42857143 !important;\r\n    border: 1px solid #ece8d2 !important;\r\n    border-radius: 0px 0px 0 0 !important; \r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tpadding: 15px 18px 15px 18px !important;\r\n\ttext-decoration: none !important;\r\n\tfont-size: 14px !important;\r\n\ttext-align:center !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:focus {\r\noutline: 0px !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:before {\r\n\tdisplay:none !important;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:after {\r\n\tdisplay:none !important ;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\npadding:0px !important ;\r\nmargin:0px;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:hover , #tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:focus {\r\n    color: #000000 !important;\r\n    background-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #ece8d2 !important;\r\n\t\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a .fa{\r\n\r\nmargin-right:5px !important;\r\n\r\nmargin-left:5px !important;\r\n\r\n\r\n}\r\n\r\n\t\t#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs a{\r\n\t\t\tbackground-image: none;\r\n\t\t\tbackground-position: 0 0;\r\n\t\t\tbackground-repeat: repeat-x;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\r\n\r\n#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n    float: left;\r\n    margin-bottom: -1px !important;\r\n\tmargin-right:0px !important; \r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n#tab_container_99 .tab-content{\r\noverflow:hidden !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (min-width: 769px) {\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\tfloat:left !important ;\r\n\t\t\t\tmargin-right:-1px !important;\r\n\t\t\t\t\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\tmargin:0px !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t.wpsm_nav-tabs li:before{\r\n\t\tdisplay:none !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t.wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\t\tmargin-left:0px !important;\r\n\t\t\tmargin-right:0px !important; \r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\t#tab_container_99 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t}\t\t\t\t<\/style>\r\n\t\t\t\t<div id=\"tab_container_99\" >\r\n\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t<ul class=\"wpsm_nav wpsm_nav-tabs\" role=\"tablist\" id=\"myTab_99\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  class=\"active\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_99_1\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_99_1\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Overview<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_99_2\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_99_2\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Excerpts<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/ul>\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <!-- Tab panes -->\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <div class=\"tab-content\" id=\"tab-content_99\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane  in active \" id=\"tabs_desc_99_1\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p style=\"text-align: left\">\"John Goode isn\u2019t out to tickle your ear with a little alliteration or a serving of assonance (although he\u2019s not averse to either). Rather, through plane-shattering imagery and Cubist juxtapositions, he\u2019s out to rearrange your universe, punch holes in your complacency, bend spacetime to his will\u2014or simply leapfrog it into another dimension. Tell me again: how many planets orbit our Sun and which one is this?\"<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">\u2014Vincent Czyz, author of <em>Adrift in a Vanishing City<\/em> and <em>The Christos Mosaic<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">\"In \u201cArs Poetica,\u201d Archibald MacLeish explains that \u201cA poem should be palpable and mute \/ As a globed fruit\u201d and \u201cA poem should not mean \/ But be.\u201d John Goode\u2019s polychromatic book The Sun Held the Dice is the embodiment of these tenets: the poems are busy and do a lot of heavy lifting, and yet they are often as still and rooted as the globed fruit that MacLeish envisions. Goode\u2019s intensely surrealist shoptalk is indeed palpable, with a worldview seen through an imagistic lens. Brilliantly bridging the chasm between linear poetry and prose, and shifting easily from minimalist couplets to meaty flash fiction, there is a cinematic quality to Goode\u2019s buildup and scene-setting. He renders fluent and fluid poems that border on magical realism, and yet contain enough familiarity to lull and becalm the reader. While the first section focuses on the pandemic, proceed with caution: these are not your mama\u2019s pandemic poems. They cut a wide swath, from Italy to Indiana, making variegated pit stops en route to Pluto, and striking the pitch-perfect tonal chords of risk and randomness that are the hallmarks of the plague itself. In Goode\u2019s poem \u201cNotes from a Midwestern Winter,\u201d he states that \u201cmy blood gallops\u201d\u2014and the same can surely be said about the blazing parlance of this linguistically limber and distinctively daring wordsmith.