cxxxvi

I can’t break it off.
All this text.
Then, in the middle of the day, I write with it.
Checking out two library books,
right after getting my first two fillings ever.
Guess what? Rainy season is here!
About life’s organization, or lack thereof:
the ego is maintained;
the ego flourishes;
a contemporary compendium to ego;
ego on a platter.
It’s not really ego.
How many egos?
Let’s play the game of being back in the routine;
in front of a magazine rack
watching what people pick off the shelves.
In the sandbox with egos.
With nails and teeth.
Hammer and brains.
And this cute kid is looking at—what—
guitar magazines?

ccxxxv(a)

Two crows divulged in a hood and I,
Sitting on a parkbench in the Common,
Watched two ducks glide across the pond,
Listened to a variety of duck languages.

And now for a swan. A swannish language.
After I press “record” I become an addict.
After I eat the peach I get a hard-on.
The fork in the road never looked better than in my mouth.

Please don’t leave me alone with a capitalistic culture.
Please don’t flash me two crows on a runway
Sexed out in such inappropriately costumed flesh
That all the other birds have flown beneath the canopy.

Having just been cruised with severity,
I’m not sure how much we have resolved.
However, it was a nice conversation.
Okay, now I’m about to fall asleep.

cxxxiv

Even though the day
got ugly I embraced
my insecurities. I admit
that I am an obstacle
for potential buyers.
Having just paid for
my new apartment,
I went walking
around the
cemetery. Factor in
my attitude toward
profits from referrals.
It’s beautiful,
eerie. He
accused me
of being a bad
boyfriend. I
emphasized my
consumer gains. Why
I was a poet. A
scrapbook. Of
tombstones.

cxxxiii

This morning I woke up on the
wrong side. My core business
was on administrative leave.
Where is my head? Somewhere
outside of Bangor, Maine. Both
the number of accounts and dep
osits were up a quarter at the
family cottage with a double bed
and electric heater. Regulators
do not appear to have been in
volved. I’m sitting on the boat
dock which has expanded into
new markets. It is so beautiful.
The two of us submit a merger
application. The waves roll in.
Above the cruise ship last week
it cooled down just in time for
some new leaves. We’re looking
for ways to increase transaction
volume. The sky over the awe
struck cityscape, it began to rain.
I packed for my trip, he said I’d
always been there for him, he’ll
be moving for good, would it
be okay if he stayed with me?
Changeoffs and delinquencies
rose just as the triangulation
dropped. I had brocolli, spin
ach, and mental stability. All
the whitecaps have erupted.
Now look who’s cocky.

cxxxii

Well, now I’m splurging. I had a veggie
sandwich and a national thrift charter.
Also I’m having my feet baked. Anal
ysts say they are quite prominent. It’s
the most food I’ve eaten in a month!
This, along with significant brokerage
and trading operations, makes it time
for coffee. I met him online. That’s the
power of love. It shifts the burden of
processing bad payments, or, makes
two wrongs right. Consumer lending
stayed strong, beef fell to the floor. But
I am not focused on acquisitions. I swear
I’ll call to make sure the savings plan is
in place. And then maybe I’ll just give
him my keys and tell him to have at it.

cxxxi

days go
a cat
breathes
loud
two rooms
somebody
steps up
a triple decker
says go days
go breath
breathe my name
for them
a cemetery
somebody
somebody left
we travelled
loud
with flowers
misses
who misses being
just walk
tired of wanting
days go
worry
why do I
let myself
worry
a loud day
an inescapable
mouth

cxxx

the moon is purple.
the television reigns blankly.
the coffee waits for the phone.
laundry, simple
messages after
each paycheck.
a motorcycle drones,
the distant hillside wasps,
those lights,
the yellow ones
which sparkle or
glint.

I finish what I’ve
just begun.

cxxix

suppose some twisted caper on the carpet
some crime of sucking and falling like wise men
all through the interesting night and the progressive day
some pre-relationship jazz all the way through elopement
some star-studded belt slipping off and into the landscape
rolling down the dreamscape and into the living room
where we watch French movies and read
modern poetry                 suppose
blading from downtown into the darkness
suppose it was all very good except for the exotic
and getting a little depressed about the money
suppose this sweet ritual we’ve been practicing
in the yellow room
suppose when I bust a hole in my shirt
we don’t have to feel bad about it
the truth is only in the skin
suppose some swollen dictionary appears and we grab it
and we honestly deal with it
we blow it and we get truly involved

cxxviii

most people don’t think.
it’s the same with Hollywood.
losing five pounds don’t think.
it’s the same with the poached salmon salad.

I’m poor. so what?
we can still see the fabulous men.
it’s the same with Hollywood’s
famous cooks and restaurants.

we had a nice long talk. things got ok.
I lost five pounds.
this time over a haircut.
he was trying to provoke me.

well, he just called.
these pills are calling me in the gut.
my gut sure doesn’t like it.
doesn’t like the poached salmon salad.

