mmcclxx

Awaiting lunch.

Last night, I
danced for
3 hours with
the Comma
and his room-
mate.  The
Question Mark
was there, even
though he said
he wouldn’t be,
“Because it is
so boing!”
Right?  I
notice now
that he called
this morning
at 5:30am.  I
apparently
didn’t hear
the phone.
My lunch-
mate, Semi-
colon, says
that this is
probably
fortunate.

mmcclxix

It takes you so long to apologize
                       —Tim Dlugos

I am particularly boring
these last few years.  We
order some green stuff,
stay only a few minutes
because he’s got a dot-
com interview on Mon-
day that sounds promis-
ing.  And

Dude had a date last night.
Then Otto and I watched
a million episodes of
Naruto whilst eating

our din-din.  Many
episodes, four or five, I
think.  Then to bed where
I dreamed about zombies.

mmcclxviii

                                i hold your hand
     because i thought you loved me;
     those games are better left
     for the sane.
                 —John Thomson

Do you know how I can tell
that you are very concerned?
That’s the spirit.  Enmeshed
within (or upon) your web,

I try every sticky angle.
The spirits do assess.
I am told that a goblin
once laughed a melan-

choly laugh upon (or
over) my travails.  With
tail tucked inward I heave
and weep childishly in hopes,

in heaven’s hopes, to un-
secure the spider’s hold.

mmcclxvii

Failure is the offshoot of argument—but then failure occurs too from a
               lack of it
                                                           —Lyn Hejinian

Being a media consultant
is hard work. I wake up
ready to engage. The
media are already on
my lap. I cradle and
they coo and then
I’m off to consulting.

For lunch, I eat a
can of beans and a
fresh salad (usually
Caesar’s). And then
it’s back to consulting.

Dinner comes too late,
and all too oft without
a date. I go to bed
sad and sleepless.

mmcclxvi

The Two Thieves

It seems that we’ve
stolen and stolen
from each other in such
deep and beautiful ways.

For example, I always
awaken to the most
wonderful sky filled
with white fluffy pillows.

For example, I awaken
to darkness, a resplendent
darkness because you’re
using me as your fluffy pillow.

Always on the run, often
kleptomaniacal, we glisten
over one magazine or the
other, taking snapshots in our heads.

These get developed, blown-
up, inevitably, by strange
and divergent processes that
neither quite gleans from the other.

mmcclxv

         Every time you try to write
     the truth it changes.
—Stephanie Young

and then
it was
night.


but
what
a beaut-
iful outspok-
en moon shone
clear through it.


         More happens.
           —Stephanie Young

mmcclxiv

Unbuttoned Triceratops..

or that’s what it says right
here on the last page of
writing in this undated
notebook. Clearly it’s
my writing. And it can’t
have been forever ago.

And furthermore,
that would, you’d
think, be quite the
memorable title for
a poem. What follows—
the supposed body of
the piece called “Un-
buttoned Triceratops”
—is pretty good, too.
Simply:

     Scratching two items off the list, I
     lift my arms.

Well, if I did eventually
type it up to include in
here, I could fairly eas-
ily find it behind this
page somewhere, un-
der whatever roman
numeral. But I cert-
ainly don’t remember
it. Which is too bad,
too. Because this
spoils everything.

mmcclxiii

No words here. Like I am at least
bubbling over with excitement.
That is, as I battle it out with
someone who was probably
born during the bicentennial
and whose screen name has
allusions to an early Hall &
Oates song (they, too, are
from the U.S.A.).

mmcclxii

Open your mouth say what you think you might mean
                                                     —Alli Warren

I wish. I mean I do
but the voice trans-
criber always fucks
things up. What is
that smell that just
became our apart-
ment? “Could you
drop by professionally?”
I ask. To which I get no
response. Round over.

mmcclxi

How useful was this page?
         —Patrick F. Durgin

Who decides
which benefits
are positive?

