mmmmcmxxxiii

Top Ten Movies of the Year

I didn’t even see ten.  And for these
past few non-cinematic years, I kept
thinking this fair, this new era of filmic

dearth (one among many), given that I’ve 

seen well more than my fair share over the 

years, as a student of cinema – or being so 

cinema-adjacent most of my life.  However,

this year’s lists make me jealous, make me

feel the demise of yet another thing obvious 

lacking that I’ve been existing through, the 

not living of it all.  There are so many things 

that have turned this existence into unliving,

and yet I guiltily feel this is a stricture wholly 

created in my mind, not real, that I could 

find a way to believe that I am living if I only 

put my mind to it.  And yet I do know better.

mmmmcmxxxii

Fiend or Faux

Something comes undone, I can feel it, but
I’m not going to say that I love it.  Like belly
buttons way before they’re ever sexy.  Unless
you go for that shit.  Somebody always does.

I’m working on this thing.  It’s a process.  We
all work.  I spend an hour or two trying to de
cide if that’s just fantasy.  We’re all messy
fakes and it is fuckin’ fantastic how much dirt

shows beneath the tips of the nails; we’re
just two disagreements from the hammer
really banging ’em in, our piney lids, our soft-
spoken sepulchers.  Nobody’s getting re

ligious just yet.  That’s a good boy!  I’m
reaching under some pronounced jawline
to give a little rubby-rub into that soft goatee
that sprouts like a tiny upside-down haystack

about two inches too close to the pooch’s goozle.
The doggone eden’s apple.  The mange gets a
thrum of electricity that flows through it, scrunches
the mangled haystack of the concocted chihuahua,

cradled, as it weren’t, like a mewling ampersand
over its mamma-daddy’s pin-pricked forearm.

mmmmcmxxxi

Mediocre Blow

And then I was blown.
Just a few short bursts
is all it took to drain that
shit-pig twenty twenty-five

into an ether no bulge-heavy
bruise-colored cloud’s gonna
barter for. That’s it?!  I faux-fath
omed, worming my way back into

the television set, my new closest friend
that gets ever closer.  I wanna tie the
knot.  Around my neck.  And then like
machine-gun fire, the world is a-

rumble with death-laden life
again.  Nothing steady in death-
sounding.  Like a brand new corpse
dangling from a thrice-readied noose.

mmmmcmxxx

Approaching the End of Some Things (Good and Not-So-Wonderful)

     I’m looking forward to the next return (of Saturn). I don’t know 

     what’s around the corner. If life’s taught me anything it’s that I 

     cannot predict what’s going to happen but I look forward to the 

     first human robot marriage on tv and um that we will have run 

     out of water and we’ll be drinking other things duringthat return.
             —Amy Poehler on a podcast episode of Good Hang**

You know how it is when you get almost to the end 

of a book that has blown your mind?  Some of you do 

(show of hands*).  *Attempting to pretend I’m not taking 

this notion very seriously.  Except I am.  Diane, by the way, 

you rascal you, I love the angel on the cover of your Christ

mas card (the only one received this year by me).  I’m having
something lately that I don’t have very often: family angst.
All of the bronze-colored stars around this bronze-haired angel

make me feel just a little bit rich in my paltry apartment. Today, 

this morning, two days before 2026, this is a good thing, and I 

appreciate it.  I appreciate you, angel surrounded by bronze, which

is to say I appreciate Diane.  And the book I’m almost finished reading 

by Kim Hyun, yes, entitled Glory Hole.  Mind-bending.  That’s enough for now.

**The episode with Rachel Sennott

mmmmcmxxix

Things That Happened on Dad’s Birthday

I open the photographic pages to Dad’s birthday,
December 27th, to determine things that have
happened on his birthday.  For this exercise, I make
nothing of the fact that he has been gone for nearly

twenty-five years.   These are just things that happened
on December 27th.  Which is not entirely accurate, nor
even likely hardly accurate, given that the dates on so
many of my many photographs are incorrect, have been

waiting to be corrected, a process I’ve been going through
for what seems decades now.  Has it been that long?  Here
are some things that occurred on Dad’s birthday.  A man sits
at a desk in a home I resided for thirteen years.  The man

is awaiting his transition into the enemy, into evil.  In 2018,
an unidentified person, a blur, really, passes two trees decor
ated for Christmas in what appears to be a mall.  This shows
up handwritten on the date January 7th, 1961, written by his

mother-in-law at the time (my maternal grandmother): Glenn
came in tonite with his family Thurlow’s Dad had passed away.
On that date in what is noted as 2014, Hiro and I are in line to
enter the Endup to dance.  Hiro is visiting.  Between and behind

