mmmdcclxxxvii

Another List of Ingredients

nothing tasty, i assure you.
my days of using utensils
with flavored ink are well
behind me. and paper isn’t
the tastiest, either. so this
seems to be the deal with
me lately – start out think
ing about something real,
tangible, and right here in
front of me, most often; or
branded indelibly under my
eyelids or somewhere on the
exterior of my brain (which
is when things most likely
get mucked up, my memory
being what it is), then i devise
some sort of metaphor before get
ting far into describing this thing
with tangibility. a metaphor which
i then proceed to tear apart, at the
expense of getting to my point too
quickly, a thing that often gets me
sidetracked and likely muddles
clarity while surely losing the
audience to disinterest at best.
what was i going to give you?
is it too late? oh, it likely is.
and maybe that’s because
i’m almost too late. but
not quite. this is my last
one of the month and i’ve
got forty-eight minutes to
finish it and get it out the
virtual door and into this
imaginary mailbox to you
in time, whatever in
time means, which,
as it turns out, is some
thing which i completely
made up, which means it’s
something i could and with
justification of some sort, i’m
sure, remake. the rules. so that
i’m never late, in fact. it could
be done. but will it? not tonight.
but forget about the rules for a
moment. that turns out to have
been just another diversion,
another red herring, with
apologies. i don’t really
have to mention that, but
notice that i do. i was going
to use more of my random
lists on paper, a rather large
sheaf of which i’ve accum
ulated, and which i use to
jot down odd list poems
that come from the various
weird areas of my brain,
stuff i write down as if
to remember something,
to remind myself to re
member something, or
a sort of to do list of
things that i, at the
moment of each
item being hand
written (in a matter
that is often so ill
egible that i will
often take pleasure
in making up some
word or phrase based
on what i think i see
in what i know i have at
some point written with a
completely different intention;
who wants to be misread, after
all?), i do all this deciphering
most always not the reason
i had originally intended when
each note was written, but
rather (and as time goes
along, don’t i get a bit too
aware of the game that i’m
playing that even as i’m
writing i might be perhaps
realizing where this might
end up, and playing to that,
as if it were a bit), to provide
a bizarre, or surreal, or all
too real list of things that
turns out to usually be a
combination of the
mundane with the
rather odd (i do
think and always
have, and it used to
be with some pride and
contentment, that i’m
fairly weird, if not
downright eccentric.
but for various reasons
this thought does not give
me as much pleasure as it
used to, for what if i got
too weird, you know?),
so that it becomes a
list poem, as they
are called, i suppose;
something, as it turns
out, that many of my
favorite lyricists over
the years have been
fond of, so of course
i like a good one now
and again, can’t resist,
and this is one way i
provide the goods.
utilizing these words
strewn across various
mostly individual pages
that have come from various
moments over the past few
years. but you know what
i just did this time? well,
am about to do? often
i think i’ll be doing one
thing and then go in a
completely different
direction. and is there
anything wrong with
that? it’s not a research
project or a dissertation,
after all. nope. what i’ve
done is just an explanation
of what i do with these
sheafs of paper, why
i keep them, which has
now become a bit of a
confusion to me (do i
plan to actually mark
these items off a list
of things done or do
i plan to use them in
some unique or odd
or funny or boring,
or else in some
combination of
many of these,
way? while
maybe even
checking them
off by doing the
ones that still seem
important in the process?),
well, who can be certain?
even i cannot. but yet, i
have provided to you,
with regard to this
habit, what is,
what literally
becomes of
them, except
in this case,
it was just
a tease,
a ruse to
provide
instead
what i
actually
do. which,
in our case,
is often called
a process. there
you go. that’s my
process, one small
but habitual and long-
standing process among
many, when it comes to me
and how i choose to communicate.
am i communicating? that’s a question
for another day, i’d say. so i say, “i’ll say.”
and maybe someday i will. stay tuned if
you are beguiled or interested, or even
if you aren’t, but are curious if anything
better might come. it usually does come,
something a bit better, that is. but has
it this time? either way, ta for today.

mmmdcclxxxvi

And How Does That Make You Feel?

depressed. seven years of it now.
the holidays. yuck. but when i
take the time to reflect on each
of the last seven stretches from
mid-november to, somewhere
around the middle of the sec
ond week of january, if i made
a cake in chronological order
from the bottom to the top,
as bitter and disgusting as
each layer might be, there
is a vast improvement
as one moves upward
toward the top of the
cake. is such a many-
layered cake eaten from
bottom to top, however?
no, i suppose not. and
that’s the one thing that
i’ve been working with
such ferocity to avoid,
the movement backwards,
as time moves forward. i
mean, that first horrible
christmas, that first inter
minable month of decem
ber, the point is that, sure,
i fell off a cliff, whether i
had anything much to do
with that or not (and i do
lay blame most assuredly
and intently on not me,
it’s all part of the therapy,
and of the being honest,
and of the not being so
down about how things
are post cliff-dive as
compared to pre-, but
not only does time tell
me i’ve been right, much
as my head was a bunch
of mush for the first few
years, steadily perhaps
improving, like those
layers, but wasn’t i
lamenting the meta
phor, as in who eats
a cake with 7 layers
from the bottom up?
aren’t the layers
generally supposed
to go together? eaten
in tandem. that’s no
good either. forget
my trying to parse it
all into a neat meta
phor, what’s clear is
that my focus has re
gained sharpness, and
that each year has been
better than the previous
six, or if we’re talking
holidays, i guess it’d
be better to say the
previous seven, and
that’s literal, tangible,
and so easy to assert
with confidence. all
i have to do is send
myself back for a
brief moment (the
briefer the better),
and, whew, wow,
here i am. i’ll
never be that
person i was
before. and
isn’t that
just fine?
becoming
and then
recovering
from being a
zombie, an
automaton
with the man’s
thumb smushing
me down into the
whatever ground
or floor there is
at the moment,
if there was any
at all, seems at
times there wasn’t,
and here i am at try
ing to make a meta
phorical picture again,
so let’s end that by say
ing, by me saying that
despite the hell I went
through, a hell which
made me literally sick,
unable to function like
i used to, every year
all that is bad about
it keeps becoming
less, and while, yes,
i will never be the
man i was before,
i can tell you that
this is a fortunate
thing, and that i am
a much better person
than i have ever been
for going through such
an extended nightmare.
so, even laying blame
where it belongs without
dwelling on it so becomes
a remnant as i emerge with
so much experience and
enlightenment and patience
and, hey, i’m almost there,
too. it’s a new goal for a
new me, and i’m almost
there. and it makes me
giddy sometimes, even
as things trudge along.
and i’m better for it.

