Tuesday, March 31, 2015

mmcccliv

w/Many Depressed Lines

I don’t feel much good today.
I certainly don’t feel much good

feeling as if I haven’t lost myself
with anyone in a very long time.

Anyone, after a very long time,
might feel exactly the same,

or nearly exactly the same.
Couldn’t it be you?

Monday, March 30, 2015

mmcccliii

Admonition w/2 Sad Lines by James Galvin

“Turn back.  I’m busy dividing my time.”

       is only 3 lines away from

“There’s nothing you can do, given what you have done.”

Sunday, March 29, 2015

mmccclii

Okay.

I feel
as if
I am
just
getting
started.

So what?



Saturday, March 28, 2015

mmcccli

I feel
as if
I am
just

getting
started
is the
name of

a poem I
remember
writing as
a teenager.

But it says
right here
that I was
well into

my 30’s.


Friday, March 27, 2015

mmcccl

+ / -

Obviously, what we
have on our hands
here is an either/
or situation.

Cue third frame:
a collage made up
of 68% of each strip
in today’s funnies.


Wednesday, March 25, 2015

mmcccxlix

Third Person

I divide
my time
between

certainly
and dumb-
er.


Tuesday, March 24, 2015

mmcccxlviii

Barnacle or Bastion

The paint about the
bedside pipes is
cracking up, I could 
add as a question mark.

I could.  I could also
pack many punches
into a wonderfully
impossible sentence,

seemingly.  But
will he ever!

Monday, March 23, 2015

mmcccxlvii

The Squirrelly Winter of Fate

This morning I am suppressed.
Impressed.  This morning I am
depressed, even though, an
empress, I love the rain.
Rain after rain all night
and rain off and on for
days beyond.  Or behind.
My mind is more foggy days,
solemnity, temerity, tempor-
ality.  (“No, Mom, I don’t have
a fever.”)  The current, however,
is freezing.  Currently, I mean,
my currency is frozen, and the
likelihood of an early thaw
is dim to none (with zero
arguments over dim-sum).
Oil prices are tumbling
and winter is nearly here.
Or there.     Hurrah!




Sunday, March 22, 2015

mmcccxlvi

“How rhetorical was your ‘Wait a minute!’?”


I took one week off without worry
during the most worrisome era of
my livelihood.







          And what, you might ask,
          did I do with that week?







I took one week off without care
during the most loathsome time of
my career.


Thursday, March 19, 2015

mmcccxlv

Drought on Death Planet

Four years later, I am parked
out front of the unbelievable
mall.  I would giggle to my
neighbor if I had one, whisper

about such an ineluctable mis-
reading.  Whispering between the
gasps and giggles.  Gasping for
further imagination, fantasy.  But

now?  Fuck it if I am not in an
old Ford pick-up.  What a truck!
My grandfather’s, which I have
driven all the way to Little Rock

(at sweet 16) to attend Chemistry
Camp (to which one has to be
nominated).  Downstairs, more
plates crash against a very

unimaginative wall.  The plates!!
There must be an endless assort-
ment of them.  “How can this be?”
I wonder, glancing at my watch

as if I’m actually wearing one,
growing a beard as if I can.
Tomorrow is done.  It’s over
today.  Yesterday the rain

spilled down until shortly after
noon.  And then, spiders burst forth
from each and every administrative
wall on Death Planet (each wall

here is made strictly of concrete)!
Orange globs of them, spewing
forth in waves like flame after
flame.         And then....?

Well,  you can see for your-
self now.  Here!  Have a look!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

mmcccxliv

“Is Church Still Happening?”

I tried so very long ago
to be okay.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

mmcccxliii

     Our only exposure was to be
     financial, our only fun in cruelty”
                    —Michael Malinowitz


“You kept an audio message?”


                 “Huh?”    ...

                           “I keep everything.”


“You sick bastard!”


                “Okay.”    ...


                            “Maybe I was being
                              a bit melodramatic.”


