cxiv

apartments.  3 super stockings in 1.  the sex is
     wrinkled.  I guess it’s bees. but
there weren’t any plan bees.  a glad slob in a car.
     super foggy movies are
dire.  it’s a serious TIME TO GET YR ASS
     together ones and twos.
14 screws.  everybody stripped I know.
     I haven’t written ok.
the green banana on the telephone reminds me
     of the movie forever.
chaps locked up in somebody else’s suit
     case.  locked for a week.
three times three is one less than two by four.
     moping broke and.  one
banana less than among other reasons for
     feeling super today is the
super lips.  in the palm of.  my hand.  is.
     I don’t feel right exorbitant.
feel right apartment.  terribly.  lovely highlights
     and dance numbers 1, 2 and 3.
last couple weeks Amherst going away party
     and the new geodesic kitty box.
seriously wrinkled.  it pisses guesses off.  can’t be
     happy happy or happier?
new apartment.  footsteps.  around the corner and le
     French girls feline.  meaning beeline
about jobmarket on Belden this Friday.  oui
     Friday Friday.  French Friday.
I’m terribly broke til next payday.  but I’m interested.
     interested in cognitive
theory.  as it relates to memory.  mem cogs.
     very nice and cute.  oh
mandatory screw mtg.  3 new tools.  revolutionary
     supposedly.  a little checklist whereby.

cxiii

sorry one
kick-ass
sea breeze
I guess

and he
with whom
I wuz
wuzzing
was not
so kick-ass

four cham
pagnes
and a
card trick
or two or
three later
tho and

he seems to be
getting into
the yellow
sheets

but it’s me
nobody really
knows      oh

I met another
cute 19 yr old
last night

his friends
and phone numb
ers had lots of
thick black
hair in the
moonish
ness

cxii

the junk outside. the barefoot trees wept rain.
a cafe debuted its supermodel, a yummy pumpkin.
stuck him in the bed with me and the new yellow
sheets. working hard working is what we were doing.
haha his mouth was a purse filled with new nickels.
because this small apartment fits us just right.

we plump up just to spite the pears and the wine.
one comes here to witness such side effects. e.g.
a love birthday with imaginary wisdom teeth. yanked.
it is effective. we like the sex because it is crisp.
the sheets do this to us. and the sofa burns in hell
along with all of its fantastical sins.

we are less excited to boogie. the rain stomps on the
flesh-colored slipcovers. an august romp makes doing it
hotter than ever. how does one imagine it better?
honestly if a poem is so subtly soluble why bother to
stir anything up? yet nothing is lovelier huh?
so for breakfast we enjoyed the elm trees.

our bread tasted like lips and the furniture
always need rearrangement.


first published in High Horse

cxi

true as often as not the sprigs of April
make me freak lately I just walk and walk
I always enjoy doing that though my

kitchen is a disaster I walk where the willow
and the pigeon and the secret lies of taxis
lie as true as often as I freak in April

I come as often as the sprigs of April
in the bueno underwear of my colleagues
but it is your size of secrets that I adore

I did not come in your undewear toward
the willow and the pigeon in those famed
steepletops of your good-sized sprigs

this is not funny but I freaked you under
there and I always enjoy doing that in the
VIP area where true as pigeons I walked

I do that even though I always say I don’t
yes and lately I’ve been walking majorly
to the shore to the one shore where in April

if I destroy your pillow I make love to your
pigeon and it will help me write this

no freak no I love you in the burbs at half-mast
listening to reggae with the willows

no no I freak in April in the willows and the
pigeons freaking is the most love I’ve ever known

cx

one day of first being in a new fog
then after a coffee that rolls off the bay
there are a few sneezes and a recognition

that lately he’s talking about visiting
somebody so I ruffles my feathers
and read the weathered banker paper

what rolls like water off a duck’s
back and works like crushed Prozac
is all the sneezes he can sneeze

he says my ego is better than his
which makes this a most excellent day
it’s not come a moment too soon

should I be counting the days
until I turn 30 or interviewing the
vice presidents re their mktg contacts

hell I was trying to find the word
bricoleur in any number of locales
and what I kept preferring to enjoy

was this picture next to my stapler
red erect and looking somewhat to the
left with slightly chapped lips