`mmmdcclxxxv

Might I Bother You For
The Quickest Route To
Da Nihil?

oh, hopeless romantics,
what is the opposite of
you? to not know the
answer, does it make
you blue? boo hoo,
me, too. what’s a
fetish without a fan
tasy? who gets to win
in the land of no games?
what is distance, a mile?
a nautical mile? without
sportsmanship? is all i’m
saying.
no. not true.
can it ever be?
at least, that is,
while the ol’ mortal coil
isn’t kaput? oh, con
trarian, can you not 

help me get there? 

once you stretched 

your limbs out just enough
to undo a joke by adding
a tablespoon of sarcasm,
how long would it be until
you’d conquered the world?
now that you’re the emperor
of cynicism, well, of course,
you won’t breathe a word
about it. granted, the
end of cynicism is
quicker, assuredly.
but just a little help
here, do you mind
ever so, your
honor?
it’s not
a treasure
map i’m after,
just a hint, a nudge
in the right direction.
wouldn’t it be ideal?
as conqueror of all,
oh mighty cynic,
might you enlighten
with your five-year plan?
i know what’s the matter,
man. i catch your drift.
it’s just that, well, since
i can’t make your head
explode with such impudent
imploring, then who are you,
really, and where is my king?
because everybody knows that
the end of cynicism is sheer
synapselessness. snap snap,
sardine king. hunger’s meager,
isn’t it, once you look toward
tomorrow, and is obliterated
if you shove your thoughts
too hastily towards the
the day after that.
kaboom!
too soon?
but what a reign!
oh how long the
parade shall be,
for me, the king of
optimism! so bow down
(or curtsy, if you prefer).
and dither not. for the
man with the plan has
become infected, as
anyone living through
such a reign of terror,
even as brief as it was,
would be. the future
is bright, however.
trust your new master,
it’s a disaster. one does
not need omniscience to
discern that all directions
lead to a bright and white
hot suture. some water, please,
all these words have me parched.
what i meant to say, of course,
was enigmatic, what, future?
the witch is dead, dingdong,
so come now and quickly,
i might need your ass
istance. let us presently
as one and together
wipe every horizon
clean out of
our heads.

mmmdcclxxxiv

notes on paper are a fire hazard
(regarding marriage & other stuff)

paper. handwritten.
on miniature ledger-
paper, often used for
calculations for such
things as monthly
budget or income
tax returns. quest
ions. marriage.
list of foods (is
written literally,
“list of foods”).
questions: (ditto,
“questions:”) if
i knew you were
that committed
(“cch” and “t-
mobile”) to
the job. add
endum is
less legible
but could say
what do you
want to do
when you
grow up.
yeah.
then
“fervent
terror”
or “terrier”
is this en
gagement?
pay by the
27th. that’s
it except for
a ‘give him’
right above
the list of
foods line,
but it could
say ‘get him’ –
yeah. get him.

mmmdcclxxxiii

sometimes the
perceived need
is such that

this one is to
simply mark
a distance

demarking
time and
linear space

from that
which came
most previous

and that
which will
(at some

point) follow
closest
subsequently

mmmdcclxxxii

As I Stand at the Edge of the Cliff
Contemplating the Imperfections
Which I Find So Attractive About
You, Wondering Whether to
Take That Next Step

when someone says (it’s been me,
is it usually? yes, most often it’s me;
do i have the air of a perfectionist?
i can be one overbloated gloat after
another about being one, and in that
overachieving slacker way that makes it
more impossible to achieve than ever, so
this has rung most true until lately; not
that achieving such a pinnacle had ever
been anything but a fiction or a fraud) it’s
your imperfections i love the most about
you, well, they’re lying, just as i always did,
do, even though the truth of it as it is said
cannot be underestimated in the slightest,
at least in the grand scheme, that delicate
architecture of what keeps us attracted,
intrigued and therefore, together. my own
imperfections stare at me daily (truthfully
more so of late) like the quick-panged fear
of the onset of dementia, and are more un
comfortable than being in on the anti-joke
that goes at least two steps over the myst
erious semi-impermeable yet constantly and
sometimes wildly fluctuating line over which
a joke that extends a reach over such line has
on that rare occasion solved the avian-sphynx-
like riddle of how to get to the other side success
fully, but more often than not by reaching any dis
tance further than the snaking line was when the
bit was extended, so to speak, was offered, in that
bold or simply unintended and therefore ignorant
manner that put it past (whether just barely or
well overshot) that ever-slithering boundary. by
that very distance it has either failed in that career-
ending way that these things can. or else has mind-
bogglingly slapped upon our dear comedian a curious
respect- or friendship-solidifying upward trajectory.
how complete the eradication—how magnificent the
win—or how obliterating the explosion, how permanent
or short-lived the subsequent cancellation, so to speak—
can with no logic be known as quickly and hyperbolically
as the varied guesses of those present the instant the line
has been crossed. we may each act as both judge and
executioner, but none of us can ever really know the
good graces (are there significant social or financial
ramifications? will the mutation be negligible, in the
Darwinian sense, say? or will it become the stuff of
legend, a reputation not only maintaining but hence
forth expanding?) or the time-table of the possible prison-
sentence, or the duration the unruly quipster may inevitably
spend in exile and/or as pariah is the great unknown. time
holds the inevitable answers to these questions. nothing
or no one else do. but let me tell you now that i still and
forever shall love you, and never an ounce less. i am
at times fragile, it is true, but the harm that has been
done is in all senses meaningless, at least to me. that’s
just part of the journey, one small segment of the
long adventure of what you get with me when it
comes to such a complete and until death do us
part kind of bond, as we have, one into the other.
or what i’m really meaning here is that is the strength
and the durability of my grip into you. it is exactly that