Monday, March 16, 2015

mmcccxlii

Be careful not to overcook
as popcorn will scorch

“I’m alive,” he finally responds.
To which I reply:

           “Thank Heavens you’ve
not just been avoiding me.”



Friday, March 13, 2015

mmcccxli

NOW THAT I CAN NO LONGER DWELL ON THE PAST

I never knew I did, actually, except so as to
REMEMBER; so as to piece things together,
to gather perspective; so as to EVOLVE.

Perhaps I’m not fit to evolve (in the
better today than yesterday / 
better tomorrow than today

sense, rather than in the

strict Darwinian, survival 
of the fittest sense).  Since 

look at me now [by which 

I mean no further details 
are necessary, so long as

we’ve EVERY LAST ONE OF
US been paying even a mod-
icum of attention.  What with

our attention disorders and all.

Attention...   Attention....  since
LOOK   AT   ME   RIGHT   NOW.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

mmcccxl

Enjoying the Life That Has Been Given (to me)

My mother calls me this morning
to tell me that she has been in the
hospital since Wednesday with
pneumonia!  She sounds horrible!



Wednesday, March 11, 2015

mmcccxxxix

My Offer to Eternity
(Or a Piece Thereof)

I’m a dullard, I think,
made aware by the words

I write, the thoughts I
think, the lines I am

reading, day in, day
out.  So I make a

name for myself
(I like to think).

Like Dullard or
Atrocity or

Ambush.  What
could such a body

behind such a name
have to offer?  I can-

not (cannot) call.  My
name.  My name is.

This morning my
name was.  Nobody

answers.  Nobody
picks up the phone.

How (oh, how?) do
I offer my soul (my

soul?) to that nobody
in response?  To no

response, my soul is
now gone, because

no reply.  No reply
at all.  A nothing a

nothing.  A nothing
to a nothing says

so.  Says that I need
to enjoy the life that

has been given to me.
Please can you say

that to me?  I need it
almost imperatively.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

mmcccxxxviii

What Do You Mean What I Say?

         What do I mean?

         What do I say?

         Do I mean what I say?

         Do I say what I mean?

         (ALMOST NEVER!)

         Maybe, then, I’m mean to say.

         “Agreed,”

         lips, sewn together this way, murmur,

         “a greed.”

         ...

         “But what do you mean?”


Monday, March 09, 2015

mmcccxxxvii

A Mature Relationship

           I like to prepare the heart
           by stuffing it with the brain.
                                   —Alice Fulton

Heart don’t damage!


Heart, don’t do any damage!  [Pleas]

Unheaded heart = damage!  [Eternal]

Unheaded, heart....   [Unheeded]

Unheaded heart goes.

That damned heart pays no heed,
goes right on ahead,         
[without head]
does a heap of damage.

Brain, rest!   [Repeat Plea 10x]

Brain pleas, REST!

Brain, unaware of the demise
of the heart (the damage the
heart has done), revels in
the glory of the morning sun.

Unawares,
reveals what brain's done.  [Busted]


What brain?  Brain done.   [Gone]

Sunday, March 08, 2015

mmcccxxxvi

Just to describe the things that have meant                       
everything to me; and not to insist on describing,                         
but really just to describe them.                      

                                                                                  —Damion Searls          

Will I finally get my
data back from
Shady Guy, Inc.? 

(How’d he fool me
all these years, anyway?   
I should call him before

noon and attempt to
transact.  Good luck
with that!)      Good

Night
and Good Luck
is now playing at the
Lumiere.  I’d like to

see it.     But who
knows what the
future will bring?

Plus, I’m loaded
(pun intended). 
So on this fine

mo(u)rning I shall
purchase a new pair
of glasses for my

Honey.  Pan out....
Fade....   Open on
full shot of a bed

taking up the
entire breadth
and depth

of the silver
screen.  One
person on it, sur-

rounded by books,
several open, pen
in hand.  This

desperate
attempt at
redemption.