mmmmmccxlviii

Keyholes

i’m a bit of a sneak, at best,
but i’m no thief.  i know how
pitifully clumsy i’d be with a,
what, a kit?  a gizmo like that

thing the cops would use (and
a few resourceful others—how
did they get one?—i’d rather
not know) to get the poor fool

who’d locked their car with the
key still in the ignition back 
inside their automobile.  we 

called it a slim jim.  back in the 

day i had to scout out a guy
who had one on his person
on more than one occasion,
just to get back behind my 

own steering wheel.  i’ve done
without owning a means of
transportation for twenty-
five years now.  yet even in

years since then, i’ve carried 

a bunch of keys, probably as

much as a dozen, maybe two,

needing only one, two at max,

that got me in and out of 

my home.  i went a couple of 

years with no home at all, no 

key to carry, no car, nothing.  

they were a no good couple 

of years.  i have one now, 

or i guess there are three, 

all the keys i ever use, one 

to get into my apartment

building, one for the mailbox

and one that i stick in the

keyhole of the door to where

i’ve happily lived for a year

and a half.  but i know the
need for such physical keys,

the ones you must pinch and

push and twist, seem to be
making their way into non
existence.  everything’s be

coming electronic. the daily 

need to fill a hole with a 

thing that fits it just right, 

the angled indentions fitting

flush so that, with a twist,

a lock will give.  and you
are in.  even if modes of
transportation and the

houses beside or within

which we park them no
longer require these
spindly metallic tools

that have jangled our

chains on our person,
or in our purses, even 

after pickpockets have

all been forced into

unemployment, i trust
there’ll always be a hole
or two requiring a tool

that fills it perfectly. so

a person can get where
they want to go, or so

a guy might find at least 

a temporary home where 

he might safely get the 

rest required before 

getting to whatever

necessary routine 

that he will be doing 

again, as soon as he 
can get back to it,

to once more be out

that door and onto the 

road.  to fill tomorrow's 

void.  to sate what

always comes: that

next unbearable

bout of hunger.

mmmmmccxlvii

Drawing Attention

There’s a man in the middle of
the street saluting every vehicle
that passes him by.  There’s no
median, no single or double
yellow line, but he’s standing
directly where either of those
would be, and whether coming
or going, heading north or south,
car or truck or larger vehicle or
moped or motorcycle, he salutes
each and every one, gazing for
a brief moment directly at the
windshield or helmet as he
moves his outstretched right
hand fervently over his brow. 

Nobody even honks at the 

guy.  I watch him for about 

ten minutes from where I’ve

stopped on the sidewalk 

that runs alongside the 

street, which is, I’d say,

significantly busier than 

it normally is at this time

of day, or any other.  Until
it begins to rain, a sudden
downpour, and I turn and—
at a jog; I’ve not even worn
a jacket today—head back in
the direction I was heading
before the gesturing interloper 

caught my attention.  After I’ve 

gone about a half of a block at 

a jog, I turn around long enough 

to see the man who’s still standing

right in the middle of the street
giving each automobile the same
salute as before, even as the
cars and trucks and bikes
begin to logjam a bit.  No
one in this city remembers 

how to drive in the rain.

mmmmmccxlvi

“Where Are You Headed?”

I pass three people that I know
as I walk to my appointment
this afternoon.  That I pass three
people I know is unnerving, I’m

elated (a word I find myself using
a lot, lately), I know three people.
Each of them ask me a question,
the same question each: Where

are you headed?  Thankful that I
have a head, I say to each as I pass,
Oh, just to an appointment.  They
each nod and smile.  Our gait slows

for a moment as we literally pass,
then we’re quickly on our way again.

mmmmmccxlv

“My Sister Annie”

annie is not my sister.
but when you say you
have a sister named
annie, i am elated.  we

were talking about antacid
tablets, which you called
bismutol or, generically,
bismu plus.  you said they

were “chewable/like candy/
and pink.”  but then you
said “it says online you call
it peptobismol,” to which i

replied “that’s a brand” (i
explained like kleenex/
tissue, etc.).  then we
were talking about

toothpaste, which you
called colgate or
kolgahteh.  all the
while i imagined that

your sister annie was
somewhere nearby
listening to us talk
about the etymology

of these pseudo-
medications.

mmmmmccxliv

Isn’t being lost another way of saying, “I’m here”?
                                         —Renee Gladman

This sounds good.  I like it.  It stopped me
for a moment.  Or two.

