mmcmlxxii

[many apologies but my laptop went kaput this week and I spent hours on this long pretty plain diaryesque 

poem for you but the last save made everything ajumble. I will fix it anon.] [Or not.]

Losing Your (Street) Cred

It’s the end of an (other) experimental month at the begining of an (other)

experimental year.  And what have you got to show for it?  This is a question I

often ask myself (as I am obviously doing here as if truly addressing you) .... 

What am I doing here?

Here happens currently to be the long line outside the Tenderloin Housing Clinic,

which isn’t a clinic in the medical sense, but rather, where I pick up my funds for

my rent for my SRO (or, more explicitly, my transitional housing).  There is always

a small sum left for my phone bill and maybe a razor or two.  But this is all the

cash I get for the month after I pay my rent ($308 - yeah sounds amazing, and

it would be if I could just land a job).

I did have an interview this afternoon.  But I had two interviews scheduled for

yesterday that were canceled last minute.  One due to the interviewer being ill,

the other because “We seem to have found the right candidate” (Woo hoo!).  

So I am off to a start, albeit a rocky one this round.  I do have several lined up

next week.  They sound quite promising.  I calm myself, try to do my form of

meditation, stay focused, answer questions succinctly, avoid meandering, 

concentrate on successes rather than actions (whatever that means) and don’t

talk incessantly with my arms flailing about, thinking these may possibly remove 

the obstacles that exist between me and that perfect next cubicle.

My financial credit report is no good.  This check I’m waiting in line for is all the 

currency I get this month besides food stamps ($194, so yeah, significant, but 

it’s amazing how quickly it all goes).

So what is my conclusion?  I simply keep trying to live.  I keep conducting these

experiments, more and more of them, and they get more and more random and

absurd as time goes by.  That I am a lost man (Am I simply trying to convince

myself?) is not necessarily a bad thing.  But....

Mostly broke, job-searching with hope upon hope, a fairly constant stream of 

unfortunate luck, tucked in my broken bed in my tiny apartment that I have

lived in for eleven months, which was immediately preceded by two years of 

living in a shelter, and six months of living on the streets.

My street cred is something I never thought about until a few short years ago... 

well, in general.  And on that subject, I still have no real idea. This life in which 

I wake up daily into a new mystery and a newly burgeoning preposterous lack 

of cred.  Mostly broke, job-searching with hope upon hope, but always with a

bizarre lack of luck, living life, waking up most every morning into a new 

set of mysteries.  And these refuse to resolve, and therefore accumulate.

All here in this small place called San Francisco, even with its ludicrous or 

electric (depending on whom you ask) influx of new people and the vast changes

of recent, it is a place I am happy to call home.  In fact, I have endured hardships

just to keep being able to do so.

But with all of my friends locally, save one, and three long-term partners (and

possibly a fourth) having fallen decidedly by the wayside, perhaps never to be

heard from (by me) again, and with the additional loss of every material thing 

I kept for the first 50 years of my life now completely gone, whenever I do this 

walking, be it day or night, within this city that I love, around people with whom 

I am either familiar or at least comfortable, I always feel like I have a bar over 

my head like so many video games, or like ona battery-depleted mobile phone,

and it’s down to somewhere be-tween zero and 5%.  That’s how much juice I

have left.  I am in dire need of a juice station.  I’m in need of life, of air, of 

water, of love.  And I’m definitely and clearly in need of some cred, in any form 

I can possibly score.

These words I am always conjuring out of nowhere and then sending as long
missives to no one (except you) in the middle of the night, no matter how

hungry or low on percentage or in need of cred that I might be at the time, 

always give me some satisfaction, some comfort, some juice.  My words. 

Always dying to escape this completely word-sated, word-hungry and just plain

wordy body.  And so out they go.

Well, it is time for my goodnight.  Thank you for being there?  And may we 

all rise smiling in the morrow.

