mmmmmcii

Blow the Poem into Baloney

The chief scientist on board was
convinced that it would be a worth
while experiment. At times he
would think that, aside from

those that come with a risk of exp
iration, most any experiment is a
worthwhile one. But, sun of a gun,
this particular experiment came with

an extinction risk of which he remained
until the soggy end unawares. Baloney,
as it turns out, blows. Not only in the
exploding sense, but in the toxic sense,

in the Biblical sense, and even in that
risk of migrating plastics eventually
residing within the testicles sense,
whether it’s ingested, blown onto, or,

as was the case for those on the ship’s
deck, radically blown up. Fortunately
for the sake of neighbors and other
lucky landlocked acquaintances, of

the family members left on the home
front, the chief at least had the sense
to perform the experiment asea. He
thought his senses were steady, but

clearly he had begun experiencing
signs of brain-rot, perhaps brought
about by some of his earlier baloney
experiments. Most curious about this

experiment was what happened to
the men who worked belowdecks.
There was a serious misunderstanding
of some sort, or else the chief’s dementia

had been virulently contagious. For
each of the coal shovelers and the rest
of the generic belowdecks seamen,
before the baloney blow-up, were

cradling an infant-sized loaf of baloney,
rocking it back and forth, with some
blowing kisses toward the tips of
each of the baloney babies’ imaginary

noses. Some of the men who blew too
close found those noses quite tasty, but
refused to season them, choosing instead
to make baby noises. Before the ship

sunk, each had laid down their baby-
length unsliced body of baloney and
had pinned a diaper around the baby’s
meaty middle, or wherever each man

decided it was where its diaper should
be. The assistant to the head of the
blown up baloney incident had been
going around and taking notes, asking

each man cradling a baby-length baloney
belowdecks the sex of its child, despite
it being comprised of a few pounds of
cheap, non-sentient, unalive, soon to be

sinking meats from various portions
of various animals. As the ship
swooped about making its way to
ward the ocean’s bottom, the men

seemed rather astounded that their
babies seemed unaffected by the car
eening and the onslaught of incoming
sea-water. Until each man drowned,

he was cradling his baby made of
baloney as gently as if it had been
his firstborn son or daughter. When
word made it to the CEO of Science,

the Baloney chief scientist’s boss, that
the experiment had been the catalyst
of such a horrendous event, he wrote
a brief suicide note and jumped from his

office window. Ironically, for lunch that
day, he had eaten the most delicious fried
baloney sandwich that his wife had sent
with him to work as he left that morning.

mmmmmci

Toxic Positivity

If I told you where I heard this phrase
for the very first time, just two days ago,
it might say a bit too much about why I’d
until then never heard it.  It doesn’t matter

where I heard it.  Maybe, at least for the
purpose of my current meanderings, it doesn’t
even matter what it actually means. It caused
a bit of a pang in the vicinity of my heart when

I heard it articulated, as well as, I’m sure, a
not-so-subtle eyeroll that was surely noticed
by some of the folks around the table at which
I was sitting.  All I could think at that moment

was, What a tediously cynical world in which, in
order not to be deleterious to those around us,
we are now each expected to be pessimists!

mmmmmc

“Loin Voids”

I couldn’t understand what he was
getting at.  Was he mentally displaced,
or an alien from outer space, or an app
arition that only I could see?  And what

was I hearing him say?  Loin voids?  That
sounded suggestive in an asexual sort of
way.  So of course I was intrigued and
looked around to see if I was the only

one catching this.  It wasn’t a busy time
of day, there were a few tourists, since
it was the time of day that most would
be working in offices in the Financial

District, where we had our encounter.
And then I noticed that I had been
paying so much attention to this,
whatever he or they or it was, I mean,

one doesn’t go around dressed in a
polka-dotted suit, with the dots being
seemingly every color on the palette—
dotted upon white—and NOT get noticed. I 

looked down, I wasn’t dressed for work or 

anything, I was on one of my elongated non-

working periods, you know, the ones that got 

me here typing this story up to you with such

faux urgency?  I was wearing sneakers,
the most expensive pair of shoes I’d
ever worn, to the best of my knowledge,
picked them up the weekend previous at

some swank new hipster haven, it was
on Fillmore, as I recall? So, expensive
sneaks. “Loin voids!” I felt like I was
doing research, but then, as I said, I

looked down, somewhere in the direction
of my own voided loins, but what my eyes
landed on cranked up within me a sort of
exasperation, and anger, and who was the

first...thing...upon which I’d take out this

anger?  My new friend of hollowed out sex. 

