mmmmdccxlix

kitchens

we told
every
one

in the
kitchen
that

we
didn’t
want

any
more
kittens.

mmmmdccxlviii

Kerplunk!

The sound of the
martini. Whoosh!
The sound of a blis
ter on the bottom

of your foot. My
martini! Brrrr! The
sound of Mars or a
Martian on Jupiter.

Ptooey! A marble
flipped by a thumb.
Bzzz! The sound of
the ATM machine

when it runs out
of money.

mmmmdccxlvii

Why I Do My Boo

ime ee to the moon
and let me lem-
on ung the stars
wet me pee on
places they call 
jupiter or mars....
in other words
awright thongs
in other words
starling piss me
        ! ! !

mmmmdccxlvi

From Me To You

Miles or kilometers? Or
kilometres? You’re
taller than me no matter
what number you round

off to—in centimeters,
of course. I keep my
weather app in Celsius
just to try to begin to

understand you better,
but each time I press
the little storm cloud
on my phone, wondering

what to wear, I get con
fused and switch it back.

mmmmdccxlv

Other Tenors

For reasons I’ll not disclose at
the moment, I’m seeking other 

tenors.  I’m not too heady about

it, I don’t expect a party or a

fabulous chorale with sym
phonic accompaniment or
anything. Mostly, I’m just
looking for some company,

a bit of harmony in the echo
chamber, let’s say. I’d no
idea I was saying these
things aloud, had comp

letely forgotten it was my
pivotal soliloquy, until
someone yelled “Preach!”
and everyone in the grand

theatre was on their feet with
a roar of resounding applause.

mmmmdccxliv

From Da 8 Ball

All signs do not point to
yes. None of the signs
are pointing to yes.
Why won’t it just say

no fucking way,
this dumb-ass

and in no way
magic ball?

mmmmdccxliii

You’ve Got This!

My first inclination is to doubt,
to question, pretty strong dis
belief, Really? I don’t think so. Is
the problem here that my guiding

principle is generally logic? I
mean, historically, scientifically,
if we were to go that route, my
experience over the past several

years is astoundingly stunted.
Even I know reality is more com
plex than how I’ve just put it. I
can’t quit the power of positive

thinking. I just cannot. So I’m 

torn, as usual. I’ve been through
this too many times to bother even
explaining. I’ll either make it or I

won’t. I know this. But I have to
believe this one thing much more
than I need to know anything, and
armed with that I must find within

me the fire that I know is there, blow
it up to maximum capacity, and with
my all, package that energy into an
unwavering focus, climb like mad to

where I must go. And by all means en

joy the climb—feel the burn, as they 

say—and once I’m there, well, it only
gets better. Because I’ve got this. Right?

This Ain’t a Pep Rally!

mmmmdccxlii

Faded Quilt

 
Birds killing each other.
Watching through the
window of this skunked-
up room. Suddenly, boom!

I’m the only one in the pool.
I’ve got it all under control.
“It’s a gas, you twit!” 5am.
Empathy for the enemy. Birch

es and beeches. A massage
therapist is teaching a barista 

how to wallpaper. Pattern-free 

brown. There’s a man splashing

belly-deep at the shallow end, 

a dead bird floating at his neck.

mmmmdccxli

A reminder of the 80s

(as told by the 90s). Goodbye
childhood, so to speak. I do
a little wave, a very short one,
but in the manner of a pageant

queen, as I hop into the trolley
to read while moving uphill for a
bit. This would generally be a good
way to miss my stop, but I’ve been

reading this extra large novel for so
long I know how many pages to the
fraction that I can read between taking
a seat (when there’s actually one available)

and when the trolley arrives at the top of Nob
Hill, which is two blocks downhill from home.

mmmmdccxl

The apartment is gone, like the rest of the day;

a Vitamin Water left in the sink. I’m misreading
my own scribbles again. I believe I wrote done
rather than gone, as in, perhaps, finally clean.
Gone would come later. The bottle is smack dab

in the middle of the sink. I cannot regurgitate the
image. Did I once drink Vitamin Water regularly?
Is that a Southern thing? the Marvel asks about
the phrase smack dab in the middle of. I suppose,