cix

we got to go to
the arbor eatum

we hafta listen to the
CEO over & over

chickeninParis plus
reaching the beaches

all witches a comparison
to maddening cuz I

just wanted to know
when you landed

and then I was cheeked
and flipped thru the

channels fully bitten
ensnaggled as I could

only’ve hoped of a movie
where we hookedup

andtalkedandtalked
all thru the neighbor

hood we grew up in it’s
sometimes uncomfort

able developing re
lationships

in the arboretum
with the CEO


first published in High Horse

cviii

are the legitimate things
inside my chocolate wrapper

the things I look for which
aren’t so very cold and fickle

what if I don’t want to rem
ember the hair in my food

last night’s fettucine and
basil over an argument

is it the same as the desire
to only remember dessert

like the peach crisp
I lost the pecans for

how is memory related to
someone who is motivated

and can take control of a
home we fight roosters over

especially the one which I love
and can get love back from

cvii

I regret to suddenly announce
that we are moving a coded streetcar

it’s absolutely nothing but work
and a smoldering wave of depression

spring is a beautiful flirt
drunk on weekends

I belong to nothing but hookups
where my life is right up to the second

he’s such a jerk in the sink
of one of my circuitous flings

the root of all evil has no options
and the dumbest of chuckles


first published in High Horse

cvi

we got something really delicious
in our eyes for most of the day
it was hot and the color of the car
that was worried about getting towed

most of the heat at Capp’s is
not the kind of heat that you expect
and for that matter most of the pasta
begins where the poems end

e.g., they begin with something tragic
which doesn’t bite
I mean there we were the three of us eating
and it was really very funny

sometime after the mosquitoes
was the sesquicentennial of a
little town in Missouri
where we bought a few groceries  ugh

I told them I wanted a poem
with more curve and a bottle of merlot
these were both advertised on AOL
while we were flirting with the car

and all I got was this online drinking
and most of the poems had mosquitoes
who then got lost and flirted more
and I think may have even danced

so I got more myself on the drive home
yeah I mean completely lost it was so lovely
like being on one edge of the bed after
walking home with our pear and berry juices

cv

what a dull end of the week making for many magical colors
however I’m cheery peonies at the flower IHOP
with him who was just rubbing and driving around my head
so I asked him for an endless hypervivid coffee

no zombies for lunch
however my beautiful leafy life with lots of
daisies coming out of my ears is absolutely
starving his eyes making for many magical colors

what good rubbing up against the metal I told him to come
thoroughly because he couldn’t find a parking place
even though the fever roses and the geraniums were
nutso on a Thursday night

they are all music to my eyes which are also brown
and thoroughly become full of every color
you’ll agree even though I can see you thinking
a positively handsome torpedo goes nutso over my head

civ

Did I mention the allergies,
the dentist of the trolley,
the wurst on my tongue,
the sushi in the groove?

I prep my needs for
the bluest bedtime,
along with the removal
of my two wisdom teeth,

plus four major
intensive cleanings.
It’s thirty with a bang
and a few whispers over

childhood stories.
“Don’t forget what you
learned,” he says to me.
“What you saw what you

had what you can what
you wanted.”

ciii

it’s about the blowfish
what a beautiful dilemma

a quest in the bathroom
with my ex and some moral support

a love that is left in the
blowfish which had to cry

it’s in the bathroom of course
where we wind up getting drunk

and he never has to talk again
this is how to cut it

of course after it was all over
not only my love was left

but what I told him when we
went to the bathroom

which hints a bit
toward my dilemma

I’d been starting to suspect
that I told him to go away

the simplest quest for some
moral blowfish

this routine that’s left
when we get pissy with love

that’s what was left when I
told him to go away

he just went ballistic and
got all bent out of shape and said

could you please tell me
how to cut a blowfish

I said never talk to me again
this is the love that’s left

cii

riding on the
blue train on a
day I am debted
on the train I am
a small glass of
blue water and
I am determined
to drink coffee
and be a poet
on the itinerary
where I guess I
can make a dollar
riding on a blue
checkbook on a
day I am indebted
I guess I’m always
marching to a
new leaf
a small glass of
Galileo
trying to turn over
a new itinerary
riding on the
coffee but this time
it’s a blue inker
on a day I am
trying to turn over
and be a poet
I guess I’m always
a new leaf
riding on the blue
train I turn this time
to see the face I’m
only loving
it’s a little bit of a
a new face it’s
a bit of a
blue inker
but this time
I really think I
see it
I guess I’m always
marching to a
newer leaf

ci

serious dwelling in its
beautiful cloudiness
where nothing else happens

yes, it’s short for Delusional

was supposed to be dinner
with the talking weather
seems okay yes it’s nice

he sounds capable

smells like warmed boards
a little bird is sleeping
with an ounce of decency

possibly is sleeping with anyone

listen for the likes of
do and did for the flutter
of he looks at me and asks

it’s just dripping is all

confirmed my feelings and
closes his eyes and confirmed
or suspected of crymemore

