Sea of Hunger

Barbara Mor

His head was between her legs, something like a flowerbud
between thighs of scissors. A phone was ringing. Indeed, her thighs
were steel-edged, his tongue edgy with blood. Taste of iron petals.
But a phone was ringing.
                     His stock broker --
                     She: in the midnight hours?
                     He: lips, he said.
Karl Marx: "All of our inventions and progress seem to result
in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and stultifying
human life into a material force."
                                                                                    1856   

so a metal fish in ravenous hours of water    San Diego Fwy south 1:30 a.m. Jaguar curves down Mission Bay into Baja Peninsula awake and alone red electric shark among night surge of ferrous feeders   one among many 65mph   his penis between tides of thighs in the black seat   no radio no CD trance of oceanic silence   neon streakt highspeed submarine chrome fins blood leaks from the BMW ahead   squid propel with oily tentacles   octopi drill glasseye into drivers brain   anemones cling to roadside, gas stations bars cafes suck in soft bodies from crackt shells   clutch the lethal wheel between hands of water
his father before him his father before him. the Baja coast, eden: surf fish abalone perfect sand. live lobsters in a bucket 50 cents each. before the highway unrolled a long desperate tongue from TJ to La Paz. shacks visible from 2 lane road, colonias locas rigged with rusty bedsprings truckdoors appliance crates, cardboard and wind. brown butt kids no diapers no underwear, barefoot kids running goats sheep over rocky pastures, squirting warm milk into glass jars. below Rosarito Café Lupe the old couple kills a chicken when you arrive. outside at rickety tables cerveza and 7Up, the old womans flapping apron scares up a bird her husband grabs, hold the head on a stump, one whack of a small ax. the headless beast rums around and around in terrible circles until it grows tired seeking the old life in such a strange world. all blood spurted out, pluckt chopped tossed in sizzling lard skillet, this happened in the kitchen, woodstove, handmade tortillas. you were served tacos with your own personal chicken. he died for our sins. green hills undulate to the sea, lunar beaches, tidepools of the beginning. when the new highway reached kilometro 50 they were gone. Via Dolares sweeps by leaves all erased in gringo dust

