mmcccx

Live, from The Box

“Don’t you care how we live?”

End line— I just can’t get

into [this guy]’s poems.

I just can’t get into his eyes.

Damn.  Okay, okay. 

I have an accountant for

the first time in my life.

Or am I sleeping with one?

No.  But my taxes from 
years ago get paid today 
with bones from the 

bank.  Please let it 
be less than the

bottom line.  Yes—

Glory!  Step 
away from 

the box.  Into 
this guy’s eyes; 

this guy’s
sky full of eyes.

mmcccix

Shooting a Human and Not a Quail

First, I rented a bunch of movies.

Then, Otto came home buzzed

from the Cheesecake Factory

with Joseph and Justin.  This

is sometimes seen as normal.

Then, we cuddled and he

fed me.  Or, actually, we

snuggled and then we

(loverly) fooled around

and had a hot time with

loads of rice.  Today is

Thursday.  Tonight, we

are supposed to go to

Spices II to wish

Christina a happy

surprise birthday. 

I’m sipping a

lemon zinger.

It is now today,

the day the bones

go back to the bank.

mmcccviii

Don’t Double-Boom

“Yes, I’d love to,” I replied,

one warm October morning,

thinking “He’s just my type.”

Autumn gave it up for a winter

wherein we wore penguins on

our chests.  Mine, slightly hairy

and mostly grey.  Yours, smooth

as a wet whistle.  Back home, we

poured colorful gumdrops into a

tiny Spanish bowl.  “Hola, señor-

ita!” he’d smile as he’d say.

“Would you like a gumdrop?”

To which I’d reply, “Always!” –

not knowing any Spanish.

“Forever is a mighty long

time,” we’d both think.  How

alarmed we would have been

to know during those faraway

moments that, even then,

such synchronicity already

existed between the two of us.

mmcccvii

Hooting Through the Dark

My elbows

like cream

dissolving

in the fog

until I have

no arms.

At home,

the calloused

magnum

lying atop

the refriger-

ator raises

an interest-

ing point.

mmcccvi

Hearty Hardy

Which one of us thought it a

joke?  Perhaps the both of us.

          All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

                                                               —Oscar Wilde

I might as well throw that in,

like a bad bag of potato chips

or a stack of clean towels lying

still (still lying) (still lying, are

you?) in the bedroom after

last week’s wash...

...seven [lucky] years after

kneeling at his smooch-

besotted gravestone (more

like a monument, actually)....

Where were we anyway?

(Where was I, do I mean?)

Oh.  On Harrison Street.

But none of us were gig-

gling.  Neither of us were

giggling.  But a toothless

smile spread clean across

your beautiful bescpectacled

Face it, Del, you’re a hoax

hidden within a petty

theft.  Within a lie you

don’t even believe to belie,

to be a lie.


P.S.  All winks go to heaven.  
        {Wink! Wink!}

mmcccv

Poodles Are Never Off-Topic

          We left, as we have left all of our lovers

          as all lovers leave all lovers

          much too soon to get the real loving done.

                                                               —Judy Grahn

“Last chance!” I write.  I explain.

But I can do neither.  Instead,

gritting my teeth, spitting out

expletives, through them, I begin

to weep.  “Applause!”  The neon

directive flickers to life a few yards

in front of me – a few moments

before it’s supposed to do so.

Am I really to taunt death this

soon?  “Forever is a long ways

away!”  The audience nervously

signal intermission.  “Gladly,” I

think, gauze in hand, ready to

be mummified (or to mummify?).

By the end, everyone relates to the

disembowelment.  “Disembowelment

most relatable and satisfactory,”

the critics either praise or debunk.

I sink into prayer.  It is a soliloquy

most foul.  I had placed myself

intentionally within reach of

this predicament, this per-

spective, for years.  Was I

aiming deliberately for it?

I pray never to wish again.

The set, the entire universe,

disappears into a quick fog.

mmccciv

1st, you need a

reason for existence.

I wake up one morning,

feel like such an

*ugly human being.  Do I

care?  Of course I do,

trammeled, as it were

(I so hate this part)

I think, pummeled as I

am (I so hate this part),

with every other fist

in every other sea

(the great blue sea)

along with all of the

fishes of this heresy.

*idiot, a miserable failure,

rotten to the very core.

Dare I care?

Of course I do.

(At least I think I do.)

mmccciii

A Hundred Frothing Wolves

‘If I should die

before I wake—’

If I were too

awake / If I

were to awaken

Too awake

A dozen times

a dozen times

a dozen hours

of sleep

I do not pray

I do not pray

All day all day

I do not pray

A thousand times

a thousand

times a

thousand

visions

never take

mmcccii

Too easy

to figure

out, I am

drawn in

to the mystery

of you.

mmccci

sentiment

hyperbole

hyperbole

sentiment

mmccc

I rise at dawn and write because it’s

clear, though it’s cloudy

this a.m., the sky approaching

purple, like language in an awful poem,

making me anticipate an awful day

                                             —Tim Dlugos

          ∧

          |  Put graphic of same

          |  quote from The Collected

              Poems of Tim Dlugos above

              this typewritten text.

                                           It is a poem.

mmccxcix

             d’you think people change?

                 —Martin Corless-Smith

Talk about evolution!  TGIF!

                      (:Tickle Giraffes in France!)

mmccxcviii

Remains of Jonestown bodies found in Del.

                 —news headline found at SFGate.com

I wasn’t aware of

this, but now a

lot of things make

much more sense.

mmccxcvii

               Without her husband

                      she crossed every week

                              because certain groceries

               were cheaper over there

                                         —Rachel Blau DuPlessis

And also she found

a Safeway gift card

of some value amongst

all of the junk that 
he had left behind.

mmccxcvi

now that i am nothing, too.

now that i am just like you,

now that i am nothing, too,

i have one thing left to do.

that’s bid adieu,

adieu to you.

mmccxcv

[or, I could use it as the postscript for the previous]

               I fear I am not in my perfect mind

               the sins I’ve sinned before cockcrow

               Did the plot matter?

                                         —Martin Corless-Smith

But there’s the obvious problem

of what makes a sin a sin?  The

video you texted me this mo(u)rn-

ing could be interpreted as such,

I am quite certain.  However,

it made me laugh endlessly

(as I rewound it again and

again throughout the

entire morning).