ccclxxx

it’s a shady day
for a 35th anniversary—
wine with Maria

“he couldn’t remember how
the curtain drew a breath
or the sneaker broke”

misspelled in the wrong language

“he couldn’t even remember
the way the river ran—
a circle or a squirrel”

“he couldn’t remember
he couldn’t even remember”
laughter via language

the long language

ccclxxix

Flakes arc

Snowflakes fly dimly through love

Sky is love teeming with snowdusted boots

Boots smash the flakes of love into the nittygritty

His skin is showing just above the sandwich

I am a dollar bill

ccclxxviii

I reached back to the twitching in my
side—my right side—inside my back near my kidneys
we’d all gotten high and written poems
before we forgot that we were dying
you reached back to rub the bottom
of my back—your left side—inside my back
the twitching kidneys kept me up a few nights
plus dreams most of which I don’t remember
except genitalia on conveyor belts
much like the toy factory I worked during college one summer break
the summer before the private dances on the green carpet where
we tangled after reading our poems
not realizing—rather forgetting
how I was given Burger King to bring me down
to rid my paranoia
beneath the window where
the words got lost through the screen
a warm night with lots of bugs
we rolled on the blue carpet
and under the kitchen table with the pasta
I couldn’t get rid of my smile
I ate the hamburger into a poem
and spent hours in the bathroom with the tiles
thinking about sunflowers and belly-dancers

ccclxxvii

I see you lurking
repeating yourself
I see you repeatedly
lurking yourself behind the
motorboat windows
the boats I don’t know
how else to put this
in my head
it knocks
the repetition knocks
the dragon down
knocks him onto the walnut
plush and resilient as he is
he gets back up
onto the computer you keep
entering
too cordial
the houseplant that
made its way into my
cubicle only drops
half a leaf
drops half a leaf
onto the walnut desktop
I can’t put up with this
are you please
going to sit over here
half a leaf
knocks a bug
into the window and
Kenny Scharf
knocks Kenny Scharf
into a donut jamboree

ccclxxvi

The muse.  The muse that’s buying the vegetables
gets older buying vegetables.  That’s love
buying the vegetables.
Old words fly
like a trio of doves windowshopping new
computers.  Every body in the
window (at its computer)

looking at the same little dog
at her breast.  The dog at Muse’s breast.
I am talking to the dog.  I am talking to the
skyscraper at Muse’s breast.  The doves pitch condos.

                   Such is the life of the thirty-something
cruising www.autofreak.net.  The waiter

seems pregnant.  I am talking to the skyscraper.  I am
talking to the pregnant skyscraper.  I am talking to
my dinnerplate.  The dinnerplate has been placed
next to my keyboard.  The dinnerplate has replaced
my keyboard.

The street is full
of motorcycles.  An impressive expert —
an expert in pigeon,
an expert in pink —
explains pigeon and pink impressively.

Then
we realize other people work harder.
Then
we notice our lover stays in office later.

Men with canes proceed cautiously.

ccclxxv

Hello and welcome. I will learn French.
A tinny music frazzles me as I temp
disguised prose. These words undercut
your anthology of writing a bit for nothing.
I take it this is a way for all of the muck from
the week to stir a little before it settles like
concrete. I could have eliminated many of
these words, but I am preoccupied with these
skies. These skies try new ways of dampening
mood. Look at them dozing hazy dozing. While
heavy they do not succeed over the little park
next to the road. I am no expert on the loss of
stuff to wake up to. “These onions are hot,”
he says. “It’s wine and Kubrick tonight.”

ccclxxiv

let me tell you another dream where I was holding your hand
while you were passing out. it was a huge success, as always.
a party wherein the nature of the water was such that the water
was warm to the touch, meaning slightly warmer than you and
me. we were not yet dreaming when it began, and everybody
came to the party. there was N and R, J, S, A, and little a. we
didn’t always abbreviate so. once, we were more than honest.
as the party wound to a close, volunteers trolled the waters for
those who had waited simply to be trolled. all negativity had
been defeated in the large kitchen where the punch was
drunk and the reverie was molten. it was there that I forgot
the dream I wanted to tell you, where I discovered that your
hand was melting.