I’d just decided he wasn’t a figment of my
imagination but rather one of those Frisco

freaks who walk around at all hours relaying
to whomever will listen some horrible thing
that they were here to tell us was about to
happen.  And soon.  An alien invasion.  The

next best earthquake.  That Jesus was here
and would soon be floating home with his
flock, and he’d be grinning and winking at
all of those of us who were left behind.  Some

such tale of twisted baloney.  But as I said,
while looking down, I glossed over my sexless
middle section and noticed that my precious
new sneakers had sunk into wet concrete, up 

to well above the iconography on the canvas

or hide to level with the laced portion of the

shoe’s laces.  I let out a very feminine

yelp, or it could have been a full-fledged

girlie scream, trying to articulate the pain
I was feeling with words that would have
meant My Brand New Fucking Shoes!, but
me being me it came out more like I, Mandy,

Stuck in Poo!  And this of course was directed
at the San Francisco freak because I was
already blaming him for my somehow not
knowing I had passed a “Sidewalk not in

use” sign, as well as a, “Please cross here,”
as in to the other side of the small Financial
District alleyway the two of us were traversing,
or had been only moments before my shoes

got stuck in hardening concrete.  And after I
yelled whatever indecipherable nonsense I
had yelled at mister voided loins he patiently
gave me a look of dismay as if I had excusable

personal issues or something and said again
what he had already repeated maybe three
times by then: “Hey mister! I said maybe
you should pay attention, learn words, can’t

you read?  That sidewalk’s been closed all week.
He was gone before I could apologize.  Or
before I had the wherewithal to do so.  And
I stood there long enough that I had to slip

my feet out of my new sneakers and walk
home sock-footed, all the way up the hill,
had blisters for weeks, all the while thinking
about what a Loin Void might be, if it would

have been something said, if those had actually
been the words directed by me by the Frisco
Freak who tried to save me and my sneakers
from the fresh concrete from across an alley,

as I failed to focus on what he was saying
in actuality when we crossed paths.  I kept
imagining that he’d always said what I thought
for sure I heard him say, that weird little pair

of words (he had to be from New York City, surely)
that kept me from paying attention to where I
was going and upon what my new shoes had
stepped upon and into.  Which is the story of my

life in a nutshell, I suppose.  Always too engaged
with my surroundings to pay attention to myself.
Always blaming others for my stupid booboos.  It’s
an expensive and an embarrassing problem, to say

the least, and one I’m sure I’ll take to my grave.  I’m

no comedian, but it just goes to show that sometimes 

nailing the punch line is a bitch, am I right?  But hell, how

would I ever know, having never been much of a comic?

mmmmmxcix

Emblematic

What this elicits is the
bleakest day leading to
one night’s emblematic
elation.  I only represent

the villain in this dramatic
conclusion, but I am not
evil.  No bad guy, me.  Him,
he bad.  Did you hear who

said what?  Who noticed the
character folding into a death
star?  Do these things always
require a catalyst?  One day

good, the next bad?  I must be

the villain.  I was never any good.

mmmmmxcviii

Diminutive Derivative 

I suppose one way to put it might be

that I’m quite financially unsolvable. 

Unresolvable?  Unresolved?  I used

to invest, almost in an unbeknownst

fashion, we called it 401(k).  Or that

might have been a brand for a pair

of pants that, when I was much more

financially solvable, I used to wear on

occasion.  I’m a hard fit, my legs a tad

too short for most standardized fits.  But

at least I’m in the States rather than in

Europe, where everyone is apparently

a teeny weenie skinny-Minnie.  I could

take a normal too-long pair up a few inches,

it’s true.  I had an internship during the

year I earned my last degree in which

I taught young students interested in

the dramatic arts how to sew, then we

built costumes at shop before each play.