mmcclx

slower production

he drew
his head
upon the
page

while
dancing
under-
cover

mmcclix

found (3)

play head:          beginning

           animate
           in a flash

           one per
           layer

tween:                  shape

mmcclviii

whitney houston athens burning

     is your boyfriend as wasted as mine?
                                   —Alli Warren

just so that some schmuck who’s
googled whitney houston turns up,
eyes double-blinking, here. imagining
the elegant rhyme of schmuck with
the wonderful title a duck is a duck.
or whichever lagoon is richest. or
wherever the lugume is itchiest.
oops, they just served a pork
tenderloin on cnn.

mmcclvii

         Illusions of Motion

         kerning
         jacking
         subscript
         tracking
         pull bones
         superscript

or ... Allusions to Emotion?

mmcclvi

found (2)

Stop       People           Thought

                                       Bubbles

mmcclv

Without trying
to make funny
out of it, neither

drowning out my
sorrows or dry-
ing off my face/

drowning in
my face
or...

Was he
literally
speaking

about
reality?
Reality?

I imagine it so,
now.

mmccliv

the alley’s a self-conscious mews, and suddenly the Muse is off
to Yaddo.
                                                                    —Tim Dlugos

“It’s more real then yours,” he said,
and I wrote it down because I couldn’t
even listen, much less understand. I,

plugging up my eyes—and not just to
drum up any sentiment—was think-
ing, “I—will—never—go—dancing—

again!” Later, I changed the filters
and installed a new showerhead.
What was he saying? What could

he have possibly meant? What
was he doing? I remember him
saying that, and that alone. And

I remember writing it down.
... And look, here’s proof.


                                    [see graphic]

mmccliii

found (1)

     -exchange of exhibition

     -how i got there

     -what i really feel like doing

                                    [see graphic]

mmcclii

Did you summarize?

Did you summarize?
Did you make it clear
what is the problem?

mmccli

Any idea is at its best when it liberates.
                          —Maya Angelou

It was
an idea.

It was
just
an
idea.

mmccl

The Voo-Doo That Who Do?

It is my _____ as well as yours
is something.  Why’d you not
grasp that, much less grasp
at it?  As slowly and slowly
I read: “Yours.  Yours.  Yours.”

mmccxlix

Things I Would Say But Can’t

     Wanted to know about making art and telling the truth.
                                       —Rachel Blau DuPlessis

I should have moved forward a little bit,
like five years,

read page fifteen,
came back home.

Come back home
and buy a bunch of purple tulips,

very tight ones
that last longer.

Time travel makes
tulips last longer,

makes them tighter, after all. But
what got squeezed

into? That almost unforgotten
page from over

fifteen years
ago. How does

almost unforgetting
happen? The French

have a saying about it,
if not an actual theory.

I left the tulips in the
Museum of Visual

Honesty.
As I lie here,

dying, do I
still wonder?

Now what kind
of mantra is that?

mmccxlviii

had—I—not—opened—my—bigmouth—to—being—with—_____

i had meant to write begin,
like fresh start, but wrote
being, that mystery of be
ing so inappropriate that
we’re al(l) most inappropri
ate – ma(s)king a sense of
everything that marls sense.
marking things up, us being
marking beings, us being, us
being marked, each milking
the mark-down, making like
marrying up just to make up,
each of us, all along, each a
glass of senseless melon.  up
at dawn just to make cents,
man.  more like making sense
manqué.  thinking in the end
that man just can’t, man.  can
it!  and that’s mondo fucked up,
isn’t it?  and to think, i participated.


Meant to erase half the words or more
but couldn’t bring myself to do it.
             —Rachel Blau DuPlessis


that others often mis-type the one word for
the other doesn’t make me feel like part of
one big happy family.  i was in a family once.
and to think.  i participated.

it looks like we
                both really screwed up
                                                this time,
                                                              doesn’t it?