mmmmmclviii

six decades

look at me (but don’t, really),
over the hill,
sated with dinner and
the long day, feeling practically

brain-free, or
at
least unable to get a dim spark of a neural connection in this
lazy body
of mine. such is the brunt of life for an
old
nobody like me.

seven sins (vii)

mmmmmclvii

six decades

do you seriously dare to
unleash the wrath of this near
sixty year serial sinner?!
the audacity! the

devil itself has
exactly nothing on me.  i’m
vile, i’m terrible, and when
i’m angry, there’s nothing that poor, pathetic
little you can do once i sic my dragon on you. unlatch the door to the cage, my love!

seven sins (vi)

mmmmmclvi

six decades

but how does one find gluttony in a desert blizzard?
look, what’s that ahead, just over that next butte,
is it a shot of ozempic?
zizzity
zoopzang,
albert. you’re
right hilarious. i practically
died laughing (of starvation).

seven sins (v)

mmmmmclv

six decades

plenty of ways one might
eradicate one’s
net worth, when it comes do it.
number one on my list at present:
your neighbor’s hot cousin.  envy.  (& he comes with—or without—a fancy sports car)

seven sins (iv)

mmmmmcliv

six decades

lascivious
arc:
pie
in the sky ethereality versus
skin (the real deal).

life is
abuzz with the
zeal of
uninhibited
lust.
it’s living worth dying for.

seven sins (iii)

mmmmmcliii

six decades

now
everything once yours
comes
to me [
avarice ] and how deliciously
right—how real—the world now seems.

seven sins (ii)

mmmmmclii

six decades

cross my name off your list.  how
real do you think a mask of my face might make you, might
elevate your sad sack of self?
alarming as it
may sound to you—

oh, this is good, this is good.  i’m too
fucking good.

that which my name would
heighten was but an
ember lost in the river of lava that

clogs at the coast,
rhombuses ablaze as far as the eye can see.
oh, you are, indeed, full of it.  you of cowardly false
pride that implodes (explodes inwardly).  may your heart well learn from it.

seven sins (i)

mmmmmcli

broken

butt to his bed-linens, uncharacteristically late to rise for the day,
our fallen hero, normally filled with ideas, morning to midnight, and carries a significant
number of maps in hand (or pocket or backpack) of each of the
elaborately detailed steps required to reach each of his high-minded goals.  not today, though.

verso reverso

(the spell has been cast)

mmmmmcl

can’t get anywhere without a drive

this era of gluttony versus
hunger, when humanity has disappeared like vapor into the
ether, the swiftly-loosening earth’s ever-thinning atmosphere....

we go back and forth between wearing our
hearts upon
our sleeves and building towering
levees around our flaccid,
epicene selves....

eat a couple of big bananas rather than
nosh on tidbits until the
crack of dawn.
how might i swing these limbs becoming detached from my
i swing my
limbs as i watch them detach from
an infertile, ineffective
dump of a trunk that lacks hunger or drive.  its set of decaying teeth, 

as if to emphasize this incapacity, fails each attempt to chomp off an acrid hunk....

mmmmmxlix

Repair Service
(I know this guy, he’s got nice tools)

need some time to decompress? life’s
upheaval of your pieces parts
taking its toll?
say no more. rush on over to

atop my bed
now and you’ll soon find your weary
devoured, devalued circuitry

brought back to
outstanding, pitch-perfect synchronicity. your
life’s zing will sing with such a pitch-perfect ring
that you’ll feel seventeen again. limited
supply. prices vary. call a doctor pronto if you experience any bad vibes.

mmmmmxlviii

paying it forward

zinnias
explode overhead!  it’s a
pie in the sky
heaven, tonight.  all the twinkles arrive from stars light
years away and land here, on me, right at this moment.  so that i might
radiate just enough razzle-dazzle to get me through tomorrow.

mmmmmxlvii

a seal gone silent*

what
a shitty
x (friend, boyfriend, lover, whatever)!

soaring along like super-
empathatic sidekicks
and then blam!  ghosted!  incommunicado!  no warning.  connected soundly for
long months, years, a decade or two.  until...nothing.