Oh, and then I managed the house during each

theatrical performance, also an internship.  And 

in the various theatres we had on my grad

school campus that year there were no less

than 10 full-fledge theatrical productions.

Like most years of my life, that was quite a

busy year, and (also, like a lot of my years) 

income was incredibly sparse, despite three 

internships (the third was assisting a campus drug 

and alcohol rehab counselor), and on top of all

of that, I gave 20-30 hours per week working 

at the local Big Lots.  So I’m a bit short, but

if push cames to shove, I have the wherewithal

to take a pair of jeans or slacks up to my twenty-nine

inches (or so) inseam, should there not be any of 

what I supposed are abnormal sizes available.  

So, I have a twenty-nine inches (or so) inseam

and it’s usually hard to find anything less than

a 30 inseam on store shelves.  Some jeans have sizes 

with inseams shorter than 30, like Levi’s, which I 

know, because I grew up wearing 501s.  Ah, no

wonder the subject got off course when I

mentioned I once had a 501(k).  Not being

employed at the moment, and having long

ago gotten rid of my 401(k) money (it went

during the decade of destitution that I am still 

riding out just as penniless as ever), not only do I

owe taxes (at least to the state of California

now) with no income in over a year and a half at

present, but I owe various small credit cards that I had

used to build up my credit ever since I could afford

to when card companies began to give me a little credit

once again after the financial swamp i found myself in

a few years back.  This is a game that isn’t fun, so let’s 

change the subject.  I’m a non-solvent human looking for a job,

having just days ago turned 59 years old.  Which sounds

like a practically unsolvable logic problem, especially if I

were to continue to add on pieces and parts of my

issues at hand.  My ongoing problems.  The downright

tragedies that have kept me from my betrothed.  My 

betrothed.  I do have one of those, and I’m quite rightly 

giddy about the notion.  One obstacle that keeps us apart

physically is that he resides in the Southern Hemisphere 

while I live in the northern half of the planet. and while we’ve

taken care of the papework to get him here we’ve been unable

to pay for said paperwork, the visa that would have him here

and ready to marry me within 90 days upon his arrival (some

twelve or so month, estimated, upon turning in the paperwork

and fee).  Also, even though we talk every day, often several times 

live, and chat intermittently otherwise, in order to procure this visa

so that he can come here I was required to actually and physically

visit with him in real life before we could even think about turning

in the paperwork.  So that I have done, saving up to head to the

Southern half of the planet a year ago March, which was quite an

expense, lovely as it was to finally spend time with him in the same

physical space for a couple of weeks.  It’s been six and a half years that 

we have been thusly betrothed, which is quite a long long-distance

relationship, and that is a notion that I used to make fun of, say, 

when friends of mine got such distanced partnerships of romantic 

and/or committed and/or sexual natures (those seem to be 

the top three characteristics to have if you play a part in such a thing.

I mean, sure, you can have one, you can have a couple of these, but to 

find someone in which you are able to work out all three seems to me 

the very ideal, something that lets you know it might really be worth 

working on, something to keep going, to which you commit.  And I’ve 

not exactly been wise with commitments, but I’ve had a lot of them.

They have had durations from three months to 10 years or so, all

told, which means I have what they call experience.  Somewhat 

similarly, if one were to look at my resume, the one I use to gain

employment, one would see that I have a nice and lengthy set of

experiences in a career that, while I happenstanced into rather

unexpectedy, it is one with which I have been quite happy.   One

would think that things might, considering a pretty decent amount

of experience with each, be able to procure both reliable and purposeful

employment alongside a lovely personal relationship, a family plus career

situation in which one could contentedly spend a lifetime.  But as if this 

writing, and several years of working quite intensely to get at least a good 

part of what I once felt I had going or me, that is not my place, as I

was dealt a ridiculously cowardly break-up from someone with whom I’d 

lived and loved, as boyfriend, partner, romantic and otherwise.  Yes, 

this supposedly aware individual (me) was in love, in a nicely intimate 

commitment, for ten years, until this guy I thought I knew extremely well

hoodwinked me into dealing with his all but actual death, the death of

a longstanding partner.  One day, with no warning, some 11 years or so,

after a fated first encounter, he was gone.  And he left to marry someone 

for whon he’d apparently been hot with whom he had somehow managed

to spend enough time with this guy during around 80% of the duration of 

time that we were together in a supposed committed relationship to skip

town without a word, leaving me with the place that was ours and most

of his belongings, our belongs, to be with him, and no word to me at all.  

