mmcdlxvi

Twisted Love Letter Stolen from Lauren Shufran

                                                  —for Lauren Shufran

      |How I Learned to Stop Worrying>

      |and Love (that I’m) the Bomb

mmcdlxv

The Butch Forest

I’ll admit that I’m not
the best at giving dir-
ections. But I’m most
certainly over-compen-
sated for getting from
here to there.  This,

as the Mini Cooper
slides (emptily)
off the overhang.
What I’m trying to
say (and not in a
good way) is that

I know you and
you know me.
And if all we had
to do every day
was step aside
once or twice

just to get out
of each other’s
way, wouldn’t
you be one
pissed off
witch, too?

So get your
square-toed
boot out of
my Death
Star, you
big black

hole.  And
don’t you
dare go
and “Yes,
sir!” me,
’cuz Mamma

you know
I don’t have
a single clue
what I’m even
doing here.  So
don’t!  Don’t
you even!

mmcdlxiv

              That’s no figment in my pocket;

That’s a growing pain.

                                 —Lauren Shufran

Please kindly remind me which one

of you is just the pretty face?  And

is it be kind, rewind?  Please kindly

remind.  (I wanted to end there, but)

Desire was tough to come by back in

those days.  She wanted it all.  And

honest.  Who wouldn’t?  She showed

her roses at the county fair late last

year.  Later that night, she shoved her

roses into a tiny mailbox while some-

body somewhere shoved his tiny

berated trip to the moon.  “Them’s

the shakes,” moans nobody, while

shifting gears or slamming on the

brakes.  And who was she kidding

after all.   She still wants it all. 

“And honestly,” we all wonder (just

a tad too audibly), “who wouldn’t?!”

mmcdlxiii

Next + One

Waiter, that’s no fly
in my soup, it’s a
spy in the house

of love!  What I’m
trying so hardly
to tell you is that

there is a Spy.
In the House.
Of Love.  But

in the end
I had only
dreamt that

that was her
name.  So wake
up, you idiot!

“I’d be lying
if I woke up
next to you.”

“I mean I’d be
flying if I woke
up next to you,

Sugarcakes.”  I’d
only be lying if
I were to say

that I didn’t
care which
one of us is

the axe and
which one of
us is the tree.

“So let’s to the
forest at once,
pretty please!”

mmcdlxii

Why So Sinful (Simple)

I might hate my guts

(and this is no laughing

manor), but I almost

committed regicide

with a little dearth

the other day.  Yes,

Alexander, and, in

Texas (as in all my

exes live in...)!  No-

body does it better

than Candy by

Robbie Williams

(my rendition,

however).  His

rapid fleshless-

ness is excellent,

like Mike when

he counts his

bones.  This

time I really

don’t mean

the boner,

I promise.

mmcdlxi

All Of This Is To Simply Say

It isn’t so simple.  Even on
paper.  “How can I recover
from this?”  it asks.  “How
can I recover from this?”
echoes the author.  Hello.
How might I possibly be-
gin to recover from this?

mmcdlx

Such A Tiny Journey

(Which I, By All Means, Extend)

Today is worship day.

Not warship day.

It is neither Saturday

nor Sunday.  Okay, it is

Saturday.  We are all

liars.  I can say this

knowing and not

knowing.

It is not just about

who’s quotable

enough to make

the point for me.

To help point to

something like

a red herring

(what of it?),

or who’s quotable

enough to divert

attention away from

the reel-to-reel,

here, now, then....

