mmmmmcxiv

The Tattered Cabbage of My Will

is all that is left of my discipline today.
This morning it was red and fresh, almost
willing itself into a soup, or pickling itself

kraut-wise.  Earlier still, it was a game of
cribbage.   At present, the tattered and bruised
wet or slightly rotting vegetable is gone, there

isn’t even a memory of the bold power that it
might have become, and perhaps did; to repeat, 

all of the power and the focus are gone.  And I am

gone, sitting here refusing to pick up the fancy 

pen lying next to my fancy notebook, but rather, 

taking umbrage at all of the potential that is now

gone forever from this nearly vanished day that,

when it began a few short hours ago, was nothing

but endless potential.  To repeat, this day has 

turned from potential-laden into nothingness, 

thanks to general laziness and my otherwise 

frittering away of the entire day, which has 

now completely been engulfed within the darkness

of night, the darkness of me sitting here, brain

full of regret, at night, surrounded as well by all 

but dimly recognizable images conjured by the 

ghosts of windows and phones, nothing to keep an 

attention long enough to even be sure if the somewhat 

familiar wraith-like blip is a remnant of one of those

physical things (such as a window or a phone) or is

simply the emanation of something physical (like a

window or a phone).  And so I sit simmering in 

an obsidian of darkness without a thing in the

world to show for what earlier had been

the beginning of a day that had so promised

to be one of efficient accomplishment.

mmmmmcxiii

Ginger’s Shop

On a video call with Ginger last night, she
gave me a tour of her shop, which at first con
sisted of a few Christmas lights, dimly lit in red, 

white and blue.  I had called to speak with
Mom, who had once again had a couple
of nights recently spent in the hospital for

some reason (this happens, the reasons have
been numerous).  Mom was there at Ginger’s
house a few miles from rural Charleston, in

Arkansas, where we all resided from when we
each were born until we left the home of our
parents.  Mom was sitting in my sister’s living

room when I initially attempted to call, and I could
see her eating her supper, which consisted of some
combination of chicken and potatoes, followed

by dessert, which Ginger kept stressing was baked
with a bit of a mistake, because rather than

with cherries, which this cake’s original recipe

apparently called for, it had been baked 

(erroneously), well, backing up a bit, Ginger 

said it would have “made more sense” to be

baked with the cherries, this dessert, but the red
fruity splotches that were in the heart of this
odd-looking cake-like dish were not cherries,

again, as Ginger kept noting were wrong, but
and this should have been obvious (wink wink!)--

rather than cherries, but some wiseguy-like 

character, had instead put in strawberries (big laugh!).

Somone had mischeivously and wrongly but yet slightly

naughtily, but in a good sort of way, put in the wrong

fruit.  The winks and laughter were implied by the all
the faces Ginger made as she kept repeating the story

of the baker that had gotten the bright idea to put in
strawberries (also some Cool Whip, and, for good
measure, sprinkles of slightly browned coconut). 

Oh, and Ginger’s shop turned out to be much bigger 

than a few dimly lit red, white and blue patriotic 

bulbs slung somehow slightly into the woods

next to which Ginger lives.  There was
a huge warehouse filled with exotic-looking
vacationing automobiles and RVs, wherein

there had also been some recent time put
into adding a facsimile of a second floor with
one room.  And there was a warehouse-sized

open space that had a concrete floor with a roof
over it (no walls), a roof which I imagined as cover
to a large open shed rather than a shop, within and

outside of which there were potted plants with
nestling cats (one was named Betty and Betty
was quite a tiny cat) and there were otherwise

fountain-shaped sculptures of live plants
scattered about as if to mimic flowing fountains
from which spring splashes of leaves and blooms

belonging to the various plants within the “sculpture.”
These plants resided within the open-aired shed
and were not actually spouting waters cascading

from elaborate sculpted pipes or spewing
from the lips of, say, metallic fish of various sizes,
around some sort of fountain periphery.  Those

qualities would have made it an actual fountain,
and there yet may have been one of those somewhere
around or within what Ginger calls her shop, which is

actually a rather elaborate set of spaces, slanted and
flat, walled in and open, some wooded, others more domecile
in nature, all of which apparently make up Ginger’s shop.

mmmmmcxii

Once I destroyed a man’s idea of himself just to have him.
                                                       —Frank O’Hara     

That was back
then, though,
when I had
what seemed
limitless alter
native ideas
always at
the ready.

mmmmmcxi

I embraced a cloud,
but when I soared
it rained.
—Frank O’Hara

I embraced a rainbow,
and slid down its length
getting rich from gold
as I fell down the

array of beautiful

colors and into a
boiling cauldron
that was brewing

at the end of that

deceptive arc.