*you try typing with flippers!

mmmmmxlvi

a drowning in the ocean

what is that
heavy, heaving, deep and
absolutely mournful
lingering
echo out at

sea, over the
ocean waters, emanating from deep be
neath its surface, deeper still, from its lowest
gully, a singularly lonesome, heart-shredding, water-lung'd howl?

mmmmmxlv

things he thinks of himself
(about which he too often reminds)

rest
assured,
del
is the most
confident
aspirer toward (/ opinionated admirer of)
leftist leanings.

mmmmmxliv

 duck butts at one-eighty

 so, if i say the
 eighties, and then you say, yeah, the
 eighties, around what year, at what precise
 decade might we be
 lingering as we
 initiate the most searing stare-downs. oh,
 nevermind, president alfred e
“gag me with a spoon, man” neuman.

mmmmmxliii

dim hellmouths skimmed by brief windows of light

loops of daylight spun out, over and
into the bay. whoever
gains control of the
harbor needs
two thick-thighed legs that stretch
high as the
outlandishly tall steps apiece for a body to
undertake halving the darkness,
securing the peninsula and the
ever-darkening tongues and troughs swallow and spew with escherian wiles.

mmmmmxlii

showtime

say, what
hue will light
our stage tonight
with
the most dazzling
illumination? it
matters little. because
either way, the show’ll floor ’em.

mmmmmxli

a drowning in the desert

know ye!
every tongue in the sahara
yearns for the same

limy sublimity.  which should not, however, be
inhaled, or taken half hastily, lest a desert’s
mouth become, with death,
empurpled.  oh, these arid parts bring the insatiable thirst for a dollop of key lime!

mmmmmxl

cooling down a bevy of devils

damnation!
eternally, etc.!
vile demons, too, and their
ill-bred brethren, those who wear red hot
lycra, all the worst of the fiendish
lunks, who gather at trend-diminished parties 

every other fry
day or so. they gather at the lead-slathered bar,

each steamed-raw tongue in anticipation (it’s an egg bar, of course) for the rush of a
gush so mesmerizing the gremlins almost give off a vapor of brotherhood. then,
gulp! down each hot hatch go the shelled mustardy
slivers—today’s hottest slam—like slick sand down each devil’s windpipe.

mmmmmcxxxix

dirty, no twist

pray tell who belongs to this
olive-colored rock? it’s so pretty, a
lush green. it looks like
it’s been polished with
snow-capped pine by a mountain-top guru. i mean, it
has lived. maybe it lived within the grasp of an
eagle’s claw for a
decade or two,

should eagles generally live
that long?
only to inevitably show up right
next to us as it is here, glued to this birdbath in some
elder’s long-worked goofy zen-style cocktail garden.

mmmmmcxxxviii

island living

eating
another
salad?
yes, with

peas, no less, it’s
easy to do here
at bonanza.
see the lime-lit buffet. same fixins this
year as how many years back?

mmmmmcxxxvii

homework; escape routes

cars pass each other slowly over the
arc of main street to
night. past the
dewing front
lawn their headlamps seem to
entrance the flames enough that the pair dance in tandem a moment. here in the drab
living room that grays eventually into the murky obsidian of night. but for the flames
identically flicker-floating as they do, unlike the lazy automobiles they dance. in the
graying room, four children lined up along the
hi-fi, extra-long stereo, upon which, each child’s elbows rest, in
this room where nothing ever happens except homework and dreaming. each kid’s pair
     of gleaming eyes honed at that dull arc; behind each lid brains bubble, eager

     to be taken away in whichever direction.

mmmmmcxxxvi

on the other hand

raw silk is memorably slippery
ain’t it?  or
what am i also thinking of . . .

spiderwebs?  or perhaps shucking tall
individual cobs of corn fresh from the summer garden.  absolutely
lush!  to remember how it first felt slipping from your palm is not to
know the illuminating but creepy wriggle of the caterpillar in the other.

