mdcccxlix

Your sentences are the best.
                          —Jack Kimball

For a description, all I can think
to type is I am still doing this. 

Q-tips, Listerine...

mdcccxlviii

Quite the Cheese

These are gurgle
semantics.  Within
a week I lose the
party
but at 4:12
try harder to
host.  My panties
have become scaled
furies.  So anyway I
purchase the pink pig
of oblivion for love and
a power-up.  Wow, it
goes on!

mdcccxlvii

The next day we were all millionaires.

It is possible (now that I look at it through this lens)
that I could have mislabeled the character.  Gravity
isn’t my strong point.

With a well-practiced sparkle that shot like glitter
from the capital building on her wedding finger,
she got all cheesy like the cops.

The doctors say his heart failure
was caused by his inability to
remember how to do anything.

mdcccxlvi

I’m so stupid my ears hurt.
Not like when your brain
evaporates (nothing at all
how it was actually recalled).

A recoil of green beans.  A
buckwheat pillow.  A pair
of fried chickens after your 

lecture, Doctor of Sciences.

mdcccxlv

I precisely weighed each and every
bad bone. I spelled it LOSING IT.
The latter explained to me that I had
done wrong by the Electric Balloon.

I want to leave it [them] there but
keep crying about etiquette—even
after the notebook full of broken
stops us all like MADD. The

name of this udon is
Duncan Hines.

mdcccxliv

I want to show you in abundance the fuck-ups I’ve
arranged into squalid hostels.  I might have ventured
better than tongue-in-cheek into a new no-no

just so that I can write a little.

mdcccxliii

There’s still too much to do
realizing everyone’s impression of me is
nobody’s fault.  By default I’ve no way of
making espresso
without the tangerines.

mdcccxlii

          they say write
          below your
          century to
          understand it
                    —CAConrad


Hello from the Continental Divide.


                 the train arrives sans mustache.
                                         —Michael Price


I woke up thinking how funny it is that
you’ve become such a devotee of TED.


                 sloth in the stretching ottoman
                          —my misreading of a few words by Michael Price


                                                                               MOTIVATION
Several days later     __________
                                                                                    YAY!!!
So far I think it’s an okay funny.


                  Bill was feeling his biceps.  “Tomorrow we’re
                  going to have a life-and-death struggle.

                   - - - - - -

                  Bill was the one who least felt the need of
                  occupation.
                                                    —Bill Berkson


However, I’m not entirely certain on either front.

And the breeze didn’t leave us a shred of evidence.

mdcccxli

non-closure agreement

Pressing the book closed
with a cold shoulder at
the chapter of his life
that prequalifies him for
sublimity.  Notice the
fucked up page numbers
with a vacant grin.  Potato salad.

mdcccxl

K-POP

A leaf flutters like a whack-job
                              —Jack Kimball

Tell me what I must do to get through to you.
                              —Jipsta & John Rizzo feat. Reina

Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching.
                              —a fortune cookie

Mellow. Dance-y.

mdcccxxxix

Extend the life of Pedestrian Color

First, a bedtime story about needles found in
airline sandwiches.  Then, a dream in which I am
a young Michael Jackson with only 10 crumpled
one dollar bills to my name.

Oh.  Sorry.  You’re the nimrod.  I’m just the nitwit.

mdcccxxxviii

2.

Sometimes I am a big hippo
(it says so right here).  And he said
you should dress like the colors.
And I said like the others?  So

last month it looks like I am busy
and this month it looks like I am
not busy.  Last month I was ___
[what age?]___?  and this month

I am _____________________.

mdcccxxxvii

I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT TO OPEN THE MOUTH OF MY MACBOOK AND FEED IT
                                                                                          —Ariana Reines

I keep rubbing my feet with lotion
because they are so high.

This is how much I don’t read (this much).

We’re watching Jesus & Satan in San Francisco
in the dark.

Earlier, I walked the walk with you.  How much I had
wanted it in the face.

I suppose I don’t own up to where we are.

There are three things I absolutely need from you:

1.

mdcccxxxvi

Is this as focused as you can get?

I save five dollars at Walgreen’s
and then walk back up the hill,
take down the trash, change the
litter, transfer a few more files,
play Bejeweled, upload photos
and fill the sink with dishes. It’s
one of those Monday holidays.
Monday Moanses?

I remember how Otto surprised
me. The milestone I am sitting
on. The chair I’m inside of,
and thus my life. The siren
of apartment evolution
needs more aspirin.

I’m on aspirin and I
need some more. It
can’t be helping.

Please kindly
scrutinize the birds.

mdcccxxxv

I’ve a lot to mull over right
now – the potential – ok, it’s
really not potential. I put on
a necktie for work/life balance.

A potion for radical change. I have
a few words. Like last. And anyway.
Surprise! It’s okay. Well, more
interesting than I would have imagined.

