mmmmmcxcvii

     Remember your family?
           —Kathleen Fraser

I grew another arm.  It

sprung out from my right

elbow, this new extension

of me.  And so I was able

to write much faster. And

so I set about spending

most of my days, at 

least for a while, on

composing a list of

things I had to do,

which I called my

to do list.

Once I felt that was

complete, my attention

was diverted.  I read a

book of poetry.  I sat in

front of the gigantic tele

vision set at the foot of my

bed and watched episodes of 

Lantern and Star Trek: Strange

New Worlds; I sat rapt in

front of season finales (Silo,

Shrinking, The Studio) and

then I took a late shower 

(very late). I had therapy 

(via Zoom, 50 minutes). 

I looked at my bowl of

vegetables and spent

some time worrying

about upcoming meals.

I cleaned out the micro

wave and gave myself

a haircut.  My weekly

box of food arrived, 

and I breathed a 

huge sigh of relief.

mmmmmcxcvi

Brief Notes on Citizenry and Coexistence

things to reconsider and then
move beyond and then to
reconsider again....  did we
stray too far away from em

pathy?  did we distance our

selves from one another

because of feelings of 

obligation?  or out of fear 

that someone we love or 

admire or respect or worship 

(perhaps change to revere) 

will hold our unintentional 

sin against us until they 

are gone (even if you go 

first)?  never let the good 

angel of circumspection 

fall or fly off of your 

shoulder.  without 

existing endlessly 

within the confines 

of its torture chamber, 

practice the art of con

trition with regularity 

and the utmost discipline;
that apology-filled vault 

in your hard drive (or 

wherever you keep it) 

must be accessible in a

pinch and ever-expand

ing.  exercise some 

subtlety when express

ing your materialistic ten

dencies, but disallow any 

shame or guilt for having 

them.  we are, after all,

life-long citizens of these 

united states (america, 

we must however rem

ember, is the entirety of 

the western hemisphere).

having said that, it is 

nevertheless an excel
lent idea to have within 

reachable grasp a cleanly
constructed argument for
socialism, just in case 

such a need arises.

mmmmmcxcv

Monologue
Cinematography

tiny lips cave
gag swirl
a frown of
freckles ex
halation
elation

breathe
again swap
sensitive
noses tug
at earlobe
lapel tuft
of tight
air

pale ex
cavation
modern
nymph
resemblance
purses whist
whistle

tea kettle
steampunk
a halo whip
the tuft’s
undone
cumberbund

pan’s up to
zero periph
eral do not
lower slow
fetish
focus

lock on
facial
cavern
close-up
spelunk

mmmmmcxciv

Self-Imposed Solitude

it’s hard to believe that i would
do this to myself.
but look at me,
i’ve done it again:
put the blame for my troubles
solidly upon yours truly.  sometimes
i think, what a fortunate life i have,
but not usually.  not lately.

i can remember
feeling lucky, feeling blessed.
as i rise this morning from barely making it
to upward mobility and beyond.
the vector was never a straight line,
but it averaged into one with a pretty steep incline.
then came the crash.  like a stock market
or cardiac arrest.  like an automobile
that has veered off course and slammed into a tree.
some time later, 

when i had all but recovered, 

another disaster, and then yet another. 

until i was stumbling, but barely, from 

one instance of bad luck into another.
that’s just the way life goes, i suppose.
but nobody taught me how to lift myself up from such a fall.
i mean, i do yet exist.  and, granted, 

i have days much better than the past few, 

and i try to dwell on those 

instead of what i presently can’t but think are
too similar to the distinct majority of all that i’ve lived through
since that great stumble and fall. 

it’s just the way life goes, i suppose.
surely (if only it felt that certain) 

i will soon find myself back in good spirits.
it’s always happened before.
but when i find myself feeling such a
no good perspective as the one i presently have,
it’s sometimes hard to convince myself
that i’ll make it to that next rush.  oh, shush!
i audibly say to myself.  what good is expressing such?
but, dear diary, i’m so obviously ill-equipped, this heart-on-sleeve

wreck that is me, to swerve from this misfortunate path.
and so it’s the blues that get relayed from me to you tonight.
isn’t that the way life is sometimes?     i suppose it is.

mmmmmcxciii

“Here We Go!”

