mdxcix

Almost the Exact Quote

Here the snow bleeds clouds. Such
happiness to be taken on a ride
in a train with a penny engine.

The toys in this dream are binary.
Chalk-colored coal or coal-colored
chalk. I enjoy it immensely because

now I want to build something bigger.
Bright face of such happiness, why can’t I
enjoy more? [Complacently moving from

Point A to Point B] Why am I frightened of losing

or of just being along for the ride? I don’t want
to want nothing but am overwhelmed or

bloated with wanting. Instantly I want also
something else. I write it down. The page
says hello, forcing my gaze out the window. I get

distracted by an American flag and page 1 of
Yoga for Dummies. I live with a pink bear
who wears a very tall crown made of paper.

mdxcviii

Of course.

Refusing to switch off the attention diversion switch:
booted beings one floor above; slow gait.

They left!
They fell asleep. They’re watching football. I am...
breathing.

Are you spreading yourself too thin? Of course.
Of possible interest: constantly evacuating yourself.

No! No! They are walking again! Very slowly.
And they have invited more boots. Boot-beings
entertaining more boot-beings. Boots, party of
[impossible to accommodate]!

Page 1 of Zen for Dummies. A book with
his dorky picture next to mine. A terrapin.
A terrapin?

Constantly evaluating. I am constantly
evaluating myself. I am a failure. What have
I ever built or unbuttoned? A chainsaw film with
tall green creatures adorned solely with boots.
Appropriately gargantuan. Chestnut brown or
slightly ash-colored. Suede boots.

Earth is in utter chaos. It is a horrific invasion.
Soon (before the demise of our race) we
identify with these gigantic (Grinch-like) 

beings. They are sympathetic characters.

mdxcvii

     Nominated for an Ernest Borgnine
                                       —Kit Robinson

This morning we all went to the gym together.
We observe money. It talks gibberish. It smells so
good. It is such a perfect thing to do.

We live here. Who am I to say how you should
perform in this circus?

After yesterday, spending it all, lighting another
fire under it, we are whisked away. To the
movies.

The desire to mean something when you are told
that you only have 164 gigabytes available. Chasing a
hummingbird all over the city (clutching a very heavy
camera).

In times like these I almost convince myself. I am a
delusion. I’m a book with his dorky picture next to mine.
I am giddy.

It is Christmastime.

     It’s easy enough to start
     to make two lumps of coal: just close your eyes. 

                                                          —Albert Goldbarth

mdxcvi

Read with Robot Voice

In forty minutes is the beginning of my birthday
which will last ten days. Eleven more years until I am 

“go go” ... (so I get started in eleven years)

mdxcv

Scar 2

Scary words with friends. I miss
scoring a lot of points being twisted.
Like Bela Lugosi, maybe (as played by
Joaquin Phoenix?), picking snot out of
children’s eyes. His own children’s, perhaps.
But we’re all caught unawares and
flunking Celebrity 101 (is it one-
oh-one anymore?).

With dull faces we’re back to our
commitment to the community:
See Dick dunk pail in ale. See
Jane pour pail on head as if
[Whoops!] hat and fall pell-
mell down hill [Whoops!].

Sean mentions a writer friend
who avoids punctuation (&
other emotica) because the
WORDS should do all the
WORK.

A fiery apostrophe ensues.

Signed,
Forty and Flailing


P.S.  In perhaps twenty minutes I can
       forty-fie the ass-end of this blah
       beast with a bit more [upside-down 

       exclamation point] FLOURISH !  (Yeh?)

mdxciv

I Lost My Drycleaning at a Birthday Party

And ever since I’ve been working on them,
speaking of 2.5 years ago. I’m up to 144
now and still caring. But he can make me turn
from ‘all is glorious’ to MONSTER in half an
hour (wild exaggeration).

[The opposite of hyperbole is __________.]

I trust the way Sean makes me feel all
wrong at dinner. I’m in such a better place now.
Particularly diary entries.

Scuttlebutt is an aphrodisiac. At least for me.
These things come and go to make us more
interesting. Such a perfect thing to do

after spending all day with the in-laws.
Can they legally fire me for that?

I hate to ask but is it okay that I like guys?
I know we don’t stumble into each other
very often. It’s like a

birthday gift, speaking of two and a half
years ago. That’s what I say, C Monster.


Dear Sigmund,

I know it’s confusing & all. But you’re the
best bunch of zeroes a guy could ever ask for.
Am I dreaming?

             & a guy like me, 

             HogsYerKisses (not my usual screenname)

mdxciii

Stop the Sludge!

I see no pretense in David except an
opulently intense desire to control his
image.

These aren’t teardrops. It’s just
water from the fountain here.

