over two decades in the making.
a timeshifting autobiographical poetry collage w/photography.
a diaristic, nearly "daily writing" (ad)venture.
new pieces are posted most days..
**new and in progress** --
recordings of each poem are being added.
these are read by the author & posted to each poem's page.
--Del Ray Cross (contact delraycross at gmail)
It was “so fun” getting used to you. —John Ashbery
Debates we used to believe we’d pick up another night. Coming soon. Let this be a warning to us all. The whole world is out
to get us. Never had we sounded more true to ourselves. A few of us wouldn’t sound
again. We always assumed such drudgery’d prevail, but
yet it turns out what ails us is what we also ignore the
most. What per- fect hosts we were, however; or else, I was. Once. Isn’t it ridiculous to feel
so astonished at what we always saw coming? Several years later, I convinced myself that all of my elegance, my grace, had finally returned. And full throttle;
back like gangbusters. But then, “Thud!” Up pops another “act of God” so cataclysmic that mere fatalism just won’t cut it. Perhaps, instead, apocalypticism? Seis- mically inelegant, how clumsily we lumbering humans roll!
Cross’ Theory of Stars Crossing Like Two Ships (not a hypothesis)
Do you have a favorite magazine? Do you consider yourself left-wing? High maintenance? —John Ashbery
Maybe. Yeah. Well, without the wings. And , , , no? Who cares, really? The talkers won’t listen. The listeners never get it. If there were that rarest of exceptions, we’d be nothing save star-crossed. Plus name any measure of distance. I mean, were you actually there, and you actually were, I’d then ask for a very large number. Which, if put together would equal the only hard reality that exists. I mean. Hypothetically speaking. As if do. Living it. Being it. Breathing it. Abhorring it. [Y A W N ! !]
Removal costs said, in a statement: You don’t need to survive. Just existing would be enough. —John Ashbery
how to work with frustration and not anger and headache, not plural because i don’t want them any more, i rarely get them, it’s a diabetic headache, right? i’m not going to tell you the reason i’m buggin’ so, because that would just make me a comedian. just reiterate the obvious, right? just say right. hours later, after t-mobile, after jay leno, after checking out the secret folder, after not sending out one single resume , , , well, i hadn’t eaten. not only have i not been setting foot outside of my apart ment, but when i start scrounging around, trying to figure out what there might poss ibly be to eat here in my little coffin sized hotbox, well, then what do i do? i start organizing. cans here, bags there, individual packets over here, and there’s even subcategories: canned vegetables, soups, sauces, etc. the point is i’m a diabetic now. the point is i’m lazy. the point is i was having too much fun sitting here writing this, talking to the man, watching the interview with leno, the half episode of grace & frankie and the good fight and kimmy schmidt, and, on imdb, which has sucked for years now, am i right? same with the tomatoes. success will utterly fuck you! but, still, on imdb, going thru every single show – every movie, every television movie or series or special, every variety show – that lorne michaels ever had a hand in, from coneheads to the show i’m now about to watch: season 1, episode 6 of the other two. scratch that, sidetracked, first i’m finally going to zap one of my diabetic dishes, the fresh frozen meals i get delivered for free once a week, and then? then i’m going to sit down and watch the thirteenth episode of orville, that’s still season 1, or so it says right here. nothing fancy. i mean. i suppose what i could be saying here is that the point is there is no point. and yeah, that’s what i just said. with my stubby, heavy-jointed fingers, from me to you. come back again tomorrow, woncha? ;-)
In these situations I’m trying to figure out what is going on. —John Ashbery
Doc’s putting the finishing touches on the upright piano. It’s expected to live. We all are, wouldn’t you just know it! Doesn’t it make you cough to think that Kafka was telling it like it is? I’m not battling all of the humor, I swear; I gave up feelings long ago for things like poise and tousling. How not to finger through Herb’s hair when it’s so hungover. Doesn’t that remind you of the same thing it reminds me of?
