over two decades in the making.
a timeshifting autobiographical poetry collage w/photography.
a diaristic, nearly "daily writing" (ad)venture.
new pieces are posted most days..
**new and in progress** --
recordings of each poem are being added.
these are read by the author & posted to each poem's page.
--Del Ray Cross (contact delraycross at gmail)
Like a dandy. But the fog lingers. I finger my invisible drink, imagining I’m testing the temperature of a pool before diving in, or perhaps it is a bit
more like slowly dipping a toe into fresh bathwater. I’m aiming more for funny than raucous (I think?) as I lift a wet finger and clear my throat. “Waiter,
there’s a fly over here that’s come un done.” The poor guy, somebody’s son, does quite well at his attempt to roll with the punches without coming across the
least bit flirtatious. “Too bad, so sad!” I think, pouring out my imaginary drink.
Back then, wanting to live long enough was so easy-peasy; so rosy-dozie. But when it was proclaimed resolutely on today’s teevee that it was the end of an era, and this was furthermore done in a giddy fashion seemed to have the studio audience just as giddy in return, I sure didn’t believe it. I had known an era or two. And they had ended. And I’d been in denial afterwards for years. When the scientists who measured such things committed suicide, we had absolutely no way of knowing what an era even was. Or is. We just knew from our own experiences that it was not a pretty thing, this era ending. So, despite all of the proclamations, those confident announcements, I didn’t believe a word of it. “This era will end with the apocalypse,” I told my pal Farrah, who, despite her name was very 21st Century. “Lighten up, Dude!” she said. It seemed like her favorite thing to say to me. And it was obvious that she was annoyed. She was already on that end of an era bandwagon. I felt a sudden twinge of nostalgia and, truth be told, a rather extreme desire, more than just a resigned readiness, to welcome that apocalypse with the widest grin I could muster, which would be a small representation of my likewise overly outstretched arms, held in such a way that revealed how craven they were for the tightest embrace they’d ever known. “That’s just way too much,” thought a willing yet sorely disappointed Farrah.
Ponderings & Educated Guesses (yet another interlude)
Back then I wanted to live long enough to tell the stories of what I had no way to put into words, because it was also impossible to float somewhere outside
of myself in order to see what people like to call the “big picture” of what is going on, of how sick I’d become. How emotionally—how mentally—ill.
It was a pre-pandemic deterioration the worst of which I can now say occurred before I was literally kicked out on my ass. Kicked to the curb then
wait what turns out to be this extraordinarily long duration and then kicked out into the
elements. The worst had already happened
by the time I got to the second part, being
literally removed from my home, and the
trauma (I would like it to be understood
that I do not take that word lightly) that
would accompany it, until I realized (even
considerably after this less harrowing set of
events began to occur) my memory, that
dried up orange wedge that had always already
made retrospection something so unlike, that
seemed so seductively distinct, that I had taken
to saying I write to remember...and...that’s why I
take photographs, too, had begun to malfunction,
just as it does for those whose memories are normal.
And I had already been weaving these facsimiles
together for a decade, into what has evolved into
this particular project, which, since that time which
I call the worst of it, years before the pandemic,
dozens of months before losing my home of
nearly thirteen years, I’ve spent yet another
near decade building this quilt made of me,
all slapdash, wherein I can dive into at what
ever point, if for no other reason than the
fundamental one of understanding illness
as I never had, of the incredibly long process
of healing, and the physical deterioration of
simply living that can go on in simultaneity.
One comes of age. One experiences tragedy,
one gets sick and (at least in this case) even
tually heals, slowly, is always healing. And at
the same time, one —usually completely un
aware of the pace, much less that ALL OF THIS
is ever happening, it is all so significant, it is always,
yet, indefinitely, meaning, also, infinitely for you,
It’s Friday, ya know? I wake up real slow. Look around, no mouse. Look some more, no spouse. If I were there and he were here, what would I call the ocean, dear? Since this is just asking myself, I answer. It’s not lava, I suspect. And me being me, having just woken up, do as I do no matter who’d be here (with the only invariable: that I’d have to be)— and that’s the same damned thing I’ve surely done some three or four times since slipping away from yesterday for a few scattered, conked- out, snore-laden fever- like dreams—which is, I excuse myself and I hobble slowly over to the lavatory for that momentary relief. Then I shake it off. But before heading all the way back I pause for a moment at the sink, look my self into the mirror and mutter aloud: Welcome back. Happy Friday. And then back to the bed I go.
