mmmmcdxlvii

Mom & Her Big Colorful Hat

My mother has never lost
her faith. See how she wears
her new striped hat courtesy of
an ex, who is, step by step
in the background, painfully
downing glasses of wine.

What color are the stripes?
Is the hat actually colorful?
Not like the rest of her out
fit, upon which there seems
to be a ‘painted’ Italian vista,
which, from my perspective

looks to be just outside of Firenze.
Two tall walls go breast to sleeve,
leaving an admirer, if one is able
to lower their gaze from that
very loud hat, the ability to
peer through what would be,

without the artistic license
of the shirt’s designer, more
brick wall as seen from inside,
or out, a very tall wall, the color
of brick so particular to this part
of Italy. What can be viewed instead,

‘through’ what would be Mom’s
neck down via her sternum to her
navel is a terrain-slanted Italian
countryside with a few tables replete
with umbrellas splayed indicscriminately
but no doubt next to some unseen

trattoria, and in the distance a church
with an extremely high belfry. Today, one
might just imagine those bells ringing. But
here in California, we have barrels of wine,
instead. With which, me, my elegant mom
and my motley crew are more than okay.

mmmmcdxlvi

Ageism

I don’t have the
time of day. At
first, when living
alone, one could
not ask anyone
for the time.
Suppose no
phones, no lap
tops, no internet,
no Alexa. Alexa,
what time is it?
She’s unplugged.
I changed her
name to Ziggy
a few days ago
and had no way
to ask a question
for a fortnight (nor
any way to ask her
how long a fortnight
is) because I kept
calling her Iggy.
I’m very forgetful.
Just day before
yesterday...oh,
that was just
work. Does it
count? Does it
ever, says my
supervisor, all
those miles a
way. When
push comes
to shove, I’m
a pacifist, al
ways have
been. Frankly,
the problem is
I just get distr
acted. I would
not tell you my
problems, anyway.
I used to wake up
awake. Now I wake
up to spend hours
awakening. Can
anyone please
tell me something
positive that can
come from this?
I can’t. I’d ask
Alexa, but I for
got her name.

mmmmcdxlv

The Truthers

went about the day
exposing themselves.
Sincering, one of the
revelers would soon
say to a masked person
he believed to be his best
friend Albert. Albert had
unwaveringly maintained
that he knew his
friend inside and
out, when in reality,
there was that
massive threadbare
canvas woven arduously
with science and non-
fiction and values that
hovered over the
entire party that
night which, after
a few strained
years appeared
as if on the
verge of
disintigration.
Beneath it were
the innumerable
whispered secrets
that zipped electrically
through the room,
blown hot into every
other ear at the
masquerade, as if
such delicate intimacies
were vaporous proof
that each blower of
gossip could map
the very soul of each
blowee, and thoroughly.
After the lights went
unexpectedly dark
and the horrendous
tragedy ensued,
each stranger
that remained,
each individual that
had survived the
momentously surreal
ordeal, believed that
the event had
brought them all
even closer together,
had made them kindred,
built a community.
And no mere lack of
transparency would
ever take that
away from them.

mmmmcdxliv

Names of Some of the Artists
on My Spotify New Release
Playlist This Week

Nnancy, Tender Misfit,
lolbubblegum, Kayps,
Ayesha Erotica, Mo Beats,
Zahraa, Tobre, Space Candy,
RAEGAN, Seb Torgus, MISS
LUXURY, Amira Unplugged,
Lucky Dog, Tom Nethersole
[performing a piece called “Twink”],
Benjamin Elgar, IDER, Jane Remover,
Tills, Lay Bankz, bug brain, Emei,
Saleka, Baku, Transviolet,
ELLUM, Chloe Florence,
Kye, Ayesha Madon

mmmmcdxliii

A Snappy Entry into a Tuesday with Lovett or Leave it

A guest on today’s show is
wearing a sweatshirt that
advertises an “Abortion
Yacht Club” – and she’s just
participated in a comedy
special entitled L’abortion
Variety Hour, subtitled A
Cavalcade of Cooch.

