mmmmdcccxxx

Should Have Gone Frozen

My Ghirardelli chocolate 

has melted in the sun, 

making this too late 

for one of those 

rarest of San 

Francisco’s 

September days:  

a sundae Sunday.

Up the steps and 

down the steps
with chocolate 

all over my hands.

mmmmdcccxxix

     heart is also blank—
     it either grows invisible
     or clamors for attention
              —Wayne Koestenbaum

Please allow me to....
Let me—might I?—find a way
toward some meaning?

Smoke and mirrors
are my default, my
favorite fallback flavor.

A plea’s length, I have it on
experienced authority, is inversely
proportionate to said plea’s success rate.

Please, hear us out the door,
therefore. Where we may,
armed each with megaphone and flail,

make our legal, logical and anguished point.

We’ve had it with you, the boss of us!
You know, as we do, how
intolerably wrong you are.

The way you deface us.
The way you displace us.
The way you dispose of us.

The more gargantuan the monopoly,
the more miniscule the prison
in which we find ourselves,

barely alive,
by no choice of our own,
as if we’ve ownership at all.

Enough is enough!

[loudly, through the megaphone:]

Hey assholes!!
I’m not an activist!!
I’ve not a penny to my name!!

So I can’t sue you to the hellish grave you deserve
in order to earn more justice of me, you
and the rest of those lying inert beneath your thumb.

...[putting the megaphone down because it has become very heavy]...

...[sitting down slowly onto the ground]...

I’m so exhausted. So
I am just going to sit here
and stare each of you criminals down

as if that is doing something that matters,
knowing full well that it does not. Until my eyes..
..won’t..open..again....

Don’t worry
(as if you would)
This’ll be over in no time.

mmmmdcccxxviii

What a Wasteland

Such a pretty mouth
afraid to speak. I’d
open those lips with
unspoken consent.

Don’t say no! to the
world you were given.
This decadence wasn’t
meant to last. If only

I would have been for
warned of that. Lest
you think me a pig, my
love is harder than you

could ever feel, my heart
is wider than can be con
cealed. I’d fall upon the
ground if I knew which

crater, what quicksand,
what lava-filled cavern
led the way to anything
with which I could give in

to, even if such binding
be my foregone conclusion.
This confounding country
which I for years misunder

stood with tears of joyous
lust upon your mountains
and lush wetlands, your
gardens bred with sweet

onions and potatoes, your
creek-brimmed pastures
and mesmerizing desert.
And here, where you let

the slap so endlessly at
your precious cheeks,
your dissolving face, too
late for me to see you

as you truly are, impos
sible to treasure what
would have been such
exhilarating connection,

now that I love you so
completely, you are all
but eviscerated, fevered,
gouged, and excavated

by this poisonous divisive
throng you once invited
into house and home who
now live like feral rats who

scuttle blindly under floor
boards and within your
hallowed walls. Where,
if only, might I go? I’d

travel anywhere you say
to become your very heart,
if but to beat for you an
extra hour, a solitary sec

cond longer. But as it is, I’ll 

never know. I failed to know. 

And with such inexcusable 

guilt I do surrender.

mmmmdcccxxvii

Ordinarily

     Who did the crisis there?
                     —John Ashbery

“Did you bring the jug of wine?  I
did ask you to bring a jug of wine.”

“If you think we have a lot to discuss,
I would likely agree.”  “What are the

topics?” “Why Cancer and Capricorn,
of course.”  [“Why, I oughtta!”]  “At any

rate, how shall we sit while we have
these discussion?”  “Ordinarily, I sit here,

on the left side of the sofa. As you know.
But for purposes of having a most effective

talk, tonight, I’m willing to be open-minded.
Would you prefer the recliner? The ottoman?

