dxxx

I’m freaked out by your indifference, I think.   And
I wrote that A DAY BEFORE THE ELECTION!
Cut to the vulnerable quick, diving into the crack
of the book; its connective tissue is what I’d rather

be.   You’ll never find me begging for clarity again.

I myself, however, am intrigued by the process.   I
mean, whatever.   It’s called BAD.   But it’s so bad
it’s GOOD, even though our malaise is so very RE
PRESSED.   Also, my stuttering is worse than ever.

dxxix

Story of me being somewhere else.

Water tasted good a day before the vote.

A spike on the emotion scale.   (cf. add’l story of me)

My feminine side made my teeth squawk

and increased productivity.   Now we are free.

We freed ourselves from the blood.

(As always, the must.)   This increases years.

Years later...he likes birds driving under the influence.

And a picture of the moon with snow in my hair.

That was the difference between tepid and tropical.

Our November

                    through the whole damn universe.

dxxviii

We don’t need no education
but we do hold onto our nihilism
like we hold onto a heart.   It
drips a little.   We get bloody.   Etc.

Best in Show, Requiem for a
Dream, and Motherless Brooklyn.
In that order.   He’s an in
terior designer, nice guy, keen

sense of decorum, shy, tall,
bespectacled.   Etc.   He winked
and I pinched his nipple.
I can’t believe it’s November.

I am insincere, indirect, unclear,
and I sound like everybody else.

dxxvii

“He was plainspoken” only looks good on a gravestone
along with something else like “He sold a lot of cars” or
“What complex eye movements!”

I rub the dandruff off the day, decide to walk to
North Beach for lunch. Indian food. Tonight
I’ll treadmill and weightlift.

Now that I have two presidents, the one in my heart
tries to understand. “The sky’s the limit
for birds,” it says.

dxxvi

I am a part of the sequence, this
lineage, a( )history.   I’m also
just as dirty as the next guy.
Last night I was fondling a stranger
(The costume party was a bit droll.
But our costume was fun.   We went
as a Pixie Stick.   I was a pixie and
he was the stick.) and I almost forgot
to step out of the dream sequence
and/or into the pink curtain
behind which other men waited
with machine guns.   Two weeks
of boring.   I need a new hobby,
something else to occupy my time.
Okay, let’s make a list:
1.    Cheer up
2.    Get rid of headache
3.    Anti-postmodernism
4.    Children playing on rooftops

Such is me.

The apartment will be clean, though.
I promise.

dxxv

Even when everything is slow,
I am back to writing what you call
the poetry.   I do it from a walnut
finish and my view is obstructed.
What I meant by walnut is
a pain in my neck.

Why are you doing it?   He sees
from this angle something
his childhood View-Finder (TM)
would not.   But almost.   Like
certain smells trigger memories,
so do certain colors, right?

I’m so tired of looking for cheap
acts and waiting around for another
train.

Boredom as method.   (So trite!)

dxxiv

I am trying to imagine (so as to enact)
a feasible means of nourishment.   Imag
ination can be more than fantasy,
can it not? I am no different.   This just
happens—I let it go.

Today’s flower, the lily.   A pesky cold,
the business cold.   Around my table—
horrible boring talk about violence.
Violence to papers and sexism.   Five
hundred years of Western civilization,
and what’s better to discuss?

Every cloud a pompous biography.
Every bruise a hospital system.

dxxiii

I saw/heard
Creeley read
last night.
Full house/
Gershwin
Theater.   My
neighborhood.
Poems about
household
furniture.
Today my
calendar has
a sunflower.   I
want small
yellow roses,
try telling a
truth of things.
Someone
asks Suzanne
if she’s lying.
She says no.
Then decides
maybe, yes,
sometimes.
Even trying
not to.   My
head rings.   I
drink a gallon of water every day.

dxxii

Jack Valenti had a stroke.
People die sometimes.  Food is everywhere.

Like Brent writes, “Anyone could have written this.”
And indeed.  What is Brent?

Being in bed.  A baby.  Waiting for sounds.
Witness:  Clouds.  Earth.  Swivel chair.

Two sailboats.  Midnight Cowboy.
I felt a little trashy afterwards.

I belong nowhere.  I’ve already said this.
I’ve already said everything.

dxxi

What makes happen more news
(quantify)? Please
take everything I say at face value and
with a breach of confidence.

I am dizzy. Oh yes I thought this was me.
Hello from Pizzeria Uno.

dxx

The clouds play shadow-puppets
onto the baywaters.   A goose turns into a lion,
that sort of thing.   It’s quite dramatic,
which is nice on a boring Tuesday.

[I had this line in the elevator
but now it’s gone.]

Kit Robinson’s fragments
stitched during sleep
are not my fragments.   In what we might call last night,
I dreamt of sexual encounters in an amusement park
and in the rocky shallows of an ocean beach.

There were spectators.   Former supervisors
and colleagues, quite random.   But the encounterees
were anonymous.

Pesto slathered over a pale chicken breast.
Always good for the blood.   But
leaving no time to think.

dxix

This poem is for a poem by Lewis MacAdams.
His poem is called “To Mark It In Time”.

It is October.   On the television is a
documentary about Cassavetes.   This time I’m
onto something.

