mmmmcmlxxi

Koko Schnookums

Koko Schnookums had a name
and it was Koko Schnookums.

He carried around two pillows
(yes, he!) upon which he couldn’t

rest his weary head, should he
have had one.  Koko was baking

a strawberry pie, facing the
proper direction.  He’d drink a

tightly wound Muscle Milk just for
a couple of tightly wound muscles. 

He’d open the refrigerator door, 

which was low to the ground, so 

he’d bend over, look around into 

the cool refrigerator, and pull out

a beer.  It was something cheap,
this particular beer, like most of

what was kept in the refrigerator
that was low to the ground.  Koko

would belch around four to five
times, on average, after drinking

one of his cheap beers. And after
that fifth belch he’d likely be found

stooped over with his two pillows
at the refrigerator scrounging

around for another cheap beer.
If he found one, he’d drink it.

If not, he’d go back to the stove,
and do a bit of cooking, once again

his body facing just the right direct
ion (toward the stove) where he’d

stir a bit or turn over a few items
frying in the pan, or put some

rice on, then he’d come back to
the cutting board atop which

were a slew of vegetables and

next to which was a paring

knife, and he’d go about slicing
and dicing and peeling and once

in a while julienning the veggies
that he’d lain atop the cutting

board to be at the ready, and 

then he’d either scoop things

up and put them into a pot 

or a pan or he’d pick up the

cutting board and slowly,
using the paring knife, with

the board at just the right
angle, scrape the slices,

dices and/or juliennes into
a receptacle upon the

stove.  And eventually,
he’d carry those pillows

back over to the fridge
and bend over, just so,

in an attempt to find
a third beer in there.

And in that effort he’d
most often succeed.

mmmmcmlxx

What’s for Supper?

(This one is after Diane di Prima’s
“Prevailing Foods at Times” from
her book Dinner and Nightmares.)

Mom gave birth to four children in
three years.  It might take a beat
for you to realize, then, that there
were twins, who were two years

younger than me. Then, a year
later, came my sister. I had the
place and all of the family’s att
ention to myself for nearly two

years, that’s it. All this is to say
that when it came time for supper
(which, in Arkansas, is what other

folks call dinner), it was every 

kid to him or herself.  After first help
ings were served, there were rarely
seconds for anyone.  And there were
only a few regular suppertime meals

that my mother would prepare for us
for our family evening meals. They
were something like this:

1. Hamburgers (my dad raised a few cattle, so we always had a freezer full of beef) and French fries (from frozen sometimes, but most often from our garden’s potatoes)
2. Tuna casserole (this was my least favorite of regular meals – it had cream of mushroom soup in it – Campbell’s condensed, of course)
3. Fish sticks (frozen) with French fries (see above) or macaroni and cheese (Kraft from the blue box) and probably some green beans – I think these came from cans, but they could have been from either our garden or my paternal grandparents’ garden
4. Beef stew that sat in the Crockpot all day with potatoes and carrots
5. Fried catfish and hush puppies – this was one of my favorites, but it would require that someone went fishing and had some luck that day, and I despised fishing, a common pastime of my dad’s and his parents on weekends.
6. Breakfast for dinner – fried or scrambled eggs, toast, milk, maybe a hashbrown (from frozen) and bacon or ham. (It’s possible I’m misremembering this one, but I’ve always loved breakfast for dinner.
7. Sandwiches (usually baloney, sometimes cold ham) and potato chips (usually Lay’s regular)
8. Sloppy Joe’s – which was also one of my least favorite regular meals.
9. Chili with beef (or sometimes deer) and beans with saltine crackers.
10. Pizza from a frozen box
11. Pork chops or pork steaks of some sort, pan fried, usually with macaroni and cheese and green beans.
12. Salmon patties - made from canned salmon with added saltine crumbs and egg, fried in a pan.

