mmmmcdxvi

Dumb-Ass Lines That Rise
To An Occasion Infinitely
Greater Than Stupid Words

I’ve stories cute.
I’ve stories true.

I’ve tragic tales
which I can’t tell

without wailing.
I’ve got jokes

I deliver as smooth
as you’d want and

you’d laugh and
you’d laugh and

I’d say I had fun.
I can puff up a myth

and so awkwardly
that by the story’s end

there’d be no one
left listening. And

call me a fool if you
will and I am, it’s quite

true, but the ones I
tell better are straight

from the heart (or so
I do love to fantasize

and consider it but
the purest art). But

come what may,
no matter how you

take them, the ones
like that, they never

fail to get to me
and in the richest

and most significant
ways. And every

single one, while
perhaps with slight

exaggeration are
nonetheless as true

as true and (read
them for yourself,

I tell you no lie)
every last one

is all about me,
of course, and

how this poor
downtrodden

guy lives on
the very same

planet as—and
landed—

lovely and
beautiful you.

mmmmcdxv

The Tragic Life of Doug the Dove

I ask the birds to go away,
say we can play another day.

(Yet all my birds stay grounded tight
with wingless waddles on the roof.)

This message isn’t erudite.
It lays the groundwork for a flight

map to a city filled with love’s potential.
As metaphor, enter our dove

who wears a pair of boxing gloves,
which rather than just pull a punch

give a pigeon pal a distinct shove
right off the rooftop fire escape.

Down and down that pigeon fell,
“I hope into the depths of hell,”

said Doug the dove, “It’s getting late,
and that was just a bad bird’s fate.”

He’d look his bird girl in the face
if only she’d not turned away

and waddled to the other side
of their fair rooftop garden place,

a lush love nest, oh, it had been
for those two lovebirds filled with pride.

Why, just for breakfast they had crepes
and now that it was time for lunch

or right before their oldest pal
the pigeon met his early death

she’d scanned for a spare pair of plates.
“Oh, we’ve got plans, a special date,”

cooed Doug, his beak awash with spittle,
yes, Doug the murderer’s white-whistled din

was hijacked by the grand chanteuse
who broke into a song aimed at their city

with warbles any bird would pity
“Oh callow fowl what horrid riddles

rang sleekly through your sickly-slick beak
into my stupid, stupid heart. Oh, how

you’ve made me all but fall apart just now,”
with those last words she made a bow

that twisted her poor body round
until her killer bird had found

his way into her eye’s periphery
then up she rose most eerily

and twisted back toward the city’s
rooftops over which she then

dramatically soared a while
before the ugly angular swoop

that took her straight down to a stoop,
a landing that would shatter all

her bones, her brains, her wings. That fall
was all old Doug from there’d remember

until he fluttered about death’s embers
muttering something about long lost lovers

and hopes and dreams and scary things
like stabbing, killing and maiming wings

of birds he’d known with no excuse
but for the trauma of his youth.

And as a chick Doug was a bird
of means. He’d truly had it all.

He’d come from such a legacy that word
was confident he’d be the greatest.

Any bird that walked next day down lovers’ lane
would see in massive font upon the Birdnews’

cover, from first edition to the latest,
but one headline that read as plain

as day: “The bigger the bird the greater
the fall.” That was it and that was all.

mmmmcdxiv

I wanna rock right now
           —Rob Base and D.J. E-Z Rock

Like slamming into a brick wall. Being
slammed into one, wow, is that a memory,
now that I’ve been more off than on? So
out of touch. And by touch I mean. Spotify

thinks I am a Gen Z influencer. Can you believe
influencer? Can you believe content creator? Do
you think I mind how old I am? I’m into duration.
What I’m not into is girth. Do you think I like

looking like I’m about to give birth? I never
wanted a baby from me. To come from me. The
idea of what it would take to have one. To come.
To go. Although going was never really for me.

