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Ferdinand (or, Some
Business, A Bit of
Spontaneity and
More Reasons
to Celebrate)

Hello, again! Thank you so much
for dropping by. You might notice
that these lines come across a
bit less poetic than usual, a bit
more, there may be no words
to come up with here given
the lines being compared,
but please do go ahead and
imagine this to be something
in real time, a bit more casual,
with gratitude, but just between
me and you, collegial, convers-
ational (Would you like to have
one? I’m very available!).
I do realize now how tricky
it might be to suggest that
this line or that as opposed
to any other might be
less formal than normal,
given that our garbled author,
that’s yours truly, being an
upstanding, that is as far
as up can be stood in such
a place as this, and dutiful
citizen of Haphazardland,
a country or parcel of land
of which he has always been
its humble ambassador, (okay,
its singular resident), you will
always be welcome, you have
an open invitation and, if you
might want a fresh key to this
fine and beautiful city-shaped
parcel or parcel-shaped city,
for your very own pocket, then
please message me and a key
will just that easily be yours.
(Notice, of course, that I have
wandered off course?) And
what a lovely thing it would be,
yes, it would not hurt to have
a bit of company now and again,
would it? I have had plenty of
time to study up on being a
most impeccable host. It
would be so very lovely to
put that research to
some actual use.

That was a giddy prospect,
but I once again got a bit de-
railed, ahem, where was I, oh,
yes. And as for the veracity of
all that I am presently relaying,
well, I can say with some con-
fidence that you’d be most correct,
no matter your answer. What I
mean my dear friends is that
if you feel me sincere, you
think that perhaps I am
pulling your leg, or any
thing you might think
of me that might have
my truth, my veracity
exist at any point in the
line between those polar
extremes, then you’d,
of course, be at least a
hundred percent correct.
But take it from me, its
mouth, I swear, it’s true, every
bit of it, but, also, and more imp-
ortantly, I humbly beseech you to
tell me in earnest, precisely what
best you would like me to be
in correlation with the messages,
that is, which I insist upon
getting to you all today.

But in due time, my dear
guests, those are enough con-
undrums, let’s get on with
this poem which, for now,
I will say, is mostly just a
list. What do you think
about that? I wonder.

But first, I feel the need
to remind you each that
all this wondering about
what this might be or that
which has some of us slog-
ging through trying to make
too much sense, well, if you
recall, my message was, I
do hope, quite clear: do
not worry so much about
making any sense of anything
because, by the time this
verse gets to you all such
queries will be quaint, and
yet totally moot, for this
verse, each line, indeed
this entire _______ is
whatever it is that you
want to call it, it does
what you say it does,
is what you say it’s called
should you so choose
to call it an it, or say
that it does what 

you say it does.
The choices, my dear,
as to whether this
here bunch of words
is a thing at all is
or at least will
quite soon be
yours to call
(or not). But
just for fun
and for just
a few minutes
(until I am fin-
ished) I have
just now decided
that I shall call
it, for now,
Ferdinand, and while you’d have no
way to know that I’m scrolling up
to the top of this virtual page right
this very moment to more properly
entitle this piece, this poem, this list,
this _______ so that by the time that
your eyes first meet this pixeled page
you will have already discovered that the
super-title noted has, as far as you’re con-
cerned,always been none other than
Ferdinand (So how about that?).
I welcome you to fill in the blank
however you please, displacing
all other titles, all other such
names that have come before it,
as iteration if not affirmation of
to whom our multi-personalitied
page-dwelling species rightfully belongs.

Okay, next up is a small order of business regarding
yesterday’s anachronizm, (the one you see next as
you scroll down), because after I posted it I realized
I had perhaps left out some important details about
the poem that might more readily allow you to
celebrate the birthday that is mentioned in the
title. None of this matters, of course, as the
gift, as we know from my all too inordinately
long lecture, is no longer mine, but still,
here are a few things I would have liked
you to be aware of, as I think it just might
have been helpful. So, it should be quite
easy for me to relay. The title, as noted,
Cinema Yosemite, is the name of a small
book of poems that, according to the poem
as posted last evening, turned twenty years
old this year, and this is the truth, and
furthermore, it was my first singularly
authored book of poetry that a publisher
would be kind enough to take that process
to task, that is, to see it through to its
birth as a book. That publisher,
Pressed Wafer, was pretty much my
dear and very missed friend, Bill Corbett,
who was, I would always say, and still do,
like a second father to me, who heart-
breakingly passed away a few short
years ago, and at a time for me
that was so rough that we had not
very recently even corresponded and
I didn't find out about his passing until
it had been months, I believe since
he’d been gone. So as you might
can now see just a little bit clearer,
a celebration of a birthday or of even
the existence of this book is, for me,
synonymous with celebrating life and
work and generosity of spirit, of being
that dad who was already enough dad
to his kids and to so many fortunate
souls who were lucky enough to have,
when crossing paths with Bill, not gone
by unnoticed. He was so very good
like that. And so, presenting that simple
birthday piece to you was not with-
out some small amount of misty-eyed
nostalgia, wishing, as I so often do,
that he were still here. Also, of some
importance, and to clear up its, I think,
unnecessary air of mystery, its every
line was each of the first lines from
each of my poems within the chapbook
of poems called Cinema Yosemite,
which has a bit, to me, astoundingly
just turned twenty. Almost all of the
poems were written within a year after
I moved from one bay area to another,
almost begrudgingly, as it were, from
Boston to San Francisco. It was the
summer of 2000.