Awaken to an aspirin sunlight. All this
fooling around at one-four-four. Men in
gas masks shouting ‘One-Four-Four,

One-Four-Four,’ and a jerk to signify
‘Take him away!’

At four minutes to two I have a
phone interview in an hour. Or an
hour and four minutes.

Let’s make it five.

mdxcii

Words with Friends

Dear June,

Your snapdragons are killing me! I say,
we are quite a perfect pair. Are you not
on fire?

I live the life of Riley. What a loser, I tell you,
with my chicken noodle and my apple enzyme.

This is heady but I’m tacit. And you’ve got glam
despite the divots. Have another Strawberry C?

[I sweat through my issues envisioning a MASTER.]

And each with our own wonderful qualities. Make me
turn on a dime from ‘all is glorious’ just to maintain our
dark side.

This is a liquid photograph. Here, have a sip like a
chorus of frogs (bag clips).

Change our astor into a name like Numb. Work
collaboratively until it will end (possibly).

A mum is a chrysanthemum is what the lady told me.

                                      Luv & gladiolas, 

                                      SleepsWithOak (is not my screenname)

mdxci

A heart beat is a unit of measure like an ice cube
                                               —Kit Robinson

I say we’re quite a perfect pair. A peach of a pear
(and he laughs). I ask if he’ll draw raindrops all over
the umbrella (in the future he gets up from his desk
in the kitchen and walks into the living room). I
finish a giant cake and ask for more raindrops.

mdxc

Multiple Orgasms

A routine he’s revived recently which I LOVE.
A scrubdown shortly after he walks into my
office and flips his lid. All these umbrellas &
no twist? So point is I was very happy this
morning. Which has nothing to do with
death or dying, right? Turn the page and
this is it? So I go back to the old dreams,
the ones I can remember. There are so
few of them. In one, here I am. In
another, he’s already and finally
apologized. I am envisioning
he is a monster. I like monster
in several of its constructs. But
not in the movie The Hangover Part II.

While vacationing in Hong Kong
and Tokyo (two weeks apiece,
a little over a year apart), whenever I’d
mention I was vacationing (and a whole
two weeks?!) the response would in-
evitably be: So why are you vacationing
here? Why aren’t you in Thailand?

Next year I won’t remember any of this.
So I rename it Flying By the Seat 

of My Pants. Which I LOVE.

mdlxxxix

I could talk to you for flowers
                   —Kit Robinson

Tonight is feeling social. So it is
disclosed. He proposes an open
relationship because he’s missed
out. I haven’t. Such is the stuff

that’s always about rings. And me
with such knobby fingers. I keep want-
ing Buddhism or a unique way to
disclose something important.

Like love. Only. Flash (Gordon)
forward and I’m grasping at
ludicrous constructs. Down on
my knees. And not for flogging.

All this fooling around is so innocent
by comparison. [Bow head; silence.]

mdlxxxviii

     what i really want
     is to scatter
     my own
     ashes
               —CAConrad

I’m having too much fun to
pick the day I’ll die. Can
that be right? It’s Tuesday
after a strong Saturday
night. No ashes but a
ring of wires aching for
fantasy eardrums. Some-

times it’s creepy what I
predict. Or how creepy-
poignant it is to pick up a
page written some[times
an hornery] distance ago 

and then to experience 

its eerie resonance;

say, the day after a
nuclear disaster,
for example. Or

and I was dancing
and I nearly had...
a time warp? A
Rubik’s Cube
staring at another
Rubik’s Cube
in some sort of a
stand-off (or 3
Rubik’s...Cubed)?
Softer back-

pedaling and
less disclosure.
Or don’t sweat
the small stuff.
I’m getting
way too
serious,
lately.

I’m taking
everything
so seriously.

mdlxxxvii

Woe is...


No, I don’t want any.


Yes, I want some.


No, I don’t want any.


Yes, I want some.


No, I don’t want any.


Yes, I want some.


No, I don’t want any.


Yes, I want some.

mdlxxxvi

Worst time for a lisp issue.

Set up like so—in relation to where the
tit sits.  Teeth of an undisclosed number.

Fogroll.  Argue about the crotchet, an
odd or stubborn notion, in the fogroll.

Issue a Steven for a one on one.  Crawl out
on top.  Find myself in anything I can’t

enjoy reading.  Take off your glasses
and compare to Kenneth’s.  Last night

after Nip / Tuck.  Too much going on
to talk about.  Or something like that.

Do you think this is demeaning in any
way answers a broader question.  Be

the one you are.  The worst time to
sleep is between eleven in the morning

and one in the afternoon.  Set up 

the soup in relation to the teeth.  Sit.

mdlxxxv

Retreat!