cross the border like any American. better. wave at the Mexican guard. como vas? salud, jefe! they know his face. almost 7 years San Diego based software setup any service any business anyway SMALL TECHNICALITIES, Inc. in fact no questions asked.
                                          over the border it is still America. turistas, Revolucion, highschool boys wetdream tequila blackout chewinggum putas on every corner age 9 lose yr virginity on a 43 year old bruja roll down barrio ditch into wet mossbed rank with trash and bottles sleep 5 hours and awake a virgin, all over and over again. the only sex stink of slimey green and Dos Equis, because he remembered nothing. beyond the official line it was still America until the south south south road turns into another dimension. diagonal into el otro pais. sudden cessation of masks and neon cocktails. the relentless children sleep 4,5 to a bed, the relentless night dreams one moon. in the darker suburbs taxis cruise without lights y las patrullos vienen solo por la muerte, buying or selling. when he crosses this border his sex changes. one white fish in an ocean of brown flesh. always the bones loosen, chest belly anus are vulnerable. cinderblock nations crawl over maps of his body like cockroaches. he became a woman, haunted by surrender.
                                          in this dark he drove by smell. arc slowly west as if downward to the sea. metallic and cool hunger remember salt air is blood. shark sensation, he'd been here before. global buyers, arms deals mercenary arrangements, private club on the alta playa, utilities bounties girls. more sinister than the border he passed through 1,2,3 guarded gates the drive curved finally to the entrance of the surreal palacio. a boy took his Jag and he walked into the Life. patio mosaics bougainvillea geranium pink arcades of stone scalloping a central fountain, which was lit like a holy person from inside. the music of rich voices the rich music of voices a ballroom 12 piece band, a few dance, young men amusing wives and daughters of others. around the walls in suits of power los patrones deal. everyone looks good in the glow of electric candelabra
           he finds a table spread with liquor bottles, punch, condiments, glass, ice. a Sonoran mosca mixes drinks drops in mint and lemon with suggestive brown fingers. the godfather is the pope bent over, gaze into a dark mirror of reversals. so his face is the good blond country,    innocence by default. he turns around to be introduced, the known voice of Lopez, Tijuana rug merchant, or friend of his father Verrano border realestate of the old days. here we are again, when green hills rolled to the sea etcetera. tidepools thick with exotic creatures. Verranos hands fanned wide. we're still here, guero! Lopez flashed gold but his eyes always swam as prey. the woman moved in on him, someones deal closer. a tall gringa, 40 plus too tan too flaca, she maneuvered him around the room kalaidescope of glistening fed flesh, naming names he didnt need to know, her cigarette and highball smoking in one hand.
           then a famous name, a stunning mezcla, her american father nearby. the gringa leaned into him, selling or buying, and the daughter who is Sylvia, smiles. old news photos of electric prods running shoes burning tires the Zombi chases nubile blonde thru black trash alleys she escapes, good footware. Tonton Macoute. el padre gets in his life the result of what he creates with 'only images.' this midnite flower, born to love/power. her Brazilian soapopera mother dies in a fiery planecrash on location in Venezuela, nasty divorce or narcotraffic, some C. American druglord/politico pissed with failed PR campaign. caught on film, the stars explosion backgrounds sad/romantic funeral sequence. the daughter had her mothers dark gold looks but taller, smarter. introductory words a cleancut opportunistic allAmerican boy, and now
they are joking about voodoo dolls
this is true says Sylvia. baseballs and Cabbage Dolls both made in Haiti $2.50 day wages 60,000 workers. and their little cachuchas!
exploited or saved? you tell me. they love America
i could sell 60,000 hackers
such people hack with machetes. we not only clean yr toiletbowl we make yr toiletpaper. and yr douche spray. and yr vibrating finger up yr ass. we know you so well. we watch you on tv
she could deliver serious news on Telemundo. warm hands slid another cold drink in his hands. he described his operations, chaos control keeping the lid on Disaster apocalypse systems plagues riots freetradezones e-coli world melons workers squat shitting in fields no facilities genetic damage engineered health clusters organmarkets shift via liberal birth spacing anorexia Ebola child dictatorships. your hard problem our soft solution. SMALL TECHNICALITIES. need my company. well, a man glanced one glass eye. i hope you are in good company. small is beautiful. bueno, si. as for me I want only one big thing said Sylvia. there was a flash of light, many teeth glasses raised among glittering thoughts and her swimming shoulders.
                                                                                    then lights and music dim, a hush of oxygen. all turn and Sylvia expresses everyone in one sigh. on a dais in the middle of the room a long lavish blonde lay nude her creamy arms flung above her head, thick yellow waves of hair wild growth the nausea of tendrils overflowing the deeply red plush chaise longue. either side, 2 naked brown children ages 4-5 one boy one girl each clutched one full breast in small hands, they kneeled sucking as if milk did come from their golden mother. her eyes half closed her body carelessly tossed with a kind of fishnet now you see erotically everything now you dont as she shifts a massive thigh and pelvis, between her legs a youth, slim and dark, short hair, bare chest, tight beach trunks, wrists cuffed held behind his back by a very heavy pockmarked policia tan shirt pants gunbelt, 2 others move to pull her thighs wide open the boys face shoved down into the wet gold cunt, stink of games and
hunger         Eat, hijo! la comes! may all enjoy!
el mundo consumes 75 million barrels of oil daily. how much cunt,
vato? how much tuna!
jefe from behind squeezed his shoulder. one glass eye man it seemed was Lopez' brother
pues, these ninos perform well, buen faena. we send them home with bellies. esta muy simpatico, hombre.

some hallucinogen dropped in his drink, magic in the club water. the dais seemed slowloy turning, then his cellphone rang he turned around like a dog inside his brain but couldnt find the answer. Sylvia stood before him, sudden extension of the dizzy tableau. Can you feel the pulse of the world, she murmured, more than drunk, close, her breasts and thighs moved against him. Life is good, huero guero. babies born blind still smile. babies born deaf, they laugh! she didnt miss a beat. a drink in each hand, she    kissed and licked his cheeks, one side the other, lipstick or blood. he took    his glass then free arms wrapped around each other warmly they seemed to dance. she was almost as tall as he, he could hear the seas voice in the whorls of her ear
you know the Georgian mother, Russian I mean. yes, he knew of it. when she went to the hotel with her 8 year old daughter, so poor so crazy with poverty! the bathtub was already packed with ice. she sold the    girl alive, to 2 men. immediately they took la mozuela into the bathroom, slit her throat, extracted the organs right there, fresh. she paused to kiss him deeply on the lips. but think! certainly the buyer from the Caucasus mountains, the Caucasian gentleman that is, he paid for a childs organs, no? child size! surely they were meant for his own child? a beloved son or daughter, o nieto. in the end, an act of love, yes? we must consider the whole picture, el globo. todo el mundo, siempre. her face
nuzzled into his neck she hummed
all horror as a form of love, he considered
the reverse was certainly true
then her eyes open glistening, acts of discovery.
but as we've just seen, el pobre y la rubia, it is eating itself that is awful, don't you think? her white teeth unbelievably neat. el sexo is so innocent and sharing. but to eat, we are among the beasts, carnivores. i'm hungry he said, nibbling on her lobe.
eating is cannibalism
surprise me
to the side of the room, slanted like dos borrachos, long tables platters dishes bowls half replenished with fresh items half plundered by the feast. guests stood around still talking, snacking, some chewed on the genitals of adolescent girls, filleted, human fingers they were gnawing the joints pickled and anonymous. there were ears boys testicles nipples an international variety of dips and sauces. 2 plates napkins forks she turns from the extravaganza she offers on a cracker between her fingers aimed seductively at his mouth what looks like newborn vulva, the labia spread with bluish crème paste
pate of baby girl eyeballs $2000 for brown $2500 for the rarer blue
blue like his
she leans forward flicks her shining lizard tongue into his mouth
your own personal taco