inexplicable commitment which i ask you now to explain
to me as it relates but from your perspective. oh, but
there is no need. i shall not doubt, even if is this con
fidence that is my downfall. or, more at honesty, always
more at that, i’ll just go about my doubt privately. and
what a coup if it turns out that i’ve been right all along,
wouldn’t you say? but just to be clear, it’s not the
imperfections i love so much as the comfort i feel
in glorying in them, not being bound by them,
and in the life-long journey of piecing together

who you are, in the never ceasing attempt to 

piece together the puzzle of you and of us, 

to in some way know as one will of course 

know nirvana, a knowledge that will remain 

at best unattainable, and at worst, a figment 

of my imagination until the moment

i see right through it and into you.

mmmdcclxxxi

a fourth & final pair of wizened anti-orgazms
(recoup your dues via pas de deux)

my offal debts are already over ice.
dear denizens of wherever you
whirl your curls: smoke those
tailpipes and go to bed.
better yet, go to bed first.
then smoke a tailpipe. or two.

lordies and gerbil-mince i am
not yet for rent but my rhythm
has fallen. don’t get beaten by
electromagnetic microwaves.
please purr and plur indistinct
& express thy calvin galvinistic.
with apologies for the apogee
(i.e., oopsie for the chemistry).

mmmdcclxxx

a third pair of ancient anti-orgazms
(a smidgeon of fool’s gold)

there are not enough olives.
there’s nowhere to turn right.
i’d be a surfer too if i
looked like that. the doors
open. my eyes do too. cute
catchwords wobble in and out
of my ears. oh and they are
so going nowhere.

i always alight upon a leafy
metropolis. once alit i find
scads of scowling kids
gliding up and down
the smoking sidewalks.
there is no flame in me.
i keep extinguising my coffee.
n.b., there is no distinguished
difference between taupe and
ivory by the looks of these eyes
ores.  brays an embalmed eeyore.

mmmdcclxxix

a second pair of ancient anti-orgazms
(another find for the losses)

the only speakable things beyond
a sea of flame. are beyond the sea.
and you can change anything but
words beginning with the letter c.
a cerfer on a cellphone? yip yip!
what would werner herzog do?
(wwwhd?)

you’d like to bundle new groins.
inside that little purse that hangs
from my rearview mirror. where
you’ll find 1) dependable; 2) reliable;
3) trustworthy; and 4) competent.
take a little bite out of that priapic
toast. slurpier still, just dip it coast
to coast into your luke-ish coffee.

mmmdcclxxviii

a pair of ancient anti-orgazms
(a find for the losses)

it’s too early to be walkingandwriting,
but I seem to have lost my sexuality.
what isn’t hot isn’t getting hotter.
though if you strike a certain
gait whilst cellphoning in front of
Bush Liquor Produce Market
then, well...

I tried to slap sweat onto a
window but it only landed on my
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
fatigue has gotten the best of me.

mmmdcclxxvii

online dating
(a personal history)

what with a cellphone is not
understood in the late 90s
(there’s a bird who just
hopped up to the stack)

the radiator makes this
noise this noise that
is like scratching
chalkboards

when I read O’Hara
I saw John and Dick
and Jack and Earl
and Ashes and Howard
and 35 windows

mmmdcclxxvi

Grateful
(As the Dead Go)

How blank I have to be to
force grief grace gravy
(the last one is fiction)
on Thanksgiving.

Life comes from the
subplot arose in the
southern hemisphere
that grew to a big ol’ goal.

What gets me’s not the new
Christmas Tree in Union Square
nor the skating rink, not even
a new credit card. But the

out for a bit of air push through it all,
step in front of the other. Toward that goal.

mmmdcclxxv

The Echo Chamber Just Turned Twenty-two

Clay cranks up the music
reveling in “A Tincture in Time”
“This place no Tin Pan Alley” says he
to the whirling dervishes

motor mode means eyes move awake
no dreaming endlessly but acute music
like the traffic noises whir the head stirs
and Master cogitates

less than suddenly
a distinctive arousal
the neurons are withholding
a seesaw jigsaw for example

adamant about the herb identification
Cory slices a nerve
“There!”
circumventing stilted movement

“Is DJ in the house?”
he formally rounds a corner
his constituency a clever bunch
slip on shades and start to jellyroll

oh Master mustn’t matter much anymore
around and around it goes heave-ho
once it swivels it’s in a nice rut
never one angle more justifiable than another

“Whoops!” something shot like a vein
we are the most important movers
so directly cranial
Clay is feeling all tingly

though nobody swims to the rescue
come breakfast-time
the clean-up crew will be around
drowning makes for such an agreeable night

he remembers oculomotor
and Xanadu
and biscuits with lots of butter
on Thanksgiving

mmmdcclxxiv

sloppy swamp talk
(stolen from the throat
of an alligator that had
just emerged from some
pretty sketchy quicksand)

when my fan is blowing
and I fly up the hill
to the other side of the teevee
just to be in your mouth

not that it has to be
either/or but it’s just that
your eyes look so lovely
tonight and so do yours

when I called you to ask
if he was really your
boyfriend you were on the
witness stand