\"<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">\u2014Cindy Hochman, Editor of <em>First Literary Review-East<\/em> and author of <em>Telling You Everything<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><strong><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-334 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/john-goode-headshot-draft-2.jpg\" alt=\"John Goode headshot\" width=\"200\" height=\"250\" \/>John Goode<\/strong> is a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. His poems have appeared in a variety of journals including, <em>Rattle, Skidrow Penthouse, LIT, Mudfish, Slipstream, Axe Factory Review, Bottle of Smoke Press, Afterhours, Waiting for the Bus<\/em>, and <em>Arsenic Lobster<\/em>, among others. He was first runner up for the Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from <em>Rattle<\/em>. He lives and works in Chicago, where he has collaborated and performed with various musicians such as Grazyna Auguscick and Tim Haldeman on the albums <em>Man Behind the Sun<\/em> and <em>Open Water as a Child<\/em>\u00a0(for the Flint Michigan water crisis), and at venues such as The Chopin Theater, Sleeping Village, and The Museum of Contemporary Art.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane \" id=\"tabs_desc_99_2\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<P><strong>Roses for the Butcher<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nthe screenheads are smoking laughter<BR>\r\nin the glass tonight<BR>\r\nbecause the disease can\u2019t hurt them<BR>\r\nduring the red snows of Pluto<BR>\r\nthe disease melts like ice<BR>\r\nit soaks its body in the ever-loving galaxian sea<BR>\r\nand drips through the silver mattresses of Mercury<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\ninto the exact space<BR>\r\nand much smaller<BR>\r\nwhere the fourth sun<BR>\r\nseen in the dimension<BR>\r\nthat always goes missing<BR>\r\nrises like a dog from a nap<BR>\r\nand licks its baleful whiskers<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nthe screenheads are bored with their foremothers<BR>\r\nand the slow diet of television<BR>\r\nthat ends in their palms<BR>\r\nwhen they look out<BR>\r\nacross the empty football field<BR>\r\nlike deer studying a faintly mysterious sound on the wind<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nthe screenheads have jobs in the labs of improv<BR>\r\nand are feeding on the architectural corpse<BR>\r\nof Wicker Park<BR>\r\nthe disease is in the cloud<BR>\r\nthat floats through their phones<BR>\r\nit floats through their phones like vapor<BR>\r\nfeel it in your skin<BR>\r\neveryone\u2019s got it<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nabove us, the sky,<BR>\r\nwhere the grocery farmer covers us in bleach<BR>\r\nand the virility of canceled Spartacus<BR>\r\nand the dust from the bones<BR>\r\nburied in the gods<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nthe global virus of Italy and Indiana<BR>\r\nhas your attention<BR>\r\nfollow it closely<BR>\r\nfollow it into the morning mist<BR>\r\nover the pond in Humboldt Park<BR>\r\nit floats like a mosquito<BR>\r\nwith eggs and shimmering wings<BR>\r\nand a beak of chlorine and metal<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nthe screenheads are in their cloud tonight<BR>\r\nsmoking open windows<BR>\r\nbecause the disease is self-contained<BR>\r\nand largely vociferous<BR>\r\nbut has no home by which to rescue itself<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nand the earth is laughing gently<BR>\r\nlike a flower that trembles<BR>\r\nwhen it\u2019s brave<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nthe disease drives a bus through the gaping tunnels<BR>\r\nbeneath cash registers<BR>\r\nand movie theaters<BR>\r\nthe disease is on the countertop<BR>\r\nand the window<BR>\r\nand especially the filthy lucre<BR>\r\nin the fist you make<BR>\r\nthat destroys everything<BR>\r\nyou love<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nand when someone says:<BR>\r\nplease make the disease someone that smiles,<BR>\r\nplease make the disease someone I can eat like cereal,<BR>\r\nplease make the disease a mostly regrettable instinct<BR>\r\nto take my own picture so that I can laugh<BR>\r\nat my perilous vanity<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nthen the disease drives a corpse<BR>\r\nacross the countertops of Italy and Indiana<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nand the red snows of Pluto<BR>\r\nturn into doves<BR>\r\nwith beaks of chlorine and metal<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nand the exact god in the exact dimension<BR>\r\nthat always goes missing<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P><strong>Mask<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThere were gulls<BR>\r\nwith coin-like eyes<BR>\r\nand sea grief.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nColor weaved beneath her hands.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nShe could see Kedzie Avenue<BR>\r\nfrom the window in her studio.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nShe lit a cigarette.