Would have.

I take pictures of imaginary architecture
in stupid postmodernism rain in the
city which is a museum at 3:30am
because I can’t wrap myself around

this much insomnia. All of the faces are
moody, melancholy. But not horribly so.
I learn how to love everything about them.
About us. I’m just following up on some

correspondence, trying to stay in touch. I
walk around all day and night looking for
someone to recognize. Nothing hits me,
not even the nostalgic.

I want to like someone as a person, even
with what little I may know about them. I 

am interested in getting to know you 

better, I whisper to each one. A card arrives

from Suzanne. It’s addressed to both
Otto and me and it is a thank you
for our attendance at her surprise 50th
which took place in an East Bay tiki lounge.

mdcccxxxiv

Do you like me?

My anger takes a deep breath.
I stare at a white fireplug while
exhaling.  We are adorable
when we buy the album and
get all of their autographs.
It’s likely that I will never
see you again.  I slam my
hand down onto the note
book and scream my
cat’s name.  We are the
Curiosity Twins, hounded
by love.  Well, I can only
speak for myself.  I’m
learning to only speak
for myself.  This is called
gracious living.  However
much we are related.  Esp
ecially the keyboardist.
“I’ve lost my passion,”
I tell him.  He makes a
note of it before encouraging.
This from a chitchat.  Also
edgy.  Yesterday, moody,
melancholy, but not horribly so.

mdcccxxxiii

Pushing the antelope
        —Ted Greenwald

Great. Scary birds. Maybe
night. If the last couple of
days are any indication.
Slow down. Great. Slow
down. Do not feel. Are you
in any way a hurry? Feel up
and down your body but do not
feel. Open a door. The door
goes dog. Open another after
quick slam. What’s the dif?
At family’s asking what it is.
Family? Family’s a long week.
Family’s weekend. Sift book-
marks. Steady. Great. Join
Curran, Masashi, Christina,
and Gilbert. Slow down.
Random choice (mine).
Mine random. Mine
random choices. Eat
pizza at Piazza
then go to Pop-
scene to see Elkland.

mdcccxxxii

I love the fog & clouds,
which will likely clear up.

mdcccxxxi

Between breaths I press my palm
into the small ditch that runs
beside my heart. A warmth,
an unrecognizable but perhaps
comforting warmth? Still, no one
waits for me. I buy a new set of
cards. No one waits. I read for a
while. I pilfer through bookmarks.
I get coffee at Sutter and Stockton,
decide that it’s too windy to sit
in Union Square. I do a double-
take thinking she says “This is a 

five-star romance.”

mdcccxxx

He dawned on himself
       —Michael Price

Is my hair ironic
enough? I feel way
too good. Doomsday
is almost over. It’s imp
ortant to never call anything
important. Is that true?

The voice in my hand is
grief. My heart feels it
should be celebratory,
the voice. All of the voices
are now gone, except the
rattling window. I remember

smooching. My right hand is
camping. The bullshit of such
sweet sorrow. I turn over
in my grave (ugh). I leave a light
on. The electricity bill is
always under $5 anyway.

mdcccxxix

I forget how to write poetry
                    —Ariana Reines

I must have made some moves
yesterday. The party-host’s smooch-
friend, the one we met at the under-
wear party. What year is this?
It’s always so hard to tell. There are
sucking sounds nearby. Is it the cat
cleaning herself? No. One of these things
is not like the other. Arguing voices, but
not the usual, the high-pitched Latina.
Maybe it’s just a debate. Are they debating
the sucking sounds, what they really are?
It is so quiet in our apartment. Half of me
is in Oakland. So quiet. Even the
sucking sounds, which are now
something like sq 

ueaking beds.

mdcccxxviii

Wh@ else?

Peter made French toast
and bacon. It was all
good, including the hot
nightmares. Of nature,
horseback riding through
the Fort Chaffee brambles,
a bistro in Le Marais, and
postcards from Stephanie.
Sure, I am enjoying the book
and READING. There are
such lost arts. The dog’s
barking is more distant
than usual. The barking
is further away. The noises
in my head are able to talk
to each other this afternoon.
Is it because I am so sober
today? If so, theories will
evaporate. The orange sofa
cover is so filthy. I keep
scrutinizing it. For some-
thing to remember.

mdcccxxvii

Good-Natured

     Flying is not merely having wings.
                              —Sue Rosen

Is it just that nothing seems
incalculable.  So I walked
uphill for, like, another half
a mile.  Nobody is waiting
on me.  But soon it’s to-
morrow, another ‘last day’
when I need to let people
know I’m (definitely) in-
terested.  Maybe I just
need to find Peter’s
party.  We could veg
the entire afternoon
and make french
toast and bacon
afterwards.  But I get
really momentarily bel-
ligerent talking about
an assistant position,
should one be available.