Unless it was all weekend. All night was fine, too.
This has been me coming at you like a space cow
boy from somewhere in the past thinking about
the notch of your now. And of mine, too. Hopefully.

mmmmcdxiii

It Takes Two

to make it outta site
     —Rob Base and D.J. E-Z Rock

“Et tu, Brute?”

    “I, too, tango, Bucko!”

mmmmcdxii

so i am at miss saigon,
the vietnamese joint
at the end of my block.
having ordered, i open

my book to a page with
the words lemongrass
and coconut. an ashbery
coincidence, perhaps. but

such serendipity is a part
of life. i am stuck, though,
on a fresh conversation, can’t
concentrate. about family,

being closeted, rumors,
bullies, my love faced
with much of the middle-
ground horrid we encounter.

and he bows, his tendency
to not bring these things up,
despite me, despite plans,
despite closeness to his

family. and, as always, i can’t
help. his way is not mine but
living with these has seemed
to erase his hopes and his own

values and person, at least mom
entarily. now he sleeps to escape.
we all choose escape from what
we choose not to confront when

the real escape seems as not-so-
obvious as it might, especially
for those of us who have been
through such stuff. i get it, though.

sometimes we can’t budge. if we
could, i would certainly be there in
a heartbeat. to take him away from
that which cannot be escaped. to show

the anxious giddiness of taking risks.
i think of what i refused to confront
over the years. a lifetime of such. i
tell him he is not the perp, that he is,

in fact, the victim. that rumors mean
he is an interesting subject to those
who participate in such drama, but he
just sees the negative. i can’t help but

understand. sweet dreams, my love.
my wish for you tonight is that you do
not feel the need to escape much longer.
there is such freedom in the letting go

of such unnecessary noises.  of listening

instead to the reality of what lies ahead.

mmmmcdxi

“I don’t get the reference.”

A phrase which might find you
somewhere in the vicinity of my
age. I say it a lot, thinking “I’m
so old!” I’m mostly kidding. I

mean I’m to the point where I’ve
begun to often have this thought:
“I’m old.” That isn’t so negative,
is it? And I’m fortunate to have

the means by which I can usually
glean the meaning of some odd,
bizarre or up-to-this-point mean
ingless reference. Plus I’ve a dic

tionary for discovering the heinous
meanings that now lie beneath all
of what had been until recently our
most innocuous words. Does having

to do this kind of homework make
me feel older? Sure. But it also gives
this elder a rejuvenated, more broad-
minded, giddy and even hopeful sense

that the world is somehow being righted
by and about what is to come. What
I’ll never even know. What is not lost
on me is the twisted sense of humor.

What a promising set of comedians these
less old folks are to have so slyly turned
language on its ears and into such a romp.

mmmmcdx

Move in with us!
          —John Ashbery

Oh, sure. I remember the
San Francisco to which I
moved, coming from
a supposedly much more

uptight Boston. The year
was 2000. Easy enough.
Times were Clintonian.
And perhaps that could

have been the problem,
in hindsight. Although
he would stay in office,
despite infidelity. Any

way, I was in an open
relationship. It had
been a way. Nothing
all too new. But if

things grew flirtatious
with a relative stranger—
which would not too often
happen, truth be told—

and I inevitably began
to explain, so as to allay
any problematic, that I
was in an open relation

ship (I’d say, We’re com
mitted but we sometimes
date other people.), I mean,
the contortions, the disbelief

on the faces of those attractive
strangers. Some would literally
leave then and there. Others
would sternly suggest they would

want nothing of that. Still others
were curious but skeptical. Would ask
all sorts of questions about the
logistics of such an arrangement.

