Behind the City

            On Sunday I continued reviewing my lecture notes and the readings to study for this Wednesday’s Romantic Literature exam.

            I’m listening to Jethro Tull's discography in chronological order and right now I’m playing Aqualung, which is the one I’m most familiar with. This was their fourth album and there was a definite progression of improvement from the first album to this one.

            I had tamari almonds for lunch. I had to chew them very carefully with my centre teeth to keep the bits from falling into my periodontal pocket.

            I played around with a poem about alleys.

This evening my streets are infested

With cops that block my veins

Then arrive the ambulances

As a child of mine’s been killed or maimed

Back in my endless alleyways

Sitting in a garage

Talking, playing Latin melodies

Two men drink in the dusk

Planets of golden apples on

An overhanging branch

Enact a quiet rebellion

of their containing fence

A slow flowing stream of ivy

Crawls across the power line

And sways in the breeze above me

Crowning this alley of mine

            I had hummus with plantain chips for dinner while watching The Rifleman. There is a tough and mean wealthy rancher named Jackford that everybody hates. He’s good with his fists and he is attacking a bookkeeper that he says swindled him out of $2000 when Lucas intervenes. Jackford is getting the better of Lucas when the marshal breaks it up. Soon a bounty hunter named Tom King arrives. Lucas knows him from riding in posses back in Oklahoma. Tom admits he’s there to kill Jackford because someone has paid him $500 to do so. Lucas tries to warn Jackford but he comes into town anyway. The marshal makes them ride to the outskirts of town. Tom tries to provoke Jackford into a gunfight by insulting him but Jackford just walks up to Tom and starts beating him up. He leaves him on the ground and walks away. The man that hired Tom kills him and takes his money back. He’s arrested for murder.