dxlix

He’s got a gossamer heart, the touchstone
of human experience.   No structure.   The
various aspects of beauty.   We’re meeting at
Quetzal, 6:20 this evening.   First time in

years.   He’s chatting an awful lot, isn’t he?
Day after a nice Christmas eating sushi,
noises and pretty lights up on a pole –
no more sugar.   Of course World War 3

will be with China, so yeah, sure, I read.
And read.   It feels good.   I drink lots of
water and pay the bills.   I go to a bar and look
at everyone.   I try on a new sweatshirt.

I walk to the unfamiliar gym.   I climb
one flight of stairs, take the elevator
down to the basement, walk the showers
after pool on Polk Street.   Dad looks

down at the mountain ice, it comes in
inches. The life of a cobbler.   Tiny
matching tractors (a salt & pepper set).
The 19 bus goes by, deposits a couple

onto the glistening sidewalk.   As I was saying,
tonight we’re meeting in Shanghai.

dxlviii

Look, there’s a snail in the sky. I’m getting dizzy
trying to read while chomping cucumbers,
tomatoes, and my 4-cheese sandwich
from Massimo’s (whatever that 4th cheese was
is oozing out of the middle & onto my fingers).
Is was.
Was is.
Then I ran into the snowbunny I slept with
and he tried to berate me for buying
a new pair of jeans. Miss
Communication. Now we’ve got cloud
excrement. Which is more fun than fun. Also,
I got a 4-page letter from Columbus.
It was a sweet letter.

dxlvii

I’m overjoyed with a headache, or
to the point of headache as blue boats
flicker on the whitewaters in a flippant
haze. Scooping up the torn curtains.

A terse Monday, better than ages. Old
friends meet all decorated for Christmas.
Us old hams entirely too serious,
hoping to be referred to something
chocolate. “Perfect, let’s do that one,” we say,

and “What a year to disappear!” Deja vu
with Bill. The seemingly most important
warmth with a charge to the florist. A
pancake head. It feels like a stomping.
Not a feeling but an impression.

Notice the Guston cigar, ask him if he’s
teaching an evening course before
slipping into the sauna (I never do that!).
Step forward into with the feminists
and wheelchair junkies. We need it

before 1:30. What I’m trying to say is
I got burnt out on it but now I’m trying
to reacquaint myself. Then he
tickled me until I bled. Nice passion.

dxlvi

Today’s flower is the iris.   Its
purple-striped tongue sticking out
at me.   My back won’t work now that
I’m up to de Tocqueville.   Jack Lemmon
on Channel 5 has Christmas with his
eggnog.   Every day but this day
we sit outside.   The occasion –
a twinge of pain back left quadrant
of my neck.   I’m due for something
horrific.   The click of the throat
as the water is drunk.   “Goodbye,
Don.”   “Goodbye, Kurt.”

dxlv

Experimental fiction
seems to make the most sense to me,
not that I want to hop on any bandwagon.

                  ...like an apparation...
                  ...after running...
                  ...a few problems...
                  ...the only white guy...
                  ...to play dress-up...
                  ...just feels faint...

I erased that line,
went for a walk to the Ferry Building,
inched my way through the crowd,
walked outside,
leaned over and onto the railing,
stared into the bay. A white napkin
floated up into the air from somebody’s table [like an apparition]
landed on the water,
soaked,
and then sunk.

                  ...in the middle of Chinatown...
                  ...having to go...
                  ...complaining all morning...
                  ...otherwise...
                  ...impending surgery...
                  ...the most powerful...

...is of course honest enough. I’m not hiding anything.
I just want whitecaps. And. Mostly.
I want want.

So do you want Monday or Tuesday?

dxliv

I was going to tell you something.
Something about being crazy in the city.