I swear I’m not just being gamy, but, since we’re back to expectations, I mean, even well beyond fraternities past, there was this code, this easy way to tell, it wasn’t just the gossip was it? All the men of, well, not just Cleveland, either, but, and yeah, it was certainly an artist thing, but we all just knew the bang. But now we all hang around clucking like we’re rolling a tiny tart spoonful of melon around and over and under out tongues, and yes, lemons, melons, limes, even apricots are trending like Fire Island archery and the pulverized bones of Plymouth Rock, but Charlie, dear Magnolia, we’ve lost not only every rotten sot whose inclination it was to show up on our porch step with, along with all of the accoutrements, a rather twisted bunch of bananas, but we no longer score even one member (sigh, member!) of the banana brigade. Oh,
to be young again, and to gang around with all of those swung hunks! Where’d they go? Whatever
happened to them? Don’t say a word about a funeral, Spike. When you’re too old to remember how fun it was not to care,
but not quite old enough to excuse
oneself to the Dairy Queen for one of those provocative milkshakes.
bee sculptures fiber building car surgery —John Ashbery
Reginald thought better than to wonder aloud how many savages there were to salvage. When you’re stuck in an antiquated novel (akin to, e.g., Little Women, Animal Farm, Catch-22, The Catcher in the Rye), he’d always found it best to skew expectations. He wondered for a while how weird it was that people even had expectations, there was always so much skewing going on. But try as he
might, every moment nevertheless seemed more predictable
to him than the next. How could that be? he wonders, darting
back and forth like a madman or a manic lobster, sidestepping,
taunting, catcalling, he’s just learned how to whistle at ear-
shriveling decibels; but no amount of herky-jerky, no sum
of crazy-looking fits and starts, body crumpling, ballerina
moves or fanaticism seems to furrow even the greenest
brow. All is taken in stride. And he’s exhausted, decides
to fuck it all, put on some Bermuda shorts and shimmy down to Elmville Station and finally and once and for all hook himself up onto the caboose, all Houdini-like. That’ll show them! he grumbles, utterly incensed.
Uh oh, as if speaking to a two-year old, but really pitching the gibber-jabber to no one in particular, Reginald’s had such a lousy fill-in-the-blank, gooses Alice.
And that was the last that any of the company and crew ever saw of Reggie Plouffender again.
The Rookie’s Beside Himself: A Prophetic Aside (in Jest)
The only furniture is when I can’t. The garage home fitted yesterday perfectly. The irony is it just doesn’t stop there. —John Ashbery
Oh, to be a flea, stepped out of the scene, or a fly, or a guy like me, in a topsy-turvy world that isn’t just tragic. That maybe melts your heart a little. That could be now, if now were not so ,,, now. What I’m trying to say is how deft those now dead old hands once were. These? Well. Can’t you just imagine?
That is the day we shall meet. I hope to heck it comes soon. —John Ashbery
Etymology becomes rotund, experimental, exhausting, existential; curiosity kills more than cats. Take the weather, for ex- ample. When all of the chill fog became an I Remember poem. How much longer until it’s I Don’t . . . . Then there was the what, the Upper Mid- Western Pandemic? Names of wildfires. Name that cat- astrophe. Were it not for the sequoia smoke, but there would have been our very own naked lady: Lady Ghirardelli, despite the misbegotten namesake, still half god, half diva. But for the choke of the smoke and the death of the breath. This world belongs only to itself. In the beginning was the world? How was I to know? #cawx
I found out where I probably was last summer. —John Ashbery
Fish Camp, California (Tenaya Lodge) Ina Coolbrith Park The Marina District Forest Hills Cemetery The Seine The Sapporo Super Dry Tower (top floor) The Centre Pompidou
Detroit The Pacific Ocean Fort Chaffee Tallin, Estonia The Baltic
Ridgecrest, North Carolina a biergarten in Cologne Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam Treasure Island (4th of July) Angel Island Benziger Family Winery W Hotel, Sunset Strip Zihuatenejo (on horseback) Fisherman’s Wharf (freezing cold, July 1981) Bowling Green, Ohio Sonoma Great America Copenhagen
Anza Vista Siloam Springs, Arkansas (church camp) Russellville, Arkansas (band camp) Conway, Arkansas (Boys’ State) Camp Orr (Boy Scouts camp) The Manteca Inn Denver Colorado Motel 6 Saginaw Boston Boca Raton, Florida (not quite summer) Carlsbad Caverns Devil’s Den Eureka Springs Tontitown, Arkansas Dogpatch Dallas Ann Arbor Provincetown Ogunquit Little Rock Saint Louis Stockholm Bourbon Street Memphis Buckingham Palace Montreal Puerta Vallarta The Atlantic Ocean
St. Petersburg, Russia Pinnacle Mountain Mount Magazine Mount Tamalpais Lindsay, Oklahoma (w/Aunt Geneva & Uncle Vearl for 2 weeks) Lake Tenkiller Darby Lake Potato Hill Nob Hill Telegraph Hill Russian Hill The French Quarter Booneville Lavaca Paris (Arkansas) Notre-Dame de Paris The Louvre Jardin des Tuileries
A Few Snippets from Conversations That Were Spoken in English and Overheard at the Pachinko Parlour
A de-happening. —John Ashbery
“Me and all of these televised news segments!”