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe liquor store swelled<BR>\r\nwith patriarchal drug operations.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nRide by in a pair of shorts on a bicycle<BR>\r\nand you would know<BR>\r\nthe vulnerability in power.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe sky was dyed pink<BR>\r\nas in the pastoral novels<BR>\r\nshe\u2019d read as a child.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThen silver,<BR>\r\nlike television-fueled windows<BR>\r\nin houses she passed at night<BR>\r\nas a young woman.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nHow everything flickered<BR>\r\nlike campfires then,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\naround which the posse dreamed.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nAs if they were eating miles of sleepless grass<BR>\r\nor long blue insects,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nuntil their eyelids quietly closed,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\neither in victory<BR>\r\nor defeat.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nAs a shadow-thin vessel<BR>\r\nfloated down from the sky<BR>\r\nand landed like fog<BR>\r\non the driveway.<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P><strong>Quarantine<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nmy neighbor is carrying slow bags<BR>\r\nof groceries from his car in the alley<BR>\r\ninto his apartment<BR>\r\nhe is preparing for the feast<BR>\r\nof the damned<BR>\r\nthe cattle that died in the slaughterhouse galaxies<BR>\r\nthat exist all around us<BR>\r\nthe quarries of pig flesh<BR>\r\nand tornadoes of crow<BR>\r\nwe all partake in<BR>\r\nhe is studying the trembling bacteria<BR>\r\nat the end of the spoon in his eye<BR>\r\nin his lab at the University of Chicago<BR>\r\nhe is studying it<BR>\r\neven as he carries his groceries into his apartment<BR>\r\nwhere the government he loves<BR>\r\nis boiling potatoes<BR>\r\nand sleeping with the rats<BR>\r\nwhere the government he hates<BR>\r\nis conjuring the black toad<BR>\r\nand the mushroom<BR>\r\nhe has risen from the dead<BR>\r\nfrom the mandatory division<BR>\r\nin the spring<BR>\r\nhe walks slowly through the cloud<BR>\r\nof mercury waiting on his doorstep<BR>\r\nthrough the hemispheres<BR>\r\nof palm-fed facts<BR>\r\nand conspiracies of lead<BR>\r\nthe rising ghosts<BR>\r\nof vegetation<BR>\r\nand poultry<BR>\r\ngreet him like music<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P><strong>Pandemica<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nPale it was in the vestibule of the virus where wandered the bus like a limping bucket, its digital yellow breath seething in the blight. It was a blurry half-rainy evening. I tightened my mask and crossed the street.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nA clerk breathed me in at the door. There was a book in her lap and a stopwatch in her hand. She sent me forth. We were burrowed inside the Tank of Winds. Who knew what was being accomplished or why we were here? We hadn\u2019t been studied long enough yet but there was plenty of time. In another life she might have been a friend. I could imagine her laughter wasn\u2019t easily provoked but once so it would last.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI moved through the underwater aisles. I swam like a fish through their relentless unblinking. I pondered the hidden cameras in the glossy potato chip bags and boxes of rice, and everywhere in the ceiling, the endlessly recorded moment of myself, the virus cameras and their mist-like flashing.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI studied the vegetables which had begun growing from the tile, blooming asparagus and onion blossoms rising out of the unemployment dust, bricks of evangelical milk melting in the aquarium light.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI thought of the local poets. How were they faring?<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nDizzy? Old Red? The Diamond Twins?<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI\u2019m sure they were navigating similar terrain.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI began gathering: Frail, barely-realized eggs. Diced flanks of ham. Fist-like cans of soup.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI moved into a quiet aisle with ease and optimum surveillance. I wanted to observe everything. But I didn\u2019t want to linger. I hated these nervous innards of capitalism, this flowing anxiety. I\u2019d never enjoyed it. The groceries always seemed much farther away than they really were. As if they were merely being suggested. The real grocery was much further within. Impossible to attain.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI appeared on the other side of an aisle. I had vanished for a few seconds... I walked right through a woman like I was air. She was there, and then I was on the other side of her. She almost noticed. Her mascara closed across her eyes like cage doors. The instant that I returned, I smelled her, a florid overpowering earthiness. A myth.