mmmdcxlv

Finished That Fucked Up Fill In The Blank
(Which Is Made Okay by the End Thanks
to Allusions to Huey Lewis and Some
Fantastic News)

finished that fucked up
month. we’ll start with
that whipcrack of finality.
with a crack that whip!

kerack that wipp! so,
dear buggy june, you’re
finished. death number
one. next up, herr devo,

half dead, but never at a
loss for those that are still
living, or how to take a
bit of pleasure away from

them by giving it to us
like a shot in the dark, we
add step on a crack! and
break your poor mama’s

back? no, no, not to wor
ry, hunny, it’s just her neck,
so she’s stuck in the car 
for the rest of the month. 

at least until she’s somehow
dragged to the icu at break
neck speed. this dark one,
my dear, is to, now listen

carefully here, prep for the
blazing glory coming at us
like ballbusters (the good
kind, mind you) way soon

er than you can shake a
tail feather at it. but don’t
you dare refuse to shake
those feathers – and every

last one of them – let them
flutter like the sexual signif
icance of a hundred-thous
and butterflies while i re

main stock still, maybe
a feather or two blowing in
the breeze, but not a breath
floating into or out of my

lungs as my eyes lunge at
the shaking you do so very
well. tail feathers duly shaken!
finished (but this time, just

for the moment, don’t make
me get down on my hands
and knees because) my
breath – done – thanks to

my achy breaky backbone.
how it got so achy and so
breaky i’ll never know. but
it most assuredly was not in

any of the good ways, of that
you can be assured. back.
finished. check. oh, and
second booster shot, check,

because, check, i’m ancient.
all but finished. not all butt.
but i promise to keep those
jokes going until the rest of

me is kaput, as well. and
as for the luxury boost num
ber two? it’s finished, too.
as is the next 24 hours of

the most horrible case of
non-covid covid imaginable,
by this dwarf star approach
ing twilight. star, finito.

universe, eradicated. how
is that for no need for ano
ther calendar, ever? calen
dars, au revoir. supernova,

hello! but it’s too early to
introduce our hero, the
supernova, just yet, be
cause a week and a half

after that 2nd booster
(because, yes, i’m approach
ing twilight, remember?),
i get my second case of

actual covid. which lasts
about 6 days. but, and
yes, thankfully, that after-
the-booster duster-upper

is over, is still the real deal,
which is actually more like 

the 24-hour, after-the-second-

booster version, only with the

intensity divided by how
manyeverdays the real
deal lasted. so, still,
stuck in bed like a

finnish whale, if
there are such
things (which
is just another

way to say
finished, right?), 

and just to back
track, that 24-

hour poser had me
mumbling inconceivably
and shivering uncontrollably
through a very, very long night.

which is (thank goodness,
and in unison:) FINISHED,
as well! so what does that
leave us with? why, the

supernova, of course! but
not before that real deal,
that second bout, and just
(as it should be, at least

in my world) as it comes, less 

than two weeks after that second
booster (because i’m so finished.
aren’t i finished.  it is finnish.  it

is NOT finished). oh, but that
first day of the second bout
with the real deal really put
a dramatic finish to my first

working gig, and a positive
one at that, since being laid off
off, left for dead almost, way back
when the whole pandemic began.

unemployment, finished! un
employment, back again! no
thing’s logical, is it? it’s enough
to make you wanna say take that

world, just finnish me off! zap that
positronic into pessimisto! also, and

haha, bout number 2 arrived on my
last official day of the contract job,

which was two days after i turned
55 (3 days after finishing 54).  so
the AARP’s also a thing i’d love
to say is finished, but just can’t in

good or veritable conscience do,
so, yeah, goodbye, farewell, auf 

weidersehen fifty-four, covid
booster number 2, covid booster

number 2 reaction from hell,
covid the real deal part two,
a nice new job, another june and

(if only) all the havoc brought on

by all of that. and a big hello
to what, to fifty-five. and to
that supernova, of course.
that monstrous wonder

created by the end of ends,
so to speak. and to my brain,
my unemployed brain, which 

may not even remember such

simple numbers after the rush 

of a dying dwarf star in such 

slow motion (seemingly, right? 

but isn’t there always hope?).

and before i can even say
go go finito! there’s some
thing of a rumble coming.
that’s right, the glory of

heaven awaits. i’ve never
been through a supernova,
but I say the prognosis is
a hundred percent. uh huh!

and the year isn’t over yet. not 

by a long shot, i bet. just ask 

the previous seven years (that’d be
something like 84 months, yeah?

so maybe just ask them, if either
can be tracked down and queried.),
because, believe it or not,
and you heard it here first:

nothing’s gonna stop the
smooth san francisco
spring, come august, 
september or october . . . .

