mxcv

I put too much fake sugar in it, not interested
in the perpetual coddling.   I’m sorry, did you
say something?   Send me the swoop on
Merce Cunningham.   Ocularly.

How do you know if you’re a Cylon?
Check out my niece.   It’s the
groping skeleton agreement.
That’s what rich will get you.

                              (Investigate Buddhism?   Um, right.)

mxciv

Is this rock jutting out of or entering the island?
Is it an optical illusion or another Naruto episode?
Where can I get some kombucha?
Why is it only 3:12pm? How come it’s already 3:12pm? 3:13?
Logic vs. emotion?
How many times can I already say I’m proud of you?
How many questions before I stop? Stop at 3:13! Stop!
Check balance is $216.58. Now I’m at The Grove
on Fillmore. Not a date this time, but I like it. So
I’ve parked in this area now OMG I remember
this day – three messages – three different methods
(e-, voice-, text-) to no word. This and my
correspondence with a bedrugged
yesterday, the swill of the moment,
all gone, gone, gone. Any questions
I’d be fire without now?

mxciii

I’ve been reading and writing ____,
trying to work it out with the flock,
understand what it all means, but
here I find myself a few hours later,
starting over against the carpet,
removing my shoes before
sinking into the tub. It’s
all the same, exercise for
abs, more United miles,
and it keeps us all from
having to lift ourselves
into the _____.

Let’s start over against the
carpet. Why eat for break-
fast what you already have
in your heart. Let’s remove
our shoes before sinking
into the tub and then,
no longer stanky,
collapse our toes
into a net that traps
all of the important
ingredients for the
most creative
______ of all.

Give him up
entirely! My
_____, which
is now
altogether
too _____.

mxcii

Rhyme Record with Accord

Why the appeal of dissonance? Or
why such appealing dissonance? Would
that his atonality refused me. I’m with-
drawn as if to a non-Pollack Pollack, some-
thing a magnetic mirror would exchange
with my knuckled head. And blah is the
business of it. Blah the cigarettes of
sexual internment which intend to
resist my turn-ons,
insist upon them instead.
And why should we resist? Here we
sit, right in the very front, describing
San Francisco to the Japanese. Fifteen
minutes and I have to move my car.

mxci

What a Goofness

Ford is bankrupt (Dusk settles
like a broken nose)! But I’m on
vacation at Jasmin’s, sipping
coffee through a bendy-straw.

He’s more to me than I intended.
How control-freak is that? Sip
perpendicularly (neck to torso;
bendy-straw); sip confidently

and with confidence. Dealing
with yesterday equals no
confidence. Swimming in
the ocean equals confidence.

I bet it was a sleepover!
Damn the widowered
uncle of jealousy!

mxc

Edgy Digester

At all costs, avoid saying anything
about your sexual philosophy
now that you’re the star of
your very own plush doll.

Ah world don’t sit too neatly gas-like in a dent!
(Bill Berkson)

Met a fella name of Christopher: slim,
tall & pharmaceutical. Took him back
to the Mickey Mouse and then we
walked all the way to San Diego.

Did a lot of walking on vacation.

mlxxxix

Why can’t I write a book called Fraud?
                                             —Norma Cole

A meeting of the fraud
in whatever space this is,
living high and well on
Tuesday-the-new-Monday.
I call it EXIT with no holes,
no visible holes but a blank
to move toward, some dim
and perhaps hallucinated bubble
blown by a child with implausible patience.

mlxxxviii

In the garage of the father
waiting on time. Some
sort of 5-year long
anxiety attack. One
year I’d rather not
forget, no notes
available. Dis-
remember bath-
room catalog,
Sears, with side-
ways smile and
studio map of the
stars. Trying not
to be handsome
with evil grin and
stopped-up wink
doesn’t work. You’re
powder blue above the
rest. A kind of picnic
stapled up the side of a
Disney ride and downed
with 800 milligrams of
Motrin (no more laughing
gas). Meanwhile, back
at the ranch, the toolshed
wriggles under the thumb
of a typhoon. A set of
chopsticks are torn from
a potato salad. Dill is
in the air; an ice box
creeps across a yard
of concrete, rowdy as
a fourth quarter Tiger
touchdown at the
county line.

mlxxxvii

My feelings
just bit the
dust after a
whole year!
Yoohoo,
I’m in favor
of naughty
pisses. Just
ask your drug
problem.
Somebody
please help me
fix everything.
Remember,
sweet love is
a birthday and
I’m still alive
messing this
one up. So,
Faces with
Roses, go
do yourself
some flavors
and buy me a
Zippo. Or is
your clouds
too swollen?
Jeez I meant
zippers but
whatever,
shush and
forget the
whole thing.
Just allow me
the honor of
massaging
your beautiful
hairy legs.
Super-wow!
Shrug.

mlxxxvi

Don’t be an obligation.

Stop beating a dead horse and
learn to be okay with not being
okay. Masturbate with enjambment.
Don’t cut the cheese unless you’re
willing to give an inch. Be true
to something that cannot exist.
Spread the good word. Exercise
your right to explore the option
of an annulment. Try on a pair of
rose-colored glasses. Stop repeating
yourself. Be yourself. Stop whining
and try on a pair of balls. Create an
alter-ego on Facebook and use it to
trumpet your anger. Empower your-
self by eradicating the notion or even
the appearance of perfection. Be some-
body. Thank you for the nude photos.

mlxxxv

I’m sorry I ate your balls.
I just didn’t want to be
reduced to a naïf.

They say home
is where the heart is;
and I just learned that
my name is Persian
for ‘heart’ –
as in ‘soul’.

