fiction
creative nonfiction
about deadpaper
         
         
   
michael theeke
   
         
   
Michael Theeke is a midwest product transplanted to St. Augustine where he works in the used book trade. His influences are, in no particular order, Kurt Vonnegut, Laurie Anderson, Polish absurdist playwrights (particularly Witkiewicz and Galczynski), early punk and new wave, Harlan Ellison, Arthur Byron Cover, Richard Brautigan, Frank Zappa, Kathy Acker, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan (the songs he talks through, not the ones he sings), doomsday prophets, Eric Hoffer, Bob Black, John Giorno, Milan Kundera, Vladimir Mayakovskii and the Gileya movement, Situationism, Repo Man, William Burroughs, Sergio Leone, Allen Ginsberg, Joanna Russ, Norman Spinrad, and lots of other folks there's no room for here. He's author of The Continuing Adventures of the Lesser Evil. And of what you read here.
    
         
   
Slow News Day
   
         
   

Next page required sense depth perception dogs howl outside reinforced electronic doors
this city is climate controlled & smells of emphysema
looks like rain & I don't think this meal's quite as home cooked as advertised.
And sunlight hits your eyes at just the right angle made a rainbow.
I said "you have to tell me" you told me you didn't.
Today's as good as any for invisible
ants deconstruct dead beetle at my feet
turn to box scores and something about some dead musician I hadn't thought about in years
and the auctioneer's putting away what didn't sell tells me fags give the best head I politely decline the offer.
Last page gunpowder eyes stare down my second gin & tonic of the morning pinned it to the table words race between us exchange of gunfire through tobacco-blackened teeth quickly scan any finger second hand.
Something about expressions of commodity.
Section C lights reconstruct battered mattress engagements get out the vote
temptations do not respond in kind just literate pretension.
Ownership wheezes like an old Coleman lantern.
I woke up on the wrong side last night
nothing to impede regression
backdate that mistake and don't look too deeply you won't find it here
if you need to sleep please do it in my sleep.
Rumors of honest no more disappointment
no opinion only reformed dialect
survivors outside the shelter shuffle feet, move on.

    
         
   
January 1st, 2002
   
         
   

Never had much luck with cocaine tried it twice just kept me awake a few hours while friends ooed and ahhed over how high they were "this must be Miami Vice."
I sat, as indifferent as background noise practiced patterns spent attention elsewhere wound up machines in clockwork ghosts
because while not much to look at, especially at this time of day I woke up this morning & that was sufficient.

I woke up this morning it was sufficient
last night lasted too long natives got restless as murdered witnesses to common crimes of passion
played keep away across the third rail
got nervous about the enforcement when everything turned make believe
peered into the mirror expressed surprise didn't think I'd eat so much time didn't think I'd get this old didn't think but on display everything stays the same
staggered along chalk border eyes glowing vodka bright
sipped champagne breakfast slightly drunk without enjoyment just another empty tourist.
Studied truth like trivial lawsuits
sought self-fulfilling prophecies
I love self-fulfilling prophecies they're the best kind of prophecies they're the only prophecies that ever come true
a disappointing gift for indifferent gods can't say it wasn't expected
transcend ancestry
unkind reminders of what was and should have been
yesterday was my ex's birthday I suppose I should call and pass along my warmest regards as I've done each year 29 years
outside the jurisdiction of New Age music
it was not exactly a Hallmark moment though if I do say so myself we were "en fuego."
And I've been feeling pretty lowest common denominator all week anyway
tried to save a world which decayed & crumbled centuries before arrival I've got better since then
and maybe it's just advanced age talking but I was never able to see Tupac as a sage, a prophet, or a role model
chiseled memories into most pliable armor
carbon dated ruins of henna tattoos behind my gratitudes and cautiously nibbled comfort food.
Bronzed correct answers as trophies while I felt in touch with the primitive
a superstitious sailor scanning the horizon seeking safe harbor
who really wanted to be surrounded by freeway
needed to see how far this car will go on change I found in my pocket
to ignore problems until they get bored and go away.
Incentive to hit the hello through the air smells of stale sense of value.
I stood painted the color of bulletproof & practiced building puzzles
new year
felt strangled by tiny newborn fingers
we use the tools closest at hand.
Nothing new to promise or change anymore
mind races a million miles a minute and I have to wonder where that will place me next year at this time?
Just because it's convenient to stop here doesn't mean we have to
but it's okay if we do
stop.