dccxliv
Don’t diss the language poets.“Like, I look back on it all now,
and it, really, it just made no sense,
and I’m so ashamed. I can’t believe
it was ever for me.” “I know you
feel you have to tell a story, it’s
okay, just deconstruct it.” Plus
the butt guy (exhibitionist) who
has no qualms. “So when
are you coming back?”
dccxliii
Moderately Provocative PestoToday’s flower is
a green beehive
of expectation. -- our own
writing has taken over --
breaking news -- hence
-- feel more
____... human in shape
because you make books
more important. A piece of real wood?
This is why nobody reads
morse code anymore you make it such
a big joke like you’re so funny I don’t think so.
Sh! Step into the new room for a new you (a living room)
and it's enough to forget
everything about
writing, breaking news, human in shape.
Woodpecker gloriously
pecking away at the top of the
skystructure fully exposed with big skeeze
quick and horribly satisfying.
dccxlii
We are just Scarface.At the continuum
little haloes
gone in order
(two pieces).
Upon these
we set wit,
verbal
gymnastics.
She gets at
what’s important
only in passing.
He was good
too he improvised
a piano.
Grilled asparagus,
Caesar’s leaves
gleaming in the
mid-day sun.
dccxli
As the body goes,
Azalea hedgerow. Christmas
already in the
window proud
of nothing this nothing.
You spend all your time.
Yes and besides,
this only memory’s
phantasm. The burly
bay beside a sleeping
metropolis. Oh Sleepy,
I love you in my mind.
dccxl
Quick
Yeah she’s in Morroco holding
the earth together....
You sexy
in the
kitt kitchen chopping
I really have no idea
who it is You spend all your time
doing
this??
everything Hy
drangea and the bulls
of the cathedral
with its cobble cars and its
wafting up, up
and further beautiful environs
ferns
and pine needles /
and being thankful, Stinson Beach.
dccxxxix
Wake up German, the sky’s
in retaliation. We, its sleep,
stumble upon the muses...
a muse stumbling. Like my own
clean hole, something falls
with the scrape of the pavement.
A dead limb, we wake up
in a wake. Hearts do things
hearts do in poems without
muses. Say it implodes,
takes its pills before the
gentrification. Rights the
skies, runs its noses. Checks
its e-mail for mortar. Dreams
are like that, they’re okay
like we are, hosed on a Saturday
morning. Defiance. Perturb-
ation. Sleek bird calls to the
rust. A pleasant scrape, a check
for a hundred sows and blouses.
dccxxxviii
Get over the body. A word
or a sentence—the curse of
the West Coast....................
....like this fog’s true gentleman
(not a curse); the sway of the
eucalypts. I can’t tell you
what a success to fool ourselves
with the pharmaceutical. This fever,
this delerium. A suit
(his first), and not
funereal.
dccxxxvii
Speech is fraud. —Jack Collom
Experiment with deprivation.
Very satisfied with the periphery. (“Can you see him?”)
Melton (p. 27) — a heavy woolen cloth used chiefly for making overcoats
and hunting jackets.
Starbucks (corner of Kearny and Bush)
My hand is sore from the bus this morning.
dccxxxvi
Pocket change.
Imposing limitations. Checkmate
in two moves. Stifling economics.
Dentist appointment.
Fight the academy.
(List poem.)
dccxxxv
No running inside a grape. —Laynie Browne
I caught myself
once
running inside a grape
with a Bollywood soundtrack
(I remember the song)
and cold coffee.
Coffee and grape
don’t match.
“I didn’t drive
to Bolinas
like I said I would,”
I said to the grape
inside the grape.
Who walks in, but
would you believe it?
We said “hi” and I thought
that would be that.
But before the night was through
we were both
drunkenly slobbering
all over each other
inside the grape.
dccxxxiv
“...working too hard trying to do something.”A common pre-Berrigan edifice.
Personal adds. (“You making something with this?”)
“Tête-à-tête until dawn was Frank’s specialty.” (Joe LeSueur)
Because everybody knows bees aren’t funny.
So, no news from limbo.
dccxxxiii
“And what have you done?”The Personal
is empowerment.
All writing is restraint.
Means “azure”
in Chinese.