ccclxxiii

I can lie back on the grass and take a nap
a park bench under the birds

Killian Court
a few clouds like in my head

a few noises from nearby kitchens
being given a bath

like in my head the muffled din of traffic
green grass

lying back to take a nap
a bench of birds

Killian noises
a few kitchens in my head like the muffled din of traffic

every candle a bath
like the green grass of traffic

a nap of birds turning thirty-two
being given a bath by noises

this is the noise that pleases me
I could put my body where we could light it

lie in it
give it a nap

turning thirty-nine
being given a bath by candlelight

the candle we bought together
we should light it more often

ccclxxii

drinking joe at 1369 the water
heart turns its little burguoise
self around as boats flit about
over on top of it. a fit of blood
seeps thru my red shirt reddening
everything I’m writing. the little green
dragon waves hello and goodbye
for a piece of art or to a piece of art.
a geyser gushes good greetings more than
hello and more than goodbye it’s the
geyser of the burguoise waterheart its
red shirt drying me up underneath the el
ephant tree forcing warm dirty things
beneath the crust beneath my skin. this one
goes perfectly with the sunglasses crew
outside the adult flickjoint. joe’s gone
but what date’s this? okay then I’ll
watch you jerk off argyles. sure argyles
make a difference the saxophone only
cools me off after another burguoise heart
pokes its head out from under the surface
out of the surface up into the plastic air.
it doesn’t have to be so deep about it but
it’s so comfortable. I place my red hand
over on top of it down inside of it until it’s
the little green mayor.

ccclxxi

the movie played with intimations of lovelessness but
each time I was somewhere as if I had woken up one morning
with juice in my eye. each time it was as if I had jokingly
woken up with a Pitt-Jolie. I went through all of the notions.
I even recorded eleven poems and then I rode the F Train to the
MOVIE. they still hadn’t paid me but she seemed pleased.
everything will be fine. the music lopped off the credits like
you know a guillotine or something so I had to pay the rent late.
there were so many bruises and bleeding tattoos on 57th Street
around 10:30pm on a Friday evening but we were holding hands
up the hill to the porn arcade and then we had Malaysian food.
then he showed me...shit what was the name of the used bookstore
with “eight miles of books”? the firemen kept putting out fires
with honey. we sat on individual seats one in front of the other
and I got so lost that I got angry. later we watched the new flick
and got rested up. then I beat him up. I stuck a sock into his clouds.
all of the teardrops in New York on the way down Market Street
in the chic but fairly expensive Italian restaurant. I’d better
go in and check the laundry. I bit his lip and then I realized
it was an unconventional relationship. I had no way to be
quite as eloquent as a critic. it was fun and that’s all it was
but it’s still very hard not to feel guilty.

ccclxx

I’d lie down and finish this page where
I’d be this page lying down on the blue
clouded sunny cropped lawn swirls.
In the lying cropped lawn swirls
from mowing lying down on the
carpet. At the ceiling was the dusk
of somebody’s voice. Somebody’s
voice was a little bird I thought I’d
finish and taste an onion. It wasn’t
officed. The boat was lying down
next to another boat that was finished.
The boat was finished upon a great
effort. This was the great effort at
the oasis lying down in the sand
getting burned. I’ve written lying
down with my head wrapped in a
jacket. A blue jacket that I got from
my lover. My lover gave me the
blue jacket. And then we sent party
invitations. I was the one that was
written in the invitation. I was
cropped lawn swirls from mowing
sunny cropped lawns in the ceiling
on the boat where I was lying. I
was lying.

ccclxix

Good morning I am breathing and alive.
My people say this is better than most.
Today I’m going to fall off the wagon with
a triple mushroom and my head’s aflurry
with a poetry conference. There are plenty
of cute poets here but I’m just lust. There
fore, during Duck Soup we romp gaily –
we watch the last half first, starting with
the violin bow stuck up Harpo’s ass.

ccclxviii

Some young potato is talking about
a trip to California. Fat chance there are
several good poets in this place. I pick up a hamburger

and lose eleven pounds in an emergency seething.
Apparently this was the right amount. His house is very popular
but there are only two pickles. My eyes, you see. Funny

how I’m so enamored of him. Even his reflection of the
green bay looks good in the building that makes
bad reflections. The boats are at play. They frolic. Here he is

listening to a poem in the rain. Raindrops make him
hungry all day. I feel bad. Even guilty. So we step into
the sunshine from the movie equal parts

exhausted and elated. Mustard no
mayo. Vanilla milkshake. Let’s order another
pizza. Plug that speaker into your balls and then come over and we’ll eat it.

ccclxvii

I tried to put my hand underneath your leg.

The hyperbole rocked the house. We were depressed

enough about it. Then time froze your face into a drying plum.

I handed you my business card that says I am not in charge

of this depression. Enough about death. Our

company falls like an airplane into the dark map. You sketch it falling.