“we never kissed” you said
and that’s true but I was
able to taste like never
before even thru the popcorn

if we go this whole movie
without holding hands
does that extend our time
by a month or so,

i.e., does running away
count as going slow
or does swimming in the ocean
under the moon by myself

all I never learned about
love keeps repeating itself
because I have a
really short memory

this swamp I’ve wandered into
well it’s full of mosquitoes
and I have somehow learned
how to kiss each goodnight

mmmdcclxxiii

Blabbermouth

I can’t keep from thinking that
poetry is a bit ridiculous at times.
And, to be glaringly honest, quite
often, bearing in mind that my
perspective is a bit skewed by
insisting on reading a substantial
amount of unsolicited poetry sub
mission to a fledgling magazine
for several years, at least until
it wasn’t so fledgling, when I
at some point decided that the
odds are that, when in receipt
of a manuscript-sized volley
of a cacophony of words
splayed upon virtual page
after virtual page, odds were
I could make a fairly quick
decision after reading five
or six pages regarding
whether or not I wanted
to read the rest of the
sheaf, much less include any
of it in an issue. And that further
more, that the chances would be
better for me to keep my eyesight
for a bit longer, if so, and there
would even be a potentially
significant chance of living
a fuller, more varies and
even longer life by opting
out of reading a few more
of those virtual pages once
in a while. Who’s to say,
really, except me? Indic
ative of nothing at all,
really, I did wake up one
morning year ago January,
in the middle of my first
bout with Covid, unable
to make out the words on
a page of even an old-
fashioned hardcopy book.
This is not a problem that
has gone away (perhaps
more on that later, but
I will take the liberty to
advise that when you
have an optometrist
prescribe for you your
very first pair of ‘progressive’
eyeglasses, they should not only
come with an instruction manual
but also with an attention-grabbing
warning from the doctor before
you walk away from that
appointment letting you
know that these are not
last year’s prescription
for a wee bit of nearsight
edness.) (But that is another
story, altogether. But, so, you
got two for the price of one,
or, hello, I’m the person whose
fingers are punching away at the
sticky keys of my laptop to put
this thing together, and what an
honor that thanks to you it has
not gone into perpetuity for
nothing but to tickly my
whimsy.) The fun thing
about writing a poem is
that it can be anything
I want it to be. And yes,
for me, the very idea of
this ridiculous whimsy
of which I partake day
in and day out is in
the hope that you
might come along
and have a look,
and my further
hope is that if
you do have that
look that you go
further, that you
scrutinize it. Would
this be a poem if
I didn’t call it one?
Well, that’s for you
to decide. Because
once I type this final
line, it’s no longer mine,
right? That is what they
say, I believe. And I tend
to agree, in principal. But,
hang on, I am getting ahead
of myself, or meandering
(two things that are NOT
okay to do when you are
being interviewed for a job,
I feel compelled to add).
Let me attempt to come
to some sort of conclusion,
or at least finish my opening
thought, after which you can
you can call this whatever
you want (literally, by
now, it’ll puff with pride
no matter how objectionable
a name you give it, should
you, indeed, get here; should
you so choose to name it—
and not calling it a thing
makes it no more or less
of one, of course, so long
as you are here. But, as
I was saying...).... I don’t
even mind pushing my
words, the words I call
poems, or whatever, as
far into what I would
consider ridiculous as
possible. It can be fun.
It can lead to some fairly
interesting pieces and
the very act of creating
them can lead to some
fantastic and fantastical
and often quite enlight
ening perspective, which
I sometimes, on occasion,
rather enjoy rereading, and
this I do, just as I reread
my favorite books, often
the ones that inspired me
in the direction of this
whimsy in the first
place. Often, and truth
be told more often than
not, and by a longshot,
that means my favorite
books are of poetry, of
poems, are written by
folks who, more often
than not, would call
themselves poet
or artist (which
brings me closer
to my point, as if
that matters). So,
I believe that, as
ridiculous as poetry
can often be, if
I utilize all the
logic I can muster,
I’d say as far as art
forms go, poetry must
rank fairly high (note
to reader: there is no
such thing as a better
art form, nor even,
necessarily, a better
work of art, so this
is said strictkly for
the sake of engage
ment, which is always
my point), which
is a significant part
of all of this, to be
sure. If art exists,
if this is a poem,
if those poems
that exist in books
that are labeled books
of poetry exist, then I’d
say that among the various
supposed art forms out there,
poetry must be a relatively
important one. Now how
would I go about proving
that? I have a barebones
approach. But why bother,
when what we call an art
form or genre and how
these things get ranked in
some sort of best to worst
order is nonsense (this
cliffhanger is meant to
provoke, hint hint). If
I say that I read more
lousy poetry than great poetry,
I’m being 100% honest. But it’s just
an opinion. Getting at what’s good,
figuring out what to call it and how
to differentiate it from something else,
those are privileges that mean nothing.
But a work of art can be ranked, I do most
earnestly believe, in order significance. I mean,
it’d be quite impossible to do, but somewhere
out there is an ideal rank of the most significant
poems ever from start to finish, based on the
effect each had on the reader or listener, and
how each reader or listener manifested whatever
effect the poem had on them. That’s logical, right?
Figure out your own ways into and out of art. I’m
calling it art, though. I differentiate it from
everything else, no matter how it can be found
in that everything else. In the end, if it matters,
and it most definitely does (nobody can say for
sure, and yet everyone can say, and most with
some confidence—a fine conundrum, is it not?—
after all, what is mattering?). And it’s what I
make. It’s a pleasure to do, this making. But
I don’t do it simply for the pleasure of just
making it. I write these words to be taken.
What happens from there is the important
stuff. To me. Also, can a work of art,
can a poem, save a life? Absolutely.
Even if nobody can say with certainty.
This fact cannot be argued. Or debated.
In such a way that a precise conclusion
can be verified. If you don’t believe
me and want to see for yourself and
if you are game to use me as your
partner in such a debate, it’s not
that difficult to find me, and I’m
always open and willing to try.
Which just goes to show that
the truthiest nut that can often
be found in poetry it its ruse. Or
doesn’t it? Isn’t it? Even if there
were only one way to find out,
I trust that you could find that way.
You do that, while I find my way
out of this trap. Post haste!

mmmdcclxxii

Blunderbrain

When there’s not time
to be busy. Because
you’re already busy.