I came out seriously
injured as a result of this
particular hug, this unlucky
get rich scheme.  And I won’t
go down screaming again,

awaiting the catastrophe that is 

my personality, just to seem like 

Frank’s typical optimistic beautiful self 

again, but catastrophes such as mine

suddenly blooming into something
interesting, or even resembling a tale

of modern hope (like perhaps I might

at one point have resembled, if but

from particular angles) are, as far

as I am concerned, really pushing it.

mmmmmcx

Rowdy Clowns with Hearts Painted upon Their Cheeks

     Come to the Club, come in to the Club of Love
                     —Madonna, ”Love Without Words”

Or that’s how I heard it come out when I
accidentally—or inadvertently—found my way catching
the entire brand new album, the first one she has released in
six or seven years, I believe, and a sequel to one of her most
popular albums ever.  So, before I even know it, I’ve listened to the
whole of today’s newly released Confessions II.  And like the lyrics of the

3rd, 4th and 5th best songs on either of her albums, I find myself at times
laughing at her silly lyrics.  But also, all the while, and especially with this album,

I am one hundred percent on board, in this case caught up in each subtly

complex, hippie ditty, even and especially the silly, particularly Madonna-esque

turns of some of the dumbest-sounding lyrics.  One after the other, all of the

songs pop up on my YouTube screen, each song playing in its entirety, as I just listen, 

in awe of how the album is so smartly and tightly and thematically put together,

how poignant her lyrics are, how crisp and deceptively-layered each tune is.

Several songs have sparkling resonance with individual singles from this album’s

prequel, Confessions on a Dancefloor.  Much as I do love her and her music

and how she’s steadily flown through the zeitgeist ever since I was a teen,

there are some very integral qualities of a typical dance-popstress that she

doesn’t have.  And yet, her albums are most often brilliant successes.  

I am not here to explain this mystery, just to point it out.  It can be debated 

whether or not she can sing well.  Her lyrices often verge toward ridiculous.  

Her albums rarely seem to stay on a central theme.  Within each compliation, 

simplicity appears to to trump complexity.  Much of her songs have a comfortable

redundancy, almost to the point of becoming trite or cliche.  So while with all of

these characteristics, I will easily confess that I am a life-ling fan, I keep coming

back to thinking that this album confoundingly sounds...too good?...to be a

Madonna album.  But it is (too good AND a Madonna album)!  Somewhere in

here, there has to have been an inside joke which has some clique rolling their

eyes in disgust at the ignorance of the masses.  Yet as I listen to each song, then

begin to re-listen, it seems this lovely collage of dancefloor pop is no joke.  It is,

rather, an earnest masterpiece.  A masterpiece?  From Madonna, who has already

given us so much.  How could we possibly deserve a Madonna masterpiece.  

It is not something I ever thought might come, though some do no doubt argue

that several from her decades in the business have been.  While she might have

at times simultaneously been the butt-end of a few jokes, no doubt could 

reasonably be given that she has had amazingly illustrious career.  That has now

been elevated.  Again, with six or maybe even seven years since she has released

an album.  And no one’s musical output is more representative of each

dancefloor’s diary over the past nearly 50 years; of my lifetime.  Her music has

dominated, with iconic hit after hit filling the radio airwaves, television and 

internet, music videos, awards ceremonies, the cinema, and always bouncing

from the walls of dancehouses the world over, ever since I found inside of them.

