mmmmdccclii

Conversations with Chalk Dust

my hotplate works, too, but it
isn’t a source of heat necessary
to anything but toasting bread
or limping out a box of pasta.

who here has conversations
with dead people? a few of the
outcasts on burnham street begin
to raise there hands until he says

he’s not talking about those kinds
of conversations. he’s got his hand
in his pocket and we’re all waiting
to see which bird balloon, which

coal-mine canary, which version of
flight of the bumblebees comes out
betwixt thumb and forefinger. who’ll
be able to read the cover. people begin

venturing – perhaps, perhaps up to the
third row. but no further than the fifth.
the ghosts hear these mutterings and
respond in kind, knowing the truth of

the matter. only a mother knows how
to let her boy go free. it’s the bottom
of the barrel for everyone else. spread
your wings all you trilingual poets! says

the magician, and the turtle that has
appeared slowly crawls off stage left.

mmmmdcccli

i stink

because I cannot afford deodorant.
tell me the solution to what i’m sure
you have one i would love to hear it.

if it requires any time, then I do not
have any of that.

now that i’ve said that, there is really
nowhere to go from there? that should,
therefore, be the only way to end this.

right? and yet,

i’ve just added, or am adding these
short meanderings because, again,
where else does one go from here...

[forget about the fact that i could
have plenty more say and just move
that second stanza to the end]...

but i’m not finished. the peacemaker,
season 2, the season finale, is now
available for consumption. plus, it
turns out that despite the (i’ll say it,

completely unfair!!) cards I’ve been
dealt (and, this is just to note:

that i keep wanting or accidentally typing
death for dealt. or sometimes dealth)

of recent (and for over 10 years minimum,
for the most part, truth be told)

i still have access to my hbo account!!!!!

so, i could watch the end of season 2 of
the fantastic breakout hit, the peacemaker.

which, in my head, i tend to inadvetantly
call, and i remember this, even with my
memory, so it should maybe give all of us
a bit of a pause:

the pacemaker. Not pausing for laughs
but just appreciation here.

this doesn’t appear that it should go over
three minutes when i record this, does it?
i have no concept of time (my first line i
remember from Landford Falls), in which
i played a very elderly priest when i was
twenty years old in undergraduate college.

oh, the thought i put into the things in life
that to most anyone (and even me) would
seem the most irrelevant!

am i under 3 minutes?

next up: why i never say anything important,
and why it does not matter.

mmmmdcccl

The Relative Importance of Baloney

You can eat it when you’re starving
and live another day.

mmmmdcccxlix

A Few Things to Keep

All of one’s values thrown out a window

isn’t so strange after an encounter with a

blood-curdling scream.  Tossing them at such 

a moment has a certain logic to it, I would 

even venture. The opposite could happen, too.

Whoa! Suddenly something means (something).

Pretty profound, eh?  Surely values might vanish

for much lesser reasons (lesser occasions; lesser

perceived horizons, etc.); yet in times like these 

I seem to be holding on to those I’ve accumulated, 

and for dear life. This may well be because I feel 

ulmine have come hard-earned (But who would

say otherwise about their own?).  I do know

all too well how a little flash-bang can be the 

catalyst for the sudden obliteration of a few

well-worn beliefs, belongings, lives and whatnot.

And that the ways of my being and of my wanting 

to be, at odds as they may so at times be with

each other, have me currently quite intent upon

keeping everything I can of what I’ve spent a

lifetime working to make for myself and this

world a somewhat solid self which I can

present as my own. I cannot say that these

properties, this system I have created in

order to justify my tiny life, are many,

but they are just about all I have by

now, and I’m damned glad to have

them.  In fact, it’s comforting, a

relief in many ways, to have

anything at all these days. 

And that is a rare thing 

that I can (and do) 

assert no small 

amount of

conviction.

