mmmmcclxxix

flyer

do you happen

to have any

xtra food 

stamps? see

contact info 

to hit me up.

mmmmcclxxviii

i’m better now,
but worse than
i was day before
yesterday. i was

much worse the
day before that.
i’ll just leave all
the talk of being

gracious and so
very thankful to
you, because you
are better at that

today than the day
before yesterday,
although a bit
worse than the

day before
that.

mmmmcclxxvii

Who’s the Hero Now?

lately i’ve been…
here’s what i wanted
to do today….

oh, don’t say that.
i’m alright. just
not quite ready.

can you hear
the screaming?
someone’s rushing

the corridors like
they have someplace
to go. don’t they

realize the babes
are happy in
their delirium?

the noises of
joy slowly
decrease

as the night
finds its
darkness.

mmmmcclxxvi

Sleeping It Off For 48 Hours, A Still Life

a mash-up of medicine bottles
shoved up to the file bins
atop the lower right leg
quarter of my bed’s
mattress cover.
the cover has a purple
flower-themed design.
the flowers are white,
though, it’s the background
that’s purple, the color which
i’ve proclaimed most of my life
is my favorite. my biggest small
fan is right at my hip as i type, turned
on high, as always, and aimed right at me.
amongst the pill bottles: airwick fresh new day
fresh waters scent air freshener spray; a smart-
looking red mouse with a ‘logi’ imprint; a yellow
sticky-note pad, on the top page of which is written
“it’s the memiest meme-stock in all of meme-land,”
which, as i recall, is kara swisher quoting someone else
about truth social; a pink water bottle, empty; a mostly
full roll of paper towels; a small tube of ‘body lotion,’
beige in tint; a couple of pairs of underwear and a
hoodie jacket, the one i wear most often when
i am out of my apartment, which i have not
been at all in several days now, only just
recovered from a bout of this horrid
nausea and digestion problem that
has had me in the emergency room
five times in the last three or so
months; ‘ever spring’ brand ‘down-
to-earth solutions that are up to
earth’s standards’ streak-free
glass cleaner; a pink eye-glasses
container that belongs to the
pair that i’m currently wearing;
and a couple of random sheets
of paper that belong in one of
three bins that line the right
side of my bed, the bins
filled with files marked
‘urgent,’ ‘to file,’
‘to read,’ etc.

mmmmcclxxv

Now What?

i have a lot more empathy
for people with chronic
digestion issues.

mmmmcclxxiv

Net Nothing

this is the last letter

of the alphabet. the

last day of this mau

dlin experiment. if

i could stack all 26

of them up, one on

top of the other,

what could i do

mathematically

(or otherwise)

to get some

thing, anything,

out of it all? 

nah,

i’m just kidding.

the age of enlig

htenment is over.

welcome to the

age of reason.

mmmmcclxxiii

Mnemonic Marmalade

there’s a lot of rigmarole
when it comes to memory.

it’s particularly hard to
remember the things

i’ve promised myself
never to mention to

you. and then 

there’s the stuff 

i’ve vowed
never to say 

a word about 

to anyone else.

mmmmcclxxii

Zippy Zen

were he teased into the dark
ness of the corner sofa that
was but a shadow, this scene
would be far different. but
the blips of the flashes that

lit the remaining dancers as
they slithered and swayed
upon the rich mahogany
that dampened the boom
of the bass were but a peri

pheral morse code. the
set had been awesome,
much to his relief. it was a
night in which to disappear
and to forget. and this dark

corner where he now existed,
alone, but for the muffled
beat, resting upon a ghost
of a plush sofa, propelled his
spirit into the rest of the night

and the end of the weekend.
the unflagging feels of having
evaporated into the world of
the unseen after shimmying
so brightly around and about

and within the glimmering
stew crammed with the craven;
the throngs of the boiling and
intermittently half-conjoined,
all clamoring and crashing and

clanging about during the zero
hours of an otherwise dead-
silent city’s nightclub.

mmmmcclxxi

Cranky Cross

strategize. or stargaze. i all
too often choose staring up
into the vast speckled outer
sphere, not because i believe

there’s anything out there that
might help me, no, i do this for
a much less dignified—but per
haps more logical—reason, which

is that such an act happens to
divert my attention, keeping me
at least momentarily from rem
embering the things i absolutely

need to be doing, impossible as
accomplishing such might ever be.