Her controversies, and her causes, were discussed in abundance in cubicles,

classrooms, news venues, everywhere.  She’d masterfully ride the fence that

separates being loved from being hated, often having a hand in creating whatever

was trending at any particular moment, simultaneously thrilling fans and stirring

venom among pundits, emerging with regularity just to turn something upside

down or inside out, instantaneously repopularizing her own self, paving the way

for new scrutiny for each hot potato, all while building out of seemingly nowhere

awareness and devotion to urgent causes, bringing assistance to folks on the

fringes, something for a world which was craving something risque and

humanitarian, etc., at the center of moments that would forever and almost

overnight change how a general populace would thenceforward view a particular

subject.   Today is a day in pop history that will surely be another such pivot.  

And to make things even more riveting (at least to me) it seems that everyone 

in the industry has come out to impress, as if simply in celebration of her

or to ride her coattails, rallying around the debut of her new phase.  Madonna.

She once again has caught us off-guard.  How nostalgic.  Once again the

grandmother of pop is holding on to the zeitgeist as if it were the reigns to an

elaborate stagecoach.  And I am happy about it.  Happy for us.  For wherever 

it will us.  And surely she will gain innumerable new fans in the process.  I am

indeed so happy for her.  And, in her honor, look forward to inhabiting a

dance floor again soon.

mmmmmcix

And While I’m

showing the world,
my ever so tiny world,
how rough around the
edges that I literally am, 

he (can we call him Frank?) 

is, by the way, and next up, 

certainly got me wondering 

who my Mayakovsky might

be (not to mention who

and whom our hero’s
was, both to said hero’s

mind’s eye and the world’s—

of then and of present day, say).

mmmmmcviii

The Whole, Entire Quote

For the record?  Anyway, it goes this way:

       It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.  I admire you, beloved,
     for the trap you’ve set.  It’s like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is
     over.
                         —Frank O’Hara (from “MEDITATIONS ON AN EMERGENCY”)

That is how I just typed it up, anyway.  Given my current vision and need

for a new pair of glasses, it could be a bit off.  Which is, of course, saying

something, but, these days, is really saying something.  And that’s not a good

thing to say (as in No way! I like being able to see!).  Neverteless, this is the 

nitty-gritty of what I want to focus on here today.

So, as I say, to my eyes, that’s the way it reads in my Donald Allen edited O’Hara

Selected.  

And let me also say that I am taking this stanza, this paragraph, completely as 

if it were a (and couldn’t it easily be?) standalone.  As something profound 

unto itself.

But BEAUTY?  Pah!  Trying to envision these words without attempting to look

through the eyes of this particular poet is something, but it is not easy, it starts

out to be quite a feat.  Especially because they would MEAN something so 

very different than if the words had come from me (and surely different from 

what you might come to, I suppose, if one supposes such things).  His, I 

assume, might have been some kind of almost universal IDEAL, but based in

reality, upon those he knew.  An attainable one ideal?  He no doubt had one or

two candidates ind mind with whom he was well acquainted.  Idealist that he 

was, it would have been a cinch for him to have conjured up one of his muses.

I’m no scholar.  I have simply had some big, awkward movements in that arena.

Which, without picking up anything except, again, this particular Selected,

has me thinking O’Hara had in mind as representative of beautiful that 

New York School muse that we would often find him dipping his metaphorical

ink into, Jane Freilicher, perhaps.  Or it could be any number of such muses.  

But Jane, The New York School muse.

Except...O'Hara was gay, I might point out (as I do, and surely others have made 

a note of this as well with regard to his idea or ideal of beauty.  Or have they? 

This is how much I am NOT a scholar.  I’ve made it loud and clear so often

over the years, that he’s my favorite poet out of all of them, yes, the audacity,

and I stand by it) – oh, if I could even be a smidge as dishy and pithy and have

even a tenth of whatever must have generally floated around behind that tall

young forehead.

So, beauty; back when it meant something.  Perhaps towards the tail-end of 

when it might have, just to add that, as if it were something that we knew. 

But those three sentences.  That singular paragraph (I love to imagine that

final word, over, as it stands by itself on its own line, as intentional 

enjambment; form might have been something that was beginning to also 

lose meaning, by this time, which I say as if it means something, but as far 

as I can tell, scholar that I ain’t, it still was a veritable ruler, a stick that 

might be, ahem, shoved up something, and surely often and (even today)

sometimes  happily.  Someplace.  It seems so ... and would he not have

appreciated the word that just came to my mind ... ineffectual?