mmmmmcxxxv

swimming pool standout (w/french highlights)

first one.
it should be suuuper sloooww. with tons of tongue,
right?  i mean.  a romantic one.  so
simmer down.
take it easy.  dive feet first into the

kiddie portion of the pool.  don’t sweat.  oh, already wet.  she
is her very own brand of swim.  oop, there she goes, up the 8 ft. pool
side ladder, emerging like lava from the deep end.
she who’ll stand you up at saturday’s camp-end dance.

mmmmmcxxxiv

what shall i convince myself that i am feeling
should i awaken to another morning?

precious
ups of life, the bitter
rivals to their key enemy, those
pitiful
lows...
exclamation point!

must we live
our most valuable resource, those
upward movements, positive days filled with what rare hopes we grasp, so
negatively?  is
this most
arithmetical, binary way, a means of measuring a life’s progress...

i mean can it even be done objectively?  maybe not.  but how
nauseating, how horrifying the alternatives.  am i but a

manchild obsessed with pink and purple regality?  we’re told there
are palpably quantified extensions to human duration when, no
jest, we
enshroud our various
selves within
the power of positive thinking.
i’ve been a staunch believer in this notion, nearly since my
earliest days.  but look at me now, at such a relatively short distance of time
since setting about to disprove such hopeful science.

mmmmmcxxxiii

opinions given in & around the construction zone

sometimes one must break
a
few rules, right?
exactly!
take, for example, speeding through a
yellow light.

oh, sure, you
run the risk of having
a significantly shortly life taking such risks. but age is just a
number. so the saying
goes, yes?
exercise caution, however, is a saying also, and for good reason, often said.

mmmmmcxxxii

No Frog, He

lounging around up
on a lily pad in
the middle of an evergreen-enshrouded pond, the sin-
ugly son of a frog-kissed dimwit.  and such a
simple prince, our dear Sir Slovenly Spit-Ribbet (or, quite simply, The Toad).

mmmmmcxxxi

I took the one less traveled by
                                                                 —Robert Frost

first poem i ever had to memorize?
robert, as opposed to jack.
or wet and cold as it approaches frozen on, say, blades of grass.  over-
seas journalist of such renown that he was sir david.  what’s the most poetic?
the ice that grows gorgeously from window corners, or when breath hits pane on frigid mornings.

mmmmmcxxx

weighted with water

succulents. what are they?  they have leaves that seem
unapologetically (too much?) weighted down with water.  but then there are
cacti.  i just looked them up – they’re succulents.  either way, i have
cared for a few over the years.  most do not, at first glance, need much
upkeep.  but many seem nothing but a cluster of water-
laden leaves.  i think again...i’ve kept such plants for many years.  or
else i’m imagining the green thumb i supposedly inherited.  have i
not told you that my grandmother, and not in a
tropical climate, but in arkansas, grew a banana plant (that had actual bananas)?

mmmmmcxxix

Sparkle

so what color would you give sparkle?
paint chip poetry gives it
a lemon cream yellow, and that seems fairly
reasonable, but i don’t
know, it seems to me that anything gifted with sparkle might
loathe (because sparkling inanimate objects loathe, right?) definition of any kind.
especially color...but that’d make colors (or sparkling objects) a bit overly opinionated.

mmmmmcxxviii

Mr. McGill of Charleston High School

science teacher extraordinaire, was his first name
charles?  i’m doing a search of my
high school yearbook for the summer i graduated,
only i can’t find anything about him at the moment.  there are
other things he did besides teach physics, biology, algebra and, in my
last year there, advanced algebra and trigonometry, or was it pre-calculus?

but i remember that he was mormon, and was a regular bus driver.  he had an
unusually large family, lived near my grandma and grandpa cross.  he was the
science teacher (from whom i learned physics, biology, algebra and I think an

    advanced pre-calculus class held during the lunch hour my senior year).