Cuckoo Choices

mmmmcclxx

Hippity Hoppity

when is easter this year?
i’m not sure why i ask. i’m
certainly not in the market
for a new bonnet. nor will

i attend a service of any sort.
although anything is possible.
no, i suppose i’m just nostalgic
for spring, which is silly for a

couple of reasons. one, it has
already sprung, officially, yes
terday. and two, for nearly
twenty-four years now i’ve

lived in a city where there is
no significant calendar-associative
weather changes at all. boiled
eggs the shells of which have

been plopped into dye, along
with big white chocolate bunnies
can have me harboring warm
associative thoughts, as well,

i suppose. or maybe it’s peter
the personified bunny, a rabbit
among a bevy of bouncing bunnies
with human-like characteristics.

and then i remember watership
down. a book i read almost as
many times as the first few
chronicles of narnia. of course

the most prominent reason
for all of this blabbity-blab
about bunnies and perverted
holidays – i’ve either way too

much free time on my hands
thinking about such hullaballoo
or else i’m doing an awfully
great job at procrastinating.

Hotbox Hangdog

mmmmcclxix

Payment Postponement

there is an art to it. a
bureaucratic time-suck
that might be laid out
with charts and graphs

and medical diagnoses
and, oh, those institutions
whose purpose, it is pro
claimed, would have you

rising back above it all in no
time flat from this unexpected
set of perpetual curveballs
thrown all major league style

and with such precision and
regularity directly at your nuts.

Pecan Pralines

mmmmcclxviii

Error Emergency

i’m not fragile. i don’t like to think of myself as
fragile. i think i’m most often not very fragile.
i suppose that sometimes i can be, every once
in a while, historically. it has happened. just
not very often. i don’t like to think i am ever
fragile because help is something i was led to
believe (in a skewed manner, but with unrelent
ing intensity) was somehow unmanly, which
is bad, was something that would reduce my
independence, independence being one of
the virtues of all virtues, all-important. and
there were lessons, it was perhaps a very
foundation of my education, i think. it
taught me how to avoid being emasculated,
a word in which the whole problem is, here i go,
encapsulated. i’m less fragile than almost anyone
i’ve ever known. that was a brag. i’m not perfect,
of course. name some things that are wrong with me.

mmmmcclxvii

Ultra Unbearable

like a lot of life,
right? choir practice
in undergrad used to be
a wonderful way to pass
the time between what
we thought was the
important stuff.

on our nature walk on
that particular day the
cattails were weird, but so
pretty – their normally brown
fuzzy tops curled into the shapes
of tiny umbrella handles. they
were purple, i think.

purple is a color i often get confused.
i’m not color blind or anything, but i
do confess i wind up staring at whatever
it is and mouthing all sorts of things.
like violet, aquamarine, magenta,
fuchsia, spindrift, amber, umber,
and other colors the hues of
which i cannot seem to
clarify in my head at
ordinary moments.

purple is my 

favorite color.

but college choir tour,
springtime of 1988,
the first year i was
ever in love. one rainy
night in magnolia, i held
the umbrella for both of us.
i had actually packed an umbrella.
imagine that, me the responsible one.
walking from the methodist church where
we performed to each of our respective
sponsors’ homes for the night.
ours turned out to be a funeral home.
the place was huge and we were
giddy and felt the
embodiment of romantic,
scouring the dozens of rooms
for caskets that weren’t empty,
imagining the shag carpets
between the twin beds were
pathways through lavender
gardens where we could
get lost and miss
the morning bus.
surely nobody’d miss us.
and even if they did, they’d
never find us, the tall aromatic stalks
twice our height and then some.