[There is a long pause where only the sounds from the pachinko machines can be heard.]
“I’ve been having such vivid dreams. I guess I was a television journalist. There was a competition, which I was of course winning. It was called Get the Lead Out, only instead of ‘Pb’ lead metal pronunciation like the saying, it was lead pronounced LEED like headline or news lead. Now who gets that creative in their dreams?”
Cross-eyed sonofabitch . . . He liked him, he could tell. A de-happening.
—John Ashbery
[a little note out of character:
this silly little ditty seemed
pretty spiffy at around 2:00am
when i thought it was complete.
unfortunately, however, the entire
thing reverted back to the original
and very rough draft. i shall repair
it after some sleep (another little
note inserted into the out of character
note a day later: it really was a pretty
great piece after i spent maybe an
hour and a half editing it, at least
it seemed to me to be, but i dunno,
perhaps i will fix it back up in the
morning). in the meantime, now
you know that what you see here
in the latest, at least these days,
are works in progress. yes. editing.
imagine that. but boy was i ever
miffed! sigh. onward. and back
into character . . .] . . .
I don’t know quite what to tell you my friend. I don’t know much more than this.
You’ve driven us over the cliff, my good man. We’re nothing but one pair of stiffs.
I can’t yet decide how to end this old chap, with a hand grenade or Russian roulette, perhaps?
We’ve tread upon this very tundra, you fool, at least ten times since Sunday night. I’d
settle this now with a duel, stubborn man, but we’ve just a grenade and one pistol.
Whatever the case, we’ll be dead, it’s for sure, by mid- night’s historic penumbra.
We had that one chance with your friend, Gunga Din, who offered a ride and some petrol.
But you shrugged him off, you dumb jerk, yes you did! Our chances right now are
abysmal: in the daylight the sun scorches more than the earth; my skin
is one gigantic rash and get this, I’ve third degree burns on my genitals. But
at night, oh, dear God, it’s as cold as a curse, no, it’s worse, I can’t
breathe, and my nose is so chapped it’s come all but uncapped, a
hiccup or sneeze, heaven help! Would not only be dismal but death!
This is it! I am gone! Jesus wept! Mary swore! Look at me! Out the door!
Oh, what luck! Fuck a duck! There’s a snake! Oh, my gizzard! Holy hell,
an iguana! Can you spare me some water? Just a drop, won’t you, Pop? I guess not.
You’ll just watch while my life drains away just like this?
