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 to whom such a brief descrip

tion of self relaeyd that entire novels might then be 

concocted from these various interpretations; our

character might have such a centrifugal personality

that no reader would be able to find anything to

cling to that might identify them, and 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. what

such altered states of perspective do 

to perspective can broadly increase
anxiety and how we feel about our
future, whether or not we have one,

can increase or decrease. our debt,
as well as our list of things in life
that we have come to regret, should
there be anything there, 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.
so 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 believing.  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 wields 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 with clear

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.

mmmmmccxxvi

death by earthquake

everyone thought the
screenname was a mysterious-
enough avatar: everyboyshot.

arthur was sure that a gun was in
volved, but remembered “them” as any

boy; only one manchild down.  sebastian 

knew better, grasped the inclusiveness, that this 

was every single male (there was some deliberation 

over the actual sex of each character, and whether 

the paradoxical moniker had any del 
iberate inward sexism or, just as possible, any 

outward diminution, was perhaps a derogatory 

joke that was dedicated to the female of the species). 

it’s so true!  thought greg, we all want the endless
choices, mutual attraction being such

a modern given.  just amongst us boys,
thought trev, almost sufficiently
revved.

mmmmmccxxv

heart to heart
(another sonnet with a big blue wave)

         I was careful to use the right words
                                  —Micah Ballard

watched it stroke the midnight
sometimes     i’m a person who’d
much rather relay all the feels
   there’s so much more     and at such
a faster pace           is life really happ

ening again?      and i must repeat
that it is not that i am holding
back what i hold deciding not to
reveal          i have my reasons    death is not
one of them sounds like a diversion

the jackhammer has the sidewalk pur
ring tonight        a loss of self forces a hand    sense
of self?       sincerest self       boards boost bodies
over behemoth wave at one and some

mmmmmccxxiv

amber granite

everyone knew the moment
the mosquito was infected, the
thanksgiving turkey notwithstanding.

the broadcast wasn’t mutually beneficial.
and the moment the malarky hit the air
waves was met with laughter at first, then

was sufficiently divisive, after which some folks
calmed down to about a three and a half.  i like
how this exercise is working

the crotch area into a seismic tizzy.  youth
remembered as more haze-soaked than dizzy
(vertigo, o vertigo; sung to the tune of galveston)

mmmmmccxxiii

a show of hands

if folks don’t mind terribly.
we just don’t know where
one is coming from (though
we have a pretty good idea).

such things lower the odds of
common misperception.  keep
murderers from intervening.
give us all a sense of inequity,

with and without any more
intense focus given to probes,
to problems.  the likelihood that
someone (not just the culprit, of

course) has already narrowed this
down sufficiently continues
to get higher and higher.

mmmmmccxxii

[Rimshot]

                  [Kumquat]

This would be the text of an

assuredly funny house made

of words I don’t know.   It being

Disclosure Day.   I saw a couple

of cockroaches.  First time in

ages (several weeks).  Seems like 

a day of pretty significance, actually,

a pretty significant morning, with

an afternoon and an evening 

clamoring after.  “What are you 

doing in my kitchen?”  “Haven’t 

had a kitchen in years.”  May 

our lucky lotto combo well be 

remembered (though I find 

gambling worse than a waste 

of time):  6, 7, 5, 5, 4, 2.  Remind 

(an imperative verb acting as a

transitive action verb when

used as a command, mind

your memory, disburse en

couragement, remine, rem

and) the lover from the him,

he’s spherical other that 

he’s got great taste in divas, 

that he’s practically nourished 

some of them into pop existence

all by himself,  so he should by 

all means never give up on one

so easily (and with such finality!).