mmmmcclxvi

Yuma Yowl

     Childhood living
     Is easy to do
     The things you wanted
     I bought them for you
                   —from “Wild Horses,” by The Rolling Stones

“hey, pioneer!”
was the hiss &
i was pissed.
my gun’s a
ghost, the
sheriff’s
toast
& wild
horses
couldn’t
drag me away
from this hellhole.
this badge is just a
couple of melted shotgun
slugs and we go way back.
i traded a revolver for this here
holster and a couple of these
dinged up posters. i know
you’re all shot up, but
you look good, man.
you’d be roiled with
worms and a fathom
down into the depths
of the quickest
swamp and
you’d still 

bring
back a
demon’s
heartbeat.
and you had
to go and lock your
hawk’s aim targeting
the stuttered hiccoughing
rhythm of mine.

mmmmcclxv

Scoop Swoop

or how an open book
gets so paradoxically
overlooked. well. you
might kindly excuse me

for having yet to step up
to today, but i rarely find
an ounce of intrigue in
loudmouths. so if this

conversation begins
with how many hits
do you get? then i am
already too old school

to participate. what
is intrigue after
all, but something
mysterious, as of yet

unknown that one
might possibly, and
with a curious thirst,
uncover. that’s

where i stand on
this subject. sure,
this might be a dated
stance, too out of

fashion for most of
us. but yet I have to
ask: who on earth do
you think i am, anyway?

mmmmcclxiv

Blueberry Boombox

skimming the screen
i scroll slowly over

an image of the
world’s largest
blueberry. it’s a
world record. and i
see it there, plopped
upon i can’t remember,
something that would
show a viewer that, yes,
that’s one behemoth
of a blueberry; a
blueberry behemoth.
but who gets the
world record, the
blueberry or the
fruit forager who
found it? and is
there incentive
beyond just being
listed in a guinness
record list? i look
again, quickly,
before continuing
my scroll toward
some juicy and
as-yet-unknown
treasure, that
will what?
suspend my
scrolling for
longer than a
merely negligible
duration of my day,
wondering more
than anything
where the actual
biggest blueberry
on the planet might
currently be hiding
out, and what
it might take
for me to
divert my
current life
path in order
to find that
monster,
so that my
name might
be, for some
shorter or longer
period of time,
publicly linked
to that blue 

freak of a fruit.

mmmmcclxiii

Xeroxed X’s

i tried to take
a picture of my
heart. we have
the technology.
and i should
know.

mmmmcclxii

Flea Frow

it wasn’t something
he wanted to get
away with. the
concertgoers
en masse were
an enormous
living breathing
etc.  two bald guys
on their way to

the restroom
bonked into each
other, knew one
another instantly.
after the bonfire
all hell broke
loose. we all
put up our dukes,
readying like bank
robbers for that
big investment.
people teamed up
based on t-shirt
color, hues
skewed by
the starless
night
and the
fire’s remains.
which were but 

the dull embers left
once the angst-ridden
dragon had what was
left of its blazing wings

(having just been clipped)

pinned deeply into the surface 

of the overburnt earth.

mmmmcclxi

World What

not sure about you,
but i happen to live
here. are your hobbies
boring? if i’ve said it
once, i’ve said it a
million times, you
navigate and i’ll
paddle. some
times the best
way to clean
things up is
to first get
as dirty as
you can.
but my
goal isn’t
to be the last
person standing.
who’d come to the
after-party? how
dull would that
parade be?
so. anyway.
what do
you do
for fun?

mmmmcclx

Kenneth’s Kin

kenneth
kimbrough’s
closest kin,
that is, his
numerous
siblings,
included
the following
lady kimbroughs:

persephone
(goes by pursie)

cassandra, who
makes a rootin-
tootin casserole

medea, the doctor,
whose surgeries
always seem
to involve the
medulla oblongata

lizzie (birth name
lysistrata cuz
dad had had a
humdinger of a
penchant for
aristophanes)

renata, who’d
grown from the
spindliest of the
litter to the hottest
gal in all of Nebraska

melea, who seems
like such a shy gal
only it is really just 

an intense and general
disinterest that has
her often come across
in such a way.