And I thought I had moved to
the most progressive city in
the nation. I was stunned.
And so I spent the next

couple of years doing a
lot of explaining and rarely
anything else, if you know
what I mean? Now that I

don’t participate in this
dance, it appears from
the outside looking in
that things may have

changed. So I ask you,
Have they? Really? I’m
insterested. Not that I
would ever step back in

to that fray, but more ob

serve, let’s say, as I do,
from a cultural anthrop
ological angle. The

mating ritual always
having piqued my
interest, and still
does, even as the

actual mating itself,
especially that of the
more nontraditional
nature, has long

seemed most often
to require much more
effort, overwhelming
whatever the potential

outcome might, if things
were in any way to go
in a hopeful direction,
surely be.

mmmmcdix

Some days you just don’t want to be perceived.
                                               —Taylor Tomlinson

Like yesterday, for example.
What is this talk of having no
friends, anyway? Liar. And
so there was engagement for

hours, unexpected camaraderie
followed by a walk through a
dark and perfectly cool night
in the city that had brought us

together all those years ago.
I had planned on writing a few
of these, cleaning up my neg
lected apartment that had

gotten all cluttered from a long
and stressful week at work. At
work, as I’m doing my job, there
are always people coming and

going, many of whom I do not
know at all. Some of them stop
to say hello. In less than two
minutes we are often engaged

in a very complex conversation
of astounding depth and breadth.

mmmmcdviii

Wormface Vile Inn’s Palsy

Thwacks include                            The Reginald
Innie locks                                    Sex Yuri T.

Weep out an udder                        Staph haze
Sly dopes sheer                             A dish urinal

Thin pan’s                                     Reese’s sore is
Axis able                                       Inn mace’s

Wreath choired                              Fall owe up
Reese’s shire                                 Is Cessmont

Ducal any nigh one                        Terror know
Into gritty wrens                            Got apse sect

Everett hangs tacit                        A pond to follow
Drown. Whoosh!                           Two witch-eyed old pins

Months reap, eat,                         Toothies apt oak west teens
[Arroyo]                                      Luck forth a

Porous terse                                Owl thinkest at 

Howl lo-cal                                  Rep Hera

mmmmcdvii

Biggest Racy Race Yet

Today I rode in the Kentucky Derby.
That lie wasn’t as fantastic as it felt.
But there have been horses. A few
of them. And ghosts of other horses.

What I generally lie about is of no
nevermind. But this I can tell you.
We made it to the Big W before any
of the others. Wait a minute. That

was when I found myself in a movie
full of washed up comedians. To be
forward it was a great success of a
flick. Was it the first of its kind, this

film of assorted nearly dead comedians?
Burt Reynolds just winked at me in real time.

mmmmcdvi

Teasing Away the Burden of a Day

     I’m infused with the day
     even tho the day may destroy me.
                              —John Wieners

I’ve watched the news, and
like every week’s lately it’s
big news, nerve-wracking
news, stuff happens in one

singular day that could be
all of the headlines for a
month. And sure, today’s
news, while big, or its big

gest news, as news relates
to me, as my interest in the
news, news junky that I am,
exists, found me breathing

easier, the accumulated
burden that I’ve been
carrying (I’m not alone,
with regard to this one

thing, there are millions of
us carrying this weight)
feeling lighter, a palpable
vertically-rejuvenated gait

combines with whatever
swagger I premeditate
and then perform, has me
feeling perhaps ten years

younger. And, oh, ten
years ago. If I stop what
I’m doing just to hark back
for a moment, I can

begin to understand that
massive portion of the
population that seem
ever-bent, necks twisted,

looking backwards, lost
in the fog of nostalgia.
Lost in a fog is my own
odd state given my bent 

to spend so much time
glaring at the past and
examining my present.
But I don’t do this to

lose myself in the glory
days of youth. I think
of it more as a scientific
approach toward what’s

to come, the future. It’s
limited (meaning in duration,
not edition), and elsewise
nothing but a dry run. I’d

like to make the best of it.
To make it my best. It
hasn’t always worked out,
but I shudder to imagine

who I’d be if this hadn’t
been the way I twist for
all these years. When
driving, one cannot

spend a lot of time
looking backwards
is just my experience.
Right ahead happens to 

be my primary line of focus.

