And here I am watching some long-haired kid
take small puffs of cigarette quickly
tap-tap-tap the ash with thin fingertip
and quickly again another puff.
Tap-tap-tap.
I have failed. The ringing in my ears.
“Patience, my love. What comes next can’t be worse
than what we have now.”
Try on a new chair at Design Within Reach.
A basketball nearly smashes a little dog
(what’s the name of this park near Fillmore?).
Massage appointment, Persepolis,
wandering thoughts, watching the maids clean the mailboxes
on Pierce Street.
The neighbor’s window is a mirror.
There I am, the same cat, at a very young age (kitty),
eating dinner, second meal I’ve ever cooked:
zucchini and bell peppers stirred over
mockingbird pasta.
Bellisima.
Cut him out of your heart. Cut him out completely.
Nice white stripe on your wristwatch.
Bury it with me will ya?
Woke up this morning on vacation
and carrot pudding. Kept wondering
how important this was with arthritis,
nearly chopped off. Sniff.
Imagine money. Sniff.
If you only knew how much I would love you.
Sniff sniff.
Let’s forget about the 70s.
Your voice bears the sentimentality of a
pair of underwear I can’t quite recall.
Look.
Look at what?
Last night at midnight after my athletic guest left
I felt tired. Clear it out. Watch the sidewalk
with Jay Leno. Carter skewers Reagan with a latté.
Apartments for rent. Your condo’s on fire
and the water’s too loud. Chaste enough?
My mind was already empty anyway.
Something about it didn’t sit right with me. Gasoline.
Try and get something grab up at me.
Good for nothing half-
ass style poetry with meatball soup.
Please.
I am good for nothing. I really meant to say I
don’t want to be a student anymore. I am your stud
ent. Blah. I am nothing nobody’s meat
ball.
The day is a beautiful shut up
he’s opening the window. I am good for
bread and taxi. Three men under sun gesticulating broadly.
One-up tax day. Laundry and dishes done.
Fireman
round the corner. Purple bow. I been there.
Ice cube next to Rendero’s Trucking Services
blocking the sun. Let’s get up and leave. A protest.
Protests never work. Haha.
Last night I dreamt
I was kidnapped and shot three times
once by myself
when one of the kidnappers threw me a gun.
He said I was burgeoning. HUMMINGBIRDS.
At ease.
Running a couple minutes behind. “Elephant.” “Which one?”
“The one watching Lord of the Rings.” “Oh.”
Very warm and daydreamy.
Apologies again, discretionary spending enlargement.
Please fly my circles. Wake up and smell the suck.
I drink some H2O. We starve steaks.
Thump, thump, thump.
Tigers.
Focus. Moosely resentful
downright midnight. Tiger’s moose
had to hurry past.
Find theater today. (What good is theater?)
Make a way to nearby theater today.
It was restful. I feel like I did nothing. Do not
emote. (That is try not to.)
She is so pretty. She is so pretty.
Boy talk. Boy talk
having financial shrimp and omelet sandwich.
Very lonely out there. I could go on.
Angel Island coffee with Lars Von Trier.
Forgot belt. Feeling like I am only one quarter here.
Belt feeling. Belt feeling quarter with Lars Von.
Pick at moose’s loose tooth with tiger’s paw.
Deconstruct annually.
Standing stock still with no emotion. Rawr.
Just
just let them take you over. Don’t worry enough when you
shed a tear
and they roll down your face like mountain goats.
A little chocolate tomb for a dead maraschino cherry
—Philip Whalen
“Once my workout routine is set
I won’t mind eating a whole beast.”
I need eyedrops. Are you having the baby?
How are you doing today,
chaotic?
Beautiful bay emeralds suggestive of
peacenik days but then
nowhere was there ever no war, non?
Broke. Happy. Beautiful beast of a bay.
I Got a Splinter
Sto
mach id
entit ies.
Spli ntering
Hemo rrhages
Someone dared me.
Please re- activate your account.
I wanted my par tner to notice me.
Be like sex machine w/
BI(G P3NIS.
Bree zy
Ba lmy
NIGHT.
I Can’t Taste the Sandwich
The Black-eyed Susans
are everywhere. It
came to us via
“pegging porn” –
Hold out,
you have no yoga!
Yeah, I’m the dead man you can see right through me
on this park bench on Commercial Street. Very amazing
sushi. Trying to sell a car. Date last night
(presumably the last one).
Timing. So one full week now.
