mmmmcccxlii

Unashamed

Sometimes I feel like I
Know where I’ve been. Who
I am. Where I am
Not supposed to be. And every

     So often. Like now. As I
     Kneel here next to my bed, peering
     Into the shadows beneath it,
     Not able to discern a solid thing,
     Neither my wallet, my brand new
     Eyeglasses, my new headphones nor my 

     Driver’s license. All are lost, like my housekeys. Like me.

mmmmcccxli

Social Discomfort

Get over yourself!
Ours is the best product in
Some time. Be resilient.
Socially network.
I always find ways to talk about myself.
Pen in hand, you look very appetizing.

      God, I hate this!
      One minute, everything
      Seems to work, the next minute, it’s all
      Sex, sex, sex!
      I’ve had enough of this nonsense.
      Perhaps I should give you a key to my apartment.

mmmmcccxl

Eight Months Underground

i get my exercise of late by
going for a daily swim in a
pool of disappearances. to

forget your gift: communication.
be it in plain-speak; layman’s
terms. academic. or both.

seeing the light at the end
of a tunnel and comparing
that to near-death experiences.

like i said, i’m not dead.
holding on to hope after
the summer fog evaporates.

how many times must 2 x 2
x 2 equal dated, equal late,
equal no dates, start with an

infernal earthquake. go back
to jack. get out the frank, the
frankly giving of a damn. grab

the real man and exercise that
plan. hail fortitude. trade in
the house with its foundation

of fog that you were thrown
like a bowling ball down
from the bleeding edge of

our fair city’s steepest incline
to roll into and all but dead
for a breezy summer fortress.

no more four more years
minus one, minus one,
minus one, minus one.

get back at zero by starting
to pile it on, this walking,
running, never digging

ever again. and then.
inhale more (recover)
denser oxygen, ex

the memory of the
shovel, then throw up
his godforsaken pitchfork.

rise from all fours until up
right. and now you’ve tipped
that dumb-ass cow of time.

mmmmcccxxxix

That’ll Never Do

My house is not
a spouse. My
bed is not a
head. This

sink could
never fill
up to the
tall glass

of water
I’d rather
see before
me. I pilfer

this closet
floor, shoe
after shoe
after

shoe—and
still can’t
in this
shifty

palace
find one
single precious
piece of you.

mmmmcccxxxviii

This Ought to Help

He reaches into his
back pocket and pulls
out something.  Un
beknownst to his

audience, who could
not begin to even
glimpse that he held
something in his hand.

As it turned out,
what he had pulled

from practically 

right out of his

butt, about which the 

crowd had no clue 

(and never did) was 

the magician’s sense

of humor. What be
came clear was
that the spectators
were bored to tears

or else, as a few of
them would by the
final act be,
to death.

mmmmcccxxxvii

Pinning Hope and Humor
on a Trove of Delusions

I have found that I am
all too inclined to believe
people. Despite all my
talk of skepticism and

being clear with myself
and with anyone who
cares to listen about
the easy fact that

everyone of us is
practically tied up
into knots within
a web of heresy.

That part I’m okay
with. How could
it not be this way?
In the rulebook of

life (to make things
just that much more
for reals, try picking
up a book of etiquette),

there are lies on every
other page. And inst
ructions for the endless
ways we need to pre

varicate on every
other. Thusly the
ties that bind begin
to come undone until

I find myself so out of
sorts, desperate for
honest human en
gagement, were it

to exist. I’d take
it just about however
I could get it, during
these, the most anxious

and self-annihilating times.
And so I reach out. And
I wait. And then I keep
reaching. And wait some

more. Sometimes this
goes on seemingly forever.
And then misguided hope
arrives, the bait has been

taken, and for whatever
reason you find you’ve
got a reaction, a real
human interaction.

Or so you think.
I get so blindsided
by these short inter
ruptions of silence.

They are most often
vague with a hint of
scolding, confusing
as a spanking for

something done
by a sibling. Poor
innocent me. But
within such responses

to my desperation there
always seems a thing
or two to which I cling,
until the words get

played within my
fogged up dust-
head for some
long weeks or

months. With
nothing else
coming from
that general

direction, no
more words.
Just the fact
that with in

evitability
must be
faced when
delusions are

not an option
(but aren’t they
always?): those
gems to which

I clung were
merely rhine
stones. A single
promise can’t be

found within the
invalidity of the
long-distant words
from whomever.

