mcdvii

The Camera Pin

You don’t think I’m funny anymore.
She cuts the package and says “I can’t
write like this every day!”   The audience’s
empathy.

A clean knife is best in such cases.   It’s
not like it’s the very last day.   But go
with it.   See how things work.   This
really pisses her off.

My favorite is definitely The Confetti
Trees.   If you look at everything like it’s
a movie plot you can really have a field day.
She sees things differently.

We chained the dog to a tree on Christmas
Day.   I named him Snoopy.   Everyone was
scared and neglected.   Before the end of
winter, the maple tree was dead.

mcdvi

He decides to body his weakness
until the voyage of the sunrise.   A
series of short naps in the morning
relieve the sky of its clouds.   The
day!   He licks his wounds, tucks
a pillow under his thumb, eats
an orange.   An orange sits in
a silver bowl (next to a
bruised pear).   Starting
backwards (from the
top) diCaprio exhales
a delicate sigh.   He
recommends the
decompressed
time.   Fine.   11
mornings later he
arrives: cool glass,
parched lips, smooth
leaden sea.   His left
arch twinges.   I remem-
ber picking him up and
putting him into my pocket
for the very first time.   We had
just passed the used car lot on our
way to the Black Bacon Cafe for eggs
(over hard, astride two dark and chalky
slips of the BBC’s namesake), coffee’d
cream, and scads of McElheny’s
fresh, extra-thick honey.

mcdv

Shine Like Bacon

In and out of cous-cous.
Sitting tucked into the
wall of the hallway
because I’d called the

substitute teacher Ms.
Tuss-Tuss.   Poor
Sandra Bullock,
she can’t swim.

I live the life we
all dream of.

mcdiv

How Slow to Enjoy

A member of a girl cult knocks
on the door and you haven’t
any batter.   Most seasons
you embrace amnesia

but this courting requires
anemone.   Or at least a
pheromone or two.
Tulsa’s on the

phone, another crock
of bric-a-brac is
chunked into the
ocean.   Live fast

and die orgasm.   But
that’s too old-fashioned.
Trade up.   A whole
bottle of mottos

for a slim bag
of tater tots.

mcdiii

Hanging Out with the Groupies

Dig past a clumsy nerve to the
post office.   It’s Saturday and
you’re Ikea-anxious but monu-
mental (goodbye proposition).

Going somewhere?   Spend a
week on water.   The coffee
tastes like birds but the
bananas are delicious.

A peach falls from the
hull and into the mouth of a
landlubber.   Jennifer Coolidge
calls Kirstie Alley to recommend

the Cocaine Diet.   Broadway finds
the Baltic and the Sisters of Em-
pathy telethon begins.   The
attire is Viking and it

lasts until about 5am.   Dance
onstage til the in-laws
arrive with a new deck of
icebreakers.   Like

the proper way to say
grandma in Russian.

mcdii

Nothing is difficult
when it passes out
in front of you.

mcdi

A Terse Interview with Oliver Stone

Suspense and belief
Suspense and repeat

“Hitchcock guff?”
“Hitchcock guff?”

Oliver, gruff
Oliver, gruff

Some people give me
Grief over empathy

Veep of the symphony
I’m not the enemy

Some people gave me
Grievance & misery

I’m not the enemy
You go to Cuba

And press on the ishes
You go to W

Press is the issue
Press on the issue

(And press on the ishes
Press is the ishes)

mcd

As If Olive

not obedient in such a way that
heart’s complacency...in another
life it takes to...would have known
...“talk to me later about Woody

Allen”...it’s like you just got lazy
...as if your heart’s complacency
would have known two weeks
plus...ladies crossing Battery

bring it on...awesome coolish
air from vent below...then we
pumped some gas into the...
archipelago (Stockholm

leaves an impression)...to
gether...got some groceries

mcccxcix

For Example

Take the bellhop
who almost ran
out of pageboys.

