mmdccix

Cover Letter

I wad it up,

unawed by it
It's amazing how

useless every

thing becomes.

I suppose most

things were al

ways useless.

There is a glint

of giddy calm

in my heart.

Yes, mine

belongs to

me (this

has to be

the new

me, app

arently).

HOURS

LATER...

Feeling

ever so

moody.

No more

internet.

The phone

is gasping

its last

breath

as if it

realizes

this is likely

worse than

losing a liv

ing member

of the family

if not a long

term pet.

The drama.

Oh.  I am

to get an

eviction

notice to

day if not

tomorrow.

mmdccviii

Automatic Arithmetic

This laundry facility

in my apartment

building will

now close daily

at 10:00 pm

and reopen daily

at 9:00 am.  (Find

your honesty.  Be

a good person.)

I wrote

a poem

in 4th

grade.

It was

called

“Math”

and my

5th grade

teacher, per-

haps even un-

beknownst to me

entered it into some

sort of scholastic state-

wide contest.  I don’t know

if I have a copy of the poem

presently, but I remember many

of its lines (the first two of which

were “Math is hard, very hard/

Addition, subtraction, division.”)

which, for me, is pretty unusual (to

remember a line from anything, that is

and it rhymed:  ABAB, ABAB; the word

hard was paired with guard, division with

supervision, etc.).  When I was in 7th grade

I learned that the poem had won, that it had

been published in the winning anthology.  I

thought it was cool, but I had pretty much

moved on from poetry by then.  All of my

science and math teachers were also coaches

(football, basketball, gymnastics, etc.) when

I was in 7th grade.  Mainly coaches or Primarily

coaches are two phrases which immediately come

to mind.  We students even addressed them as “Coach

[so and so]”.  When I was in 7th grade, my science teacher,

the high school football coach, turned beet red with anger

(at something I cannot remember) and threw an entire desk

(complete with the chair, like the desks in pretty much

any classroom of that particular era) out the window

and onto the grass that grew next

to the building that housed the high

school which I attended.

mmdccvii

         The exotic collection of dumplings recipes.

                                            —Amazon via Facebook

It’s abrupt and absurd

the way I try to quickly

introduce myself to people

whom I don’t know at the

moment yet want to know

in the future.  Perhaps it’s

intoxicating on some level

to the stranger; often,

certainly, it is an exit

interview.  I don’t

want to remain like

this: almost gone.

The tarred rooftops

work like magnets

to my exhausted

eyeballs, soak

in the warm

winter sun.

mmdccvi

Vague Notes to an Ungathered (& Vague) Public

vague notes sent away to an even more vague and perhaps mythological or fantastical "public circle" (i.e., the people who read any of what i write (here -- or anywhere) as it relates to a 'reality' - or as a timestamp or a milepost pinned into this 'reality' and use it for some 'perspective' both in present & for and from future (and hence perspectives past as they pertained and pertain in retrospect to a present and possible future....to locate:

perception vs. perception
perception vs. 'reality'
'reality' vs. 'reality'
etc.

these matches can run individually, on a 2-3 person acquaintances or close friendship or more profound (to whom among the core?) relationship of some kind. does smaller scale (for me) loom so much larger in lifetimes of relative peace? i've known no hardship. so i make mountains out of molehills. molehills are my mountains. there is a certain control.

compare and contrast to larger scale.

and to reactions to various of these fights (versuses).

fight vs. flight

to run away (escaping reality and 'reality) or to confront (in hopes).

and especially as this pertains to "survival of the fittest (darwinian, real), vs. psychological, per se (start, for example, with freud's continued prevalence, the sexism etcetism inherent; the seeming ridiculousness and yet assimilation into modern culture which makes it 'reality'?

'reality' and 'perceptions' about both small and large group occurrences (a few friends, a country, the world, how we make it all palatable somehow, etc.)...

then: reality. then, why poetry? duh. would be a relieving way to end this journey of thought before starting again. and again. until you never get it right.