Nothing against anyone
else’s reality, really.
Meanwhile, I do hope

that you have enjoyed
these freshly-minted lines
about little old me.

mmmmcdv

Derivative

The very first poem
I wrote was called
“Math.” It was an
assignment (“Write
a sonnet.”) that
was given to my
class as homework
when I was in
fourth grade

mmmmcdiv

and what do I do with these notes?

sometimes I’ll go five six days without
writing a note. not one. and I have
to tell you, or maybe it’s just that I
want to tell you. I want to tell you
that when I go nearly a week with
out writing one single note there
is something physical that begins
to settle within me. that is an
illness. like a cold or something.
more like a stomach virus. like
what we call food poisoning, does
that not cover a lot, food poisoning?
yes it seems to me that is a particularly
good way to describe what it is like. there
is this getting sick that happens in which
it feels that all of what is inside of me
needs to come out and tries so hard
to do so but nothing does. so my
entire body becomes this thick
achy swollen log sort of thing
and I’ll sit with it and sit with
it and sometimes I have to
go to work or take a walk
to the grocery store or
run errands but I’ll do
just about anything to
get out of moving at all
when I’ve not taken a
note for several days.
it doesn’t take very
long for me to realize.
in fact the older I get
the sooner into this
big achy swollen log
thing I am when I
realize that of course.
I haven’t taken a note
in nearly a week. and
notes are easy. how
easy it is to write a
note! some notes
are easier to write
than others but come
on. so I write it down
whatever it is I write
and almost immediately
I feel just fine.

mmmmcdiii

these aren’t reasons

the thing I hear a lot and
this has been true for as
long as I can remember
is get to the point. get

to the point, I’ll hear.
cut to the chase, I think.
whittle it down to only
what is necessary, I

wonder what is necessary.
I wonder. and what is the
reason you are telling me
this, I’ll imagine someone

is thinking as I’m about a
third into a very particular
explanation. about some
thing that to me is quite

important. to relay. so
that others may understand
what is going on. with me.
or in general. I’m not really

sure, I think. at work there
is sometimes the need for a
discussion. for talk. for an
explanation. so I explain.

get to the point, they say.

mmmmcdii

the thing I do

the thing I do is the thing I do is
I take notes. lots of notes meeting
notes to do lists notes for poems I
wanna write notes about notes and

notes for other notes. and what do
I do with these notes? I’m not sure.
I’m going through my notes and I’m
still going through these notes and I’ll

tell you what. just bear with me for
a duration, if you will. [the sound
of fluttering paper fills the arena
coffin-sized room]. would it be

okay if you just can you just come
back later? I’ll tell you as soon as
I figure that out. how might I
reach you when I do? thank

you for coming. have a good
night everybody.

mmmmcdi

youth

scattered across the
countryside like cows,
animals of a kind,
youth,
show us what they
think they have.
the rest of us
grow cross,
place one arm
over another and
glare or pretend
not to stare.
those with
more discipline
make good with
a side-eye of glum.
those with a modicum
of pity go about their
business without a
singular stance that
would not allow even the
blurriest patch of this ilk
into their peripheral visions, 

but be they ignoring, glimpsing,

or glaring that herd, they busy

bodies know that what these

distant younger middlings they

still call kids have. and they know
it is piping hot, too, down here
in the valley of the moment.
but more than that, the
naive show-offs practicing
their poses for each other,
and perhaps, but a much
smaller fraction, percentage-
wise, for their mothers and
fathers, those wise asses
who can’t keep their eyes

(or minds) off of them, have 

something those curious, envious
providers do not: a whole lot of
potential. but theworst part, and 

these loving oglers know this, too,
is that most will never begin
to see it, even if frantically
searching for it, whatever
it might be. and most
that do finally catch a
glimpse don’t bother

to lift a finger at it,
much less stretch out
a lanky arm, its bones
still vibrating from 
physical growth,
in a decent
attempt to
grasp it.

mmmmcd

shifting ground

to have one’s feet
firmly on the ground.

