xxvii

those white butterflies
are moving very slowly
this is getting passé
first trip to the gym in months
then to Stacey’s
for a brief glimpse
feel deathbed sick now
I’m mourning over
my little coconut coaster
but I do have a new car
so I’m drinking an OJ
and a little bit of fog
and I’m enjoying
the little singsong
messages in my
telephone that can’t
be deciphered and I’m
okay
alive
now
stopped by hbr studio
it costs $45
for a haircut
I feel a little
overheated but
like the guy at
the door said
it’s a beautiful
summer night

xxvi

sipping lemon Coke waiting
around for a beautiful day in this
class we will write toward the
terrain between poetry and fiction
there must be a way we can work
it out where the shape and tone
as always remind us over and over
that the line or sentence is just an
idea that I love him and miss him
that narrative is the notion of time
these last few weeks in that somber
place maybe he’s dead and
character’s shit when it comes down
to it sometimes he’s a jerk
the class will imagine and test out
why honest love is true and getting
a life perhaps is stupid or sometimes
storytelling works against itself
toward a knock-on-your-butt kind
of love that is rebuffed ten-fold
conventions are assumed intolerably
selfish oh to be fawned over in
linear progression do we have to
wait until after tax season for an
authentic voice which makes a novel
swinging in a sooty tire under an
elm tree at nighttime and later that
same big elm in the backyard bang-bang-
banging against my bedroom window
no one is here to soothe me except
the deafening cicadas now it’s dusk
and so as not to disturb his brothers
he sleeps dreams resolves to write
forever kicks at the mucky sand
watches paint peel off the back porch

xxv

I’ve lost whatever will I had to stay away
from this gray rock wall that is friable
it’s like there’s a big lump this misery
were I painting it I would not be painting it
I want to wither away to nothing and
examine the break its circumference the round years
no more dreams so temperamental


first published in can we have our ball back?

xxiv

here I am weary but

the sun it continues to shine

a loud sun over the carpet

and mein cathedral

do I stay for the gay triumph

of a cloud because

my lights don’t work

the green green reach

just blitzed through

Hotel Huntington!

a bunch of other stuff

like orange vs. purple

a chain reaction

sent the sky to market

although I was so horny

leaves leaves yellowing

getting the fuck out of Dodge

xxiii

two years ago as we
both agreed things were
great the sunshine
in this parking lot its
grand entrance the
cat lying on my
favorite sweaters
it was too perfect
I cross the street for
my morning coffee
not bothering anymore
to look both ways
remember these apartments
they are subsidized
I lived here once
a fallen limb
still the two bright
lemons next to the Virgin
my powderblue Audi
the old Perrysburg-Holland Apartments
a pair of hummingbirds
lovingbirds flying out
out of the courtyard
at least I look sharp

xxii

on the front porch red blue green
many hairs of priestesses he’s
showering or telephone kissing
in front of a Richter Abstrakt
Bild I’m to dinner simmer
like homesickness kiss kiss
next to Urban Outfitters for
new secretary her 2nd workday
visit home squeegees
long-handled brushes
large Plexiglass panels
Betty 1988 from phantasm
his daughter several grays
otherwise drunk-looking
tomorrow take profile
whatever henceforward
like 6:45 Wednesdays
I kiss him on his
Union Square down
six hot flights to
laundry dinner and
wet from shower

xxi

writing an imaginary letter to you
just finished half a sandwich
and a really good bowl of gazpacho
since we’ve been dating
the nitty gritty is I’m not satisfied
with the way you want things
the guy who said we should be boyfriends
that we really looked good together
maybe it’s time for me to move on
he also said his mother was always
giving him mints for his bad breath
I’m not sure if that’s really how I feel
but you had the mettle to answer him
something like well you know
when the time is right and all
I believe it’s good for me to think like this
why do I have such a crush on you
I’m always over-scrutinizing things
do you ever want to see anything I write

xx

have I mentioned that I really like
watching movies when we’re lying
like two toothpicks in the shape of
a cross

my new miniature ledger it doesn’t feel
much different seeing those red splashes
across the screen which signify blood
in a funny way though

the guy I went out with once
on a lame date behind the counter
is still a dull echo in my ears
it’s the same sort of mess as everything
boring and not assertive in the least

last night I drank Pixie Piss at
Doctor Bombay’s after which I
saw a UFO and today I’m all
smoke and mirrors

how long can I go
without naming names

the concert under the stars
at the zoo amphitheatre
weather permitting

twisting the radiator knob
that does nothing

hitting the big money
around this time
and lunch with the true man
who just sold more business

this independence thing
I’m trying to get in touch with

having lost all the yellow butterflies
I’m in such a stupor

xix

two after-dinner mints
no worries about having
to walk
two stuffed e-mails
being chilled it turns out
having received several
let’s see open their bits
oh look
a UFO
having my
90-day probabationary period
of driving force
disappearing
into an ugly blue
then the wonder after dinner
I’m ugly more
than it disappeared
being chilled it turns out
the explicit walkabout
too stuffed to worry

xviii

it’s the nature of the beast
some folks can’t get enough
I keep getting messages from
the Almodovar in my bed
if this is inevitability
I’m having hot milk & honey
who’s that keeps asking to
leave my apartment for good
it’s all about tops and tarts
being treated like number one
and start making my home

xvii

Good morning!