Because I have so very much yet to relay to you.

mmcmlxxi

Grump Slump

Today, I must
admit that I am
caught up in a
bit of a grump
slump.  Which
(for future ref-
erence) I refer 
to as a glump.
As of today, 
anyway.

mmcmlxx

Indelible

“Whatever you do,
don’t lose
your mojo.”

said Greg as he was
simultaneously
thinking,

“I’ve got a
secret,” which,
for the life of him,

he could not
recall at all.

mmcmlxix

A Little Bit More About All Of The Todays

     But I’ve never had heart failure.
                                              —Henry Wei Lung

I read from a book that has listed as a description ‘an occupy
lyric’ and I remember being blindsided by my people, the ones

who had been on my side, taking everything out on the police
officers, bullying them as if to show we can play this game, too,

all of this directed at the women and men in uniform who daily
risked their lives to protect my sorry ass and those asses of

all of the others. Asses full sorrow, and police officers and
an endemic problem that was decided by MY PEOPLE

should be hate hate hated on bullied manipulated spit upon.
While those uninformed who attempted to contain, attempted

to safe zone, attempted to anti-violence. I on the West Coast
bombarded with television snippets of my people taunting the

men in uniforms. A visit from J from the East Coast, who
was telling me he believed he lost his poet cred because,

just like me, we could not understand and therefore stand for
and with Occupy This or That. How could WE be the bullies?

we both wondered aloud, a bit slight in the eyes through which
could be discerned the stress, the denial, the loss of the ideal.

The officers looked on, mostly nice as pie. Corruption, I have de-
cided is not an overused word. It exists. I have learned in a matter

of three small years that to strike at the corruption at the heart of the
heart of all hearts would be to kill the animal of all animals. This

weary planet so-called Earth would finish harboring resentment for
those upright hairless beings that have nary an upright value. Em-

pathy for Earth was always the problem, ironically. It kept its creatures
alive, its population defiantly nabbing every ounce of dirt and bone

and sap. Empathy was ruining everything. Then, suddenly,
like the monstrosity of the many leagues of stunning dinosaurs

that had by now been long since forgotten by even sometimes
the Earth itself, our plural selves had mostly indulged us into an

existence so arrogant, so unaware, so full of refusal - until Earth
saw us incapable of getting along with ourselves. Such fragile

pricks, thought the Earth, so blistered with the memory that they
may have existed once, a mere hyperbole; and then, just as soon

as the parasites joined to coerce and to rule...they were decimated.
No more gigantic gout-punched thundering clubfeet to extend or delay

extinction. The time had come and gone for dinosaurs, too. Time
had come for dinosaurs. And then the dinosaurs left, saying goodbye

only in gasps. Earth could not laugh, nor has it ever begun to even
find itself in any position in which to exhale with humor (like an

earth such as Earth exhales). Save it for the porpoises to find
out, Earth thought, deep within its incinerator, which cleared

many stages of ice. Earth never laughs anymore. Old
things just come undone. And unempathetic pale and

upright creatures beat the Earth and the other pale and
upright creatures into the driest dust. The dust of forget

me. The dust of equanimity, equal once and for all, our
patriotism finally glowing, or even sparkling, as if tossed

with glitter, into the fog of all of the swamp-seeming
fog-rolls full of nothing but bone mist. The mists of bone.

An oxymoron or a paradox, were some of the things
that the remaining worlds were thinking (but not saying):

Truly, worlds never get to speak. People did. Yes, humans
used to talk. But not anymore. Now they exist merely

as the mist of bone. I do not like any more of what I
see than you do. My desiccated shadow lengthens.

Do you remember the Pacific? Do you remember
wanting to swim to the other side of the planet,

floating upon its glorious waves like seemingly
healthy people somehow manage to do. But

not anymore. Now I can walk from here to the
islands in the middle of the Pacific, where, once,

nations pretended to end; now deserts begin.
Words cannot float like people do. Words just

remain in their place, ready to be frozen into
a mountain, rendered illegible, unable to ex-

plain that there was once pronunciation, once
the Pacific Ocean that covered incredibly vast

amounts of rich soil and contained three-quarters
of the inhabitants of the universe. And now, Earth, Sun,

other worlds have no ideas (words) about existence; of the
humans who fantasized great power over all mysteries.

mmcmlxviii

Ears Upon Some California Dirt, 
Listening For Signs of Life on Mars

     You are as beautiful as a telephone, colors
     of bone, rocket ship, and cocktail lounge——
                             —Rebecca Lindenberg

So why can’t you call?
Oh yeah, because it’s
MEAN WEEK.  I didn’t mean to,
honey, I promise.  I didn’t

because I’m mean, too, occasion-
ally.  Occasionally I try to be mean.
I find it difficult.  Isn’t that strange,
family I come from and everything?