I’m sure I’m not remembering one or two 

of the meals we’d have on a regular basis, 

but I can add that we’d occasionally have as 

side dishes okra (fried or boiled – the latter 

of which only me and my mom would eat), 

black-eyed peas, pinto beans, green beans, 

sauerkraut (again, only my mother and I ate 

this), and there would quite often be corn

bread – oh, and we’d also have hot dogs

for supper pretty regularly.

mmmmcmlxix

Shout Out to Who I’m Becoming

Type 2 diabetes.  How many of you in here
have type 2 diabetes, show of hands?  Did
you know that you can be diabetic for years
and then one day, poof!, you’re no longer

diabetic?  How about that?  Oh, I have a walk-in 

closet at my new apartment.  How many of you, 

you know, as a child....?  How many of you dreamt of 

having a walk-in closet?  I know I didn’t.  But boy,

was that ever a sort of merit badge of wealth we 

were taught by the sitcoms in the days of our youth, 

am I right?  I now can say, proudly and loudly, that
I have a second bedroom in the lovely apartment 

in which I live.  Crazy!  That’s crazy y’all.  And pimp
daddies!  Pimp!  Daddies!    Now don’t you have it
made in the shade?  You know I’m not kidding!
Let’s hear it for all of you pimps out there,

show of hands, we’re all friends, now come on,
seriously, raise ’em up you fabulous pimps.  We

can complain about each day until our mouths
bleed, can we not?  I mean, there’s an immeasurable

amount of bitching we can do.  But God is most definitely 

watching over us, is he not?  And that is no laughing matter, 

my friends.          That is the real deal.

mmmmcmlxviii

A Great Idea Saves the Day

Or that’s what I’ve dubbed it.  My
Great Idea.  It might sound like a
scheme, but I don’t do schemes.
Maybe you know what I mean,

but what a truly pandora’s box
of a sentence that was.  Anyway,
already I want to change the
subject.   Mostly because sud

denly I am having a run with
the nausea.   I almost said
the trots, instead, as that is
what my Grandma Hazel

would have said to anyone
within listening distance and
without a seeming care in the
world what anyone might think

of her, all six foot two of her
(she didn’t just have a command
ing presence, she demanded
it).  Not that anyone would have

looked down upon her for announcing
so boldly her bout with diarrhea.
It would have been quite difficult
to criticize anything she’d say as

she spoke with such a wry sense
of humor and with never even an
extraneous syllable (but she’d make
two out of every normally singular

syllable being from the part of the
South in which she resided at the
beginning and end of her life).  So,
the runs.  And I’ve now accomplished

changing the subject and the tone
of what began as an optimistic and enth
usiastic cabin made of words.  I mean,
it began that way and now wants to

make its final thoughts heading in
exactly the opposite direction.
So if it grabbed you by the get-go,
you’re no doubt a bit turned off

by how things seem to be winding
down.  If so, I’m very sorry about
that.  If it makes you feel any better
(and do you have Pepto Bismol handy,

by chance?) that initial fantastic idea
remains not only doable by all perpsec
tives that I can muster, but it is a plan 

that I intend to implement. And so 

if I say stay tuned for further information,
I’d surely mean it, as the plan is an idea
most relevant to such pedantic, low-brow
activities as the one in which both you and

I are currently no doubt voluntarily choosing
to activitely participate.  So.  I would welcome
it if you to stay tuned to these pages for further
information on this thing that I call a Great Idea.

mmmmcmlxvii

Honeys, I’m Home!

[to be read or sung imagining that 

each word might mean something]

Did anyone hear that?  It’s not so much
that it was the deepest dip my psyche
has ever taken, nor that I felt suddenly
as if I’d been had—and in such a way that

there’d be no more had left to have (all
of my have being so thoroughly, severely
and singularly had)—which would be a bad
enough sensation to endure without the

act of opening one’s dry, tomorrow-less
eyes to the world that’s so swiftly disapp
earing, at which I’ve given nothing worth

while, never, not ever, not even in the least,

most certainly nothing to which any of the 

remaining inhabitants would want to cling, 

might they even have (had) the ability to 

wrap an alien hammer neatly with a bit of

what of me remains, a smidgeon of tough
purple sinew that, once eaten, has the bells
of the cathedral clapping so happily that an
entire countryside awakens, filled with the

steam and the stink of a passionate and
enduring swarm of quivering earthquakes, 

metaphorical bellies each and all, aquiver 

in their attempts to fill the chin to chop 

once-livered soul of a life lived ever dully
and with neon representations of what within
my last thoughts (they exist!) were of what 

the world needs now. surely not something 

somebody dug up to smugly and mind-

erasingly protect the liberties of an already 

forgotten tender-bun to unschool us all 

with what nobody’d evern have known were

the nag-didactic foreshortened swipes of
forgetfulness.  at this point several drown, 

beings agape at such melodramatic spectacle. 