But go we didn’t.
Not that I can

recall at the

moment, at

any rate.  But

here they are 

those three words,
an exclamation point.

It must have been
at least six months
ago that I wrote
it in the margin

on the first page
of this blue note
book (Fabrinio,
it says, made in

Italy).  It would
not have been
more than ten
years ago.  I

say I write to
remember, and
this is true.  But
no matter how

much I scrunch
up my eyes in
an attempt to
recall when it

was I scrawled
those words,
and where it
was we were

going, I am
drawing a
blank.  But
it’s a hopeful,

generally opt
imistic phrase,
unless we were
about to take

off in a roller
coaster?  It’s
a half hour
to midnight.

Sleep will
come soon.
And I’ve no
quarrel with

myself over
reusing the
phrase.  As
a bit of en

couragement,
a bon voyage,
say, as we em
bark toward

the land of
dreams.  And
beyond.  I
do hope it’s 

smooth sail

ing all the 

way.  Here

we go!

mmmmmcxcii

Cartoon Balloon

It’s early morning on the 16th of the month.
I just drank the last drops from what had been
a two liter bottle of Diet Dr Pepper.  What was
left filled one of my medium sized sea green
colored plastic cups (I have two of them; did I
start out with three, four?).  I’ve no money left 

for the month and won’t get my tiny subsidy 

check until the first.  I could lean my head
back upon my pillow right now, unable to
sleep, but to meditate on existence with
no income.  I could let those thoughts
(that thoughtlessness) overwhelm me
with anger or into resignation, or I
could instead close my eyes and
use my mind to move time, to
either make it go faster, or to

slow it down, feeling my body,

feel it inflate until I resemble

a gigantic parade balloon in

the faded image of a cartoon

character from my childhood, 

expanding easily to squeeze

myself into the moment until 

I’ve pushed time out through 

the fringes; or I might carry

the moment along with me,

and then speed ahead of it.

These are methods of existence

I have developed in order to weave

in and out of time’s typical cadence,

a timelessness within which I might 

sway in relative peace.  Until I begin 

to remember that no matter how much

I bend or fold it in order to exist outside

of its realm, usually in an effort to cope 

with my diminishing value, inside of my 

skin-sack of nothingness, I will still continue

to age, to grow older.  These tricks are of the
mind, are mere delusion; the peace that makes its
way into the dim crevasses within my head is but the
airy entropy that I am always becoming.  I’ll fight again 

to lift my lids, to squeeze my way back out of this stasis,
all the while a polluted airiness hisses its way out of

my nose, my ears, eyes and mouth, the gassy stuff

of me.  Until I am unrecognizable, opaque,
impossible to lean into or upon.  No

substance.  Until I am a nearly 

indiscernible whistle.  And soon

I will be nothing but gone.

mmmmmcxci

Clunking Onward

     Call me with your danger
              —Kathleen Fraser

Are you ready to move this in another
another direction?  I am.  More absurdity,
less anxiety, and no boredom.  So what

scares me?  Fear of death.  Fear

of being alone.  An extrovert who’s
come down with a decade-long case
of agoraphobia.  The fear of ending
in tragedy.  Realizing that, oh hell,

if I were to bite the dust, to shuffle
off this mortal coil as I slept or (scarier
still) just as I began to go through the con
flicting process of waking up; if the spasms

began to erupt, those ripples that lure who

ever I am in dream-state, giddily and dizzily,

back toward a simpler awareness, to an 

awakened state, if this time nothing 

manages to entice me, so that instead

I lie here with my eyes closed until I have

gone cold. Who’d find what was left?  It’d 

be nobody I know, that much is certain.