The cushion over there? And do you mind
if we keep the television on during tonight’s

engagement? There’s something of import
that I’d like to see.”  These, at least, were

some of the various voices they he heard in
their roundabout heads.  Perhaps it was the

misrepresented tropics.  We have low humidity
here.  Generally.  Perhaps it was the blaring

television, which was in the middle of one of
those procedural criminal dramas.  It was

crime, after all, that was on both of their
minds.  Which is a pity, given that neither

were criminals.  Not of the hardened sort,
at any rate.  “Come over here. Let’s sit

side by side on the couch. Like this.”
And so it began.  They were both so eager

to please.  Or perhaps it had been too long
since either had the opportunity to stare

into the unsettled pools of the other’s eyes.
Both had pairs that were brooding and lacking

distinct coloration.  They both remembered
the days of black and white.  Homes with

but one television set.  And wood-encased
stereos with turntables hidden inside and

lots of static.  These were so elongated
that one might have it sit underneath the

entire lengh of the living room window,
with the television tucked into the darkest

corner, ready to light up the night once
the hubbub of each member of the 

household’s arrival home from work, from
school, from the day’s appointments, etc.  

Each man sat cross-legged on the couch facing

the other, anxiously readying himself for what

were wildly separate scenarios each envisioned 

regarding how tonight’s conversation would end.

mmmmdcccxxvi

How to Be Heard Over All of the Noise

Brand recognition is your best ass,
or so I hear, and can put your assets
indelibly in the minds of all of those
who glare upon it. I’m no dangerous

liaison, I do this for a living. To liaise
is to engage and can make for strange
bedfellows. The light in the attic is the
last one that goes off in my building. I

live and work there. But I stay clean and
can cut my own hair. Everybody’s a penny-
pincher in this day and age: the age letting
go of all of the pennies. The channel that is

still on when the light in the attic dims. How
much are you willing to spend on the lederhosen?

mmmmdcccxxv

If a Door Opens

And You Happen

to Be Standing

in Front of It

     trouble with
     lost decades,
     trouble with cast
     of mind that consigns 
     a decade to the
     category of “lost”
           —Wayne Koestenbaum

Yeah, it’s weird I’m old,
who feels old, but I am.

I’m not ancient, I’m just,
oh, it’s all relative, as I’m

told, as they say, but I’m
old, just not ancient. And

what of the past, those
decades that led up to this,

are they lost, are they gone,
but of course, in a way, but

they’re here, in my heart,
where a lot of that stuff stays.

Which is good for the brain,
I would say, as it guides me

from old to (I wouldn’t mind,
let’s hope) ancient. And I’ve

got a man less than half of my
age, what’s that say about me?

What’s that say about me? At
least that’s the word that occurs

from the outside looking in which
such fantastic stuff comes to light.

Those lives outside our sphere
they must think us mighty queer,

so perverse and so mental. I don’t
mind, I’m sentimental, love is love,

and in fact, I am perverse, it’s not a
curse, love is love, I’m a man, he’s a

man, leave the people’s mouths agape,
I don’t care, I am here, they are there,

and I’ve put a little spin on the good old
marketing trope that any news is good

news, I say any news, any gossip, bad or
good, it’s an avenue, it’s an opening for

engagement, and I’ve spun that way for
most of my life with some educational

results. But it’s weird that I’m old, when
I think of the number of years I’ve been

from there to here. It’s just a number,
some folks say, and that’s true, but yet

what does that number mean, next to,
say, sixteen or a hundred and four? It

has meaning, just like I have, just like
you have, too. And those are meanings

(those defining you and those defining
me) that give me such delight when I

decide to do my damnedest to ascertain.
Which takes time and comment and a

lot of curiosity, I suppose, but it’s an
absolutely fundamental thing when it

comes to a ascertaining best who I am
and what it is I might do to better be.

In that regard, age can be a treasure,
but also something that keeps us from

getting there. So there’s no time to
waste, is the thing. No time to worry

much on how weird it is that I am as
old as I am. Less time to find those

avenues, those inroads to the gawkers
and the gossips who go about their days

already finding something interesting
about me about which to think or at which

to ogle. But forget about them, since you
happen to be right here. Let’s start now,

and get right down to the business of
making such important connections.

mmmmdcccxxiv

Time to Put Out the Xmas Decor!

