mmdlxxxvii

Did I Miss Hearing You?

“I don’t remember seeding

you.”  Clearly, I said that.

“Grow open my mouth //

that I may speak as I speak”

...(Brandon Shimoda)... “a

sea forms,” he continues.

The clicking also continues

outside my bedroom win-

dow.  Does that mean that I

am to be continued?  (Sound-

ly, resoundingly.)  Now I

hear cars whizzing down

the main street of my

youth, which is High-

way 22 in Northwest

Arkansas.  The whizzing,

however, is actually just

waves finding their var-

ious ways ashore.  (Whew!)

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WHOOPS!

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A Bar of Soap

“I would like a bar of soap,

please,” I say to the lady.

The lady looks at me as if

she recognizes me.  In

my dream the photo of

Curtis didn’t do him

justice.  Awake, it’s

amazing the differ-

ences between life

and death; between

life and life.  To

think.  If I’d like

to take a shower,

I have the option

of walking a

block down

the street

before,

during, or

afterwards.

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I’m feeling kind of

log inside.  I can’t

be $46.  Could you

ever so kindly find

a way to make a

small parade and

just call me a cab.

I eat a few bitches

of the smashed-

together bagels-

&pretzels.  A

shower&coffee

w/ the neighbors

sounds nice, I won-

dered.  The total tab,

as it turns out, was

only 22¢, which is   
                just tabulous!

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Peanut

He didn’t like it

as a nickname.

No, not one bit.

He didn’t like it

as a cartoon.  What

a silly cartoon,

he’d think.

Beagles can’t fly.

But one morning,

before the cat-

hedral down the

street struck twelve,

before it had even

struck eleven, he

walked in to a

dining joint,

sat down,

and ordered

a steak.  And

while he waited

for that steak,

he emptied the

entire bucket

of peanuts,

tossing each

and every shell

onto the already

shell-ridden

steakhouse floor.

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The Facts Communicate with Themselves

(and can often be found in the Fiction section)

I thrive on sentences.  One might some-

times say that they are flying dangerously

off the side of the cliff.  One might say

alternate reality.  “Well that’s terribly

wrong,” says the comedian in a wetsuit.

“Allow me to diagnose this,” she says,

not even trying to disguise herself as a

real doctor.  Everyone gets it except me,

of course.  They’re all ROFL and then

she’s ROFL.  I’m just ROF until I learn

that my name has always been neither

Ralph nor Rolph.  “You have an excel-

lent understanding of today,” says the

thistle to the undergarment that is sooo

comedienne.  Today we all say “hooray!”

Yesterday we sat dumb in our chairs,

like, twisting our heads almost all the

way around.  Tomorrow will be so

passé.  But jokes to some folks (be

they—the folks, the jokes—ditzy or

deep), even though they might be

funny to everyone else, are so

cliché.  “I rest my case,” says

the Basket Case.  “The dog

ate my homework,” says

Plunger.  “I draw the line,”

says a boy named Sue.

People are just funny that way.