I reply, always turned upside down a bit by the in
appropriate words. Southern for where I’m from, as
told by the man who lives below the Equator, hence
in the Southern Hemisphere. A quick calculation of 

how many miles there are from Peru to Arkansas 

shows me 3,256. Most all directly northward.

mmmmdccxxxix

Last night I drank pixie piss

at Doctor Bombay’s.  A guy with whom I 

had recently gone out once on a lame date 

was behind the bar.  I’m not certain it was he 

who served my drink, but now of course I’m 

wondering if I made some sort of enemy on 

that fated evening.  Oh, please don’t let that 

evening be fated.  I do remember it as if it

were yesterday, that date.  It’s still a dull 

echo in my ears.  Or behind them.  It was 

so irreducibly boring and not the least bit
assertive.  He wasn’t.  I wasn’t.  After I saw 

a UFO, I kept building and then rebuilding 

this stack of wooden sentences until all that’s 

left is nothing but a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

mmmmdccxxxviii

A New Bullet In

What’s the word?
                          Oh...war.

His hairline,
always creeping into the
headlines.

It’s cool in here, though.
                                     Nice!

His top story tonight,
as always, was the
furthest from his

blurb? his header? his typeface?

                  his clickbait.  his click-rate.  his broken links.

His murderer was afoot.
Neither of ’em knew
what hit ’em.

The Noose

mmmmdccxxxvii

We are all reincarnated

inappropriately. Union Square
this morning is nothing to write
home about until the Sudafed
kicks in. Living socially versus

snakes in the grass, passing out
next to each other due to anxiety.
How to reconcile missing the
screamers who would awaken

me somewhere near the middle
of most nights. When I’d
sometimes be sleeping. The
secrets they’d scream. To

be so prone to spill every bean,
to let the cat out of the bag
so that the world could go
back to sleep. Relieved, an

appropriate citizen makes her
way back into the catless bag,
her home for the long summer.

mmmmdccxxxvi

Whir Pull Mint Hue

Take me on a journey
into sleep. Mister Sand
man [vibrato on strong]
please turn on your magic

gleam, he sings sweetly,

just slightly off-key. But 

he can’t possibly see me;
there’s nobody here. & 

who’d care that I can’t 

sleep? What if I wanted 

out? When he rings, how

does he know he’s calling?

His method for squeezing
the sap out of insomnia,
my nine o’clock romantic
who puts up with such a

chubby sourpuss? He who

knows to ask Why cup

cakes? You can have an

entire cake! He peacefully

seduces. Reduces me
to a pitiful heap coming
at me with dream-seed
lings. They’re downed w/

an aperitif, a wished-for
liqueur, and a hackneyed
tune (a warm tomb) ’til I
am blanketed with sleep.

mmmmdccxxxv

Weak paycheck

in the recycle bin.  When
I licked his bonus from the
28th floor the entire build
ing shook.  Me me me.  I’m

30.  These are just bits of the
$500.  I sit here on my bed in
my kitchen-cum-living room
getting hefty, reflecting.  I add

Windex to my grocery list.  I’m
not funny but I play one on tee
vee (these dollars already baked).
I like lists.  I used to check items off,

but now I just organize them alpha
betically and employ some as decor.

mmmmdccxxxiv

The firemen kept putting out all the fires

with honey. An assault of the senses
that was abusive. Like the bruises
and bleeding tattoos on 57th. On

Friday evenings, 10:15pm. As we
held hands up the hill to the
porn arcade. There was a

couple having an argument
in front of the boarded up
hotel. Two guys, we

couldn’t tell. One of
them was really
sticking a sock up

the other one’s
clouds. All of the
teardrops in New York

evaporated and still managed
to get together, a conference,
and became a brief but torrential

rainstorm that drenched us so
that we each bit ourselves
a bloody lip.

mmmmdccxxxiii

I had yet to be paid

but she seemed pleased.
Everything will be fine.

mmmmdccxxxii

Going Through the Notions

The movie portrayed several imitations of
lovelessness, but each one as if it had awoken
just this morning with juice in its eye. We are

pleased and not just a little bit cocky with
regard to our cinematic experiences. So
in love with the idea of fiery love were we

that it shook us violently when we both
(as if at once) become alert to the fact
that we’d napped through the drawn-out

sequences that so intently highlighted
tranquility. I loved how the director
kept us in the dark regarding which

beings were sentient and which were
merely plants. At both ends of the
balcony from which we watched

the beloved film sat two very elaborate
artificial plants in gargantuan receptacles. 