After how many days and nights?  Am I
cognizant of how disturbing—how scary—
that what I leave behind, having accrued a
few things since less than a decade ago losing

all that up to that point I had, the ephemera, 

only to replace it with these few pieces of furni

ture and a dozen or so reams that, individually

and in summation, are but a heap, garbage, like 

the carcass that was once had been me, at least

to whomever would arrive to take it all away, to 

dispense with me and my detritus. Who would
understand what these relics had meant to me?

Who’ll consider the bias I had for each piece

of this mess?  No one.  It’ll be someone who
arrives and makes a dispassionate, democratic
list, more than likely (surely there’s nothing here

of any significant cash value).... Rather than
finding my way toward fresh perspective, I’ve
trailed off rather morbidly, haven’t I?  At the
outset, I thought I’d work my way humorously

through the horrors of my greatest fears.  But
how bland I’ve been lately.  Perhaps I’ll put
this down, switch on the television, like I did
around this time yesterday to watch the Emmys

(in which newcomers and personal faves Pluribus
and Widow’s Bay all but swept).  How might I
diminish my fears with laughter or pleasant
thoughts?  To relax the tension between aspiration

and reality, to redesign goals so that, should I tap
into an as-yet-unfound pocket of energy, I can
meet them and move forward, ever forward,
while this life yet remains spirited.  Here I am.

mmmmmcxc

the weight of the world

who wants to get stuck in
somebody else’s doldrums?
is kind of rhetorical because
how many of us, and with

intention (good or bad),
take up residence in the
troubled neighborhoods
that are other people’s

seemingly unsolvable
problems.  oh tortured
poet that is myself, use
your own capacity to dig

yourself out of this one.  and,
until you’ve escaped in real life,
find some mind-tingling pretend
paradise in which you might

grandly research, taking copious
and effervescent notes which you
might dangle before you, in an

effort to hide your foul aura.

mmmmmclxxxix

“can’t we pretend?”
(somewhere out of my head)

proceed.  we must proceed
with this fresh procedural.
don’s porcine collection
does not include porky.
hans’s motivation was 

to prevent the death 

of his best friend.  a
termination of life
was prohibited.  

how paradisical 

to live on with
no end.  the 

peculiar 

party 

of post-

graduates had
pert tendencies,

their preference of 

prevarication, “we’re 

from st. ignatius, fresh 

out from montpelier.”  they

shared a tepid parfait on the
patio.  they parted penitently,
which stretched their patience. 
to have pressed on together
would have been peril.  but

each previously pent-up perp 

was pleased to breathe a sigh

of relief.   plenty of laws 
were broken; nothing

lethal, though.  so 

(whew!) our 

dreams, for

now, endure.

mmmmmclxxxviii

What am I doing, in memoriam?
What I do to remember your death
is none of my business, really.  I want
to sift through pictures of you at parties—
all the rest of the attendees gather around
your throne (your edge of the big green sofa),
everyone is attractive, participatory, filled with life—
they are mixed among other colorful photographs, here

we’re at the aquarium, here we’re sipping wine at glen ellen,
and here we’ve somehow found ourselves walking a golf course,
glimpses of the ocean appear behind your vivid hair, ornate fountains 

spew arcs that are bent by a breeze I suddenly remember (flashback to

a spirited dance toward your dark straw hat that’s been blown off
the top of your head, and to me quickly stooping to scoop it up. 

i place it securely over your vivid head.  What do I do with 

such memory-soaked time?  How to best put use to such

reminiscences, to gather perspective in relation to the

present and uncertain future. To, as pleasantly as
I can, take it all in, so that I might with purpose
and grace, give my best from where I now 

exist—with an unwavering awareness 

and with utmost respect—to this, 

our own living and dying.