each of these winter-watered souls now real deal

gone, soupy human dinner sans dessert for the 

deep blue highway’s top-heavy bottom-dwellers, 

who’ve managed to evolve enough to belch any

remaining reminder that such talentless taste-

free fricasee forgotten before being gone a mere 

minute or two by earth’s entire slew.  Nobody’s 

last day’s for naught?  For whom, you say?  

Those gone so fast I’d forgotten to say. 

(Sounding a bit smitten)  But isn’t everybody’s

everything gone?   I’m so damned sorry that I 

vanished, say the slither-slimed paper planes, 

those voiceless anti-legacies.  Whilst the motion 

of this ocean pays tribute to nonexistence by 

chewing up a charcoaled chicken leg so out of 

sight that it’s henceforth totally out of mind.  

What happens next?  Well, just imagine a fleet 

of chameloenesque lizards running like hell to catch

up with any of that tremendous yet unaccounted

loss, but directly before their big boss (that 

conglomerate of lizard-head) dismisses them one 

ad all for the remains of the weekend.  (Each poor dotty

puff of scaly slough knowing it’ll be let go at the

shittiest minute of the wee-est hour of a miraculously 

memorable and most up and coming Monday.)

                                 Who Sung That So Sincerely?

((Merely Me.))

mmmmcmlxvi

The Anti-Dumdum Protest

     A million leaves’ kimonos disrobing
       —Ange Mlinko (from The Blind See Only This World: Poems for John Wieners)

The Anti-Dumdum protest was meant to be
exclusionary, exclusive.  Sometimes class dis
tinctions are full of classlessness, and some
times they’re downright classy.  But such dys

function is nothing upon which to dwell,
surmises Del, this morning’s despondent
correspondent.  The current miniature
word berg of relevance was on the subject

of a group in the East Bay who threw a sex
party that somehow acted as a vehement
(and, of course, non-violent, except for those
in the dungeon, who never voted and were just

there for show, as it were) protest against the
hordes of recent horrid government goings-on.

mmmmcmlxv

The Rats Were Rodents,
Suspense & Suspicions
Notwithstanding

The purported murder of Punxsutawney Phil
was a red herring, a mere MacGuffin.  Long-
dead Hollywood citizens (all things being equal, 

e.g., sound designers, assistant directors,
ingenues, the extras from a nearly infinite
variety of madcap scenes, the original novel’s
author, authors of novels adapted from movies,
Pedro Almodovar, etc.) rolled over beneath
their respective [concretized handprints, side
walk footprints, looped advertisements of sway

ing breasts found from the tawdriest alleyways 

to the most commercial of the high-end drives,
tombstones, even the ones with the most
inaccurate, most illegible quotes (carved or
imprinted in fonts that can be distinguished
by a few of the most naked eyes and audibly
repeated through mouths that in the most
seemingly asymmetrical ways hang below
the egg-shapes of such alertly nude eyeballs), 

et ceteras].  So, whodunnit?  By the time
each attendee exits the low-marquee’d

cinema-plex, who all without fail, via 

reflexes both voluntary and involuntary, 

attempt to quickly bury those silver screen

tainted eggs by squinting away the after

noon sun, the greater human population 

of our divine planet would already know

the culprit was neither the sister or

either of the three adult offspring of

January, our lead character.  And yet

those social media magnates, who 

from the opening sequence to the 

closing credits paid little to no 

attention to the neo-noir-ish flick,

remain by far the most suspect.

mmmmcmlxiv

Ignorant Humor?