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nShe suddenly appeared right next to me. But this time with a man. And she was different as well. She was larger and covered in a film of sweat. It felt like she was driving her eyes into the side of my head. The man moved off with their son. She spoke. A quiver in the web. I imagined the Spider felt it three city blocks away.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\n\u201cExcuse me, aren\u2019t you the bartender at The Wizard?\u201d<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\n\u201cNo, sorry,\u201d I lied.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\n\u201cReally?\u201d she half-exclaimed from beneath her mask, \u201cI could swear my husband and I got drinks from you there. You were bartending, you\u2019re the bartender.\u201d<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nShe was right. Even in a mask, my clothes gave me away. I wore the same clothes everywhere. Work and life were exactly the same. I remembered her and her husband. They were like all of them. They\u2019d created themselves right in front of me. She kept asking about the cocktail list. She was flirting. Or she wasn\u2019t. She was married so it didn\u2019t matter. He seemed nonplussed. Trying to vanish into the monosyllabic. I imagined that he suffered from petulance and halitosis which were intensified by her otherworldly non-intuitiveness. He was a tech sales representative. He made good money and lived for fantasy athlete racing. She was a data interpreter for a company in development. And she loved it. Enough said.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nAnd though the memory of her and her sudden transformation baffled me, it was so pointless to attempt to navigate or explore that I made a sudden move away from her. It felt like an entire atmosphere ripping. I could feel her voice hanging at my shoulder trying to say one more thing. It felt like \u201cpandemic\u201d but everyone was saying that.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWithin a breath I leapt into an open checkout lane. The cameras flashed rabidly at that. The clerk eyed me. Who knew which side anyone was on? We understood: the membrane was dissolving. We didn\u2019t really belong here anymore. That\u2019s what the virus said.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nYes, it had spoken. And someone had discovered a way to record it. It would seem impossible. But there it was: a language murmuring at the molecular base. An uneasy burgeoning intelligence illuminated in a dimension previously unexplored and it had been recorded. The story was old news now. The first ones who heard it were called the creators. They said it sounded like gibberish but then a thought process and succession of formatting and sounds that moved and paused and questioned and asserted, became apparent. Philosophers and psychiatrists hypothesized. The language was found to be completely devoid of empathy. No trace at all. Not even the kind of trace a psychopath might at least pretend to feel. And yet it was filled with esoteric rhythms and a fluid mathematical grace that was perilously seductive. The linguist who first attempted to translate it went insane. He proclaimed on social media that he\u2019d fallen... in love.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe Spider had already tuned in. Hunched up like a swollen valve of shadow and blending into the brick, he studied his phone. He was a chemist at a university in the city. He wore alley-colored clothes and spoke no louder than a pencil moving across a page; quiet, gray, erasable. He was at the center of the web and he was my neighbor in the same shitty apartment complex. We shared a back stairwell overlooking the alley. He had a peculiar gift: he experienced every quiver the web made. If anyone in the building turned over in bed or went to the bath-room he was already there... in spirit. He detected the virus-speak between hands during an all-night online poker session. It took him a week to gain access. When he did, the virus approached him.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\n\u201cCan we rely on you?\u201d<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nHe was frightened by the cryptic overtures of the remark but acquiesced quickly.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\n\u201cYou can,\u201d he replied.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI saw him above the alley on the porch that night.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nA rat shot out from under the dumpster. Like a boot with a tail.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe Spider was drinking a beer. I\u2019d moved too suddenly. He was already outside even though I\u2019d left minutes before him.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\n\u201cThere was a shooting at Seven-Eleven a couple nights ago,\u201d he stated ominously, \u201cFullerton and Milwaukee. The shooter had a silencer.\u201d<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI liked the Spider. He was nervous and funny and possessor of a cryptic wit. The news he gave me was horrible, disturbing, all the things you could name. And yet, why even bring it up? That story was everywhere. I tried to make my thinking stop.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s to be expected,\u201d I finally said, \u201cWe\u2019re in Logan Square. It\u2019s Chicago, right?