Saturday, January 31, 2015

mmcccx

Live, from The Box

“Don’t you care how we live?”
End line— I just can’t get
into [this guy]’s poems.
I just can’t get into his eyes.

Damn.  Okay, okay. 
I have an accountant for
the first time in my life.
Or am I sleeping with one?

No.  But my taxes from 
years ago get paid today 
with bones from the 

bank.  Please let it 
be less than the
bottom line.  Yes—

Glory!  Step 
away from 

the box.  Into 
this guy’s eyes; 

this guy’s
sky full of eyes.





Thursday, January 29, 2015

mmcccix

Shooting a Human and Not a Quail

First, I rented a bunch of movies.
Then, Otto came home buzzed
from the Cheesecake Factory

with Joseph and Justin.  This
is sometimes seen as normal.
Then, we cuddled and he

fed me.  Or, actually, we
snuggled and then we
(loverly) fooled around

and had a hot time with
loads of rice.  Today is
Thursday.  Tonight, we

are supposed to go to
Spices II to wish
Christina a happy

surprise birthday. 
I’m sipping a
lemon zinger.

It is now today,
the day the bones
go back to the bank.


Wednesday, January 28, 2015

mmcccviii

Don’t Double-Boom

“Yes, I’d love to,” I replied,
one warm October morning,
thinking “He’s just my type.”

Autumn gave it up for a winter
wherein we wore penguins on
our chests.  Mine, slightly hairy

and mostly grey.  Yours, smooth
as a wet whistle.  Back home, we
poured colorful gumdrops into a

tiny Spanish bowl.  “Hola, seƱor-
ita!” he’d smile as he’d say.
“Would you like a gumdrop?”

To which I’d reply, “Always!” –
not knowing any Spanish.
“Forever is a mighty long

time,” we’d both think.  How
alarmed we would have been
to know during those faraway

moments that, even then,
such synchronicity already
existed between the two of us.



Sunday, January 25, 2015

mmcccvii

Hooting Through the Dark

My elbows
like cream
dissolving

in the fog
until I have
no arms.

At home,
the calloused
magnum

lying atop
the refriger-
ator raises

an interest-
ing point.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

mmcccvi

Hearty Hardy

Which one of us thought it a
joke?  Perhaps the both of us.


          All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
                                                               —Oscar Wilde

I might as well throw that in,
like a bad bag of potato chips
or a stack of clean towels lying

still (still lying) (still lying, are
you?) in the bedroom after
last week’s wash...


...seven [lucky] years after
kneeling at his smooch-
besotted gravestone (more
like a monument, actually)....


Where were we anyway?
(Where was I, do I mean?)
Oh.  On Harrison Street.

But none of us were gig-
gling.  Neither of us were
giggling.  But a toothless

smile spread clean across
your beautiful bescpectacled
Face it, Del, you’re a hoax

hidden within a petty
theft.  Within a lie you
don’t even believe to belie,

to be a lie.


P.S.  All winks go to heaven.  

        {Wink! Wink!}


Friday, January 23, 2015

mmcccv

Poodles Are Never Off-Topic

          We left, as we have left all of our lovers
          as all lovers leave all lovers
          much too soon to get the real loving done.
                                                               —Judy Grahn

“Last chance!” I write.  I explain.
But I can do neither.  Instead,
gritting my teeth, spitting out
expletives, through them, I begin
to weep.  “Applause!”  The neon
directive flickers to life a few yards
in front of me – a few moments
before it’s supposed to do so.
Am I really to taunt death this
soon?  “Forever is a long ways
away!”  The audience nervously
signal intermission.  “Gladly, I
think, gauze in hand, ready to
be mummified (or to mummify?).
By the end, everyone relates to the
disembowelment.  “Disembowelment
most relatable and satisfactory,”
the critics either praise or debunk.
I sink into prayer.  It is a soliloquy
most foul.  I had placed myself
intentionally within reach of
this predicament, this per-
spective, for years.  Was I
aiming deliberately for it?
I pray never to wish again.
The set, the entire universe,
disappears into a quick fog.

disembowelment

Thursday, January 22, 2015

mmccciv

1st, you need a
reason for existence.

I wake up one morning,
feel like such an

*ugly human being.  Do I
care?  Of course I do,

trammeled, as it were
(I so hate this part)

I think, pummeled as I
am (I so hate this part),

with every other fist
in every other sea
(the great blue sea)

along with all of the
fishes of this heresy.

*idiot, a miserable failure,
rotten to the very core.

Dare I care?
Of course I do.

(At least I think I do.)

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

mmccciii

A Hundred Frothing Wolves

‘If I should die
before I wake—’

If I were too
awake / If I

were to awaken
Too awake

A dozen times
a dozen times

a dozen hours
of sleep

I do not pray
I do not pray

All day all day
I do not pray

A thousand times
a thousand

times a
thousand

visions
never take

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

mmcccii

Too easy
to figure
out, I am

drawn in
to the mystery
of you.



Monday, January 19, 2015

Sunday, January 18, 2015

mmccc

I rise at dawn and write because it’s
clear, though it’s cloudy
this a.m., the sky approaching
purple, like language in an awful poem,
making me anticipate an awful day
                                             —Tim Dlugos
          
          |  Put graphic of same
          |  quote from The Collected
              Poems of Tim Dlugos above
              this typewritten text.
                                           It is a poem.


Friday, January 16, 2015

mmccxcix

             d’you think people change?
                 —Martin Corless-Smith

Talk about evolution!  TGIF!
                      (:Tickle Giraffes in France!)

Thursday, January 15, 2015

mmccxcviii

Remains of Jonestown bodies found in Del.
                 —news headline found at SFGate.com

I wasn’t aware of
this, but now a
lot of things make
much more sense.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

mmccxcvii

               Without her husband
                      she crossed every week
                              because certain groceries
               were cheaper over there
                                         —Rachel Blau DuPlessis

And also she found
a Safeway gift card
of some value amongst
all of the junk that 
he had left behind.


Tuesday, January 13, 2015

mmccxcvi

now that i am nothing, too.

now that i am just like you,
now that i am nothing, too,
i have one thing left to do.
that’s bid adieu,
adieu to you.


Tuesday, January 06, 2015

mmccxcv

[or, I could use it as the postscript for the previous]

               I fear I am not in my perfect mind
               the sins I’ve sinned before cockcrow
               Did the plot matter?
                                         —Martin Corless-Smith

But there’s the obvious problem
of what makes a sin a sin?  The
video you texted me this mo(u)rn-
ing could be interpreted as such,
I am quite certain.  However,
it made me laugh endlessly
(as I rewound it again and
again throughout the
entire morning).