mdccci

that wasn’t so hideous

All I can think to say at the moment is
don’t work so hard at it.

By the way, did you seize anything?
And did it open up?

Okay, there’s the time thing. Like
never being late.

I just sneezed like my father at those two
dogs howling on the first floor.

What if I woke up and found out
I was wrong? Or that it’s not worth it?

I think we should do something
every day that means absolutely nothing.

I mean pick a time and a place, and
print it out and everything.

Be fine with being late. Make
everyone else uptight.

Because it sort of gives you an
advantage, right?

I’m going to wear this shirt again.
Even after everything that’s done’s been done.

mdccc

That’s awesome! Bully for you! Me,
I’m pretending to jobhunt. But instead
I wrote a poem about jobhunting.

Actually, I’m only pretending that it’s
a poem about jobhunting. But ooh look!
I’m not afraid of my picture anymore.
I mean it’s hideous, but look how
my reaction to it has changed.

I wasn’t sure why she asked me if I
was bitter. We were having breakfast
at a Korean restaurant and playing
with our YouTubes, playing with
our iPhones. Somebody sent a
song that was stuck in his mind.

What if asexual is what turns you
on? Or even worse, what if it’s
going through other people’s mail
from, like, ten or twelve year ago?

mdccxcix

The One About Yesterday

Nice eyes, so sad and lonely. The
other word has to do with love. And
those two rambling emails to the same
headhunter. I didn’t actually feel like
I was begging at the time. But I did
feel like I was an artist. And I felt
like I had a nice run of it.

A nice run. You told me too late
that you’d say goodbye to me this
morning. I mean I think you told
me even though I don’t remember
it at all. Later you told me you told
me. I don’t remember you telling
me goodbye this morning.

Then there was something about the
vacuum cleaner. Or the vacuum cleaner
wrapped in plastic from the peanut
guy across the street so that there
was no way to get all of the tiny
purple petals out of the carpet.
He’s losing his head. He shakes

his head about losing his head.
We can’t go to the drycleaners
anymore. The drycleaners is
the peanut guy across the street.
Your nice eyes, so sad and lonely,
are the tiny purple petals we can’t 

get out of the carpet floor.

mdccxcviii

     Ass block
     Face cock
                  —MT

You can’t open your trash
because it’s being emptied

onto the freeway. It’s being,
your mind, emptied like big

boobs full of igloos alongside
freeways in the Natural State.

Big-breasted Elke’s been build-
ing igloos of big boobs. Empty

like trash in the happenstance
of a block of ass. You can’t

open it, your mind, your natural
face, in such a state. Such a state

of circumstances, explains Sally
to field the question (or deflect

its internal intention) as the colors
glow like welders in the medieval

marketplace. Hash it out yourself
you prick of a tool! Quisby parries,

his frisbee mid-air, twelve o’clock.

mdccxcvii

The next day we were all millionaires.

The doctors say his heart failure
was caused by his inability to
remember how to do anything.

I feel like there is someone in
the kitchen but it’s not even me.
There is no one in that room.

mdccxcvi

The next day we were all millionaires.

It is possible (now that I look at it through a lens)
that I could have mislabeled the character. Gravity
isn’t my strong point.

With a well-practiced sparkle that shot like glitter
from the capital building on her wedding finger
she got all cheesy like the cops.

The doctors say his heart failure
was caused by his inability to
remember how to do anything.

mdccxcv

I’m so stupid my ears hurt.
Not like when your brain
evaporates (nothing at all
how it was actually recalled).

A recoil of green beans. A
buckwheat pillow. A pair
of fried chickens after your 

lecture, Doctor of Sciences.

mdccxciv

I precisely weighed each and every
bad bone. I spelled it LOSING IT.
They explained to me later that I'd
done wrong by the Electric Balloon.

I want to leave it [them] there but
keep crying about etiquette—even
after the notebook full of broken
stops us all like MADD. The

name of the X is Duncan Hines.

mdccxciii

I want to show you in abundance the fuck-ups I’ve
arranged into squalid hostels. I might have ventured
better than tongue-in-cheek into a new no-no.

So I can write a little.

mdccxcii

There’s too much to do
realizing everyone’s impression of me is
my crazy fault. By default I’ve no way of
making expresso
without the bugs.

mdccxci

               they say write
               below your
               century to
               understand it
                        —CAConrad

Hello from the Continental Divide.

               the train arrives sans mustache.
                                                 —Michael Price


I woke up thinking how funny it is that
you’ve become such a devotee of TED.


               sloth in the stretching ottoman
                       —my misreading of a few words by Michael Price


                                                                           MOTIVATION
Several days later   __________
                                                                                YAY!!!
So far I think it’s an okay funny.


               Bill was feeling his biceps. “Tomorrow we’re
               going to have a life-and-death struggle.

