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’s as unsexy as it could po ssibly get. an d this is not th e first time, and i presume won’t be the last. una uthorized charg es on an account, one i set up for t he magazine, whi ch i haven’t even used, $140, and, the big news, the BIG NEWS, i go t a job, i start to morrow, it seem s like a wonderf ul new job, i can not wait, my 20 th interview or 21st in over 2 months, after a pandemic, after isolat ion at home after isolation isolation i so lation 4 so long not one person not one per son not one person in th is room bes ides me and the roach in spectors for nearly two s olid years so when i say h ot night with google over unauthorized payments that were made we ekly on an acc ount i never e ven open and count your st ars i am not g iving you at le ast not now al l the many rea sons why this account hasn’ t even been o pened but tw ice while on the phone all night with google on a hot hot night two of the most unsexy nights i can recall ever having (and th ere have been more than i can count on my fingers a nd toes that i remember vi vidly perhaps three times o ver so that’s what i’m te lling you now good night hello new job wh at can i say to google t hat might b e relayed h ere absolu tely nothing
stuck on a doormat doing the door math (who’s so welcome he knocked it right down)
here’s a few hanker in’ words dot come made hunkerin’ low some door-downin’ hunk i do suppose in this so-called chronic coffin isn’t right-izm wrong-izm at’s a right it’s a day so super the pan dim lucky it’s gone, so says i out to you in a big-hea ved yell over a helluva stretch of land, i says H OW many more can you be here don’t just glare says the DAYS drug out right down to the knock- knock-knock in my ears pult so in to this door, plumb now till ya pound, down its fleur de lis points to the pure-dee ground so who sits all prettily shuts my lips and moves his pouts out down to the cliff to the other big end of a suez canal where we live we’re alive but we’re on the wrong side well hell say alive as the curtain goes up just as certain times coattails drown pine cones to cups i’m down to square down
to all that’s a’wedded
right here, oh how m
uch more use knots are so spare me the glib ‘ready ribbed everywhere becuz when’s you gonna cum they all say every day and to me little me when’s the day when’s the day well you henny hens dear just you wait can’t ya see he’s a comin’ he’s comin’ yes i’ve
been set free becuz he
is my hunny- my hunny-
and bee. well i do decl
are (a big ditto from
me) oh so please won
cha please why yes if
i care will ya fly if you’ll fill just this one more july oh and two more advil til the devil’s own june once or so we’ll around we’ll around round the bend in a diabetic lump clump of pills in our hands, poor hands run the stairs all the way to the door what a ham- footed ham holy hell holy damn nah it’s holy toledo and we’ll boogie til the birds of the disco do their rhyme chill their chirp shrill their trill and who’ll care what the hell when the car squeaks around all the way to the bluff which upon lives a man hear the car shimmy up hear the door’s big kathunk which is no car door no this kathunk’s up a chunk up there on that floor just a like it’s at us as we’re down
on all eight (that’s two sco
res dunka-dunk dunka-dunk
dunka-dunk) and no less th
an it is and what’s more it
is four. yes a four that’ll
guess at the who or the what (it’s absurdly a whom,
septembranizm (out of place be cause it’s one for the ages.)
you’re too sweet to pull that off right this moment. but give it a bit of time, and not only will you give me a run for my money, but you'll be king, queen and dictator of us all. —me
here’s a few notes that are quotes from yours truly,
which are not anachronistic at the moment,
and perhaps never will be because the whole of it is grounded in the now,
or in time lessness; which is to also say that they’re steep ed in univer sality:
scale back on the honesty, honey. step away from straight forward.
that notion i’m always beating like dead meat,
the one in which i ar gue the c ase that i do nothing
if not work incessantly at being. exactly who i am
—all around, no matter w here or under whatever circ umstances—
well,
while that is 100% truth, it is just as equally also butter ullshit.
+, if it were not true, an d if we we re even ca pable of ca lling the dogs dogs,
and being infi nitely (& mort ally), straight forwardly truth ful,
it’d either be a boring world or everyone would have murdered everyone else by now.
i mean (previous ly, that same era), as strongly as i a void self-censors hip or whatever—
meaning general ly, with the exce ption of being a total dick about
it—couldn’t it be said that in every area of (my) life, almost everything we do and say and write or whatever is
inherently so obvi ously layered in a complex set of curt ains and codes?
and all of that pos turing, that mask ing, that fibbing and such,
couldn’t it just be called levity—at least just as eas ily as it might co rrectly and right
fully be called ly
ing or faking it or
being hypocritical?
is it just me, or am i gotten? and if i’m so had, isn't that just the funniest rub ever?
