mmmmmlxxxi

“Corndog Time!”

This is after the era of
Gary’s swear bath (which,
truth be told, never happened,
not once, at least to the best of
my knowledge) and soon after the
whistle that lit the entire village on
fire just to get four kids home to dinner.
While the whistles worked wonders, the
corndogs never failed to bring us all together.
The only difference was that with the latter,
the village never had to burn down (because
of course the dogs were very well-suited Dalmations).

mmmmmlxxx

“And Perhaps, Planning a Nuclear War”

You said that seventeen and a half years ago.

I like it when you say “17 & a half years ago.”

You said something like that at the turn of the

century.  I like it when you tturn (like centuries), 

and when you’re on both ends.  I like both of your 

ends. I like it when you don’t go to pot. I like it 

when we take a gummy apiece and say hours

and hours and hours of terrifyingly comforting

things, in scenario format, each voice over that

of the other’s, as if we’re at war, and only

one side will come out alive.

mmmmmlxxix

Two Dots* on a Mission

“See those two blips
on the dark side of
the moon,” said NASA.

“They’re part of the mission.

Two dots is all.  See how
they keep blippin’, like

dot dot!  And then a pause.
And then dot dot!  And this
goes on for a few minutes,

maybe thirty dots’ worth,
then they’re gone.  For
good.”  Those two dots.

That was us.  We were
only a small part of the
mission.  Jackson doesn’t

even know it was us, but
it was us.  Nobody’s listening,
it’s just the two of us, hairs

rising from just behind the
knobs atop our wrists.  “It’s
teevee made us, Bob.”  What

a dumb sonuvabitch thing to
say.  “Of course it was teevee
that made us, Harold!  Gawd!”

Harold didn’t like dumb sonuva
bitch voices, nor ambulating
lights that lifted over the solace

like two helixes.  “Is helixes the
plural of helix, Hal?”  Bob got
awkward when those hairs

started standing straight up
like that.  You’d think with
all that astronaut training,

one would by instinct be
able to focus under pressure,
under the most pressure.

The helixes rose in the
distance from whatever
the dust from which they

were rising until both pairs
of the men’s eyes glowed.
Nothing supernatural-like,

except it was that blue-
green neon that was
emanating from each

of those dusty helixes,
a sort of reflection, Bob
was thinking, before their

vessel burst clean and cold.
The two eviscerated blips
knew exactly what to do next.

*and their names were Dorothy Parker & Dorothy Hamill

mmmmmlxxix

If You Had Asked for My 15-Year Plan
25 Years Ago...

It wasn’t going to be this.
I should write an autobiography,
and entitle it Losing My Education.
Or, How to Complain More as the
Life You Worked Like Mad to Achieve
Is Frittered Away.  But, me?  I can’t
become the very templates of the folks
(particularly men), mostly academics, older,
complaining about how they had been
ripped off from gaining whatever
achievements they’d set their sights
toward however long ago their youth

might have been.  Nor would I have 

any desire to become any of the 

numerous business executives for and
around whom I have worked some
three decades plus, who at every
corner, eyes rolling back into my
head each time one of them is 
turned, there’d be 3-year, 5-year,
10-year, and 20-year plans sliding

hot and dry from the color printer.  

There were only two fixtures that

never failed to show up in these:
dollar signs and a human figure inching 

their way up some career ladder, atop 

which lies the inevitable nest egg for 

a retirement that, with focus

so intent upon said egg,
one likely could never 
begin to enjoy.  Because

there are always more to 

be made, higher offices

in which to lay down
brief stakes.  It sounds
remorsefully tempting for me
to imagine, however, anything
gained with as much regularity
as the losses that I keep accruing.
And that, from me, is more than a 

regretful and foul-tempered complaint.
Therefore, I’ll screw myself back together
and somehow imagine the yet-to-

appear rainbows which will inevitably

surround me.  And the races won
to the end of each, where would

always lie pots of glimmering

gold.  Somehow.  Happiness
being just a state of mind,
easily adjusted, etc.  And so,
I look around at each
adjacent horizon,
connecting them
all together

in my mind’s
eye until they’re
some damned
gorgeous walls
that each begin
to seem top-heavy,
slanting ever angularly,
toward me, with seeming 

intent upon buring me

entirety, and deeply,

beneath each angular

juxtaposition.  And,

sure enough, or can’t 

you see, isn’t this about
the moment when that
crescent of hope begins
to glimmer,
putting the
fix on all of
this morbid
nonsense?
I think
my sliver
may have
been recently
devalued pursuant
to my latest twenty-four-
hour plan, of any

hope at survival.
Nope.  I cannot 

seem to even begin

to get to the sunshine 

from here.

mmmmmlxiii

Mostly Illegible List
of What I Needed a
Few Weeks Ago
and Still Need Now(?)