Of which, she, one
of the hosts of said
cavalcade, proclaims:

“It did not disappoint!”
And in such a tone
that not a soul would
have disbelieved her.

“People are woefully
ignorant about how
it all works, so in
order to educate
people we created
giant inflatable
dancing abortion
pills,” she offers,

as if further proof

were needed.

This is Lizz Winstead
speaking with the host
of Lovett or Leave It,
Jon Lovett (of course),

who is by now my
favorite new obsession
of the year (as in I can’t
miss anything he’s in,
which is hours of stuff

most any week).

Lizz is wearing gold-colored
slacks in large square print
plaid with purple stripes.

It’s a minute and a half
into the show during this
morning’s hour and a
half or so of me waking
up before heading to work,
and already (big surprise)
I love it, and am happy
for the rest of the day,
given that there’ll be
plenty more of these
snippets with which
to intersperse it,
livening and happying
each hour as the

workday sideswipes me

a few times until off it goes

disappearing into the distance.

mmmmcdxlii

I Will Not Be Silent

I know my place. Deep
within the crevasses of
the very large bed that
takes up most of the space

in this very small apartment.
Notice how I say apartment
rather than room. My place.

Irradiated. Before they suck
the filthy air clean out. Until
I am all that is left. Me.
Floating in this tepid chasm,

lips readying, as if for the
mouthpiece of a tuba, con
torted into a muscular O.

mmmmcdxli

Post Deniability

Yesterday, I went through
all of my unopened mail,
a couple of months’ worth.
With my back turned, I can

feel the hot, pinprick-sized
beams of your glare, which
so dazzlingly sting that I
imagine this must be what

it feels like to get a tattoo.
I’ve had none, nor pierces,
those rites of passage borne
from that adolescent-to-twenty-

something pain built into the
collective consciousness of
decades, if not centuries.
Go back long enough and

that’s all you’d get, I trust,
bullet-biting battles in the
achy trenches of both the
haves and the have-nots.

Anyway, there weren’t any
bills. Nothing like that. No
thing so overdue anyway
that because left undone

has me unravel here right
before your searing eyes.
I do all of that online now. It
is the 21st century, after all,

the first quarter or so built up
on lies, sure, but soft ones like
I tell the nice lady at the post
office three or four times a

year when I bring the mid-
sized tote filled with time-
stamped envelopes under
which I’ve personally

handwritten (yes, it’s
practically indecipherable,
you don’t have to remind):
“NOT AT THIS ADDRESS.”

mmmmcdxl

Hard Copy

     I have trouble with Mass Media
                               —John Wieners

Kissing the young man
with the tongue ring,
he remembered an
article he’d read in

the newspaper that
morning. Or was it
afternoon? The
swizzle of the ball

atop the rod that
clung to his tongue
by a pin at the bottom.
Along the smooth, faux

entryway into an imaginary
throat. Into which he pushed
his own tongue, as much of its
entirety as he could manage,

into that slick cul-de-sac,
and then further still.

0

mmmmcdxxxix

Dancing Until Sunrise

Embracing my history
without being a part
of it, a party to it.

Enraged by history.
Doing nothing about
it. Without it where

would I be but nowhere?
Studying history, mine,
yours. Sitting in imagin

ary zazen, a mind full of
vivid sexual fantasies un
waveringly clear, the yes

terday of yesterday’s last
year. Its grandfather and
its grandfather’s great-

grandfather, to whom you
ask for the definitions of
freedom, of bountiful and

opulence. Dispensing with
history to reveal the nothing
ness of the present, of pres

ence. Really look around
without wondering outside
of now, each shallow diorama

a geometry of lust. The
removal of all narrative.
Then. Snapping out of it

the trajectories come alive.
This electric aiming toward,
a leaning forward. Am I

making history dance back
wards or shuffle its feet? If
so, I will step out of the way,

not be a means to an end. 