But a philosophical bent seems clear to me, in that he wore his ideals upon 

his sleeves, if you ask me, but why would you?  AND he was gay, so any 

concept of beauty he goes on to reduce in whatever way gets fractured 

in so many of the ways and means of BEAUTY, at least to this small reader, 

when it comes to how to interpret what the writer literally meant when HE 

wrote the word.

But the simplicity of how those three sentences can, for me, indeed, conjure,

perhaps in pieces and parts deliberately Doctor Frank’ened (har har!) hap

hazardly together, building someone in particular I’ve never met, or just as

easily suggesting a particular half a dozen or more with whom I am at least

acquainted.  How EASY that lovely paragraph can mean.  And if that is what

happens when I read it, it would likely be just as magical to anyone else

who does.  Try, it.  You can, you know.  Let me know if it works.

If so, just look how many of us are getting presently all bent out of shape,

getting giddy within our own recollections or collections.  Our own selections

conjured from just a few lines in this particular selected poems, by my favorite

poet all time (I have no problem repeating for the record that much).  It is a

quote that appears in one of my favorites poems by him, “MEDITATIONS ON 

AN EMERGENCY.” 

I mean, (Call 9-1-1!), who else but the man who not only put New York City 

on the postmodern map, but turned it into an ideal—a place in which I’ve 

never lived, have but taken up space within for no longer than a week or 

two at a time.  Such a beauty.  (“Aw, shucks!  Really?”)

But yet from the distance of all of the vast expanses from him and his words to

here, he can yet today have an unscholarly hick sitting in San Francisco 

seeing BEAUTIFUL, seeing BEAUTY, as if I truly know what they are; and it

appears before me as if in Cinemascope.  Loud and clear.  And that’s sincere.

mmmmmcvii

Caveat Avant

In light of the news I’ve been
delivering of late, because of
these recent developments
in syntax simulation and

emancipation sybillation,
parenthetical arousal and
invariably dancing around
but not over subject matter,

which often causes twisting
sentences in a whirligig in
such a way to tease the
subject matter out for

only moments at a time,
like curious gophers who
then disappear down into
tunnels that surely wend their

ways into far out labyrinths
that reduce us each to gopher-
like goldfish whose only
experience is a consist

ently cavorting cadence
and swiftly evolving
effervescence, swimming
kaleidoscopically through

all the most vivid colors
with maybe a few unex
pected dips into some
that are dimmer, grayer,

and yet even more
cacaphonous, well,
while I want wish
fully to brim with

stories that play
like recess in a bevy
of childhood brains,
punching a stead

fast staccato of a
tale that smooths
the moods of those
whose memories

of childhood center
around story hour,
imaginations run
wild, and straight

a-plus semesters,
flirting with first-
place bees filled
with spilling letters

to spell words (and
with such eloquence!),
the etymology of which
leads with inevitability

to the most absurd
caverns on language’s
fringes that the now
grown children not

only nostalgically
relive but treat each
open-mouthed moment
leveling up, creating an

ocean of meaning within
musical trills, alongside
intermittent plosives
until the mind’s gophers

have expanded each skull,
finding new ways to sway
simple sentences ever so
subtly into complexly

and perfectly diagrammed
ones that become so true
to intention, filled with such
evolved meaning that a

new authenticity is reached
with each rich sweep
until it’s back to the
cavern for us gophers

to rest up and ready
for the most thoroughly
choreographed utterances
turned revelations that

any of us word nerds
have ever heard.

mmmmmcvi

Recent Developments

I want to say they disengage,
eradicate much-needed focus,
but I’ve been trying to determine
whether or not I’m the catalyst

that pushes such events to 

the fore intentionally, or sub
consciously so.  If it is my fault.  

But then that’s a lot of thinking 

to do when the focus has

all but dissipated.  Recent
developments remind me
that I miss developing,

which has me working harder
to create more.  To develop
faster.  Isn’t that evolution?
But with rigorous evolution,

I mean with keeping those
developments happening,
which, isn’t that what I’m
doing, making things hap

pen?  Well, then, what’s
there to do but to try to
multiply such catalysts,
make them rev and boom

with hunger.  Turn the
much-needed evolution
that I’ve been missing
for so long into revolution.

mmmmmcv

Biding Time

There’s nothing worse.  And I do it well.