how important it is
and yet how important

to seek out the uncom
fortability of flying, of

having no ground upon
which you can stand.

rollercoasters, recreat
ional drugs, taking one

self out of one’s com
fort zone, these are all

ways to tease oneself
into a surreality. to

fly from the ground
or be unable to stand

or to get so vertiginous
that look, how cool, i’ve

shaken up my routine,
i’ve done what’s neces

sary in order to gather
new perspective. these

are some of the more fun
ways to screw with reality.

then there are the times
that you might find your

self crawling on the floor
so dizzy you cannot do

anything to force yourself
to stand erect. or your

boat has capsized, this
could be a metaphor, but

imagine the reality—you
must swim either until

you are found, captured,
saved, eaten or reach the

relative solidity, even if
nothing but consisting of

the tiniest grains of sand,
you’ve made it to a shore,

you’ve found land, that
relatively solid ground.

today seems a topsy-
turvy world. the ground

seems to be shaking, i’m
dizzy, i keep thinking i

hear something about
being careful for the

quicksand. up seems
down and down seems

up. there is nothing
giddy about today’s set

of unknowns. if i were
to think on it, my mind

would develop a labyrinth,
and i’d go lower and lower,

thinking of the darkest
possibilities, how they

surely could be true,
and as if overnight

this feeling has come.
built up for years, with

memories of trauma
that i now clearly have,

i remember this feeling.
it is very similar. if these

unexpected twists amount
to learning, experiencing,

and moving forward, I’m all
for it. I’m so very in favor

of that. But how can I do
anything to assist that things

move in that direction? How
might I not just delay something

inevitable and horrid, but
eliminate it entirely? Just as 

I’ve made way out of what I 

hope are the worst depths, the

darkest years of my life.
Every single tiny act had

unforeseen and abnormally
numerous obstacles. But

today, I find myself thrown
back into the unknown, feel

frozen in a present in which
if there is a future, how

will it be in any way re
cognizable? How will I

navigate the indeterminate
earth this time? And if I

make it to a firmer location,
what will that place be and

will I know more about how
to live upon it in the best way

by having gone through the
indeterminable current time

period? These questions are
exhausting. And not exhaustive.

What motivates you, I wonder,
to keep going during such times?

What will motivate me?

mmmmcccxcix

Don’t judge a book by its cover if you’re half blind.

Also, if you keep your mind
so open all the time it’ll leak
right out before you know it. 

And speaking of the tick of

the clock, time heals some 

wounds, particularly the
ones you take good care
of. Allow thou, then, when

all seems lost an avenue
out, an outlet, a period
of rest, exclamation point.
Don’t be coy about your

future. Once you find
yourself caught in a
predicament, you must
first seek out the nearest

bottle of Pepto-Bismol.
So if it ain’t in your
meds cabinet already,
what the hell are you

doing still listening to
me? I’ll rattle out an
infinite spume of non
sense no matter whose

presence I happen to
be enjoying. Which is
most always nobody’s.

What a swell gift your

presence would be,
though. If only I knew
how to find you, I’d take
the time to do just that,

in hopes I’d have the
actual time. And if I
don’t, at least I can’t
say I did something.

mmmmcccxcviii

America you boil over
                  —John Wieners

I begin in my coffin-sized home^*
knowing how to brood what is
dark. ^*Here there is no toilet,
only a sink, the flow down its

drain slowed from these nearly
suffocating years. I don’t want
to talk about it. But I once moved
coolly from state to state. Before

the days when doing so meant
out of the frying pan into the
fire. Memories of July 4th ammo
pop and splatter in my head,

echoing nostalgia’s warmth and
that life-long era of progression,
the only one we knew, that stirred
such giddy optimism. That is until

the men, still chewing at bones—
mouths with canine teeth too intimate
with flesh, the gnawing and split
ting of it—swam from the tops

of their towers and over the Rockies,
the Ozarks, the Appalachians, dove
into the Pacific, and from its deepest
caverns sought that thin line of light

toward which to aim before their
aqualungs were blown up by
the brine. They thought that
golden sliver of shine would

show them to the surface,
lead them to the moon they’d
seen but never felt. Instead,
with fingers welded to elaborate

triggers, they would rule the
planet with such fear they’d
frighten even (or especially)
earth’s most naive inhabit

ants. Upon overladen thrones
they survey their kingdoms of
cartographers and so-called
space explorers, who are

all anxiously at the ready,
mapping the cleanest ways
to the dark side of the moon,
that goofy golf ball in the sky.