When the world is
your oyster but you’ve
no means to cook and

you’re no fan of jewelry.
Most of it, anyway.
When the times are

cruel but there’s no
way out of it. When
you grab the perpetrator

before you think about
the possibility of a
concealed weapon.

Everything happens
so fast. A senior
citizen awaits a grade.

And the homework
has not even been
started. You go to

the store without any
money and you are
desperate for half

of the items on aisle
four. Where is the
door. Is there more

than one? Fat chance
is when you are
diagnosed diabetic

and in what seems
a day your vision
is reduced to a blur.

When the question
isn’t reading or eating
but bleeding or weeping.

When you walk into an
empty box and you see
a door at every wall and

yet you imagine it some
sort of inescapable room
or a coffin. When you

live in some sort of
ines capable room that
you joke is your coffin.

When you find your
self in a coffin and
and it hits you with

an impressively
deadpan humor that
you are not a vampire.

mmmdcclxxi

A Tough Tête-à-tête

Like a ventriloquist’s voice is
the voice we hear coming from
the dummy as thrown through
the dummy at you, given that

you, the audience, have the
all-important willing suspen
sion of disbelief (and with
dummies that suspension

seems pretty steady), when
the voice that belongs to
the man who’s wearing
the exterior of the dummy

says “You didn’t hear it
from me,” there’s a bit of
a double-take regarding
who actually made such

a pronouncement. “Who
said that?” the audience
wonders, the dum-dum
or the ventriloquist, even

as they’re not too dumb
to know the actuality.
“Even the tiny creeps all
the way in the balcony can

see me,” taunts the puppet,
the “voice” that is its voice
rises up and through the
rafters of the grand theatre

and floats all the way back
to the nosebleed section.
It’s the nosebleeds who’d
be more likely fooled by

what’s happening onstage,
given they’re too far back
to see lips move, much less
a wide dummy’s mouth go

through its various fits. As
it turns out there’s one man
sitting up in the last row of
the balcony who’s become

incapabe to see the world
about him as it is, more or
less sees nothing, so it can
be said that he is just about

as dumb as a puppet. Unlike
our wooden performer on the
stage, however, he’s a hull
of a man within which there exists

little else than an entanglement of
emotion, but even that is swiftly
being dumbed down. As our
focus leaves the stage, it is now

on this man, who has been
quite obviously sobbing for
some time, for he has lost
his last chance with the

object of his undying love,
the source that had been his
every motivation, the person
with whom he was inextricably

connected. He slowly begins
to become slightly aware of
the intermittent laughter
that carries on around him,

and this soothes his spirit just
a bit, enough so that the sniffles
and snot relatively quieten and
become somewhat staunched

respectively. He’d beeb waiting
all day in front of the cafe for
her exit, which would always
transpire at precisely five in

the afternoon each weekday.
He had everything ready and
all he had planned to say was
branded into his brain. He’d

been parked across the street
from the tired retail outlet
where she’d worked for
over fifteen years now—

since late morning he’d been
here, his mode of transport,
an old Kawasaki, he had hidden
in the shade at the end of the

lot furthest away from her store,
in case she were to roam the area
during one of her breaks or her
lunch hour. He was ready to whisk

her away, something they’d talked
about for years now. It was to be
a surprise, though, so she was un
aware that to day was the day,

unaware perhaps that it was more
than a mere fantasy, all of that
talk of riding away one day into
the sunset. But, when finally,

out she walked, into the late
afternoon haze that the sun
strained through with some
success, something unequivocal

occurred, and like a wolf trapped
in a tailspin on a gray, wind-
blown tundra, his tongue, his
whole body, in fact, froze

into a stiff mess, and he was
unable to move, found it im
possible to make even a yelp
of any kind that would be audible

enough to reach his beloved, his
entire speech, every last gesture
he’d choreographed and practiced
for months just for one moment,

vaporized as he watched her
practically skip down the side
walk in the opposite direction,
her white skirt dancing with the

back of each of her knees, which
closed a bit, then widened out
straight, then closed just a bit,
then widened out straight as

she skip-walked, a movement
that reminded him of the
dummy’s mouth as
cranked by the ventrilo

quist on the set in the
town theatre where he
would, once his muscles
finally loosened enough

that he could move, find
himself attending, unaware
of how he even got there, at
the back edge of a balcony with

no easy way to escape, flum
moxed, lost, knowing now that
it was all just a long drawn-out
fantasy, their talk of running away

together. He convinced himself
that she thought the same, that is
if she wasn’t simply placating him
by going along with his every

desire. Before the performance
wound down, he found himself
somehow astride his motor
cycle. He flipped the

kickstand, revved up
the engine, and rode off
into the darkness alone.
And he really never

stopped riding, except when
he met whatever town the
road brought him to of an
evening or night. And, if

early enough, he’d find the
town’s center, where perhaps
an opera was being performed,
or a community theatre’s

production of a Shakespearean
comedy or tragedy, a dive-bar
performance by a strung-out
band or a stand-up comedy

open mike, or a dark film
in some worn-down cinema.
Whatever the genre of the
performance, he would find

himself there, where he’d sit
for a bit as far back as he
could get from the stage and
whatever was transpiring

upon it, and think about
movement and stillness,
movement and stillness,
until, like a blur, he was

gone once again, riding
ever faster into a darkness
by which he could never
quite become fully and end

lessly enveloped, much as he
tried, conscious or not of what
he was attempting. One day,
of course, he would. Inevitably...