Halting everything, including the movement

of time until I’m to a particular goal, a date and time

that must be reached before I can move.  It’s like stalling

until a paycheck arrives in my hands and is then cashed,

when there’s no cash on hand, won’t be for weeks,

and no bank will even have you as a customer.

That’s what I’d call biding time with a lot of

unknowns, which creates an even more intense

inability to move, to literally move, much less

make any necessary arrangements that might

make things go smoothly and more quickly

once the check is in hand, or even before.

It’s just a stasis.  You’re a mannequin

living alone.  Immobile.  Asexual.

Unable to leave the apartment,

refusing to get out of bed unless it is

to walk down the hall to the bathroom.

There’s nothing to eat, a life event that,

taken by itself, would insist upon

such a stasis, but is usually, of

course, accompanied by a few others,

like, once again, the lack of cash, of any

credit, of anyplace to get a meal.  Or it’s

stifling hot, you’ve nothing to stir the air in 

whatever place you’re lucky enough to be existing,

and it is humid, and the forecast says this weather

will transpire for a duration.  Or it’s pouring

sheets of rain, for days, say, and you’ve

no umbrella nor anything with which to

protect yourself from the onslaught.  Or

you’ve bummed up your knee by trying to

clean the dead cockroaches off the top of your

closet in your tiny apartment, first hopping up upon the

sink to do so (you’ve no bathroom, no stove, just a sink

and a closet and a bed and maybe a desk), and you turn yourself

in just such a way that you fall in a twist or a split second before

intended and hit the floor and there’s such a sharp pain you are

sure that you’ve busted your knee, but it’s just a sprain, yet you

can’t walk up or downstairs or even upon a sidewalk without a whole

lot of trouble, hopping on one foot, stopping to rest every chance 

you get, so why bother?  Or if you are ill or recovering from surgery, say, 

or have a case of Covid that you are pretty sure you will live through – 

only that doesn’t belong in this category because it’s the kind of 

rest that feels deserved, that feels right, even good, no matter how 

much congestion or fever you have, and so there’s no guilt to 

accumulate just for staying in bed for a week.  Or two.  And then 

there’s depression, simple, easy to ascertain, you’re down, 

and you’re going to stay down until you’re not, which will not

likely happen—and here we might as well say we’ve gotten to the root of 

it all, the root of all evil, even—until you get your next paycheck, it simply

cannot be helped.  At times you’re unsure of the general timeframe after

which the money will even arrive.  Or perhaps the check may not even be a 

sure thing, and if that is the case, one must avoid the stasis if one has the 

will-power to do so, because there are urgent matters that require

movement, a plan to procure some cash, so if you have not resigned into

it, biding must be avoided until money can be definitively and with 

confidence expected)—so let’s say, rather, that you expect some 

promised or earned money will arrive on some assured date—at a time

at which one can be as sure as is possible about such things—and so it is

coming in a week, two weeks, a month, then, what is there to do but

bend time, to force yourself into that timeless stasis that mostly involves

sleep, or staring at walls until you are able to sleep for as long as is

humanly possible, or mindlessly playing games on an electronic device,

should you have a working one, and you do this until the day arrives 

when you get that cash, until you recover from that surgery or that 

bum knee becomes operational without too much extra assistance, 

it is then that you can, at least for the length it takes you to 

find yourself in another similar predicament, snap out of it, 

you can find a bit of contentment and perhaps even happiness,

some focus, you can remain alert enough to get things accomplished, 

you can stay awake, be okay, at least for now.  The time will surely come

soon enough when you must transport yourself once again into your

time-bending stasis, when you must, until some specific moment

in a future to which, with enough determination, you can bring yourself

with a bit of almost magical speed by, as they say, biding your time.

mmmmmciv

A Hot Shave and a Frozen Candy Cane

Does anyone know the real story

of Ol’ Saint Nick?  No?  Well, I

just happen to know someone

who knows someone who is

pretty good friends with Prancer.