But what if nobody listens?  What if I
go about my day walking through
the populated hallways and down
the busy streets of the city in
which I am a citizen, using
mouth, throat and lungs
to voice “I’m here.
I’m here.  I’m here.”
and nobody, not
even one person,
acknowledges
this proclamation,
this announcement?

mmmmmccxliii

3 Short Spasms

I come by my anger innocently enough.
But I don’t want to talk about anger.  I
do not want to discuss love, either.  I’d
rather experience it, and in experiencing
it, live it.

But what if I feel playful?  What if I feel
playful?  The fact that I find myself at
this moment rather dismissive of that
thought should lead most of us to
conclude that I do not feel playful.

What then?  What then?  Is this my life
story in three short spasms?  While I pause
to consider that question, its redundancy, I’ll 

revel in how expansive it grows in my mind, 

as if an explosion were the inevitable conclusion.

mmmmmccxlii

You Say Dance

Normally, I can’t stand
the present.  So I move on.
This gets me out of here.
Hence, I continue to live,

I exist.  I continue.
Because I’m always
moving out of the
present.  Away from

now.  When you tell
me to slow down, I do
keep moving, but I have
learned the art of placing

one foot firmly into the ground—
so that the foot is buried—while the
other foot is stretching and stretching
until it is almost out of the picture, until

it is almost on the horizon; only the
upper part of it (my leg), because the
foot itself, the one at the end of the
stretched leg, is outside of the frame,

but it remains in my mind.  Which
is to say that I am of two minds,
once you have told me to slow
down, as you always do.  With

one leg half-buried in the ground
that is directly beneath me, and
one stretched so far away from
me, from us, from its twin,

the other foot, the other
leg, that it cannot be
seen, be ascertained,
except in my mind, which

is split.  It is only when
I am of two minds
that I can truly
sense the

movement, the vector
and all of its associated
mathematics, that I can
see, with my two minds,

through my minds’ two (four?)
eyes, that I can sense
a direction, the
something

that is in relation to
where I am.  This process

builds me until I am of two minds
and can see, and can sense, that I am

moving in whichever direction, that the 

feet, both of which I can no longer see,
the one that is buried, as it relates to the 

one that is so far in the distance that it

cannot be seen, that this command,
which I obey, is how I get to know
myself, how I become myself, this angle (angel?) that

I have become, where that outstretched leg

now points in relation to the
one that is buried.  That is who I am;
I exist in this movement.
I have direction.

mmmmmccxli

Elation

     Just by show of hands, how many people here meditate?
                                                            —Amy Poehler

to which alanis morissette says it can cause
“meditation-induced anxiety” – in truth,
watching this week’s ‘good hang’ has been
but a diversion.  i can barely contain myself.

elation.  ever heard of the band meute?  they’ve
been around for eleven years, says wikipedia
(which, sadly, will soon surely be extinct
thanks to artificial intelligence).  which

continues to say they are an 11-piece “self-
described techno marching band from germany
[that] arranges techno, house and deep house
works by well-known djs.”  well, what i feel

watching either of their videos has me elated,
and that would have been about the best
way i could describe that feeling until this
morning, when i woke up to read about the

democrats taking control of both the house
and the senate after yesterday’s election.

mmmmmccxl

thickly they ceded
(a humbling prologue)

child so hidden you
lost the fiction.  we
did it together, neither
dead nor elsewise.

alive was who we were,
then, as bodies.  from
all things juvenile ex
punged, came the

incantation.  oh, you
mealy spirits of
scholarship.  all
are stunted.

and then, as
bodies awake,
arrived.  open
our eyes.