Who’s buying time from the demon in 

red? I wonder if he means me. I put
my soul up on eBay once and got but

one offer. A nickel. Who wants the soul

of a sourpuss, anyway? Although, even 

a sourpuss would elevate this dried-up 

husk of a fool today. So spiritless that 

I’m about the task of chopping down a 

tree triangle, sweating bullets. What’s
got you so down? Red Demon asks, 

ever so sweetly. That’s nice of you to 

ask, Santa, I respond as nonchalantly

as I can muster, knowing full well there 

wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I’d

make it home alive with this monstrous
conifer pointing so greenly heavenward.

mmmmdcccxxiii

It’s nearly 11:30pm, it’s Friday, I’m just home

from grabbing some snacks and
nearly walking into a gal on the
sidewalk, the spitting image of
Leah. It stopped me cold. I

thought for a moment, I might
shed a tear, but I don’t believe
in ghosts, really, and while sad
to be reminded she’d been gone

how long now? And way too soon,
so young. I wouldn’t have shed a
tear, probably shouldn’t have said
that, but I was stunned. And more

than appreciated the triggered
reminiscence. The era she was
one of the folks with whom I’d
enjoy the fortune of her presence

were good ones, although dwelling
a bit long on those days the happiness
gets entangled with bittersweet residue,
simply because there were people, and

a good number, with whose presence I
had the good fortune to experience back

then.  But I do try, am working to build 

a new coalition of cohorts. It’s ard to

think I’ll ever have a new chosen
family like I did; and that’d certainly
be for the best, given how it turned out.
I suppose that, try as one might, one

shouldn’t cling too earnestly on those
with whom we might feel tightly and
convincingly connected. It has always
taken me quite a while to warm up to

individuals, even when there used to
be plenty who worked hard at getting
close. But despite my longstanding
attempt to build a bond that I might

call my own, my home, my cherished,
and watching each and all vanish in
nearly an instant, seemingly, and me
in the depths I hope never to sink at

any point ever again, I know I will
keep trying, keep believing it’s
possible. Oh, woe is me, you might
think I’m thinking. I am not. It was

lovely to see her again, my old friend.
Happy memories warm the soul. And
provide the motivation to make more.
In the meantime, it’s good to be aware

I’m yet here, am no ghost, much as,
at times, it might appear that I am.
I’d like to keep it that way for as long
as I will, remembering to remember

mostly with peace and with joy, even
when sitting in solitude, resting up
for tomorrow, when perhaps I’ll look
you in the eye, say hello, and then,

well, who knows?

mmmmdcccxxii

I disagree

with myself.  What I said
last night, I no longer find
true.  I’d like to think I’m
fairly steady when it comes

to my values and beliefs, but
truth be told, come on, aren’t
most of us waverers?  At least
from time to time?  Sometimes

an artist just wants to entertain.
Sometimes a poet pens a pastoral
with no higher purpose than to
expose a bit of what, to their mind,

is gorgeous, or pretty, or unusual,
or maudlin, etc.  The intention,
or more to the point, whatever is
received, can by varying degrees

be purposeful, needed, appreciated,
can sometimes be just the thing.

And furthermore, a clown might
move a grown man to tears.

mmmmdcccxxi

A Strange Prayer?

Spilt most of the chunks of honeydew all over my thin blank
et, the one upon which I sit, the one upon which I sleep, right
before bed.  That it’d absolutely not be me to deduce this ex
perience into a lesson not to eat so late might surprise you,

might even exasperate me.  Am I really that stubborn?  I am.
So what?!  So.  What, then, is the lesson I’ve learned today?
Because it is very much me to gather lessons incrementally.
From, say, a 24-hour period.  Or a given year.  During a class.