well. something’s coming.

so heart of hard hearts don’t
fail me now. because the
beat is on! the beat is o-o-o-on!

oh, huey, don’t stop there.
your news is so good. huey
just said the beat is on. just
you wait, he adds. and we’re not—

i’m not—talking anymore

about it. not gonna jinx
this minx of a late summer
(or autumn) treat, i tell ya.

the beat is on. and i’m not
just talking the heart of

rock and roll (although
its prognosis seems fine;

just nothing quite as

spectacular as it used to be, 

isn’t that right?). so you 

might as well sing along:

ah, it, dit, dit, dit, dit do-wap!
don’t look quite now, i mean. be

cause it’s not yet happening. (and 

should i even tell you when it is??!)

mmmdcxliv

55 mph

Today is a special day. It
is precisely three weeks af
ter the occasion of my 55th
birthday. I used be all sorts
of vague with regard to the

specifics of time here; within 

the poems here that I cumulatively

call by the the trite name they have

become stuck with, appropriately, I

still believe: ANACHRONIZMS. As in 

when exactly? As in at what specific

time did I spend with these quatrains 
mulling a somewhat befuddling double
nickel birthday? Might it have been 
something special? Something in

appropriate? Or something that is,
rather, particularly exemplary of me; that
could show, in some way, the best of all poss
ible mes? And how that perfect me could not
but be some relevance to you. Probably not, but

I can try? To celebrate it for the three weeks.
This has already been occurring. Have I not already
been personally celebrating since, well, birth?
Beyond that, however, is this uniquely singular
celebration. The now seemingly normal celebra

tion of one (but there is you). Plenty of lovely,
loving thoughts keep getting directed from the
only person with whom I can so desirously and
hopefully imagine really wanting to
spend this, or any forthcoming birthday,

holiday, weekend, lazy evening after work;
and did you think it would not always be this
special? That you would not always be this
special? Again, it is in this way that I can
never really truly know what was before? Well,

my friends (my friends, my friends, and these
meanderings), special can be felt, and is, and can
be imagined. And this unlikely luxuriant, inexplicable
love, can be found in more ways than can be counted.
There can come that era when each day after another

will refuse not to be more special and more unlikely
and more undeserved than ever before. Or no,
clearly, today is not even my day to celebrate anything.
(And yet, how dare you, it's a day of celebration like no other,
now that I am 55 and three weeks old, how dare I spend such time

filling my silly brain with any doubts? Most especially about
you.) To the question of how I can be so worthy as
to get to experience the magnificence of this, well, either
I am or I am not. So I turn these silly thoughts
into just another fortuitous and unlikely joyride.

And why? Oh, why not? Of the impossibility of being
ungrateful, for the inability of feeling (the capability
of such feeling) any less grateful one day than I do
the next? And so indelicately and routinely? These are
the conundrums that make up the very miracle of existence

itself. Like the paradoxes of importance of my
each and every day. Oh, the thought of every day
with you. I deserve this every day. You may not be so
deserving of this blah. You might find this a bit less than
that for which you had bargained. But you are such a gift to

me. But there is ever a complaint. I am sure there are
those that are harbored. But I can see how this is not
something for which you, unlike me, care to give
much of your precious thought. So how can my life
not be rich without your presence?

Who can honestly call this nonsense
and mean it as I pretend I do – if
anyone were ever to deserve such a thing
would it be naught but an exercise in the unnecessary?
Could it be enough, would it be but an impossible whim,

an exercise in futility, to laugh at my life as if so
passive? (Any more than the impossibility that I could
in some small way change my pacifism, let’s say?)
I used to be well known for spending weeks lost in
but one birthday or negligible holiday or another

with my compatriots. Compatriots who turned
out to push me along until I was fifty into a world
with no compatriots. Zero. They were comfakriots.
Sure, such disappearances are not gauche in some circles.

Some, the general lot of them, can come to seem perfectly
normal. Many species mate and then die. Do I? The cycle
continues. So what if I have spent my official 55th birthday
being several years older than 55. It is official only because

I have said it. Two and a half years plus three weeks plus
sixty years of that which is official only because I say it is,
it being three and twenty years, plus some odd number of
weeks since, have left one true anniversary of my long ago birth