corrina and cornea
are the twins. and
while their pops knew
ancient literature
inside and out, he
was anatomically
clueless, and so
one of the twins
who also happened
to have a pair of eyes
that looked consistently
in opposite directions
was bullied from
adolescence to
graduation (yet

thanks to intense
twinly competition,
cornea fortuitously
graduated class
valedictorian, much
to corrina’s chagrin).

mmmmcclix

Jigsaw Jelly

the only hint the
quake had hit
was how the telly
wriggled just a wee
from back to forth
for a few secs with
msnbc on the screen,
an interview of quite
serious import. it
hadn’t seemed like
much but the place
they called home was
replete with pipes
corroded with such
rust that kerblooey!
must have went one
and then the whole
place got very smelly
in the least appetizing
way you might imagine
when the plot goes pop
in such a telling way.
ruth stood up and set
out to deduce the source
of the smelly, thinking
it had to be thattaway.
eve sat still on the cold
hard couch and switched
the channel on the telly
to anderson cooper. enid
seemed not to have noticed
a thing as she continued her
loud and off-key rendition of
lily of the valley in the back
room with the walls of green
(the shade of kelly) adorned
in such a way that one might
surely call shelly (for ruth, it
turns out, had an unruly in
fatuation with mollusks and
would collect them madly
ever since arriving from
new delhi; eve would take
the shelly heaps and pin
each one by one upon
the kelly green walls
in such a juvenile-y
way that one might
think she’d spent her
early years in cellie).
eve had switched
the telly to an episode
of happy days which
almost exclusively
featured fonz, the
fonzerelli. despite
the fact that the
original smelly had
gotten significantly
smellier, ruth was
back, but in the
kitchen making a
sandwich of peanut
butter and grape jelly.
in no time flat enid and
ruth joined eve upon
the cold and hard sofa
to watch the rest of
the sitcom featuring
arthur herbert fonzarelli.

mmmmcclviii

Railroad (Re)Route

the view was verdant,
the template of a
picturesque spring

at this end of the
desert; arboreal,
triumphant giant

redwoods would
occasionally align
with the slow-going

train. the trip thus
far had been sheer
perfection. it was

only the first day
of a nine-day trip.
arlo conked out

quite quickly in
his sleeper car
after dusk, just

before the loco
motive coasted
its way into the

arid and butted
portion of the
legendary trek,

chug-chugging
a white noise
that along with

the natural
gentle swoop
and sway of the

car of the train
nudged him into
such a deep sleep

in which, remark
ably, there would
emit from his

sleeping body
no discernible
esophageal

abrasions for
the entire night.
it was a rarity,

this rockabye baby
for arlo in that snug
sleeper. until around

six in the morning
local when he arose,
still with a rare ease

of breath. and then
came the twist of the
neck so as to catch a

glimpse of what he
assumed would be
more gorgeous. only.

the desolation. had
such a powerfully
draining impact on

his being that within
a minute he was
silently weeping.

he could not take
his eyes off the
sun-swept land

scape, and in
another minute
or so he was

sobbing violently.
rough asynchronous
gasps such that the

man had never
known. and the
feeling. the empty.

the entirety of his
focus remained
locked on the

vista as it slowly
moved from left
to right, and he

began to feel the
heat that he knew
would be nothing

compared with the
scorching that this 

hellish landscape must

surely be experiencing.
the depravity would
crescendo in such a

manner until mid-
afternoon. the heat
rose until he was

sweating so profusely.
and not one cart of
service would arrive

for the duration of
the devastating and
life-draining day in

which he could not
budge from the same
spot he had awoken,

staring out as far as
his eyes could make
out anything, which

seemed by the end
of the afternoon to
be lakes of molten

rock, mesas glowing
as if by nuclear rad
iation. at some point

was reached a limit.
by simple virtue of
what his eyes had

been taking in for
those several hours,
the feeling of loneliness

and impending death
or worse got to him.
and the heat. so that

by dusk of this horrendous
leg of the legendary train
trek through this most

austere and revered
country, the land he
loved in the country

in which he had always
lived, knocked him un
conscious. he was spent.