Narrative is

like that.  And

it’s almost every-

thing.  And especially

pretty much everything

else.  But in case you’re

working too hard to notice,

or hardly notice anything at all,

“I might turn out a good lyric but

I’m sure to make your dinner

real inedible.”  That’s direct

from Lauren Shufran.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

mmcdlix

An Attempt at Remember (Interlude)

       I Was a Duck; My Schtick was Just to Sit Here
                                            —Lauren Shufran

Years later, I stayed over. The next morning
I was completely broken, bawling into my
tiny phone: “Love!” “Love!” “One plus one!”
Deliberately. Twice. Please don’t let the
floodgates know that he’s not you and that
I’m not me. I couldn’t believe how sweetly
he responded (how he must have felt!). Del-
iberately. I, so utterly occupied, had let go
of the one quality that kept me myself. What-
ever honest was went for a walk. Incredibly.
After this, bittersweet juice, as ever. We’re
faeries at the Ferry Building, a morning show
which actually happens years later, an after-
word. I’m up at 7:15am. I’m real. Real. And
here he is lying in bed. Right beside me. Lying
but not lying. Real but surreal, or awake, or
aghast, but no, with me, pressed against me
in his way, it has to be. Or. Somehow the
warmth permeates from the other side.
Remains in reel to reel. In conclusion,
the interlude. I get up sometimes. And
soon I find myself somewhere. Famili-
arity dissipates (family disappears);
even as I lie here (I am not lying!).
Same bed. Same bedroom, save some-
thing’s glowing. In the sky, something’s
glowing. It’s the sky. No. The clouds
are glowing this morning. I’m
in the shadows, having been awake
for a while. I’m waking up. The move-
ment of shadow over my face awakens
me from a long dream. Look how the
clouds are glowing today! I must go visit
with them. I’m going to go visit them now.

mmcdlviii

Self, Other, The Lack of Reason & The Paradox of Pleasure

Can this just be the interlude?
Can this just be who cares?
Can this please not be heart-
break? Can this be the story
of how my grandmother came
to be with my grandfather? For
fifty-something years, yes? The
ick of hosting an anniversary party
for them at my childhood home;
me, perhaps a high school senior.
Was it their 45th? In my heart,
and to this day, that was and is
a very big deal. I might slump
a bit as I type this, but I hold
them up as heroes in that
regard. The template. And
the wonder of the why and
especially the how of the how.
I did not see this through my
teenaged eyes, but from this
much older pair I see with
verity. What I,
myself, have sought,
and that which I’ll never
truly have. But haven’t I
lived? And thusly, such a life
that both of these heroes would,
I know, be in awe, so proud
(well, I am their grandson), if
not even a bit envious.... I left
home soon after for college.
Papaw passed on, and then
what? She lived on for
another decade plus. Even
saw another man (Papaw’s
closest friend, then a widower
due to her—Granny Louise’s—
closest friend’s passing). But
the pain, the declination,
was so furious that I could
never look again through those
loving eyes. To find equanimity
in the inevitable heartbreak
of a life spent living. I try to
continue to want this. I seem
unable to even suppress such
an aspiration. Even now, with
the stupid grin of such an age,
knowing its impossibilities. 

But, yes. Now more than ever.

mmcdlvii

Last Night

Had I been
but played

like one of
those mini-

ature sob-
bing violins?

Perhaps.
The sweet

dreams of 

naïveté....

mmcdlvi

Him, He Balks But Still Attempts To Sleep.

Him a little time.
Decided time to
go.  Him decided

but him divided,
unsleepable since
the great under-

cover escape.  Yep.
Him decides 4am
(by then).  Sits up,

blinks, and says
“No...”  (which,
to the one lying

next to Him,
opposes what
follows: “...

we can talk;
this is obviously
something that

is important to
you.”  To me:
the opposing

team still under-
cover, lying as
flat as a postage

stamp.  I’d been
so gentle.  Upset,
absolutely, but

without anger.
But this throws
me, is so new,

and welcome.
We only spoke
briefly, but that

one sentence
was all that mat- 

tered to me.

mmcdlv

“I’m going for a walk.” (part 2)

....I’m here, still in bed, with
my notebook beneath a
drawn pen. So to speak.

I’m actually only day-
dreaming (if it can even
be called such a thing at
this late hour).

Of that 4am walk, one
among many, but one
so eloquently alive,
so very yet among
memory... how
screwy that it
must have been
one taken some

9 years ago.
My screwed up
priorities. The
odd discrepancies
between heart and
mind; love and logic.