(and here it could be said that I was once notorious, among
my comfakriots, once to have been notorious for celebrating
the anniversary of my birthdays, the anniversaries of my birth
days, for as long as a complete month at a time, for perhaps

even two. There were rituals. Involving other people. For
better or worse. For richer or poorer. In sickness and
in health.).  There has been a tremendous amount of
of incalculable pleasure. Pressure. Better? Any occasion

is best, especially that of a close death, a distance
found both tragic and terribly magnificent, so useful
and also so beautiful, in which to gather the
appropriate perspective. . . . My holiday,

if I may, is a holiday and a half, and that
is at the very least. After all, it’s my birthday.
But today, I’ve spent it working on things to keep me
not only happy, but doing things that will have me

grow older, and grow less and less alone, having
long ago lost all of my believed existence to fools who
would consider my invitation, my nonsense, my odd notion
of living, of existing, worthless and I can only hope that we may, 

as it seems more and more likely to be the case, be
alone almost never, be together, you and I, anyway, we
are an unexpected aspect of such a lost and found
existence, a spark that spreads like wildfire on a

frozen tundra. That I shall have another birthday,
as long as I shall live, which some days, honestly,
I don’t think will be a moment longer. And yet,

the joke is not only on me, but it is me, and it
is from me to you with love. It’s that bad luck
thing that I dwell on all too often while trying not to,

because of the way we were once told to live. A
singular way to die, is why. We are no longer told
to live. We simply live. Is that living? Our eyes half

open. Not even expecting a swerve, just knowing one
will come, and then, a fire so deep and so mutual that
we freeze and fixate and live it together. What a stew

of higgledypoop. Which is what I try to have in lieu
of a cake. But what about this year? Higgledypoop!
Cake, ice cream, ice dreams that are just the two of us,

all the flat-headed frozen-brained skulls have been em
ptied, gone. The use. The best use of my time. Ice cream
and cake. But enough of this wish-washy uncertainty

about whether or not I will live to feel the longest
imaginable hug from he who I can only hope will be my
longest ever partner (and by record numbers, which

would be somewhat astounding, I suppose, if I were to
put more thought into these things for just a moment;
but there is not enough time. . . ). Quite. seeing

how, in order to do that, what would I be seeking
that is not about the crazy dream I had last night

in which we were traveling quickly to get somewhere
(else? together?) before one of the two of us

(obviously me) lost life, was dead, would
have become nonexistent, just for taking too long.

What does it mean to approach a relationship of over
two and a half years, approaching a trinity, and having

never had to ability to even touch? All this sounds like sad
ness in the grip of a pretty mid-to-twilight age birthday in which

I’ve extended yet again to have such random and mostly
pleasant or satisfying thoughts. So. I keep reminding

myself that day after day after day after day of those
not-so-satisfying thoughts, why bother with them.

Especially when there are so many wonderfully
satisfying thoughts of imagined adventures, of

lovely conversations, and of spending entire
cool evenings (like this one) well into the morn

ing loving those thoughts. The adventures. The
Things we’ve never done, like touching, which

seems absurd but yet exciting and yet unfair
all at once, simultaneously, considering we have

what are otherwise the same cycles that two
people often have when in a relationship. It’s

no less real (Is this something I keep needing to
tell myself? Sure. It’s uncharted territory, and

if I were to think of the odds stacked against
our favor when it comes to having a precious

forever thing, and what would that be, what
with things like age difference and current sep

arate hemispheres and either the world and/or
its people growing so weary that things have

what seems an all too often apocalyptic flare.
Fuck me and my doubts. Fuck logic. It’s, yes,

it has to be the best experience of love that I’ve
yet to encounter, and I’d like to consider that I’ve

experienced so much of it. So I’ve – please just
take me at my word – should I have photographs

that I can share? Perhaps. Will I ever share them
with you, my dear reader? Perhaps. But perhaps

not. I’ll close with what I plan to be the celebration
with which I will share with my surely befuddled

but hopefully just bemused and – could it
possible even be proud? – mate. How I’m going

to close off this evening’s rather morbid

but so very real poem. I’ve got candles,

each in the shape of a red five with gold glitter
covering up the bottom half. These are poked

into a pair of pears atop my microwave. I’ve al
so got some white sage incense stuck into a

half burned candle bowl which I am about to
get up and light right this moment, knowing

full well that the pungent odor will be divine
for perhaps a few seconds and then fill my

coffin-sized SRO way too pungently shortly
thereafter. And I might as well mention that

I am buck naked but for two things I’m wear
ing – one is a silver tiara made of paper that

says HAPPY BIRTHDAY (think rabbit ears);
the other a sash across my diabetic tummy

which I’m thinking is ever so slightly less
than the plump tub that it was when I first

was diagnosed with diabetes (my first bout
with Covid-19 apparently drew it out of me

quite deliberately). Across the sash upon
my distended belly are the words in a multi-

colored font “it’s my birthday” – very shim

mery and festive. So now I shall paste on

my smile and see if I can reach my new

reason to celebrate my birthday, which I

generally always have, it’s not that melo

dramatic, much as I try. And yet it obviously

is. Here’s to hoping our lips touch for

the first time this year, perhaps even in

a couple of short months.

