Sunday, May 29, 2016

mmdlxxxvii

Did I Miss Hearing You?

“I don’t remember seeding
you.”  Clearly, I said that.
“Grow open my mouth //
that I may speak as I speak”
...(Brandon Shimoda)... “a
sea forms,” he continues.
The clicking also continues
outside my bedroom win-
dow.  Does that mean that I
am to be continued?  (Sound-
ly, resoundingly.)  Now I
hear cars whizzing down
the main street of my
youth, which is High-
way 22 in Northwest
Arkansas.  The whizzing,
however, is actually just
waves finding their var-
ious ways ashore.  (Whew!)

Thursday, May 26, 2016

mmdlxxxv

A Bar of Soap

“I would like a bar of soap,
please,” I say to the lady.

The lady looks at me as if
she recognizes me.  In
my dream the photo of

Curtis didn’t do him
justice.  Awake, it’s
amazing the differ-
ences between life

and death; between
life and life.  To
think.  If I’d like
to take a shower,
I have the option

of walking a
block down
the street
before,
during, or
afterwards.

graffiti

Monday, May 23, 2016

mmdlxxxiv

I’m feeling kind of
log inside.  I can’t
be $46.  Could you
ever so kindly find
a way to make a
small parade and
just call me a cab.
I eat a few bitches
of the smashed-
together bagels-
&pretzels.  A
shower&coffee
w/ the neighbors
sounds nice, I won-
dered.  The total tab,
as it turns out, was
only 22¢, which is   
                just tabulous!

heat seeking missile

Sunday, May 22, 2016

mmdlxxxiii

Peanut

He didn’t like it
as a nickname.
No, not one bit.
He didn’t like it
as a cartoon.  What
a silly cartoon,
he’d think.
Beagles can’t fly.
But one morning,
before the cat-
hedral down the
street struck twelve,
before it had even
struck eleven, he
walked in to a
dining joint,
sat down,
and ordered
a steak.  And
while he waited
for that steak,
he emptied the
entire bucket
of peanuts,
tossing each
and every shell
onto the already
shell-ridden
steakhouse floor.

Eat Me

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

mmdlxxxii

The Facts Communicate with Themselves
(and can often be found in the Fiction section)

I thrive on sentences.  One might some-
times say that they are flying dangerously
off the side of the cliff.  One might say
alternate reality.  “Well that’s terribly
wrong,” says the comedian in a wetsuit.

“Allow me to diagnose this,” she says,
not even trying to disguise herself as a
real doctor.  Everyone gets it except me,
of course.  They’re all ROFL and then
she’s ROFL.  I’m just ROF until I learn

that my name has always been neither
Ralph nor Rolph.  “You have an excel-
lent understanding of today,” says the
thistle to the undergarment that is sooo
comedienne.  Today we all say “hooray!”

Yesterday we sat dumb in our chairs,
like, twisting our heads almost all the
way around.  Tomorrow will be so
passé.  But jokes to some folks (be
they—the folks, the jokes—ditzy or

deep), even though they might be
funny to everyone else, are so
cliché.  “I rest my case,” says
the Basket Case.  “The dog
ate my homework,” says

Plunger.  “I draw the line,”
says a boy named Sue.
People are just funny that way.