During a late-night discussion in which you and I disagree on
something we both find incredibly important.  Can you not, then—
might I call you Stranger?—begin to estimate how many lessons
I fail to learn during any given fragment of this life?  And might

you desire, as I do so intensely, taking as much time as you want
researching the accuracy of your estimate?  Starting right now?

mmmmdcccxx

Flat Chew Lance

     The way you look tonight
     is perishable, unphotographable, laughable.
                                           —John Ashbery

“Excuse me, officer,” said the driver’s license
to the trophy wife, “but might you have time
for a quick selfie?” The police officer seemed 

to puff up a bit at the query, and with an Aw, 

shucks! stance meekly came out with “Oh, 

now, well, you know, I appreciate the offer

and all, but I’m just not feeling myself today,
no, I’ll have to turn you down there, maybe
some other time.” The license was carefully
placed back into the appropriate pocket of
the wallet of the sweet man behind the
station wagon’s steering wheel without even
a Thank you, ma’am! The driver seemed a
bit embarrassed as he shifted into gear and
eased back on to the highway as the officer
stepped back to allow him to do so. Then
she went about sifting through her pockets,
careful not to disturb the holster, eventually
taking out a stick of Chapstick, which she then
uncapped, and with two swift slashes applied
a waxy layer to the top and then her bottom
lip in that practiced, not the least bit awkward,
verging on violent manner that folks from the
east side of the city were known to often do.
And then she pocketed the stick of balm, 

slowly walked back to the squad car 

to set about the business of what

ever might come next.

mmmmdcccxix

Story No Tell

Heartbreak well.  Note
the depths of.  Dead
girl.  Oh, come on!

You want copilot?
Buy jetliner.  Falling
from pocket whilst

ziplining, eyeliner.
Clouds with grape-
colored streaks.  No

body cried.  Plop in
bed with next pilot.
He was hung til

morning when
boom.  Hangover
erasure.  So stuck

up he’s ear-sure.
Goes for broke on
cocky certainty.

Lives to regret
most certainly.
Now that he’s

flatlining, bone
structure shatter-
fracked, can’t

live, what’s the
dif, pennywise
is penny-free.

So don’t go
hobo down
Hoboken.

mmmmdcccxviii

Breaking the rules

is common.  And sometimes
appropriate.  At least if you 

believe all of that Emily Post, 

Amy Vanderbilt stuff.  They say

sometimes it’s best to dispense
with a rule or two in order to
present oneself in the most
proper manner.  But where do

you reside on the Rules Were
Made to Be Broken scale?  I
am not an adamant no, I break
a rule or two most every day,

at the very least.  But I also
find civility and the rule of law
necessary.  And when those
who are given the role of

making the rules begin to
break them—and at great
cost to those of us who
aren’t the ones designated

to do such? Well, there’s
always revolution, I suppose.

mmmmdcccxvii

Breaking and Entering

“Ooh, look, that’s expensive
champagne!”  Boy, did I get
a look when I made that
exclamation.  Here we are,

clamming up in the hallway
of the home in which we are,
what, breaking and entering?
It’s a game we like to play

on occasion.  I mean, it’s our
home.  Our cozy little place.
But then, “Look, the pictures,
here on the wall, who are

these people!?”  And so I look,
and am suddenly so far removed
from cozy, from comfortable, my
heart races, and I’m transplanted

right into that moment in the film
before which the criminals are
found, just before they are
pulverized by the good guys.

mmmmdcccxvi

Selfie at the Garage Door

Whenever Brenda was in there,
boy what a mess.  And the noise!
It wasn’t just the electronic music
that had the cinderblock walls in

flate with each boom of the beat,
but there was the conglomerate of
the whirring and banging and plip-

plopping of all of her tools.  It seemed

there were always multiple ones
being used at at any given moment.
It could be the jigsaw slicing a two by
four in two while she was simultaneously

banging a nail into something with a
hammer and hacksawing pipe or some

such as if she had a third arm or tele

kinesis.  And she’d be in there for hours.

Then, at a moment when one would
swear it was going to go on all weekend,
out she’d come, saying “I’m rett to go!”
And what a beauty she was in that new

outfit, materials soft and billowy that
looked light as fresh white rose petals
falling from the bloom, highlighting the
chiffons and the cottons and whatever

else made up her fancy dress du jour. “I
said I’m rett to go!” “Oh, there’s no
need to ask twice!” And off the couple
were to the danceclub, the belle of the

ball and her awkward sidekick, out for
another night that would not be forgotten.

mmmmdcccxv

Meanwhile, Marked

This will pull me out of it.
Marked for days like a
sugar plum in hell (with
diarrhea and the croup).