Else gather myself, get 

my bearings. And propel.

mmmmcdxxxviii

A Wink Back at a Bad Dream

     We ride them
     and Tingel-Tangel
     in the afternoon.
             —John Wieners

Rather than decompose.
Rather than let things
shift in the direction of
a quickening atrophy. I

woke up this morning,
caught a few blips of
news, of late night
talk show conversation.

Allowing my mind to
awaken. Wake up,
brain! (This takes
longer now.) How

am I doing? What
can I tell you?

mmmmcdxxxvii

Reprogramming Your Processor

How to keep a stiff upper lip
while I wrangle with how to
say things I’ve been unable
to for years? Not only to you

but to myself. When the only
reason I’ve been avoiding it
is because I must keep living
it. That there has been no

intention to avoid taking a
good hard look at the big
picture of myself in relation
to everything which I must

interact is, like (he pauses
with a wide smile for just
a few seconds), what it is
to be human. Composing

Transparency

mmmmcdxxxvi

     Now the season of
     the furnished room.
                —John Wieners

He goes on to say his bed is
only big enough for one,
it looks like a/casket.

Spend a little time with me
and you’ll recognize the
familiar glance, the

needy nod of I can so relate
and we are such kindred
spirits. Spirited?

But I am no ghost.
Not yet, anyway.
And I have lived here

as long, longer, than
I’ve lived any place
but one in my

grown-up life.
Maturity has nothing
on me. And this place

is home. For now. For
longer than just a little
life. So it bears no

small significance
to this little life.
Even as many

times as I have
somewhat spitefully
called my home

a coffin, I still live.
Not wholly
within

this space.
And although this
small cube of dancing

air is mine. Inasmuch
as this steaming
hotbox has me

gasping for it,
air. Oh, it’s not
overwrought

like I am
sometimes.
I want to say

I have my pride.
Believing in the
warmth of

home, as I
still do here
in mine.

mmmmcdxxxv

Passings

One of the things that help
me pass the time are clichés.
If you’ve got a subsidized
housing situation and you

read in your local newspaper
that someone died in the
bathroom one night while
shooting up and yet wasn’t

found for nearly two weeks
you might wonder on what
floor of the building in which
exists the tiny box you call

home did this transpire? And
what about the fake candle
they place on the makeshift
memorial each time someone

from your building passes?
Where’d that memorial go?

mmmmcdxxxiv

Romantic Villain of Doom

     The gods are atheist.
     They may join hands.
                     —Robert Glück

To invoke the stuff
you once wished
would rattle reality.

If given a choice
between holding
your hand for a

minute or soaring
through space at
anything akin to

the same pace
as today’s and
yesterday’s, etc.,

I’d find you as
quick as an in
stant, grab your

gorgeously blue
long and lithe set
of surreal fingers,

soak in that warmth,

and in its most awe
some moment with

the hedonism flow
ing through my
veins I’d dedicate

my entire remain
ing strength on
slowing time

for the greater
good, all mine.

mmmmcdxxxiii

Pink. Beau, Indiana. Shlips.

I’m in a gang
that goes for
the gusto.

Genital
practitioner,
you said dissonance
means something.
               —Robert Glück

I said something
about the clock
rounding the bend.

Big Ben’s booms breaking
boys’ bowel bombs,
their brawl booboos.

Vinnie
Video
Vito

Bonnie meets Clyde
at the bank on First
and Main, asks the

fifty female pigs,
fifty male deer joke.
A hundred sows & bucks!

mmmmcdxxxii

The Shrieking Sheikh

The sheikh was so loud my
ears were bleeding. Exact
ly what he was saying I’ll
never know. Just that it

was something about how
I’d been shirking my resp
onsibilities. And since that
is a punch from which I can

never duck quite fast enough,
there was a resignation in me
that would come to me, meta
phorically, in that PTSD way, a

nagging wave that would sweep
through my body that would start
at the soles of my feet and rise
slowly to my scalp, as if a sweat

were being released from my
senses, until I’d be flooded with
that familiar anxiety-riddled sen
sation that would render me inert,

immobile, until I could finally
come to terms with each defeat.