Don’t beat off
thinking about
me anymore.

mlxxxiv

Proving I’m here begins to be
the task that keeps undermining
itself, the “gift that keeps on
giving.”

You only picked at your frog.

Realizing you’re not waking
from a nightmare, you are
indeed in love with a
Republican.

mlxxxiii

Turn around three times
when it’s too easy to
keep being the best.
Go fuck yourself.

I’m not mad at you.
I just want you to
feel miserable.

Spectators are
impressed and
inevitably reveal
awe, incredulity.

How do you do it?
What an incredible
relationship you have!

mlxxxii

the agitating husband

I’m so afraid of falling asleep
during the most exciting moments.
What’s the use if I can’t show
you off?

I’d like to give homage to the artist
but I’d rather not relive this feeling.

It’s ok to a) spend only 30 minutes
at a museum; b) walk out happy at
intermission without coming back;
and/or c) read only 3 pages at a time,

isn’t it? Why feel guilty for everything
that makes you happy?

mlxxxi

No problem, just moving on

Wake up 10:30 am,
cancel subscriptions.
Orange juice and
egg salad.

Every line emphasizes
the ridiculousness,
the mere hopelessness
of our combined
situation.

(Mine plus yours and yours
equals one, right?)

That’s why I love
reading your book.

mlxxx

I’d like a detailed justification of
your moral principles, in writing,
and without being quite so...
impactful?

Are you in a fuel mood?
Do you find yourself unable
to deactivate your blow-dryer?

Fresh from the dock
only one passenger
is blinded by
democracy.

You say “I’m about to explode.”

She’s my relation in that
she’s the sister of my mother.

That’s when he brought it all together
with his fantastic, guilt-free closing statement

(and all of the suicide bombers
reversed courses, recanted, and
henceforth went about their
various businesses with
reinvigorated obliquity).

mlxxix

Is Bruce in today? Or is today utterly
exhausted of Bruce? It’s probably
mostly ecstasy. Fuck it doesn’t feel
right. We had a long conversation.
A first after a whole year. A first
conversation. I can’t write any
more. Two lip variousness.
Smoking feelings. Hanging
off the edge of a cliff, best
mood in months—crescendos
for weeks into Kleenex. Mom’s
in New Mexico under something
aluminum. A rat attack. They’re
all appropriate with disappoint-
ment. The fawn left
the family feast.

mlxxviii

A wrinkled bruise on the back of my hand.
Office babies. What a strange verve you
have. Laughing in the face of deformity.
Bats on sleep. You can see the noise in
New York City (Edna St. Vincent Millay’s
observation on her first time there). Hello,
Sprig. I’m decidedly stuffed and wobbly of
mind. Be right back. Gonna go let out some
hot air. Blame it on the weekend Earth took.

mlxxvii

Unsafe for passage. Erin says she might.
In shorts. Lots of pies. Bliss of boredom.
Retreat from Milo, Eli, and Joe! Just
keep leaving one spam pie open. Plus
some very disturbing things at the
Central YMCA. Is blatant so bad?
What’s changed? Personal econ-
omics? Blah. I’m supposed to
dance and party. Tweak birth-
day corsage. Dock the boat.
Let the birds do their thing.
Gas from air, which not
eating will do for you.

mlxxvi

Are my endings too pat?

How lovely to encounter a hard-
earned favorite, weave giddily through
lines with comfort, warmth, and the
occasional yet always unexpected
prickle of something like impending
sex with a stranger. Imagine when
less than a decade ago I’m (time spun
raggedly in all directions) fistfuls of
hair poring over each page, What
in the hell is he saying? Paid
in Full, where have I come,
what have I come to? 4 miles
on Tuesday, which was a
yesterday? Racquetball
with Fermin, 3 and a half
games (but he’s getting
better, damn!) and cranky?
I’m short-tempered, sure,
over my clumsiness last
Saturday night. Over
my feelings, sudden-
ly. Or just thinking
about them.

“You think
too much!” he
always says.

Oh, for a month
of holidays, some-
thing casual in the
air, a new and unfam-
iliar book of nonchalant
phantasies: correspondences
extricated from the ether (ahover
between here & there), whipped up
and whisked (in no necessary order)
into skillet-sized breakfasts.
Unequivocal. Telepathic.
Banter. Notwithstanding.

mlxxv

Poem!  This is so interesting,
But is it real?
                      —Bill Berkson

Indecipherable bit w/phrases
that suggest – well – I don’t

know.  OK.  But the last line
is “I wanna see u....”  OK?

Now I’m floundering on a
treadmill and the router’s in

stitches over some flaming
mouses.  Who had an affair

with Rae?  Slide lubricant
over warm link, say what

is not a What, insert Sex
and the City, Season Four.

Sex?  Check.  Afternoon?
Check.  Peaceful, calm,

and even hot (sex, all the
way to Season Six).  He’s

laid back, low-key, and
I’m really foolin’ for him,

fallin’ asleep.  I – well –
I – indecipherable – bit.

mlxxiv

Oh gosh okay you are unknown to me,
poem. My lunch spot at the end of a
disaster. In Oregon. An inability to
tumble into nonsense. Blue pipe
diapers. The General Assembly
is NOT your boyfriend. Clumsy
sex that always works. One
suave back-em-up after another
(watch each get replaced and
suavely). Go to hell, no-brainer.
It wasn’t really that clumsy.
Yardwork in the outbin.
Pucker up, inbox, the
Bradys are about to
chase us up one
end of the Pacific
and down the
other.