These rude rulers wonder where
it goes when it is gone, which is
when they cannot see it. And
like men with no memory, for

that is who they choose to be,
joy and terror fill their soulless
selves as they walk from mountain
top to tops of further mountains,

careful of the boundaries that are
invisible, craven for that chalk-
white grief-filled glimmer that
never fails to startle each into

a dumb shock when it is caught
but with a glance from the corner
of a shrunken yellowed eye.

mmmmcccxcvii

I begin in blue knowing what’s cool
                          —John Wieners

because I’ve been down

Fillmore enveloped by the

bruise-colored fog and I

know the blues more than

just personally. the sun up

there somewhere trying to

burn it all up into global war

ming. my hot heart sieving

ice, I’ve been slumped over

with Miles for miles, wake up

from a dream not knowing

whether it’s a dream or if it’s

real in which we’re caught at

the crux of two behemoths,

monster California blazes 

blown up like nuclear mushrooms 

by the swift-twisting winds, the 

dead of summer.  maybe it was 

just a dream. it was probably

a dream. now, shivering, having

lost my Miles, who would’ve 

ever thought?  frozen to the 

bone in San Francisco.

mmmmcccxcvi

Back to Basics

I know this wienie,
he doesn’t read, or
hasn’t in quite some
time. He used to. In

fact he’d keep an on
going list of every sin
gle book he ever read,
alphabetically by author.

I’ve got it here some
where. Then a year into
what we now seem to
lovingly call the pandemic,

he caught it, that scary
thing that isolated most
of us, this guy who used
to read. Covid. His case

was special, as it turns
out, because in the middle
of living through the aches
and the fevers and the scary

unknown and not being able
to smell anything (that’s how
he knew, before he got his
test, he opened a brand new

half gallon plastic bottle of
Pine-Sol, put his nose right
at the mouth of the bottle
where the lid had been and

took a deep whiff and smelled
absolutely nothing. Whoa! he
thought). But then he was also
getting up every hour having

to pee. And he also found him
self with an insatiable thirst, a
constant; he could drink as much
of anything at all and yet couldn’t

be quenched. And, the worst of
the worst, he’d wake up of a morn
ing and pull out a book, like usual,
and the words on the page were

nothing but a blur. Now that was
weird. And it really hasn’t changed
for him since. Despite the fact that
he was very shortly after recovering

from Covid diagnosed with diabetes,
hence all the random and more dia
betic-like symptoms. He visited an
ophthalmologist, got a new prescrip

tion for his glasses lenses, tried bi
focals and the newfangled alter
natives. But still, he wakes of a
morning, can see nothing much

but a blur on the page or screen 

until he cleans his glasses and 

screws up his head and puts his 

nose in the book or on the screen.

Well, Fuck that! I heard him
say several years into this,
having not read a book for
over a year and a half, or

not finished one, at least.
And so tonight he tells me
that he just finished reading
a book of poetry for the first

time since the pandemic, as
he lovingly calls that time-
period in which he got
Covid, diabetes, laid off

from his first full-time job 

in a decade and stopped
reading for a few years.

mmmmcccxcv

Who Are We Living For?