mmmmcdxxxi

Working w/Bagels & Bananas

Blown up nearly
tight enough to
burst, just to the
left of that tragic

explosion. Futzing
with photographs
after 5pm (the
school bell turned

into the cow-bell
turned into the
punch clock). “I’d
like to punch that

clock,” I say at noon,
the smaller half of the
workday finally done.

mmmmcdxxx

Pour Em Forth a Breeze

If in my pair of fans
there were 10 fans apiece,

would the fair breeze tickle
the face of my other’s ego

if I let each lie here upon
my peach-colored duvet

as the day rolled religiously
into another dog day afternoon?

mmmmcdxxix

A Fresh Start (Every Morning)

     For me now the new:
                   —John Wieners

I’m telling you today
right this moment I’m
telling you that I have
no idea what to say.

Is this a problem I
often have? You’d
never believe, I
think, almost never.

Oh. You’re laughing.
So I talk a lot. But
about what? That’s
a serious question,

knowing, as I do,
so very little.

mmmmcdxxviii

A Ham Sandwich

     ...it came to pass there were no more attentive gestures.
                                                                           —John Ashbery

I figured out the moment you can
no longer call yourself middle aged.

Peeling off the label to see the face
whole with no obstructions, I wonder

if what he actually said when giving
me the instructions: face hole.

     Door muscles, an unholy fragrance borders the faces on the tree.
                                                                         —John Ashbery

mmmmcdxxvii

A Pair of Lemon Towelettes

We pulled up. We got out of
the car. We walked in and
sat down, all smiles. We
were happy as clams

at high water, or else
we contemplated clams’
general happiness, won
dering, as always. We liked

to wonder. We very much
appreciated wonder. And
here, after we finished our
proud and grease-infused

meals, we ripped the heads
off the containers of our
moist napkins and cleaned
each of our fingers with glee.

mmmmcdxxvi

“Is this your political handbook?”

A man in mourning asks a
dead chap, perhaps an old
friend, a one-time lover or
long-term partner, pounding

the book at the dead man’s
chest. No answer is clearly
not good enough. The
chest-pumps grow in

intensity, thud! Thud!
THUD!! Eventually, the
one left living lets go,
releases the book onto

the dead man’s midriff.
Its pages will riffle a bit in
the undercurrents of the
afternoon breeze before

the earth that had been re
moved the day before gets
replaced, leaving it open to
a certain pair of pages that

might act as a sliding window
out through which a natural
scene could be witnessed
or a soul might escape.

mmmmcdxxv

A Day of Going Nowhere

     Can I be a medicine
                    —John Ashbery

What calls us each to service?
For me, it’s not an absolutely
aggressive zilch. It’s, rather,
an inert, lazy, hedonistic zero.

Me? Service? Okay, I’m in
charge of this. But I have no
real wherewithal for appropriate
directions. There are experts at

this; there are experts at that.
Of what am I a master? It would
take time for me to come up with
even a possibility, and would it put

me in the position of doing anything?
Perhaps there is a greater good. I
see some of it common sense until
I realize how uncommon it is. And

I choose not to be a part of it. I am
able to weigh the idea, which might
be pure fantasy, that I choose to be
good. Mostly? But even there I find

myself restricted with limitations so
confounding. Still. I move in that
direction. Sometimes stubbornly.
But what’s good? So much just

for one step.

mmmmcdxxiv

But I Digress

   Yes, the great residential palaces...
                                 —John Ashbery

I brought up the tents.
Which are coming down
all over town. My city.
Whatever precisely these

tents were a symptom of,
the side effects of their
removal tonight is snobvious.
Upon the sidewalk blocks

of Market between 6th (my
street) and 8th are hordes
of jangled humans contorted
this way and that, some in

groups, a few in pairs, many
flying solo to music so profound...

mmmmcdxxiii

Her Royal Highness

   What happens next is anybody’s mess.
   And, I might add, a real treat knowing you.
                                       —John Ashbery