See, I did it.  Oh, yes, I did.  But it
isn’t ever easy.  And you know what,
also?  Also, when everyone is down
and I’m the clown, the funny

and most depressing clown you’ve
ever heard, depressing is worse than
scary because depression’s the scariest
when everybody’s just back

from the party, down like a log, because
down is where logs usually get made,
so down is usually where they must
be to get logged, you know?  Unless

there’s some new technology of
which I have yet to be made aware.
Which is always the case, as it turns out.
What I was asking, that question which keeps

burning my eyes red and turning my head
into rotten hammered potatoes (Since I’m
presently catching up on music cuz I’ve been
nearly four years in the bunker, unable to show

my face, unable to move my lips sometimes, unable
to pay for the spinach I needed to beat up Bluto, I
must give a shout out to Tierra Whack!)  Beating
people up is something everyone knows I do regularly.

Like bigot jokes.  Funny thing is since nobody really
knows me anymore (and they never really even seemed
to, but there were once plenty who were around enough
to, you’d think), and like I just noted parenthet-

ically, since maybe nobody ever even hardly knew me to
begin with, these bigoted beating up jokes maybe are
best not brought up.  I know many rumors that have
started because of opening my mouth to riff on what

I absolutely believe to be true and fine, yet have never
even tried such things (like bungee jumping, only these
things are usually about sex; not sex while bungee jumping
either), but note to depressing clown self trying someday

again perhaps (and flailingly failing) to liven up the down-
trodden (“It’s a PARTY, DAMMIT!”).  Nope, to be real,
which, oddly, is a rather hardheaded goal, I am a pacifist
to the extreme,  Heck, I even planned conscientious

objection or hitchhiking to Canada from Arkansas if a war broke
out, back when the draft was the draft, or really half a draft, and
one I’d yet to sign up for.  It was the days of Jimmy Carter,
and I believed I’d have to go to war with Iran.  It was 1979, I was

all of twelve years old that Christmas, the first one of the in-
famous hostage crisis (ok, toddlers, think Ben Affleck’s
Argo).  Mean again!  We’re friends, right? Naw, I’m just joking.
But decent fellows?  Naw, I’m just joking.  But respect, man!

I was never mean to you.  Was I ever mean to you?  Sure, I had to
pretend to be mean just to make sure you don’t slip and fall.  It
has happened more than once, and somehow you keep missing that.
Missing everything about nice and help and promises and respect

and gracious and gratuitous (the good kind).  You had a dream,
you said.  You seemed serious, called it that at first.  Then it was
just something you had to do, or, NEEDED.  But what were
you doing during everything I did or did not do to give you

that dream?  Showing myself to be the jackass I am, I suppose?
So, all kidding aside, and I mean all kidding.  Why. (?)
Can’t.  You.  Even.  Call???   That one simple thing that I asked
of you.  That one tiny effort that would put this whole thing at least

neatly into a drawer that never need be opened again.  I decided
or your convinced me that you deserve better.  Easy enough.  But
what do I deserve?  What did I get?  Again, I joke. I cannot let
go, am told this is a joke taken entirely too far.  And not just by

you, even as you laugh dementedly (not at anything funny
at all, by the way).  It was my word that was a joke to you.  My
promise.  To you.  It was your promise, your word that was
a stand-up routine to you.  And to me?  It was a commitment.

A big one.  I stood by.  One I made happen under the worst of
circumstances.  I did it!  I stood my ground, waiting for
your end of the deal to follow.  Waiting for you to be
safe.  Waiting for you to arrive (I would pick you up

at the airport, of course  - that, I suppose, was another
one-sided joke, oft-repeated by both of us, but no matter
how laughingly from me, dead serious)  (Do I mean
dead in a bad way?  It is the word that comes naturally

into my head, no matter how hard I try otherwise.)
So if you must, go ahead.  Run like a coward
from every ringing telephone.  I have a certain fam-
iliarity with this routine.  The difference here is I have

more cards in my hand.  And I have that adamant I will
never let anyone ever do this to me again thing.  It’s a
very large thing, as it turns out, I am thinking, looking
at my unplayed cards.  I do not like this sort of thing.

But you cannot even call me.  Even though YOU know I’m no
jackass.  I mean not, you know, like, all jackasses; but maybe
I am the loser jackass.  And his cousin, the fool jackass.  And would
you just look at me, sitting here (I know that it is an impossibility,

but nevertheless) STILL attempting to save your sorry ass
with a telephone.  Hi, it’s me.  How are you doing?  Please don’t
forget the consulate, and where we were the autumn we met, when
you landed right in front of that temple in Bangkok, all serious-like.

mmcmlxvii

14 Year Old Fiddler — The Orange Blossom Special

Some things work to take your mind off of others.
Deference, it’s often called. But what am I thinking? 