We laughed afterwards about how we 

both had the urge, whenever we’d 

catch glimpse of one out of
the corner of our eye, to sneak

over and attempt to lift it above the floor 

as far as we could, so curious we were 

about how heavy the whole thing would be.

mmmmdccxxxi

Men with canes proceed cautiously

Every body
in the window
looking at same little dog
at her breast.

The dog
at Muse’s breast.
This is the scene we each
live and breathe. Whose

muse? I talk with the dog.
There is a resigned peace.
Nobody has what they want.
Despite the suspense, the ability to predict

the knock-down drag-outs, men crashing
through the window, gunfights that soon come. And the calm.

mmmmdccxxx

Instrumental Visualizer

The muse
that’s buying vegetables
gets older
buying vegetables.

We’re window-shopping
for windshield wipers,
the ones with the most
accentuated beats,

the most melodious
squeaks. Speeding, we turn them off,
the rain pouring our
eyes out.

That’s love
buying all of the vegetables.

mmmmdccxxix

I do like an occasional ice cube

on my thigh, but a box full of
warm tongue is a great way
to spend an afternoon. that
little white lie about sexual

maturity, it doesn’t have to
be elderly is hardly a punch
crying rivers of semantics in
search of a crime. an act that

can go both ways, dramatis
personae chugging ow! cha!
slamming a shoo-ca-choo-ca!
like an incoming train emerging

too fast just from a tunnel toward
you, its temper a cauldron screech

ing annie are you okay. are you okay
annie. annie? and what of all of the

women struck down? it was their
doom? in the time it took just to
melt down a single ice cube, coal
into lava, massive diamond into

liquid-centered snow globe.

               Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
               Sounding heartbeats, intimidations
                                      —Michael Jackson (from Smooth Criminal)

mmmmdccxxviii

materialism kills

also, he’s as old as santa clause

claus

clause

claws?

it’s santa clause

or santa claus

this is what dementia does

i suppose i could just watch another episode of matlock

all television series should be 20 episodes in lenght.

we’ve been ripped off by these streamers

langth

length

delulu

dementia

mmmmdccxxvii

the differences between ordinary days

and birthdays are significant. but the
similarities are probably more voluminous.

take today, for example. i get a visit from
a friend, someone with whom i’ve been

well acquainted for over two decades. if
we’re talking about significant differences,

well, that’s been an incredibly rare event
for a solid decade. spending any amount

of time with anyone who knew me before
this reclusive era.* it’s a priceless gift to

get such moments. so, in addition to that
lovely visit, and during it, i spent time in my

new airier, happier apartment, watched a
few episodes of two of my current favorite

streamers (sure, i’ll say which: matlock—
the new one with kathy bates, and

overcompensating), i took two lovely
extended strolls through my fair city,

one walking my friend to the bus stop
after our visit, and the first to and

from a coffee klatch with some
grocery shopping afterwards, on a

beautiful day, i might add, which is
just an ordinary day. [a few hours

pass] and now i wake up and it’s my
birthday, which is my favorite holiday.

yep, and i’ve got big plans. i watched
another couple episodes of matlock

already. i’ve spent a loud and proud
birthday hour on the phone with my

guy and there’s a promise of more
of the same later in the day. but now

i’m listening to the new music releases
that spotify (who knows me) suggests

i should give an ear. in a few minutes
i’ll start my lunch, which will be potatoes,

peas and pan-fried chicken. or i could
change my mind, go out for a burger,

the day is mine, it’s a celebration, and
in case you didn’t notice, it’s a day full

of the potential for as much jubilance
as yesterday had. it may be true that

i go a bit overboard in making the
anniversary of my birth something

extraordinary each year. just as i do
each additional day of any given year.