I’m no scientist,
but shouldn’t I be?

mmmmcmlxiii

In Order to Breed the
Appropriate Contempt,
Familiarity Requires
a Set of Perceived
Remembrances

This is an untrue statement.  The need is

more for a held belief that memory has some

how been accrued, and that whichever the

mechanisms that brought about this accrual

were acting properly when hauling them in,

and that whatever storage mechanism(s) in

which they currently and might have in some

past existed have been consistently working

properly.  So, the circumstances surrounding

the haul made for as close to flawless repre

sentations of what and when the particular

nugget of recording transpired, and at no

point since has this recording been altered

in any way.  Is it any wonder, then, that any

perceived memory is fraught by its very

existence; that it might be a filmic or 

graphical or sensory construct in its 

totality?  Representing nothing?

Or representing what, exactly?

mmmmcmlxii

Were You Once My Husband?
(Familiarity Breeds Contempt)

I don’t plan to circle it, make
some little note in the margins

or come back to it tomorrow,
but in a world full of dislikes,

I appreciate this notion.  Hey, 

I’m talking to you!  Do you even

know who I am?  Yeah, there
are a few worlds filled with

possibilities here.  The critic
doesn’t need to be happy that

the backseat is where they’ll
find their nameplate.  But can

one ever be both unhappy and
content?  Or realize that one’s

place in the world is by necessity
uncomfortable?  Oh, at the very

least.  On our middle of the night
video call in the wee hours of this

past Sunday, my mother goes on
about how she weighs less now

than she did when she became
pregnant with me, her firstborn.

A few days later I am able to sit
with what I think we might call

the reality of this statement, one
she has managed to bring up in

perhaps three of our last four
regular, mostly brief, near-midnight

conversations.

mmmmcmlxi

Things That Turn Mornings Into No Sleep the Night Before

Out dancing at the End-up for around 30 minutes.
10:45pm to about 11:45pm. Worried all night about
enjambment.  Gotcha!  Do I look like a poem would dis

tract my evening so intently that it would provide me with

a night of insomnia?  Mom calls, ~2am.  I’m headed to the
corner store up Hyde for the 2nd time in 20 minutes; the
first time I couldn’t remember my PIN number on my EBT
card, and this particular stroke of midnight had been the 1st

of February.  And on the 1st, the poor earthlings get $236 worth
of extra food.  Which sounds like a lot until it is revealed that
what took two trips up Hyde was nearly $60 worth of snack
items (if you include mostlhy non-alcoholic beverages as snack

items).  I call Mom back when I’m back home the second (third,

if you count getting home after dancing) time. Wearing the head

phones, I still can’t quite understand her.  And she’s memorably 

wearing a bit fluffy neck brace (so not a metallic brace, but what

are those things called that look like they’re the inflated neck
portions of turtle-neck tops that folks wear after having automobile

or ski accidents? A big inflated turtle-neck top – just the portion that

covers the neck without going all the way to the chin).  It’s as if she’s

 

hopping up and down making decorations, but this has to be imagined? 

I blather loudly and surely annoyingly about my financial woes.  And
I’m not even bringing up the guy with what has to be a multiply
broken nose bridge, just bitching about money.  To mom.  Who

matter-of-factly, once a break is found in the airwaves, counters
her hyperactive decorating for a party in the kitchen (did she say
it was for Mikayla?), lets out an eye-rolling “Haven’t we all been 

there?”  Totally dry.  Not sardonic, even.  Like she is telling me to 

give up my pedantic woes. But I cannot, because I have such 

important goals these next few years, which I do plan to live out. 

I mean we all plan to persuasively live out our last years, do we not? 

Even if we’ve had that serious conversation with a medical professional 

about whatever time might actually (not) be left.  Which I haven’t. 

But Mom has.  And yet experiencing the two of us together in this 

moment, despite her clamorings on for well over a decade and a 

half now over such possibilities, it doesn’t seem any more or less 

ripe on her side for such nonsense than it does o her son’s, who

continues to blather on about the unfairness of his last decade or so. 

Finally, I tell her I’d call her back tomorrow (meaning later today, which

is Sunday).  After which I finished doing some filing. Then thought 

irritatedly about getting back to the Microsoft and the Google issues. 

So basic.  So time-consuming.  Such an affront to the notion of customer 

loyalty and also another knife into the heart of general customer service. 

During which I finish one book of poetry (Corbett & gang’s Wieners 

anthology) by starting another one (diPrima’s Dinners and Nightmares). 