I’m Jack Spicer drinking Purity organic coconut water 

(not from concentrate) in my SRO transitional home 

on one of the seediest blocks in the city. I’ve been 

here a month shy of a year and soon I hope to be 

somewhere else.  As I move ever so slowly back 

up the human ladder.  Despite some pretty amazing 

sightseeing along the way.  And friends falling along  

the wayside until none exist anymore in the city I love. 

A family (gone). A cat half-owned being taken, along 

with several iPhones and a laptop, while sleeping less 

than two blocks from my home of 13 years because I’d

been kicked out of it, and that night, sleeping on the 

steeped sidewalk, I screwed up and put the bag with

the cat, the laptop, and everything else deemed most
important to have with me after 50 years of living, 

between me and the cold wind rather than between 

me and the building next to which I slept. On the 

third night I was officially homeless. Months later, 

being asked to pay for a milkshake at Grubstake before 

even receiving it, after having been there dozens of times 

before and never once being asked to pay before being 

served my meal, never once being asked to leave.  

Losing a job to go to an appointment to get an 

apartment after living in a shelter for two years (well, 

6 months of that on the streets, while working a desk

job, no less!), because the meeting happened to coincide 

with my first day of work, took two hours instead of the

expected 30 minutes, and then being told to come back 

the next day for another two hours, after which being

told you could not move into the unit until further paper

work and more meetings because I’d been evicted.  

After living in a shelter where the only incentive, 

the only carrot in front of your nose was the promise 

that if you stayed there a year or so solid, you’d get a 

place to live that was your own.  But here I am, sitting 

in my lovely little SRO on the seediest street in San Francisco, 

as I love to perhaps mildly exaggerate.  Venting at you, a 

bit perturbed about someone I knew before I was kicked 

out and assaulted by my apartment manager because I 

felt the need to go to the emergency room (panic

attack). He tried to choke me in the U-haul truck
that was only full of 1/3 of the items from my
apartment, over 1/2 of which were not mine
but the asshole’s who left with no explanation,
who’d cosigned for the apartment some 13 years 

previous, and had promised just a month before that 

I’d never have to worry about leaving our apartment, 

as long as he was around (Why should I have taken that 

as the foreshadowing it was?).  He also took our phone 

bill from me to pay, since it was half his anyway.  Then,

some five years ago, he disappeared, vanished, without

one word to me since!  I had interviews lined up all week
and my phone went dead at the beginning of it.  He had

stopped paying the bill months previous. This week, I’ve
had time to reflect on these things while also having many 

interviews lined up in the coming weeks, looking at 

everything with aggravating perspective but hopefully
the right amount of focus.  How different my thoughts 

are now, how clear and mid-coherent compared with 

the past several years. My ability to make humor out 

of it has come slowly.  But all the while I’ve been triggered

by other disappointments, difficulties rising above. Another

so-called friend disappearing into the sunset, perhaps
never to be heard from again.  This becomes familiar. 

I can handle these things, perhaps.  One only
does what one can do.  Which sometimes
is enough.  All that one can.  All I can do 

seems to be growing exponentially as I 

write this.  That is new.  That feels good. 

That extends life, a real life, or the 

expectation that it will occur, will be 

extended, life as maybe I had never 

known it before, but not sheer poverty, 

not homelessness, I still have time to go 

someplace for a vacation.  There are trips 

to wine country I can make, getting out

of the city for the first time in
around 4 and and a half years.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
But how would I have ever

known what a lifetime this
last five years would be?
How is one to ever realize

the person with whom you 

happily awake each morning for

a decade plus just wanted out, 

for almost the entire duration,

and he never had the guts to say a 

word suggesting such before simply

disappearing?  Life is odd.
I deal with this, what’s been

dealt me. I think I can.

But there is so much more

to do.  Especially now that
I’ve seen what I’ve seen. Where 

does one go from that, really?  Up, up, and up. 

Until I’m high enough to have a voice again. 

Hey, my voice is back! it’ll say, and it

has something to tell you.
Yes, it will. Most likely.
Stay tuned, if you will.
The suspense nearly killed me. 

But I promise no harm. (If you will.)

mmcmlxvi

Spinoff

mmcmlxv

My Ex

I just put him into
my last poem with
a resounding clunk.

My efforts at humor
know no bounds.  
However, I be-

lieve that the
phrase, Ya big
lunk! which O-

live Oyl says
near the end,
even as back-

handed as it
might be, is
nevertheless

at least a par-
tial compli-
ment, right?