This all sounds pretty normal, I suppose, perhaps even down to the extreme

cowardice he displayed by leaving me to grieve like he had literally died,

was dead, is dead, to me.  It is a death that I didn’t even get to have in 

any literal way, he just left without a word before or since.  I had to

spend valuable (and very ill, thanks to this loss) time dealing with the fact that

not only was our relationship fraudulent, transpiring through what at the time

seemed and still feels like were the best years of my life, just to experience

his unexpected disappeaarance in that horrifying way.  In other words, I became

a widow.  He is my dead former spouse.  But the voices of dying spouses live on

in the ears and minds of those they’ve left behind.  Don’t they?  

This has been a meandering stack of information, one in which I have now

quite vulnerably relayed to you that, at 59 years of age, that is, at an age when

 most people begin to at least think in earnest of how  they will wind down, 

should they have such a luxury, I unfortunately, ever since this incident, have a

need, rather, to wind up.  And of getting the love I currently have who lives

on the other side of the world there to me.  Or to work with him to find a way to 

get us reasonably and contentedly together for a life that is real, or in a way

that is a better alternative to having a couple of videoconferences and

intermittent texts throughout the day.  To get the chance for regular and real

touch, living as the best way we can, with real intimacy, in the most 

meaningful ways.  Rather than having only two weeks out of six and a half

years in each other’s company, we can have all or most of a full year

in each other’s company.  Again, I am writing this as a means of relaying,

of understanding what I need by articulating myself.  I do this, perhaps among

other reasons, as means for me to understand myself, helping me gather 

motivation and the focus to move forward in appropriate ways.  All this by

casually letting you in on some of the things I find important in my story 

(why it’s important I do this, and whether this amounts to harrassment, by 

using you, should you, indeed exist, we can talk about some other time, but it

truly is a luxury, a benefit that I am able to do so).  That’s what is on my mind 

and why I have said what I say here on this rather long virtual page.  So I am

appreciative.  Of being  able to do this.  Of you being there (whether or not you 

actually are).  And of using this as a means, perhaps as one might a diary or a

therapist or writing a poem, to solidify a truth that leads to implementation of 

important actions that require establishing or editing goals.  For this, I thank

you.  Perhaps knowing a few things about me might be a good thing for you, 

I cannot say.  But passing along to you these tidbits of me certainly benefits

me.  It helps me best prepare for a hopeful and adventurous future and 

plays an integral part instilling within me (or helps me adjust) the goals that

are necessary to achieve and the motivation to do my part to make them

happen.  That’s a lot of help.  So please accept my most humble appreciation 

of your participation in what has been a vulnerable yet helpful exercise.

mmmmmxcvii

Punctual Procrastination

Like clockwork, Zeb conks out.
The whole crew proceed to veer
their heads over conveyor belts,
around electric pallets driven by

speedbots or other indeterminate

nimrods and others squint toward

just beneath the balcony’s leftmost 

stack of said pallets, (propping up 

the goods, these), and there he is, sure 

enough.  It’s two minutes to conk-time 

for Zeb, our man from Quality Control.
“How does everyone know, though?”

asks a very green engineer, who’s just
caught wind of Zeb’s condition (without
even knowing from which cog in which
wheel the old man’s home of imp-ment

spun).  “Oh, you catch on real quick with
Zeb,” someone was heard responding
to a third or fourth question that the
engineer has about this zonk-o conk-o

phenomenon.  “So guess what?  From
10:45 to about 3am, there isn’t a spare
tab of quality in this entire warehouse,” he 

helped contextualize.”  “You mean....”

the engineer began in a bit of a stutter.
“Yep, this place is one helluva blast for
around four hours every night.”  And
both the questioner and answerer let out

extended guffaws to that.  Only the engineer’s 

was more in that not at all certain what I’m 

laughing at zone while the answer man’s words 

came back in clipped cackles of utter confidence.