our starving eyes.
ladies and men
of little to no
practice, finish

the sentences.
a demand those
alive pay little
to no heed.  of

those few spirits
a freshly gained
flesh.  that mesh
of ghosts

awakening to

a war.  a few

sleeping verses.

unaware of

making it
to adulthood,
but beware,
take heed,

they slumber
no more.

mmmmmccxxxix

Solitary Confinement

It is 2:30 in San Francisco on a Tuesday
morning three days after Halloween and
I have just watched the third episode of
The Diplomat (season four).  There are
flies on the windscreen.  Depeche Mode
is chanting the soundtrack to the night;
death is, indeed, everywhere.  A fictional
diplomat passes alongside a famous
spaceship captain.  The latter happens to

be one I might call a hero.  I relay to my 

world that I am not ready.  But how could I 

be less prepared for the passing of fictional 

folks and the people who portray them, 

given that I have been without my mother 

now for ten weeks.  The reason I am aware
of how long it’s been since she left this
world is because she never disappears
from the queue on the application I use
for making most of the calls on my
phone.  I don’t have enough of that (or
any other) kind of interaction to see her
disappear from the viewable list that
is called up every time I send a text
message or make a call.  The pact I’ve
made with myself has me moving ever
so gently past that subject to keep my
spirits high, and it seems to be working,
for the most part.  I’ve been reading the
work of my favorite dead poet, which also
helps.  Otherwise, I would not recommend
such gliding about upon surfaces for the
limbo in which it has me now living, but
those of us who practice efficiency, who
are above all practical, begin by weighing
pros and cons to determine whatever route 
might give the biggest pile of positivity.  That

becomes our road less traveled.  Honestly,
I think this practice is beginning to dumb
me down, to make me lazy.  But, with an
excessive amount of grunts and sighs and
eye-rolling I’ve managed to tick several
important items off of my list of more

urgent tasks today, so despite being
surrounded by death’s darkness I am
in pretty good spirits, I’d say.  But it is
past three in the morning and I’m not
so daft that I’m unaware of a fairly
pressing need for rest, for sleep.
So I’ll stopper my thoughts as best
I can for the time being. 

Warmly (alone, and yet among the living),

mmmmmccxxxviii

Carefree

It is a serious, top-heavy day.  

I have several tasks I had want

to finish.  But I just cannot bring

myself to focus on either of them.

While unfocused, I notice that
my friend of many years, who
had dropped by the night before
to keep me entertained, apparently

has written something on my wall,
next to the northernmost window
that looks out upon the alley next 

to my apartment building.  It appears

to be written using a black marker.  I 

stare at the writing for a long time from 

where I am perched on the other side 

of the room, unable to make out any

of the words, or even any letters.  Also,
thanks again to my creative friend, there is

an anaconda crawling over the banker’s lamp 

that I found last year, and brought home, 

to paint and then place upon my desk, 

which is situated below the window
that now has, mid-way down its frame,
the markings in black that I am still

trying to decipher from too far away.  

Another friend calls me.  He tells me

he has been involved in an accident
while commuting upon his electric 

bicycle down Nob Hill one recent evening

after work.  He says he must have fallen 

asleep.  At some point later, 

he says to me he woke up in a 

hospital and was told that he had

broken his clavicle, had fractured a couple

of his ribs and might have a concussion.  He
later calls to update me on a doctor visit, mentions 

wanting pizza.  I throw some fruit into a bag, 

run to the corner store, purchase a frozen 

pizza for him and a few snacks for myself,
then drop by his apartment to give him

the fruit and the pizza.  Back home, I 
continue to refuse to walk over to the window 

to read whatever it is that my friend had

scribbled next to it in black marker.  I

think of the ceramic hearts and butterflies
the same friend had glued next to the light switch