_flint (to start fires with)
_cretins (crickets?)
_dot com paper
_half & half (presently more at _gallon of milk)
_moab/gun*
_homopins**
_aaa batteries for sphygmomonometer
_food (pretty straightforward)
_juice, diet soda and the like (ditto)

...oh, that’d be...
*mint/gum
**klonopin

mmmmmlxxvii

What’s News?

It’s been a week
at least since I
ducked out of it.

And, boy, would
I prefer to be a
duck and keep

floating or flying
onward and
unawares.

However, me
being me,
and not

a duck....

mmmmmlxxvi

Why can one never go hungry in the desert?

I think that I know

the genre that I will

be remembered for:


Food Insecurity.


Wouldn’t it be

nice to be

remembered?

Because of the sandwiches there.

mmmmmlxxv

Fill in the Blanks

Back then,
whenever
we heard
the growl
of a tummy,
we’d be on
our way to
__________.

Today, when
we feel the
earth recoil
at something
vociferously,
we check the
earthquake
website (if
we have
internet
access).

Then, if all
looks okay
there, we
reach to
pick up
the phone
to call our
__________.

Food Insecurity

mmmmmlxxiv

Genetic Propulsion

My father left this world a
few months over 25 years
ago.  He was 58,

which is the same age I am
right now, the same age I
will be for 18 more days,

after which (barring 
unexpected anomalies,
I should most humbly add)

I’ll celebrate my 59th birthday.
For a while now, at least since
I turned 50, this thought has

grown within me, and become
more persistent, like the
percussive, rhythmic

beat of a band marching upon
the street toward me in a
parade for which I’m an

intentional spectator, that
is both a celebration and
a memorial for some

tragic and significant event
that happened long ago,
important enough to

remember, and not
somberly, but with
a buoyant heart,

as one among my
people, with joy
and revelry, in

memoriam
and in solidarity.

Same Old Story

mmmmmlxxiii

I Look Like a Fruitcake

My hair is all mullet on top and
Navy SEAL around the bottom.
Bottom?  Top?  Fruitcake.
“No offense to myself meant,”
said Jon Stewart to his good
pal last night.  He was talking
about looking like a snow
monkey, about how “You
know what I look horrible
in these days?” or some
such.  Punchline: “Pictures!”
He was talking about aging
with the friend with whom
he’d started working some twenty-
seven years previous.  It seemed
an honest bit, one with which I
could certainly relate.
“None taken,” he added,
a bit mumbly, off-the-cuff,
in response to himself,
sitting next to his
longtime friend.
“Who wants a
hairnet full of
fruitcake?”
That was just me
punching backwards,
something I do on occasion
for a bit of extra energy.

mmmmmlxxii

That Year

In 2012, I was filling up my

personal printer with copy

paper (since it was my

printer, I would have

been filling it with

the cheapest

copy paper

I could

find).

mmmmmlxxi

Just Ride It

The monster has grown dim.
You keep riding it over the
wilderness as your ride keeps
coughing up lukewarm charcoal.

You’d like to tell it to get lost.  But
even a dying monster knows the
way back home.  Yes, it has home.
You can pretend all you want that

you don’t.  Tickle it under its grizzled
chin, lighten up on the kidney kicks,
drop that gnarled whip down upon
the next floating cotton curd.  Eat

your pride.  It’s not your journey
anymore.  It’s your loyal companion’s.

mmmmmlxx

If You’re Lucky

     Everyone experiences grief (if you’re lucky)
                                   —Stephen Colbert

I’m certain that he didn’t originate this 

notion, but I just heard him say it (in that 

just off-kilter way) on a one of numerous

YouTube clips of him this week, this one by 

People magazine about the end of The Late 

Show.  My dad died less than a year after I 

moved to San Francisco, where I now happily 

reside.  He was 58, which is how old I will be

for around three more weeks, give or take
a day.  The way I remember it, the last thing
he said to me was I love you, Del.  And he did.
My little brother passed overnight in the cab

of his stationary pickup truck.  He was at my
Aunt Patti’s place in Missouri.  He was 47,
and it had been less than three years since
I got him to come visit me here in California.

It was the only time all four of us (me and my
siblings) were together at any one of the many
places I’ve lived since leaving home for college
back in 1985.  That visit had been (and still is) 

one of the happiest extended weekends of my 
life.  There were three great-grandparents, two
of whom I got to spend much time with and I
remember each vividly.  And all four of my 

lovely grandparents, each of whom I knew well
and with whom I had the great luxury of spending
countless hours.  My maternal grandmother,
Mabel Louise Van Meter, was among them.  She

was my chief inspiration for becoming a diarist
and a poet (and who most likely was the inspir
ation for any of the rare qualities I have that
a consensus might judge morally good).  There

have been others, like my pal Kim, with whom
I’d stay up talking nonstop, each of us mostly
over the voice of the other’s, well into the early

morning on so many nights during my first 20

years on the West Coast.  And there was Kevin, 

who of all of the long list of poets’ and artists’ 
contact info I’d been given by friends in Boston
before moving here to the Left Coast all those