mmmdcclxx

some place


i.

through the dust motes
and out this dirty window
a broad flag limps
under a mackerel sky
beside a barren balcony

on several rooftops
ducts gather
proliferate
decide to swell up
and migrate

just this side of the window
a book sits wide open to the room
it says “We had macaroni for lunch every day”
the rest of the books make the shelves
many split personalities of closed drawers

the sun sometimes decides
to turn the trees into pumpkins
and when this happens
the lingerie riot on the line

the scalloped clouds
march toward New York and are gone
like a bird

like notebooks that you put away
and forget to open like the sun

like nobody

this desk

a substitute for page-turning


ii.

the clouds are marching to New York
and who’s to notice
copper-colored cross is hunkered
into a red brick building
across an empty parking lot

the roving clouds or the glistening ducts
or the limp flag or the rioting lingerie
or the copper cross has told everyone
to go to sleep

to sleep for stanzas
while chickenwire rusts under the bottom floors
while white paint withdraws from concrete blocks
and a bird mirage disappears into this book

over there
as if planted on the moon
a tiny red flag stirs
it has found its way up an unseen pole
atop a distant bank roof

maybe it belongs to a country
whose windows are being looked through
whose trees are all pumpkins


iii.

during an imaginary earthquake
Philip Johnson’s glasses slide down his nose a little
“I am Art Deco” cry the flag police
and the syndicate shoot through the bay windows
shattering all of the glass
they rip out all the curtains and rearrange them
whoever lives is abbreviated
told to run and to hide
and find a few new sofas


iv.

his insides were in disrepair
but he was tucked in at his desk
his papers were confined in sheet metal repositories
the book was open and the birds could not get in
nobody nodded off
seldom had been dreamed firmer pastures


v.

oh but now the birds are all lined up
the beautiful sound of somebody’s fingers
a belligerent cross is indented
into the torso of another big building
this building is white and without a little flag

the birds fly over to what looks like a gigantic electric fan
the birds alight upon the fan and make bird sounds
the fan was planted on the roof
for all of the lost roof workers

the sky drops like nothing

this all happens out the dirty window
where everything has been constructed
and nothing is new


vi.

thereabouts to sum it all up is
a plastic bag that crawls
like an inchworm up an
oldish red-bricked building
toward one of its dart-shaped windows
that point up

up to the hairy sky
with its profligate clouds

just as a grease-faced
paint-flecked
denim-jacketed man
walks out onto his balcony
with his dogs

“My air goes up to the skies
like selfie spectres”
he sighs duct-like
an engine kicks in
a broad flag
walks with a limp
up a kind of
invisible stairwell


vii.

hush

the leaf’s ear
on that pane
is in pain

as the man
limps out
his door
onto
his balcony
and shatters
the birds

as his heavens
decide
to swell up
and riot


viii.

this book
with its wishes
down to earth
where dirt
has flown

this man’s
fire esape
his rain
gutter
and
broken
concrete
his window dressing
his indented sky

mmmdcclxix

Make Your Mark

[Enters stage left.
Laughter ensues.]
“Congratulations!”
“What a performance!”
Even when the roar
of the applause and
the long round of
bravos and huzzahs
dissipate, you notice,
first just out of the
corner of your eye,

a distant flutter of

movement. You 

turn to your
left, and there,
standing at 

he closest
edge of the
windowsill
is a cockroach
giving a standing
ovation. To you.
“Hey, thanks, Harold,”
you say, “you’re the
best.” And then you
roll over, pull the
plush blanket all
the way up to
your ears,
and nod
soundly
off.

mmmdcclxviii

Memorial

now the bird-nest is covered with snow
and you are not here
my heart beats—must beat
bright sluggishness

buds too soon to know the bloom
white blooms blast eyes
vision roused like the highway
metallic rivers
coming and going

sitting in a blood-warm room
paint-peeled sills under tall windows
beyond them, barren trees
beyond them, brick chunks

overhead the dull whir of air
sucked to the sun
soot swirling from rooftops
down into the gray river
down to the riverbed

from the bird-nest
under the snow
certain twig-tips drip
brown edges of leaf weep

some droplets
taken by the wind
fall through time

fall through time
empty radiant
white glistening
snow world

some droplets
taken by the wind
fall through time

to the drying sidewalk
where once we walked
filled with each other
the warm autumn moon

following us

mmmdcclxvii

Whispering Hickories
Make Shadowy Paramours

I have known much
more mustache
than this. It belongs

to a known and
tranquil killer
names Harry, who,

by five, an
evening shadow
latched against

my side, twists
and twirls into
conniptions if but

to snag a bit of
attention so that,
like it or not,

we dance like
ticklish kids
around the house

for hours and
hours, until
a rash develops

on the skin between
my ribs and the
woolen shirt

which I untuck to
rid myself of all
the loosened hay

and earth and
crumbled leaves
accumulated from

a day of chasing
cow dogs over
the subdued

tricking creeks
and over the
rolling hills

of pastures
with my
whiskery

companion chasing
me without once
becoming short-

winded, even
stopping once just
to pick me a handful

of wildflowers,
no further away
than a couple

of steps, right
at my heels
all along the way.