The tents are coming down.
I wore one in ’18 like a hoop
skirt that kept falling down.
A glittery princess knelt at

the rim of it, dark as it was,
even on the outside, I’m
certain Her Royal Highness
could tell it was brilliantly

sheer and the color of a wet
pumpkin. She left a tiny cake of
mostly sugar, and quickly departed
in sparkly whirl of glitter, saying

something heartwarmingly charming
as she flew away into the icy wind.

mmmmcdxxii

The Wrong Pharmacy

   In my notes I had three or four things I wanted
   to draw to your attention, but it no longer seems
   important.
                                                —John Ashbery

I went to the wrong pharmacy.
Well. I went to no pharmacy.
I had misread my Google search.
This happens often, lately – I need

a new prescription. I mean of course
I do, but I meant glasses this time.
Where was I? Oh, the wrong place, 

and no pharmacy, it was just a regular

Safeway. Which isn’t entirely true.
There was a deli. There was a little
place where one could buy cigarettes
and/or get money orders. It was just

a Safeway at which I wound up trying
to refill a stupid prescription I don’t need.
But I want it anyway. All is not lost, either.
There’s another Safeway down the street

and if I’m reading this Google search correctly,
there is a pharmacy there and it’s open until 8pm.
But now I’m tired and need to weigh my options.
Or else sleep. Which is what I want anyway.

mmmmcdxxi

Monday

     Four negatives make a positive.
                        —John Ashbery

When in doubt. Well.
It’s Monday, time to
pay tribute to the week
ahead, and to our collect

ive moods, our spirits,
the ones that’ll escape
us if we’re not careful
or, rather, whether we 

like it or not. Wake up at 

3 in the easiest of moods.
As in ease into work, 8am.
Don’t get lost in the hokum,

show your minimal world
what it is you really want.

mmmmcdxx

Finding a Faraway Balance

The fear still here
somewhere at my
throat and elsewhere.

Tonight, he sleeps on
the opposite end of
the globe, winter to

my summer. He’s
all tucked into a
faux fleece coat

and I’m sitting
naked on my
bed as I’d be

doing on Xmas
or MLK Day. Oh,
that fear. We are

flush with politics.
We’ve even found some
stuff in common there

that both gives us pause
and makes us laugh. But
I have had enough of it,

so last night recommended watching
a comedy, a 30-minute sitcom.  And so,
he recommended a specific one and I

sat watching three episodes of 

it as soon as the suggestion
hit my eye. He waited until

his siblings had left, a
respite he rarely gets
these days, and almost

immediately he’d leapt
ahead of me. And so
the story typically goes.

For now.

\

mmmmcdxix

Other Furniture

     Be on that sofa.
                 —John Ashbery

Books can be furniture, too.
And sofas past. My house
holds, when holding sofas
in their midst (be they some

where to the side or, once
in a while, smack in the middle,
almost as if to separate, part
icularly in studio apartments),

well, that piece of furniture
would come to know the
frenzied heat of love that
would not make it to a bed.

The bed would know similar
things, too. But the sofa....

mmmmcdxviii

Ways to Use a Bed

How strange a shared bed
in this day and age must be,
and is, as an ex sits on the
teevee end and I on the cloth-

covered wall end of the big
bed I inherited earlier this
year, probably from some
one dead, though I’ll never

know (nor do I want to?).
It’s been about a decade
since I shared one the
way I have most of my

adult life – with a regularity
and occasional passion.

mmmmcdxvii

Non-linear Loss

I lost my reading glasses
yet again, perhaps at Target,
or upon the sidewalk between
here and there. You should have

seen me Thursday attending an
art-related poetry reading. I could
name names, but for now I won’t,
except to say the three readers and

the artist all had some significance
to me, a couple more than others,
because I happen to know them
and they, if pressed, would surely

know me? Oh, it’s been years. But,
oddly counter to my history, I felt
less awkward there, more at home
than I had felt, perhaps, in years.