in my bathroom a short time after I moved

into this place.  I sit watching 

podcasts and news broadcasts about the 

upcoming election (which is in a few days), in 

various states of anxiety and hope.  Among the 

things I had planned on completing was voting, 

and my ballot lies on the bed beside me.  I

read poetry between the clips of election 

coverage.  The room gets a bit chilly so I pull a 

blanket from in front of me to wrap around and 

cover my legs.  This inability to focus has been a 

pretty consistent thing with me over the past few
months.  I let that thought ring and then echo
a bit in my head.  The room is otherwise silent

but for a lone fan that sits next to the other 
window in my room, which also looks out upon 

the alley next to my apartment building.  I manage 

to somehow rid myself of most of the day’s anxiety, 

so that I become lighthearted and calm as the day
approaches its end.  I do not know how I was able
to transition from the stressful day into such peace, 

but I do not spend time trying to understand 

it.  My focus remains on the surface of things,
and keeps darting about wildly, and I simply
allow my mind to coast with ease from
one subject, whatever it might be, to another.

mmmmmccxxxvii

A Brief Buzz

it’s a meaningless
halloween and i’m
tripping backwards
through time to land

a tipsy figure upon a

diorama, a tiny version 

of something that’s a bit
fuzzy but did certainly

occur.  it’s me and a
bunch of strangers
now.  i wind my
pointer finger up

to catapult from my
thumb and flick each
character that is so
carefully situated

within the tiny set.
flick!  flick!  flick!
there are such better
things i could be doing

with my time.  i’m no
longer a masked crea
ture roaming the dark
streets, enjoying the

holiday frivolity, or
throwing a party,
i’d flick represent
ations of each of the

partygoers, should i
be presented with a
miniature version of
that spectacle.  alone,

reading poems from
a dated collection, 

trying creatively
to be thankful, to

paint a small portrait
with a few basic strokes
of a moment in which
i was present, but there’s

no warmth in that, no rush
of blood or adrenaline that
comes from this perspective.
and were i to go back, if i

could somehow look through
the years to the dim silhouette
rocking back and forth in an
attempt to meld the present

with the future (as i do the
present with some bereft
past), well, i would never
have made it to this place,

to these thoughts, this
moment.  i would have

flicked all the superfluous 

characters to points outside

of the frame of the painting
(new frames are construct

ed to further imprison) and

run like mad in the opposite

direction.  with time, hap

piness vanishes.  so it is

imperative to know when 

it is time to make a run

for it.  otherwise one

waits an entire lifetime 

in solitude planning 

the great escape.

mmmmmccxxxvi

Confessions Spoken Into A Slight Breeze

“What about his deepest, darkest secrets,”
someone thought while the performer was
in the middle of his most turbulent scene.

I was having a conversation with my best
friend the way we always have conversa
tions, which means we were texting on Line

or Instagram, which I was doing on my new

iPhone.  Somehow we got into a really heated 

argument.  It happens.  He was upset because he 

didn’t think I gave him any time to speak, that

I kept interrupting him.  I was.  This happens.  

So he said a few mean things, and he can say 

really mean things.  I can never get used to 

hearing my best friend say really mean things 

to me.  So then I got upset, and soon after that

he excused himself, because like anybody with 

a bit of common sense, he knows when he 

needs to take a break and to calm the fuck 

down.  I, on the other hand, sent, within the

length of an hour, enough text to fill an average

sized novel – or at least a short story, which

was the choice most picked for book reports in
eleventh grade, a book that, for example, when 

eyeballing the options looked like the slimmest in 

volume.  This was not me, actually.  When book 

report season arrived, I’d always pick one like Shogun 

or Stephen King’s The Stand.  If it wasn’t at least 

a thousand pages, I figured it would not be worth 

my time.  Yes, I was that annoying adolescent.  But,
that might not be the whole story.  I simply welcomed 

any opportunity to spend enough time with a book that 

I really felt like I was in there, had been there.  Which 

didn’t work, really, considering I don’t have that kind 

of memory.  I require photographic reminders, if not

full-fledged journal entries, in order to call up the
capacity to fully recollect a scene.  When I finally

began traveling abroad, to all of the wonderfully
foreign cities that I’d grown up knowing I had to
visit, I’d always make a point of spending a solid

two weeks, if not more, in each specific city.  