Typing somewhere near the top of my head, almost not thinking of what 

I’m even conveying, just doing it sort of as an aside. Still fine with not 

having slept in the past 24+ hours.

mmmmcmlx

An Anthology In Honor Of:
Fleshing out the Tenor to Determine
the Venerate vs. the Hoggy Submissions,
Particularly Among Those Expected to
Have Renown of Any Kind (As Can
Potentially or Possibly or Maybe
Be Pretended to Exist Among such
Big Crowded Fishes)

Boy, you can learn a lot by what a
revered or venerable (and these
words I use lightly, as in the part
icular poets could only dream of
such things or one might from the
outside looking in see so much that
can be determined about how each
poet, the subject and the writer of

the accolade, or whatever each 

deciees to inclue.  Should each of

been included.  Does each contributor,

does the showcased poet, the subject,

deserve or not deserve such reverence, 

or does there become the quick and

bland building of a quickly-assumed
pedestal-building stance so as to
most often make a fool out of the
acolyte and often their meat-hogger.

First one must attempt to begin to
set aside all judgment.  Second,
is there any relation whatsoever
between said poet's poem and the
poet the anthology is showcasing.

Surely, dear reader of this detour can 

begin see what I will be and am getting at 

perhaps already.  No matter.  One should 

dig deeply, or at least begin to pick up on 

various high-falutin’ poetasters in such 

sitches, as we, they, oh especially they 

would find themselves numerously seeking

relevance within the pairing.  The combinations.

Who agrees?  Who are always missing,
no matter the closeness or affiliations
with the showcased author?  Who (oh,
check out the poets of the female per
suasion) really makes that effort to
connect, to poignantly reflect on the
connection their poem or their person
has with the subject of the anthology

What does the hunting stories tell, that

these ladies could not (or did the ladies

hunt bisexually? multi-sexually?).  And

what of those who relay the carousing,

infantile or more mature, should that be

a word that works in what might often

be nothing but brags or something to

elicit laughter by a common sex, particularly?

Of course, because oh the men, so often,
and this is just the first fall-back, the
easiest.  Just throw something out that
I just wrote, he must think. And I have
done my duty and given the world what
they want. A taste of me and my work.

Don’t be led down labyrinths with spite
ful or seemingly derogatory or very familiar
and vague –  with regard to how positive or

negative passages – these may be done
in the act of who these two literally did, 

poet and (potentially great friend, or
long-standing points of irritiation,
one to the other), but are more likely
to be REAL.  Dig deeper, ask questions,
figure out the stories that AREN’T told
by those that ARE.

In this way, one can begin to learn
who best to ask when put in charge
or putting oneself in charge of the
next great anthology, the end-all,
be-all send-up to the next subject
of the next anthology showcased
and edited meticulously in hopes
of building the best capsule of who
each of these were to the other
and, most particularly, to the
anthologied author.  Find many
examples and tabulate the flim-flam
from the heartfelt and perhaps obscure
but metaphorically representative of the
actual relationship or better still to splice
good stuff with something seemingly odd
or off-putting which, when studied, becomes
the story of one of the most solid friendships
and collaborations among human writers,
a goldmine, something never known, how
coy the writers seem to toy with one another,
as if lovers, once or always.  A true science
lies among the arts, as sciences do, each
elevating the other, if the editor has done
his job well. This, a job, a taly of infinite

possibilies, meaningful, meangless, and

combinations thereof.

mmmmcmlix

Kink Death

Sounds like a murder mystery
with racy overtones.  Leading
to undertones.  An under-ing.
I mean this isn’t about the

death of kink, it’s about how I’ve 

come to believe that the elevated 

significance of kink in the general 

hook-up, dating, are we vibing so 

can we get down to the business of 

doing what people people do thing is, 

well, I would love to argue it’s a rele

vant contributing factor to all the stats

about how the kids aren’t having
sex anymore.  But what do I know
(except 48 years of living queer)?