I’m poor but I will get my haircut
from some guy watching 8½.
two years ago today was
my first trip here with...

cxxvii

“I’ve seen people roll their eyes at you.”
   --sitting in the Westin (kicking the bucket)

“The people who believe this lose two pounds per week.”
   --where one flirts (not a drink til July 24th)

“But I can do anything.”
   --on the red-eye watching Manchurian Candidate
   --Cameron Diaz is terribly moody

“Meet more folks in the mall and we’re gonna have dinner somewhere.”
   --remember...the kisses at bedtime both times I stayed over
   --through the window we could just see the chandelier with wings

light bulbs with wings.
we couldn’t go inside.
the hill was very steep.
we wanted it. each of us wanted it differently.
look back at the bayview.

cxxvi

there’s a butterfly in the dryer
with the blue sheets

today I worked my stained
blue slacks and old white shirt

my orange tie under wraps
but in a nice location

I don’t know what cries
behind the closet door

(but it’s no more poetic than the
droll garden with its hums and the

other hums from where the trashcan sits)
even though I can’t feel half my

self I’m out of the frying pan
and into the lotus position

look it’s a nut in the sky
tiny tiny

cxxv

too sacked out in a relationship
a communist in two necks of a nip
too much is two much is not three
you mustn’t change you know how much
to appreciate three you mush you mush
even out the three pricks but don’t you wish
each came at least thrice oh
orange rush oh too blue blight oh red Stalinist
oh obstacle on a commuter rail to
Rhode Island America’s Providence
and speaking of dread in a
three-car pile-up I cuddle my
pillow and rollover a communist
then I nip two maybe three distant
dreams in the rearview mirror
snap two photographs of bridges
one at least is objective one is
humanism one is an uncle’s tongue
ending in love with some other tongue’s
distant need and hence I do this a
one and a two and a three

cxxiv

sitting in front of his apartment
on a fine summer day

ch-ch-chicken with jalepeños
and bleeding rollers is so Disney

is so D-D-D-Disney’s new flick
which goes good with the diet thing

my telephone asks me how many
blocks from Post to California

and I eat mostly nutritious stuff
and coffee with Equal (no blue

skies it’s sweltering) on a fine
day with a scrape and superspecial

dental treatment (walk-in) mom
says she is officially diabetic again

I am hungry but my gut is doing
poorly shit should I buzz his door again

cxxiii

The teacher can see me. See.
I’m having a sports smoothie
to clear my mind. I can’t be
funny. Text by thumb I
solemnly swear. I know my
connection is very good.
Work brain work. One of
the guests said the canopy bed
is “nasty”. P.S. I’ve stopped taking
Prozac again.

cxxii

a new coolness and a crack
pot whose son is about

to go away into the Navy
I had such a good time

tender and green in the
laundryroom breeze

today’s coach approach is
something of a dithering

sweat gland near toasted
tips of Partridge Family

the entire pack parties
in a red punch bowl

I just called him up on my
Norman Mailer cellphone

said hey mister not that you
care but I’m unavailable

cxxi

Your trips to the country
over a bombardment of fears...

I wonder...if I examined the months
that had the most quality

would I still have a Band-Aid
around my thumb? (rollerblade injury)

This from walking by online:
‘Latest in Sexual News!’

I dunno...It’s more what I
dreamt about him last night...

Today we plan on
skating along the Charles

and around the Christian Science
Mother Church.

cxx

I’m glad you have confirmed
he graduated recently

and confirmed is he a
producer and a some kind of writer

it is a right more barefoot
than the sweet praying mantis

or the gills in the cinema
swallowing like they wanna be full of

and needed less by a loved man
a bit cheesy is it

there are many different ways a fog can roll
sloppily over the backdrop or through it

cxix

the romance of Botolph’s in the cafe
of the barefoot moon which had found me
in its romance was almost eating up the
lost smoke of the fourteen hills

I’m no boyfriend

being there for a while in the dark
was lost in the romance of the buskers
and topped off with a swinger bar
on Tremont where we had no dinner

all the sparks figured in

that moon at Botolph’s when we just
splashed our faces with a little
grapefruit into the vodka was when
the romance ate me up

it had been a while

cxviii

eat my potato chips
two swallows
fuck it

French licked
eucalyptus
fuck it

start coffee
plum-colored
flowers

cxvii

my eyes work well in this light
and why do I always start with

the smaller stuff
the bigger bangs

o wot a web of events
eating ankimo and scrood in the head

in the sweat of the fog
a horsefly

your eyes flit from everything but me
to everything but me

they are such eyes
I send them some purple flowers

and they says it has to be a
two bedroom deal and it

has to be cheaps
boy they’s gotten shitfaced those eyes in

mourning of my birthday
and of course they’s a total dork

the saké is always unfiltered
so we got lost driving me home

that was actually fun
like those years we was so fucked up

but now for my goal of
writing a novel before I’m 33

cxvi

Today I am 30 and purple roofness.
I got a total of one and a half birthday
cakenesses. I shared one and broke down.
We invited many to the housewarming.
By the end of our conversation we were
both balding. Me me me. In country
and western time. Then I licked his
bonus and felt the building shake. This
from the 28th floor. I’m 30. Time for
tightest goals or goalnesses. Exercise
da da done no nada. These are just bits of
the $500. Weak paycheck in the recycle
bin. A new apartment! Drive a silver
car across the world with the loveness.
Same thing as always this mutability
only this time better. Better mutableness.
Better booklist blergkhness. Today I am
a total of one and a half birthdays break
ing down. Automatically deposited.
I shared one housewarming and by
the end of my 30s I was bouldered.
Boulderness. In the country and
western. Marry domesticness and
clean up after self. Yes and this from
a child of many five hundreds. Five
hundred five hundrednesses.

cxv

autobiographical
ant leaf crosses
Loretta

conservative skaters
roll $400
into 401k

screwed by
a wise ass
one thing about green couches

hid your red
smile in
the pillow

big lily pads
broil
vocabulary

looked bayward
crawfish with
choked cat

I’m harboring
resentment
which equals feelings