Can we not change the subject?
Didn’t everyone in the history of
everyone live during a pivotal time
in history. From some angle? Which

time was most pivotal? That’s not rhet
orical. Is this when we throw our hands
up and say we’ve just been too curious?
Who here thinks they’re simply a cog in

a wheel? Well, not a wheel, but, oh, let’s
say a globe. Now I’m being too cute by half.
Hm, that’s the first moment I brought things
back to a singular me. I started this entire

thing wondering about the gutlessness of the
utilization of the plural, we. Who else is here
that isn’t saying, Oh, so he alone lives. We’d
all rather condescendingly tut-tut than own up?

mmmmcccxciv

Try Me

do all of these words
aligning the fancy
paper within these
pretty envelopes
tell the very
same story?

perhaps we
need a few
gophers running
around telling us all—
demanding—that we
tell it differently. or
that we say something
entirely different, top
to bottom.

we being the few of us
correspondents who are
left, trying to introduce
ourselves to perfect
strangers, day in
and day out.

the few of us. haven’t
the numbers been
recently crunched?
aren’t there more
of us now than ever?

and when we each
read the words scrawled
upon one of those pretty
pages after ripping open
one of those envelopes
that has only just arrived,
are we not just a little too loud
with our hello, nice to meet you,
my name is so-and-so, and i am
so happy to receive your missive.

i’m single. well, i’m actually
in an open relationship, but
the real truth is i’m married,
fully committed, and i’m staring
over this pretty letter out to my
backyard from my porch swing
that i swing back and forth upon
most evenings because the weather
is always nice here. i grew up in...
i went to school at... in the armpit
of the nation, that is correct. i studied
a lot of things, but more than anything,
school was a place where i began to really
understand who i was. and who i am is....

mmmmcccxciii

Journalistic Research

it’s not possible to be
impartial

with a sense of humor.
so i preach

for days. it’s not silly
in the least.

it’s not pretty. these
are the understatements

we wear like armor.
which i call

underwear. i find
nowhere to stop

being the world’s
lonely only

cop. it bears
repeating that

impartiality requires
a distinct lack of humor.

the funny kind. so
ain’t it a kick

that i’ve taken up
directing traffic,

which, okay, is a
clown’s job if ever

there was one. but
let’s say there was a murder,

attempted, premeditated,
completed, a double homicide, even.

whatever. and they send a
dummy like me to clean up

the mess. or more hilarious,
as a preventative? let me

just ask you, in all seriousness,
if it were your last minutes,

and you were this close to
being a goner, where would

you rather be: sitting in
church in the middle

of a sermon, or in the
audience during

a stand-up comedy
performance?

mmmmcccxcii

Birds in Such Colorful Display

Lately I’ve been recording
a lot of my own pages of
writing, my own poems,
the poems in this very

long group of my
almost daily writings,
and so I’ve been posting
many of these recordings

that I’ve made out loud of
my own words knitted with
intention at various aspects
of the past twenty-two years,

occasionally finding sets that
I wish I could catch the spirit
of writing today. Sometimes
that is almost possible. In the

style of. Rather than renditions
or riffs on short parts of poems
or even new versions of entire
pieces, which are often easier to

do?  Yeah. Today the ones that have
given me the itch to try to repeat
stylistically are from sixteen, seven
teen and eighteen years ago around

this time of year, summer. How
specific I’m being. Yet how vague,
because is it the style of a piece I
want to duplicate or what I might

have been feeling at the time that
I wrote these pieces that give me
a bit of a tingle up the spine like a
few of them have for me today?

Perhaps it is strictly impossible, this
repetition or revival of whatever it
was. Of course I can’t be or do the
same exact thing altogether so as

to create in me such duplicate desire, 

but the attempts at these things can
set off a series of echoes that are,
as far as I am concerned, nice to

listen to. But I’m not the same.
Even a line identical to one I wrote
however long ago will mean a thing at

such a distance far from what the original 

line did.  It is as if the lines speak un

ecognizable languages at each other;

they look the same but are so many
years separated from each other.