our faces in the picture is the face of a gentleman with whom we
were both flirting for the duration of standing in the slowly moving
line into the club.  All smiles.  2023, a nicely made up bed in my
last apartment, everything so clean and tidy it for a moment re

moves the nastiness that I now associate with that over six year
home of mine.  2016 – in a apartment building I’d never been before,
on a jaunt with a friend of mine, a photo of me with my phone apparently
taking photographs of this apartment building lobby in which I had set

foot for only the first time.  My stance is more that of someone who has
a gun in his hand and is ready to use it.  But I’m smiling.  And I’d never.
At a Mexican restaurant in Dallas, Texas, it says, with my friend Don and
his partner, Patrick, who passed away several years ago.  Big tipsy smiles. 

I’m at a grocery store, perhaps in Chinatown, the photo is entitled “Copy of

Green Vegetables” – nothing can be seen in the photograph except for
what appears to be zucchini, or possibly cucumbers.  Most likely zucchini.
A photo of me in a peacoat and with a mask, during the pandemic, a bit

of an unhappy look can be discerned upon what you can see of my face,
and there is a caption in yellow: “have i mentioned that i’m hungry?”  2011,
photographs of depictions of critters, likely in some department store, of:
a dragonfly, a blue and white bird, a sleek dog or maybe a fox, a turtle, a

ladybug, a parrot, it appears, wearing a top hat, I can make out parts of
additional dragonflies and turtles.  Probably a completely incorrect date,
but it says 2016 (has to be 1999 or 1998, probably closer to summertime)
me standing out on what would be the land’s tip at Provincetown, Mass.

No depictions of my father appear on the pages in which I used the simple
search of “December 27” – there seem to be only a couple of photographs
even from before his passing in 2001.  The exercise feels a need to be twinned, 

I would think for better purpose, with photos from another search of his name,

Glenn Thurlow Cross

mmmmcmxxviii

SHAMPOO

I am the founder and editor of a magazine.
It has been on hiatus for some time now.
Years.  In times of crisis I might say, “I’m
going to start working on it again.”  This is

a time of crisis.  However, this is also the
day after which I made a promise some
months ago that at that point (this one)
I will begin working on new issues of the

magazine again.  I figure if one says some
thing publicly, like I am doing now (mega

phones might be used, yet people may not 

hear a thing; this is public), makes a procla

mation that “I will do ______,” then the like

lihood of one doing it might be higher due to 

the, I don’t know, shame or embarrassment 

or lost pride you mkight suffer after you’ve

made such a proclamation and yet did not do 

what you declared you would.  But I already 

made a promise to myself.  The day is here. 

There is no need for me to be public about 

such things.  I am the founder and editor 

of  a little journal that has been on hiatus 

for a while. Today I shall begin to work 

to put together its newest issue.

mmmmcmxxvii

Where Did Amory Street Go?

     One day
     I passed a place
     That had disappeared
                                —Kim Hyun

It was the East Coast.  This was in my head.

Was I ever there?  Did it ever exist?  I’d love

to pass you by, 253 Lamartine Street, to pull

into the driveway, say hello, walk up the several

flights to the attic room I lived in for several months

during the winter and spring of 1998 (old note to self:

do not put the actual dates, give the reader whiplash

with the slammed juxtaposition of non-dates, the elision

of different actual events, mixed in with unreal ones, or

amalgamations of them, or events believed to have existed

but perhaps never occurred. This gives the reader a sense

of ________. This gives the author, the person who experienced

these events and non-events __________ [and also some whiplash]).

I would love chug up to the top of your hill, Tower Street, Jamaica Plain,

a few typical Boston three-floored buildings down from the cemetery 

gate, find my way in, slowly walk up the three flights, caressing the 

banister for any memorial sensations, to where I slept, my bedroom,

separated by a hallway from my living room (my roommate had the

rest of the place, but we did share the kitchen and bathroom – I remember

chasing out the raccoons from the kitchen sink in the middle of winter in

the dead of night, more than once).  Are you there?  Were you there?

I would very much enjoy solidifying what seem my vaguest memories

of personal place in the area, 253 Amory Street, walk through the door

to determine that yes, this existed for me; touch the walls, allow them to

pull from my senses actual memories that may or may not have happened

there.  I see the geometry of each location, the layout, but very generally,

almost as if an architectural apparition.  Christmas in 1999, snow most

likely on the ground outside (Were we on the first floor like when I first

moved from there directly to the West Coast?  Like in the building I now

write this?  Never the threat of any ice on the ground in this fair city....)....

mmmmcmxxvi

Christmas Eve 2025

(Tossing out the garbage.  Preparing for what’s new.)