*see yesterday’s entry

mmmmdccxxvi

(*)

                               (i say i’m a hermit,

that i have no friends that i see in proxim
ity, that i’m reclusive, an extrovert stuck

in an introvert’s hopeful life, and though
each of these descriptions diminish too

slowly, i make too much of it, they are
inadequate while certainly unsexy, i be
 
lieve, because of how radically dissimilar
this way of life is to what came before

it, even though it’s been a decade plus
since the exterior world began to wither,

i do now feel more capable of bringing 
it up without dwelling on it, but also 

i am i am i am making such intentional
strides in eradicating the isolation, the

most cogent prohibitor of progress, of

getting back to whatever normal is.)

*see tomorrow’s entry

mmmmdccxxv

They do facelifts on airplanes?

Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!
This is not my first thought
this morning, but it might as
well be; it’s the one that wakes

me up. And into what? This
wholly indeterminate day. Put
that way, I’ve given this morning
entirely too much power, and

must spend the rest of it con
niving, manipulating, sucking 

the air out of it, in order that it 

might be positively mine. Oh, 

goddess of the daylight hours, 

grant me the confidence to over

see such a reversal. I shall rule 

one yet, a continual sequence 

of hours spun wholly around

and singularly for me.

mmmmdccxxiv

The pleasure of caressing a disguise.

this is what I see:

via savonarola flying

over schuyler’s collected poems.

batman and wonder woman are

miniature bathtub ducks and they

stand (sit) sentry, surveying the

environ. security ducks. the

two most adoring fans are

barely whirring. this place

is no hotbox, but it’s no

ice box, either (sorry,

officer). sitting in

the middle of its

most open

space, an

elegant

desk chair drug

from the garbage

just yesterday, its

faux brown leather

headrest worn through

a bit incongruously, but

otherwise in seemingly 

excellent shape. a red light

flickers off and on, it’s on the singular

electric portable stove. no ring of fire 

in this more welcoming abode, either, 

but the pan of near-boiling water atop it

readies for the pasta di semola di grand duro

that’s slipped, still packaged, slightly beneath 

a rather british looking item of practical decor,

a round grey pillow grumpily acting

as elevated cushion for a cur

mudgeon of a laptop, two

keys ripped from its

numerical keypad

(the period and

the 3). a pair

of scissors

(one of 5

in existence,

hidden like reverse easter eggs

throughout the apartment)

camouflaged in a boxy tray 

that also holds a small receptacle

of antacid tablets, a sheet of

pop-out prescription nausea

pills that dissolve under a

tongue rather tastily, a

modern tube of ky

jelly, a sleek external

hard drive, the

blue stapler

that’s become

a best friend, etc.

mmmmdccxxiii

The birds are singing

about coffee to my
growling stomach.

and me? well, i’m
leaving for vacation

in just a bit. sure,
i’ll be doing that

right here, in bed,
with these books.

i take several a day,
realizing it’s not the

traditional way. but
i’m no fan of tropical

paradise. what’s to
like about a hot beach?

don’t listen to him. he
hasn’t gone anywhere

in over a decade. not
true. there was peru!

no tropical paradise,
but there’s a beach.

apparently, it’s where
surfing may or may not

have been invented.
what am i really doing,

you might (or might not)
ask. well, stalling, i sup

pose. my greatest skill
is procrastination. i’m a

bit under the weather
and i seem to have come

down with a case of hypo
chondriac. but it’s a disease

i’m pretty familiar with,
given that i was diagnosed

as a child. somehow it went
into remission for two or three

decades. but, hey, it’s back,
like vacations! that’ll be all

the questions for today, if
you don’t mind. you can

pick your phones, cameras
and various recording de

vices up in the hallway on
your way out. don’t be

strangers, my lovely papa
razzi. love you. see you

tomorrow?

mmmmdccxxii

We just got off a suspicious plane.

Let’s try to stop writing for a better
weekend and start screening cheer
leaders. The latter is code for aud
itioning for the comedies of Shakes

peare. If I were on my way back
from Carmel, as I used to be once
a month or so (but several years ago), 

I’d be missing that split pea soup. But

instead I’m home watching the fog roll
in and about. The fog splits hemispheres,

not ham, moving each closer to the other.
Sigh. I’m told by a human I’d rather hold on

to that fog for dear life. And every other 

thing that reminds me just how dear life is.

mmmmdccxxi

For all of you losers who
left without them today,

our deacons are in the aisles now,
passing out notepads and pens.