mmmdcclxvi

Small Talk

“Alright! Which one of you
guys took an early dive into
the cake?!” No response
whatsoever. But also no
hard feelings. After all,
a party’s a party, right?
To which, a bombardment
of pokes and proddings from
from the children erupts as
all four of them scurry out to
meet the dusk’s last bit of light.
This flurry of activity seems to
elicit from the barely separated
dining room curtains (which
nobody can recollect ever
having been swung apart
dramatically to let in the
brunt of the sunlight; if so,
it’d be this window’s most
evocative and provocative
talent) a slice of evening light
that spills like imagination; it
has a life of its own and is filled
as it often is with motes from
the dining and adjacent rooms
and the swirls from the mysterious
currents known well to the elder
inhabitants of the odd and enormous
home, thanks to which the historied
Victorian was fabled to have its
very own microclimate (“A thunder
storm once appeared in the grand
ballroom,” Grandmum would
proclaim as if offering a stunning
gift to her progeny or dinner guests;
a litany her own grandmother had
often repeated in her presence.)
“If it were my wish, I’d wish
for something grand for all
of you,” one of the children
was heard saying amid the
squeals of the rest as they
blew out the door in a
whoosh, the tone and
timbre of a seven-year-old’s
prim mouth, but without her tongue
stuck out of it—because one cannot
speak decisively with a tongue stuck
out of one’s mouth, or else words would
amount to garble. And this vast residence
was always abuzz with such an abundance
of words (with only a rarest amount of garble)
that one could barely keep up with the game.
Voices—be they electric with nonsense
or burdened bounceless by severity or
aimed like harpoons with accusation or
cadenced, strong-willed debate delivered
occasionally with a crescendo of red-
faced emotion—were perpetually and
swiftly volleyed here. This grand
family loved to talk; each member
was always armed with artillery
which could be aimed in a pinch
and with precision for hour upon
hour until the ammo was gone,
which never stopped them at
first, as they’d go on and on,
exhausted and shooting
nothing but blanks. And
finally the moment arrived
when each fair orator began
to grab at the air around them
like mad with their curled
up hands, as if desperately
seeking another mouth to
which they might cling in
order to keep from falling.
But air was all each hand
ever clutched, and so, they
would become so exhausted
by speech and the clawing
that their eyes would either
curl up in to their head or
begin to slowly be curtained
by slowly dropping lids until
their entirety had landed,
usually softly, sometimes
with a bit of a thud, upon
the floor, with its imaginary
parquetry; they’d fall and
remain with lost conscious
or in more of a dreamstate,
it was never discerned, until
however long it took for them
to come to. And when they
did, always bruised and
blistered, it gave them
pause, and they’d squirm
or slither about a bit, at
battle with remembering
or trying to understand what
must have transipred. Then,
they’d do a quick once-over to
ensure that all of the voices
were accounted for, only to
realize that “Oh, well, it’s
just me. I wonder where
we all must be.” And
then out they’d go
a’gathering.

mmmdcclxv

Gin Against a Vodka Coffin

I think
perhaps
I’m screwed.

A shoe
pops off.
And then

another.
It’s true.
I’m doomed.

“Popov!?” “Anton!?”
[Achoo!!!]
“An udder!”

mmmdcclxiv

Conversation

“You haven’t aged well,
have you?” etc. Does
it speak? I’ll carefully
open the book (his
grandmother’s journal,
1972). Glancing inward,
he heard her voice. He
strained to focus, not
only intent on hearing
more of it, but at the
ready to respond,
should there be a
query, or anything
maudlin that might
provoke a response.
There was no need.
Soon they were
catching up,
having such
a lovely time.

mmmdcclxiii

“Finish Your Soup!”

pea
queue
err
ass
tea
you
me
double you
x(o xo)
why?
zzz...

mmmdcclxii

Connecting Some Dots

I’ll not hide within this burg
of words, which is such an

inclination here of late that,
although I speak and speak

when happenstance has
placed me face to face

or throat to throat with
an occasion to utilize

my larynx in some
engaging way—one must

remain hopeful these forlorn
days—but not a word of me.

So it is not as if I have
a thing at all to hide,

it’s just I couldn’t help
you even if I tried. It

seems the longer my span
of days on this planet, the

more I glean, supposedly,
about the earth’s vast surface,

which, I seem so distantly to
recall, grows smaller every

year that I survive. It matters
not if it is one spent trudging

ever forward over endless
scorched land at a horizon

that my senses fail to see
even one hint of change

or one wherein I’m floating
at the surface of the sea

or gliding high above
some combination of

both and in such scathing
desolation never seeming

to arrive, not even knowing
where my destination, and

this as I toss but pleasantly
this way and that as if I’m

hammocked or else gliding
slowly, singularly as if

a hungry hawk up
in the blue-green sky.

But all the while an
education happens

as a life of clues accrue,
and I have picked up

on my way to nowhere
countless keys that each

unlock some mystery of this
universe and its inhabitants,

but who I am or ever were or

whom it was that with all this

living I must have ever and
in earnest intended to be

come, all of what I must
have certainly thought

at some point very
long ago I might have

and assuredly known 

about that person has all but

dissolved, has vanished like 

an ancient glacier that

has melted into subsumed
sustenance for some all-

consuming or perhaps
more deified or evolved

whole, or else has gasified
into the atmosphere like

that rare downpour does
in what feels like no time

at all, into mere vapor,
until I am left wondering

whether perhaps I’ve only 

justarrived, or else have been

here all along, or maybe

I punched out at some

immeasurably distant time 

ago to head for good from

this revolving spot wherein

I’m stuck.  This treadmill is a 

dream-like consciousness,

perhaps, that follows through

death into whatever
happens to be next—

and this amnesia,
all this silence

that slips ever deeper
into the mysterious

ahistory of my story
is my only solace.

mmmdcclxi

The Data Were Polka Dots
(an anachrofragmentizm)

When looking for a voice,
one’s own, that is, for what,
exactly, is one looking? What

are we, you and I, looking for?
That which the chunk that is
the carapace that houses a

bleeding throat from which
come the utterances and the
ululations that make whatever

song (be it hard or easy on the
ear, the possibilities are endless
like signatures or fingerprints)

spills from it. What is its
purpose? To lure like a
siren? To coerce like a

salesman or a magician?
Is the aim clear; is it broad
or narrow, honed or brusque?