               - - - - - -

               Bill was the one who least felt the need of
               occupation.
                                                     —Bill Berkson


However, I’m not entirely certain on either front.

And the breeze didn’t leave us a shred of evidence.

mdccxc

     Every relationship ups and downs.
     I’m a writer with leg stress.
                                       —Jack Kimball

Approaching Juarez the dirt finally becomes
brown. Pretty electricity poles and dangled
knots of electricity (second call for the 5 o’-
clock dinner reservation). Toothpicks in the

distance, above lens wipe and Listerine. Step
off the plane into a molten facial (Jack, Jack)
adds identity to an otherwise lovely résumé.

mdcclxxxix

Our burrito lady is here!
               —Amtrak announcement in El Paso

What is it about this city? So what if I’m not
picking weeds or shoveling gravel or whatever
else it is the gang is doing. I’m lapsed pages

lapsing into turn-the-page. Peeling onions like
eyes and what-have-you. A bit windy and I
hear the water. Texting about a ring on top of

the Eiffel Tower (this while I hear the water,
truly amazing!). Very romantic, huh? I love
the sound of the water. I also hear the burrito

lady who’s on the other side of my door. The
wind in my ears and the bay below. Come in,
lady. Come in from the noisy bay, a few boat

motors, ferries, weeds blowing in the wind, birds
down below. Because I dunno the name of any- 

thing. Why the word bird? Why the word weed?

mdcclxxxviii

     In heaven,

     where repetition’s
     not boring—
              —Rae Armantrout


“Am I valid?” Larry wonders
deliberately. The sun refuses
to set, to go down on the desert.
The time zones, I guess, Larry


guesses. “I’d mow the lawn
but for the thunderstorm.” I
think this two days later. “But 

for the all-day thunderstorm.”

mdcclxxxvii

we send the body an omission

I’m misreading Armantrout in
West Texas (poetic El Paso).
The vicinity of beyond (like
Toy Story’s “to infinity and
beyond”?); Barbie Dolls on
the train tracks like we used
to do in the 70s (oh, the
flailing millennium!) along
with copper pennies (or
were they ever copper?).
A copy of the horizon for
future reference (its many
dusty folds harbor endless
answers) begs for a punch
line or for anything to drink.
I am an anti-social angel,
don’t you think? Or just a
rascal refusing to do what-
ever the rest of the gang is
doing. From here I can see
Tiburon, Sausalito, The Gold-
en Gate Bridge, The Bay Bridge 

and Treasure Island.

mdcclxxxvi

at least the whistle’s at a distance

Should I open my old notebook? It reels
from here to there in my head, cleaning a
few things (clearing a few things). Not
really. Nothing—neither here nor there
(unlike with him who’d have all things

at black or white, never gray). Beige
like Jenks’ horizon, but with littered trash
so colorful the jazz almost erupts anew
(he loves San Francisco because he plays
the saxophone) – the newest date is Dec-
ember, six and a half years ago? Before I
thought this was Mick Jagger, Mick Jagger-

furious. What am I missing from this biggish, 

furious riot from over seven years ago? I wrote 

something when there was nothing else to 

write; though it seems I presently have 

EVERYTHING to write. Calm. A western 

calm and nothing less.

mdcclxxxv

Very slowly, through the orchard.

He wrote something terrific (page
2,400) to the memory of a suicide,
oddly enough. About monsters. So
effective! And in the end close their

eyes a final time close our eyes. At
least I think it was him (vibrating thru
the hum of two trains grooving beside
each other in the mid-afternoon). West

Texas sunlight through a bit of a haze.
And who can blame him now? Perhaps
[I]n the future the reference will be worth-
less. The music of this jazz (the elders of

Amtrak arranged neatly in the dining car;
we’re not allowed to rise and go our own
ways until we’ve passed a test recollecting
each and every warning sign) originates

from New Orleans. And from Abilene. And
Saint Louis and South Bend with the

grandkids swing-dancing in San Francisco....

mdcclxxxiv

Actually more like 3x more than anyone. Except me.
So it really bums that you don’t like the ones I put up
of you—relating to you’re unlikely to acknowledge
and you’re proud + happy propensity. Just sayin’.

On a happy note don’t forget Joey’s Visine. I am
settled into my seat, I’m about to sleep, I’m in a
cafe catching up on eating. Good morning from
El Paso. I slept like a baby but have a little head

cold. So everyone is okay? Priceless. I’m going
to switch off momentarily and start looking through
the pictures of the orchard (I have no idea how they
do that). I hope your Monday isn’t bad. Also the

vibrating blue pillow provided immense comfort
and security as I slept through Arizona and New
Mexico last night. It’s gonna be an awesome trip. 