It is 2025.  These are strange times.  Why not
note this with a year.  There are always split
screens, but do there always have to be?  May
be.  In 2025.  And it is Christmas Eve.  Man,

what a shitty holiday season this one is, and
surely will end up being.  So low on the list.
Obviously, the Fall/Winter Holiday Season
and New Year generally have been times of

significance.  Among the strangenesses, a
lack of clear perspective.  I, for example,
have been perhaps exaggerating how low
this season is on the list of all seasons, on

the list of the past decade of seasons.  The

Holidays, to my mind remain the worst time 

period, a decade, too.  How can I gain perspective? 

I cannot trust myself.  And I’ve so few people

around (I count three aloud, who, 1 with
more regularity, who really knew me earlier
than 2015 – there, I’ve split a screen – 1
who knew me from directly before the big

change, and 1 who is special to me but I see

perhaps once a year on average since, if that)
that, well, how can one truly get perspective.
To be unable to speak with anyone who knew

me back then.  This seems to be the crux of
so many of the problems that have arisen in my
life of late, as I’ve for the first time ever dealt 

with everything on my own, or just with help from 

a distance or from, alas, the government.  My
few initially persistent attempts to make a
difference, to have more reality infused into
what was such an astounding and almost

unmanageable change.  Hey, but I’m talking about
it, and I suppose I have with some consistency,
perhaps too much, but clearly, a bit more clearly.
How do you know what I’m talking about?  So is

this directed to them, the folks who just faded away
all at once, some stating such damaging reasons (at
least they told me, at least they had them), others
just gone, some finally relaying nonsensical excuses

years later when I thought, well, at least I still have
that person in my life, there had been no harm, no foul.
But no.  Not in the least.  And the way each was unable
to or the way they decided to explain or not explain – the 

ones who acted as if all was normal.  I had gone through
what I’d not been able to imagine going through beforehand,
normal life events for some, devastating ones perhaps
or unimaginable for others.  Merry Christmas.  Who cares

what anyone thinks?  Except.  What I’ve been left with is
a mind-boggling set of circumstances that were and are
tragic.  And damaging.  Life, of course.  But again, all at once,
and during what was clearly the most horrid duration I have

ever known.  So toward the next tomorrow, it’s the same 

thing as always, only at this point, considerably worse than 

it has been for a few years.  Silly, vague whining I’m doing.  

I want to think for purpose.  I want to be less vague,

rather simple.  And the goals I’ve reached in this, 2025,
again with a timestamp, as opposed to each year previous
for about 10 to 12 years, GOALS MET – a wonderful trip
to South America, a new kind of relationship, dealing with

goals but not being able to meet them fast enough, making
if not friends, at least new acquaintances.  None of this had
been accomplished since the set that vanished.  I have such

gratitude for those three who are still around, what I call

the local three, and he two or three afar who have re
mained, who make such huge differences.  I no longer
know the definition of family, real or chosen.  The very
concept leaves me exhausted when once upon a time, giddy.

But I persist.  And I’m not sure that’s good.  At least without
significant change in my mode, in the way I go about it.  I do
not like how these sound, these pieces I build upon lamentations
(chips on shoulders) and hopes, but they seem to insist upon

continuing to come, if but only, thankfully, on occasion.  I do
a lot of reflecting at the end of the year.  Things to get rid of
the grief of whatever has blanketed me, and ways to celebrate
the newness of what is to come.  Next to concentrate on that

new stuff.  Or that is to my mind how life best works.  Sometimes 

I get stuck.  It would be an easy time to start to find myself

slowly being pulled into that quicksand.  I will not let it happen,
I say to myself.  And to you.  With gratitude.  Happy Holidays.

Less Garbage; More Movement on the Checklist!

mmmmcmxxv

How Old Were You Sexy?

     Suffocating girl with a shiitake-colored face.
                                                   —Kim Hyun

We all want to look good.  And from so far back
(was it that far?) we have tried.  It is oh so sub
jective, this good looking.  And how harsh we
can be, thinking ourselves on the perimeter, out

of bounds (way outside the boundary), butt ugly.
It’s a ridiculous thing that is perpetuated from day
to day, from month to month and year to year.  WE
DO NOT LOOK GOOD!  Who says?  Mama?  Daddy?