Happy Birthday to Me!

mmmdcxliii

Might You Wish Me Luck
A Little Bit More Definitively?

Is that too much to ask, even
though it’s such an embarrassing

request? But please just don’t
resort to charity. Or prayer.

I like my luck averaged out to
a general uptick rather than

down like life expectancy or
the current stock market or

my finances of late or, well,
like the bad luck I’ve been

getting for a depressingly
unlucky number of years

by now. What an ugly re
minder that life is too short,

don’t you think? Something
more akin to the luck of the

draw would even be nice at
this point, a little bit more

even Steven would just a
bout be divine. Can you

just make it hit before my
twilight years arrive (as if

they no doubt already have)?
Heck, I’ll go whole hog and

have an exorcism – I once
was ridiculously religious.

But what if that’s the prob
lem in the first place? I’m

beginning to feel awfully
blinded by the relative ab

surdity of logic these days.
And I’m old enough to rem

ember Thomas Dolby. I
remember him like a friend,

which is what I call the songs
that get stuck in my head, now

that the the best that I can do
is come up with one or two. I

mean, these days. Please say
you might be able to help me

with my dead end problems.
I’m no believer, I’m not super

stitious.  At least not any more. 

However, I am the only ghost I

know. Might that count to
ward something? So I’m

just so desperately wonder
ing, and I’ll be brief, I promise,

but if nothing else, could you per
haps, just, well, accentuate the

positive, should you find any in
the near vicinity. Of me, that is.

Which is to specifically say might
you talk me up? Just a little bit,

maybe? That’s what I’ve found
works almost every time. It’s

just that those times are so few
and far between now.  Like just

about never, no time, none.  Heck,
come to think of it, please bring

the incense.  And feel free to speak
Latin, I don’t care, if you’ll just do

me the favor of this visit. I know
now, I’m just being a sacrilegious...or,

more aptly, a greedy, befuddled,
sacrilegious mammal who’s down

on his luck and has been for a
superstitiously unlucky amount

of ungodly years now. It wasn’t
always this way. So, hey.  Hello?

what do you say? How much to
disperse this curse? I don’t have

much but I’ll give all I can. What’s
a little exorcism between friends?

I’ll twist and turn and hack and
spit and do my best to believe in

the demon if you can just do me
the fortuitous favor of knocking

this long-term downturn into an
uptick. I’ll even be congenial,

put all my effort into an engaging
conversation or three, if I can only

conjure the memory of one that
was once upon a time a success.

So what do you say? Will you
knock my spate of sour luck out

of the park, maybe all the way
to the mouth of the bay, if not 

clear out to kingdom come?

mmmdcxlii

Am I Going to Take Control?
(Bring in the Pep Squad)

     The beginning of the middle is like that.
                                    —John Ashbery

This morning’s wishful thinking
dissolves into a panic of maniac
ally checking items off the to do
list: item, check; item, check;
item, check; and like some
surrealist landscape, the list
keeps enlarging, engorges
the landscape, even. Help?!
Yesterday, I swore I was going
to take control, but what did that
mean, exactly? I think, at the time,
it meant a series of public, full-bodied
protests, a yelling and a screaming to
the world, as if the world doesn’t know
what’s up. Me? In a series of full-bodied,
public, loud protests. A catalyst for? A what?
Knowing me better this morning, now I’m doing
what I do, what I know, making lists that grow,
virtually penciling in an eager if not disciplined
checkmark or two while mostly just thrumming
through poetry and such in books stacked like
pancakes about to lean further than the Tower of
Pisa or collapse like the endgame of a stomach-
churning challenge of Jenga on the coffee table
that sits atop the somewhat soiled square of
somewhat hip-looking carpet found one day
in some Nob Hill alley and placed toot sweet
under said coffee table in the very own living
room in a home that might have been said to
house family, the comings and goings of, a
self-proclaimed, self-made one, not the kind
you might be able to donate a kidney to or
give random shout-outs toward on birthdays
and random holidays (mostly Christmas and
Thanksgiving, if it comes down to it, although
this choice is possible, just not obligatory?). It’s
the detritus on the long gone carpet that’s giving
me pause, if not a bit of the heebie-jeebies at
the moment (Item, check? Item, half-check?),
and that’s perhaps because in moving about
and among the stacked pancakes that are
my morning reading and the list growing ever
exponentially on my screen, which I’ve sent
somewhere to the back of the room, not to
be currently seen (out of sight, out of mind,
if only) to put these words in some order so
that I can check yet another item off of what
we in my profession like to make, a sheet
that I suppose you’d call an “impossible
list” – one that literally can never be finally
ticked completely off (like I refuse to get
today). Ticked off, that is, trying with discipline
and with checkmarks and scanning lyrics hurly-
burly as a catalyst to create my own, while in
literary correspondence with (by way of simply
devouring works by) Cedar Sigo, Camille Roy,
Jack Spicer, John Ashbery, Julien Poirier–like
always, a usual suspect or three, alongside at

