mmcccliv

w/Many Depressed Lines

I don’t feel much good today.

I certainly don’t feel much good

feeling as if I haven’t lost myself

with anyone in a very long time.

Anyone, after a very long time,

might feel exactly the same,

or nearly exactly the same.

Couldn’t it be you?

mmcccliii

Admonition w/2 Sad Lines by James Galvin

“Turn back.  I’m busy dividing my time.”

       is only 3 lines away from

“There’s nothing you can do, given what you have done.”

mmccclii

Okay.

I feel

as if

I am

just

getting

started.

So what?

mmcccli

I feel

as if

I am

just

getting

started

is the

name of

a poem I

remember

writing as

a teenager.

But it says

right here

that I was

well into

my 30’s.

mmcccl

+ / -

Obviously, what we

have on our hands

here is an either/

or situation.

Cue third frame:

a collage made up
of 68% of each strip

in today’s funnies.

mmcccxlix

Third Person

I divide

my time

between

certainly

and dumb-

er.

mmcccxlviii

Barnacle or Bastion

The paint about the

bedside pipes is

cracking up, I could 
add as a question mark.

I could.  I could also

pack many punches

into a wonderfully

impossible sentence,

seemingly.  But

will he ever!

mmcccxlvii

The Squirrelly Winter of Fate

This morning I am suppressed.

Impressed.  This morning I am

depressed, even though, an

empress, I love the rain.

Rain after rain all night

and rain off and on for

days beyond.  Or behind.

My mind is more foggy days,

solemnity, temerity, tempor-

ality.  (“No, Mom, I don’t have

a fever.”)  The current, however,

is freezing.  Currently, I mean,

my currency is frozen, and the

likelihood of an early thaw

is dim to none (with zero

arguments over dim-sum).

Oil prices are tumbling

and winter is nearly here.

Or there.     Hurrah!

mmcccxlvi

“How rhetorical was your ‘Wait a minute!’?”

I took one week off without worry

during the most worrisome era of

my livelihood.

          And what, you might ask,

          did I do with that week?

I took one week off without care

during the most loathsome time of

my career.

mmcccxlv

Drought on Death Planet

Four years later, I am parked

out front of the unbelievable

mall.  I would giggle to my

neighbor if I had one, whisper

about such an ineluctable mis-

reading.  Whispering between the

gasps and giggles.  Gasping for

further imagination, fantasy.  But

now?  Fuck it if I am not in an

old Ford pick-up.  What a truck!

My grandfather’s, which I have

driven all the way to Little Rock

(at sweet 16) to attend Chemistry

Camp (to which one has to be

nominated).  Downstairs, more

plates crash against a very

unimaginative wall.  The plates!!

There must be an endless assort-

ment of them.  “How can this be?”

I wonder, glancing at my watch

as if I’m actually wearing one,

growing a beard as if I can.

Tomorrow is done.  It’s over

today.  Yesterday the rain

spilled down until shortly after

noon.  And then, spiders burst forth

from each and every administrative

wall on Death Planet (each wall

here is made strictly of concrete)!

Orange globs of them, spewing

forth in waves like flame after

flame.         And then....?

Well,  you can see for your-

self now.  Here!  Have a look!

mmcccxliv

“Is Church Still Happening?”

I tried so very long ago

to be okay.

mmcccxliii

     Our only exposure was to be

     financial, our only fun in cruelty”

                    —Michael Malinowitz

“You kept an audio message?”

                 “Huh?”    ...

                           “I keep everything.”

“You sick bastard!”

                “Okay.”    ...

                            “Maybe I was being

                              a bit melodramatic.”

mmcccxlii

Be careful not to overcook

as popcorn will scorch

“I’m alive,” he finally responds.

To which I reply:

           “Thank Heavens you’ve

not just been avoiding me.”

mmcccxli

NOW THAT I CAN NO LONGER DWELL ON THE PAST

I never knew I did, actually, except so as to

REMEMBER; so as to piece things together,

to gather perspective; so as to EVOLVE.

Perhaps I’m not fit to evolve (in the

better today than yesterday / 
better tomorrow than today

sense, rather than in the
strict Darwinian, survival 
of the fittest sense).  Since 

look at me now [by which 
I mean no further details 
are necessary, so long as

we’ve EVERY LAST ONE OF
US been paying even a mod-
icum of attention.  What with

our attention disorders and all.
Attention...   Attention....  since
LOOK   AT   ME   RIGHT   NOW.

mmcccxl

Enjoying the Life That Has Been Given (to me)

My mother calls me this morning

to tell me that she has been in the

hospital since Wednesday with

pneumonia!  She sounds horrible!

mmcccxxxix

My Offer to Eternity

(Or a Piece Thereof)

I’m a dullard, I think,

made aware by the words

I write, the thoughts I

think, the lines I am

reading, day in, day

out.  So I make a

name for myself

(I like to think).

Like Dullard or

Atrocity or

Ambush.  What

could such a body

behind such a name

have to offer?  I can-

not (cannot) call.  My

name.  My name is.

This morning my

name was.  Nobody

answers.  Nobody

picks up the phone.

How (oh, how?) do

I offer my soul (my

soul?) to that nobody

in response?  To no

response, my soul is

now gone, because

no reply.  No reply

at all.  A nothing a

nothing.  A nothing

to a nothing says

so.  Says that I need

to enjoy the life that

has been given to me.
Please can you say

that to me?  I need it
almost imperatively.

mmcccxxxviii

What Do You Mean What I Say?

         What do I mean?

         What do I say?

         Do I mean what I say?

         Do I say what I mean?

         (ALMOST NEVER!)

         Maybe, then, I’m mean to say.

         “Agreed,”

         lips, sewn together this way, murmur,

         “a greed.”

         ...

         “But what do you mean?”

mmcccxxxvii

A Mature Relationship

           I like to prepare the heart

           by stuffing it with the brain.

                                   —Alice Fulton

Heart don’t damage!

Heart, don’t do any damage!  [Pleas]

Unheaded heart = damage!  [Eternal]

Unheaded, heart....   [Unheeded]

Unheaded heart goes.

That damned heart pays no heed,

goes right on ahead,         

[without head]

does a heap of damage.

Brain, rest!   [Repeat Plea 10x]

Brain pleas, REST!

Brain, unaware of the demise

of the heart (the damage the

heart has done), revels in

the glory of the morning sun.

Unawares,
reveals what brain's done.  [Busted]


What brain?  Brain done.   [Gone]

mmcccxxxvi

Just to describe the things that have meant                       

everything to me; and not to insist on describing,                         

but really just to describe them.                      

                                                                                  —Damion Searls          

Will I finally get my

data back from

Shady Guy, Inc.? 

(How’d he fool me

all these years, anyway?   

I should call him before

noon and attempt to

transact.  Good luck

with that!)      Good

Night

and Good Luck

is now playing at the

Lumiere.  I’d like to

see it.     But who

knows what the

future will bring?

Plus, I’m loaded

(pun intended). 

So on this fine

mo(u)rning I shall

purchase a new pair

of glasses for my

Honey.  Pan out....

Fade....   Open on

full shot of a bed

taking up the

entire breadth

and depth

of the silver

screen.  One

person on it, sur-

rounded by books,

several open, pen

in hand.  This

desperate

attempt at

redemption.