A hummingbird.
How it approaches the window
several times a day.   Stops.
Looks in through the tinted window?
Eye level on the 33rd floor.

A new box of kleenex.   Water.   Sunflower.
Making some change.   Make some change!

I take it back.   It is not good enough.

This poem is for the blue-handled pair of scissors
that sits underneath the gap between
my two flat computer screens.

dxviii

I can’t catch up with myself.   Trust me.
Suddenly this is the only thing
representative.

You want to whiten your teeth with the whitecaps?

Or ask a question without a question mark.
People go lifetimes like that.

These things can’t help but rub off.
On you and me.   Our clothes feel different.

I just met a nice lady named Denise
on the N train.   And ran 4 miles.

Here’s a moonrock, a little dirty
straw, strewn cones, and thistles

[This is when I really started writing.].

dxvii

Ephemera.

This line ends here.

Waterfall in my head surrounds me.

(Surrounds.   So silly.)

The myth of regression.

dxvi

I am thinking of many different ways to change my
person.   Catherine writes great.   Let us
further examine this punctuation mark            !

. Needless to say, sometimes it’s fine to be straight up.

We saw
Alvin Youngblood Hart at Biscuits & Blues. The exam
was very hard, tricky. But now I have to order
an original birth certificate.

The wind is
chopping the water into
whitecaps.  I will turn 40 in Paris.  This statement
one of many bilocated uncertainties involving
passports.  Good morning.  I don’t care.  How are you?

Olson’s comeback.  Namedropping at parties.

I should be doing more of this.  My first
official threesome.  And though it was
somewhat comical, it was a lot of fun.
It’s all too normal.

Vulnerability in performance.

dxv

Some dates Joanne writes several
somethings-or-others.   Well,
it’s 7pm and our court is reserved for 8.   Speci
ficity in 28-year-olds.   Leads to
anniversary present.      Aw come on.

I wasn’t upset at all, was happy to give him

something.    Awkward boundaries.    Restock
the fridge.

An ocean      (and its floaters, and its flags).

I really couldn’t even afford all that,
but it was well-deserved and it made me
happy to do such.    Wait,
we forgot today     (and its pain in the neck,
and its eyeball headaches, and its
printer cartridges).

dxiv

I am a San Francisco
something-or-other. Well,
that wasn’t exactly a very small
anniversary.

Control your cleavage with portfolio margining.

You are mature beyond your years. But
it is nice out this evening. I’m not sure what to do
after pizza. There’s another heatwave.

dxiii

It was dull and gray
looking at the island
through a Perrier bottle.
Undergoing this to recreate
the memories of what
made us love them
in the first place.
Right now there is a
pretty big heatwave.
The ice machine is
completely drunk.
Are we going to see
any of your family;
destroy my commitment
to detail?

dxii

ears ring
hypertense
my head
jerks up

September’s
big blue
muffle
(a muscle) or

something
soft an
apocalypse
of (“hush!”)

sailboatsss
you treat
me like
sterling

yr cutesie
fingers on
my silver
zippers

dxi

Finding the French in it,
the building bows its head.
“I love you” after a long silence
in front of the SF Fashion mag; the
white wake-like summer,
its flag limp, a haze, a few bugs
and a fingerling cloud. The
sausage factory
blown out of proportion,
ere its associated mysteries.
“But I’m happy!”
“Think of it.” “It’s
really a swell life.”
“What’s going on on your floor?”
I understand the blossoming
of all hell breaking loose. Licking
one finger and pointing it
at the moon. The moon blinking.
The moon sitting down to take a little break.
A gap through the grape’s bruises,
bluer than....
Apricots, pineapples, asparagus.
And a fresh bowl of marbles. Gouttes
d’eau sur pierres brûlantes.
How much of a prick
most artists are. Esp
ecially to their spouses.
“It’s not really that bad.”
“No, it’s not really that bad.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Namedropping at dusk.
Leaving no stone un
touched.

dx

a red hair in the ocean
would
vehemently and at length
solve all my problems
I’m the same

over a fruit salad
the sky is not
the same group of kids
and tables
I must be craving a new language (you speak my)
(“Probably somewhere down here.”)

after the treadmill
upset
last Sunday
felt like sleeping pills
the new buildings slow at rising

a product
(“Because he’s stupid.”)
just hit me the right way
like someone touching me how

dix

what is the writing
whose own answer is
multiple love (I have a)
never at peace
I am as poor as the rest

have you ever
made me cry
in an Italian restaurant
drinking a diet coke
(“Do you know the way to the immigration building?”)

read this book
he poses
for the generations
to come (and come again)
it is a contrivance (the music

the fingers of clouds)
they pick me up
before I know
it is Japanese
or lost in stone

dviii

I have the habit of twisting my tongue into knots
and sucking on the contortions. Side effects appear to be
increased anxiety and a ringing in the ears. People
have been asking me why I’ve been doing this for so long

and I concur. Drinking a smoothie between the words
fire and flower. After my workout today, I was 171.
This morning I was 168. A week or so ago I was 174
in the afternoon and 175 in the morning. Most of

downtown is usually a riot. There’s a big fire in
Oakland or probably Emeryville. I can see the
flame with my glasses. Ignorance is only bliss
when you are ignorant, so why bother mentioning it.