least one wild card thrown in for good measure–
because I’ve done this quite long enough to
know a fairly decent performance algorithm
... like the banana walnut pancakes I used to
order in the Hayes Valley building formerly
known as Stacks. What amazing pancakes
they were, too. Here was yet another place,
like that living room with the somewhat soiled
but fortuitously found square of carpet upon
which to place a coffee table, adding flair and
comfort to an already comfortable space
that (for years, by then) was often filled
with family; the best kind of family (one
would think – or at least I did), in which a
donated kidney might be an impossibility,
but the satisfaction and pride and comfort
and contentment in knowing [sic] that this
was the family I built on my own, was my
own, the template of what one should be,
was [sic] the ideal, the Platonic family...
now long gone, no family at all, it turns
out, at least not one in the sense that
you can’t shake family. And you
can shake family (the ones to
whom you might could donate a
kidney, even) – these lamentations.
Is that what they really are? A
kvetching? A failing that I keep
bringing all that I do to move
forward into, daring a life of
failure henceforth, resigned to
one, god forbid, life, failure that
it is? Why do I do such a thing
to myself on such a regular
basis? Which would definitely
be tragedy, yes? And yet,
this is no tragedy, dammit!
Dig deep for that emphasis,
for that feeling, for the hope
fulness that, if family is what
I want, in whatever sense,
family is what I get. Speak
ing of which, yes, I could be
well on my way now to such
a thing, perhaps a repeat
offense (and so what if it is?),
No? Yes? That’s what living
and learning is all about, right?
So the trick is to live. The trick is
to learn. To find the muses, the
gumption, the wherewithal; to find
the motivation and the discipline (the
discipline that I have perfected). Some
where there are even a few kernels of
wisdom. And my intention was to
make a short little note in my head,
pocket it into memory as a reminder,
forgotten until the next time it
comes up (probably sometime
later this week, or next), of
exactly what wisdom
is and does; the is
having been felt
in such a giddy
and odd set of
moments of late;
of late, and what
was I saying but
motivate, nose to the
grindstone, keep doing
the needful, get ’er done,
keep finding ways to say
the same thing, while
doing it, of course. To
find that new you, mean
ing not just me, but also
all of those who might act
as mirrors and regulators
and add that spark that
keeps death from coming
between me and this fine
goal I thought I already
achieved, and probably
more than once, only
to go through the hum
ility of realizing its
failure. Is that
who I am? I
might could be
okay with that.
Item. Check.

mmmdcxli

I’m Gonna Take Control

hey, everybody over here.
hey, everybody over there.
hey, everybody. lost ya!

so there i was not looking
for a party. i said here i
am not even looking to

party. out of milk and
can’t even find my razor.
so don’t even look at me.

and then i stepped out
side. beyoncè telling me
not to break my soul. big

freedia. two blocks away
and what’s that going on?
it’s market street. we just

got slammed. didn’t we
just get slammed. did
the world not just get

steamrolled? so what’s
that going on a block up?
what’s that going down?

everybody’s happy. no
body’s getting shot. no
body’s even protesting.

i guess there’s a time
for crying. i suppose
a time for protesting.

i’m done crying. i’m
swelling up with pride.
ready to fill the streets

with my lungs of what
the fuck tomorrow and
the next day and the next.

today only: i had all but
forgotten. today only: we
get a little bit of respite.

here, today, a parade. we
get a little bit of bounce.
happy today only. let’s do it.

mmmdcxl

words don’t matter

in theory.
hear me out.

mmmdcxxxix

time bomb time

a better word would be
alarm clock but right now
let’s say bomb. or as dad
would’ve said ‘do i need to
light a fire under your ass?’
what do you do when you
find yourself not becoming
motivated toward that most
important of things toward
which you really feel you
should be motivated? i
used to have these things
i would do when i felt down
that would, almost no matter
what, pick me up. go for a
jaunt through a neighborhood
i hadn’t been to in a while. go
see a movie. go out dancing
on a weekend’s night. or get
things done elsewise. do a
thing after which doing i
could easily see the fruits
of my labors. and by then
i’d be ‘on a roll,’ so to speak.
the motivation would be there.
the alarm clock just went off
for the week. and i haven’t
hit snooze. it’s an important
week to be motivated, to get
things done, and at the end
of the week I certainly hope
to see a veritable cornucopia
of fruits of my labor. so to
speak. sending this little
note out to you is always
worth a shot, too. some
thing i’ve made public, at
least somewhat, and which
now not only will i let those
of us truly involved down if
i don’t get things done, but
there’s also you. you can
‘tut-tut’ and point your
fingers all you want, is
what i’m saying. maybe
by this time next week i
won’t even have to be so
vague about the whole
thing. who knows? but
one thing for sure is, it’s
up to me to get it done.
thank you for listening,
and for being there.
oh, how i hope you are.