You lost your sense of humor.
No mail yet. A makeshift bed
with Madame Bovary
and green tea
(reciprocity).
She’s rubbing his head, smoking a cigar. It’s peace.
Trying again to sell the car. First response:
“You son of a bitch your mother birth dog jerks”
or somesuch.
“Wouldn’t that be funny we hook up?”
Oh, also I saw Orion for the first time. Good omen.
I give you 10 silver stars
(silver, being yards better than gold.)!
The mountain pass
barely wide enough for a
full-size car. We get out
for pictures:
one of us smoking on a tree stump;
another, a giant
among redwoods.
And now,
heaven before me,
I have spent last week or since Monday
in a new place.
Daisies rush to be golden.
I give you 10 silver stars.
Heart
sick.
Six years of New Life.
Partially moved places.
Normal doubts and
stomach hesitancies.
Twist with this regard.
To this thing. In times.
Of uproot.
The dove I already mentioned.
Plot Pilot
Each sentence exploded in my head so I
looked away
to the pinkening azalea and the gaping orchid.
Then I
poured it over all of my friends
so they would feel better.
He cried and it made me want to kiss him.
Don’t walk away with the romance
(down the hallway). Stay right here
to keep it going. The attic fan is on.
I buffed the floors (his mother did).
The cup of coffee wasn’t meant to be.
Down today, wept last night (no kisses).
860 Bush Street, Apartment 603.
The point is I want happy
really fucking in my mind even
afterwards keeping it ignorant
as time goes over to a new place.
The point is
Where are the people I live?
And my hair.
Have a nice comma!
Driving out of control
through the seance. Question mark.
It’s a storehouse of shit. (I’m Mrs.
Oh My God That Britney’s Shameless.)
We knock down walls
to splinter ourselves. Then we undo
couplets with tiny glasses
like distant lumberyards.
The apartment. 1985. Man grunting.
Same naked lady on balcony.
Plot, plotter,
plottest.
All Mens Need This
Kiss me while you say
“mash potatoes” –
won’t you?
There is also: “the same fast
fine restaurant as lust weekend.”
And: “Britney Spearheading” ... and
“Don’t really know what to expect.”
Food so good. Brighter today.
Lush weeks,
nay,
years go by like this.
Kish me again, True Being True.
Your mouth was there, but...
Things I think
I am good at.
Like looking at your face
one last time. Where did you go
all these years?
The star atop Harry Danton’s
Starlight Room
spins democratically—
then the phone rings.
Don’t answer it!
You came back
under the orange pipes
for fire emergency.
We had a fire
years ago. The
bathroom towels,
the ones on the very bottom,
still hold a trace of it,
like smoked ham
or turkey. An airplane
streaks through a
gorgeous sky,
looking something like a
grass spider. I used to
waken to them
walking across the
ceiling. Grass spiders
on ceilings?
Perhaps not,
but gray ones. Spiders
build webs,
trap other bugs,
suck the life out of them.
It’s only a memory.
You mean the world.
Some worlds may be
greater than others,
easier to recognize.
There are new commitments
to make, to try and keep, new
gems to unearth
and forget, different
languages to learn. A
few new faces to trace.
I love them all.
You never saw a pale so green!
—Philip Whalen
So I’m a user. I don’t listen to
Rachmaninoff whilst writing,
neither Thelonious Monk.
Talked to Mom.
Got her secret
for cornbread.
“Better to have an iron skillet,”
she says.
Some things should be left
obvious
except to me.
“Who says anything?”
“Lots of people.”
Had a terrific line in my head
while exercising last night!
Can’t remember it
sitting next to a mirror
at Coco500. Can’t think
anything at all except
how I’ve aged.
Today’s feast is
no more poetry than
this burger. Coffee’s
brewing: Dunkin’ Donuts
for Old Boston
(Ed Barrett’s and mine).
And then I’m in Berkeley—
Shan Chat House, I
could be wrong with the name.
Indian, cheap and delicious.
Saturday morning,
new materials for
shirt-making, Frjtz
with David, Central Y
for racquetball,
veggie samosas,
three handjobs (same
hand), fish & chips
and the Galaxy Theater
for Baran. Amazing.
Now I’m watching
the baby sleep,
doesn’t look like I’ll
get any cheek tonight.
Making lists my
answer. How are
you?
Jury Duty Haiku
So busy in library
reading Ashbery’s
“As Umbrellas Follow Rain”