This lack of resolution, the gap between
meaning, is the joy of it all, no matter
how fun it is to try on the old woven
words as if a jacket found at the darkest

end of a closet, were I to have
such an aged one that I might explore.

mmmmcccxci

When In Doubt, Call A Friend

should have been the punch line
of today, and vengeance isn’t
anything that comes easy to me,
but I’ll rebelliously rather begin with

the fortune that I received in the
cookie that was in the little plastic
baggie I received with my main
and only meal of the day today at

Panda Express in what was recently
called Westfield Mall in, I’ll go ahead
and say it just this once, dying down
town San Francisco, sometime mid-

afternoon. Where I lost my wallet
either at the cash register trying
unsuccessfully to receive a 20%
discount I was promised via email.

Or at the soda fountain after getting
all of my food after that unsuccessful
attempt somehow together in one
clump within my arms. Or at the

table so close to that soda fountain
(in case I needed an extra sip or two
before I finished my meal) where I
devoured my dinner. Or in the trash

can as I left the mall to head toward
Target, which is where I, after filling
up a grocery cart, finally realized my
wallet was missing, that it had no doubt

been discarded or left with all of the
plastic and green and government
issued thisses and thats that we all
deem so important because of their

absolute necessity at times—at one
of those four locations I just mentioned.
So rather than punch the end of the day,
I just thought I’d get it out of the way,

so that I might perhaps move forward
past 10:45pm on a night when I need
sleep, for tomorrow will be a gnarly one
at my job, and jobs—and jobs—are the

most important things not to lose in

this era of my clumsily slapdash life.

mmmmcccxc

a smile breaking along the groin
                     —Evan Kennedy

Things we all wish for. Like
acceptance and earth. For
glory. Or, if hungry, a pear,
an apple, an avocado. Or,

if really hungry, the push
of an extended belt buckle
on a dance floor. That’s no
belt buckle. After parking

each leather-clad horse,
the bumpy couple enters
a room over the saloon
that looks slept in singly.

The room sees the pair
fold and crumple, gets
a quarter night’s eye
full. And then, the

morning joins. The
audience is glued
until eleven or so
when the men dress,

retire to the saloon.
Poor noon.

mmmmccclxxxix

Rights

The celebration

site had been

shuttered, the

bragging rights,

what of them

that could still

be found,

bloody hand

held shards

left scattered

from the dis

integration.

mmmmccclxxxviii

Words in Such a Way

If half the book I write into
the ether thinks it is a book
then it is a book. This taking
the if I say I’m a poet then I

am a poet notion one step fur

ther. But is it just a notion? 

These things are lives unto 

themselves and those, if there

be any, who choose to read
them. I don’t. Not in the
ether. These I just breathe
in like the air that generally

or most times does not suffo
cate. The potions of airy air
that I send out into the world
are meant as a laughing gas,

not carbon monoxide. Most
often. Usually? No, not I.

mmmmccclxxxvii

If When I Use These
Words in Such a Way

I think I am the most me
then when I am actually most
being myself in that way that
there is no such thing as full

transparency? I believe I am.
I wonder all the time who that
is. I try to stake my claim (my
values?) and even at times force

myself into shape within that maze
of stakes. Or play it like a pinball
machine hoping for the ball to go
this way. No, that. This is one of the

many ways in which I construct that
which in the end will be called myself.

mmmmccclxxxvi

Moving Right Along

The hysteria of optimism pervaded.
I can remember it. I don’t want to
go back there, but don’t we all? It
seems so backwards-headed, this

retro I find myself looking forward
to. It is the direction I catch myself
looking. I think it was the afternoon
I spent in Tallinn, doing some sort of

run-of-the-mill tour of an old part of
the city. Big white wooden walls, a
bell tower, something like that. I’m
snapping away with my phone and I

see a rare line of graffiti scribbled
in waves, vertiginous swerves, at the
bottom of one of those walls, or near
where it met a leg-size height of con

crete. “Retro-futurism.” That’s all it
said. In Tallinn, Estonia. The guy
standing next to it like some old-timey
Vanna White, an arm half-outstretched

at it, as if for emphasis or something.