mcdxxix

A raven’s wing
is graying on your cheek.
                  —Melissa Broder

Defeated?  Sit on the Great Wall.
Wipe the table.  November heats up
so turn on the fan.  Stir things up so
you need to pop an antihistamine.

Tonight.  Trying to get things done.
Rihanna in tow.  Of course it’s wrong.
Will we have a lifetime (and he’s off
to Paris)?  A million questions to...

prepare...attempt....  The one argument
of concern plus a broke iPhone and
a pair of flip-flops in the kitchen sink.
A little devil singes your pants. All

aglow with Asahi.  Break it up with
a glass of water and a prescription
for insanity.  Pills to cool the
junkie weather.  And X the

buzzing phone.  I got you,
a red bookmark in the sun,
stubble from sleeping all day.

mcdxxviii

braindrained from missing you and
david barber’s celebration of life
with the best sunset ever, tho.
driving back and forth from carmel
and missing you, but mostly the
little correspondences i’ve gotten
(but you telling me you’re disappointed
which is understandable
and when is life fair you’d say) or
_____________ spoken positive love tokens
resounding in my head because sometimes
i feel i do everything wrong
when i’m just trying extra special
to do everything just right
all the love in my heart is only because of you
and my heart is yours and what’s mine is ours
and you’re so independent it hurts
and i’m so proud of you
transcendent photos and far-out loving
open up your mouth never seen anything like it
paintings on the wall
the wall i love a brilliant blue
a sealed-up surprise home for unseen tea green
and coco loco and the ox
lean on me like a house of cards
whispering past-present-future dreams
and lean on me
a foundation for a red-caped hitman
lean on me
a home on a hill or another hill
a november in the springtime of love

mcdxxvii

Sterilized Repetitive Morons

     By the way, I never had a sex tape
     and I always wore panties.
                                     —Shannen Doherty

Visa.  Passport.  Dinner.
Do you figure you’re a fugitive now?
Like you live on the right-hand side of the
couch, I on the left?

Maybe she’s his daughter.

mcdxxvi

I love weather

I think I saw Jesus’s butt
in my dollop of shaving
cream this morning.  It
was blue and under-
age.  Make

worms not word bombs.

mcdxxv

OK, but with a big pain in my
back for some reason. Probably
karma. The last sentence that
tends to be periodless. A snow
of dandruff. Are you reading me?
Are you confused by the stripes?

Ok then. Back to it (‘back twit’).
And then {SNEEZE}. It’s totally
like I’m pregnant, right? It’s true,
you tend to like a song better
if it’s sung in French.

mcdxxiv

elemonade the Patty’s map
            —David Foster Wallace

Prognosis: I’m as slow as Christmas
and as happy as a clam.  Everyone
stares into the middle of the sentence.
Nevertheless over the tops of nuns we 

bitch.  An airplane types an urgent 

letter to your ex.  Everyone stares
at a bench.

So Christmas comes Cajun and
second-oldest lobster asks for seconds.
Its eyebrow becomes detached in a
harpoon incident.  The nuns belch
and then I hear a very loud laugh
cuz Roger’s got his hand
on the controls.

mcdxxiii

Self-Annihilation

Isn’t that something like nirvana?
Only if you’re an optimist.

I’ll defy emptiness
instead of dying
(Fanny Howe).

One morning the crack of dawn
splits nobody’s ears. The pigeons
wake up and do their dance.

A new season (or a new leaf).
A new television season.

I didn’t shoot the turtle.
My grandfather was a
knife collector.

When love looks you in the eye
for hours, does love then go away
for the whole weekend?

Take off all your clothes,
sanitize your body,
remove all words.

Nobody will beckon.
You are the mountain.

mcdxxii

I Miss You

No one will. What’s missing is
the fire in our sorrows (F Howe).
If only.

mcdxxi

Father War

Come to terms with the impossible?
Do you even remember why ‘abstract’
is an option?  _______ is nostalgia.

mcdxx

A Grown-Up

I received your promotion, and furthermore,
big dinner.  From last year—a hunk of snow
in the freezer.  An online class on how to ad-
monish fame, but daydreaming. Making nice
with the place you live; cooking big just to
show how much you love.

mcdxix

More frosting, world.

Like, for example, if we ever
ran out of rain. Probably
won’t be able to write
much. These last
pieces.

mcdxviii

But is it demeaning?

To you, I mean? The sun can’t
come out today. It’s in the hole
of your calendar. Which isn’t
nearly as amazing as how deep

I can push my eyes into what’s
left of your offering. I like a
good education but there’s
nothing worse than offending

unintentionally. And then I
thought about it. Because
now I can go friend-hopping
with morning breath. Touché.

This is good. I should tell you
what to do more often.

mcdxvii

Please don’t forget my orientation.

I have lost my attachment. Let’s make this
the boring crisis. Check the beast. Inhale.

My bunkmate has ESP he’s been using on me
regularly. So now he sits on my end of the

couch. It’s not that hot. I signed up for
the other side. So....