Am I too biased (given when all

boils down I’m surprisingly vanilla
trad – I use surprising as it both
stuns me at times to realize, and not
simply catches anyone who might think 

they know how I am (The nerve!  I mean,

truly, I wish!) should there be any of those 
folks out there anymore).  Even as un-single
as I am, no matter the continually isolating

circumstances of that singularity, it’s just

an exhausting subject to consider with any

severity, and so, I’ll cool it down.  It was,

after all, just a hypothesis that’s been swirling 

around in my can’t quite stop being the social

anthropologist headspace that is whatever
there is of my attic these days.  Just a notion
to pass along without sounding terribly

old-fashioned (surely I do, but am I?) or
over it.  Two phrases representative of me
that I can never wear well enough.  Maybe
I should just go back to busting out my

old school controversial notions I’d shrug
off as if they were tiny appetizers just to rile
people up, like monogamy is a ludicrious
construct (that would get everyone going!)

or of course you can love more than one 

person at a time or everyone’s a liar, get 

over it or do you really believe in privacy?

Back when things were easy.  Back when a 

kink was mostly something older folks got 

that caused back spasms and weren’t requisite 

initial base points that we were all expected

to lay out on the table so as to be analyized 

generically in route to hot or not determination.

mmmmcmlviii

Peach Pie

Pretty sure I repeat
myself a lot w/van
illa ice cream man
that would be so

hot like summer n
Arkansas I think or
a hot day in Boston
or Hotlanta where I

’ve never once been.
My god how it all
changes when pi b
cums cobbler in my

nobbler (cuz it sounds
nastier than noggin)
& w/vanilla bean ice 2
tha cream man so hot!

mmmmcmlvii

How to Make a Friend

I do not know.  When I
felt that I had many, I’d
have said I learned by
example, that I was

taught by people who
knew way better than
I did how to do such
things.  And that I

was relatively late
figuring out such 

maneuvers.  That I

am a late bloomer.

I say that a lot, and
believe it to be true.

mmmmcmlvi

“What Hides Is the Brides.”

Nobody actually said that.  It was
barely a misreading.  But that night
my bones were bored of feisty, fun
falls by the wayside (where seashells

are sold).  Be bold, I thought.  I could
see the light.  And it was past seven
thirty in the evening.  We would have
just called this night were it not the

middle of summer, and the mos
quitoes were hanging low (we al
ways think we can hear the whine
of their buzz) with the humidity

that’s stuffed into the hot bubble
that sits upon the earth and is as
tall as we are (maybe five feet
three, at best?).  We don’t think

much of brides.  Well, I certainly
don’t.  Perhaps the twins do.  For
all I know, Ginger does.  Being
one, taking one, how would I have

known the difference, even as
the oldest?  I was reading of the
dream-colored sex of Robert
Heinlein’s blob-creatures.  Or

were they asexual?  Those
were definitely orgasms that
were happening, rest assured.
That’s my recollection, and how

could one forget?  My book was
lying on my bed, the one that if you
peeked over the vinyl off-colored
white headboard through the window-

screen you’d see the leaves of the back
yard sycamore—the biggest branch of which

I was currently swinging beneath—they’d
flap a bit and staer into my face as if they

were reading my mind, should the wind
not be blowing them all silly.  Sometimes
at two or three in the morning, a few might
be scritching upon the screen just loud

enough to wake me up, in which case I’d
hop upon my knees and stare out over that
dirty white headboard checking to make sure
the outline of a tornado wasn’t headed directly

toward us from Potato Hill (I’d imagine the
ominous shadow one would leave in the light
of one of Chaffee’s flares, which were flung
into the sky at all hours of the night during

the hottest parts of the summer).  Once
assured, I’d gather my covers and the
Afghan Mom made us each of our fav
orite colors (mine had a purple theme),

curl up into it and sleep until it was time 

to get up and get ready for school.  No

dreams of future families, much less
any brides, at least for me, as there

would be Civics and Algebra and Phys
ics and Geometry and Band and my
new favorite subject, which I would
scribble in the journal my granny had

gotten me for Christmas and that I’d
eventually fill from cover to cover with
it. They didn’t have classes specifically
for it, but sometimes it would be covered

tangential to Reading: Teenage Poetry—

which would be my favorite subject

for a long while starting that September.

mmmmcmlv

Mapping Out the Bruises

     Drop
     log
     on my foot.
                       —Robert Creeley*

The writers I adore and read more than any
thing to glean any bit of their history, who they

were/are, who they knew, anything of them, etc.