Does it reach the ears of the
intended or echo its way into
a vast and craggy nowhere?

mmmdcclx

abecedarian

all the rage, did i
blow it all out.
couldn’t have. impossible.
d’uh. but i tried. it seemed
endless. i don’t remember yelling like my
father. yeah, dad. always
good for a lesson in retrospect.
how did i get here?
i do hope to find out. but until then i’m
just going to
keep on keeping on. feeling
lousy is a failure, which is the f word i
might should’ve used instead of the father above, but
nope. i’m not going back. that’s strictly
out of the question.
peanut butter.
queer hunger. (my tummy grumbles while)
reading is writing to me. or it’s
surely what gives birth
to it. writing. i’m
uppity about my poetry.
very. at times.
what of it?! so much so that, hey,
x is my last name. remember that while
you’re out all night “zithering your
zither”. i, too, once lived in a zoo.

mmmdcclix

That one moment when I believed

change was possible is impossible to
change. You can’t go back. Not that

I know of, anyway. I realize that there
are times when you want me to say more

here. And, as with anywhere, there are
times when you really want me to shut up.

There’s a dance song about drag queens
and disco that is just obscure enough that

I sometimes spend hours trying to find it,
to remember who the DJ was, what year

it came out, which floor it first floored me.
It’s mostly spoken. Another song always

gets in the way when I’m on this quest; it
must have come out around the same time.

You got to believe. I don’t know the name
of that one, either, but it was more ubiquitous,

and there was that repeated line in the chorus.
We all did, too. It could have been an instant

between the song about drag queens at the disco
and hearing You got to believe. It wasn’t that

I had given up hope. Absolutely not. It was
that the world was just so perfect that there

was not one single piece of falling glitter
that was out of place. We were all free.

There wasn’t any tomorrow. And being
who we were at that very moment was all

there was. We’d each try to describe in words 

the half-existence of both the ceiling and the 

floor and, much more vividly, the glowing petals
of the moon (or, in many cases, the name of

some obscure blooming plant) that were
oscillating in hundreds or thousands or

millions of ringlets down at us and up to
us from the sky and the ground of the place,

respectively, and with respect, glimmering
in morse code, without sending out any SOS.

“Then was everything we wanted,” was a
quote that would be noted verbatim on more

than just a few pages of the detailed report. “We
had arrived,” as well. “There’s no place like home,”

said one girl, who was not from Kansas, anymore.
“Birds flyin’ high, you know how I feel.” Yes, I do.

mmmdcclviii

PICK IT UP AND MOVE IT FORWARD


There doesn’t have to be an

apocalyptic back story. Or even

an end-of-the-world apocalyptic

climax in your narrative at all.


The genre of “fantasy” is about as

serious a genre as one might encounter

in the world of fiction (we’re still in the

fiction section, okay). Whatever adaptation,


and they have been multiply significant, which

characters are at one point or another conclusive whether they

held the control, whether the wives were androids, being replaced by androids,

and when and how the audience is cognizant about anything the characters (wives or husbands or whomever) were unaware of (Are there separate realities  for the sexes?) - Is there any omniscience within the story?


Are the Stepford wives cognizant? When and how and on what level are they relatable? How about when Glenn Close

begins stepfordizing [the other sex, the men;]? And do the women then get real POWER? Does the addition of

this line in this stanza destroy the sonnet-ness of this piece about the wives’ subservience, and

the characters’ willingness to either play along (Were they robots unable to play along,


each and all? No, this doesn’t seem to be the case?). And again, has Close provided new deep meaning

in the switch of the role of the sex of the automatons from female to potentially male? What if

Rose Byrne and Ted Danson played roles in this all-star more serious less campy but funnier version, doesn’t the timeframe allow for the possibility that these

three actors had worked together before the dystopian Damages? Why’d I just pigeonhole Damages into dystopian (subgenre, right, no need to genrify dystopian this way)?

Nah. Milk the fantasy, rewrap the bleak, be Matthew Broderick nerdily in charge of the subservient wife fantasy;

of being able to control Nicole Kidman by the various methods vaguely referenced earlier (scroll up). Close with the sort of feminist

fantasy. This is not what we call the genre of fantasy, am I not right? I know there are android bleeps

and bloops mixed throughout some of these individual plot-lines. But what about the dragons of phantasy as they blobbily move from Ursula LeGuin to George R. R. 


Martin. The way of which author is best?  How about Robert A. Heinlein (*let’s start bringing him up a lot; his was my favorite science fiction writing, I was 9-11 years old when I ate up all of his middle school and high school library tomes...),

the most relatable to me at the time of my reading; (there was an admixture of fantasy with the sci-fi I called it.). Maybe I’m thinking about how sc-ifi turned

so dark after the 1970s and 1980s. The optimism dissipated, even if it was that rare apocalyptic-themed,

iconic milestone. In general, optimism disappeared. All of this stuff. All of this relatively insignificant stuff (to anyone else I knew)

was meaningful (and yet) to me because of my very personal and precocious relationship with these writers/characters, and my act of engaged reading at that young age, of so much of it, strapping in with the endless optimism in the bogs of science fiction. But it would take

so many more years before I could ever begin to understand camp and its relation to this stuff. This is

what I glom onto now, but what of it? I’ll tell you what of it. I can’t quite get to the apocalyptic dead-end science fiction and fantasy, the bleakness it inevitably would be, is. This is fine because I don’t have a clue about many things here.  And yet, who’s the narrator of this. Nerdy 80s jokes? And the scolding of people into voting. There.  Let’s end it this way.  With tut-tuts meant well, if at all.

One five-lined stanza. With more lines than that. But in essence thanks to a lack of length of white space but still it's one page: Five lines. So long they might be split up. Where do we find the hope we have (I have) created by opening it all up just so?