It is among the gorgeous slopes that exist
within this city’s perimeter that I have now
lived for the longest duration of this lifetime.
This is my home. And so, please know,
the song is one, for me, of familiarity,
comfort, and gratitude, as well as the
countless other feelings and things I
feel for and owe to this place, my home.

I will quickly just add that, I have also lived
in other places, like Ohio, Michigan, and
Jamaica Plain, with one tiny stop for a de-
tour in Oregon worth mentioning, and I spent

all of my years of growing up in Arkansas. 

So, home is never exactly one place, and
whatever it means and wherever it is,
is much more complicated than what
I might say about it, and I would
daresay that I am not alone in this
lack, this consternation, this inability
to tell you quite all that there is about
what to me home is in totality, in
abstract; what home is and what it
means to me.

So now that we are all caught up, here is my
silly new list for you for today, which is a few
first lines from poems that haven’t been born
yet (but nevertheless have first lines). In no
particular order at all, and with me a bit wary
at what this might look like when it’s put
all together (but let us not worry, there
aren’t all that many), here we go:

At Starbucks on Clay Street, across
from the Transamerica Building,
four days after Christmas, I
met a man who claimed to
be Meyer Lansky’s grandson.

This one’s just a title and an
epigraph that I am not sure
I am reading correctly, is:

Memory is weird. With the title

being Prince Pence the Fancypants.

Either the title or the epigraph,

not sure which, seems to be noted 

as attributed to Tim Yu. Tim?

This one is only an epigraph, which I have
here as attributed to Francesca Lia Block:
He reminded her of a cigarette.

It goes on:

I’m not going to call this one “Working
Class Dog” because it’s about me.

All she could think to say was
“Love is a dangerous angel.”

This unfinished piece has the title
The Diabetic and its first lines are:
Crashed like an airplane emerging
nosedown from low hanging cloud
at a velocity best described by those
looking directly up at it as “RUN!”

The years were not easy on his words.
Can you imagine?

There is another title: Psychedelic Trip Out of
Nowhere (and fast) to Hell (with a brief
detour through Elysium). It has a subtitle,
too, which is: An International Suspense Tragedy.

This is one that I remember being quite eager
about a week or two ago. It begins:
The bullies
on the balcony
got their
come-uppance:
ten purple nurples
applied liberally
by each sophomore
member of the
color guard.

I had a bunch of
acrostic poem-drafts
for a long poem in which
there would be sets of
fictional groups cross
over into the worlds
of separate fictional
gangs (see for an
example the poem
posted last Thursday
entitled The Ebony
Mask) – but here’s
one from that group:

Rescue
Isn’t going well, “Hey,
Demons! Hey
Dickwads!!
Let’s just
Eat
Robin

There are quite a few more,
but I’ll close with some of the
first lines from this unfinished
poem, which I had entitled:
The Mortality Smoosher.

“A buncha bad guys
Came a’rumblin’ through.
It was about the time of
The Superhero Convention."

“Oh, yeah? ‘N then what
happened??”

So much is always happening
that at times it seems impossible,
if one were to try and make such
a list, and yet I do (I also trust this
likely will come as no surprise
to you). Open yourself up to
the right frequencies (and
these channels are so
bountiful that there are
plenty to go around for
all of us), keep listening
no matter what else you
might be doing, then
when you hear something,
start writing it down, as
much as you can, just
what you hear, just as
you hear it, then once
you have time to look
down at the pages and
pages of so very often
infinitely fascinating
collage, such an astonishing
admixture of words, of just
stuff you pick up, how wild
and how damned educational
it becomes, at times, quite often,
I’ll even say, at least for me.

The abutments, the juxtapositions
of life are vastly entertaining, en-
lightening, to be sure, and just
mind-blowing, if one were to
pause to consider the what
comes next in comparison
to what just came previous,
not to mention the other
infinite directions that to
which one piece can be
cross-circuited (and as

often or more, short-

circuited), so just as
much from the let it go
where it may, what can
be strictly imposed, a
decision by
you or by me
to take one thing,
then another, then
slap it together,
whether literally
or virtually this
new amalgamation
that can almost always
with some observation
and a bit of tinkering or
scientific or artistic
deducing, deducting,
come out something
so fine that it may
be the foundation
upon which you lead
the rest of your existence,
oh it is so extensive to even
begin to try to define, a process
that can be catalyst to such
sublimity.  If only I were

not always so romantic.

And, also, thank good

ness I am not!

Good night, and thank
you all and each, for this
unquantifiable amount of
good stuff! Make more,
why don’t we? Be more,
drop by, read a little,
say hello, tell me
something, how
you’re doing, it
really does not
matter at all what,
but I can say that
there surely is a
good chance that
it will turn out
to be something
so big we will have
just as much fun and
get into just as much trouble
and spend even more time
trying to quantify it.

I’m putting a little
reminder into
my calendar as
I type this last bit.

Gotcha! The reminder
is always – and has, 

almost, ever since I 

can remember –
been already there.

Stay tuned, it says.