mmccxxiii

40 minutes on treadmill

1.5 mile run at 6.5 mph

uphill to the 35 minute mark

make Hamburger Helper™

(1st time in 35 yrs?)

exercise: 40 minutes on treadmill

1.3 mile run, uphill, total 3 miles

then riding bike easily for 20 minutes

mmccxxii

optical illusion

can’t fit into the

story anymore

but yet it’s

impossible

to display on

a single page. 

with what...

complexity...

this day-to-day.

mmccxxi

small town with a huge marquee.
water and sewer superintendent
of the 20th century. star football
player enters dramatic theatrical
foray: plays lead male in senior play 

opposite gramma. whom he barely
knew. except with whom he had
(for a variety of unrelated reasons,
reportedly) often found himself red-
faced in argument. dapper red-face
often contorted into a look of utter
bewilderment. could skew more at
stupefaction. for numerous reasons.
but who, gramma, in the play, would
say something (more strict from the
script but, pointing finger, to the tune
of) ‘i’m gonna keep my eyes on you, mister,
even if i have to stare at your face from
across our kitchen table every breakfast-
dinner-supper every gosh-durn day for the
rest of my life.’ seventy or so years later
she meant those words script-free,
all inside her body and especially
way down into her heart, no longer
just in character in some small-town
production. even though her 1940s
were now tucked neatly into a dime-
store novel that could only be reached
by beckoning the airwaves. even he’d
been gone already for a decade. of
that grand story and its long run
on east main street, sixty years of
no small-town marriage, she’d be
happy to remind anyone who cared
until she repaired her crooked joints
down into the sunken bed beside him.

mmccxx

Yes I’m a maniac when I’m touching the earth.
             —Hardwell (from Call Me A Spaceman)

extra shrimp dumplings.
a little joke, but true. we
were truly schnookered. 

[return carriage]

mmccxix

If it were the hour of the bird
you’d open and know
the eternal moment
       —Orides Fontela (translated by Chris Daniels)

...hoodwinked into eating
at a big red restaurant
full of white people
and waiters & waitresses
who insisted we order
way more than we wanted...

...extra spring rolls (free)
for the tableful of nuns...

...he stops [as always]
to examine the dead
pigeon; reckons it
could be what’s left
of the howling from
the night before...

But what use is the bird?
      —Orides Fontela (translated by Chris Daniels)

mmccxviii

Birds
return
always and
always.
         —Orides Fontela (translated by Chris Daniels)

Loyal as the day is long,
he found his way home
wearing nothing but a
pair of Twister® flip-flops.

mmccxvii

bring me your youth in a jar
                        —Kevin Killian

If I were to relate this to myself,
as I sit here next to a bright red
package of 20 hypoallergenic
Wet Ones.

Words...evoke inarticulate things.
                —Rachel Blau DuPlessis

I’m sort of putting words in her
mouth. Just by leaving a few out.
So to speak. Or maybe not.

It learned to hide from the hungry ones.
                               —Shel Silverstein

Which is more to the point.
So bring me your mouth, youth!
Bring me all of your words in a jar.

mmccxvi

If Dr. H had been the Chair
of the Poetry Department (if 

such a department even exists there,

I admit that I don’t even know.), rather

than the Chair of the Theatre
Department at my undergraduate
college. Let’s say. And if I, the
overly-confident and determined
undergraduate junior, had made an
appointment with her, and on that
appointed hour had then walked
into her office with the proclamation
that my one true goal above all else 

in my life was to someday pen a poem 

that would find its way into a
very important compendium of 

the sort that is often touted as 

a compendium that houses
several very important works
(of this or that poetic nature),
well,       I can hear her say to me
as if it were this precise moment:
           “But young man,
what do you know of Poetry?”
She’d know, of course,
that I had been a chemistry
major for the previous two
years. “What you’re telling me
certainly isn’t Poetry. Talk to me
about Poetry. You must most
certainly know that you are not
reciting for me a Poem. No.
What you’re telling me now is
nothing but a silly & ultimately
penniless dream.” And she’d
bite this part off through
teeth that are clenching the
spindly end of one of the
thin, golden, ear-hugging arms
of those Ben Franklin specs,
“And it’s not a very
effective dream,
I might insert.”

mmccxv

as once I wanted to write for the soaps, Santa Barbara, One Life to Live.
                                                                          —Kevin Killian
If I were to relate this to myself
it would be easy. I have two
degrees in theater. I caught
the acting bug early, but
hemmed and hawed my
way through most of
college (a chemistry
major, mostly), before
one very determined
visit to the head of the
Department of Drama.
My goal was simple
(“If they could do it,
why couldn’t I?” I had
surmised, using all 

means of logic):  I
wanted to land a job
as an actor on a daytime
soap opera. That was it.

Putting aside for the moment
whatever I must have been
thinking, however I must
have arrived at it, I do
distinctly recall the
clarity of vision, the
this is my one true goal.

She kept trying to see it in me,
I could tell. She was squinting,
leaning back in her roll-around
chair, looking me up and down
through her tiny circular Benjamin
Franklin lenses. She had friends who
made a living doing exactly that. My goal.
So I figured I had come to the right place,
and had expected a cheery vote of confidence
and encouragement.
What I got, instead, after
all of her apparent consideration,
was a simple “But you don’t look the part.”

I have never once appeared in
any televised soap opera. But
as I mentioned at the top,
I do have two degrees
in the dramatic arts.

mmccxiv

Not showing up mostly didn’t show up.

                               —Stephanie Young

Like a kick in the guts.  Or.  No.

Like a bullet to a tongue.  But.  Then.

mmccxiii

everybody feels vulnerable I think.

