dcxlviii

What they said was clearly spinach.

I think you’ve made your point already.
This machine’s working better than the other.

Coffee, Tea & Spice — such a pleasant nook
replete with algae’d aquarium.
Good to be alive alongside
this old book of essays
essential in order to
get up out of bed.

Regatta this and regatta that.
Wiping the sweat off his face with the bay windows.

dcxlvii

The word is my oyster

over and over and over again.
Like that. His pose
in the photograph
always and always.

Now he’s at a funeral
and I’m reading about sex.
Tufted words. Ashy words.

Markets crumble and
cellphones arc and flounce
from hallway to hallway.

Obviously our word
has changed, been rocked
by yesterday’s horrific events.

Nostalgia. A gaping hole.
Train tickets in November.
Woody Allen’s Manhattan.

Tonight with candles.
Tomorrow in the shower
as we wash away the words,
chary and oblique.

dcxlvi

Sex isn’t enough.

Thus spake Albert Goldbarth.
Where’s the context you might ask
(or not)
oh You-niversal You....

Here’s the context:
Life is okay this weekend of brain all over.
I finally let her know my situation
and asked if she’d given birth yet.

We played around with vices
thrusting online and off
our bedside hampers and vacuum cleaners

into a world full of white bleeding hearts
cornflowers
and dusted-up roses.

dcxlv

Juvenilia.

Music to be made fool of.

My fool.

Seems like I should remember this for some reason.

A glass of water from the refrigerator
has lost its cool. The fridge dying,

horrible gasps,
sometimes sounds like birds.

Music.

Work out, long stay.
Yesterday I made it through

to a bookshelf.

Built it myself big as I wanted.

Would not fit in the car alongside a 6-pack
of cheap wineglasses. Yellow coffee mugs.
And a new upright lamp.

Sleepy Hollow and Dead Man.

dcxliv

The isolation — a sentence

in Oakland or Emeryville

or

a major language barrier.  Still nobody around.

In all the excitement he sent
what he called an X-rated picture of himself,

headless, but with hands pushing his underwear down
just enough you can start to see something.

Every word is lonely.

Each word I get lonelier.

Then last night.

The one with me in it.

dcxliii

Absolutely delicious at 756.
That’s the number Ed writes.
Baseball poems.  Whoops.

Sated, sitting at Massimo’s
another six years,
during which the franchise
expands.  Am I acclimated

after a good rum?  Another
stretch, absolutely
the last day for lunch.
A night slightly sweeter.

A couple of weeks in Toronto,
his grandmother’s
service, arms open wide.

The fog rolling over
a dark blue shelf.

dcxli

An American flag
gasps for air.
I am here
on Labor Day.

dcxl

Difficulty concentrating?
A piece of sand
inside a wet wad of chewing gum.

And if that doesn’t work. . . 

dcxxxix

Two hummingbirds and a bottlebrush bloom.
Suspense.

And we’re “bonding”

lying in a hammock
with the sun beating down

to burn us into a love story.

dcxxxviii

I am having a religious experience
about only cooking healthy. Just this
quick note. Last night we watched
Suspiria. He says he got his revenge.

dcxxxvii

Aren’t we witty with our candor?

Our DayQuil LiquiCaps
flying out the door....

The weekend was a big step in that direction
I think
and good for me

dragging Eric back from the storm
through the din of the crackling eucalypts.

This iPod USB Power Adapter
does not work.

The jets in the stereo.
Twist my nose to crack it.

dcxxxvi

She deglazed the peppers
with diluted sauce, finding
new happiness at forty.

Getting out of his head
required new methodology.
He slumped his shoulders.

She threw a temper tantrum
and flew to Manchester.
Boy, was he coming over.

dcxxxv

Good morning, gentlemen

...with savage frankness
and bursting with enthusiasm.

Glenn Close appreciates those
who see through the bullshit.

“You’re just like me, darling,”
she thinks.

“I liked your old stuff
better.”

Did she say that out loud?

And we stop.  After our
mozzarella sandwich.

dcxxxiv

Lunch at eleven

Having forgotten how to love
he wraps his rope round the first word he finds
behind each belt buckle.

Playful.  Harmonious.  Seductive.

I don’t have a signature.
Plus, I deserve a pizza.

It was great and bubbly
talking about poetry
with the windchimes.

My mind is a fuzzhead.

Chime one for me, Somerset.


                                 —X marks the spot.

dcxxxiii

Turned Away

Let’s blow it all to hell just as things start to get sensible.

Today’s flower, the bugleweed, perks up like a belltower
whenever the animals speak; a purple embellishment.

I’ve written a trillion miles in ketchup. I wrote one inside out. Huh?

                        It was the sweetest at the turning station
                        though I thought he was a bit of a bigmouth.

Hey, I love you too much don’t get run over by a car!

dcxxxii

I knew something about Shanghai

The colonel shifts gears,
dispatches his buckets.

All your base are belong, etc.

Do you really think this is a good enough thank you?
I can’t get all of the hair out of my ears.

I asked him what the sermon was on
and he said “fashion photography.”

One loses one’s edge, grows duller each birthday,
which is everyday, and not limited to parsecs (at least).          Let’s move to China

where we’ll prick our fingers
and watch each bright droplet bead
upon our waxen floor.

The gleaming floor—a sign of prosperity.

dcxxxi

130 Year Old Outhouses Yield Treasures

I’m tired of chewing.
Everything I do involves chewing.

Have a good time.
Always develop.

Sent off for free copy of
Warren Buffett’s socks—
new miracle cure
guaranteed to enhance
redundancy.

He’s got a napkin fetish.

dcxxx

Today I am.

And I believe he is telling the truth. Yet all in all,
he is too eloquent for my taste.

This is where the best conversations take place,
each lingerer drops a few signs of his quotient,
intelligence and otherwise,
careful not to give too much away.

How reputable.

I’m hungry, my nose is dripping, I’m tired,
and I just got back from the orthopedist.

dcxxix

An eighty-year-old man
sits on a train
making stories of each passenger.

Always better things to do. But,
submerged in the din of our heritage,

Hello, Harry!
Hello, Larry...

We make it to the pond, its fish,
we’ll come to know in spring,
frozen;

pretty much nearing the invisible now.

I like your scent,
he says to the ghost.

I wasn’t particularly fond of his work,
he calls to his partner.

The train rumbles
past a gymnasium, twilit boys with
sparklers in each hand.

We lost our memories
to the crackling of the ice-blanched grass.

Yes, I believe...

One boy coughs
a complicated cough.

Some of the passengers stir, look around
questioningly.

Push away the trombones from around me,
he whispers.

And hurries into a fragrant sleep.

dcxxviii

A petroleum must
(a whiff of)

shows up
(in reality)
15 seconds before appearing

with newfound
celibacy.
Add meat