I mean, no 
matter how you
spin it, wasn’t

there always 
some kind of 
raw attraction

between Olive
and Bluto?  Even
if seedy and faux

repulsive, didn’t
the big galoot 
encapsulate

enormously more
sex (appeal?) than
Popeye ever did,

even eating his
cans of spinach.
I mean, even Wim-

py had a better deal
of a meal than poor
old Popeye did.

mmcmlxiv

teevee encompasses
almost everything.

     When I poke my fingers into them I can see it
     When I poke my fingers into them I can see it.
                                                —Jack Spicer

maybe I am just
misunderstand-
ing stuff and be-
ing paranoid. but
at least I am foc-
used. so it might
be great to talk.
plus, who the
fuck wants to
talk with any-
one when it’s
something that
is planned un-
der the most
ominous and
dramatically
suspenseful
methods?

let’s find
another par-
ade, she said.
which i think
meant, so, hey,
what’s some-
thing much better
to yap about
than drama-
tical suspense?

nobody paid
any attention
after that. there
were just too ma-
ny channels, i
personally think.
i am not really
sure, however.
harvey had the
phaser and he
barely used it.
nobody said
anything a-
bove a whis-
per, or at least
over the voice
of rue mcclan-
ahan (it was
decided early
on that poli-
tics was off-
limits). may-
be when maude
spoke (you know
how she always
yell-spoke), there
were some mini-
convos (the hip-
sters, the ones
who would ev-
en say convos
back then), at
a decibel level
slightly under
maude’s. god
knows that’s not
her name. or does god
know that? one can
never be certain.

the scientists know.
global warming knows
(there was a debate
about whether this
was politics or sci-
ence). jane fonda
knows (there was
the same debate,
except instead of
science they most-
ly said something
unfriendly about
vietnam. and poor
henry fonda, and
all in the name
of patriotism for
chrissake. pat-
riotism! patron-
age! patrilineal
poppycock!). to

which i crack-
led something
about how she
was on this fab
show called grace
& frankie. or frankie
& grace. and there
were a few unpuzzled
looks, particularly from
harvey, who looked ab-
solutely delighted as he
spoke into his phaser,
first frankie & grace
(nothing), then grace
& frankie, and the
morning turned in-
to the afternoon and
the afternoon turned
into midnight and
the elation was, well,
i think there were
some in attendance
who were allergic
to happiness. it
happens. but oth-
erwise the elation
was so contagious
that five of us were
still watching epi-
sodes at seven the
next morning. it
is not necessary
to see that we
laughed, we
cried, we had a
lot of sandwiches
and drank gallons
of merlot.

political incorrectness

mmcmlxiii

it’s not that i’m atheist on porpoise
(i can’t help that i was born this way)

this morning i attempted
to log in to twigger.com,

but somehow i caught my-
self before it was able to

be revealed. will the real
twigger.com please stand

up (and here, i want to
add “i am groot” mainly

because i am not, but also
because television). tv has

entered my life once again.
it reminds me of all of the

beautiful ugly things to
which i am attracted.

but i did not need the
boob tube to remind

me of such things. i’m
a hypocrite (she’s a hypo-

crite, he’s a hypocrite,
they’re all hypocrites;

wouldn’t you like to
be a hypocrite, too?!). do

you think sammy davis jr
ever ate an m&m. here’s

to hoping that the candy man
did not. but he passed into

the great beyond before
the political correctness

that was half of post-
modernism ate the

peanut butter sandwich of
homogeneity and spawned

the demon with the seven
heads and the three sixes

(go ahead, you can hunker
down on that with chagrin).

no, it was well before that.
well, was it before that?

was it, indeed, well after
his toe-tapping demise that

came the moment when
somebody dropped their 

chocolate into somebody
else’s peanut butter.

it was the wondrous white
chocolate of santiago and

the butter was actually made
in beirut from hazel toes.

not my grandmother ha-
zel’s toes, which were

frostbitten on martin luther
king junior’s birth-

day, a decade before it
was a federal holiday.

quick, which year did
i just make up like i

was wearing fish-
net dreams and

fantasy fishhooks
(and don’t think

too fast lest lester
the ventriloquist’s

major dummy rises
from his rimshot grave)?

mmcmlxii

A Dying Language

I nicked myself shaving
this morning as the person
I saw in the mirror, who was
not me but my imagination,
perhaps a vision from the other
end of the planet, the opposite
end, or perhaps complete imag
ination, evaporated — leaving my
face markedly odd in the mirror, fractals
of it, cracked in dozens of pieces, or so it
seemed, by the dancing rivulets of crim
son rushing down my cheeks and ears
and over my lips and chin, down onto my
white-haired chest.  These scarlet lines made
me forget the tragedy of the evaporation of my
mirrored companion.  I have an active imagina
tion, as my friends, my doctors tell me.  I still
recognized the beautify of the tiny puffs of mois
ture that disappeared into something like a tiny war
of droplets of acid which played out until my glisten

ing red facial springtime thaw forced me into dozens
of pieces which became even more beautiful than the
fancy evaporation and disappearance of my face’s com

panion face.  The luck of the razor and the anguished hand. 