Prancer the famous reindeer.  And

by way of that reindeer I have been

entrusted with this: it turns out that 

our dear Santa only lived to the age of a 

hundred eighty-seven.  Yep, the story 

goes that after decades of dealing with

that itchy, scratchy, rash-inducing

beard, jolly and warm-hearted

as he from whom it billowed must

surely have been, Mrs. Claus had

had enough of it one year, and

asked Nicholaus if he’d be so kind

as to get rid of it.  And so early 

one winter, Santa reluctantly

trekked over to the only barbershop

on the North Pole and nervously

asked not just for a trim, nope,

but he wanted a warm shave

and an above the shoulders

haircut.  Well, from here

the story gets a bit sketchy.

Some claim that the one local

barber never got much business,

and therefore hadn’t had much

practice, so it was an innocent

slip of the thumb.  Others go further, 

say it was not so innocent at all, claim

the barber was actually a disgruntled elf, 

who for decades had worked a conveyor

belt in the world’s most famous toy 

factory.  To cut to the quick,

so to speak, the coroner’s

report (and yes, while there

aren’t many deaths in the

North Pole, there is indeed

a lone coroner) reads,

quite simply, “Cause of

Death: Freak Shaving

Accident.”  The big man

bled to death on a barber’s

chair.  At least according to

the coroner.  But I happen

to know that Mrs. Claus

had a thing for a certain

monstrosity of a snowman.

And do you know who, for

the past several centuries

now, has driven that sleigh,

directing those famous

reindeer and magically

dipping himself (without

melting somehow) into

chimneys worldwide to

deliver all of those annual

gifts (and a modicum of

coal chunks) to all the boys

and girls?  You guessed it,

the Abominable Snowman

himself.  And I am also told

on authority that the old lady 

wore white so bright to her 

dead husband’s funeral

that the elves could barely

make her out, what with the 

swirling snow and ice.  And that 

to this very day, she has a

certain lighthearted swagger

for a woman of her, uh stature.  

Oh, she still smells of cinnamon, 

sure, but while before the death 

of her long-espoused Christmas

hero, she’d been a bitter woman

with a salty tongue who’d been

in trouble more than a few times

for harassing those factory elves,

nowadays, word has it, she never

manages to publicly loosen 

the overly perky grin that runs 

between those rosy circles upon

her jowls, and she’s got that light-

hearted pep in her step that 

many call a swagger.  I hear, as

well, that more than just a few of 

the citizens of the North Pole

are extra cautious when she’s

in their vicinity.   Indeed, almost

none of them ever believed it was a 

freak shaving accident after all

that brought about the 

demise of Santa Claus.

And if you think this just

conspiracy, then when 

was the last time you've

heard of a glass of milk

being emptied overnight

on Christmas Eve.  The

Snow Monster is allergic.

Oh, he eats the cookies,

but never takes a sip,

even just to down an

extra dry gingersnap.

And if you look at any

of the letters he writes

to the hundreds of

thousands of kids (and

a bunch of their parents

as well, given that he 

answers every single

piece of mail that comes

his way, just like the jolly

old man would do), you’ll find

the ink smudged almost

to illegibility, as if it were

written by a sobbing lover

or a distraught mother, or

an extra large snow monster

that has gotten a bit too 

close to a warm hearth.

Anyway, so now you know.

But do not tell a soul who

you heard it from, please?

mmmmmciii

“Take My Xanax, Please!”

Do I, the socially awkward
extrovert, have an aversion
to introversion?  I have the
answer to everything, but

how often is it the correct
answer?  Who’s to know?
Isn’t that a terrific problem
(terrific as in terrible and

horrific)?  I think the majority
of the folks with whom I’ve
had relationships have solidly
been introverts.  And while

it can sometimes be annoying,
I actually do well with gregarious, 

extroverted friends, not that
I haven’t had my fair share of

pals that aren’t people people.
I’ve often grappled with the
fact that I’m a true-to-type
Gemini who’s pretty high on

the people person scale and
yet can be incredibly socially
awkward.  Grappled how?
Mostly, if I’m honest, I’ve

simply joked about this see
ming paradox, which I do
believe is quite integral to
who I am.  In other words,

a large percentage of my
life comes from the knots
that these facts get me tied
into on a regular basis.  Which

brings me to the double gut-
punch that, at least within me,
are both my anathema and
my yin and yang: anxiety.