A girl can dream, can’t
she?  “Whoa!” is what
I instantly say to this,
the fan blades whirring

for their thousandth
consecutive day.  Maybe
something remembered
would have me smile,

chuckle, or talk aloud to
myself in a cajoling, light
hearted manner.  When
everything else is sheer

swill.  Leaving a gas station
in Connecticut, someone sees

me wave in exasperation, and

skeptically waves back.

mmmmdcccxiv

If I’m embarrassed

it must be working, whatever
I’m doing.  Because what’s more
embarrassing than having your
diary found, opened, and read
aloud, in public, when you’re,
say, thirteen years old?  I can’t
recall such a thing ever happen
ing to me.  Is that what I’m
going for, then?  Really?
That feeling?

mmmmdcccxiii

Cherubs Getting Plump

That was never my intention.  Yet I
was.  And I did.  I’m growling with
hunger as I mull this over – all too
aware of impending hibernation, go

ing about the business of chopping wood
for days (What, you don’t think I can
work an axe? Try me!).  Nothing has
me reflect more on mortality than

doing such.  My grandfather had
arrived home from doing so one
late morning, having never spent
a night in hospital.  My grandmother

brought him an aspirin because he
said he was in pain.  By the time
she returned to the living room
couch with a couple of powdery

pills, he was down for the count.
For good.  A slide show of Baroque
paintings with voluptuous women
cast somewhere in the vicinity of

the under-lids of my eyes click at
quite a clip in my head, it cannot
be helped.  I relax often, as is
common of folks shaped and aged

similarly to myself.  But I can never
quite confidently relax into such
relaxation.  My idea of pleasure, or
one of them, is climbing up and

plodding down the many hills of my
gorgeous city.  Sure, some people
find cherubs gorgeous.  People pay
abundantly to plump themselves up

in certain areas.  But do not speak
of such things to me.  It would only
distort the delusional image I have of
the skinny scoundrel I still think I am.

mmmmdcccxii

Sitting Out the Mystery

     Little wonder that home is a bright place to be
     if living’s your thing.
                                     —John Ashbery

This only makes sense in a place wherein
there are walruses crowing.  Fantasy worlds
unite!!  And it won’t be here, in this place, my
new home, much as I love it, am almost in love

with it.  Because any living that transpires doesn’t
take place sitting solitarily inside a box of one’s own.
I say this from experience, he said inappropriately.
But the truth can be inappropriate sometimes.  And

also simple, even as confusingly elaborate as some
whodunnits can be.  If the mystery of having one’s
crossed legs half covered by the comfort of personal
bed linens, a torso in some semblance of upright

while catching the latest episode of Murder, She
Wrote intrigues you then how about we Freaky
Friday ourselves out of here to check out some
fresh new looks we lock into, meet with a few

fancy words or a tissue?  Now that I’ve made
my point, I suppose I’ll hit resume and watch
the rest of the episode.  Even though I’ve
seen this about a dozen times and know

damned well whodunnit.

mmmmdcccxi

He tries to start over

in the abstract.  In the third
person.  Breaking the fourth
wall.  Lately he prefers being
direct.  Transparent.  Straight

forward.  This asshole who’s
never quite been gotten.  He
thinks he remembers abstract
is to poetry as straightforward

is to fiction.  But he knows that’s
bullshit.  He knows where he is.
Oh, but now, things are looking
bleak.  He’s incredibly depressed.

Because he knows where he is, can
place himself on a map.  He goes 

about the rest of the depressing day 

placing everyone else on the same

map, in relation to him, to his place
on this extra large piece of paper
stretched out beneath where he sits,
now with tiny pins of different colors

pricked through it into the floor of his

living room.  He knows it’s important 

to know where he’s from, where he is,
and where he’s going next.  But he often

goes about his days trying to erase
these facts.  Well, his memory isn’t
great, but he can’t erase this place. 