Tom Carey read a poem about going
to and from the grocery store for some

flour.   Thom Gunn read one of
Kevin’s poems.   Downstairs

some guy’s hollering
from his bench.   Saturday morning

(Sunday morning – Easter morning!)
the man in front of See’s Candy,

Union Square, singing loud as possible.
Today, five prescriptions from

Walgreen’s: for sneezing,
stuffy nose, high blood pressure,

fear of flying, panic attacks, etc.
A friend who’s dying and

wants me to execute her
(or maybe she said executor).

Strong desire to play a game of
lacrosse.   I was going to tell you

I’m drinking coffee, trying to breathe,
watching a multi-colored cast of clouds,

folding away a staple remover.   We often
go through these things.

dxliii

Today’s flower, the tickweed, a breezy
yellow tucked into a violet blur. The very opposite
of indecorous, which is how I’d describe
another year sitting in Quetzal after the best
workout in a month. Don’t be shattered but

I’ve got the Wednesday Mondays and it’s
only Thursday (or Sunday), bitter about
the Ft. Smith sluts. This is my third bout in approx.
1.5 months. At first it inspired me to read,
like over the Thanksgiving Holiday.

But not this week, this tugboat in the mud.
I’m afraid I was inspired by Jane Kenyon
on the bus to the gym. So later I’m crying
and throwing things all over the place
while he fixes my internet connection.

dxlii

What is the nature of reality? The evil me
is putting the rest of me in a good mood.

“I like my doctor even though she
won’t look at my penis.” And now I’m

settling into nothing, which includes
a new home. And a violent mist.

dxli

I got goosebumps
a couple days ago
what was I doing?
Listening to Nina
Simone probably.
Somebody tried
rolling glitter on
my back. The light
cut marks all over
the bed. He’s so
good at brain
damage. Some
of these poems
first appeared in
the kitchen sink
with a Sharpie.

dxl

This morning has
a musical quality
on the page. Mt.
Tam and Jacques
Barzun the Bizarre
which is fun next
to me here. At
Massimo reading
Cedar’s lines
Franklin Volt
aire running for
the French pro
mising myself
a new leaf and
good spirits (a
gain) not certain
how I’m going
to live up to that
promise. Cool
air coming in
from the window.
Wet roofs and
clean trees full
of green leaves.
Move to España
single again. Art.
Vertiginous
materialist. The
echo of a bird
got wet crying
about it.

dxxxix

The vertigo is back I
can’t stop reading it.

His name should always
come first.   I’ll survive.

Up Pine toward the top
nearly the top and

I am atop.   Already
here its nice sunlessness.

The drive through the
mountains north with

cold feet.   Tender wind
swept roofs of Tender

loin.   Another plastic
bag or a leaf in one

life this town or met
ropolis I was aiming

for.   A dizzy life.   A
lifetime until I don’t.

This beast comes.   I
wanted him anyway.

Rejected by a beast
in the morning.   Over

the last couple of weeks
the sirens on Market.

High and five a.m.
again.   I wait for the

darkest sun my
drive within.

dxxxviii

A typewriter smudge.
Busy.   Which was nice.
It flew by.   A gathering.
Last night my life

was a frame.   Dissolving
in salt.   A harp.   All of it
a fortune.   One message.
It was best of all

his lines.   Time was OK.
Together.   I’ve worked
memory with Mahler.
Our vials.   Full of else.

And things.   Stolen with
whom.   In love.   Think
about it.   What luxury out
in the streets under an itch.

A psychological problem.
Inevitable.   And yet.
I don’t.   Even.   Remember.
Gathering.   Any.   Dust.

dxxxvii

Mercy.   Still spiraling
with this.   And and
the the.   Or I mean to say
slump.   A Nob Hill
excavation.   Not a star,
movie nor lump, to
show me the way.
Which is here.   Eating
away, albeit mild.   An
abandon.   A row of books
reflected in the window.
A dark finish.   I’m broke.
No lights wrapped around
the top floor.   Yellow
and blue like under
my skin until the
needle.   I never can
watch.   Being.   Tried
the night.   Cannot.
Contentment
and bored.   He
walks out the fog
and my heart gives way,
looking.   Propelled.
I like my home when
daylight.   The weather
while in Lisbon.
And mercy.