My first such trip was to France, where I spent
two weeks in Paris.  While in Paris I turned forty.  

I didn’t even go to Versailles.  I just wanted to

spend as much time living amongst the city folks
that I came out feeling like I might be Parisian.

I have never once met my best friend in person.
We’ve known each other for over a decade now,
which has been for both of us a series of pretty

wild ups and downs.  While I am not close with many

people, I’ve also had a boyfriend for nearly seven 

years now.  During that time, we’ve spent exactly 

two weeks in the same city, his city.  Next week, I’ll 

be turning in the paperwork so that he can come here.

We’ll then get married, and will finally be living in 

the same hemisphere.  I was just informed that the 

estimated duration from turning in the application 

to his arrival (now that we finally have the money to 

do so) has doubled to two years since last year, 

when the paperwork was actually completed.
How can I possibly turn sixty next year?  I

do certainly hope to get that opportunity (getting

married, turning sixty).  Since my mid-twenties I’ve

had something like eight therapists, and with each of 

them I met regularly for an extended duration.  My 

new one seems intent to do something all of the 

rest never hinted at doing.  She wants to diagnose 

me with something.  I don’t really have many

secrets.  But there are a ton of things about me
that no one has ever heard.  Because, for

reasons that I’ve tried to explain elsewhere,
I don’t interact much with other folks these days,
certainly not with folks with whom I’ve had a 

lot of previous interaction.  But that is some

thing I remain very committed to changing.  

I strongly believe that reaching an important 

goal should not be such a struggle, especially 

when the odds of reaching that goal 

keep decreasing.

mmmmmccxxxv

snowball

in hell
we like the
cold snaps

it’s not like
toledo or
boston

and
truth 

be told

it’s not
really
even

what
might be
called a

respite—
it is hell
after all

but some
times with
a little bit

of focus
especially if
it’s a part

icularly long
and gnarly
day (and all

days are
as equally
long as they

are equally
gnarly 
and

hellishly 

hot) one can 

almost—

i mean this
takes a LOT
of energy

more than a
citizen of
hell might

muster
truth
be told—

if one
were to
focus

hard
enough
to tilt the

scale just
a bit in one
way or the

other. . . .
well. . . .
one

would not
be in hell
would they?

the blisters
from the
burning

baseballs
dry 

solidly

into
stone hard
callouses

mmmmmccxxxiv

Thick Dark Circles Under My Eyes

     I took a cab then walked then caught a bus and now I’m on a train.
                                                                   —Micah Ballard

I’m losing my touch.  I’m no longer in touch
with my fair city.  I am up until 2am playing
games by myself, which is the opposite of
engagement, my religion.  I’m engaged, but

the opposite of engaging.  Taped to my door
when I return from my doctor’s appointment
is a notice that lets me know that my apart
ment building is being painted beginning this

week and it goes on to demand that I shut my
windows between the hours of 8am and 5pm
on weekdays until the painting is completed.
I missed my food pantry today because the

appointment with my doctor took much longer
than expected.  By the time I left the doctor’s
office to head back home I was ravenous.  The
car that had been arranged to take me home

canceled so another car had to be called to
take its place.  But within five minutes the
second car had arrived and I hopped in to head
home through the lunch hour traffic, growing

more and more sullen thanks to my hunger.

Once home, I ate in too much of a rush and,
feeling exhausted, laid down and slept until
after 7pm, when I received a call from my

boyfriend.  We carried on with intermittent
laughter for exactly fifty-nine minutes, said
good night to each other, and I then played
video games for another three hours, then

wrote a few lines of what I call poetry.  Be
tween games I catch a few political podcasts,
and all the while keep promising myself that
I’ll watch The Invite before going back to sleep.

