mdlxxiv

Have you tried role play?

I have tried role play.  [See attached document.]

But borders do not exist.

mdlxxiii

I tried

        A word twists backward

        peeling its skin up over its face

                           —Michael Palmer

Editing is perfecting a mask.

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The rain that writes ETCETERA on our face

                                                   —Hugo Claus

Does reading about yoga, count?  I am not a

sphincter.

Hello.  No rain today.

To know what it’s like to be sprayed dead by a look.

                                                    —Cynthia Arrieu-King

mdlxxi

On this page I see how you grew up

and am surprised.  Every day now I

go back to this page.  Sometimes we

grow up and sometimes our mouths

wrinkle and smudge.  I don’t really

get anything from it.  Sometimes

we fly into the hands of another

pair of pants.  These are good times.

Most all of them.  Sometimes we

lash out like children.  It’s important

like shampoo.  Sometimes we lash out

at our children.  Our suppressed hope

is they remember this.  And not just in

flashbacks.  Sometimes we spread

fairy dust in neverland.  We go

back to the kids we cheated

ourselves from.  We are

not evolve.  We are not

anarchy, kidding ourselves

with happiness.  We are.  And

always hopefully love.  And

measuring our height in

elementary school.  And

being okay, better than

ever, smudgy, some

scales and hunched

back.  Sitting in our

living room at the

kid table with fish

eyes – not even having

to wish wise.

mdlxx

You can’t eradicate words meaning violence.

In fact, that would be defeat.  Right?  Well,

I should be heartened.  Take the pink from

heart.  Try putting a heart into that thing

pumping inside your gut.  There are

issues.  It fits nicely into a CD sleeve,

however.  Or red.  Or the after-effects of

Friday that he wants me to tackle.  Am I

pathetic?  This is nice.  I should be.  Yes-

terday was nice.  I want to go home and

go to bed.  And be heartened without

being a heartattack.

mdlxix

Facebook finally pays off!

                      —Cedar Sigo

Can you send me IMG_3851?  I want to include it

in this poem.  I will pay and you will find me

ardently negotiable.

I notice that your friends are starting to mix with

my friends.  This brings judgmental to a whole nother

level.  I notice this before call Larry and laundry.

Do you think that’s really his name?  My friend Chin

(same age) just legally changed his name to Matt.  In

Japan.

mdlxviii

The very fallen street of nuts?

                              —Kenneth Koch

mdlxvii

My young wood that I overwinter

                              —Hugo Claus

mdlxvi

our tentacles swaying with excitement

                              —Juliana Spahr

mdlxv

In less than 15 years, “the US has gone

from producing around 300 to close to

4000 MFAs per year.”  This message

by way of Juliana Spahr.

If you go hard you gotta get on the floor.

J Lo, my reasons for doing this are obvious,

don’t you think?  I go out of my way to

expose my blemishes—but this (his-

torically) is unintentional self-deprecation.

Subsequently, massive amounts of code-

word BOYFRIEND get relegated to the

ether.  And massive amounts of codeword

LEATHER.  “We kept getting caught in

complication” (Spahr).  More emotion.

Less crank.  Coolly, we sip our lemonade.