Somebody we didn’t know dies as a reminder. This little puff inside my chest

is below my stomach or to its left like an unlit firecracker, a

tiny balloon somebody blew up that stays there not quite

over my heart. The diagnosis is

you can bring the house down with death.

ccclxvi

nearing the end
of Haydn
via Stevens
I’ve blocked
Scalapino
it’s a geyser
of tidbits
cruising
dollars into
a timeslot
a machination
of Kubrick’s
lesbians
in Kresge
so last night
I must have
been a ham
but I can’t
get burgered
I’m sorry
I say and I go
to the sorry box
now stop it
I’m fine
I’ve revived my
correspondence
we’ll be
the hot boys
you’re too cute
to gravel

ccclxv

a chain of renascent mermen
rise from the surface
(at the surface) blow the poem into baloney
(air blowing) (being blown)
the letters on my table are a remarkable headache
all the way to New Paltz, New York

ccclxiv

back from Arkansas now
and I’m roaming the City of Boston on a weekday I love
Boston raindrops wondering
what’s the word for striking a moaned chord in the fog before burning
moaning a struck chord before the fog burns

and yet I open another e-mail looking for availability in
June
so I’m gone all month is what strikes the back of my head

let the waterbottles turn brown before I return
for all I care
the stakes are not that high along the smooth white picket lines

I stopped by the bank for the money from 1976
after the ice cream social on Tuesday
where we talked about potatoes and golden brown sugar
and French music

we were both in a strange woods yesterday
he was asking me how good I kissed

ccclxiii

the chewing gum people have a conspiracy going on. also
there’s someone bracketed a few sentences in my book and posted
one comment IMPOSSIBLE next to the various sentences which refer
to equal faults among men and women. I don’t know who this person
its previous owner was. though I am under duress. the person I’m sitting on
disagrees yet he has no motive to write about Virginia Woolf. the way he sees it
there is a fog and then there isn’t or vice versa. we watch the Berkeley whitecaps
tactfully settle.

I don’t always have to write this stuff I’m finding. what the issue is
and why I’m swinging on Dad’s porch reading the yellow book and
appreciating the Fort’s helicopters
and leftover mosquito bites I’m not sure. what the mutual benefit is also I’m not sure
but the helicopters keep bombing the hill where this gang has set off four riots
nearby. nearby in another forest someone is operating the
honey gear. they must put out the fires with honey. I continue to hear the bee noises.
they are on track. but today it is my vacation and the fires are still there
burning up the hills. I also have a purple marker. I write these fires in purple
next to my itinerary. later I am going somewhere like a beach or something.

on July 9 I pour myself another coffee in the Starbucks. next to my yellow book
are more DVDs. these become movies I wanted to watch and cause me more
of my paycheck after I’ve had them a while. this is only one reason to love Blockbusters.
we don’t watch any movies except on HBO but after that we visit at
Shane’s formerly Quincy’s next to the swan pond. I wasn’t terribly hungry anyway.
soon afterwards FedEx arrives with my new book. I can’t finish the yellow one.
it opens and closes with Pretty Boy Floyd in Fort Smith. afterwards
my mother has the audacity to make sloppy joes.
I wasn’t terribly hungry anyway. when I woke up
yesterday I went out and bought a new radio antenna.

ccclxii

that was one huge bird
like a loon that just flew out of Dad’s fishpond a squirrel
actually barking at me when I walk out the door
two cats on the porch
not so wild like those below
                  does he name this mountain?

                  7:30am
and already hot
but so peaceful with all the animal noises
one thought now one literal thought
I know the cow and I know the rooster
the locusts with their megaphones around 11 last night
the stars are bigger

ccclxi

another indescretion still just doesn’t feel

a conglomerate insomnia
grounded in Frankenstein

a conglomerate insomnia
ground Frankenstein                    still just doesn’t feel right
a lunatic superior maybe
            Robert Creeley an

other indescretion to
make everything ok again      in July

several beefy earls walk into
JP Licks for a PB sundae
and all the way around
100 California from the
slimy heat

this morning my throat
could not breathe                I finally cooled from the slimy heat

6:05-6:40am reading more meat dark like
Bacon making up words

downstairs a yellow t-shirt & one globe &

over my dead hamburger
a tense bun

                      I feel actually better
but for the salami on the back of my tongue

ccclx

no more analysis.
gear. good. gear.
gear is good.

are you testing me?
cuz I’m testing you.
we can’t both be testing each other.
can we?

check your jacket.
cuz I’ve written a break-up poem.

              the tumbleweeds
              in my head
              are starting to
              conglomerate.

ccclix

how much of what is love—a blackbird
flying by the window—down left—
benchmark: 4 oyster shooters
downed inevitably—1 more left
for conversation—this talk goes
downhill then I finish a poem—it
has a good ending—a poem about death
doesn’t have to be happy—reading
in Hayden a cosmopolitan
crow swoops down to a woman
walking the sidewalk between the
pool and the dogwood—she is
wearing a black t-shirt—a girl
in pink next to the tiger lilies—
a girl with blue flowers for a
skirt—a puppy with a blue
leash—a pink bag—cherry
blossoms over a barrel of
fake words