My openest-mouthed prayers of

perplexed gratitude with loudest

headaches and whiny moans (el

bows to the floor beside toes

twisted achingly toward the

nearest door) are gravely

chanted twice weekly at the

chosen cathedral, Our Dear

Lady Pessimist’s Frown-

Dimpled Furrow (may

she rest in stasis or,

at the very least, in 

an emotionless peace).

mmmmmccxxi

“loss is the end of a conversation”

says conan o’brien, as if it is a
poignant cliché, and i suppose
it must be.  he’s speaking today
with kyle maclachlan, and the
context is the death of kyle’s friend,

who also played a very sigificant

role shepherding him into the big

leagues in show biz: david lynch.

but it strikes me almost like a
bell that’s been clanged while
over and around my head, that
then echoes with  duh!  duh!  duh!
that mom has been gone a couple
of months now, and i keep
wanting to call her, have gotten
so annoyed, depressed, dumb
founded, with not being able
to give her a call, not getting
an opportunity to continue 

the conversation, which wasn’t
much, really, was this almost
nothing that i worked so hard
creating so that we’d have a
lovely excuse to gab every
week or so, when we would

continue our pretty humdrum
conversation.  it was a thin
conceit that we’d developed
for over forty years, and it
turns out it was tremendously
important and relevant and
i miss it terribly.  i miss her
tons.  and of course i do.
which should not feel so unex
pected.  after all, i went through
the same thing for the longest
after dad died, twenty-five years
ago.  i often felt that it was a
construct created just to
maintain a connection, but
the urge to call her up occurs
so regularly now, and when it
happens, those are the moments
when i miss her, when i realize
she’s gone, when i want to call
her even more as that impossibility

sinks in each time.  how lovely

it would be just to extend

that conversation.

mmmmmccxx

tonight, i love

being who i am

and doing what

i’m doing.  i am

imagining you

listening to the

same songs i

am listening to,

going this music

freaks me out,

and that makes

me feel such

contentment.

i want to remain

on the verge of

ecstasy as i am

at this very mo

ment, hearing,

as i do, that

confounding

wrench being

thrown literally

into a wheel, or

something like

it but new and

undefinable, at

every single

beat.

mmmmmccxix

short take

imagine my surprise

when a country beat

hits my ears as I’m

listening to my latest

release radar.  i rarely

read social media

comments, but if i’m

not mistaken, i read

a couple this past

week, both of which

began something like

‘if i see the phrase

defying genre one

more time...’.

mmmmmccxviii

having been born near the end of the world

to be born in the year 1999
near the end of the world
is surely no luxury....

having been born in 1967
in the summer of love....

my love,
born in the year 2000,
has an exhausted brain,

keeps rattling on and on
about mid-terms, how
excruciating physics

and calculus must be,
was, is....

i took, i believe, exactly
three physics courses

in my lifetime,

three of calculus, as well,
or am i remembering
correctly, here,

at the end of the world?
it doesn’t matter
much, does it?

my boyfriend, who lives
in the opposite hemisphere
of this planet to the one

in which i live, keeps
hammering away,
studying in between bouts

of complaining (but so little,
i do miss his complaining)
about physics and calculus....

but instead, it’s humor, or
it seems to be humor,
how can one tell

at the end of the world
what is humor and
what isn’t?

“google,” he texts, “is
calling me dumb
and tired and defeated,”

and before that, something—
was this a practice question
in physics, or was it calculus—

that tells him that he is okay,
essentially.  he sends me a text,
the box’s background is, unusually,

black: “your brain is officially empty,”
the text within the black box proclaims,
“which is exactly why this is the

perfect place to stop.”  and then,
as if poignant in its meaninglessness,
“the answer is 600 deer.”

mmmmmccxvii

The Daily Humdrum

By now, you must think me terribly
boring.  If you know me or have ever
hopped onto this distorted narrative,
been the least bit intrigued, or were
simply patient, thinking that anyone
who’d whiled away so much of their
precious time concocting page after
page of such circuitous suspense
(am I giving myself too much credit
even there, I wonder) would surely,
at the end of such a self-obsessed

endeavor, have swollen into a semi-
satisfying period of recompense, for
both the narrator and, most especially,
for our dear reader (who is the real
hero of this all-too-interminable story,
in the end; which I relay with the most
sincere apologies, since these lines must
have caught you very much in a state

of sheer chagrin).  But that is most 

assuredly not the case, or has yet to be, 

and shall, by all logical calculations and 

sensible prognostications, never be.