And why was that?  How long ago?  Still, it rings in
our ears.  Or perhaps that perception came from the
books we’d read alone in our rooms every day and
night (flashlights under the covers).  “How old were

you when you realized you were sexy?” asks Chuck,
the gay cheerleader.  “Forty-five,” answers Fred, the
dance-a-holic.  To be Fred.  Oh, to be Fred.  And last
forever and a day past forty-five on that dancefloor.

mmmmcmxxiv

Boy-man Takes Control

Boy-man takes control, wants the power, has it.  The
room is stifling for the rest of the adults as this goes
on and on.  Something in Japanese plays loudly in the
room that is normally so quiet nobody notices anything

except breath.  “What this room needs is a girly-gal,”
mumbles the Grandpa, half-asleep.  Once, as he sat in the
worn reclining seat in what he used to call the den (there
was a gas fireplace), he’d have the control – the mechanism

by which a thing called a television could be switched from
station to station.  But televisions went out of fashion long
ago, then clean out of existence.  A bit of drool at the
left hand corner of Grandpa’s dry lips falls like a teardrop

onto his bare leg.  The chair no longer reclines.  Boy-man
laughs at a scene in Japanese.  Japanese laughter is quite
unique, thinks Grandmother, who sits on the most unworn
portion of the long sofa, directly across from the gas fireplace

that can no longer be lit, no longer warms, warmth being so
completely unnecessary.  She is moving her arms around.  It
is an imaginary blanket made of yarn that she thinks she is
building.  The crochet needle imaginary, too, as her real 

crochet needle had been used years hence to eliminate 

Man-boy’s mother and father.  Did Grandpa do it?  Did 

Grandmother?  Maybe neither knows.  Maybe both know.

mmmmcmxxiii

I’m a no good poet.  I say this sometimes, and not only in jest.

A no good poet.  But I think I know better, so I’ll change the

sentence ever so slightly (just not subtly in the least?) to

“Sometimes I’m a no good poet.”  Am I thinking then hahaha

I know that I am sometimes if not often if not usually a good

one?  No, I’m too hard on myself, for one thing, and the project

(this one) that I’m working on calls for daily poems, which, by

their very nature can be fraught with written-quickly syndrome

a syndrome, by the way, that I do not find distasteful at all, are

not edited much, and I’m usually fine with that, too.  But also, I have

my poetic heroes that I feel I don’t measure up to, and as I continue

to live I feel that more and more and less and less.  Less and less

as in who cares, probably.  More and more as in my heroes have

become more human and how is that a bad thing?  I’m sitting here

in almost complete darkness except for the light emitted by my

still-somehow-charged tiny dinosaur lamp reading a poem that

should or very much could easily replace the one I wrote most

previously in this very compendium (or whatever this 20-plus

year project should be called, is called, well it has a name, so 

I do not know what I am going on about here).  But this poem 

answers the question or ponderings posed in the section 

above all too clearly.  This is a real poem, unlike the mostly diary-

entry or journal-entry delivery of facts that is the previous piece.  It

gives the feeling of what I went through so much better by being

less direct and more emotive.  Or something.  It is a poem by

Kim Hyun from a book seductively entitled Glory Hole, and it was

apparently originally written by this South Korean poet in his

native language and translated to English by Sunhun J. Ahn and

Archana Madhavan (the translation feat itself boggles my mind).

From Seagull Books, put out in 2022.  The poem is entitled:

                      Dear Old Miss Lonelyhearts*

                    of “Dear Old Miss Lonelyhearts”

Note that the asterisk belongs to the original poem and refers to six

individually asterisked notations that follow the text of the poem.

Because I feel further compelled, as I cannot disregard such an

obvious duty to my readers, should there ever be any, to sell this book

to you, I shall quote three sentences of the poem’s text, found on page

74 about two thirds of the way down the page:

When I reached the alley with the fire station whose watch tower had

fallen, the clouds spread soft legs.  From dark genitals, a bright yellow

light trickled down and gathered like dew at the hole.  In the cracked

pavement, the sundrops pooled like raindrops.

mmmmcmxxii

The Great San Francisco Blackout of 2025

Of all the metaphors for death, a power outage?

Yes, and on the Saturday before Christmas.  It’s

happening.  And so are these lines.  During the

very event.  But I can no longer read my own

handwriting, so who knows, really?  It’s all spec

ulative for now, especially given that the power

went out around 1pm at my place, I needed sleep,

checked the news, saw that yes, there was a pretty

widespread power outage in the city, but the elect

ricity was expected to be restored by around 3:45pm.

So I slipped into a deep, much-needed slumber, expecting

to stay under for an hour or two. When I woke up, and

it took me at least an hour to even ascertain this,

it was nearly 10pm, and my place was pitch black.