GET A GRIP, YOU NITWIT, can’t you hear that the train’s on its way, over there, to right here, like the plan, wheel’s a- chuggin’, steam’s a- whimperin’, all my life, what luck, to have a son, so unplugged, so much drama (all from his mama, would she still be here, well he’d a never been here with me, and, oh, mama, on our train, which was our favorite, all night long, making whoopee). Now stand stupid son, this drama’s over, and I’ll have earplugs in these ears before supper’s toast and cheer, good grievin’ god you are one fried up hobgoblin of drama, I do swear!
good friend Diane so graciously sent as an early birthday present when I first moved in nearly 3 years ago (I must make time cease to give the impression it’s flying buttresses) – and with
the phone still at my
ear no less, as he had
called and was he ever laughing – hang on. So half under my bed, my big toe torn in two (ok, it’s just the
toenail, and it’s much worse than it looks?) by my foot’s suddenly being thrust by my fall to the floor
into the bookshelf, the one with almost no books (but lot of dried beans in little diabetic baggies:
like garbanzo, pinto, black,
and black-eyed pea, where
here we might leave the legumes, so as to get right to the lentils – orange and navy green – but how am I to know, so long as it isn’t string green beans, strung beans, unless of course it’s a lima (a lima bean, I remember the two Limas [L e e m a and L y m a]). Oh, shut up, you crabby fool! Some people don’t mourn every day like I do, mourn every day? If I weren’t so stoned I’d be ROFL. Which is really all I was trying to tell you about, because it was so hilarious. By which I mean tragic. You were laughing through the face
on my phone (always with that
drop dead face!). I wanted to stop
your laughter dead in its tracks by crying.
Sobbing like a watermill. I remember watermills. Watermills. Broken toe. Leg at such an odd angle. Okay, two legs. Not at horror angles. You were laughing, I was sobbing into a milkshake? An imaginary milkshake that had been real only a few short moments ago. “Don’t forget about midnight,” says he, so sweet, and all my broken
legs and toenails and the assemble- out-of-box chair from Diane that I got nearly four years ago when I moved into this, wow, I don’t even know what to call it as I look around won- dering what to ever call it. . . . . Elvis in August (me half under the bed, how can I miss Elvis, no matter which way I move my broken face, no matter if I spin the chair on top of me clockwise or counterclockwise – which one is Australia? I forget), tragedy of comedy, half under the bed, broken toe on the bookshelf with almost no books, “Don’t forget midnight,” but by then I can’t shut up about Mozart – da Ponte operas and Aristophanes and Shakespeare, the only things worth a damn older than a hundred and fifty. And wouldn’t you just know it, but from tragedy, or more from drama queen, at that,
I was practically bubbling
over talking about those damned operas, sublimity and Peter Sellars, it’s the same stories (do they ever even change?) – and you said,
and did you ever say, just
like always, something
that made me seem
but invaluable. Elvis, with his really nasty jailhouse sex-face
sneer, Elvis the Un- realistically Twisted
Pelvis, tilted there
above my also
oddly-twisted
body which
I s o m e h o w n o w c a n m a n a g e to haul up onto
Pile the Seeds and the Meat Scooped from the Harvested Fruit (Precisely as Instructed)
Life is a short short story with explosive simmering. —John Ashbery
Born into a place filled with lots of smiling faces, friends and family and curious strangers, all impossible to trust. I was born to be trusted. Scratch that. I was born to be. The tooth hurts. An acerbic wit, being acidic, destroys enamel, slowly making the tooth hollow. A hollow man is only half a man, at most. Shallow men can be seen at the shoreline howling over baubles. There are the turn-of-the-century bubble men, quite ripe, not hollow, with feet that loudly squish when they limp over the dry pavement at the city-center, where ads announce rock- bottom prices on microwaves, refrigerators and dogs and buns for holiday barbecue.