mmmmmccxvi

Old School Shopper

I suppose that I’ve never found a good enough
reason to appreciate shopping online, at least
for clothing, accessories (I wonder when I last
purchased an accessory; it has been eons, for

sure) or groceries.  I have tried getting a few

items of clothing once; well, I was enrolled in a 

job placement program that allotted two hundred
dollars or somesuch for business clothes, and

everything I chose came to me in a color that wasn’t
anywhere near the color it looked on the screen,
or the material was something I’d never imagined,
and most items, of course, did not fit me at all.  I

can say the same for groceries, which I’ve attempted
to order online a few times.  When I’d give in to doing
so, I’d always assume the experience would be easier
to manage financially and would have me being more

practical with my choices, so that I’d get more of what I
needed and less of what I’d never eat or use.  But not 

only did it turn out to be more expensive than if I had, 

like usual, swiftly scooted down each aisle of the market,

barely even considering the items I tossed into the cart,
and most often I’d forget to adjust the settings to “do not
substitute” and wind up with brands I’ve spent all my
life avoiding or—for reasons that would soon become

clear—I had never heard of.  I’m not sure why in the
heck I’m thinking of shopping for anything, given that
I am living through a stretch in which am more destitute
than at any other duration in my life (yes, it’s too true,

despite my all-too-public bouts with being in the poor
house over the past few years, despite my every effort 

at attempting to become gainfully employed; it’s all
too exasperating).  But would I ever kill for a diet soda

right now.  It’s nearly one o’clock on a homebound Sunday
morning, and suddenly I remember I have, yes, I think
a couple of dollars and just enough change to purchase
a two-liter bottle of Diet Dr Pepper.  So, without a thought

on how to wrap this up in a sensible manner, I’m up
and out the door before the corner store closes.  It’s the
weekend, and I’m giddy with the notion of pouring a
cup of cold carbonated diet soda.  Until next time, when

The Ennui Continues.

mmmmmccxv

Vanishing Plot

sound is important.  he’s dreaming.
he can’t get out of his consciousness.
he’s awake.  who’d he wake up next to?
he’s alone.  he was always awake.

not always.  for a few days.  how many
days?  he stretches his forehead to flatten
it out, trying to concentrate.  when was he
last dreaming?  he didn’t just wake up.  he’s

been awake.  but just a portion, a fragment.
he’s trying to remember anything from his
latest dream, even when it was, what he
felt.  he wasn’t alone.  he was with the

people who blow themselves kisses.
all the time.  it’s all he remembers.

with these people.  they must be
friends.  they kiss the prints
on their fingers, blow the
kisses off lightly, and

then, very delicately,
gracefully, as if through
a freshly spritzed scent
flowing through the air

of a department store,
they walk through the
swirling air filled with
their very own kisses

until they, presumably,
feel sufficiently adored.

mmmmmccxiv

Optimism Revisited

woke up yesterday feeling like
i slept through a time warp.  now,
it’s past 4am, haven’t been able to
sleep, except a couple of hours after
a day full of errands and bureaucratic
nonsense, daylight hours that were packed

with back to back kidnappings, bad news 

oozing from the tight spots between each 

appointment.  my headache reminds me that

there were also a lot of dreams.   not that i recall
during the short and dead gone snooze i had
after zipping all day through oozing errands,

but before waking up yesterday, when i slept

a little bit better, a little bit longer, than the

scant and unrestful durations of rest that

i have had for a few weeks now.  so.  today,

or yesterday, the warped bank, three banks, 

two banks, one bank brand, all the bank’s 

talking heads pointed downward, aiming

their mouths, their voices at me, angles
of disdain, bully talk.  no member of their
happy club, i part ways with the bank,
and with my money, so that it can now live
at the bank without me.  maybe without