My mother has never lost her faith. See how she wears her new striped hat courtesy of an ex, who is, step by step in the background, painfully downing glasses of wine.
What color are the stripes? Is the hat actually colorful? Not like the rest of her out fit, upon which there seems to be a ‘painted’ Italian vista, which, from my perspective
looks to be just outside of Firenze. Two tall walls go breast to sleeve, leaving an admirer, if one is able to lower their gaze from that very loud hat, the ability to peer through what would be,
without the artistic license of the shirt’s designer, more brick wall as seen from inside, or out, a very tall wall, the color of brick so particular to this part of Italy. What can be viewed instead,
‘through’ what would be Mom’s neck down via her sternum to her navel is a terrain-slanted Italian countryside with a few tables replete with umbrellas splayed indicscriminately but no doubt next to some unseen
trattoria, and in the distance a church with an extremely high belfry. Today, one might just imagine those bells ringing. But here in California, we have barrels of wine, instead. With which, me, my elegant mom and my motley crew are more than okay.
I don’t have the time of day. At first, when living alone, one could not ask anyone for the time. Suppose no phones, no lap tops, no internet, no Alexa. Alexa, what time is it? She’s unplugged. I changed her name to Ziggy a few days ago and had no way to ask a question for a fortnight (nor any way to ask her how long a fortnight is) because I kept calling her Iggy. I’m very forgetful. Just day before yesterday...oh, that was just work. Does it count? Does it ever, says my supervisor, all those miles a way. When push comes to shove, I’m a pacifist, al ways have been. Frankly, the problem is I just get distr acted. I would not tell you my problems, anyway. I used to wake up awake. Now I wake up to spend hours awakening. Can anyone please tell me something positive that can come from this? I can’t. I’d ask Alexa, but I for got her name.
went about the day exposing themselves. Sincering, one of the revelers would soon say to a masked person he believed to be his best friend Albert. Albert had unwaveringly maintained that he knew his friend inside and out, when in reality, there was that massive threadbare canvas woven arduously with science and non- fiction and values that hovered over the entire party that night which, after a few strained years appeared as if on the verge of disintigration. Beneath it were the innumerable whispered secrets that zipped electrically through the room, blown hot into every other ear at the masquerade, as if such delicate intimacies were vaporous proof that each blower of gossip could map the very soul of each blowee, and thoroughly. After the lights went unexpectedly dark and the horrendous tragedy ensued, each stranger that remained, each individual that had survived the momentously surreal ordeal, believed that the event had brought them all even closer together, had made them kindred, built a community. And no mere lack of transparency would ever take that away from them.
A Snappy Entry into a Tuesday with Lovett or Leave it
A guest on today’s show is wearing a sweatshirt that advertises an “Abortion Yacht Club” – and she’s just participated in a comedy special entitled L’abortion Variety Hour, subtitled A Cavalcade of Cooch.
Of which, she, one of the hosts of said cavalcade, proclaims:
“It did not disappoint!” And in such a tone that not a soul would have disbelieved her.
“People are woefully ignorant about how it all works, so in order to educate people we created giant inflatable dancing abortion pills,” she offers,
as if further proof
were needed.
This is Lizz Winstead speaking with the host of Lovett or Leave It, Jon Lovett (of course),
who is by now my favorite new obsession of the year (as in I can’t miss anything he’s in, which is hours of stuff
most any week).
Lizz is wearing gold-colored slacks in large square print plaid with purple stripes.
It’s a minute and a half into the show during this morning’s hour and a half or so of me waking up before heading to work, and already (big surprise) I love it, and am happy for the rest of the day, given that there’ll be plenty more of these snippets with which to intersperse it, livening and happying each hour as the
In my notes I had three or four things I wanted to draw to your attention, but it no longer seems important. —John Ashbery
I went to the wrong pharmacy. Well. I went to no pharmacy. I had misread my Google search. This happens often, lately – I need
a new prescription. I mean of course I do, but I meant glasses this time. Where was I? Oh, the wrong place,
and no pharmacy, it was just a regular
Safeway. Which isn’t entirely true. There was a deli. There was a little place where one could buy cigarettes and/or get money orders. It was just
a Safeway at which I wound up trying to refill a stupid prescription I don’t need. But I want it anyway. All is not lost, either. There’s another Safeway down the street
and if I’m reading this Google search correctly, there is a pharmacy there and it’s open until 8pm. But now I’m tired and need to weigh my options. Or else sleep. Which is what I want anyway.
0