Which is no joking matter
(Take my Xanax, please!) –
(I’m kidding, I have none, as
local medical professionals,

and presumably many not-
so-local, called dispensing those
to folks without real insurance
when the opioid fiasco led

soon thereafter to a national
fentanyl crisis.) ( Which I get,
in theory, but at the same
time find utterly elitist,

another devastating symptom
of the widening gap between
the classes here in our devolving
country.)  There, I’ve said my

piece, as it turns out, even as it

was not my original intent.  That
the nitty-gritty is kept within
the confines of parentheses

is metaphorically appropriate.
Except for the fact that I make
a point that whenever I have
any sort of medical or mental

consultation, I always, and as
level-headed as I can, force

myself to muster bringing up

this unfair fact, that I think of 

this as a hideous inequity, esp

ecially given that Xanax so pro

foundly helped me be the person

I had, with no conviction

whatsoever, believed myself

to be.  This complaining no doubt  

does the opposite of making a

difference, when it comes

to me ever getting such a

panacea ever again.  But how

could I ever make a difference

in the grand scheme of things

when it comes to equality or 

in reducing that cruel growing

gap that exists between the

haves and us have nots?

mmmmmcii

Blow the Poem into Baloney

The chief scientist on board was
convinced that it would be a worth
while experiment.  At times he
would think that, aside from

those that come with a risk of exp
iration, most any experiment is a
worthwhile one.  But, sun of a gun,
this particular experiment came with

an extinction risk of which he remained
until the soggy end unawares.  Baloney,
as it turns out, blows.  Not only in the
exploding sense, but in the toxic sense,

in the Biblical sense, and even in that
risk of migrating plastics eventually
residing within the testicles sense,
whether it’s ingested, blown onto, or,

as was the case for those on the ship’s
deck, ever so gently blown up.  Fortun

ately, for the sake of neighbors and 

other lucky landlocked acquaintances 

of the family members left on the home
front, the chief at least had the sense
to perform the experiment asea.  He
thought his senses were steady, but

clearly he had begun experiencing
signs of brain-rot, perhaps brought
about by some of his earlier baloney
experiments.  Most curious about this

latest experiment was what happened 

to the men who worked belowdecks.
There was a serious misunderstanding
of some sort, or else the chief’s dementia

had been virulently contagious.  For
each of the coal shovelers and the rest
of the generic belowdecks seamen,
before the baloney blow-up, were

cradling infant-sized baloney loaves,
rocking them back and forth, with a

few kisse being blown at the tips of
each of the baloney babies’ imaginary

noses.  Some of the men who blew too
close found those noses quite tasty, but
refused to season them, choosing instead
to make baby noises.  Before the ship

sunk, each had laid down their baby-
lengthed, unsliced body of baloney and
had pinned a diaper around the loaf’s
meaty middle, or wherever each man

decided it was where its diaper should
be pinned. The assistant to the head of 

the blown up baloney incident had been
going around and taking notes, asking

each man cradling his baby-length baloney
belowdecks the sex of his child, despite
it being literally comprised of a few pounds

of cheap, non-sentient, unalive, soon-to-sink-

to-the-bottom-of-the-sea meats from various 

portions of various animals. As the ship
swooped about making its way to
ward the ocean’s bottom, the men

seemed rather astounded that their
babies seemed unaffected by the car
eening and the onslaught of incoming
sea-water.  Until each man drowned,

he was cradling his baby made of
baloney as gently as if it had been
his firstborn son or daughter.  When
word made it to the CEO of Science,

the Baloney chief scientist’s boss, that
the experiment had been the catalyst of
such a horrendous event, he wrote a brief 

suicide note and jumped to his death

from his office window. Ironically, for lunch 

that day, he had eaten the most delicious 

fried baloney sandwich that his wife had sent
with him to work as he left that morning.

mmmmmci

Toxic Positivity

If I told you where I heard this phrase
for the very first time, just two days ago,
it might say a bit too much about why I’d
until then never heard it.  It doesn’t matter

where I heard it.  Maybe, at least for the
purpose of my current meanderings, it doesn’t
even matter what it actually means. It caused
a bit of a pang in the vicinity of my heart when

I heard it articulated, as well as, I’m sure, a
not-so-subtle eyeroll that was surely noticed
by some of the folks around the table at which
I was sitting.  All I could think at that moment

was, What a tediously cynical world in which, in
order not to be deleterious to those around us,
we are now each expected to be pessimists!