dxxxvi

Please hear me out.   I am the spirit of
the stapler in a castle full of paper doves.
I do not believe my fears are yours.
I cannot move a leaf just by thinking it,
as you can.   Yet I find boredom becoming
and I lie a lot.   I lie among the
leaves I move just by thinking it.
But I fail at oases.   Suffering
from yet another favorite on a sea
of happiness, my legs give out,
my arms, my voice, mainly because
I will it so.   I cannot swim.   The bird
I become flies through my eye, into the
tunnel of O
directly in front of me, and I am in
good spirits.   I listen intently
to various sexual engagements
transpiring within and without.   I am
asymptomatic, rearranging furniture,
trying to make new ways.   I’ll be
watching a lot of this without eyes.
Having however a new tongue, in
decipherability the appropriate language.
For correspondence.   My supplies
have transformed, are even less alive,
and yet more covetable.   You have
been to this place or somewhat nearby.
Please let me take you with me.   To where
I will not go.   There.   We’re here.

dxxxv

            Another day this morning on the bus
An emotional attachment to houseplants
                      Wishing me happy holidays

dxxxiv

Nothing is working and I’m floating over the rusted pipes.   Home.
How could this be?   (Use robot voice for
all italicized phrases.)

He doesn’t spell too well but I’m getting tickled
midday, flying into my other life.   It’s a nice change,
this midlife tickle.   And I was just hoping for a friend, no lie.

The window rumbles with wind.   The fog dampens the jet-roar.
(This tercet paid for by the year of the pill.)
He’s coming with coffee.   Disregard any news.

The reference here is from before you were born
so brighten up and stop worrying about
who’s my type.   Let’s play pool.   I should be the catty one.

dxxxiii

...and I’m flooded with
the I have to die.
                                    -Alice Notley

She is so brilliant she makes it seem
maybe okay and beautiful.   Many poets
try this.   Some succeed.   I never wanted
to put my head into an oven.   Honestly.
But isn’t joy of life and fear of death
kind of oxymoronish?

I am drinking lemon tea.   There.
I’m sitting in a cubicle avoiding work.
Avoiding death.   And then,
bam!

Every working member
of my immediate family is in the
healthcare field.   My brother has
terribly high blood pressure yet
refuses to take pills for it.
He saves lives in Paris,
Arkansas.   If I could cry

it would be for lack of ability to write a poem like hers.
I like a good story.   I wish I could tell you one.
Last night I dreamt something.   And when I woke up,
well, you probably guessed it.   I couldn’t remember a thing.
Except that I was in there.

She gets up from her chair, bends over,
stretches her back, fresh from surgery.   This is my mother,
not Alice Notley.   It’s not that I get confused,
it’s just that maybe I need a diversion.   From death.
From narrativity.

dxxxii

            I am back in familiar territory.   At zero.
            Back to where nothing works but the stars.
            To the night that knows no bounds.
            To the crickets and the frogs.
            That’s it.

He found the sweet spot but
refused to believe that plot could be contagious.   It
turned out to be very post-hip.   Then off to a snore of a reading

[Someone I was later attracted to.   Someone I would soon
emulate.   Someone for whom mere respect and gratitude
would never suffice.].

Got totally ripped.   Took a little puff on a stale spliff.
Then zonked until 5 in the morning.   If I can do that for a month
then perhaps I’ll treat myself to a baked chicken.

It used to be, even at zero, there was too much to contain.
Now I could probably crack my head open without blinking.

dxxxi

“Awake, my soul, and let there be only parades!”
(Such stature! And yet, such vulnerability; such
lack of respect in the workplace.) If you look at the
definition you’ll find that I was starting to get

a little tipsy by the time the reading started (I

with my cloak and dagger). And I was more than
a little intrigued by his ear (with such clarity can
it yet be conjured). BUT WHAT DO I KNOW?
(Nil!) I wound up waiting an eternity for a bus.