I turned the headache
into a gumdrop.
dccxxxii
Know better when to stop.
The aching, thus,
on Presidents Day.
Spontaneous portrait:
Green Shirt I wanna
do your homework
and crawl up your sandal
onto your big toe
for a 3-day weekend.
That’s so not true!
People do write
during readings here.
Stop Stop Stop!
dccxxxi
I recall your celebrity tuna.I think I’ll make a turkey soup.
His bliss trees surround me.Absence makes a good love poem.
Champagne pop on the dim sum.
Cupid should know better
while I’m in the bathroom.
dccxxx
“Being skinny puts me in such great spirits!”
(A trick is great pony.)How do you
comb your hair
with that beautiful watch,
wearing the streets of
pinot grigio? Brings to mind of
how many minds
are we. I like
the curve of the ceiling,
the way you Photoshop it,
then down the hatch
with a latté and a San Pellegrino. Hello
from Caffé Prague
with David (a little over-arching)
and Chris (that bad toad!).
Today is beautiful like me.
dccxxix
A Soup of Zucchini
Thanks
for those Mediterranean spices
Mr. Collom, Mr. Brit-Flag Purses,
Mr. and Mrs.
I Don’t Have No Big Words.
Sunday comes
with its churchbell swishes
and the candy clovers
I meant to translate
for you. Dim sum
snakes instead,
and demin-jacketed,
no tie-clasped
monkeys
make room for more monkeys (French lyrics);
squabs for more squabs.
Lots of salty kisses on
chunk concrete.
-Keihl’s on Fillmore
dccxxviii
I can see the chandeliers of the Carnellian Room
eastward on Pine to home
Otto singing not to the
monotony of homework
nor verse
but to mushroom clouds under the birds
eventful few days
Eva Hesse’s giant traumatism
she sings at her baby from modern trees
the eastward leaves purple for royalty
dccxiii
The joint venture places several of the nation’s most
recognizable beer brands under a single concern. —nytimes.com
Sometimes it works
and sometimes
we have to pour it all down the sink.
Smoky apparitions hover at or near the ceiling in witness.
Then we frolic from hillock to hillock,
straightening our hunchbacks along the way.
A glorious turn of events, waking up
covered in sweat:
it’s the fear of monotony. The ennui-swathed alarm
plays a new song by Madonna. We dance ourselves
out of the bed and into the shower,
dawn. Another minute and we’re late for yoga
or something. Who remembers?
But the nice part
is how the fork got stuck in my head.
“Who needs hope?”
“Why, we do, silly!”
“Shall I send a revised meeting planner for the full ninety minutes?”
“Absolutely,” he smirks,
placing his laptop on the corner of the sofa,
the most comfortable corner.
dccx
Fits
& then starts.
Writing an hour a day. Deciding how serious.
Tinnituses (mom’s, son’s).
“A normal person couldn’t have done it.”
Of course happiness isn’t funny.
But so is Frosted Mini-Heartattacks.
dccxxvii
Beautiful Sloppy Pecker DishHe’s deft.
Full of secrets.
“Yes,” he said.
“Plus,
he owes.”
Sad,
bluesy.
dccxxvi
....of ever more sensitive blemishes FOG
salmon patties, gnocchi & green peas
on Pacific & Battery
a patchwork that turns into a series of segues, or
eventually
nonsequiturs
“a festering sweetness of red lollipops” (W.C. Williams)
one postmuddern clump after another
too much pecan pie & cheesecake, etc.
dccxxv
When I Was Alicenotice Michael Palmer
lotsa readings in the late 70s
hm
Collom enjambment
needs to breathe I guess —
experiment is key
numb teeth nest
02/02/02 in library after gym
also witness 5 men jerking off
one kinda cute
cup of pretzels, diet coke
and clam chowder with 2 english muffins
English Coke
many Jordan almonds
“what’re you really good at?”
not diarist, not poet, not editor
brain gone to the birds
and extreme computers
(breathe I guess)
* * * *
When I was Alice I counted the cars
one after another
in front of Wal-Mart
intersections
pulled at my dress
wet my panties
at the intersections in front of Wal-Mart
in the late 70s
hid piece of puzzle
Lil Abner psychiatrist
something melodramatic
along with a kiss in the moonlight
up several flights
tear open a blue jeans
dccxxiv
What I’m doing now is write. —John Ashbery
A lot of coming
on this paper here.