mcccxcviii

Invisible Torch

Night’s (meta-)bullocks
tumble past.   Lodged
in the ass of the mind,
you’re no stranger.   Get

your wrists about you,
make withdrawal list.
Happiest week in
two whole years,

Thanksgiving comes
Eastertime.   Take a
fragment, right?   De-
fine passive.   Enjoy

this last contradiction.
An idealistic nod East.

mcccxcvii

Where were we when grief
dribbled, Davos?   Then we
chat a lot for the first time.
Most of the last few days we

read in bed.   Sitting at Steph’s
a couple of years ago mixed
in wit.   Nice dance on our
first fight.   Over lots of dim

sum.   The fact I don’t eat
pork or beef and the surreal-
ity of happiness.   Our garden
lease as an example.   But he

was too cute being mad at
me.   We smoke and watch
a bad Hong Kong movie,
dance two weeks in a row.

mcccxcvi

Bull Pilot

“Bust the mouth off the
pecker!” he shouts.   I think,
maybe two doors down, “And
stick it where the sun don’t shine!”

mcccxcv

I Scored a Ghost

      slice of boot on the frayed sylph
                                —Barbara Guest

How cities attempt to mirror
Venice.   Then the rain comes
(and the ice).   I’ll take the high
road, the Stockholm archipel-

ago.   Birds of pallid Aptos
bless the charcoal sky and
the rain, inventory ghosts
of happy evenings, group

ghosts specific to time
and place made possible
by weathermaps of vast
airy rooms; obligatory

candids.   A parquetry of
chalklines gives one voice
to each perspective.   But
each [unit of time] I’ve

no less than a [number] of
voices.   Do the math.   So
then we watch The Triplets
of Belleville as the Swedish

seabirds multiply and gather,
gather and (again) multiply.

mcccxciv

Skin-Graft of a King

Hold fast your slippery bosom!
Ran into the middle of your name
rocking out on a Mac in the middle
of the ocean (as I recall, you served a

slice of water and a bug).   Remind me
to tell you that when you moved to
Ashland was the beginning of time.
I cherish all previous moments, too,

but beyond that I can’t write.   Runny
eggs are not my specialty.   Complete
with a poetry reading in the middle of
nowhere.   A spontaneous.   Round the

room and over the couch.   Parking in
the familiar and playing the (finger-
tips might remember the score
but wake up new each day) dream-

ing about pianos.   I found a white one
for you.   I wrapped it up to keep it
from the sunlight.   It’s waiting up-
stairs with a big blue bow on it.

mcccxciii

This Is So Relief

Yes I stole the power
of the tinkling water.

mcccxcii

Not Mangoes

It was Aptos
we fell.   Not
into disson-
ance (to the
tune of

Going the
Distance),
but into be-
holden.
This is the

deck.   It’s
where I
like it.
Whoops,
there’s a

flame
on your
pizza.   Be-
tter blow
it out.

mcccxci

Wrap It Up

I’ve the urge to do a push-up,
don’t you?   It’s a slick paradise
but somebody’s got to do it.   Hard

to ease out of this or just to main-
tain it for a while.   Too easy and
totally comfortable.

In the Galapagos, even the wraiths
wear headbands.   A distant clug
(as in don’t be a...).

Tomorrow it’s Fall of the House
of Usher at Erin’s.

mcccxc

Odor Lines

I love it when you use the blue box
in vain.   Spending Saturday a first in (art)
clam class.   More pleasantries of boy-
friend of art intruder.   Now I have it in-

terview.   Something I wanted in bad.
A mosaic of mown cars out of town (and).
Au revoir, Warsaw.   The slip’s coming
up way too early.   Twenty-four

hours of my.   (Now) I have it into be-
ing.   Officially taken on a ride.   (Forever
this combination of really and re-
lief.   To maintain this excited into

let me.   It feels a[.]h so many times.)
I love it when you use the box.