mmmmmccxxxiii

an overly complicated oversimplification

i could offer that i am nothing if not sincere.
and i could then stop right there.  and the
broad spectrum of interpretation that even a
rather compact set of individuals might each
individually deduce from that fairly straight
forward encapsulation of who i say that i am—
and i am me, and that is the first thing that
came to my mind as i thought of how i might
describe myself in such a way that i might give
the best and most complete picture, should you
have no idea of me, within just one line of text—

well, it just goes to show how language and com

munication and words and all that we might use

in an attempt to relay with clarity to others, whether

it is our most feeble or even the most elaborate

or perhaps the most concise line we come up with

in an attempt to unveil something we believe to be

a significant aspect of who we are, if that is what we 

wish to do, if that is our assignment, to do so as if 

our life were dependent upon doing so.  but we are 

not automatons.  relaying just this one line might

reveal such varied and broad interpretations from

any set of individuals who take such a synopsis in,

that entire novels might be from all of the various

interpretations that each might relay back; and in

summation the sum of those descriptions might 

paint a character with such a centrifugal personality

that no reader would be able to find anything to

cling to that might identify them, they might in

no way resemble the person, yourself, about 

whom you had in earnest tried to describe but

one important trait.  and this might even give

give one pause about why it might even be 

important, human character, much less that

of our own, causing us to question any of the

core values and tenets with which we have 

come to identify as ourself, the key tenets

we embrace as ours.  making matters even

more difficult is the fact that this exercise

assumes we know ourself enough to attempt

such an exercise, and it does not even take

into consideration how much bigger that

canvas becomes if we do not begin with a 

common language.  there are so many ways 

to interpret a line of words strung upon a page 

that were meant to give you, directly from me,

something that is significant about who i am.  if

i were to spend as much time as i could trying

with words i come up with to give you the essence

as best as i can of that characteristic, it might 

then come back as iterated by you so far away 

from what i had intended that i might get bogged

down in the perplexity, i might literally exhaust
myself in an attempt to get just one other person
to see one thing that, to me, is, and for as far back
as i can recall, a characteristic of my own self that
i cling to as if it is authoritative, as if it were severe
ly pertinent, overarching and primary among my
many characteristics.  and, what might make me truly
throw my hands up in resignation over what seems at
first to be a simple exercise is how closely who i think i
am resembles in utter reality the person who every day
is me, who acts as me, who walks through this life as
no one else but me.  and, truth be told, the older i get, 

the less i can with confidence assume that i really know
who i am.  so to give you a description of something that

is certain and basic about myself is an infinitely complex 

and mysterious and beautiful and exhausting and 

impossible task.  but if i am confident of one thing alone,

it is that this task might be the most important thing we

can and should continue to attempt to do.  and when a

person returns that favor by attempting to reveal any

thing that is theirs, accept such a gift with the respect

of listening as wholly as you might.  and never stop

trying to learn all you can about the hearts of others

and relaying anything so that one might catch even 

a reasonable tiny true glimpse of any part of you.

mmmmmccxxxii

Adjusting Focus

not being able to see with enough
clarity to pick up a book upon
waking up of a morning, having
difficulty seeing anything at any

time, when this has not been your 

overall experience thus far with your
eyes, with general perception, is an 

event that creates new ways of being.

these happen, can multiply in an expo

nential pattern with age, will necessitate 

fresh ways of looking, new angles of
approach aimed at outlook.  having

such altered states of perspective 

skew one’s view, can broadly increase

anxiety and how we feel about our
future, whether or not we have one;

our debt might increase or decrease as

a result, and should we have a list of 

things in life we have come to regret, if 

any regrets exists, it might expand or

contract.  but let me for just a moment 

address those of you who like to insist

you’ve no regrets at all in life, wherever 

you might be on that journey, as there

seems to be a bit of a trendy back
lash against us heathens who go
about our days and nights con
vincing ourselves that wrong

turns are non-existent, at least
when they transpire in the past.
forget these haters and their
guilt-inducing rhetoric.  live your

life as you see fit.  and, above all,
don’t belay the sense of urgency
that this sudden inability to make out

words on a page, something you have

capably and easily done heretofore,

has you feeling.  but do not dawdle, 

either.  take the time to build a strategic 

and well-mapped solution, as well as at 

least a couple of back-up plans, just in 

case the first one yields less than
satisfying results.  you will surely
have an entirely revamped sense

of your person, complete with all
of your life’s goals and directions,
mapped into a profoundly more
enlightened format, most likely with 

a clear set of instructions for how 

to get to each step along the way.  