\u201d<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe Spider pretended I\u2019d said something else. He pretended I\u2019d asked for a drink of his beer. I had one of my own but he\u2019d metaphysically eliminated it with a resolve that was hardly timid.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a Pils,\u201d he said, enjoying the rare lift of his own voice. \u201cFatScrew is selling it online with virtual Parquet Courts tickets.\u201d<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nHe was from Michigan and I trusted people from Michigan. I watched the glistening pink and green can extend in his hand. A small drop of spittle settled on the can\u2019s lid.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI\u2019d learned a trick. Whenever alone with the Spider I should imagine something off in the distance and concentrate on it. Perhaps a wound of melancholy or the kind of thing you might overhear a soldier saying to a buddy during a war.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\n\u201cThanks, man. This is good for me right now.\u201d<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI held up my PBR can and smiled dutifully.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe look on his face was pained. But I didn\u2019t pity him. He didn\u2019t want that. He wanted to explain something I didn\u2019t want to hear.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nHe texted me within seconds of our parting: \u201cI know what it wants...\u201d<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe words crept cryptically across the screen of my phone. It\u2019s strange when you read words in a text saying something like that.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI didn\u2019t reply. I let it go for weeks. But I thought about it.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWhat what wants?<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI became friends with a young woman named Oklahoma. The lockdown was rough. We met in the front courtyard and talked now and then. She was the opposite of the Spider. Her voice was resounding and excited and definite. She had faith. I avoided the alley and the back-steps. I read a four part book on Euclidean comedy. I learned small phrases in German. I survived on packaged turkey and sleepy wheat bread. But it soon became exhausting. Within a few weeks the television had swallowed me. There were long chords of static and breathless attempts at birth by beings I could never have imagined. It was tough in there. The crackling of shells and leaking of yolk, the master vine bleeding into the great ill-begotten purge.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI\u2019d tapped in by accident. It was December. There were protests around the statue. The boulevard whirled like a cold ribbon of fire with headlights flickering inside it. The Spider had lost it by then. He\u2019d become pure Spider. He stalked the laundry room for a listener. He texted me a photograph of his electric bill. He made reckless suggestions to management - he wanted cotton balls to be included in the rent. It took him weeks to complete a load of laundry. The walk, the thinking, the forgetting it was even there. I grew worried about him. The shadows beneath the steps filled with his murmuring. Quarters sang like broken teeth as they tumbled into the Humboldt Park swan plumbing. He stared resolutely into his palm.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe television was brutal. Information blurred into the Sitcom and the Sitcom blurred into static. A black and white nausea crept through tireless Bacall sightings. After months inside I began to detect the sound of the virus. It was the same thing the Spider had tuned into. It was louder than you might think. It was coming from somewhere inside the TV but also coming from the entire room. I knew now why he was always studying the alley. There were movements by the rats that only the virus was aware of.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThese particular rats in these particular dumpsters. The patterns they made. A kind of wrestling. The Spider believed even God had neglected these movements and their scurrying fluid calculus.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI started saving everything. The cowboy poetry I\u2019d written on my six-chord guitar. The words immunoglobulin and lysis and cilia. The last-call echoes when the speakers turned into bliss. I\u2019d seen a lot so it wasn\u2019t easy. I had to make split-second decisions and nothing was moving. That\u2019s what made it even tougher. Time was happening all at once but my breathing was intact, at least for now.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nIt felt like I got on my bicycle and rode North, but I can\u2019t be sure.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nNear The Oakwood, I remembered the twins and the jukebox with its single glowing lung. The bar was closed down but everything was like it was before.