mmmmmxcvi

Riding the Soldiers of Romance

     I would like to beat someone with him
     but I can’t get him off my shoulders, he’s like evening.
                                                          —Frank O’Hara

People tell me I’m romantic.  But
I’m a logical guy.  It’s only when I 

happen to not be paying attention

for a little bit that I get caught up
in some affair.  They’re always sordid.
My unbroken rule is that each time that

tornado gets me, something so absurd
and with which I have no experience
gets added to each ride.  Which is surely

a hell created only for me.  I’d rather 

see myself spit-roasted and served to the

squadron to which I belong (or belonged;

death removes, remember?).  “How’d he
kick the bucket?”  “Trying to follow that
roadmap to LOVE, that’s how!”  My

brain hurts to remember how to explain

that last part to you.  Because of the
crime of which I’m accused (a

story, so sorry, that’s terribly true)....
Relieved of his hell, that slow act
of dying was to be his final curse,

or worse.  People, a lot of them,
thought him romantic.  Daily, he

could be heard relaying this aloud.

 

“It’s true, I swear, and this I’ve been 

told, at least once a day.”  At least up

until today.  Does that mean I’m dead?

mmmmmxcv

Mermen of Pressure

Oh, he meant pleasure.
Mermaid massages.
Oohses and Ahhses.
Merman in heat.  Gawd,

that would be neat.
Hair got a permanent.
[Intimate sperm interlude.]
Mormons being sinners, 

quick, what’s your pleasure?
Have you yet measured?
It can still pleasure.
Mars Bars or Mom sweets?

Psh!  Chocolate wuss dandies.
Don’t get so pushy, dear.
It is not the fear I’m afraid
of.  Mushrooms cause

fissures.  Yeah,
go figure.

mmmmmxciv

Those who don’t know history are doomed.
         —from the trailer for HBO’s Life, Larry and the Pursuit
            of Happiness: An Almost History of America (2026)

I see the trailer early this afternoon while I’m
frying up some vegetables and have put on a
pot of rice for lunch, all goodies from yesterday’s
trip to the weekly food pantry.  Cooking takes up

a lot of precious time, and I find myself relaying
this often.  Is it because I don’t like to cook, or
simply because I am lazy?  No, I think the reason 

is I’d rather be doing other things, like checking

off “to do” list items, making important phone calls
(why are there so many of these, they seem to
propagate exponentially as time goes) (and does
it ever go!), reading, writing, posting new pieces

to my 21-year-old online daily project (this one!).
Anyway, there’s not much else to say about that

opening line except that it resonates too well.  I’m 

tired of being didactic, of feeling a need to preach or

teach (it’d mostly be to the converted, anyway, given

the tiny ways I go about such things) (activism—
will I ever resign myself to at least acknowledging
that it’s a responsibility I do take rather seriously,

and one within which I choose not to explicitly operate,
certainly not in any traditional sense, except perhaps,

again, in these lines, which, as noted earlier, is preaching

to the converted, I suppose).  Did I quickly type it up just 

to remind myself of this, to nudge myself into trying
new ways to make a difference?  I suppose it is a bit
too obvious.  In that deceptively profound way.  But
it must not be obvious to everyone, if I am correct.  It is

to the folks in that category I should send such a reminder?

But if I am right, how would I reach any for whom that notion 

wouldn’t begin to register?  Would convincing be possible?  How 

the nastiness of political division and—dare I say it?—sheer 

and mandated ignorance have made it seem imperative 

that even I do something, anything, if a single thing can 

even be done about such a dilemma.  Surely something can

be done, there are surely many possibilities, but each avenue 

I can imagine in which I’d make a difference (like kindly and 

gently doing my best to encourage without coming across as if 

I’m proselytizing, as if I am preaching or teaching) would require 

devoting my life to the cause.  And how would I know that my

values are even the right ones?  I decided long ago against such a 

commitment to be a loudspeaker.  And so the values I find imperative

and the history that has me scattering them at times within thesse lines 

that are likely to be never seen by any of the multitude of individuals 

for whom such notions might assist persists.  So I keep doing as I 

do, all the while pondering how important it is go further, to find

at least a balance between devotion to a cause or two and my
otherwise hedonistic or artistic or financial tendencies.  So that