That seems to be the difference between the 

ones I appreciate and the ones I learn to love, 

devouring whatever I can get out of them.  This

is about poetry.  One could argue against it.  One 

could says it is celebrity, it’s gossip, and I’m not 

going to go against that notion, but it still is the 

delineation between who I read and with whom I 

truly devote my time.  That says something, I

suppose quite a bit, perhaps, about me.  And may

be it’s not exactly good, but it is who I really am.

*This might seem to place Creeley up at the top of my favorites list,

  but that truthfully has not been determined, and may never be.  

  However, time might tell.

mmmmcmliv

watching my future
dissolve this morning
i take an alternative
tack, i dissolve into
the beauty of the city
that has, what, taken
so much from me?
has given me such
treasure?  how else
could it be to be here
for twenty-five years?
on the parchment be
tween the greenery of
trees, a heckuva frame,
i see the outline of the
golden gate bridge.  it
is a view i can own, as
if i could pluck and
plink it as if it were a
miniature harp.  what
would it sound like,
san francisco?  i have
ideas, but cannot
truly know unless i
try.  and if i were to
succeed that is the 

moment i’d finally let 

go.  of reality.  of this life.

without even hurling my
self off the distinct and
recognizable structure 

so far in the distance
from where i sit on this
russian hill bench.  should
i do it?  i think i could.  per
haps, perhaps, but i will
wait until tomorrow, i think,
when my head is clearer and
my nose a bit warmer.

mmmmcmliii

Morning

Which will come soon.  But
what’s morning to someone
who’ll live forever?  It’s a
brand new day, that’s what

it is!  Not that starvation has
become less a possibility than
it was before.  Who am I kid
ding?  I’ve lived on the streets

and know from experience that
if there are two things that can
be found when one lives on the
street they are food and clothing.

That’s been my experience anyway.
Meanwhile, we’re living forever.  Or
else I am.  Am I not?  I might as well.

mmmmcmlii

Night

Is it balcony or baloney?
I put my glasses on.  It’s
balcony.  That’s no fun.
I’ve not one of those.

Neither do I have any
baloney, though.  Let’s
begin again, as if night
goes on forever.  My

legs crossed in front of
the laptop, the right up
per portion of my should
er, where it connects with

my neck, pained almost to
spasm, but not quite.  I rub
the aspirin cream over it, as
that sometimes helps.  It’s

the salve that I have.  What
else?  Oh, it’s night.  Another
hour to midnight.  I’ll be up
a while, having slept most

of a 3-day weekend.  Missed
a doctor’s appointment, think
ing it was only Monday when
it was Tuesday (and I had

truly thought the appointment
was Thursday).  I have to deal
with that in the morning.  Along
with several additional disturbances.

I’m here, though.  Should that be
the end of all of my worries?  That
I exist?  That I’m still here?  I so
wish.  But it’s like I’m looking at

a penny bank, let’s say, as the
copper pennies drop from it into
a well, and there isn’t a thing that
can be done about it.  That seems

a fitting enough description.  It’s
maddening.  To me.  And who else
would it madden?  There’s no one.
And so I watch the pennies fall, one

by one, trying as each one falls to be

come a little bit okay with each loss.

mmmmcmli

Evening

Last day w/food in
in the apartment.
Well, there are some
cans of beans and one

of tuna, but no opener.
And so, it’s time for
the closer.  How shall it
be?  For me, I shower

after a whirligig sweep
and clean-up of the
place.  Clean up and
starve.  If my thinking

were right, I’d be a mil
lionaire.  But it never is.

mmmmcml

Bigger and Better

     I want the world
     I did always,
     small pieces
     and clear acknowledgments 
                  —Robert Creeley

Pumping a pledge into a flag

is not what we do here.  Who
is more important, the people
who keep us, or everyone else?
Speed through a red light with
out answering that question.
Pardon my love, which is just
a façade.  Let’s move our
thoughts back to celebrity
gossip, as if they were the
actual ways of the world.
And bypass those for now
(the actual ways of the world).
We two are the proud new
inhabitants of brand new
offices, right?  So we went
about taking measurements,
size being all-important.  It

turns out that my boxed office
is bigger than your boxed office.
What’s the population of your
apartment complex?  If you
lived in Idaho and I lived in
Ohio, would our kisses
have accents?

mmmmcmxlix

Geeks Like Us

I know only what I know.  The
geek is freeing; the geek’s in me.
I am the geek, but my geek doesn’t
know how to get me out of this.

