What is my art

Cat with only slight halitosis
wakes you up in the middle of the night
licking your beard as you remember
how happy you were when she finally came home
one cold winter after being missing for weeks
and everyone else gave up but you didn’t
and one night she just scratched on the door
like before and you let her in
skinny and dirty and sick
with a variety of parasites
and she keeps licking your beard
with little grunting noises mixed in with the purring
you wonder which parasites they were
you think of all the sick mice she probably ate
on her heroic snowy winter trek home
and probably still eats and she licks and licks
licks and grunts and licks, pure love.

I had one of those dreams in my head when I woke up.
One of those *bam* dreams
that would change your life
if only you could recall one or two fuzzy things
I was talking to a baby that was also older than a baby
it looked like a drawing I made of Beta when she was a baby
so, basically a baby with curly fine light baby hair
but underneath that darker straighter older hair
and the baby said goo-goo ga-ga stuff for a while
but then it also said, and I quote,
“You have to decide what your art is.”
And art means art, but it also means (in German) “kind” or maybe “essence”.
I told people about the baby, in the dream
and they all said, no, the baby doesn’t say goo-goo ga-ga it talks
the baby can talk.
And I said, yeah, I know.
And I woke up feeling it all through my body

Johnny “Slingshot” Guitar

It all comes down to parasites.
Said the old man.
I’m Johnny “Slingshot” Guitar and it all comes down to parasites.
They were in the Greyhound station in Omaha. The kid was 17 and full of wonder.
Microparasites, now, best you can do is wear a rubber and wash your hands.
Macroparasites, though, you gotta choice: they can pick you or you can pick them.
Democracy is the only system lets you choose.
Everything else is horseshit.
Everything else is parasites talking.
In the restroom the kid heard a scrabbling like a large squirrel climbing up a hot water heater and a guy stuck his head over the wall to the adjacent booth.
The kid shook his head and the head vanished again.
Now you remember what Johnny “Slingshot” Guitar told you.
Watch out for the horseshit.
It ain’t hard. Rule of thumb: if you didn’t figure it out, chances are it’s horseshit.