remember sharing a banana split

c

it’s a beautiful spring day
of the “L” word

I’m barefoot and fresh from
a longtime cafe with
a broken lamp

after a couple of dates
one of the dryers
downstairs is
messed up again

it’s screwed
and this morning
I laughed at

it’s a boombox bag
on your back
at Border’s

it’s obvious
so much for a
decade of difference

anyway
nothing compares
or has changed
or is seemingly regretted

the “L” word
keeps calling
a few times

he’s buttered
the flies in the
Warner Bros. mug

a Hawaiian shirt
an ode to a
heart racing with vodka
and a cool breeze
coming in from the north

xcix

“don’t get so close to that car”...
it’s more engaging now, the sun,
the soundtrack, the olives.

four brunches later, I was saying
the guy was pink with...

I was saying a guy I wanted
sitting next to me, looking kind of
pink with a rum and coke.

I got nervous that he could read
what I was writing. the olives, the
sunset, the soundtrack...

reverse / the guy’s driving
forward to the olives.
now I’m worried and go up to the phone
hung up in my ear.

not intentionally high speed,
the car with the raindrops and its
one foreign windshield wiper.

an internet where maybe his
parents are holding him captive.
the boyfriend who walked out
because he didn’t see anything worth waiting.

the pinkest love of all is when
we both face the new painting
and the noise rings nine of his
top digits.

no, the noise rises to something like
a dancefloor we decide not to enter.
instead we drive through the rain
and fall asleep on the couch.

I almost lift you up from the couch
ringing in my ear.
you are soundly.

you are the olive is I love.
like what I must have known is forever...

xcviii

he wants me back he says I’m lost I’ve lived
yes it’s the day of the U-Haul truck where
40,000 hearts make their living on eBay
this rain’s drained and blown for 3.65 years

and I wants him back too employed and same
same place gone crazies and feelings for
a Uniball Gel RT med (blue) with light rain
over a love over all of the red running pants

and I’m still in love laughing under a wet flag
so all over the effort of the green jackets
so over it that I don’t know what I feel in a
green jacket-sleeve that’s too long in Cantonese

it’s the oblivion of a rainy April afternoon
and he wants me back under this place where
he’s gone crazy with the spinach or whatever
watching that Pontiac burst open like a sun

xcvii

is it an earthquake
or just my heart beating

no more crystal geyser will
help take my mind off the missing

tax day and life is all but
what it was last year about this time

2:16 and the beer rolls by
it’s one noisy vehicle

he sent me a crazy e-mail
blue as a bay without wheels

how much political savvy
explains my weekend

your mercedes rolled over
a rolling rock beer

therefore the beer answered before
your lips

please come back to me
and something like

i’m not gonna write anymore
i’m in a secret mood

come back before you
get a flat tire please

xcvi

it’s been seven years
of monster crushes

I didn’t even finish
that thought

two movies of
I’m sucking

third Jim Carrey
of way too drunk

everything off and
under the covers

third week in a row
Friday ritual

today’s is made in
my very own cubicle

with a tall rectangle of
foggy bay

we broke the spell on
Saturday morning

he told me I had to
pick between the two

I just said with clarity
stop leading me on

if this one’s in Venice
the other’s in my bed

how to deal with
those kinds of hours

at the pizzeria where
the rumors progressed

he said who’s inside
of whom and then

writing doesn’t make me
feel much better

xcv

I left my book at work
and what a pisser

it’s raining until the
blue water rises plus

today at work once
again I pretty much

did nothing but
took the W-2 out of its

cherry envelope and
tada a seductive devilish

hottie that misses me
damn near said so

that remark’s a walk
umbrella-like thru

Chinatown and for
some reason

he’s never where or
when he says he is

what a dorky
high-school hangout

don’t forget Saturday’s
personal fitness fiasco

a groundhog glumletter
if ever there was one

xciv

a French interpretation
of a scratchy chin
which is what I felt like
when I ate the other banana

he’s thoughtful though which
I keep thinking of
while you are at the
Tate Modern

whatever sexually coded
messages I find myself
in the magnatude of
these last few months

is to spend every evening
like writing poetry
and minding your Aquafina
still on my marble table

xciii

I ate one of the bananas you left.
There’s one more in the kitchen.
Your Aquafina is still sitting
on the marble table.

I got blottoed and majorly kissing.
I got so lost. I slept over.

The fog was disorganized chaos.
Or that’s what the calendar said.
I walked alone
clasping my cellphone.

I can’t even imagine the stuff I said.
I can’t stop thinking about
those kisses.

Your chicken-scratch on my
old notepads. Still here.
Your Mediterranean itinerary
inside my computer. Still here.