in the end have I taken down this little quote from a cute, perhaps
poignant new Larry David comdy coming out this year on television 
simply to verify that a cynic, a comedic celebrity, is doing more to make 

the world a better place than I ever will (even if on HBO), to remind 

me of my cowardice?  No.  It is something I already know.  As I also
know that I have perhaps made a tiny difference, if indeed my
basic ideas of morality and a pretty full lifetime intent upon educating 

myself and trying hard to maintain (what I determine in my little head) 

how I should be in order that I might make a difference and live a 

life I can be happy to have lived, doing my part— if that means 

anything.  But it will never be enough.  It’s never enough.  This 

afternoon I shall attempt to own that.  The hyperbolic corruption 

and immorality of this era, this backwards movement away from
progress, this nightmarish regress, something I’d never known
until recently in my short life of mostly impatiently but sometimes
gleefully enjoying living in a land of three steps forward and two

steps back—followed by three solid steps forward—this blessed

repetition has suddenly reversed course, seemingly ten-fold in speed.
I am a coward, it is true, and perhaps even moreso by saying it.  If you
exist, you no doubt already know this.  And for that I apologize, knowing

that act is but pouring fuel on the fire that is leading us back to the
Dark Ages, and I’m in goose-step with the masses, complicit in
our destruction.  Nothing I can say could possibly justify it.  And
yet I say it anyway.  Unless, of course, this gives me (or perhaps

an imaginary you) the gumption to help put on the brakes in
an attempt to reverse course.  About face!  I can hardly walk, much

less turn 180 degrees, barely able to breathe.  Enough excuses!  I’m  

old.  Perhaps an adventure would help me recapture my motivation,

regain some energy.  Who’s up for an adventure?  Oh, but it’s time 

for a nap.  Here in the isolation booth, I decide to sit motionless.  Is

that staying the course?  Does it alter a destination?  To lie in sleep and

dream with satisfaction that to do nothing is a ‘step’ in the right direction.

mmmmmxciii

Mood Movement
(the physics of hues)

The hours are blue.  A blue
that is beautiful, calms the
senses, loosens the tension
behind the eyes.  How are

you doing with the blues?
My mood fluctuates.  It
appears this is pretty
common among us.  So,

is there a color, a specific
hue—the shade of which is
just a sliver up the spectrum 

from heartbreak, and the smallest

nudge down that very same
spectrum from elation—that,
no matter what you’re feeling,
always (always) moves you,

even if just a little bit, in the
direction of a specific feeling?
You can disassociate that hue
from the feeling toward which

it moves you.  If you work at it.
That’s creativity.  But blues are
beautiful.  The blue.  Despair
lives in the same room as joy.

Find your thrills and screw with
them.  Be blue and purple.  And
orange.  Sing pinkly until you cry.

While doing it; and before and after.

mmmmmxcii

Walk the Walk

       And the rooftops are falling apart like the applause

     of rough, long-nailed, intimate, roughened-by-kisses, hands.

                                                                                         —Frank O’Hara

There is a snowstorm, there is hail, lightning.  There

is wind coming at you at more speed than your body

can possibly outmaneuver.  There are the gutless

(soulless) caretakers in whose minds we, those

for whom these demons were called to shelter

from such calamities, do not exist.  And there is a

man hunched almost rotten scratching these words

into this unknown and hopefully reliable surface,

who always chose to fight the good fight with no

fists and short-tempered humor.  A being mostly

predisposed, let’s say by anti-genetics, let’s say that

if he was led by example, his composure, his posture

and general direction were means to NOT be any who

performed before him, who preached at him such skewed

notions of wrong versus right, who built the houses in which

he slept and ate and the schoolyards and playgrounds in

which he played, who tilled the gardens he helped harvest.