Things being so very upside down these days, I wonder, if I were to have an occasion in which to interact, would my social anxiety be noticeable at all? Would it be noticed? As an ex- trovert with what has always felt to me to be pretty severe social anxiety – for as far back as I can remember – it seems from all that I can glean from those with whom I have been while interacting with others, that I have generally come across, apparently, as quite at ease with being social, it has on numerous times been further suggested by those with whom I would occasionally pal around that being amongst folks in happenstances social may well be my natural habitat. When I began to comprehend the severity of what anxiety would do to me, when I first began to call such issues anxiety, I started addressing it with doctors and therapists and began, thanks especially to them, to address the illness with medications, prescriptions, began at least to realize the discrepancy between the conflict that I would feel within myself and any given social situation, how much an effort it would take in order to either force myself into the social, so that I might in some way fulfil that extroverted need to interact, embarrassing and awkward as it might each time feel, or how much easier it would at any given time be for me to, as soon as the time came for such, as soon as the lights went up after the reading was over, for example, that decision would truly only then be made, and quickly, whether I was going to interact or whether, instead, I would swiftly lift myself out of my sitting position and at a quick enough pace and with my head held steadily down at a gaze toward the ground a bit in front of my feet, at a pace that could not have looked at all natural, I would glide to the entrance of the room and on out the entranceway, and no looking back right out of the building and then at the same pace I’d keep walking for a block and then another block until I knew that I was no longer at risk of having to interact. I became astonished to learn, to hear from one person after another, from people who’d know, from the closest of my supposed friends or boyfriends or the like, that they’d no idea I’d any anxiety at all, at least not of the social variety, that I was – to them – well, oddly enough, I was that insect which would veritably fill my gut each time I made the effort or found that I was trapped into an awkward state wherein I felt I had to
interact – they would actually say that
I was a butterfly, a social butterfly. It
always stopped me dead to hear that,
and yet to this day I appreciate such
an incorrect assumption, the error of it, of course, but also the pride at passing, for real, I fit in, it was not at all apparent what a wreck I often felt I was, that ease which I so wanted, that ease it seemed to me so many had that for me was only an impossible thing that I could only envy.
Well, that was quite some time ago. There’ve been a few important events and circumstances that have transpired which have impacted me and my so- called social anxiety. The biggest of these, I do believe, would be that, due to a few related extenuating circumstances over the past half a dozen years it has become more and more rare that I might even find myself in a situation wherein I might interact. And when those moments happen, I still most definitely feel the tension, feel the conflict in my gut, but whereas in the past I would pass as being quite at ease, to my mind, granted, with almost no additional perspective, no pal around who might could tell me differently, I would have to say that what might have been seen as ease by all those others way back when would today be seen as quite a bit more rickety than that; in fact, I’d bet my anxiety would much more likely than not be pretty clear to most anyone near. Why so different now? For one thing, having lived so long in ways that were so very unfamiliar to any life I’d ever known before, like, for ex- ample, there was the six months I spent living on the street during evenings and nights while playing business casual in a cubicle during “business hours,” or that entire year spent living in a shelter, or now, and thankfully, approaching three years living in my own small place, but all the while without a familiar soul around me, and rare at that to even have people in my vicinity. And need I even mention that all this isolation has been further propagated by the not insignificant amount of enforceable mitigation thanks to a lengthy pan- demic? And while I would not exactly say that this pandemic is exactly reason for this more identifiable anxiety, it cert- ainly has exacerbated it, now that I have spent a full year and a half in almost complete isolation in the very same room with less and less steps made outside of this small living space, and when I do cross the threshold between in and out of it, times that seem more and more rare, these but few excursions involve less and less distance and have me masked, head down gazing in front of my feet again, barely speaking with a soul, much less acknowledging others’ presence. So, truth be told, it’s been so long, this isolation, that I might say that it is the routine, even if it hasn’t quite become comfortable, a thing I am aghast to think. But what I really mean by this is that it’s quite become already plenty routine, such that it’s now incorrect to call a thing like isolation abnormal, unusual, anything but just another day from which
I sit atop my bed some mornings and some afternoons, some early evenings or, like right this moment, some dark hours which, were the times a bit more ordinary now, I might just call ungodly, writing sentences like this, one on top of yet another, that I build like so until they, put altogether, become a something that I might so package and then load into a laptop like so, until, voilà, I pull a trigger that then shoots it out into the atmosphere in hopes it might reach someone, anyone who’s of a mind to read.
Hello. Good day. How are you? Are you there? It sure is nice to think so, I must say, but thank you, thank you. I’m not for sure you’re not a figment, but just in case, I wonder what you’d see if you were to look out a window, perhaps? I’d love so much to know just what you see. As for me, and here, where dawn is finally breaking, it looks as if it’s going to be another gorgeous day.