                               —Stephanie Young

I’ve been finding it just fine

playing games on my iPhone

while in the shower — for

months now I do this.  Not

every shower.  But most?

Today, therefore and

however, I am mostly

troubled by the fact

that I cannot do the

same with a book.

With a real book.

mmccxii

less willow more buffy sounds

beautiful. i roll over and back to

sleep.  think good thoughts much

as they can be thunk.  (no need

not to.)

nighty night for now.

mmccxi

How to make sure that seeing

anything is not seeing oneself?

                                   —Etel Adnan

My assignment stayed

extremely busy.  I am

staring into a blowing

electric fan.  As if

face to face in love.

Stuck on repeat,

my assignment

never lazes,

leaves the room,

blown by the

sound of the

howling wind,

which eradicates,

as if face to face,

the love, the

howling, the

echo of the

blown

electric

fan.

mmccx

forty-seven years ago today

i was supposed to be born.

but instead, i’d already

been around for three

whole days by then.

mmccix

but you said, didn’t you

say to me, that this was

a moment when i could

start completely anew?

a time i could start

fresh, could liter-

ally reinvent my

self?  and were

we not just

agog with

all of the...

possibility?

mmccviii

 [insert comma here]

            Even activists must freak out sometimes about how little we’ve done.

                                                                                                  —Kevin Killian

I’m not exactly sure how to put this, but

it’s Tuesday morning.  I have no idea

how to say this, but the potpourri really

stinks.

We arrive on motorcycle, all black &

white.  It’s Easter Sunday.  The aunties

arrive on motorcycle, dressed to the

nines, circa 1959.

The tenants began to grow suspicious

when the scaffolding remained up

for longer than a month.

mmccvii

Word Battle

Scupper

Dimmest

Ably

Male

“You’re such a person!  Such a person!,”

I thought (“You give everyone just the

right imagination to be less than

bland...”).  And then, as if it were

1975 all over again, I

actually attempted to

hang up the phone.

Scupper

Dimmest

Ably

Male

mmccvi

5 Ways to Move

You verbally acknowledge
nothing, ask “Why do
goth people all look
so sleepy?” I shudder,
wondering on which side
of the fence you meant
that to be. This creepy
slide-show has been
such a gas, but we’re
both exhausted and
hankry (as you say,
being both hungry
and cranky). To
get here, I’d limped
the entire way, half
a block behind you.
Whew! A San Fran-
cisco taxi-cab oasis
isn’t a mirage.
Cab-light on or
off, it’s always
a gamble. You
were waving for
miles; refusing,
however, to show
a lick of leg. Fetish-
wise, that’s how the
cookie always crumbles.
My sigh is just a little too
audible, seems to cook the
spirits of the glazed-over.
“A ratchet, a whisper,”
again, just barely into my
ear—a feather duster,
not a french tickler—
“another ratchet,
another whisper.”

mmccv

Maybe I got so angry because secretly, stubbornly, and in exhaustion,

I couldn’t see any other way to proceed, to fail until something

changed.

                                                                      —Stephanie Young

Will the narrator ever fly again?

                            —Michael Burkard

I’m more mixed up than ever before, going

back and forth among different eras, landing

in multiple time zones, sometimes seemingly

all at once.  Here I am, an iris.  Here I am, a

dahlia.  There I was.......                a begonia.

mmcciv

Your Independence Is Killing Me!

Yesterday, I stopped at my checking account,
but apparently I got lost after that. Did I
a) clean the apartment considerably? It
could be that I considered cleaning the
apartment. That is, on a scale of 1 to 10,
extremely messy at the moment. This,
and that 10 equals b), should be
your biggest clue.

I like that I live here. Also the immediate
retort (or often more like a snort) of
“Snob Hill” (more like, simply, an upturned
nose, as if directly after becoming ill, or ill-
informed, someone just gets it). Beams
all strange, but, you know, beams,
walking with the students on Pine Street,
which is most of the faces I ever see.
Those dogs are pugs, and they are
probably mostly students at the Academy
of Art.

Would I really know? I only speak with
Tony at the cash register down the block,
and with cabbies to and from. Not the 

block. But, in general.

One could draw out a pretty long argument
about most of the students of the Academy
of Art, of course; it’s never too early to
cast your case. I’ve taken to verbalizing
this and other probabilities when my
lower back is so tightly wound with pain
that I can’t even walk away from formality.

I’ve been rudely informed that it’s time.
For me to sit down a bit. Or if I said
“for a spell” – you know, rather than
“a bit” – this chronic lover that speaks
of nothing but pain. “Bring him his chair
full of cake and rubber you
colossally glum sacrum; you
bitch-hound of an art-
hritic coccyx!”

“In absentia.”
“In absentia.”

mmcciii

I Never Saw It Coming

I spilled the entire box of

cotton swabs onto the

bathroom floor this

morning while

listening to my

new favorite song,

which is called,

appropriately

enough, The Rising.

And I was feeling

so much more on

top of things, too,

having won nearly

every round of

Word Battle

that I’ve played

this week.

I should learn

to scrutinize the

evidence much

better, because

later, after what

I thought’d been

a successful attempt

to rally back my mojo,

I go to meet Otto for

dinner at Sam Wo’s

in Chinatown—in honor

of the Chinese New Year—

and wouldn’t you know it

but Sam Wo’s is closed.

For Chinese New Year.

mmccii

Stand Up and Be Counted!

It’s like being on the toilet.

You don’t know what’s

going to come out.  But

it usually does.  Imagine

that getting lost in

translation.  Say it

like you mean it,

then!  (riding

a stationary

‘bicycle’ easily

for 20 minutes)