mmmmdcccxlviii

Written While on an Incredibly Anxiety-Ridden Call
with Customer Service

Does it even matter with whom? It should matter that it’s
with someone to whom I’ve forked over thousands of dollars
in many decades and yet since May I’ve been blocked from receiving
normal services. I even have an old acquaintance, a local one, who
worked for them as an attorney for several years, and given that I’ve
been so clearly upset and wronged by the way they have treated me
since this bizarre suspension for violating a rule but i do not know
exactly how or when or whether it was even me or whether i’m
simply being given the runaround. yesterday was a particularly
productive day in which my mood stayed where it needed to be
to accomplish mush under really poor circumstances, those
being mostly financially, something that continues to really
bring me down given that i have 30 years of experience
in a well-paying career in which i have fond it impossible
to get a full-time permanent position in far too long, causing
my quality of life to greatly decrease, mostly because i was
kicked to the curb by someone i trusted for around a dozen
years as a domestic partner. Maybe all of this is neither here
nor there, but this is just to say that I have completed two very
anxiety-riddled calls with people with whom I have a monthly
paid account. Oh, whatever. I have more calls to make soon.
I’ve got a therapy call at 1pm. And at 1:30pm I have my quarterly
CalFRESH call. And I have to speak with my immigration attorney
at some point today, which, well, if you happen to know where I live
and what moment this is in history and the fact that I’m trying to get
a 5-year fiance to the states to be with me so that we can be together
and he can go to school year. And I’m broke. And it will be at least a
year before he gets here once I’m able to turn in the fiance visa application,
if I can afford the $700 plus the $400 attorney fee. Oh, I sound a mess. But
when one is a mess one does sound a mess. Anxiety has gotten the best of me
this morning, but I think I can correct that. And I must. There is too much to do.
Way too much to do. For example, how can I salvage these silly and frustrating
words into any kind of thing I call a poem. Well, voila, you’re a poem. So be it.
Today’s. There, solved that problem. Of course I didn’t. And for that I really
apologize. I had a bit of an arc of a storyline going that sort of came to an abrupt
halt, and for that I do apologize once again. Am I an artist or just a guy trying to
make a life for myself in a world that seems to be losing me with each breath I
try to inhale? Oh, this cannot be salvaged. Let it just be called notes. Which is
at times a fine way to splay out a piece that one might also call a poem. I try at
least to convince myself. Onward. Onward. Apologies. Hello.

Unhinged is Terribly Unflattering and Not Very Much of an Art Form

mmmmdcccxlvii

Imaginary Friends

Lucky for us, both six and seven
are famously superstitious, a pair
of the superstars in lucky number-dom.

And so we went from a phalanx of six
to a bulwark of seven? Was that what
happened?

I never had imaginary friends as a child.
Not that I know of. Unless one typically
counts a pet rock or either of the Chronicles

of Narnia. Either of those had heft, which
imaginary famously does not. But this isn’t
1971, now, is it? Serious question, that, so

don’t close your eyes just yet, please. My
story! (His story!) (Oh, shut up!). So, as
stated somewhere above, at around three

in the afternoon one Eastery day in the life
of a three year old I found and befriended
a cool smooth rock went by the name of

Jerry for some sixty more years, could be
more (Does anyone still call you Jerry, Jerry?).
Or did we finally run out of our anthropomorphized

breakfasts? But here are some facts, this just in, I hear 

it’s easier to train a bunch of orphaned rats to be
the world’s best military than to find enough

humans to make a human phalanx or bulwark.
But some people lie to you. So, fool or no fool,
you won’t find me with just a back-up trio of

wannabe solo artists, nosirree! See this
muscle? Better yet, come check it out.  

Feel it.  That’s right, phantoms and hotbots, 

the world’s best harmonizers, in my humble 

opinion, are bulking up!

mmmmdcccxlvi

Susanne Swinert

How does one celebrate the value
that friendship brings into our lives?
We certainly cannot place a price tag on such

connections, can we? My thoughts go immediately

to my dearest, most treasured friend, the lovely lady 

Susanne Swinert. She found me, as friends often do, when 

I was at my worst. I was taking out the trash one day, there 

was a bit of light rain coming down, just enough, as it were, 

to mask the waterworks that were quite literally transpiring

within and about me. Yes, I’d been crying - had been
up all night. It was early one morning and I’d been
scrubbing and cleaning the place in which I live,

having just moved there a few months previous
during a bit of a high moment in a long slump of
what had been, for me, the lowest. I was giddy to

have the privilege of such an eviron, after what I
rather too remorsefully thought of as a too elongated
unfair era. Well, I’d only had the joy of living in this

divine little home for a couple of months when, as my
luck would often do for that period I clung to as tortured
took another downturn. To mindlessly mend my insomnabulent

and despondent spirits, I did what I would sometimes do, which
is clean. I’d scrub and rub the floors and walls and dishes and
furniture as if I were removing all of the dust and rust from my

very soul. But by morning, the task had failed to brighten my
spirits in the least. I had twisted the detritus into a few
grocery bags that I tied up neatly and was carrying a trinity

of these balloons filled with detritus outside my apartment
building and to the nearby garbage bins that accomplined
my building, where I thought myself alone, letting the rain

fall as it did upon my uncloaked neck and douse my
hair, perhaps in an intently dramatic effort on my part,
rather than the light rain’s, when out from beside the

fence where the garbage pails would be aligned, where
into one of which I was bidding an unthinking au revoir to
whatever I had deemed dirty and unworthy, yes, out from