Sometimes snowmen need new underwear, too.
Put that on your list of disrepair.

Maybe some breakdown jeans or a
nurse’s uniform. I wanted to

pound my head a while.
Forgot I couldn’t see.

There goes my orientation.

mcdxvi

A Cloud Hung Over A Webcam

Check the temperature. Violence
weather and social disrepair. An-
other bump in the grind. And
am I providing?

Cover the filter with embryonic
absurdity. Protect him from
the escape of the blue rooster.
Accept the communication.

Mountains shift. Gates with
lots of teeth and a crappy
salad. Check breath for
sun. Accept whatever

happens. Except
this Altoid.

mcdxv

Yet Another Ian

He has some serious mojo
right now. The root of my
blues is I have to show. I
can do improper with

how many doubts? All
ways lead to a Rollerball
question. Don’t give up
his mind. Slap it into a

curve. Someone like
me to judge. And then
walk on it. The
crap in the distance

brings rain. Big re-
verse provides
long haul (of
impossibilities).

mcdxiv

Give In (One Last Time)

New to the touch.   It was
the age of the orange blanket.
The Tudors got sexier and
each brother got embarrassed.

Part of the tantrum illusion,
the top floor of Macy’s takes
less time to arrive.   Not a
hint of scuffle.   Burberry

is exchanged (it is the
end of summer).   Dis-
like how to operate
belly and mess up

conflict resolution.   KFC
and red velvet with Buzz!

mcdxiii

Rome Adventure

On the dry peppered path. Arguing
with my brother over an Arizona.
Roll over any voices. A chortle
broken chewing a libation. All
the cheesecake gone.

Racism in bars. At percentages
a house bunny rectifies. De-
bating doorknobs loud enough
to scuttle the shuttle. Boss
tossed into custody battle.

A cold shoulder to a
panel of Amazon. Rome
erupts into Suzanne
Pleshette and teen-
lipped Chad Everett.

Argue with Angie Dick-
inson over a load of cash.

mcdxii

The Transformer

Sunday dawn.  Misty-eyed,
projecting Ian onto me with
apology on apology as the
other Ian posts a disco Snoop.

Flaw in left arch.  Cramp-
mania.  The muse beats his
amuse-bouche.  Coco
catches people in

doorways.  Slaps them
into a hummingbird
shape.

mcdxi

Why Would Anyone Not Want to Know the Most?

I can think of plenty of reasons. But if you start
frustrated, lack of money, arguments. Then need to
retreat or retract (depending on how you read)
until sunrise. Doesn’t seem to reach senses.
Like our methods of execution, which we
operate in a relationship. Plus the brain.

So the rest of your blues is lack of: Do anything?
No money and feel lost? Not proper? Woo to the
wrong? Really fucked about having to show?

Everything of me always defined. Which is
why, for example, I generally do not wear
socks. Who I’m with. How many points.
Truly doubts. Does he love. He’s made up
his mind. And miss. So is it just I am a
curse; who’s to judge and let any people
walk the way they walk (which, after all,
is godgiven and respect). So buy it.

mcdx

Sometimes It’s Easy

     Your friends seem to think that you’re
     so peachy keen
                                   —Janet Jackson

Will stop.  Not even funny or interesting.
Thinking of times.  More soon.  Staying
so busy.  Trumpet playing a little song
from Working My Abs.  I experience
because I stretch.  How to say that
different.  I love.  Who’s heading
here.  The phone.

And then what did you learn?
Onward to yellow?  Feeling a bit
sunken and insecure?  First official
conversation about finances?

We are so completed now.  Many
things are generally perfect and
on paper.  This complication
with paper.  The proper state
of mind expenditures.  The
make / hold on /

The make or break.  We’ve
moved right through breaktime.

mcdix

A room without an ocean.  Clear
delineation of color as it abides
sunset.  For example, red appears.
We didn’t know who it was at

first.  Or the way I describe
engagement as the only
means.  Why else would he
android me?

My writhing finger finds
your solace.

mcdviii

Riffling Its Flesh

     and doesn’t Giacometti make you want to slip an Ingres girl a feel?
                                                                          —James Schuyler

I’ve always had a thing for skinny.
And this has kept me busy; always
wondering how to get there. The
cloudy sea casts its spell; a lullaby
or diversion; a vacation of the mind.

But then there were the exceptions.
Like the kid from the video store who
reminded me of Buddha. I like the
pressure created by leaving the door
ajar, the melody it sings to the shush-

ing sea. I can’t remember how it
all went down, but it definitely went
down; in the apartment I turned a
closet into an office with a garden
view. Back when I used to move

a lot I’d occasionally get rid of
refrigerator magnets in fell swoops.
Toss the lot into the can along with
dated prints, like Toulouse-Latrec
or Escher’s impossible stairwell.

I got a waterbed, a gift from an
ex. It sprung a leak on a stubbled
skater-kid liked to do drag. He lit a
guilty smoke for each sogged towel
and then we learned how to patch it.