me forever.  i woke up thinking it was
around seven the next morning.  i squint

at the phone and the laptop unable to

read the time, it looks like it could be

eleven, maybe twelve, but no, it is 
not even midnight, in fact somewhere 

between nine and ten at night, and
i am intent on sleeping another
week away, can i do that?  do
i have enough food.  have i

eaten enough.  i don’t
even want to leave the
apartment, can i manage 

that?  what a break this day 

and night have been, being busy
having given me an interruption 

from the grim noise coming from
my phone, television, laptop.
i should stick to music videos,
dancefloors, remember those?
there is a long tunnel from here
to—i’m not sure—a week from now?
ten days?  then i promise things are
going to change.  here, i’ve got proof
[he pulls out a bunch of receipts].  another
great song awaits.  i want to apologize for
not giving you a little warning about the
strobe lights.  (i’m really sorry.)

mmmmmccxiii

At First Sight

     & since you’re a charming creature please stay that way
                                                       —Micah Ballard

when you feel a presence in a room
electrical      a cross between a premonition
and a giddy shiver       the warmest gushing

but i don’t think you’re having a heart attack
now with a stance built with terror        who are you
here for?       with a voice that fills the room like a backed-up

toilet           but you light right up     crimson life     for 

whom are you here?    those big moments interspersed through

out your 20s and 30s      the ease with which, when first ex

periencing that piercing flutter upon entering a crowded 

room        becomes a kind of a return to familiarity      all fluttery

define shallow?     reeling in the five pound catfish with flair like 

it’s a fancy new acting exercise     the drama class you took for 

the experience of commingling artistically        oh he’s the cat’s

pajamas                mom always said that the way to a

man’s heart is directly through his stomach                red
cork bobbing a mirage out on the shallow river this after
noon           i’m not much of a cook       not much on

cooking      rarely do i get an even somewhat clear drive    i

cannot recall firing up the oven   ever     to be in charge of a 

home-cooked meal             so i brought the wine 

seeing at least two books by david sedaris on the living room 

bookshelf almost put me into a tailspin      how much of a 

disappointment the last half a dozen (or so) were       he is 

trying to remember    he is pursing his lips in an effort to 

shape the voice of a certain human’s name     i knew him     

you never did           i knew          i knew      the stilted 

living room      in the house that held you safe until you were

seventeen       he is out of here      a safety i had no idea 

i wanted                           i am so out of here 

mmmmmccxii

when i think
i might not
be living

i remember
spending time
with people

that seemed
so far away to
me as in gone

already they
were phasing
in and out

existing on
two planes
or multiple

simultane
ously—seem
ingly unable

to compre
hend or un
derstand it

to be so—
was it?  i
cannot ask

any of them
as they are
not here at

this moment
but i feel as if
it would be

the truth if
i say to you
neither am i

mmmmmccxi

The Problem With Making Some Room For Hope

Reading what is surely the 100th primer on 

how to gain meaningful employment I've given
a bit of scrutiny over the past fifteen years or so.

These have been the years when, rather than having

the luxury of full-time, permanent employment, I’ve 

been that uncredited cog in the corporate machine
doing contractual, or short-term—finite—work.
Pedro Pascal, Tony Gilroy, Eva Victor and Will

Arnett are being interviewed by Justin Chang
for the new film, Behemoth! on the monster

screen at the foot of my bed.  I have picked
the magazine’s first poetry submissions for

issue 42; and there now visible proof of life

that can be witnessed if one happens to find

themselves at the website today, which no

one who happened to visit in several years

has witnessed (actual construction, actual change) 

in years.  It’s the middle of the night, as it often is 

when I am at my most productive.  Even more regularly

when without the structure of a regular paid work 

schedule.  And I am determined to see the upcoming day

light hours reversing or at least easing the precarious 

financial turmoil that has been unrelenting and all mine 

for as many years as I have not been putting together 

new magazine issues, which I have just confirmed 

has now been a stretch of thirteen years between

the completion of issues 40 and 41.  Last week 

was basically an elongated interruption of a 

hopeful headline that came unexpectedly (literally

out of nowhere) and promised at least a momentary,

significant, immediate, positive change to my financial

situation probably for the rest of the year, during a

week in which a box of fourteen fresh meals was slated 

for delivery to me, as one has been for the past fourteen

weeks now, on Monday.  But this week the box never came.

