dccxxxi

I recall your celebrity tuna.

I think I’ll make a turkey soup.
His bliss trees surround me.
Absence makes a good love poem.
Champagne pop on the dim sum.

Cupid should know better
while I’m in the bathroom.

dccxxx

“Being skinny puts me in such great spirits!”
(A trick is great pony.)

How do you
comb your hair
with that beautiful watch,

wearing the streets of
pinot grigio? Brings to mind of

how many minds
are we. I like
the curve of the ceiling,

the way you Photoshop it,
then down the hatch
with a latté and a San Pellegrino. Hello

from Caffé Prague
with David (a little over-arching)

and Chris (that bad toad!).
Today is beautiful like me.

dccxxix

A Soup of Zucchini

Thanks
for those Mediterranean spices
Mr. Collom, Mr. Brit-Flag Purses,
Mr. and Mrs.

I Don’t Have No Big Words.
Sunday comes
with its churchbell swishes
and the candy clovers

I meant to translate
for you. Dim sum
snakes instead,
and demin-jacketed,

no tie-clasped
monkeys
make room for more monkeys (French lyrics);
squabs for more squabs.

Lots of salty kisses on
chunk concrete.

                                                        -Kiehl’s on Fillmore

dccxxviii

I can see the chandeliers of the Carnellian Room
eastward on Pine to home
Otto singing not to the
monotony of homework

nor verse
but to mushroom clouds under the birds
           eventful few days
Eva Hesse’s giant traumatism

she sings at her baby from modern trees
the eastward leaves purple for royalty

dccxiii

The joint venture places several of the nation’s most
recognizable beer brands under a single concern.
                                            —nytimes.com

Sometimes it works
and sometimes
we have to pour it all down the sink.
Smoky apparitions hover at or near the ceiling in witness.

Then we frolic from hillock to hillock,
straightening our hunchbacks along the way.

A glorious turn of events, waking up
covered in sweat:
it’s the fear of monotony. The ennui-swathed alarm
plays a new song by Madonna. We dance ourselves
out of the bed and into the shower,

dawn. Another minute and we’re late for yoga
or something. Who remembers?

But the nice part
is how the fork got stuck in my head.

“Who needs hope?”
“Why, we do, silly!”
“Shall I send a revised meeting planner for the full ninety minutes?”
“Absolutely,” he smirks,

placing his laptop on the corner of the sofa,
the most comfortable corner.

dccx

Fits

& then starts.

Writing an hour a day. Deciding how serious.

Tinnituses (mom’s, son’s).

A normal person couldn’t have done it.

Of course happiness isn’t funny.

But so is Frosted Mini-Heartattacks.

dccxxvii

Beautiful Sloppy Pecker Dish

He’s deft.
Full of secrets.

“Yes,” he said.

“Plus,
he owes.”

Sad,

bluesy.

dccxxvi

....of ever more sensitive blemishes


                                 FOG


salmon patties, gnocchi & green peas
on Pacific & Battery


a patchwork that turns into a series of segues, or
                                                                      eventually

                   non sequiturs


a festering sweetness of red lollipops (W.C. Williams)


one postmuddern clump after another


too much pecan pie & cheesecake, etc.

dccxxv

When I Was Alice

notice Michael Palmer
lotsa readings in the late 70s
hm

Collom enjambment
needs to breathe I guess —
experiment is key

numb teeth nest

02/02/02 in library after gym
also witness 5 men jerking off
one kinda cute

cup of pretzels, diet coke
and clam chowder with 2 english muffins

English Coke
many Jordan almonds

“what’re you really good at?”
not diarist, not poet, not editor
brain gone to the birds

and extreme computers
(breathe I guess)

* * * *

When I was Alice I counted the cars
one after another
in front of Walmart
intersections

pulled at my dress
wet my panties
at the intersections in front of Walmart
in the late 70s

hid piece of puzzle
Lil Abner psychiatrist
something melodramatic

along with a kiss in the moonlight
up several flights
tear open a blue jeans

dccxxiv

What I’m doing now is write.
                                     —John Ashbery

A lot of coming

and, I suppose,

going, on this
paper here.

India, Philadelphia,
Colorado, Los Angeles.

Fell on a dork.
Outside swishes

now smile, an acorn.
Is that your answer

ain’t funny. Oh, but
I was so ready to leave,

to sleep. To rap it, love.
.... Rabid love.

Wrap it up in a poetry
security. Play with it

more (“...rampant ...rampart...”).
Came on the couch;

comely, rapid. Calypsos,
what a trip! Came

more than went. Collapses.
What an oaky mesh!

dccxxiii

Dear Bill,

lover of baseball
and Whalen, I tried

to celebrate your 65th
(a little late)
with Red Sox & Rockies, but, but,

this glass of water
and Jack Collom, 10:01pm,,,

and Erin,
house-sitting when the cat died,
(Mem’ries!)