mmmmmclxxxvii

i am not a grape

(somewhere out of my head)

it seems an odd time in life to be a fruit
or a vegetable.  you once thought my soul
was royal purple.  imagine my surprise

when you turned out to be so sour.  i
watch the man behind the counter
slice up a thick banana for the

circle swirl atop my açai bowl.
today, i’m getting the hanna banana,
my usual—when i’m allowed a treat, which

has occurred with greater infrequency
for quite some time now.  i’m not carmen
miranda, either.  not for lack of vocal ability,

i might add, but rather because the fruit keeps
falling off of my head.  the vertigo is back.
and not just metaphorically.

mmmmmclxxxvi

readying for movement
(somewhere out of my head)

it seems an odd time in life,
illogical, trying to claw my way
out of my head into healthier
than i’ve been in years,
perhaps decades, even
as two weeks, maybe
three since mom’s
funeral.  i try to
be celebratory,
after all it’s my health,
i list in my head all of the
issues from the past twenty-five
years (surgery, bad knee, etc., but recovery).
i go on long walks in the city several times a week,
first time in years.  but i’m destitute.  this week my
weekly meals box didn’t arrive on monday as it does
every monday during each of the four or five 12-week cycles
i’ve been getting them.  tiny meal slurps, i call them.
but i don’t go hungry.  not yet, anyway.  and yet
have lost 75 pounds or so in the past year.
it’s astounding to feel this good.  to
send out applications and resumes
every day because i’m not having to deal
with whatever crisis of the moment that is too
all-consuming (three days since i should have gotten my
box of meals, though).  sufferin’ stagnation!
my health.  having a mother for 59 years,
then one day, not having one. d ad’s
been gone for 25 already.  and gary
for ten years. but me, healthiest
i’ve been in years, yet unable to
live what i still call normal life.

whatever this is has long since

become normal.  has become life.
i can hear voices out the window
of my apartment, just on the
other side of my desk, but

cannot make out what any

are saying. it is just me here.

in this dull but singular, and

now healthier, existence.  i
wonder what i can
scrounge up for
lunch.  i keep a list,
there are always items to check off,
a lot of items go, most days this is so,
but the list barely grows, barely shrinks.

overcome, as i often am, by a dizzying wealth

(i can call it that) of thoughts swimming around

in my head, moving too fast, too many of them.

straining now to focus.  it is time to focus,

time to act, and to rethink how to be.

mmmmmclxxxv

the life of an artist

can we just get rid of this life
okay it’s gone this life of an artist thing
but wanting to be rich did you see what i did
when i said rich was a risk?  he went all out with risqué
is kaye okay?  no she gone like whistle gone like the wind
like a windy whistle.  got something to wet your wistful (gone
west) it is a deadly thing this dehydration don’t you play
with me.  you’re having a conversation with your dead
voice voices like a wet whistle on a dry wind do you know
whether there is a term for that or weather a term as deep
and mournful as dry wind becomes wet?  oh moisture.
oh moisture thinks the mouth when how come
you can never go hungry
go thirsty how come you can
never go hungry in the desert
because
because of the sand
because of the sand which
is there.  the sandwiches is there.  see how easy it is
to examine the sand to spend your life looking for a water mole
to spend your ever day your life searching for a water molecule
clinging to a rain of sand like sands because now that is something
now you know why you needn’t go thirsty.  thirst kills
and who laughs?  how come you can never go hungry in the desert?
because you foolish mirage you are lying there thirsting to death.

mmmmmclxxxiv

hot to the touch

always hard 

you was always hot to the touch
i thought maybe this is just a scary planet but all the fear
was so sincere.  can’t you just say it melted?  not this year

but when it snowed and we were so slow and cold don’t move.
when the ice came from the sky and we got frozen for each other
oh those were the days we couldn’t move.  those were the
when you was alarm warm.  three alarm?  five

more days of froze is all.  can we just have
another day?  what does it matter hot or
cold when you are an arctic ocean
when i am just an arctic arsonist i don’t care

where is there?  i don’t care hot or cold if you
could make me froze if you could frost
the lock of swaying outright hair
if you were there i wouldn’t care.