mmmmmc

“Loin Voids”

I couldn’t understand what he was
getting at.  Was he mentally displaced,
or an alien from outer space, or an app
arition that only I could see?  And what

was I hearing him say?  Loin voids?  That
sounded suggestive in an asexual sort of
way.  So of course I was intrigued and
looked around to see if I was the only

one catching this.  It wasn’t a busy time
of day, there were a few tourists, since
it was a time when most locals would
be working in offices in the Financial

District, where we had our encounter.
And then I noticed that I had been
paying so much attention to this,
whatever he or they or it was, I mean,

one doesn’t go around dressed in a
polka-dotted suit, with the dots being
seemingly every color on the palette—
dotted upon white—and NOT get noticed.  I 

looked down, I wasn’t dressed for work or 

anything, I was on one of my elongated non-

working periods, you know, the ones that got 

me here typing this story up to you with such

faux urgency?  I was wearing sneakers,
the most expensive pair of shoes I’d
ever worn, to the best of my knowledge,
picked them up the weekend previous at

some swank new hipster haven, it was
on Fillmore, as I recall?  So, expensive
sneaks.  “Loin voids!”  I felt like I was
doing research, but then, as I said, I

looked down, somewhere in the direction
of my own voided loins, but what my eyes
landed on cranked up within me a sort of
exasperation, and anger, and who was the

first...thing...upon which I’d take out this

anger?  My new friend of hollowed out sex. 

I’d just decided he wasn’t a figment of my
imagination but rather one of those Frisco

freaks who walk around at all hours relaying
to whomever will listen about something terribly
bad was about to happen.  And soon.  An alien 

invasion.  The next best earthquake.  That Jesus 

was here and would soon be floating home with 

his flock, and he’d be grinning and winking at

all of those of us who were left behind.  Some
such tale of twisted baloney.  And they were

the only ones here to give us a fair warning. 

As I said, while looking down, I glossed over my 

sexless middle section and noticed that my precious

new sneakers had sunk into wet concrete, up 

to well above the iconography on the canvas

or hide to the level with the laced portion of 

my shoelaces.  I let out a very feminine

yelp, or it could have been a full-fledged

girlie scream, trying to articulate the pain
I was feeling with words that would have
meant My Brand New Fucking Shoes!, but
me being me it came out more like I, Mandy,

Stuck in Poo!  And this of course was directed
at the San Francisco freak because I was
already blaming him for my somehow not
knowing I had passed a “Sidewalk not in

use” sign, as well as a, “Please cross here,”
as in to the other side of the small Financial
District alleyway the two of us were traversing,
or had been only moments before my shoes

got stuck in hardening concrete.  And after I
yelled whatever indecipherable nonsense I
had yelled at mister voided loins he patiently
gave me a look of dismay as if I had excusable

personal issues or something and said again
what he had already repeated maybe three
times at this point: “Hey mister! I said maybe
you should pay attention, learn words, can’t

you read?  That sidewalk’s been closed all week.
He was gone before I could apologize.  Or
before I had the wherewithal to do so.  And
I stood there long enough that I had to slip

my feet out of my new sneakers and walk
home sock-footed, all the way up the hill,
had blisters for weeks, all the while thinking
about what a Loin Void might be, if it would

have been something said, if those had actually
been the words directed by me by the Frisco
Freak who tried to save me and my sneakers
from the fresh concrete from across an alley,

as I failed to focus on what he was saying
in actuality when we crossed paths.  I kept
imagining that he’d always said what I thought
for sure I heard him say, that weird little pair

of words (he had to be from New York City, surely)
that kept me from paying attention to where I
was going and upon what my new shoes had
stepped upon and into.  Which is the story of my

life in a nutshell, I suppose.  Always too engaged
with my surroundings to pay attention to myself.
Always blaming others for my stupid booboos.  It’s
an expensive and an embarrassing problem, to say

the least, and one I’m sure I’ll take to my grave.  I’m

no comedian, but it just goes to show that sometimes 

nailing the punch line is a bitch, am I right?  But hell, how

would I ever know, having never been much of a comic?