It was only last night
my heart got crumpled.
Ah, to be stumbled upon!
Like a tumbleweed. So
out of nowhere. But
eventually emptied

of even the rustle of leaves, the birds
out my bedroom window (useless
without you), the tumbleweed
rolls ever-so-del-iberately off of
the silver screen. Someone new

becomes the idol made in the
likeness of all of you passers-by
(oh, the night was once so young!),
who’ve now disappeared. Poof! Vanished
like the magician’s rabbit once he rolls out
a long-toothed saw and what looks for every-
thing like a coffin, the home of a vampire who 

walks the lost city at its darkest and quietest hour.

mmcdliv

“I’m going for a walk.”

He balks but still tries to
sleep.  Out the door.  I seem
to have lost another love:
the 4am hour, historically
my favorite time of the
day (or night) for a walk.

The breeze is cool and
doesn’t bother to linger
as it passes through my
hair and in between my
fingers.  I close my thumbs
deeply into each palm,
an old habit, perhaps
for security.

No, for intimacy, I
now think.  How
about that?

In my head, I do the extra-
ordinary: wad up a piece of
paper that has lines of ink
up to half-way down the
page, attempt to toss it
from my bed into the
pitiful cardboard trash
receptacle that sits
somewhere next to
the double-set of
portable closets.
“Whoops!” I let
out, as I see it’s
landed in the
wrong box of
litter (it’s
Coco the
Loco’s
private 

bath)

.....

mmcdliii

I went into my room and closed the door. For twenty years.
                                                                     —Susan Gevirtz

Thanksgiving in Saginaw. I wasn’t in on the boiled squid joke.
A tradition, apparently. Initiation into the family. Another
family.

I wasn’t feeling so hot by the time I got to the dancefloor.
Once there, I was completely ignored. Or almost completely,
except for immediately getting the eye from Y. That “under-
stood” “you should be flying away by now” look. But I was
not flying away. Levitation requires concentration,
among other things.

By the time we left (3:30am), I wasn’t out of it, but I was
most certainly completely over it. Understanding history,
I ask him if he wants to go directly to sleep, to which he replies:
“Hopefully.” So much for the eye in the sky.

Flash forward a decade and a half, let’s say, when I’m still
restless, still upset, “I am lost I am lost.” Such things often
bounce around in my head as if I still have the eggshell skull
of an adolescent. I wander aimlessly, imagining aimless a
worthwhile goal.

Why do I do this? It’s either addition or long division, I’m
not sure. Addiction or algebra. “I’ve lost it” bounces around
like a stray electron. And what have I lost?

Family comes. Family goes. I am 37. I am 47. I am 57.
My date of birth either coalesces or vanishes. “Hey, Mom?”
Another echo. “Hello (person with whom I’ve shared the
billowing clouds of bedroom and hallway for years)!?”

Several decades pass, at least, without any boiled squid.
Thanksgiving arrives and I sit at the table in the sunken
den, the one with all of the kids. I’ve fucked up the turkey
but I’ve stepped just inside the doorway with a warm pie
of pecan. Sweet as the dickens, very like the South.

I am greeted like the prodigal. Or like a great-grandfather’s
last wish. “What’s your pleasure?” I ask everyone, perhaps
with a latency that doesn’t express the joy that crackles
near the bottom of my throat. “I love you all!” I say,
as I go straight down into the sunken room that is 

reserved for those who are the especially alive.

mmcdlii

How Will I Ever Type This One Up?

I used to have a
tundra. He was
miming a crime,

up with which I
shall not put.
Forty diseases

later (or was it
fourteen), we
found the slow-

jam. It was in
the attic, which
was the only

room we never
had. How were
we to know, as

we roamed the
steppes, that
we’d soon learn

to clone? Daddy
lost all of his gold.
The bank was

hard up. “Knock,
knock!” “Who’s
there?” “Fort

Knox,” says the
fox to the nuc-
lear hologram.