this had not been what
he had expected. he
awoke the next day

to warily glare out of 

that same window a river 

the train ran alongside

all morning in which
fish were flopping,
nature was replete,

beavers were damming,
frogs were leaping from
lily pad to overhung branch 

and back again, the occa

sional snake slithered for a 

while with its nose at 

the surface. breakfast

arrived and was
delicious. arlo,

however, was a
million light years
from the joy he

had experienced
on the first day of
the trip, when he

was but a rookie.
how would he
deal with this,

he kept wondering
all day, and the next
and the next. it was

all that mattered
to him. his life had
been irrevocably

twisted into the gloom
of a new purpose, an
overwhelming desire,

to do what? there
could surely be no…
remedy...for that into

which his very soul
had been immersed
for that one eternal day.

mmmmcclvii

Queen Quickly

girlfriend

how

mmmmcclvi

Inkblot Interior

is a bit similar to an
interior monologue
that is more of a
psychological test
in which the interior
of your skull is wall
papered with Ror
schach inkblots that
are decorative and
otherwise perfectly
impractical. except
if you could see how
lovely it is in here.
as i stare at these
beautiful abstract
designs draped
along the walls
of my interior,
i find that the
splotches, rather
than pull the un
developed ramb
ling ditherings
about in my
head not to
ward a notion
of what might
really be going
on within the
depths of my
mind, but instead
keep things open,
distracted from the
less abstract goings-
on that can diminish
or relinquish my focus
from where it needs to
be in order to get me
from where i am in
this droll exterior
world in which i float
about to wherever
it is that i am per
haps attempting
or wanting or
needing to be.
but then the prob
lem becomes rem
embering where that
is or might be, or
even hold a hint
about a general
direction. currently
i’m looking up,
at a supposed
ceiling, for any bit
of light that might
emit as if toward
me from those
heights. the
feeling this gives
is that of a man
trapped in a se
wer desperately
looking for a man
hole cover, anything
such from which i
might escape these
hellish depths. what
lovely wallpaper! it
keeps me on my toes
and has me going
places no one,
not even i, might
possibly know.

mmmmcclv

Vim, Vigor

these are strange times.
anything you say or do
might turn you into an
enemy, put you in dan
ger. the state of our
union ain’t that great,
as far as i can see.
but when you’re
way over and
into the pasture
on the idealist side
of the fence, it’s a
bit of a relief to see
that a man nearly
twice your age can
hold his own in what
one might call the
traditional court
of law. i’ll take
even an ounce
of that feisty
for myself,
if you don’t
mind. if you
find those
words to be
fighting words,
then perhaps you’d
best reign yourself
and your herd of
bullying elephants
in just a smidge,
else this pacifist
might be ready
for a knock-down
drag-out good old
fashioned fight.
i hope not.
but i still
feel it
right to
say.
just
in case.

mmmmccliv

Ohio Out

is a mood piece,
let’s say. geo
metrically it’s
a sagging ark
ansas. but,
hey, i’ve bad
mouthed geo
metry for dec
ades. i got a
post-graduate
degree in the
upper left cor
ner. the parch
ment was like
the frozen cov
er of earth the
frosty wind sw
ept over six
months out of
each year in
that desolation
—and there
were five.
don’t ask me
how i made it
out alive as i
barely remem
ber. but boy,
i packed that
car without a
heater full of
everything i
decided to
keep – a
bunch of
no good
stuff i’d
finally lose
the rest of
two coasts
and down
the road a
few years
later. my
face got
brighter, i’d
dare say, the
further away i
got from that
unbeveled and
bedeviled tun
dra. behind
a leathern
wheel i
skated out
to colder
climes i did.
with a hot
heart and
a harder
happiness
than i’d ev
er seen in
that most
godforsa
ken state.