take this as a sincere welcome 

to a wiser and more mature era.

mmmmmccxxxi

I Feel Like I’m Just “Need to Know”

i’ve had one eye on this cubbyhole here
without moving the target of that single-eyed
focus for about eighteen hours.  so i do most
sincerely apologize for your frazzled wreck of
a man over there.  i have seen so much in this
brief yet explosive life, but i can say without
a tiny hint of deception that i have never seen
any living human work so hard to get but such
a slim duration of that sharp focus that comes
in single pop staccato from the groove that is
so permanently sewn into the heart of the
most transitory spasms of your unwavering
and yet dangerously endearing attention.

mmmmmccxxx

is

there something (a book, a television show,
anything) called the hoes of floeville?  or

is that just a nothing bun that i made up in my 

head, a mere daydream that i simply concocted

within my imagination, a figment that i somehow
managed to permanently transfer into reality?

mmmmmccxxix

Assessment of an Ass Gone Backwards

my assessment: i am too honest,
straightforward, blunt...redundant,

but not enough to get a point across
with clarity (a cross; put a pin in the

genetics of it) (each year the research
seems to bring us closer to the roots and

branches of the family tree; i only sug
gested the pin as a—would it be a joke?

—because it is a too-used phrase i’ve
grown to acknowledge with an eye-roll,

but has its overuse perhaps peaked by
now?...the things that become more dif

ficult to stay on top of [the things to
the top of which it gets harder to climb]

[the things to top upon which i attempt,
and with diminishing gusto, to climb] or

rhyme.  this blusterous noise of nothing,
this noisy nothingness, this bombastic

barrage of blanks that boom as if mere
duds were all that filled the barrel of a

pistol that has its lever pulled repeatedly
by a blistered digit belonging to some

trigger-happy creep, that’s what this
godforsaken week has been.  all noise,

mere distraction and bleeding eardrums.
this is what happens the further away from

the structure of steady employment or the
regimen of appointments or lessons, of

sitting bored in classrooms from nearly dusk
until the embers of the winter sun have faded

into a moody hue of indigo.  you wish the rest
of light away, crave the impossibility of obsidian,

but the slowly dying city never dies enough, and
so, with smoldered haze of light that won’t allow

these eyes to distinguish but the basics of the
complicated map that once unfolded becomes

impossible to finesse back into a semblance of its
original state, you stumble down the path toward

the ocean, or so you think, weaving in and out of
brazen, brash and awkward through poetic frivolity

and frugality, never finding the tide nor even a
a swath of cooling sand, where all of the paths

that cross this city with which you’ve become so
intimate, and without failure, end.  this is a con

fusion which drags the light of day, the clearest
way from the muck that you’ve been stuck in

toward the least resistant trail with the slightest
slope that will lead you back to clarity, back to

distinguishable signage and perhaps a crew in
recognizable uniforms that might help you through.

which is all to say it has been a week.  with setbacks
that have turned all clocks back to somewhere we

once and not so long ago called past.  with almost
no commitments nor resistance you’d think we would

be getting somewhere, and fast.  but, exasperatingly,
here is where we find ourselves.  here’s to hoping that

our next stop will be somewhere over there.  and

please, we pray, not at some familiar point that

lies between here and where we started, when

ever it was that we did.  all that time ago.