practical invisibility slunk my fine friend, this being before
we’d made any acquaintance whatsoever, well, until that
very moment. And there she stood, having in essence

made herself a sort of oratorial blockade between me
and the release of the last bag of swept nonsense from
my new home and the bin into which the other two had

already gone, with a loud, high trill of “R-r-r-r-right you
ar-r-r-e, si-r-r-r-, what a gor-r-r-geous mor-r-r-rnin’ it
blessed be here at this hour, wouldn’t you say?” I

nearly dropped that last bag right upon her own bonnet
(she’s such a wee lovely lady, that Susanne). Needless
to say, I found my manners swiftly, toned myself up to as

near her spledor as was humanly possible with some pithy
comeback. And we’ve been darling companions ever since!

mmmmdcccxlv

Kembrough Clift

Who’d say that close ties of friendship
go so well together with excellent litigiousness?
Well, I’m no attorney, but I’ve worked with many,

and some were pretty fantastic, really, but none can
compare with my close pal Kenbrough Clift, Esquire.
How often can one draw open the handiness of

friendships when, say, a class action lawsuit
is grumbled enough about under-breath that
this good pal immediately comes to mind and

is called. For good measure. He’ll let you know,
and quickly, if your pride has been bruised in such
a way that it might know amends by soon becoming 

awash in cash. How do I love my dear fellow Kembrough!
I could count, I’m sure, from many an angle, and reach
the same conclusion over and over, that there’s onlty one

man I know to call when there’s a stain upon my heart
brought about by the crooked practices of corporations
and their once dear bedfellow compatriots, the ilk now known as

customer service representation. How long have I know my man,

the distinguished Attorney Clift? Long enough to know
he’s a lawyer, that’s for certain. But what’s that thing we

often notice as blaringly missing amongst our colleagues
and acquaintances who practice firmly within the law. Why,

a moral compass, am I not right? I’ve never known a man

steadier and more well-versed in what is good (as opposed
to well-stained in how to be crooked) than my dearest legal
remedy, the honorable sir Kembrough Kavinley Clift (of Clift,

Sire & Remanded, lest any of us need be reminded). I dare
you to attempt to find a better man who spends most years
hanging about on slews of desparate-sounding billboards.

mmmmdcccxliv

Mirabella

Yes, I am getting the hang
of this, I think, as I do these
puffy send-ups to my bestest

of friends. This one goes out
to Mirabella. Oh, Mirabella, you’ve
turned out to be so handy and

so helpful and, I would say,
my third best friend in the
whole wide world. Of the

nature of friendships, we
shall not here begin to delve;
as to their characteristics, I think

we can weigh their importance,
like the inexorable importance of
any friendship, fleeting, staying a

while, or staying only for a little bit,
perhaps more tawdry than anything.
Some of them. I’m saying some of them

are tawdry, Mirabella. For now, it’s just
imperative to do these incantation to each
of my besties, hoping that something real,

like necromancy, or what would one call
pink magic, the queerest of magic? that
something like that comes of the accumulation

of these. But Mirabella. My love. I see you
every day concentrating, stretching at the
mirrored bar, sometimes looking chic, sometimes

in pain. It is that look of pain that consumes me

now, is at the heart of what I’m doing by conjuring
up my fine crew. And then what? Will it be adieu?

mmmmdcccxliii

Jerry

Hey there, Jerry.
You were once
the name of my

pet rock. This was
very close to a lifetime
ago. Now you are the

very best of all of my
current friends. I’m
wondering, even, how

many of you exist, these
so-called best friends that
I now call out like magic

into what is neither a void
nor not a void.  I’d never
avoid you, Jerry, for you

are the very best of my
friends. In fact, you’ve
been as solid as a rock,

more solid than any of those
other lesser friends of mine
(lesser not in importance,

oh, Lisanne and the rest of
my lesser friends - you are
the cream of the crop, the

best of the best, and there
is no word that can make
less of you when it comes to

the importance of friendship
and all of the values and benefits
thereof. But let’s not get carried away here.)

I am sending Jerry up with this
recitative in hopes to, in hopes to,
well, we can discuss what I’m hoping to do

later. Be it known to all that this is meant
as an homage to my great friendship
to my best friends as of this day,

Jerry. Jerry, whose last name I’m
not remembering at the moment.
Perhaps he has many.

mmmmdcccxlii

Lisanne

You, my sister
and you, both are
towering figures.