i was so hot to the touch that you
would cool and soothe with just one
finger of your thumb or fist i was so
cold that were you there and i’m just in my

get me there.  if i was so cold just in my
underwear and you were there would be
no glacial oh if you were here no move me
i was just so froze and me a glacier in my

underwear but you are there.  if you come
back i would put on all my clothes.  none of our
sweat would evaporate until we
drowning.  in drowning on fire.  maybe i care.

mmmmmclxxxiii

a fist that fits

you speaking was always alarm red it was
funny how frightening it was until you started
speaking my language.

mmmmmclxxxii

and with a fist

this how you taught it this is
the time you taught me so time
and again and again with a fist with
your firsts you said don’t say the words
don’t say it’s the fist that takes out the piss
an education of the limpest wrist you sissy fuck
it’s in the wrist it’s in the wrist it’s with a fist that hits
and hits and hits and hits and hits

mmmmmclxxxi

punctuality

and this was when you god this
was when you created punctuality.
yes you was always punctual punk.
you was always punctual you punk fuck.

mmmmmclxxx

yeah he was thinking he was so bad

all smug wound up so con so smug up
when saying all of this.  know it all is what
you thought and i was right i did.  because a word
doesn’t matter when there is tongue so hard word word
just.  just try and make that sound the only thing giving it a real
making any purpose was that tongue that human son it
burns with human intent.  a word reclines on a sofa like
a bunch of them built into the sky.  a shez lounge.  the
pretend a furniture.  a word cannot pretense without
a tongue a human and when you confidence winds
you confident wound up like some kind of toy
wooden toy (sold ya) when you so smug so buns up
cocky you make with that tongue a click that clicks
kind of like a gun the click is not the pistol the click
is the human finger that makes the click the
dick the pistol ha ha ha in its neutrality is what goes off.

                                            I am lonely for my life.
                                                      —Kathleen Fraser

mmmmmclxxix

just baby talk

i just want to get there and
to fuck it up and know i cannot
get there anymore and cocky never ever
was you was.  thought you were but now we’re not

nor never can be.  age is just when you’re gone
a fucking unreachable faux finish it
cannot even be achieved nor done
and you taught me there and once once and

always gone always gone to fuck it up and
know to no i wasn’t ever there and know
i cannot ever i was such a cock i never
knew and going on and on the tragedy of never being there and now cannot

(you fuck and have a baby thinking it might could grow up like
you never did nor could and only knowing this now that the
baby isn’t gone but you are where i thought i was)
not dead (wherever i thought i was is not and never
nor ever can be where you were) i am just and always be
a bad baby that.  can’t get up.  can’t hurt just comes how
come this can’t hurt?

mmmmmclxxviii

no this one first.

i already know how to feel.  it tock
me so long to get here and now i
must wait for everyone else to figure
it out on their own on their own tick.  this is not resilience

fuck and you you taught me how to even
understand which is no small part it’s pro
bably the biggest baby.  oh and growing up
being a baby growing up when for fifty-nine

years i was the biggest child the
eldest baby for fifty-nine years always
got to be best because first (breast
because diapers) and then bam no

baby no more.  no baby no more
because i cannot cry nor ever
could.  in this extra line is
where i fix myself enough

to double in size.  i knew
i was an artist but i just
thought i was.  i thought
i made heart but then

you taught me how.
just in time to realize
to realize how come i just

can’t feel time.  i mean maturity

age is just a faux finish/
how come this hurts?

mmmmmclxxvii

he lost a lot

when you was saying just the words
what you mean amazing was lost.  oh come on with
me listen to what you did when you was saying just the 

words.  what you meant is always lost (in 

fours in say it ones and twos a

one and a two) when i say oh when i say anything
it is just a word with a nose to the sky thinking it is
funny (of course it is just me talking about all the demons being equal
me saying every single word is neutral that neutrality only goes)

bang when given individuality when made human all words being
created neutral right.