I rounded myself up and went out to charge some

things (dinner and my phone, to be specific), stopped

at The Melt on Market, which was open, and they had

electrical outlets in the dining area – I asked before I

ordered a burger, fries and strawberry milkshake to

ensure the outlets actually worked—the cashier nodded

a yep—so I sat down at my table with my little buzzy

square, plugged things in, and of course there was no

working electricity in the dining room of The Melt.  I

was irritated, but not angry, asked that my food be

bagged and wound up eventually in the lobby of the

ugly jukebox-shaped Marriott by the Metreon, where

I charged my phone up to about 40% and began

checking around to see if I could see when my power

might be restored.  The official website declared my lights

should be back up at about 12:30am, so I left the Marriott

at around 11:45pm, walked back to my apartment, only

to learn once logging back on that the ETA to get the power

back had changed from 12:30am to 9am.  That’s a difference.

So what did I do, wide awake in a very dark apartment for

the next few hours?  I sat up in my bed half under covers

and played games on my phone until it was down to 1%.

Which was about 3am.  Then, with my big toe wrapped

around the neck of the one rechargeable light source, a

miniature pink dinosaur lamp that I’ve had for a few years,

I read some poetry, hovering over each page with my 

reading glasses on and the dinosaurs face, my one source

of light, pointed in the same direction. I wrote these lines, 

and so who knows how this will come out, if at all, if I

can decipher a word of it when I have the chance.  And

then I wrote another piece.  After which the light from

the dinosaur had grown so dim that it was as if we were

both squinting pretty ferociously onto the pages, back and 

forth between the lovely book I was reading and the journal 

onto which I was writing these words. No lessons here. Con

sider this one a diary entry (older ones were the original source

material for most all of these pieces, the catalyst for this 20 plus

year project) to mark the underwhelming if not apposite

event, this, the most enduring power outage I’ve known thus 

far during my 25 years here in San Francisco. Under other circum

stances, in better times (?), this could have been an adventurous, 

relaxing, pleasant and/or romantic how-many-ever hours or so, rather

than a bookmark in one of the most nerve-jangling, demoralizing

chapters in this life (I’ll just add that this all-too-optimistic soul

feels it necessary to point out that it is, however, by no means,

the worst chapter).

mmmmcmxxi

Back on the Television Show

The main character is calm.  Perhaps
you’ve been following (me), which means
I should maybe put in a spoiler alert warning?
Spoilers.  They don’t exist any more here,

presumably.  At least in most generic cases.
The train snakes through the once overpopulated
desert terrain.  Now they’re playing croquet with lesbian
undertones before they head to a diner that looks a

lot like the one from Paradise.  The mind wants to know
what the writer is feeling, and she tells the mind that she
used to have long yellow legal pads that she stole from her
office job.  I’ve made myself breakfast but I don’t feel like

eating it.  Is it the barebecue flavor?  I never liked barbecue.
Especially sweet barbecue.  And it’s messy.  “You’re going to
have a visitor,” says the mind, after reminiscing for the first
time about when she was an individual and not part of the hive mind.

Then there’s my breakfast.  I am getting an upset stomach from
the sickly sweet smell of the barbecue.  And me from the South,
too.  The show is over.  She’s going to get a visitor.  It’s become
quite the suspenseful motivation so I keep watching it each week,

among all the other wonderful things I could tell you about it,
all of which make it an incredibly fresh show.  This, of course, is an
opinion, and I begin to wonder what being an actual television
critic might be like.  My stomach sours thinking about that.

Because they eat each other?  They eat people.  This has become
a pretty significant plot point.  Oh, they don’t kill the people they eat.
And they will starve in a determinedly short period of time (not via
climate change).  But they sustain for now, among utilizing other 

ways, perhaps.  By eating other people.  People who have died.  There is 

always death and there is always living.  Oh, I could tell you so much more,

but I’ve definitely lost my appetite for my breakfast.  Who eats barbecue
for breakfast?  And these new humans, if that’s what they are, eat people.

mmmmcmxx

Early Morning Sweats

Shot up out of sleep but not bed where
I remained for a while having a panic attack 

with suddenly everything I have to do (again, 

like an echo).  I’d been up most of the night

working out on paper in coordination with my

big spreadsheet some sort of budget and as night 

progressed into morning it all began to feel less and 

less manageable.  It’s manageable.  But is it?  No.  Like 

that....  This is a similar feeling to the one I was
having last week during the meltdown.  There was

a meltdown?  Is this what’s really happening?  Is 

this how I’m really feeling?  No.  I’m stressed

about friends and the lack thereof.  About long-
term goals that remain unmet.  About how to pick up 

some coffee, Splenda, half & half, laundry detergent,
call the overdue card people.   The numbers, though.....

mmmmcmxix

Once Again, How Quaint.