mmmdcxxxviii

An AspicEnhancer

Amy Sedaris used to tell
her brother David that his
teeth made his face look
like a bomb went off
nanosecond after which
time froze. I don’t really
remember, but it’s visually
understandable as a story
thus far – and I’ve seen
Sedaris (well, both of
them; not in person).
The joke isn’t about
the incredibly creepy
cover of the books
upon every cover of
which includes indelible
representations of very
creepy clowns with
totally adorable children.
But I forget. I forget
the important stuff and
think of what? Time to
stuff? Time to get stuffed?
And, as cousin Bartholomew
can’t live a grand total of
two minutes without ever
saying one of those two
plump phrases in such a
way that we cannot stop
hearing it said over and
over and cannot erase
it ever after, “And I
mean that.” Before
they look carefully
at each of the choices
(numbers 3 and 14):
“Meathead! Meathead!”
followed after about 13
seconds with “Edith!!
Edith!!” in that accent
we’d all just gleaned be
fore summer break watch
ing Welcome Back Kotter.

mmmdcxxxvii

ArticulurEraserer

Because the mind is
a meticulous eraser.
Having no earthly

idea why that which
he’s so creepily remem
bered is that which

was, or that which
it has come to be
known as, irrelevant,

if not inaccurate or a
gross mischaracteriza
tion. I’ll have you know

I’ve known (a)sh. Which
is either a proper, per
haps, Human, name,

or the next likely, an
electricity symptom:
“You have to train

the water to come
to you!” And they
came to be known

as Bodiglio Asse,
with a few exple
tives thrown in for,

well, this was only
the first rehearsal
for the performance.

Nobody had ever even
heard of this Bodiglio
Asse. Until then.

mmmdcxxxvi

Inarticulable

I realize something
so incredibly poignant
and the moment passes.
Some inarticulable truth
I’ve always been grasping
toward that always seems
just out of reach. And
there it goes. Once
again. Into the
ether, where

everything

(every single 

spark, unless

hallucinated,

exists only 

to be gone

too soon, surely
never to be within 

reach of this greedy
grasp ever again) goes.

But to have merely 

glimpsed such raw 

magnificence, the 

sheer pull of it, 

the ethereality 

of the ephemeral.

mmmdcxxxv

And What If, Suddenly,
Nothing Rings True?

It seems to upset people when
I admit that I never trust anyone,
ever. I get looks that run from
you poor, poor soul to isn’t trust

the centerpiece of something? If
not everything? If I am to be pitied,
it’s not for my lack of trust. Everybody
lies. So what? Nothing says that cannot

be true and okay. Nor would it keep me or
anyone else from roles like Hopeless Romantic.
So what. People lie. A lot. That is a given. And
skepticism is fine once the notion of lying becomes

neutral. What becomes much more interesting to me is
deducing the subject upon which a person opts to prevaricate.

mmmdcxxxiv

You Might Be Surprised
     At What Rings True

You’ve always felt all of the
empathy for all of the char
acters. Some become so
embedded within character

that empathy becomes im
possible. But not for you.
That’s how easily that you
wheedle into the virtual.

All we have are ourselves.
All he has is himself. All
I have is me, how sad.
Such inhumanity, thought

the great empathizer, again
lost outside the realm of real.

mmmdcxxxiii

The Film’s Beginning

The squeak of the
mothership turned
diapason,

             the first few
long-held (sustained)
notes finger-pumped
onto the organ’s keys
as the service begins.

mmmdcxxxii

Tuna Fish

     It’s Saturday night, big night for going out.

     I’m going to sleep all night, but first I’m going
     to write some poems. I love writing poems.
                                                   —Julien Poirier

Tell
Us
N
A

Frankly
I opening
Sort of
Harpoons.

mmmdcxxxi

Noise

Sonar, The
Oracle,
Undid. Period.
Nobody
Delves into

Intrusion,
Not
Tickertape (incessantly fluttering by), not
Reverb’s
Ululations, nor
Sitting on sitars
(Intentionally or un-), nothing like The
Oracle.
Not to mention they’re
Sonariffic!

mmmdcxxx

NEWS

     Put out the eyes of your parakeets.
                                      —Julien Poirier

Not
Everyone
Wants to
See it.