the older i get the more twist ed i am, wall owing as i do in my doe-ey ed confusion. would you ex pect anything less from such a bifurcated soul? twinkle twinkle star-crossed gem ini, what are we ever gonna do with me? of course i’ve al ways got plenty of bright ideas, because duh, there’s a ton of fun stuff i can do with myself. because there are so many of us. of course what i mean is, even though we, either of us, never know who we’re gonna be when we wake of a morning (or afternoon, or evening), but, al as and alack, as they used to say (and some of us still do), it’s really just the two of us. but, honestly. why should that be such a bore? because, well, because be cause why have just us when we can always have more. that’s the because. no mat ter how many of us that i can be, it’s always more fun when there are at least three (meaning one of us has please oh please got to not be me.) (amen!).
come to terms w/ never for get why abstract is alway s an op tion. do nut be an imp ossibil ity. eat a bagel for brea kfast in berlin. determ ine to f ind no way to avoid t he real deal? is you an i ssue or is you a n ain’t?
sure there is the occasional season of personal suck. but what a nice thing to pop on a sweaty head set and find my self dancing down the sidewalk to the hits of the summer of now or then – and it’s no differ ent on this fine foggy day, on the evening before the advent of autumn, because autumn has an advent just like the spring that sprung out of the noiseless ness of isolation just a few months ago. or was it years. i really don’t know, i won der, or
wand er, mov ing my ass to t he m usic t rippin g into my ear s, in my new mar malade outfit, b ouncing down fol som like a bowl of jelly (my ass being so thorou ghly conn ected to t he rest of me). boom boom boo m, hahah, lololololol.
A lot can happen. Just last week I like it that way, Bruce’s ankle, eek, the beautiful the beautiful. —John Ashbery
a pretty beautiful tragedy just flew out of nowhere and now it’s tickling my face with its cute little jaws and its weency dancing claws and – nope – it appears to be hungry the adorable little devil and that’s – clearly this creature – to which in just these tiny moments of first contact, if what feels, perhaps given the times, in this undeniable moment, like no moment of intimacy, unlike, it could be an act of in timacy like none i have ever encoun
tered, i’m seriously just so, really so mag
netically drawn to this brilliantly colored little creature, what is it, a bird, a reptile, it is such a little cutie unlike any other, yes, that’s what it is isn’t it, i wonder if it already has a name,
or should i perhaps give it one, but man, look how cute it dances all over my cheeks and my forehead, it’s becoming so soothing, and not nearly as ticklish as it was, not ticklish at
all, it’s like it’s giving me a massage, i feel like
i’m at a spa with this thing, my new pet, and trust
me, it will be mine, it is mine, i am just loving this,
this – is it – ouch! – it seems a bit peckish, i mean
this thing’s hungry, you’re hungry aren’t you, you
widdle biwdie, you’we – ouch! – no, i’m, hey, can you see what it’s doing over here, it’s taking it’s little really really sharp and very agile claws and its leaving marks, little red slits, i’m not, i feel like, is there, am i bleeding over here, hey, is this thing – OUCH! – this motherfucker just took out a chunk of my cheek and – SHIT! – it’s – there’s a hole right thwu my cheek hewe and it’s got its slendew jaws inside my mouth it’s doing something to my guwms – OUCH!! – can someone get me a mirror i think this varmint’s trying to eat my entire face off it’s got quite a voracious appetite and it’s – that fucker has omigod! omigod! omiGOD! [shrieking now] IT’S EATEN HALF MY FACE OFF THIS THING – IT’S – I HAVE NO FACE –
I CAN HEAR IT CHEWING MY FACE IT’S DIGESTING MY ENTIRE
FACE I CAN HEAR IT LOUD AND CLEAR BECAUSE IT’S NOW IT’S – IT’S AT MY IT’S EATING MY EAR OFF NOW IT’S HEEEEEELWWHHH!!!
let’s have a show of hands, who can’t take their eyes off the television? ears, i mean. i have been usurped by all of the air waves, all of the noise, all of the babble, all of the blurbs being strewn about so messily and so dis
tressingly. am i really so easily distracted? shut up!
yes, i am so easily distracted. by the shape of the airwaves swirling about in my coffin-sized apartment? yes. there’s the company of words. i don’t have to let them just . . . take me over. they can instead seduce. they could inspire. they might educate, if i learned how to discern one channel over the rest, if i could make only one of the air waves the dominant airwave, and go from there. either way i’m ready to be taken. i’m ready to be diverted, to be dominated, to become all of the words, or a few of them. one or two. how do i sound? do i feel what i’m saying? i move my chin over my right shoulder to make sure that my lemonade is still there. it is.
he gave me his vulcan hand and i pressed my human one against his in like fashion. it seemed a bit bar baric to me, with its simpli city, and yet it was also very sensual. we’d wait ed for so many years just for this, our first contact. that’s how it is when you’re a couple of love nerds light years from one ano ther. we left the space ship hand in hand and stayed that way until i dug my key out of my pocket to get into my, now our, holodeck, where we collapsed in supreme exhaustion. and never once did we leave, like, not ever. and thusly we lived our fabulous future, which is to say we lived long, we prospered and, it should go without saying, quite happily ever after.