It’s where he regularly sits.  Yes, he

understands the importance of such

reflection, but the biggest mystery
for him seems to be when to keep
cooking up his dislocation and when

best to get out a compass.  He longs
for freedom, the latitude to dispense
with his whereabouts at his discretion.

mmmmdcccx

Making the most of a lousy day.

When I awoke it was already old.
Yesterday, though, was a walk in
the park.  Because I took a walk,
made it through a park, and then

to Japantown where I treated my
self, as one does (and I, almost
never) to a dinner at a joint I’d
never before had the pleasure of 

an introduction.  It sounds a little bit
funny when I say it that way, does
it not?  Well, it does to me.  Funnier, 

perhaps, to think that introductions 

often feel somewhat sexual to me. 

But, then again, almost anything can 

feel that way to me.  And often does.

Life could be worse, I do suppose.

mmmmdcccix

Life Switch

     I repeat I want my life out of here
                          —John Ashbery

Talk about a real life saver!
So, I lost the switcher, that
thing that changes the chan
nel.  Does this happen to

you?  You get up, walk to
the bathroom, do whatever
you do there, take a shower,
etc.  Then you come back to

the living room, take a seat on
your favorite cushion, then dit dit
dit dit.  You’ve sat on the switch.
The switcher. The channel changer.

And then you just wish you had
one of those for your life.

mmmmdcccviii

Soft Launch of an Imaginary Imagination

     a hundred yards from my home
     what home you haven’t got a home
     I do so have a home
                                       —John Ashbery

I can’t do Ozempic. Long story, and not
a very fun one, I might add. And I’m not
on a diet (an old-fashioned word, that one,
right?). But I’ve lost a few pounds over the

past couple of months. I have a few theories
why, and each have me imagining myself
healthy. Healthier, in fact, than I’ve been
in years. But the news! Even as I type this

to you, I’m listening to political talking heads
by way of YouTube. So I’ve turned that off.
Just now. And am going to close my eyes for
a few moments. Bear with me, please. Damn,

it’s too bright. And my new fifty something inch
television is on pause in the middle of a laundry
detergent ad.  Picture a hand in the middle of the
screen with all fingers forward, toward me, holding

a square swirled with three colors: green, blue and
purple. Imaginative. It’s almost a miniature abstract
piece the likes of which one might see casually strolling
through a museum of modern art. Oh, now I remember,

I was in the middle of the latest episode of Strange New
Worlds, which I suppose I’ll get back to now. With so
much focus, so much concentration, there just isn’t any
time for the imagination, it seems. Is that really so bad?

mmmmdcccvii

The aunties are on their way

to a hippie convention.  Oh, evening!
thinks John Ashbery, who doesn’t hold
to convention like I do.  Then the world
sets about trying to discover the identity

of the narrator.  The poor thing!  Must
have been drunk out of his mind.  Or
worse!  Most everyone was quickly
distracted by about a million different

things.  Some had to tend to their
gardens.  Others to meals already in
progress.  As for me, I just kept directing
traffic and confusing the pedestrians.

At night we saw the stars and the moon,
annoyed the neighbors by reading aloud
until about four a.m. Then we made a
bunch of recordings of boiled eggs

set up in various postures and poses.

mmmmdcccvi

Junk Science

“It’s horrifying, isn’t it?”
“Truer words couldn’t
be uttered!”  But then,
what’s true and what’s

not seems to be the head-
exploding query of this 

particular era. I may play 

an artist on a tiny soap 

opera transpiring right 

here on this very channel,
sure, but I’ve always been
more left-brained than

otherwise.  I mean, I nearly
finished a chemistry degree
as an undergraduate.  Before
flipping to the dramatic arts.