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nIt was an autumn night. There were people going in and out. The moon was heavy and filled with smoke and drums and the voices of creatures who\u2019d made it this far. The chill in the air felt like a high school football game. Cars passed slowly up and down Montrose Avenue. Coke dealers, gang bangers, cops. Bartenders and servers who\u2019d just gotten off work rushed in and out of the door like flames. The women smelled like beer and weed and hope. The virus was telling the story. James passed me a one-hitter in the alley. I wasn\u2019t there yet, but I was arriving. For a moment I wasn\u2019t sure he was ever there. But then I realized he\u2019d always been there. Ryan walked up laughing. It might have been the most beautiful thing I\u2019d ever seen.<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P><strong>Grocery Store<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nOh earth, come down from your dry tower<BR>\r\nand speak.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nMy invocation tonight<BR>\r\nis poor and huddled.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nCome down from your famine tower.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nCome down from the bleach<BR>\r\nand medicine competitions.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWhere the worms are spinning clouds<BR>\r\nand a falling pebble still hovers.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nRemember us earth.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI am tired of criticizing<BR>\r\nyour crawling shores<BR>\r\nand headache parties,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nyour inflamed digital landscape<BR>\r\nand violence.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWe were never like that.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI am tired of myself<BR>\r\nin this room.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nToday I rode my bicycle<BR>\r\nto as many stores as possible,<BR>\r\nand bathed my face in the fluorescent virus-light,<BR>\r\nand spoke recklessly, but eloquently<BR>\r\nto the clerk with brown eyes.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI remembered her from the great nights<BR>\r\nof lust when we crossed the prairie<BR>\r\ntogether, during the timeless grid<BR>\r\nof lightning and flowers<BR>\r\nwe\u2019d escaped from.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWe followed each other for years<BR>\r\nuntil the moon thawed.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nUntil trees bowed along the highway\u2019s edge<BR>\r\nlike prayer husks<BR>\r\nwhispering over the corn.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThere were storms and consequences.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe hotels we collapsed in<BR>\r\nwere like death stations,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nwhere we were the last word<BR>\r\nto each other.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nBut none of this mattered,<BR>\r\nas the door to the store pushed<BR>\r\nopen and shut.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWe were strangers again<BR>\r\nand had never met,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nexcept for this cruel exchange<BR>\r\nin the lower regions<BR>\r\nof commerce.<\/P>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n <script>\r\n\t\tjQuery(function () {\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('#myTab_99 a:first').tab('show')\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\tjQuery(function(){\r\n\t\t\tvar b=\"fadeIn\";\r\n\t\t\tvar c;\r\n\t\t\tvar a;\r\n\t\t\td(jQuery(\"#myTab_99 a\"),jQuery(\"#tab-content_99\"));function d(e,f,g){\r\n\t\t\t\te.click(function(i){\r\n\t\t\t\t\ti.preventDefault();\r\n\t\t\t\t\tjQuery(this).tab(\"show\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tvar h=jQuery(this).data(\"easein\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(c){c.removeClass(a);}\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(h){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+h);a=h;}\r\n\t\t\t\t\telse{if(g){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+g);a=g;}else{f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+b);a=b;}}c=f.find(\"div.active\");\r\n\t\t\t\t});\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\r\n\t\tfunction do_resize(){\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar width=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).width();\r\n\t\t\tvar height=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).height();\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar toggleSize = true;\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('iframe').animate({\r\n\t\t\t    width: toggleSize ? width : 640,\r\n\t\t\t    height: toggleSize ? height : 360\r\n\t\t\t  }, 250);\r\n\r\n\t\t\t  toggleSize = !toggleSize;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0John Goode<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":76,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[29,28],"product_tag":[30],"class_list":{"0":"post-284","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-fiction","7":"product_cat-poetry","8":"product_tag-john-goode","10":"first","11":"instock","12":"shipping-taxable","13":"purchasable","14":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}