That hand that had yet to cup the, if I were to imagine
it to be real somewhere, somehow, face that had appeared 

so perfectly in the mirror this morning, which has already
landed (for real!?) in London or Singapore or Korea by
now, far from the crusade of the phantom battalion forced
by the mixture of the sour vapor and crimson cracks that
tore poor Humpty so severely that all the kings horses and
all the kings men could never put him back together again, all
the pieces of the puzzle mystically sticking incongruently, their
open mouths each gaped with portruding odd-shaped tongues at

tempting to lock themselves up together, perhaps forever. Every

thing about this odd head seemed real until it was covered in 

the mist of the piping hot water and rose like a big translucent 

balloon with a head in it, only to dissipate without even a pop 

over the reaches of the mirror, into a warm melt of nothingness 

which floated by the school of poetry to the south, and onward,

to other end of the contintent, through all of the gibberish of 

English residue to a place no war had even been seen. What a 

fantastical world this place where language was so foreign.  The
English residue of of jibberish kept whispering, as if taunting
those who live there except when traveling to show up deep

inside long-away mirrors.  But these taunts no longer affected 

the beautiful inhabitants, were only a sussuration sweeping the

countryside, affecting no one but perhaps the occasional tourist. 

The fantastical land had given over to an amorality, with crippling 

sharks that circled angrily in every pond that was nearly deep enough; 

with sultans to the south having never traveled far enough north to even 

see this aged empire, and just above the border to the north of it, heads

swirled within mirrors.  Indeed, half-way across the planet were caverns 

and caverns filled with gold of which none of the inhabitants of the land 

of  sussuration had ever seen.  Instead, they wandered their fields of 

rice daydreaming of the green currency, the kind that grows the 

greenest. The longer the afternoon, the greener these recurred. 

Until, without one of the inhabitants of the empire lifting its head, 

the country grew full of the people who lived in the north with the 

hundreds of caves full of gold, and from even further north than that. 

They appeared as if from nowhere with handwritten bills suggesting the 

gold existed and could be traded for anything, including every parcel of

the land of their empire, the one between the sultans and the golden 

caverns.  Soon that land belonged to the northerners, but for no reason 

than there were piles of papers drawn suggestive of gold, which gave
great pleasure to the inhabitants and quenched their thirst that had
developed as they stood with the constant sussurating breeze due to 

the gibberish of the English residue.  The northerners had devised a 

plan to trade every parcel of land for a piece of their paper suggestive
of gold in the caves near where the northerners had formerly lived, 

the land was now hollow and hard to walk upon.  It was around 

then that the king of the empire of sussuration began to breathe 

his last gasps. This was a kind who had seen no war, who had
lived longer than any king, and whose names had such length

that no one could know who was who, except those who had 

always lived in the land of sussuration.  Each inhabitant began 

to call the king by his long name, and before anyone could 

finish saying the name, his royal namesake was gone. The 

inhabitants soon discovered that their land had been taken 

from them in bits and pieces until they had none left to them

selves, by the northerners and their pieces of paper suggestive

of gold, all with their express consent, as written, and why not? 

They were busy.  They were happy.  They were automatons.  The 

men gambled away their weekends in ways that would shock

a teller of banks.  The wives, who yet almost believed in property, 

took on the aura of the current and future wives of other empires 

who soon found their demise among gadgets and electronic cir

cuits, while the husbands spent long weekends gambling.  What
else was there to do? they wondered.  The dreams of the fathers
and the dreams of the mothers became the green dreams of
beaten skepticism and so on, and so on, and so on, ad infin-
itum, while the children played in the fields of rice or in the
ponds full of sharks, never knowing any better.  The kingdom
was demoted from a land of open arms attached to wide smil

ing and welcoming faces to one of arms up-raised in fear with 

uncontrollable trembling mouths, through which they would 

speak in succor or in solace, a dead language, the words of 

which would rise above the tourists ears. The tourists came
every season to the same destination, and had papers
filled with the suggestion of gold, mixed with the greenest

currency, which would be delivered to the new rulers of the 

land, unbeknownst to the rest of its inhabitants, whose lips 

smacked of alcoholic coffee beverages and ganja leaves.  