But which might you picture
more easily, me in a lab coat
in an actual laboratory, fun-
colored liquid bubbling in

a test tube I carry from
the Bunsen burner to a
microscope, or me in a lab
coat on some gentrified

stage in some mid-sized
American city’s community
theatre’s whodunnit, say,
it’s latest summer hit?

mmmmdcccv

Prissy December

is all the rage like No Nut
November was for a few
years, or am I confused?
Are all Airheads sour like

I am?  It’s hard for me to
tell, even though you have
a right to your anarchy just
as I have a right to live in

the library, where I got a 

scholarship.  It pays well but

doesn’t come with wireless serv

ice nor even a mobile phone.

You spilled my cup of watered
ink with occasional brain cells
on the sofa Go home! You’re
wasting my time! You gave

me a migraine! No more good

mood!!  No more prissy, just

overwrought and pissy.

mmmmdccciv

The arc of a story

is its own story. If taken
independently it might be
independently poignant,
it could be a life-changing

narrative (metaphorically),
but if it doesn’t in some way
work with all of the other parts
of the story within which it is

just one aspect, i mean, if it
acts too tangential to the
sum of the rest of the story,
or in a way that detracts, well,

that doesn’t necessarily mean
that the story, on the whole,
is not an award-winning story.
And yet who gives a singular

award for the arc of a story?

mmmmdccciii

It’s a slick paradise

but somebody’s got to do it.
Could someone explain how
to ease into this?  Don’t say
get out of bed!  Don’t say
get off your ass and do it!

Say what you a want but I
am generally very driven,
goal-oriented and motivated.
I’m hard on myself when I
think I’m just wasting time,

and I think it’s good to be 

able to justify whatever one 

does. Masturbation, watch

ing television, spending 

the last bit of cash or, even

better, money one doesn’t
actually even have.  Literally.

mmmmdcccii

Somebody made me

a movie in which to get lost,
inside of which to lose myself.

Get lost!  Make me a movie!
I’m just clowning around with ya,

Charlie Brown.  I adore him.  And
miss him.  I forgot where to go

to break the glass in case of an
emergency.  Just last week, I saw

that break glass for Narcan film
where my neighborhood played 

an evil villain?  I know a guy who 

can control his remote with a glass 

of water in his hand.  He always has
one eye on the weather and the

other on all of the latest movie
trailers.  I guess he has a third

eye, too, because he watches a
lot of trash on the internet.  I

wonder where he gets his eye
glasses.  I spent all afternoon

making an outline of these
serious questions.  I like tables

with my bullet points.  The holes
in my head need something upon

which to rest their weary gaze.
I know that sounds like a slur,

but I take you all very seriously.
My advice is that you get your

butt off of that couch, walk out
of the apartment door and go

find your happy.  Wait!  Come
back!!  I was only kidding!  Now

who’s going to make all of my
movie?  Me?  [Linus and Pig-

Pen are the first ones to scurry
away.]  Whatever.  We’re all child

ren without celebrity causes.  But 

I’m an infant of no regret.  Vengeance

is for cowards!  Make mine a turkey.

mmmmdccci

Bleep

Bleep and the world bleeps
with you.  I’m too lazy to
bleep.  The key was in the
ignition, but the bleeping

engine refused to turn over.
Romance is dead, said the
man bleeping all of the
stars.  You can go bleep

the moon then for all I care!
wailed his companion, the
former star-bleeper.  At a
quarter past two in the

morning, the shyest sheep
bleep.  Who bleeped you?
asked the earth of the passing
asteroid.  After regaining its

composure, the bear scampered 

away, leaving a momentary trail 

in its wake upon the leaf-riddled
ground, and a huge wad of bleep.

mmmmdccc

I’m falling

so steadily asleep that i read
summer fireworks as summer
freakworks on the hottest day
of the year in san francisco.

hey, guess what?  i live in san
francisco.  even as a zombie
there’s a little thrill that crawls
up my insides at such a thought.

would that i were as composed
as don draper falling, falling,
as he does in the opening
sequins.  but falling in love.

big pop! out my new window
sounded maybe like someone
fell from the roof, or their up-
story window.  too much a

thud to be the sound of fire
crackers.  and the 4th of july
long gone, like democracy.