India, Philadelphia,
Colorado, Los Angeles.
Fell on a dork.
Outside swishes
now smile, an acorn.
Is that your answer
ain’t funny. Oh, but
I was so ready to leave,
to sleep. To rap it, love.
.... Rapid love.
Wrap it up in a poetry
security. Play with it
more (“...rampant ...rampart...”).
Came on the couch;
rabid come. Calypsos,
what a trip! Came
some more. Collapses.
What an oaky mesh!
dccxxiii
Dear Bill,
lover of baseball
and Whalen, I tried
to celebrate your 65th
(a little late)
with Red Sox & Rockies, but, but,
this glass of water
and Jack Collom, 10:01pm,,,
and Erin,
house-sitting when the cat died,
(
Mem’ries!)
Paolo’s party
at Massimo’s
another reddish day
postcard poem:
The Seven Seas inspired by C&C
getting high after
Radiohead
Blue Planet,
which was a trip
in and of itself,
really fantastic
Claritin-itis
Wayne’s heart really bad
but better
Tammy’s white trash
dissertation
The Police
at Starbucks
SynchronicityHappy Birthday
Bill and everybody!
dccxxii
No date on Friday night then
(HORROR)
a kidney stone at Kaiser.
House a mess,
off to Duboce
for feckless sex
(goes well with TV).
Mom speaks with dogged
neighbor who replies!
First words
in three some years.
Baked potato vigil
2 points (joined
Weight Watchers!).
$662 roundtrip to
Hong Kong a temptation
I am resisting.
Drive instead
into fire,
Southern
California.
dccxxi
“Wildlife” and “Wildfire”
look very much alike
in headlines next to one another.
Issue 10 cover –
Curran, sideways,
head lopped, no feet,
wearing FOOL t-shirt,
BRECK painted across body
with white-out.
Wrote to tell Tom
how time passes oddly
in dreams
which remind us
to say hello
to long-ago friend.
Death is a booger.
dccxx
The prison of the page,
a pain in the neck. Lost beauty
like city starlight. Another meteoric
deconstruction. Sleep when I die
mentality; a small break between miles.
The steam room out of order. First real
bag of groceries in forever. Sirens,
smoking bus, the rain clears into a
sunny afternoon. At home spend two hours
washing dishes. Some redneck movie.
Heading to post office for electronic postcard stamps.
Can we have maidservants clean our apartment
in the nude?
dccxix
dirty bitch if it’s not indie
it’s no damn good
bitch got grey tryin to be a style
what cooks here baby??
ooh ramen ugh
ooh ramen ugh
ah too freezin too fuckin cold
bitch should get up and leave
fuckin for the last 5 days or so no good up in them cabnets
but one thing cool we got the swiffest influx ever
ooh ramen ugh
ooh ramen ugh and ugh
dccxviii
Fathom a market of goldenrod
(the genus that take batteries).
A secret garden for them, at a
bed & breakfast, perhaps. 8am
French Toast with orange rinds,
chunk cantaloupe. Sex sells. Walk
to Grauman’s, split stars for an hour
(because we’re so damned grumpy),
curl up in a toaster oven. Somalia,
Diebenkorn, and Baziotes. A
botched attempt at a door (1960s).
More on this later after I think
straight, fail to snatch the buzzes,
and piss on the pussywillow
during the Golden Globes.
dccxvii
The sun torches deeper than thoughtCerebral hemispheres of nonexistence
caress the nibs of your neck, that exquisite
hump on your shoulder. And not a Gizzi in the house
(harrumph!).
All told: the Abbey Cafe, its lists, the ghost of
Hockney on Mulholland Drive., so L.A.!
Whisper something clever to me, kid.
dccxvi
Goodnight sliver of moon,
a goodnight distant carrier
jet! Night and night! An opposite
to learning. Sit on my ass and be
lazy, lazy, lazy. Hit ‘send’ – the
computer’s entrails hot as lava
(an exclusionary hot). I like him
but there are a lot of ideas I enjoy, too,
like my own apartment.
Miserable nipple ring!
Klimt, Lauder, and
utmost exhaustion!