Because Bush won the erection?

mdlxxxiv

BTW

Retreat! Get myself together is a more
comprehensive life list. That is what
6 reasons I am depressed is for. I have
no morals? Because I may be a boyfriend?

Anyway, I’m boring. Who doesn’t have the
freedom he wants because he weighs too
much? Because he still loves haters? Be-
cause he got high last weekend and started

calling old flames (to go out drinking or
whatever because I downloaded way too much
poet)? Because I am a lousy goal? Who isn’t?
Because winning the election cannot reach his

goals? Because no motivation to get out of the
city? Because he wants a massage? Who isn’t?

mdlxxxiii

A Cirrus Clown

Time, corrosive time. On the
airplane of love. With an
envelope. It’s an old house

of pills. Time, explosive
time. Event unnecessary.
Burgeoning spirit. Sync

in progress. A cloudful
of unbalanced nectar.
Of unenveloped loam.

A beautiful rainy day
full of go home and
Arafat dead. Walk

up the hill and write.
9:05am. The pen-
ultimate chapter

of Stevens. It’s
not a strike now.
Triple latté dis-

infectant.

mdlxxxii

So As Not To

Repetition. Thor ate a
whole box of Pop Tarts
and was still hungry.

I used to do that.

mdlxxxi

We are easy.

     hormonal convergence
                        —Erika Staiti

Me on the battlefield definitely
killing. You can kiss me. I
brushed my teeth. Classic Crest.

But what you can’t see is my
glass of milk. On (or slightly
after) Mother’s Day. At the

exact location of electricity.
It’s symptomatic of what’s
going on. I went one time

to buy a little thing of goat
cheese. The crackers them-
selves were four-fifty. It’s

ridiculous. I’ll go without.

mdlxxx

A surly hoverer.

Art from Rosencrantz. Harold the
Tribune. Jesus of Combinations.
Jesus of Gaol. Something to
get me excited to look at
job options, Japanese or
Chinese.  Some way to
meet new people, simply
plan a trip. Probably not
the best idea, like a condo.
How to approach REALIST. A
tic above any and all, falling all
over myself doing it (ART). The
ART the ART the ART. What is it?
How is Bill? All this New York School
stuff (How is Brainard? How is Padgett?).
Keep delving seventy-something years. What
is all over our faces? Death? Being the writer?
Aware, written all over our reconcile, go home,
could come tomorrow. And write nothing better,
this beautiful rainy day. Very rainy (like Raney, 

on my father’s mother’s side). 

A very hard rain.

mdlxxix

Import Mail and Contacts (NEW!)

     Your Fun Is a Snob
             —a Kenneth Koch poem title

Also, If you miss someone that’s in heaven,
put this as your status. But somehow wrap it in
hearts and double lines. I keep meaning to change
my picture (averaging a loss of 1.5 friends per day).

I look at other guys sometimes. Are they not worth
it?

Also, thank you for this week’s issue (lying atop my
laptop this morning). My favorite word on the cover
is INEPTITUDE. But also DISASTER.

None are sacrificial or spousal problems. I worry about
my age in relation to death. Something is certainly up.

I don’t worry worry worry (like this probably sounds).

mdlxxviii

Weepy Winter

Spring blows Summer.
Fall to Tears (aka The
One with the Real Issues).

mdlxxvii

Are we exertions of each other?

The red lobes of an angel—splitting
at the seams. An angry cloud that floats
just above the Tenderloin. Ready to lay an
egg. Ready to flummox the rutabagas (In
both senses; also called Swede, Swedish
turnip.). What to do with the rotten
mouth? Probably more than just
natural evolution. Who knows?
But...to deal with it appropriately.
How to keep from freedom (tendon?
boredom?)? The answers are all
nocturnal. Are we exertions
of each other, after all?

mdlxxvi

Morning. Not disaster.

With grey eyes full of adulthood
and laziness and Facebook in the
off position. Shards sphincter the
air. I’m forever burned on Judas
now. Thanks.

The bananas gone flesh. Come a
star, leave a portmanteau.

mdlxxv

Or to create a new narrative from a series of 6-year old
pictures? With red wine (quite vintage from this vantage
point)? I worry about a relationship not in my native
language. I feel very old. I wonder how to keep it.

This is the kind of entertainment we provide. A surface
under the stars. It feels old. I had it in me to go into
further details. To market. Seems a hard word. Con-
notes imprisonment. My sexuality has been different,

lately. It means nothing. Congratulations. I’ve felt
horniness, porn, white bisexual with girls, and mas-
turbate. I’ve been less than intense and not easily
aroused. Orange. Which is very odd.

Go to sleep.
Go to sleep.