mmmdcxxix

Cankers Away

Ever since I was a kid of
wee about way down here,
I’ve gotten these horribly
annoying sores in my mouth.
And right about the time I re
member beginning to get
these pesky annoyances
is when I learned, from
anyone I asked about
these sores in my
mouth (and from
some who’d other
wise volunteer),
be they uncle or
professional or
classmate or
whomever,
that these
sores are
caused by
none other
than stress.
These spitefully
painful sores, known
officially as aphthous
ulcers (small shallow
lesions that show up
but just inside of the
lip, on the tongue or
the gums or just any
where upon the soft
tissues existing with
in the cavity of the
mouth), most often
go away within a
week or two, but
I’m here to tell you
that if you’d like to
get rid of one lickety-
split, then here is how
to do it: just measure
a teaspoon of baking
soda and pour that in
to half a teacup full of
lukewarm water, and
then you just swish
and you gargle this
not-so-tasty admix
ture around in your
mouth several times
in a day, and before
you know it, in twenty-
four hours, or less, if
you’re lucky (a bit more
if you’re not) and that
mean little sore will
have vanished. Yep,
no more canker sore
after that, voilà, un
til, of course, a short
time after you’ve had
yet another quite
stressful day or
three.

mmmdcxxviii

Dropsy

Flopsy and Mopsy
had a condition,

a condition besides
being twins, I mean.

Yes, the twin rabbit
siblings of dear Peter

Rabbit had (and no
one knew this until

just now) diabetes,
you see; adult onset,

type 2, etc. Yes,
Flopsy and Mopsy

grew up, matured,
adulted, so to say,

and stopped being
just the two younger

sibs of the rascally
Peter. And, believe

it or not, this is
what happens to

children worldwide
when they have the

slightest opportunity.
But, alas, this story

shall focus, and with
out morality, on one

tiny yet blown-up de
tail of our now grown-

up rabbits, Flopsy and
Mopsy, and that is,

poor things, that
thanks to the one

poor condition that
we call diabetes,

they developed an
other that was quite

disturbing to our sis
ter twins, and that is,

my dears, the dropsy:
edema or excess fluid

built up in the cavities
or tissues of the body,

often a diabetic symp
tom, which causes such

swellings. So now that
our rabbits are all grown

up they have blown
up and out like two

rabbit balloons. But,
oh, that is not to say

Flopsy and Dropsy do
not take much better

care of themselves
to this day, for they

do. For that is pre
cisely what careful

diabetic rabbits (and
humans) should do.

And that is the brunt
of the Flopsy and

Mopsy story that
I had planned

to tell you on
this fine day.

mmmdcxxvii

shaving cream

sitting on a brush hog
a million miles away

i must have been a
teenager; it was the

heat of the day. a
round and around

in rectangles, drop
ping bales of hay in

what may now seem
smallish cubes, but

trust me, they didn’t
feel small but unwieldy,

picked up one by one
to be tossed up into

the scorching sun or
grabbing them after

tossed from down
below while atop

the flatbed’s how
many-ever layers

of them, and neatly
stacking each until

the old ford pickup’s
chassis is just about

dragging the pasture’s
till. and in between

grabs and catches,
if i were to peer out

straight and through
the rivulets of sweat

running down my face
i would of course see

all the mama holsteins
chewing cud, seemingly

ruminating, as it were,
scattered about the

nearly shaved square,
all quite patiently

standing or com
pletely unaware.

mmmdcxxvi

(re) members only

i’m having brick
fust w/my fan.
we hang out, happy
as strewn pronouns
playing second fiddle.
but we don’t really like
you, says the fan, shov
ing air all over my face.
the fan’s heir. the fangs
hear. they say, hey, hey,
the gang’s all here, but
the gang is in hysterics,
while you’re left crying,
remembering every
thing, especially
the fact that
you’re not a
member of
any gang.

mmmdcxxv

catching some zeds

are the zees
of new zealand
merely zeds?

yes, i guess.
yes, i guess.

mmmdcxxiv

cent a mental

as the lazy days
of summer app
roach, I am rem
iniscing. The ma
triarch falls off the
rickety back porch
with a butcher knife
in one hand and a
bucket in the other.
the brown pail, emp
ty, for she was out
to pick some okra
for supper, tumbles
like jack or jill off to
the matriarch’s right
as she falls to the
ground. the knife’s
grip remains firmly
within the clench
of her right hand. 

nothing gets
sliced or broken,
save a pot of okra
to boil. there is,
however, pain:
in the neck,
mostly, but
also in the
right fore
arm (which
she can bare
ly even feel,
thanks to a
botched surg
ery to reset a
cannula). “the
kidney stones
were last week,”
she says of what
i’ve come to see
(not feel) as the
very definition of
pain. i have called
her in the intensive
care unit some forty
years (and many pots
and skillets filled with
boiled or fried okra)
later, to tell her that
we can go through
the photographs
that i sent her
on a later date,
that my latest
job is over (“i
came down
with covid
on my very
last day.”)
and to please
feel better soon.