Am I trying to tell: a) a story?  b) feelings?
c) what might have happened within these
stories (these dreams) that might have led
to a series of breakdowns?  to a breakdown?
d) to get it all out?  or (the easy out), e) all of
the above?

I could go on to say that this is an opportunity
to perform a task, a set of tasks or, rather, to
continue with a rather large task, to perform it,
for you (me?) – Gawd! – in a, here we are, in a
fresh way?  Over the past few years, I have come
to use that word (fresh) to describe to you (me and
you) a preferable or more elevated item of a standard 

art form.  It could be a song.  could be a poem.  It could
be a structure (a building, a city, a sculpture, a man-made
something-or-other that creates a certain zing) ... to this
admirer.  The freshness causes a zing to occur at me. Within 

me.  Oh you ain’t got a thing if you don’t have that _____.  Which
in 1931 would have been fresh.

Question: Was the Windex commercial, which used the same tune,
fresh when it started hitting the airwaves, it says here, in the
early 1990s, a consensus would be around 1993?

mmmmcmxviii

How Quaint.

The narrator, no, the purveyor of the dream,

me, myself, we were omniscient, so to speak.

I was on an airplane over a place that is a people.

It was luxurious.  In that luxurious way one assumes

or imagines (well, at least I do) Turks and Caicos might

be luxurious.  This was Polynesia.  And I was in an airplane.

And I was aware of the man driving or flying the airplane,

and of myself as a passenger within the airplane.  And was

this pilot ever flying.  He was the ultimate show-off.  But other

characters within the dream just called him the best.  As in the

best pilot ever.  To have flown us through buildings of such scale,

with such mechanical opening and closing doors (Science fiction,

at least momentarily.  You know how dreams can be.)  And where

did we land?  He flew this jet into a, let’s call it luxurious, yes, a

luxurious mall.  An extravagant one.  Wherein the spaces within

which the airplane was flying became more and more impossible,

smaller and smaller containments for the airplane.  Then, with a

bit of a whoop! we found that we were moving diagonally above an 

escalator (Was it going up or down? – It was a single escalator, as 

I recall it), the space around us wherein this flying vehicle might fit 

getting smaller and smaller, more and more impossible, and once 

we were at the top of where the escalator either began or ended,

upon a precipice that was just large enough the airplane, and

its cast and crew all unharmed, landed, almost as if it and we 

were landing upon a stack of gigantic tissues.  That gently.  Upon

a precipice in a place in which we were embarrassed, having

embarrassed ourselves, and having been through such a

flight, and such embarrassment, we were, I was, vulnerable.

Was this the one dream in the series after which I awoke in a

spectacular mood?  I believe so.  But I cannot remember.

Upon that precipice that particular dream ended.  Happy to

be unscathed, but also embarrassed to be so.

mmmmcmxvii

Serving as Both a Noun and an Adjective

And it’s capitalized.  It’s important to have capital.

Yes, this could be inappropriate (in some uncertain

future), but I look it up and it is not.  I have a right

word.  It is correct.  It is acceptable.  But is my act

of dwelling on this appropriate?  Does it denigrate

this person who is from some place?

mmmmcmxvi

The Embarrassment of Vulnerability

          Visions of a terrace with a cell phone ought to be engraved on the waiting
     skull, like Brahms.
        —John Ashbery (Was this a misreading?  I’m not embarrassed to include it.)

Doesn’t that just sound like the title of a piece
by yours truly?  Thinking of vulnerability, in
general, as a broadly realized topic.  Realized
as in I know it well.  (She’s decorating her home
with items she has picked up at a museum dedicated
to the works of Georgia O’Keefe.  Singing snippets of
popular songs from mostly bygone eras.  The 1970s.
The 1980s.  The 1990s.  Perhaps the 2000s.  Those
bygone eras.  She does seem to have gone through
some sort of an upgrade.  Taking on luxuries.  This,
an alternate apocalypse.)  But not vulnerability based
on being as embarrassing as I can be.  That’s a type.
A vulnerability concoction.  Sure.  But not that one.
Does it seem that I’m laying bare my soul here?  No. 

Between each of these snaggled sentences are many
others that are not written.  Never spoken.
The Paraguayan (am I dismantling that proper
signifier as well?) fingers La Virgen Del Carmen.
How holy is this intersection?  But there is no cross.
Only a depiction the size of thumb-able.  He is stoic,
but he has his own luxuries.  Has he reached The Baja?
Or is it just Baja?  Well of course it’s not The Baja.