I try to write without them. The
scrim that has taken the place of

my brain becomes parchment.
Who am I kidding? I’ve no memory,

except of the other day when I passed
a dog on the street who’d been hit by

a vehicle. Presumably. It hobbled
behind me until we got home. Dogs

don’t like cat food much. Is that true?
How would I know? I’m just a loser

battling pancreatitis. Or something.
Gallstones. Celiac disease? I’ve no

idea. Meanwhile Conan O’Brien is
chatting with Ron Chernow about

Mark Twain. ‘Life makes cowards
of us all,’ seems a general theme

for Twain, says Chernow. He also
describes Twain as ‘glandular’ and

‘volcanic.’ I’m with the cowards
this morning, test results pouring

in from my bloodwork done a
couple of days ago. Perhaps I’m

fine, or will be. But so singularly
alone in real life. So that oft-post

poned plans (one must have finances
in order to enact most plans) put me

where? Facing the world head-on, my
only non-virtual engagement with

strangers, finding ways to make these
positive experiences, on the whole.

mmmmdccxx

Elaborate Condensation

diane, thank you again for the long text message. i 

know i gave you the brief skinny with what’s going 

on with me, but spend too little time on our corres

pondence, so in an effort to put a small but hopefully 

significant time more, i’m writing you this.  what i have

turned into a poem-text. i’ll start where you started,

how ‘time has evaporated this month’ – by which do 

you mean the month has been vaporized by time? or 

this month, compared with other months, has seen 

time evaporate? i like the idea of time evaporating – 

i want to connect that to memory (or my lack thereof) 

in some way. i could say my memory evaporates, unless 

i take the evaporating time to write things down or 

photograph stuff. there are large swaths of time

that simply have not existed for me (they must surely
have existed, though?), due to the fact that i could not
afford a camera at the time (they weren’t ubiquitously
inside of our phones back then, right?) while, simultan

eously, I’d be going through a duration without notating 

a thing in writing, in what i called a journal – i had a couple 

dozen of these journals before losing them, and all of every

thing i physically had kept over the years, sometime shortly 

after i turned fifty, about two-thirds of a year after i was 

evicted from my pine street apartment, became ‘homeless’ – 

as they say. i used those journals to make the bulk of the 

pieces in this project, which are even still accumulating, 

even after losing all of the original notebooks and binders 

in which i’d written what seemed important at the time to 

record in such a way.  so that i might recall. not for the

memory alone, of course. and much of what i recorded in

these journals surely sounded as if it came directly from the 

dark lake of a tortured soul. typical, right?. so, time. a lot of 

which has now passed since i began writing this note.  and i’ve 

yet to even ask but a couple of questions (did the month evaporate 

or was it time that evaporated? – and how was this significant

or different from normal?). directly after this first thought,
you mention how you feel as if you’ve been ‘going and going’
without having ‘much to show for it.’ boy, do i ever know that
feeling, which is maybe another reason i make these little
hodge-podges. have turned them into a decades-long ‘project’ 

(a word i used to hate) the publication of which is something
i can do myself, fairly easily, and have added to these the
photographs and also, now, the videos of me reading each

of the, thus far, four thousand seven hundred poems. but i

can at any time point to one or to the project and say (to my

self) i did this. this is mine, something of me. which i leave for
whomever, but, it could be just for me. i feel a need for such 

accomplishments, things i can say i did.  this, to me, broadens 

life (extends time, even – or i’d like to say that; because i do 

believe it!), allowing me to recapture many moments i’ve 

experienced. it reminds me that i’ve done things, am doing 

things. in order to assess and imagine how i might do better. 

so, doing things, remembering, keeping time as stretched out as 

possible. that covers i think the first two lines of your long text. 

and now i must run to a meeting, so i shall end this long text in 

response to perhaps the least substantive part of your lovely 

long text to me of, what, several days ago. see?  sigh. i just 

did this. more soon? -del