I can structure this as if.  But
that what gives me the gumption,
that which is my brain brains
me.  I’m not a freak, I’m a

Gemini geek.  I can think but
I cannot want.  What does my
thinking want?  If that’s called
motivation then put me to

sleep.  Sleep like a geek
for a chance at a brain.

mmmmcmxlviii

Bucket Overflowing

I know only

enough about it

to know that

I’d really

love to

go to

Barcelona.

mmmmcmxlvii

I Need to Get Out More

Lying in the apartment I
never seem to leave these
days, reading oceanside
romance, the sounds the

waves make, boats upon
them, the health of sand
beneath one’s bare feet.
But these days I rarely

venture out.  I think it
will depress me more
to wander around in
the city with empty

pockets.  Which may
be true.  Nevertheless...

mmmmcmxlvi

A Piece of the Moron

     Magic, which is trying to hold onto people with your own hands...
                                                                       —Jack Spicer

I wasn’t attempting to alter the course of
my day any more, which is when it hap
pened.  Isn’t that how things so often go?  

And so I misread moon for moron.  Or at

least I think I had.  Years later (like maybe
five, ten minutes max), I was poring over

the text of the two pages whereupon I had
surely come across the lunar reference to the
cheese of it all.  But there was no moon.  Had

it been Muenster or Camembert?  The old
man in the maroon didn’t care.  He’d just
written moron when he had meant room.

There’s a lot more space in space, I think.
When I do.  Which is, lately, all too often.

mmmmcmxlv

Fancy Talk

        And the stony words that are left down with us greet him mutely
     almost rudely casting their shadows.  For example, the shadow the
     cross cast.
                                                                                     —Jack Spicer

What stamina!  Sure, it’s amazing when
we find the discipline to induce and then 

rev up the necessary motivation required 

in times like these, but to be strong-willed

and experienced enough to know that it is 

possible, and to put that knowledge to work 

by stirring up enough stamina.  Wow.  I’ve always

been one to beat the odds when the chips

are down.  Haven’t I?  Hm.  Or is that
something I’ve held on to, a belief in
myself that is but delusional?  Would
it matter which way reality tilts, whether

or not the belief in myself, the confidence,
was legitimate or fantastical?  Because I
mean, either way, here I am, right?  I do
have a preference, I suppose. I fancy

living in reality over existing in a universe
of my own ignis fatuus.  Perhaps there are
those who’d want for the alternative, but
for the life of me, I can’t imagine why.

mmmmcmxliv

Riffing on Observation

More attempts at getting to the heart
of a pretty difficult matter without the
bother of conveying all of the difficulty.
Because when I do the latter, as I some

times do, it seems to me that I’m bringing 

on more grief, more tumult, torturing not

only myself a bit more with my attempts

at repeating the nature of my difficulties,

getting into the specifics as much or as
little as I do, but also dispensing the
tension outward to whomever might be
nice enough to pay attention.  I don’t

want to do that.  Certainly not today.
And besides, with all of the tools I can
use when going through the act of
piling these lines upon one another, for

whatever particular reason that I happen
to be doing so, besides the fact that this
happens to be what I do, that one thing
that I’m compelled and with discipline to

build under almost any circumstance, the
act of which (this writing) I have noted
has often saved my life or at least extend
ed it—anyway, to finish the thought that

I seem not to want to finish—given the

numerous devices which I can utilize
when doing this, surely there is a way
to express myself in way that can be

understood enough, a way in which
the delivery is much less stressful
than a rigid description without any
unnecessary flair?  Oh, there surely

must be.  I tell stories.  I freely
associate.  I understand the con
cepts of metaphor and parody and
whatnot, so surely there is a way

to do such a thing during which I
might lift my head high rather than
cower with it angled toward the ground
while doing so?  Or is this just a way, as

it seems to me now, of doing nothing, of
saying nothing, of stalling with the problems
still burning within me.  Please know that is
a rhetorical question.  For I needn’t an answer.