mccxli

Patrick Duffy walks Patrick
Duffy out to pasture.   Okay,

Sleepyhead, I think my head is
squished.   But this time I

remember!   He was dancing
with a guy I’d never seen

and it felt really good.   Like I
had truly completed the night.

And when he left I just
stood up and crowed.

Go to bed at seven, pass out in
pewter.   Patrick mows the lawn.

Patrick roams over the loam
and moos.   A machine

comes over, digs a pond
out of the middle.   Patrick

moans.   I walk over to him at
midnight, drunk by the moon

and Mad Dog, whistle at the
pond with a Christmas tree

sunk in the middle, remember
the duck feet I woke up to

but not how to get rid of them,
wanting to swim like Nick,

happy as a fish.   The TV looms,
rising to oppose its camera.

Patrick thrusts.
Patrick parries.

mccxl

It’s a bitch-crank hope,
this interval between
dropping and chopping.

Save it for the center,
its melting or exploding.
We crow, listening to

music.   Dancing with a
big guy who’s left of
center.   Who’s left?

Our chops, I suppose.
Whetted at midnight,
but drying in recompense.

Give a guy some butter,
will ya?   Says the red hen.
Says the dead red hen.

mccxxxix

The city glimmers.   Someone needs to
teach that kid a thing or two.   You can
see how he ages from page to page, an
elegant maturation.   So why me now?

It’s Thanksgiving and God is in my
pants.   Yoga seems to have helped.
But that was years ago.   Then he was
sleepy and amazing right here in my

cellphone.   Said he wouldn’t come
home with me, come instead tomorrow.
I’m not really that fucked up but words
excite me.   Some words.   Some I still

have to teach him.   Like tomorrow.
Which can be fleeting.   Like the
solace just before dawn.   A
choking night, its gesture of

death a brightening.   Salted
with a few stars.   A cool
gesture.   The opposite
of ‘hair-raising’.

Go to sleep, kid.
Tomorrow my mouth
is sewn shut.   You’ll find
what you need as I fade from

page to page.   Oh, see me now,
an anchor to an invisible age,
with an elegant wisp of snow
atop my head?         No?

mccxxxviii

She sees my mark too late.
We’re dripping like hives
(hot as thieves).   It’s only
seven but we take what we
can muster.   I ask if she
comes here often.   She’s
pink and red stuff, growing
more concerned as the night
progresses.   “I like my work,”
is all she says.   I’m in agree-
ment, scamming like the
Gemini I’ve become.
We dance and we
dance.   Until I get
a letter from Simon.
“Fucked up and gloriously
scoping.”   Stop.   “Found
some hot Latin.”   “Found
some,” she grins?   And
gives the most amazing
blow job, rest assured.
Sure enough it is proven.
Here.   And yet again.
It’s the fourteenth of
something in the dead
of winter.   The winter
of the gutted book.
The winter of the
sweaty pockets.

mccxxxvii

Is once forever?

He wandered through the overgrowth
until he found a closet he could
cry in.   Hotels are like that.

Text is want.   Often without subtext.
I mean context.   No subterfuge,
just GIMME.

Arriving so nice, he took what was
gotten.   We go there often with
my wants.   Was once

the first time?   Does that make it
always?   Only fourteen
is forever.

mccxxxvi

Where’s your liquid access?

It’s my secret wife.   How I know
I’m safe.   [He scratches his zither.]

Before that we had a gun.   But
it wouldn’t listen.   Too scary for

words.   Then he had a hip replace-
ment, having just arrived.   His

sole purpose of seeing me.
Hide what’s easy (his

hide so easily spent).   My,
what a gun!   [He eats his

bullets.]   I spend the
rest of the night

with the
plasma TV.

mccxxxv

I threw a lighter into the sink.
It bounced back and bit me
on the leg.   Bad mojo.

Which is more tired,
threesomes or this
conversation?

I blew a hole into the week.
It wasn’t a big enough
hole.   I blow again.

I’m a ‘good boy’ because
I get up to leave before
anything ‘bad’ happens.

Throw the dog into a
corner four times.
Fourteen times.

mccxxxiv

Patrick Duffy walks Patrick Duffy
out of the picture.   Or so I thought
or so it seems something hours after.

What happened is I’m glad I’m
not him.   So far.   I realize I’m high
when I look up at the sun.   With whom

I no longer have a chance.   We’re all
back with someone else now.   And
moving on just fine.   Like the man

from Atlantis who dissolves into
pewter.   He’s through with being
someone else.   Is it a problem

of any kind?   Maybe I’m just too
watery, fall asleep on the toilet.
What did Patrick really do with

Patrick?   The word’s a lonely
hole sunk too deep into my head.
It’s way out of the picture.   Way

out of the picture now.

mccxxxiii

Terrible Delusional

But I
do like what the cat’s saying to the curtain.
“It’s a revolution at the Pilsner!” [Kisses
boss in public. “Meow.”]

Is it Adam or is it the snake? You, too,
can have a better physique
in two weeks.

“You seem really close is this thing accurate?”
“I’m sorry but my nipples aren’t working.”

Whatever you do,
don’t let his departure ruin your people skills.

mccxxxii

Who Got to Heaven?

Dismiss the hurtful and offensive
with those jewels of impertinence.

I made that up to get into heaven.
What a fat bee, I am!   The past is

past, though, so I buy a new shirt.
I write it funny because I’m a jerk.

Is this your first time things
happen in huge waves like

last night?   I only jerk when
I’m sad.   How’s that,

wouldn’t it?   Try egg
formation at dusk.

Too bad it’s not
Halloween.

These bees.
These bees.

mccxxxi

Really, who asks for a fuck
like that?   Say it again.

Can you hear me now that I’m
number two?   I still make lots of
mistakes.   So secretive, huh?

Here comes the doctoral
candidate with no resolutions.
He’s got no concentration
so I buy myself a new shirt.

I’m fairly simple
but it’s just my hand
to write with
right now.

Which hand made this?

I guess your secret walnut
isn’t so secret anymore.

mccxxx

My Book Is Bludgeoned

Look, you’ve shot me nearly dead
but I can see sunrise.   It’s a blanket
of guilt and not a boyfriend.   I have
no car.   Not even the girdle of moon
can reduce my spirit.   I know it made
no sense until page one thousand
but I made it me.   This your gift.
Am I but a gift horse whose
mouth an apple was promised
neither bitten nor sinned?   Taken
back to where I’m gone?   Take
me back to where I’m taken.
Queen of the hive for a
hundred years and
nary a drone to
make butter.

mccxxix

Fairly Italy

Well that was weird.   I’m sure
they were tired of it already.

I resist your culture to facade.
I am effortless in its wake.

Step one: she spoke of
ziggurats.   You should have

known it’s just a potion that
lasts longer.   Pretense pretense

and scared.   Pipe up if you
want to mean anything.

I don’t mean you’re mean.
Fine, catch me with my

defenses down.   Some
family fallout but I’ve

got to move on.   Why
else would he avoid me?

Clearly I’m back to square
one and never more square.

Clearly there’s a bruise on my
mouth in the shape of a boot.

Clearly he was all guilty.
Like him a big ugly brute.

mccxxviii

When getting some
it’s important to play
by the rules.   Moreso
than I’ve been for a
while.   But this isn’t
time.   And of course
play on time.   The
rulebook is upset.
Some family fall-
out.   It’s import-
ant you avoid
me.

Is this real time
or is it maybe
real this time?