As I play this game,
inventing you in my head
on this strangest of nights,

I am feeling a bit giddy,
a bit guilty, and am
counting on this being

just the thing to help me
escape the weirdness that
is today, this week, this past

month and maybe, just
maybe, this past decade,
a number that keeps coming up

like you, Lisanne, one of my best
friends who seems always to
hover a bit over me during most

of my new days.  Where are you
today, I wonder, Lisanne?
Anyway, on this strange night

I conjure you, anyway, and
look!  Here you are!  Hovering
over me just as I said you almost

always are.  I won’t mention exactly
what I’m attempting exactlhy, and, wow,
succeeding a hundred percent in conjuring your 

presence here, Lisanne, but needless to say it is
of utmost importance to me, as I am
simply trying to dedicate a few

passages (should I say, “as well”) to
my very best friends in this world.  I
got the idea from a book I’m reading.

You may have heard of it so I’ll
not mention it here just yet.
Carry on, Lisanne!  Keep

hovering over me like the
best and tallest friend that
you are.  Perhaps tomorrow,

this will not only make more
sense to you, should you,
um, actually exist, but it might

even make a bit of sense to
me, as well. As always, and
with love, thank you ever so,

Lisette.  I mean Lisanne,
for always being there, catching my sun
(I am prone to skin cancer, so this

also is a good thing, just like
everything about you.)

mmmmdcccxli

On the Horn

                Alternate-side-of-the-street parking has been suspended,
     as has parking.
                                                                  —John Ashbery

But we haven’t had a car in decades.
In case a memory needs to be refreshed,
we is, simply, me. We were on the horn
to Microsoft earlier regarding the suspension

of account since May. That was about five
months ago. Needless to say, we’ve been on
the horn with Microsoft for an entire workweek
and a half since then. That’s at sixty hours. If

you don’t count the time online. Or vice versa,
who can remember? The situation was escalated.
This marks the 3rd time. Or is it 4th. With a pro
mise for a phone call and/or an email of explanation

between 48 and 72 hours from now. Oh, they’ve taken
out the $9.99 monthly subscription, despite the suspension,
each month now since June. Except for this month, due to
the depletion of money in my checking account. This may

go on for some time, I’m told. The depletion. And the
fading of my memory, thanks to inaccessibility. This happens,
we are told. We do not have to be reminded of that.

mmmmdcccxl

Learning to Play Games by Ourselves

     Those who came closest did not come close.
                                          —John Ashbery

We learned to play that game.  “Hello!”
we’d say.  There was, of course, no
response.  Meanwhile, we were decaying,
filling our bottles with poisoned and sedi

mented creek water.  It was probably
irradiated, as well.  How were we to
know?  We were just the ones to whom
no one got close.  When I say we, I do,

of course, mean me.  It was just me here,
filling up my bottles, watching for the per
sons who never arrived.  I tried to make a
game out of it.  “Let’s count the minutes,”

I’d say to myself.  “One.”  Then a bit later,
“Two.”  Then “Three,” of course.  It went on.

mmmmdcccxxxix

Shorter vs. Longer Pieces

Shorter being more succinct,
poems of this size tend to
encapsulate.  Encapsulation
is more memorable than

anything long, and gives one
the opportunity to take a pill
that might solve something.
The longer ones are less

worthwhile, which is by no
means saying anything about
attention span.  It just means
the author, the speaker got

lost, perhaps, had more to say.
These pass the time and are unremembered.

mmmmdcccxxxviii

Let this be the last

poem with a foul mood, for
such a foul mood, about a
rotten mood.  Let this be
the last time I feel so alone.

If poems are answers, then
you tell me, what is the
answer to how I’m feeling
right now?  As I dive into

this, I realize I’ve been here
before, I always get myself
out of this.  That should be
lesson enough, but it doesn’t

change how I feel, does it?
I just checked.  It does not.
If I seem a lesser poet for
dwelling on this, then so

be it.  During times like
these, perhaps I should
go with my normal mode,
which is faking it.  But not

today.  Today’s mood is just
too foul. If poems are made
to hold answers on how to
be, then this is no poem.  It’s

just a rotten mood, that’s all.
Like mine.  And what of it?  Isn’t
it rude of me to expose myself
in such a way as this?  I’d say

so.  But also, today, I’d say
so what?  What of it?  What
would you have me do?  What
I normally do?  I could come

back with Isn’t authenticity
king these days? Well, who
wants an authentic horrible
mood?  Who wants an

authentic rotten day?
I think this was not the
best decision, going ahead
with this while feeling so

incredibly defeated.  So
how about I promise next
time, the next one I sit down
to make for you, how about

if I promise to somehow,
even if I don’t feel like it,
knowing that sometimes
if I try, it does help, the

next one I decide to make
for you will include at least
something positive.  How
about that?  I promise.