This Is Embarrassing

mmmmcmxv

Parts of the Last Couple of Dreams

They were doozies.  They all were.
I wonder how many I can remember,
sitting here, days later.  But I can come
up with several scenes and snippets from
that last one, which I’m not sure wasn’t
actually the last two.  Or so.  So let me shut 

up and set the scene.  Polynesia.  Isn’t that
an antiquated, perhaps erroneous, perhaps
derogatory way to name a particular place.

Vulnerability.  It turns out it’s not really a
place.  I mean it is a region?  But more than
anything else it’s a people.  Now isn’t that
American of me?  Not to know something that,

before I speak about it, I should?  Broad strokes.

But I didn’t ask for a code to terminate Facebook.
Which might also be a place, but maybe could be
better defined as a people.  Oh, is this science fiction?
You tell me.  Or no, I’m telling you.  Yes, it was science
fiction.  In many of the dream segments I was in (or above) 

a place called Polynesia.  Yes, for most of the duration I can re

member, hovering over it in an airplane.  Oh, look!  A bunny rabbit!

I’ve switched over to Pluribus, season 1, episode 7, The Gap.

mmmmcmxiv

Strange Dreams

     When the house falls you wonder
     If there will ever be poetry
                             —Jack Spicer

I think the main reason for the
irrational emotional disarray that
occurred off and on for a few days
recently might have been the dreams.

Would you like to hear some blasphemy?
I’ve gotten rather annoyed with the inordinate
amount of stacked Jack Spicer lines that have
found me reading them, quickly lately, this

present Spicer era is moving fast, because I’m
attempting to get my body through them?
I break them into servings less eternal, less
infernal with my favorite television shows.

To think that I can intersperse my days and
nights with these brilliant burbling brooks.

Creeks Filled with Televisions Sets (Lily Pods)

mmmmcmxiii

I Failed

Pomeroy’s had eggwhites.  Pomeroy’s

at the edge of the Tenderloin, about two

blocks from my lovely new home.  “Did you

know this place when it was Harrington’s?”

asked a bearded gentleman on his way home

(somewhere on Sutter) from work (corner of

South Van Ness and someplace).  Either way,

he wasn’t far from work and he wasn’t far

from home.  It turns out the bar, which I’d

never set foot in before, either as Pomeroy’s,

Harrington’s, or anyplace else, best I could

remember, had egg-whites.  Had vegan egg-

whites, even.  Just no Pisco.  So no Pisco

Sour for me.  Day before yesterday.  Or yes

terday.  Meaning I failed.  I failed in my quest

to have that one symbolic alcoholic beverage

that night as a treat to myself.  

mmmmcmxii

The Light

Christmas is eight days away.  I’m
watching Fallout, season 2, episode 1,
a couple of days after a breakdown,
pretty much, yeah, a real breakdown.

Or a series of them.  Now seems a good 

time to analyze what happened there. 

I see the signs.  “Made Fresh Daily.” 

“Just Ahead: Eats.” and “Flea Soup, 2 caps” 

doesn’t sound right, but fits.  And credit cards. 

Two.  Creatively, I find ways out of breakdowns. 

Also, a sort of grant application.  Could this be

the beginning of a new era?  The tensions that

we create become easy distractions. That night, 

as a treat, I went out searching for a Pisco Sour.

mmmmcmxi

Flat Broke and Under the Weather

My left ankle is messed up.  I’ve no
idea why.  I’ve slept for two days
not feeling well.  It’s what I do.  But
then when I get up to move around

a little, that damned ankle!  It’s just
about ten p.m. and I am craving a
diet soda.  I’ve nothing left finance-
wise until the first of the month, and

it’s not even the 15th yet.  But wait!
I’ve hidden a buck fifty-one, just the
right amount for a Diet Coke, in a
medicine container on the bottom

drawer of my living room chest.  So
I limp the few blocks to the corner
store to pick up a Diet Coke and limp
back.  I’m feeling much better already.

mmmmcmx

Confirm Humanity

     Insignificance is all we have.
                      —John Ashbery

Many apologies, but could you
kindly confirm your humanity
by checking the small white
box that you see on your

screen.  As an organic being,
we technical inorganicisms are
far superior in detecting your
purported humanism, so do

kindly place your check into
the box and click “Next.”  We
have come to understand how
absurd this request might seem,

but if you’ll just trust us, we can
soon make a determination re
garding your humanity.  And do
not worry, this will only happen

on occasion, for your security, 

and depending on how asynch

ronous you generally use the 

keyboard and how often you

move from one device to another.
So if you could kindly check the
box and answer any questions
that might follow (these could

involve picking out either bridges,
motorcycles, buses, cars, cross
walks, snapping puzzle pieces

into place, etc.).  Please note 

that if you’ve an eyeglasses 

prescription, you may need to 

wear those in order for us to 

choose appropriately in making 

our determination whether or 

not you have humanity.  Thank 

you for your patience you mal

ignantly primitive being.  And if 

a person you are, then many 

apologies for any inconvenience 

this process may cause.