Paolo’s party

at Massimo’s
another reddish day

postcard poem: The Seven Seas
inspired by C&C
getting high after
Radiohead

Blue Planet,
which was a trip
in and of itself,
really fantastic

Claritin-itis

Wayne’s heart really bad
but better

Tammy’s white trash
dissertation

The Police
at Starbucks
Synchronicity

Happy Birthday
Bill and everybody!

dccxxii

No date on Friday night then
(HORROR)
a kidney stone at Kaiser.

House a mess,
off to Duboce
for feckless sex
(goes well with TV).

Mom speaks with dogged
neighbor who replies!
First words
in three some years.

Baked potato vigil
2 points (joined
Weight Watchers!).

$662 roundtrip to
Hong Kong a temptation
I am resisting.

Drive instead
into fire,
Southern
California.

dccxxi

“Wildlife” and “Wildfire”
look very much alike
in headlines next to one another.

Issue 10 cover –
Curran, sideways,
head lopped, no feet,
wearing FOOL t-shirt,
BRECK painted across body
with white-out.

Wrote to tell Tom
how time passes oddly
in dreams
which remind us
to say hello
to long-ago friend.

Death is a booger.

dccxx

The prison of the page,
a pain in the neck.  Lost beauty
like city starlight.  Another meteoric
deconstruction.  Sleep when I die
mentality; a small break between miles.
The steam room out of order.  First real
bag of groceries in forever.  Sirens,
smoking bus, the rain clears into a
sunny afternoon.  At home spend two hours
washing dishes.  Some redneck movie.
Heading to post office for electronic postcard stamps.
Can we maybe have maidservants clean our apartment
in the nude?

dccxix

dirty bittie if it’s not indie
it’s no damn good
dumdum got grey tryin to be a style

what cooks here baby??

ooh ramen ugh!
ooh ramen ugh!

ah too freezin too fuckin cold
dumdum bitty should get up and leave
fuckin for the last 5 days or so no good up in them cabnets

but one thing cool we got the swiffest influx ever

ooh ramen ugh!
ooh ramen ugh! and ugh!

dccxviii

West Hollywood Winter

Fathom a market of goldenrod (and
not the genera that take batteries).

A secret garden for them, outside a bed 

& breakfast, perhaps. 8 in the morning.

Glowing French Toast with orange rinds,
chunk cantaloupe.  Neon sex.  Walk

to Grauman’s, split stars for an hour
(because we’re so damned grumpy),

curl up inside a toaster oven.  Somalia,
Diebenkorn, and Baziotes.  A botched

attempt at a door (1960s). More on 

this later, I think, as I straight fail to 

go unnoticed while bristling at the

stunted pussy willow upon which I

am pissing.  I coffee down and perk

up, snatching the buzzes all the way 

through the Golden Globes Era.

dccxvii

The sun torches deeper than thought

Cerebral hemispheres of nonexistence
caress the nibs of your neck, that exquisite
hump on your shoulder. And not a Gizzi in the house
(harrumph!).

All told: the Abbey Cafe, its lists, the ghost of
Hockney on Mulholland Drive, so L.A.!
Whisper something clever to me, kid.

dccxvi

Goodnight sliver of moon,
a goodnight distant carrier
jet! Night and night! An opposite

to learning. Sit on my ass and be
lazy, lazy, lazy. Hit ‘send’ – the
computer’s entrails hot as lava
(an exclusionary hot). I like him

but there are a lot of ideas I enjoy, too,
like my own apartment.

Miserable nipple ring!
Klimt, Lauder, and
utmost exhaustion!

dccxv

In this dream I was in grad school
with Dharma and Greg. I’d
failed to check my school mailbox
for months (years?). It was
overflowing and I obviously
wasn’t making the cut. That’s
all I remember. I never
watched Dharma & Greg,
but I did read somewhere
that Dharma’s character was a
yoga instructor. Perhaps it’s
because I’ve missed yoga for
several weeks now......It’s so
quiet here today, and I can’t see
a thing out of the window.
Total fog/rain/nothingness.

dccxiv

Make Your Money Do Good Things

Super Viagra.
Sex without borders.
(How green my banana.)
Philosophy of a hairy chest.

Pinching from whatever page
(web or otherwise) happens my way.

Writing is dead.

              Make Mom a hair appointment, her first color ever,
              Wicked Salon, October 2007. Dinner at Via Veneto with
              Gary, Nathalie, and Curran, $100 wedding present, January 2002.
              Amelie, 2001: A Space Odyssey (twice), Apocalypse Now (Redux),
              and ingredients for See’s Chocolate.

I’m on the ‘machine.’ The clouds part and I see his face.
Love, marriage, sex...who knows what order
a heart should be in? Finding a good conversation helps.

I really loved the gargoyles in Paris.

                                                                                 —Whimsy (of course)