They would each arrive at the same destinations as last 

season, and the season before that, never knowing 

the difference.

mmcmlxi

GTHO
(getting the hell out)

At first, it was Canada.
To which there were
several excursions. The
one we didn’t take as a
family of six in the tan
Leisure Van because Dad
wouldn’t part ways with
his fancy gun.  This at
Niagara Falls, which was
a little embarrassing and
would have been my first
venture into another country,
1973.  Then in graduate
school in the early 1990s,
at Bowling Green, Ohio,
there were all of those
invitations to Windsor,
just through Detroit,
where my Dad had 

grown up (in Detroit, 

Uncles Earl and Dale, where

his two living siblings lived) — 

for, yes, the male strippers, 

who, I was told, got very 

naked, and even (ahem!)

performed erect.  I passed
on each of the invitations
as at the time it didn’t sound 

my kind of party.  After school,

I fell for a francophone from
Ann Arbor, with whom I took
a couple of trips to Quebec.
Oh, Montreal!  It was there I
learned the true riches of
Canada.  Guys in Montreal
were gods.  Every trip there
had me feel as if I were truly
foreign, what with the smat
tering of French spoken
alongside English, and the
outrageously gorgeous men
who I still think are the 

friendliest on the planet
(surely due in part to the
direction my libido kept
taking me - strip clubs - 

where friendly made money, 

perhaps even a weensy bit 

from me).  Years later, I’d take 

two excursions back alone.  But 

it never quite had the cache it did 

on that first trip.  I did once stop
at Windsor just to find that
notorious strip-club, and this 

was with a boyfriend.  There 

we sat at a sort of rectangular 

boardroom table bar in high 

executive  chairs, as men arrived 

from a curtain like runway models, 

grazing our very mouths 

as they passed us by.  It 

was there that I fell briefly
in love with a rather well-
endowed Native American
who must have found me
an easy target from the get-
go.  Much to my chagrin,
the boyfriend had no desire
to stay for a second show.
A decade later there was a
train-ride to Vancouver with 

a new boyfriend on our first 

anniversary.  I’d just spent
my first five years living in
San Francisco, so it was a
pleasure to arrive during a
snowstorm our first night there.
Once again, the men were quite
pleasing to the eyes, but I was
less interested in them than in
adventure, and the budding
romance that I’d have never 

believed would later grow so 

intractable that, thanks to him,

I’d lose pretty much everything. 

Soon, I’d escape for much more 

foreign destinations.  But for de

cades, Canada was the one place
where I’d GTHO.  It was significant

in whetting my taste for the kind of 

travel I knew I wanted.  But I’ll save

those adventures, like the Gay
Cruise to Mexico and the trip 

to Hong Kong (solo), turning 40 

in Paris, the trip to Tokyo (also, 

solo), the time I took a jerk to 

Italy for his graduation, stunned
at how it became my favorite
trip ever (thus far).  Oh, and
the cruise upon the Baltic with
stops in St. Petersburg, Tallinn,
Oslo, Stockholm, Amsterdam,
prefaced by a cross-Europe 

train ride.  I look forward to 

many more adventures.  And
to bringing further fantastical
wishes and dreams to

memorable reality.

mmcmlx

slipping into
and out of
conscious-
ness never
did any good
for anybody.

go home,
drink a
freezer,
pylon the
fish tank
and pile
on the
galosh-
es.  wet

days inter-
spersed
with hot
nights.
workers
unite!
for we’re
on the verge

of ev’ry-
body’s
fav’rit
perch on
the lurch. 
it’s time
for a

SIESTA.

mmcmlix

SPACE JUNK

real time

isn’t really

real, said

the scary

bear to

the jewel-

ly mule.

mmcmlviii

If There’s Boobs In It

Then you
know he’ll
be there on
opening night.

mmcmlvii

what you see,

how-
ever,
is (of
course)
most def-
initely not
what is
usually
got.

what you
read and
hear do
not jive
with the

gestures
flung about
by the arms
to which are
attached
the mouth
that wrote
whatever
you only
just read,
or spoke,
the non-
sense
you, what-
ever, heard.

uh uh.

we all
self-de-
freak
some-
times
without
even know-
ing why (&
by my guess-
timation, of-
tener with-
out any
knowhow
at all; or so
it appears to
this idiot).