The more that
time unfolds
the more that’s
clear, there’s

nothing realer than
that most humans,
in the end, but
willingly and

without a
seeming tinge
of regret, will
almost always

disappear.
The problem
is all me, you
see, these

lessons teach,
one by one
until at last
I am an

inconsistent
blur of shadow
and uncertainty
and altogether

human-free.
And yet, I,
like some
untarnished

idiot, can never
quite extinguish
these last remain
ing dregs of hope.

mmmmcccxxvi

Customer Satisfaction Survey

How has the development
of maturity evolved over the
years? I’m asking whether or
not it has aged well. In the

Darwinian sense. One punch
line after another and eventually
not only does the reader fail to
buy into any of it, but this line

punches him right into the gut
and when he’s hurled over the
next bloodies his little button
nose. Reeling, he kicks the

book like a field goal into the
horizon’s pablum. Then what
becomes So what. Scoring ain’t
what it used to be. Now even the

thought of a bowl of alphabet soup
makes him sick to his stomach.

mmmmcccxxv

leaning

he got real intense,
leaned over and
practically into
the website....

gripping a cane
with his mottled
right hand, the
old man watched

another coming
at him with a tall
face divided in
half by a long

smile, arms
bent down to
a walker—two
broken hips

passing in
broad day
light....
holding

two overdue
invoices
in his left
hand, herc

ules was
doing his
damnedest
to navigate

the website
—disputed
documents
dot com—

without ask
ing anyone for
assistance....
in the middle

of the assisted
living center’s
luncheonette
-esque dining

hall stood a
bright red
boombox
blaring

bill withers’
lean on me....
charlie had
a wide circle

of friends.
when he died,
each of them
knew that

they now had
no one upon
whom they
could rely.

mmmmcccxxiv

Hello, Western Union?

Should I reactivate
August 1st? One
can only honk a horn
for so long before
bleeding to death.

mmmmcccxxiii

the email address for heaven?

take me back to
simpler days. the
days when corrup
tion was on the

down low. when
we’d watch the
good wife and
not the good

fight. ‘what
does it matter
that we’re a
country of laws

if the laws aren’t
just,’ over-enunci
ates an exasperated
diane lockhart via

the legendary
christine baranski
before our hero
takes a break

from reality,
succumbs to
microdosing
for an ecstatic

ally jaw-drop
ping duration.

mmmmcccxxii

14 or 15

I swear I had a plan.
That rare venom, a
dozen or so lines sewn
indivisibly onto the out

ers of my innards. And
at work the ladies give
themselves away in the
most amazing ways. How

to pretend the office is
abuzz, humming a pre-
quake brainstorm. The
men’s upper lips doinked

up and down while, like
puppets, their lower lips
stood as still as the rim 

of this godforsaken canyon.

mmmmcccxxi

How Not to Be Bitter

first thought, best thought.
no judgment. keep self in
check (self-worth, self-es
teem, self-effacement, no

self-loathing, no self-agg
randizement). do this all
with an open mind that
ably accepts criticism.

heart crit. need i say only
from good hearts? are
there bad ones? last re
search i conducted, living

well, much less nicely,
wasn’t automatic, yet 

required about as much
heart as being utterly

malicious. with wisdom
you’ll know the difference.
allow your values to shift.
invite karma. live object

ively, but with conviction.
and be transparent?  tran

sported? which shifts an en

emy’s aim, or any scoundrel’s, 

seeing right through you 

might well inspire the red 

hounds of hell to sniff out 

cloaks of invisibility. but 

being self-righteous burns.

oh, but there’s a point to
being right. but that does

n’t mean you have to err

on the side of caution.
unless a cautionary
tale is your nirvana.
the path to victory

is a river of blood.
bright red ego.
i don’t know.
always keep

a thing or
two up
your
sleeve.

the element
of surprise
leaves a
terrible

impression.
but—what a
conundrum—
gets curious

cats either
curiouser
or else just
plain killed.