mmmmccliii

Googling Gatekeepers

I was barely warned of these
etymological tectonics just

yesterday. To our horror,
someone had shot a llama

from a cannon. Up through
the biosphere it went, the

warbling llama. What else
is there to do when sweaters

have a distinct downturn in
the trend-o-sphere and

spittoons are no longer a
dime a dozen? These are

the things that will keep us
up at night for the rest of the

year. Stay tuned next week
for a new generation gap.

mmmmcclii

Libido Limbo

“I don’t make these things,
I just sell them.” “On

commission?!” Theodore
was already glum enough

before Skyler showed.
“I have to go,” said Skyler,

as if on cue. Theo wasn’t
much for goodbyes. The

day dimmed as if into the
depths of a bleak mythical

labyrinth. While Theo’s
soul dripped from his

very being into the
darkest cavern of

Purgatory, Skyler,
already several blocks

from his love’s shoppe,
was so overwhelmed

with desire that he
stopped dead in his

tracks, unable to
budge for what

might have been
an eternity.

mmmmccli

Define Deranged

Rod Serling’s This is the dimension of the
imagination has in the reality of today

presented a dish of tartare, which can be
any number of things depending on when

and where you discover it, from where you are

looking at it, or whether or not you are going 

to have the opportunity to eat it, whether you
even want to, or under what circumstances

you will or won’t be shoveling it into your
own digestive system, who pays for it, if

anyone, the setting, your age, your experi
ence with ingesting raw meat, should you

have had any up to this point, etc., and whe
ther or not you are listening to political

commentary at the time, what we might have
called news at some point previous, while

ruminating over such potentially nausea
ting and/or appetizing topics. Are you the

master of your domain? Whose domain, if
any, do you master? Does multi-tasking

make you feel like a special master or a
target inundated by rubber-dipped (prac

tice) ordnance? Is this a story of war games
or good taste or both? Would you have any

better topics rolling around in your head if for
four out of the five past weekends you’d found

yourself ambulanced to then lying flat on a
bed in a local emergency room for no less

than twelve hours each trip? Thanks to
severe nausea and diarrhea, which you

can now predict in a fairly timely fashion
by the preceding set of burps that taste

precisely so, and the horrifying weakness
that comes in a slow enough crawl during

the process. Yes you can predict when it will
hit you to within a few seconds, so you now

manage to call the ambulance just in time
to throw up all over its cargo bay (and team)

once you are situated snugly inside its well.
Yes, you have known what is coming and

you are ready for it. You are at the ready
and have learned to have a bag packed

for these things that come like clockwork.
You go ahead. I’ll be right here. If logic

dictates, at least. Until about an hour
and forty five minutes from right, ahem,

excuse me...from right...ahem...hang on
just a second...from right. This. Moment....

mmmmccl

Tuna Tartare

“This requires
good taste.”

(Define good.
Define taste.)

(Divine taste.)
“Taste changes,”

as in over long

or short periods

of time. Or some

times, say, when 

you bite into some
thing disgusting

(“Oh, did you

ever think it

was going to
be so very

tasty?”). So

it might be

worth repeat
ing that taste

changes. Duh!
(Define ranges.)

mmmmccxlix

Atonal Amtrack

This will put you off of it.
Mired for days, like a sugar
plum in hell with diarrhea and
the croup. A man can dream,

can’t he? I say whoa to this no,
the fan blades whirring for their
1,000th consecutive day. Maybe
a memory will help when all is else

sheer swill. I pull the wool over my
peepers and I’m on a train heading
south to NYC. Gliding past a gas
station in CT some kid filling an SUV

under a mosquito’d halo lit by a halo
gen moon sees me wave, waves back.