(and yes,
that’d be
me, the id-
iot who nar-
rows down his
options via
the loons.)

If you + me = us
then you are seem-
ingly oblivious.

you - me = words
like these; “so obvious-
ly seamless,”
it seemingly struck
the seamstress’
mistress. “and
it was so,”

blurted
the spider
rethread-
ing either
your fuzz-
iest zither
or your
scuzziest
sweater.

but if there is
an us, there has
definitely got
to be a fetish
for that.

and if it were
mine, man...
it’d be ever
such a goldmine.

mmcmlvi

wysiwyg

kbos
limk
kingk
king lime
our fortitude
etc.
screaming
across the 
courtyard
house
mimne
what she on?
a teer
like
the 1
droop-
ing frm
my eye
so impul
sievely
wait!
from
both
ayes!
I’d say I’s
but it’s ais.
calm e.
u prob-
bably
woodn’t
find any-
one more
enchant-
eeng.

mmcmlv

menltle disease 
keybored msg

Jhey
Hwt
Hey~
Mn!
I funf
are 
fond
a pce
of the
pzzl
O
Damn
Thay
(& ths
iz a pom
& I’m
Totally
Sobe)
Rq+
Nw I a
Jest
H
Havnig
A whit
Purty

mmcmliv

Affordability in the Middle East

Decaying City Leads
to Apocalypse was
nearly today’s head-
line. No, wait, here
it is. Homeless in the
Golden State Causes
World War III. Hoo
hah. Fake HUD re-
port razes homes for
homelessness. But
where to really begin?
Per capita, our freshly
dead year’s homeless
rates are higher in NY,
HI, and DC than in CA.
Truth hurts. My sore
thumb! My eye! My
my! My oh my! Sulu
fights Kirk with a sword.
It is in a place called
the starship Utopia
where Groucho, Zeppo
and Hippo are all born
(same day, actually).
“You’re not having
a heartattack ack ack
ack,” he says to
me, quoting Colonel
Sanders, “you’re
just having fun with
the facts.” To
which I respond with
a gasp and a wheeze
(sarcastically). All
the while, King Duck
(birth name: Little Birdie
Cries Wolf) opens back
door, gauging the equa-
tion, mocking the eleph-
ant (the pink one who
sleeps in the room the
shape of a giant egg),
thinks the buskers
are baristas, that
sort of thing. Oh,
my aching egg-
head, I literally
hear the actual
headline whine
to me with a sigh
(I’ll wager the
Lincoln Bedroom is
wishing right now
that it were high).
Skull sucks,
say the kids
as they arrive
from school
(elementary
w/o element;
no substance),
imaginary text-
books in pocket.
Such textuality,
tweets Professor
Fonda to all the
sixteen-year old
girls, beheadedly.
My oh my, indeed,
thinks the world,
wordlessly, watch-
ing the acclaimed
new biopic: My Oh
Myopia!

mmcmliii

rejigger

hey, did you
catch the
remake of
“thus spake 
zarathustra”
in which there’s 

a sample of 
me shaking 

my chins to 

the tune of 

toni basel’s

one hit wonder?

oh, ricky!

you’re so

fine.  you’re 

so fine you

blow my 

mind. and

me?  why 
i’m just a 

sourpuss

composed

exclusively

of blubber.

mmcmlii

agnostic
discipline

     I will
     I will
       —something that i wrote over 20 years ago and, years later, put into a poem

as un
motiv
ated
as i
am
(was)
to wr
ite 1
today,
i never
theless
took the
opportu
nity to
make
it hap
pen
eve
n if
a bit
too late
for the
“deadline”
now that
today is
officially
now yes
yesterday
--
which
turns
out to
be a
pretty
cons
istent
probl
em
4
me
--
btw,
just to
throw
this ou
t there,
is it ju
st me?
--
do ya
think?
--
i gue
ss may
be al
most
nobod
y can
actual
ly ans
wer su
ch a qu
estion
--
and yet
these se
em to be
my favo
rite kinds
of quest
ions to
ask. the
impossi
ble ones.
--
happy
yester
day fr
om to
day,
none
theless*,
ya know?
--
*which is
just a fan
cy way of
saying any
way, right?
--
:-) g’bless
& g’speed.

     Creeping out of a fog
     Lifting as I swallow
     Yesterday
       —something that i wrote over 20 years ago and, years later, put into a poem