Some of the lemons (oranges?)
have rolled down next to the Virgin Mary.
Maybe they wanted to go to the Ann Arbor Art Fair.
It’s been such a pleasant morning, though.
I believe I meant to say there are no brown leaves.
I don’t usually open my window so high, but
the purple flowers in front of my apartment building
are all blooming brilliantly, and now I’m able to hear
clinking and nailing and bits of muffled conversation.
It’s like I missed a lot of time and, in the process,
got beat down quite a bit. Oh well,
everybody’s got a twin pair of toothbrushes.
I do have to drag things out of him,
which is tedious. In fact, two nights in a row have
left me wondering if I’m going to have to
look into playing the role of Bob again.

xvi

Cedar Point on Sunday
with little hairs of cat
the weather was great
the doves the pigeons
hummingbirds robins
won $20 with a raffle ticket
when we settle down with someone
maybe weekends aren’t all party
party party but stay home
cook wine rent movies
and sit on the couch
hoping maybe to get
some time to reflect
cotton candy clouds
the middle of October
new shoes tennis shoes
shirts slacks shorts
belt socks underwear

xv

I don’t want what I want in life
I see 35 windows
sometimes it helps to put
pen to paper sometimes

a career I never wanted
the Blue Angels making big
circles of smoke over Nob Hill
a career I sometimes

wanted blue marbles
35 windows of clouded agate
I don’t want what I want
what I want in life are

these sonnets / whatever went
right / the rice is ready


originally published as a Pressed Wafer broadside

xiv

I fall asleep in Japanese
today Sunday of this stupid echo
and I spend myself
dreaming once is all
and now is nothing
like days I don’t like
the dull whispers of
faraway cathedrals
the choirs of how we are
as a couple
in two showers
the soap stings my tongue
which cannot find enough
is a hurricane
of the blue sky
over a roseate hotel
is a nice sense of place
that you can call your own
and someone else sets you aflutter

originally published on a Pressed Wafer broadside

xiii

my newest Newsweek
summer’s back
got my fan on
it’s even harder
that I’m irreligious
the yellow butterflies
flutter around tomorrow
I count boat parts
he rolled over
and I got on top
“we’re getting married
in a hot air balloon”
counting the moles
on his back
3 fish

xii

how much green tea
keeps me awake
the lightning outside
the cypress trees
quite beautiful
I’m reading Microsoft
and well that really sucked my day
I tried to explain to her
that I never remember anyone
but I’d gotten a mad letter
and sent a picture of myself
because I care
oh well
now we’re at the riverfront
before the fireworks
with our citronella candle
next week we’re gambling
visiting in-laws
in Mississippi
I want to be a
photographer
and a poet

xi

haven’t written Warner
Warner my 4th
Brothers my 4th Warner
Warner gothic nice
candle my 4th my
Warner grill-out my
dead fireworks
Warner Brothers my 4th
nice grill-out dead dad
my Warner my nice
grill-out a gothic mix
nice dead poems and stir
my dead mix and
Cleveland nice grill-out
my dead dad see the
fireworks nice grill-out
mix three poems and stir
haven’t written my
candle my 4th my
nice grill-out my
mix three poems and
a gothic mix
my dead Cleveland
nice Warner Brothers
went to fireworks
had a nice grill-out
haven’t written shit


first published in Big Bridge

x

I have no idea where he went and I’m very pissed

passing over Black River my thoughts leak

it’s momentous only in that it’s the first game I’ve won in years

the Japanese they own the Metreon you know

I used to have some worthwhile qualities

it’s cool that I know people now and can visit with them

here’s to the boy with the Scottish cap

tonight the UFO over the Hotel Huntington doesn’t want to land




first published in Big Bridge

ix

hair parted just so
still as the cat looking
into the well
some freaks over the green box
at the cafe tonight
stuff i pricked
Sunday you’ll notice
Detroit is hysterical
I’m not using games here
Bing Crosby rented movies
drove up to Detroit
it’s Fleet Week
Ms. Poetry Reading and I
we picnicked on the waterfront
turned out
walked around the museum
then Royal Oak
my brother calling
how old I am
his ex-girlfriend
died a couple weeks ago
which turned out to be quite the event

viii

I’m eating
blueberry cheesecake
my windows
need cleaning
and the fog
has arrived

went walking
around in Monroe
so everything
out my window
has a sort of
Michigan
surreality to it

right now he’s
doing laundry
mad at me
because I didn’t
get around
to helping him

the birds
in the courtyard
begin to chew up
the street noises
I open the window
and try to find them

across the square
there’s a lit lamp
just inside
a dark room

and I’m having
a dizzy spell

vii

nice people speaking
other languages
at 6:00pm
and he hasn’t showed yet
6:10pm and there he is
all fixed up
in a Scottish cap
that I can’t resist
I’m still thoroughly confused
about who he is
we watch
two scary movies
in one night
I open this month’s phone bill
it’s half what it was last month
on Saturday
he was wearing a yellow
honeybee shirt
with a little zipper
at the auction
of Old West End homes
where we kissed
and kissed
I just wanted to turn
all the televisions off
and vie for one of my
neighbors’ parking spaces


first published in foam:e

vi

things are pretty good
I walk through the smoke
and it finally happens
they stop the music
a guy in red pants
rubs himself all over
“go Thundercats” he says
have I arrived or what
it was just a blur
in the cigarette room
he asked me where I was
I said I’m in Illinois
wearing a Fila cap
and a collar
hair mussed a bit
over the bill
I even jive with the arts
but I can’t tell which direction
the refreshment is
and anyway his soft hands
are there you know
so I give him $10
like I’ve never given before

v

last couple
of days
not great
the cat
stretches
in front
of the fan
a powder
I guess
he said
it’s the
most fun
he’s had
all year
I just stop
the coffee
and gather
my wits
in the mail
another poem
here I am
just look
the Thai food
my haircut
the big move
the wackiness
I feel justified
when I put
the collar on