mmmmmccxxviii

Richly Espousing

for a few moments
we each got lost in
our own versions of
etymology.  when lydia

walked into the room,
the person who appeared
to be the leader was addressing
the classy crew, “okay, it’s time

to do a bit of time travel.”  lydia
quietly assessed how calm the
charge, tried to mirror that tranq
uility with what she had come to

believe was her superpower.  she
seated herself with a slow-motion
grace that, what emanated from the beauty 

of such deliberate movement numbed the

perimeters of consciousness of the inhabitants 

of that comfortable space, taking the
edge off of the cumulative
verifiable presence within the

room.  her presence had
not only been accepted,
but it had done so by those present 

with such mutual acceptance

and ease that all were
working almost instantly
as one.  and with such
an openness.  the

cooperation was so
ideal that the aforementioned
”leader” took an extra long breath,
expanding coolly out of what had been

a necessary moment, releasing her charge
until an equanimity took hold, until neither
of the individuals, not one soul in that space,
could with any of the laboratory’s tools (which were

the best available, and the best were truly stellar) measure

even a micron of inferiority or superiority.  this had
always been the goal. and we each remained equally 

insistent upon maintaining it, unwavering but for 

such moments of transition that had just been

experienced; entrances, occasional
exits, rare dispersals that long ago and for time
immemorial had so carefully and gently been built into their lives,

its structure, so that their civilization could
now and for all times, an expanding stasis,
as a whole, as one, progress; no individual,
no citizen, ever relying or leaning upon this perfection,

this expansion, any more than another, no one
stumbling or losing a bit of footing during such
transitions, relying any more or less upon a thing.  this
peaceful and enlightened whole, as one, progressing, no individual....

mmmmmccxxvii

Happening Right Now

“are you upset about my premonition,”
i ask him, “about you and your quinoa
this morning?”  imaginary beginnings.

trying to learn how not to walk straight,
i always seem to walk a line (it’s alright if this
has you thinking of johnny cash).

when gliding through semi-consciousness,
barely touching upon any context, except that
we’re dancing, me and my machine.  and

we’ve all the context we need (the
only memorable thing thus far, now that
you are reminded by a change in volume

that you had hit play on a recent tiny desk concert
that now replays on the big television screen at
the foot of the bed, to your right, just over

the still life of fruit and vegetables) noticing as you do
that the lead rap-mama just used the word texts in
some no doubt salacious sense but has pronounced it,

distinctly, texas.  this is after she has sung
three or four boring numbers at the top of the
set.  but now she turns the volume up as we all know

she can, stretching those bronx vowels
at a clip that’s about twice as fast as a horse’s
trot and, waving her arms around and about in

an illogical but fluid fashion, she shifts gears,
booms: CHANGE THE VIBES!    CHANGE
THE VIBES!    CHANGE THE VIBES!

whatever stain from being so down
and out for the past few years, no
matter how impossible it is to

scrub away the ink of that squalor (life in the
institution of destitution) .... i grew up
with folks who worked like mad just to

ensure us kids got to coast up through
adolescence and beyond unaware of any
hardcore financial obstacles – oh, we each

got our mandatory turns helping clip coupons, it’s
not like frugality wasn’t preached at us from
numerous angles and with regularity, but

we had it easy peasy.  whatever my father’s
lesser dreams or otherwise perverted
desires (of which there seemed a

seemingly endless supply), his overarching
motivation of giving us each a better life
than he had when our age was the loudest,

the most consistent.  just back from my
weekly food pantry clack-tapping these
lines onto the laptop perched upon

my circular pillow, my wrists bouncing around
on either side of touchpad, rocking it back and
forth atop my bed, next to a pile of cantaloupe,

bok choi, onions, tiny white potatoes, zucchini,
green oranges, squash, lemons, a package of
spaghetti and two big bags of green lentils.

oh, when your lower back is hurting and your
body can’t help but begin to dance like a marionette
that mimics the oversized cellphone or the miniature

word processor that dances before you, at your whim,
and you’re sated (but slightly dry-mouthed) by the
multi-colored array that’s wrapped like a cornucopia

half-in, half-out of your fuzzy brown comforter that you
promise yourself will go into the wash this evening, when
you’ll clean, chop and then sauté a select and generous 

assortment in the frying pan you’ve been wanting for years 

but have only just this week been able to purchase.....and 

you’re not much of a chef but you just know you have

so much desire and you’ve become convinced that you have
an intense potential for talent—so much so (and this
happens often enough) that you can barely contain yourself.