mmmdcxxiii

i has been
(a throwaway)

this a throwback.
a authentic throw
back (how authen
tic u wannit?)!
what was isn’t.
but what is is.
what else you
expect? what
else, you? i
has been, so
was, but also
is, and hey,
will be, a
throw
away.
haha
you know
i mean by that
an authentic
throwback.
now throw
it away (do
as i do, not
as i say).

mmmdcxxii

shirking empathy

whispering with covid
after losing to senior
citizenship because of
not breathing (through
the nose) just oozes of
feel me feel you, doesn’t it?
“i’m not saying it only goes
one way,” he says, trowel
in hand, as the four walls
rise ever so slowly and
finally above his
eyeballs.

mmmdcxxi

Making a Living

is a farcical exertion.
it’s the less serious
side of me, or the
most seriousest.
it’s that thing that
gives to charity in
rounds like a robin
or row, row, row
your boat. it pays
cash for something
like a coffin that the
attempt is to live in
side of it while doing
the stuff that’s most
important. like living,
always too hot, fans
(the only two i have)
blow me from one
day to the next. i
might enjoy such
hot air, say, on a
friday. maybe i
would enjoy it all
the way through
saturday. on
sunday, i might
try to forget (the
air, the coffin, the
seriouser and the
seriousest, the
rowing, the
roiling heat,
even), but
by the end
of that day
i try to sleep
(don’t sleep)
for the farce
is with me
all the next
day and the
next and so on.
unless the farce
is over. if it’s over i
know it’s time to get
the most serious ever.
because when one
farcical exertion
ends it means
it’s time to
find the
next farce.

mmmdcxx

Green Lipstick Is Maybe a Little Fruity
(verse + chorus)

     why did I equate
     words and genital sensation?
                      —Wayne Koestenbaum

Any other color
of lipstick is to
tally fruity. Ex
cept if it’s black.
Black lipstick is
not fruity in the
least.

Thiccory Cockery Prick,
The toad leapt onto a stick.
The bun, undone, was
empty of fun.
Thiccory Cockery Prick.

mmmdcxix

no. 30 – A Thank You Note
              for the Blues (and
              Everything That’s
              Missing)

it seems the first release from
baz luhrmann’s new elvis musical
biopic is a song by doja cat called
‘vegas’ that riffs on ‘hound dog,’

which i find to be an intriguing,
even alluring way to introduce
the soon-to-be-released movie.
haven’t i mentioned that i’m a

fan of mister presley’s. yeah.
. . .
over the years, when asked
my favorite color, i’ve had

a few responses. when i was
a kid, that would always be
purple. as an adult, it’s fluc
tuated among purple, green,

orange and yellow. at least.
i’m pretty sure it’s never off
icially been blue, though. but
the blues, however, will always

get me. all shook. and stuff.  here
is where i was going to list out for 

you fifteen songs that were sung 

by elvis with the word blue or blues 

in the title. but now it seems too in

appropriate for me to do that. or, to 

strike a better, if not more somber chord, 

perhaps, it seems a bit too misappropriate.

mmmdcxviii

no. 29 – A Thank You Note to
              History Growing Large
              (But the Evolution Ain’t
              Darwinian, Baby)

Who else here is pissed off
at where we’re at?! Raise
your hands, this is no TED
Talk. I know what you’re
thinking, true or false?
You’re thinking You ain’t
right! You’re thinkin’ U
ain’t nothin’ but a hound
dog! I’m thinking Take
me down, country roads,
because this isn’t or ain’t
misappropriation, it’s deep
desire for what should be
it’s utternutty sadness &
badness. Because, cuz,
who gives a fuck anymore?
Not Roger, not Mary Tyler,
not Frederic, Michael, Henry,
Skrillex, Julianne, nor Demi.
This ain’t 1984. Nope, we’ve
done that year one better,
because, cuz, what? Cuz
we ignorant? No, no, no,
no, no, no, hold up. How
to go about appreciatin’
when we are nothin’ but
depreciatin’? I can’t, un
fortunately, speak the
language of everybody.
All I can do, cuz, is speak
what I know. What he
THINK he know! Ain’t
that what I just said?

(If I had such power

of persuasion would

I be a maudlin poet?)
Look around, is all.
There seems no
better way to
drive home
the point.
Drive
home.
Listen!
And get
your act to
gether. All I’m
tryna say is let’s
unfuck. Before the
point that’s driven home
is the stake in our story’s (our
history’s) once beaten bloody heart.