Despite the fact I waited anxiously all day Monday for the 

arrival of no box, no money.  I even sat in the lobby of my 

apartment building being assured multiple times over a two 

hour period that the box was soon to be delivered (this was

over two hours after the deadline by which the box had been

promised).  That, plus non-event that has had me anxiously
awaiting a bit of incredibly needed dollars, cash that I had
not expected might come at this time.  It as not even a 

remote possibility.  These two things have taken up my 

focus this week.  They introduced a series of expectations 

and hopes, filled with a lot of nerve-jangling hurrying up 

and waiting.  The news of the unexpected cash came

to me a week ago.  At least I do not think it is mere

hallucination, the excitement of which has been

quelled by a forty-eight hour stretch of no food, two 

days in which I ate absolutely nothing.   So this set

of events and non-events have twisted me out of sorts 

in ways more if more elevated stress than I have seen 

during a pretty stressful year, during a couple of years

in which I have been rendered inactive due to an absolute 

lack of cash influx (I feel more broke than I have been in 

a decade and a half, essentially).  In short, this vapid 

lyrical hodge-podge that I have erected for you, therefore, 
is an effort to get my ducks in a row so that my focus is 

solidly on making this week and the following several, 

to turn the weeks and days into knock-out, fantastic, pro

ductive periods of time, one after another after another,

with the primary hopeful consequence of such focus 

would be to see obvious, calculable, ascertainable results, 

the kind of productivity which I have almost forgotten into 

non-existence.  I hope they have me flying like some fancy 

firecracker from the static limbo that is, cumulatively, the 

shitty swamp of the past thirteen years and soaring into 

a new galaxy at the helm of a shiny spaceship which I can 

use to bend time and maneuver myself up and away and 

out of here.  So I’m doing great, even better, really.  Soon,

I will, as if a witch or a  magician will make all of the 

depression disappear.  This is, if, indeed, I do get the funds 

that have been for far too long such impossible plunder. 

It is now a new Monday morning.  A morning that sits atop

what is going to be a spectacular and profound week.

mmmmmccx

Turning That Frown Into A More Spirited Squiggle

     When you have [big] changes in your life
     it really cleans out your ... rigid idea of who you are.
               —Willem Dafoe (from Wild Card with Rachel Martin)

I found these words to be a magnificently liberating 

notion.  A new way to reflect on a period in my life 

which I have up to now tended to think of as a very

negative space; one in which I dwell unnecessarily, it 

turns out.  I think Bingo!  Why on earth has this set of

unexpected circumstances been handled so pain

fully, with such tension?  Why treat it strictly as

downturn, a dramatic shift in the opposite direction

my life had traveled until that point; from a sharp-grade 

ascent until to that moment when it shifted downward, in 

the direction of, I often imagine, a rock bottom, that has

ever since descended, and into such depths that I think

so poorly about this sad and expanding portion of my life?  

Such that I rarely think it living?  What a simple shift, these

words create, leaving room for a wealth of possibilities, of 

positivities, a new and more mature way to treat that moment 

when everything changed, when signs pointing in any dire

ction were all suddenly gloomy gray arrows that sloped 

ever-downward; signposts in a swampy atmosphere that, 

now with these words, have fresh perspective.  I have con

cocted a period of momentum, rife with new ways of think

ing, turning what I had for so long thought of us ugly and 

tragic into a space of experimentation that enables

a pivotal moment of relief, of renewal, of progress and 

radical growth filled with new ideas and fantastic, 

shifting priorities.  Just like that, a tedious limbo fills 

with electric tension and sprouts a long-flowing 

fountain from which creativity and inspiration spring.