The spooked horses he rode through the brush.  The

deceptively thin rivers in which he, as a child, with a rock

the size of his belly tucked and knotted securely within

his t-shirt, dives into that river, its deep swollen current

unbeknownst, threshing through his clothing with his

awkward arms until they bled out with the speed of

the riverbed’s rush of fish and slime-ridden water until

he was free.  Without a moment to spare.  That ancient

impulse to flap his feet as if they were amphibious, and

he was spewed through the surface, able to float almost

as motionlessly as the water was restless, saving that

last bit of energy for when his head bit into the bank

and he rolled atop its clayey surface, safe from death

by drowning or whatever tragedy that wretched river

might have had in store for him, and he breathed,

looking up at the storm-cleared sky for long enough

to be grateful, and then longer still so that he would

remember to be grateful.  And so when he stood as

tall as he could, which he soon did, he’d move in the

directions that grateful and alive would take him,

including those darker places where he’d once again

find himself in danger, but thenceforward each time

he crossed that threshold, he did so with purpose.

mmmmmxci

The Threat Level Moves to Elephant

It’s imminent.  No telephone
can shield us now.  Grant us
the passage of least resistance,
make the pain never go away.

Because when it does.  It’s as if
the Tonys were a movie fighting
an evil version of the Incredible
Hulk.  Or boots made out of llama

hyde.  It wasn’t Tony that drove to
South America, killed all those bugs w/
Kool-Aid at sky o’clock.  It wasn’t
us wearing our fanciest bandanas

as we buckled up in the rocket-ship.
And anyway, this was before the
foreclosure, before the initial war
ning signs, before the airwaves

elaborated on the threat, ramping
it up to elephant.  That gorgeous
Dumbo in my soul.  How we then
recall zingers long forgotten, and

are even more certain of the
wasteland they all were.  She
orders a shot from the nose of a
pre-sliced clown.  The guarana

seizes her sinuses until the
cyan—guarana & cyan—“Re
member, it’s like Jack &
Diane”—makes them bleed.

mmmmmxc

Alk = Talk

It’s sky o’clock.
There’s a knock
and at this hour
on the carport door.

I watch the news
massages for maybe
four hours and I am
trying to be very

careful about how I
tell you this scary
story.  The glory
of a deep tissue

treatment in
juxtaposition
with everything
improper seems

but a hollow holler
given this super-
pixellated
Miami miasma.

mmmmmlxxxix

Epitaph

He ate like a toddler.

mmmmmlxxxviii

This Year’s Hollywood Roundtable of Poets

I got invited to this year's Hollywood Round

table of poets.  You know how they decide
who gets to be on these annual artistic
showcases?  So I was so excited.  I quickly

glanced over the list of the other poets
who were going to be at the roundtable.
There was ____________, the Pulitzer
Prize winner I pretend to the few friends

I in reality have is my actual friend.  There
were two of my true poetic heroes, _______ 

and _____________, the latter of which

is also a gay poet, which made me happy

to not be that token, but also made me
feel a bit competitive.  Oh, and there is
my former mentor, ___________, to '

whom I basically owe my whole career, 

and with whom I had a serious falling 

out over a decade ago and we have not

spoken since. I wonder if I should put
in a call beforehand just to clear the

air.  Or maybe the people who put
us together wanted some intentional
tension.  But the host is __________,
and you know how much of a weak

interviewer they are.  I mean, they
should at least get another poet to
moderate, but that’s never how these
things go, is it?  Perhaps a one-on-one

poet-on-poet talk would have been
a better idea for me.  Oh, but there’s
also _________ on the panel, who is
way out on the fringe, a place I always

feel I own.  But then don’t we all?  I’ll
have to work extra hard not to feel
competitive with how far toward or
outside of the margins my work, my

readers exist.  These fantastical thoughts
bloomed like explosions within my head
for the months leading up to the round
table, but the coolest thing happened

once the day arrived.  We all posed so
eloquently and each of us knew with
utter confidence that we were making
just the right responses to each question,

pushing the absolute best advice about,
whatever our intent, and with such keen
focus on the mix of unexpected, super-
accidental readers or fans, the ones

with whom if we were to have a real
conversation there would literally be
a negative vibe, aongside those with
whom you’ve worked your entire life

honing a relationship so that you have
those few or at least someone who
just gets you. I hear the ratings were
not so good and that they’re thinking

of eliminating the poetry category
for next year’s roundtables, in which
case, sad as that would be, what a
thing to get to be on the last one ever.