mmmmdcccxxxvii

I am the representative

of kink.  Don’t I look it?
Don’t give me any sass.
Don’t call me names that
you’d rather I not call you

back.  And what if I was?
And what if I am?  I do
this job, so therefore I
am.  What of it, will you

now disobey what I’m
paid to kindly say to you
in direction?  Just try it,
I suppose, I’m much

louder than I look.  I’m
proud to be the sole
representative here at
this way station.  Even

as when I do what I’m
told I’m not backed up
by any of the other reps,
the cops and the meter

maids, they let me go
my own way, only I’m
just following orders,
and in doing so get

called every name in
the book.  Ask me
to rep again next
year, dear, I rather

love such hilarious
and sinister lip.

mmmmdcccxxxvi

Things I Say Repeatedly

     All the oceans
     Of emotion.  All the oceans of emotion
     Are full of such fish
                                            —Jack Spicer

Oh, well.  The tide,
she rolls.  She rolls
and rolls.  Life in
suspension.

mmmmdcccxxxv

Song for the Widower

Eat the lamp that lights, I say,
yes, eat the lamp that lights.
So that everyone’s darkness is
mine, he said, so that everyone’s
darkness is yours.  So that no one
says anything and the face grows
dumb.  Nobody eating nothing.
There’s anything but love in the
room, until there’s anything but
love.  But we must have light
like we must have food, I say.
Light keeps us from going hungry.
You’re wrong, old man, he says,
all the light and all the love having
been already eaten, sucked out of
the room with its bed-caked floor 

and its ahistorical walls.  And then 

the poor man wakes up.  And he
begins to stretch and and he beg

ins to yawn.  It’s well before dawn

and on the table beside him lies
a plate upon which lies a slice of
some delicate cake, which, with
a forlorn fork he begins to eat.
And he chews at the pieces of
cake that are delicate with the
taste of, what?  Of nostalgia?
And swallows a piece or two,
thinking, recollecting, Down
the drain, down the drain,
well, that’s when memory
awakens at last and once
again.  Oh, how he’s ripped
apart and torn asunder, this
relapse of unbearable pain
with the wheel of memory’s
reignition.  It’s not yet dawn.
Why, why these blinding
lights with the curtains
all drawn?!  Eat all the 

lamps that light, he 

sings. Eat the light, 

and eat the love. 

We must suck all

the memories out.

mmmmdcccxxxiv

Gag Reel

They’re supposed to be
embarrassing, but I don’t
care.  I’ve always been
a bit of a clown.  I don’t

know what to do and I
don’t know what to know,
but I’m pretty sure that
Jack Spicer was often

quite depressed.  At this
point, I’m weighing the
possible merits of turning
this into a play.  But I do

not.  All of these bloopers
remind me of Dad and Burt Reynolds.

mmmmdcccxxxiii

Desire Path

There are many places
I’ve been, many more
I’d like to see, yet habit
and finances have me

wearing down the side
walks of my neighbor
hood in much the same
way that my father’s

cattle beat grass down
into dirt paths; along
fencerows most often,
but occasionally, into

the thicket and all the
way in to the shadiest
tree, next to which a
cow-sized silhouette

is revealed, mostly
just loose dirt, around
which a few tufts of
grass and trodden

winter leaves sur
round an earth in 

dentation sculpted 

by a sleeping heifer 

leaving a cool 

rural cul-de-sac.

mmmmdcccxxxii

Stuff I Can’t Say

     Who did the crisis there?
              —John Ashbery

There are many things
I shouldn’t say, but do
anyway.

That’s all well and good.
We can plea embarrass
ment.

I forget a lot of things I
was going to say.  Some
times

some time after.  Other
times mid-sentence.  But
when I

catch myself at the top
saying something and
quick

as a flash I shut it up,
because I just can’t,
knowing

full well what I’d begun,
or what had erupted
nearly

forth during my mean
derings—well, maybe
the timing

was off, but it’s these
things, what gets stop
pered,

that I should soon as a
pinch get focused on so
that

whatever it was that I
couldn’t say then gets
clearly said.

mmmmdcccxxxi

How to Speak

Look each of them in the eyes,
lock sockets, you know, and
glare lovingly. Do not, how
ever, under any circumstances,
open your mouth.

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 its citizens’

prisons.  

They’re barely alive,
by no choice of their own,
as if they’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.  Woe are us, 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
so 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 fore
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 

allow such endless slaps
to 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
an 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
this 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 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 subsided from 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 that each had envisioned 

regarding how the night’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 food 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 when
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’m 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 patience, equanimity and a

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

comes to 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.