#sampsonstarkweather

[biancastone]

[fire-jacket]

haunted by the number three

haunted by the number three

I am followed around, like a specter, by the number three: there are three kids in my family (I am number one), when I called in to win Lissie tickets on the Current, I was caller number three, and the number three followed me all over Sampson Starkweather’s book of poetry, which was also coupled with my other ominous number: 33: “it gets good / at the 3:33 mark / where static meets the sky / clouds crumble” (p.112, The First Four Books of Sampson Starkweather); I feel like Jim Carrey in that movie he did with Virginia Madsen, where he keeps finding the number 23 everywhere, except I don’t play saxophone, even in my nightmares; in those dreams I play the tuba, like that random dude from the Roots who the one time I actually wanted to see the Roots, they let/made him play a twenty minute tuba solo, to my chagrin, as I can’t stand tuba solos, like, how much bass do we really need (it sounded like my Mexican neighbor’s fiesta band playing a Skrillex cover); all of this revolves around my jesus year, which is next year: like the shoe dropping from the heavens, I feel compelled to get busy and get something done either before, or during this next year; they say Jesus did all of his ministry in his 33rd year on earth, and Chuck Palahniuk wrote Fight Club during his jesus year, and Sampson Starkweather published his book during his jesus year; could these highly influential men be my undoing, or will the year pass by without a notice or a care, and will I wonder` what I should have been doing, or will I be doing what I am supposed to be doing, and I won’t even know it?