mmmmmlxxxvii

Sometimes It’s The Right Metaphor

      O syrup of mammoths!
                      —Frank O’Hara

I’ve recently been reminded that
more regularly than pedestaling
any other artist in my life, I note
as poetic hero, inspiration and

most significant influence the dear
Mister O’Hara.  I think I am convinced

that, In that regard, I am also old
enough to feel fine with that, to

feel like that is about right.  So,
we’re back to one of the two biggest
subjects that seem to keep coming up
these past few weeks, in this case not

lack of money, but instead, a movement
toward older age: the syrup of mammoths.

mmmmmlxxxvi

Broke As Doke

And if I weren’t too old
to try out a career as a
gigolo (knowing that sex
has turned into more of

a niche market than it
ever was, perhaps, but
I can’t really imagine an
actual scenario in which

that would have or could
ever be my career path),
plus, don’t get me wrong,
there are plenty of ways

these days to make a buck
or two, salacious or otherwise,....

No Need For This To Be Continued

mmmmmlxxxv

More Age Old Meanderings

Sometimes I wonder at
what age I’ll finally stop
being so rowdy, calm
down and become an 

adult.  Then I decide

that happened years ago.

And that I was never very 

rowdy in the first place.

mmmmmlxxxiv

“A Real Commitment to Humility”

Conan O’Brien just told this year’s
Harvard graduating class that this
is a focus the value of which is, to
him, greater than any diploma that

one might get from any esteemed,
elitist, or any other variant of an
academic institution.  He acknow
ledges that “we are living through

a time of extreme narcisissm.”  “I 

understand that I am preaching
modesty and connection at a time

when this is not in style,” is how he

started that thought.  I say perhaps.  

But there’s a growing hunger for what

kids these days call authenticity (which,
granted, was until recently a foreign

concept to me, but I’m a guy who likes
to finger the pulse of the trends of
graduates of all kinds).  And finally,
working my way backwards through

his stand-up routine at the ceremony,
Conan O’Brien said this: “As you are
aware, the current administration feels
Harvard admits too many foreign students,

and who knows, they may have a point.
After all, what has any foreigner added
to our American culture, with the possible
exception of music, literature, art, cuisine,

fashion, architecture, dance, scientific
breakthroughs, and the core of our
moral codes and ethical beliefs.”  This
from a Doctor of Comedy, or a comedic

doctor.  Humor wends itself individually
into the brains of its beholders, who are
hopefully all of us.  Poetry, I’d say, not
so much.  But at least I have tried to make 

it so here, by building one mostly out of
the words of this humanitarian who’s had

the luxury of graduating from one of our
most elitist and esteemed institutions, a

modern day legacy who also happens to be,

at least in my humble opinion, a supremely

funny human being, and an ambassador to reality,

by way of ingenuity, in humor and show business.

mmmmmlxxxiii

I Am Yellow Watermelon

I have just learned
that my “gangster name”
is the color of my shirt
and the last thing I ate.

mmmmmlxxxii

“Corndog Time!”

This is after the era of
Gary’s swear bath (which,
truth be told, never happened,
not once, at least to the best of
my knowledge) and soon after the
whistle that lit the entire village on
fire just to get four kids home to dinner.
While the whistles worked wonders, the
corndogs would bring us all together even

more quickly. The only difference was that 

with the latter, the village never had to burn down 

(because, of course, the dogs were very dapper Dalmations).

mmmmmlxxxi

“And Perhaps, Planning a Nuclear War”

You said that seventeen and a half years ago.

I like it when you say “17 & a half years ago.”

You said something like that at the turn of the

century.  I like it when you turn (like centuries), 

and when you’re on both ends.  I like both of your 

ends.  I like it when you don’t go to pot.  I like it 

when we take a gummy apiece and say hours

and hours and hours of terrifyingly comforting

things, in scenario format, each voice over that

of the other’s, as if we’re at war, and only

one side will come out alive.