Travel safely! I so am! Great stuff! Love you, too!

mdcclxxxiii

in future
the reference
will be worthless

but effective (?)

like a butte
emerges from dust

mdcclxxxii

check the floorboards for beige horizons
rise up and sing out of it.
                                     —Philip Jenks

The problem sometimes I think
is even more outstanding than the
railroad music. Sometimes oh
fucking hell even all over the
spectrum sweet to insane. And
who can blame it now the deep
arid breath. Should I today work?
Work nothing. Coming right?
Sink into the trumpet. I will if
only I read. If only I read some
something terrific if only I will
some something about monsters.

mdcclxxxi

Positive Reinforcement

Let these be rough. As if. I know.
A tan sedan set against the mesa.

Scoop of the earth, dry, bent. Found
open a: Rosa’s—made for dinner at

lonely earth (again). I do seem rather
hopeless --> suddenly so fucking mad

at the world (earth) oops helpless. I 

mean helpless.

mdcclxxx

     flowers go mad and are filmed by no one.
                                                 —Philip Jenks

     A shrine of rich fish, with linebreaks.
                                         —Andy Gricevich

I missed the mole and thought he was all the word
is a hot lackey and it sort of turned me on. The
mole was there even though it wasn’t there; had
to be. When it finally appeared, things sexed up
even louder.

I think of photography as an act (not a labor) of
love. And I’ve taken 2x more photos of you than
everyone else combined. Where are you? Just 

heading back to Happy?

Where are you? Drive safe. Love you.

...........

For the past hour I’ve been having the most
wonderful conversation with my seatmate.
He’s an older Mormon so genius and so
interesting, recently divorced with an
11 year old daughter, just a sweetheart
of a man with a wealth of knowledge
(e.g., we’ve discussed monogamy, the
source of our country’s fundamentalism,
how Jews were responsible for the estab

lishment of freedom of religion in the
U.S., genetics [of course], Buddhism
and its relationship with Mormonism,
the three great plagues, multiculturalism,
old automobiles, how mathematics is literally
everything, eastern culture as compared
with western culture, and much more).

How are you guys doing? Crossing the 

Rio Grande. Going to switch off now.

mdcclxxix

     I think I spent the first few minutes just adjusting to the room....
     What was the mood? How were people responding? Who was
     there? Who wasn’t there? ________.
                          —Lindsey Boldt in an SFMOMA talk on the
                             “Poetry Labor Conference” held in Oakland
                             on 9/5/2010 (from an issue of TRY magazine)

Hello from just east of Alpine, Texas [see IMG_6679.jpg]. Big wave
hello from the desolation and beauty that is West Texas. Hi!

Lindsey hits it right on the head for me, happily unemployed for
nearly two years (at 44!), happily employed in a motley crew of
jobs pretty much constantly for the previous 28 years.
POET 15 years now

spinning and buzzing around a meat hook. Hello from Texas.
Hello from the dust of a thousand vibrating sound bites or
something. Hello from the painful kidney and the uninterrupt-
ible southern California partyscape where somewhere in time
we’ll return triumphant.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the town of Marathon. Marathon
is a cowboy town and the mountains in Mexico are much higher
than ours. About an hour from now we’ll go through another
old cowboy town called Sanderson.

Stressed, rainy. Stressed from a weekend of bugs (and buggy
fun). Unstressed from the dancefloor I can remember on
Saturday at Mezzanine as the evening sags (fucking trousers
falling down, some annoying folk singer, and losing my
glasses). I do seem rather helpless.

So hello from the special problems of the world around me,
or me using each as loudspeaker. And hello from dust, or the
bathless, showerless gift that is sitting for days on end in the
Texas Eagle, hello from partying and doing nothing, hello
from lists and Mormons and train conductors and from the
still fully clothed bones of ‘illegals’ – of Ponce de Leon’s
fountain of youth – found (time will tell, time will tell) in
the heart of Arkansas. Hello from the telethon of hope 

and despair; hello from...

mdcclxxviii

Field Trip

I’m meeting Otto, Curran, Masashi,
and Curran’s class at 6:30pm at the
Asian Art Museum. Kit Robinson
is gigantic like The Crave. Ashbery’s
Three Poems is dull (time will tell,
time will tell). Work is work. I had
lunch today with a gull flying over
Civic Center Park. He has thinned
and is as cute as ever. It is what it
is (neurotic, for example). I have
a follow up doctor’s appointment
for my non-kidney stones early
tomorrow morning. It is almost
May. Unbelievable.

(at Straw-
berries on Fillmore, which is
just past Starbucks and through
the sugared and whipped cream;
so bring your ducks [which were
galoshes in the 80s, unless I just
made that up]).

Oh, and tonight’s movie is Le samouraï.

mdcclxxvii

Photo albums don’t get worn in cyberspace.

But they might be fashionable elsewhere. Like in
spider space. Which is where cyberspace began.