mmmmcccxx

Glitter-laden FedEx Employee

The laptop I’ve named
Algae is in the bottom
left drawer next to a
blue handkerchief and

a signed photograph
of Tim Conway. It
resides in an eerie
box, mostly given

all of the glitter,
but needless to
say, glitter not
withstanding,

swear to god it’s
ready to go to Jack.

mmmmcccxix

Luck of the Draw

lots of people
have bad experi
ences some of
the time. know
ing no differently,
perhaps they ass
ume this is just
a characteristic
of being human.
the human con
dition. or just
conditioning.
some might
think this is
just the way
it is. we gen
erally are
blessed with
a larger amount
of good luck, while
occasionally exper
iencing some un
fortunate events
or time periods.
do you know any
one at all who only
ever has good luck?
or only ever has
bad luck? i have
lived a life that
can be most
easily described
as abundant, filled
with good stuff,
inundated with
it, even. up
until i turned
around forty-
five, i’d say.
ever since
then i say
i jive with
a separate
group, which
are those for

whom bad luck

seems the over

whelming norm. 

as fair or as
even-handed as
that may sound,
taking my life as
a whole, i can
assert with con
viction that this
new phase really
pisses me off.

mmmmcccxviii

Strobe Light Special

tonight i want to
read up on the
whole strobe lights
causing seizures for

people with epilepsy
thing. i have seen,
to the best of my
knowledge, two per

sons have seizures in
my presence. when
i describe these events
to my best friend he

says it sounds like they
were stimming, and his
tone comes across as if
he is describing a pleas

ant walk through the
garden of eden. my
instinct says nothing
could be further from

the truth. there’s
also the notion
that’s stuck inside
of me that seizures

usually involve hard
and/or illicit drugs.
in my aforementioned
experience, drugs were

definitely involved in at
least 50% of the times
in which i witnessed a
person have a seizure.

mmmmcccxvii

The Winter Months

are hard to be distinguished
from all of the other months.

sometimes around here they
are perceived neither warmer

nor cooler than the same
duration of summer months.

what’s more, the autumn and
the spring, while often celeb

rated with gusto in various
ways, more often than not

seem to have no discernible
differences from these seasons,

or even from each other, as
well. there was a bag of

truffles on the living room
coffee table. the coolest days

here are always my favorite.
i know a man who, when he

visits at that time, warms the
entire climate with his very

presence. which for me
could be horrible since i

despise heat and revile
any humidity that might

go along with that even
worse. all of this talk of

temperature is irrelevant,
however, since the afore

mentioned coolest days
are simply fonzarelli cool.

mmmmcccxvi

Brow-beaten

Sometimes do I
hit my forehead.
with the soft parts
of my clenched fists?

I do. I see this happen
to others occasionally –
either in reality or in the
various fictional avenues

of art and literature. Miri
am Margolyes eats an
onion and then pounds her
breasts using the finger-

faces of her fists like an
ape, a seemingly similar
feat to the brow-beating,
but I couldn’t begin to tell

(although I have my ideas)
which of these two boxing
styles are more painful.
Which is likely not the

point. I mean, the
real pain has already
occurred for one to
beat themself up so,

it surely seems to me.
Though in reality, the 

scene with Miriam 

might’ve only included 

the munching of 

the onion. I thought
of her breasts as
she seems rather

fond of showing them
off. I do hope all
of this furious bang
ing and beating

subsides soon,
however. As I’ve
no patience with pain
nor periods of duress.

mmmmcccxv

Skin-tight Rainbow

A palette with a bunch of
humps. A beanie of silk
atop each of the humps.

Atop the palette – a make
shift mattress – there are
two men lying. Soon they

are writhing through the
humps with silk beanies,
all one hundred of them

(100 humps, 100 beanies)
the caps sewn together in
the manner of a 100-bos

omed bra worn as a slinky
dress that’s showing lots
of skin. This is the kind

of sex with styrofoam
that drives you back
into my memory, the

one I built a wall around
just in case this might
eventually be attempted.

I keep at these things
as everyone else keeps
finding new ways for

me to disappear.