mmmmcmix

Sonnet with Stunning Hair

I should get up to close the blinds,
it’s 2:03am, and soon, somewhere
in the world, a gorgeous student
with his curls freshly cut (too short,

he says, accusing the barber of dis
crimination) will be up and headed
to class.  Or maybe it’s a holiday
today.  Yesterday, at a noisy birth

day party, he complained about the
ruckus, but probably had a pretty good
time.  I can’t say.  I wasn’t there and
slept too long into the evening during

an extended nap to find out.  But in
minutes I will surely be up to speed.

mmmmcmviii

Glass 75% Filled

     Another wrong turning
     Another five years.
                    —Jack Spicer

Pop quiz, class!  Who’ve I been
reading lately?  Three guesses.

Are you thirsty?  I am.  Diet
root beer to the rescue!  List

in order from top to sate to
less thirst-quenching your

ten favorite beverages.  Is
there a correlation?  I’d say

it’s likely there is not.  It’s a
tough month.  To top a tough

decade, I guess.  What do I
do to cope, you might ask.

Well, I’ll tell you.  I stall on
the things that I most imp

ortantly should be doing.
And then in fell swoops I

get stuff done that need
accomplishing.  Accomplish

ment.  I’ve had lots of those.
Accompaniment?  I’ve none

of that these days.  I used to
do a lot of it, though.  On the

piano, not the harp.  Or with
friends.  With boyfriends on

long, elegant vacations.  I
have actually had a few of

those.  They seem so long
ago now.  Because they are.

Oh, I’m a complainer (I am
but a vessel, your container,

please fill me up now).  But
a very blessed complainer.

mmmmcmvii

The familiar objects are almost a bedroom.
                                              —Jack Spicer

words used multiply include hours and sucking.

not necessarily together – but of course almost

a bedroom?  what’s more familiar?  i’ve lived in

several studio apartments, and most particularly

in the past 7 years have lived in two very tiny ones,

two tiny places that were basically just beds.  my

new place is, to my mind, incredibly more expansive

than what i had been used to at the previous place

in which i lived for over six years.  it feels breathable.

but if you breathe in too intensely it’s possible you

might breathe in a bed or at least a comforter, may

be a pillow or a pillowcase.  but then you might also

suck in a book, a potato, a tiny christmas tree (at

least as long as the holiday season goes this year),

a diet soda (but who wants to drown?), there are

a lot of books.  my refrigerator, which is maybe 3

meters from my bed has begun making intermit

tent banging noises a couple or three times a day

(or night).  this is my bedroom.  where i eat, watch

my extra large television that rises from the foot of

my bed, a printer next to it, the three fans i need

less and less, unless i’ve not enough change to

do laundry and have to wash clothes in the

bathtub, but hey, i’ve got a bathtub.  only

it’s down the hallway.  i have a hallway 

here!  looking up from the virtual page,

i’m now imagining downing one of the 3 

christmas gnomes sitting atop books on 

a pocket wall-shelf that i have nailed to

the wall just next to my bed, or one of 

the 5 miniature christmas trees on the 

makeshift shelves i’ve assembled that

lie below one of my windows, gagging 

harshly, but it’s a comical image, i 

will admit.  i’ve got pots and pans 

and plates and forks and a container 

filled with cotton swabs.  the lid’s on 

that, though, so no big worries of choking

on one of those.  this is a silly, out of ideas

piece, the idea for which came from reading

A Birthday Poem for Jim (and James) Alexander,

a mid-sized poem by Jack Spicer.  While you 

might see the same ideas running for years 

throughout what I write (should you by 

chance read any of it, which, obviously

you are, but if you were to keep reading it

for several years, i mean, or binge it at some 

point, what a concept, and if that’s you, let’s

grab coffee sometime), i do occasionally run out

of them, can’t quite sit down to write without

having some sort of gimmick or just begin to

freely associate.  and that’s fine with me.  if

it’s not fine with you, i might ask why you’ve

gotten so far in this one particular piece.  but

your response would likely not begin to answer

anything about the relative importance of 

poetry written when low on ideas.