                                          he would recross the border at dawn before that time unwind the road out of a dream, the chemical night. always it had flowed in one direction a gradient FULL to EMPTY dependable as money but now at the end the flow reversed, mysterious Alive a periodic slimemold. return to America as if a tsunami followed him, loomed up inside his rearview mirror of Visions.
he knows he will awake one day find everything being removed in bodybags. or there is no direction in the sea
because isnt this what it wants, to drown dissolve itself in the instant ocean. immune boundaries permeate and destroy once and for all, DESIRE, the plasm of One. the tube film neon eyes boombox beat it into yr skin. one among many. torsos flanks gray naked shoulders and brain revolving slowly northward through watery lanes, 20 100 1000 tides of 8 billion fish flesh needling into some punctured shore or border. to just rest, surrender name identity account into the spreading stain of the world. inside beyond a luxury to lie back become amoeba all over
the magnified body with no face. Tijuana and dawn. going north was not going home. he was a spine inside a sea of evolving objects of dreams

but who had known there would be so much acute flesh. bones like knives stuck out of doorways, ribs elbows pelvic shivs of revengeful hunger bellies not soft, voluptuous, they were murderous. a conscious shark in the thick sea. so many nostrils gullets anuses body holes without distinction sex dinner and murder as the same act. where you cross the borders of Distance, where bodies go in and out of each other
that all civilizations are only different positions in the sexual act of one giant melticellular organism continuously fucking feeding
reproducing consuming excreting itself. cf that Frenchmans   
pseudopods
                     waste and redundance. the great feast
workers rapists slaves abandoned babies the pope the pentagon the presidents twat a ring of children dancing in a park who just
disappear
so what did they want of him. they would send him to school.
of what. fish?
but can you feel no sorrow for the world

but all this is for the american guest.
his intentions as always are only good
he crosses thresholds to eat, consume hunger. returns followed by starvation and appetite. export and import. supply and demand. demand and demand. germs dope seeds women children microcosms sanddollars biochips electric shoes spleens cameras toxic lotteries mudslides theres a job, at this party, for a caterer. one who feeds needs to eat need not be eaten. who did sharks? orcas, the sea itself. nothing small. his mind enjoyed playing with metaphors but the fact was, glancing at day coming in the windows, he was young cleareyed useful and very clean when shaven. corruption in the beholders eye, he could see none. this is the genius of the american face. you learn in a sea of foreign eyes who see necessary evil day and night in each other, it is their fact of life. this ancient scenario was not his. one older brother a San Diego court judge, sisters married into hotel chains and Hollywood cosmetics. there was    nothing he could not do to achieve more and more then speed away into the technicolor sunrise. son of gods of good intentions, didnt we
pave all these highways

the border was stuck, both directions
a ricochet zone of uptight fish. for miles and miles into tundra north down through debris of the Southern Cross, inexorable traffic of workers and consumers. barely awake, already pissed. agglutinated strangers waiting for something to move. no frontier at all but a bursting corridor a rush to the bridal death chamber each wills for the other.
one radio station, bilingual and loud.   
yes it is all from Love. murder. merger.
he could not speed forward, or reverse or dream
ooze like sludge into alta california. the pragmatic effects of america.          a rusty lovely pallor of urban morning, some kind of cartoon takes itself seriously. a skyline with teeth chews up famous names   red spit in asphalt like an accident   license plates read DEATH, every combination of numbers dredged up from the sunken night   classic Tacitus, VENALIA CUNCTA   pornographically the billboards are smiling   big metal fish eat little metal fish, factorial wombs on all horizons spawn efficiently more       and more   if you slow down the mouth behind engulps you whole   and the mouth behind that is a huge wave full of everything thats been and the mouth ahead of him and the mouth beyond that

he wondered if he should stare into it   or choke   or swallow

** Editors' note: The line lengths of this article have been altered for formatting reasons, to accommodate the style of the CTheory website. Click here to view the article in its original format.

Barbara Mor, native of southwest American coast & desert (SoCal, AZ, NM). Work in Orpheus Grid, Sulfur, BullHead, Mesechabe, Ms., Trivia (US); Ecorche, Intimacy, Spectacular Diseases (UK). Online: DissidentVoice (6/14/04); Trivia Voices (2/05), CTheory (8/4/05). Author of pagan eco-feminist The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth (HarperSF 1987, 1991). A 4-page excerpt of HERE appears in Against Civilization, edited by John Zerzan (Uncivilized Books, Eugene, OR 1999; Feral House, Los Angeles, CA, 2004).