years ago, was the first to respond to my shy 

ask once here.  He took me post haste to the 

Black Cat in North Beach to hear a couple of poets 

read, and he introduced me, I swear, to every 

one else who was in attendance.  But the death

that by far has hit me the hardest up to now has 

been that of Sepia the Cat, who was but 13.  She

had been with me for almost all of those years,

first in Jamaica Plain, then my first place here 

on Anza Vista, then to my studio on Bush Street,

and finally to the apartment at the corner of

Pine and Mason, on Nob Hill.  Having missed 

almost no day without her during most of her 

short but seemingly content life (and a signif

icant portion of mine), I can say that the pain 

of her passing hit me harder than I would 

have ever imagined.  It was stark and it was 

tangible.  So it seems that I have been one 

of the lucky ones.  And on that notion (and 

in general) I cannot but heartily concur.

mmmmmlxix

And I Am S L O W with Peace

Or pieces of it anyway.  The
pain in my lower back and
the spike driven through
the back of my neck (I

think it’s been driven be
tween my spine and my
throat, if that is even
possible).  It sounds

like it’s raining, this
through the one open
window (I’ve only two)
that rises above my

portable kitchen, is
hidden behind the
big television that
rises from the foot

end of my bed.  I
don’t want The
Late Show to end,
not ever.  I don’t

want to watch
another senate
hearing.  I want to

survive solely as an
artist (and this may

be the only time 

since becoming one 

that I have ever 

had this compulsion).

mmmmmlxviii

The Gap

I wish
I could
take
back

every
thing
be
tween

then
and
now.

No Regrets

mmmmmlxvii

I Can’t Remember What to Call This

Because it doesn’t matter

and never did.  Can’t we

all agree that titles are

important?  Might give

the rest of whatever

comes a bit of fur

ther poignancy?

mmmmmlxvi

Can You Guess Where I Am Right Now?

Remember the game we used to play?

Which you somehow almost always won.

Even like now, when I could not tell you

my location, would be hard-pressed to

even describe my environment, you’d

most often come through with the name

of the actual place. A real point on a map

I’d be, which neither of us would be able to

authenticate until some time later when

I had come to, so to speak, and had the

wherewithal to redraw my footsteps, to

figure out where it was I was at that

particular moment.  But you.  You

somehow knew.  So can you guess

where I am now?  Not only would

I love to know, but for reasons that

seem most important to me at the

moment, I’d give everything I have

(which, granted, is almost nothing)

for a map with which I might possibly

use get the hell out of here. Can you

try once more to guess where I am?

mmmmmlxv

Words Strung Lyrical, Rhythmic & Fresh

But what if I were feeling lazy today?
Oh, but I am, his internal voice responds.
I am I am I am I am I am.  Be that as it

may, I once was such a devotee that I
infiltrated Shakespeare, whose words
can truly claim his name as I have done

for one of his (or might it still possibly be
her) own.  Some of those words still live
within me (Good Signior Leonato, are you

come to meet your trouble? The fashion
of the world is to avoid cost, and you
encounter it. or Teach me, dear creature,

how to think and speak. Lay open to my
earthly gross conceit, Smothered in errors,
feeble, shallow, weak, The folded meaning

of your word’s deceit.) I’m thinking now
that even without knowing where one line
ends and another begins, the ebb and flow

of the rhythm of the words so strung together
would come naturally.  I could be wrong.  I
could be lying.  I’m just a guy who, with some

regularity, transfixes a traditional form, say of
fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, into one
that is decidedly without structure.  I could be

wrong.  I could be lying.  And yet such poetic
fuckery has, by now, its own long-standing
tradition (regardless of my redundancy, and

pardon the pun, but it is true that by screwing
with form, by breaking those once-strict bounds,
I am but folding myself within the ever-evolving 

layers of tradition).  What makes a bunch of words 

strung together in a particular order anything
special?  What concoction of cadence and sound

bends the ear so uniquely and so profoundly that
we deem a lyric fresh, or hail its author master?
I couldn’t tell you.  And who cares?   Let’s leave the

answers to those who’ve spent some time in search
of such answers, who in such endeavors have bent 

an ear or two in such cathartic pleasure; to those

without whom this life might seem (without us
knowing) significantly duller, and this most
vivid planet more two dimensional than three.

mmmmmlxiv

Your Title Track is a Tidal Wave
(three random and recent favorites
from the world of popular music)

Leikeli47 is unmasked in this simple
video, and I love it, her Bad Guy (she
is definitely referring to herself in this
one.  Now I need to go back and read up

on the reason why she has no mask when

she has most times I’ve seen her perform 

(if not all up to now?). What’s that all 
about and how does it compare with,
say, the masked experiences and impetuses
of Sia, DJ Blend, Daft Punk (who were not
always masked but nonetheless hid their
faces), Orville Peck (who word has it was
a punk singer in New York in a previous
incarnation), Lynx (my favorite of all of
these, whose story I really want to know)?
It’s Leikeli47’s best song to date from my
meager perspective and it is playing on
repeat on YouTube more regularly than
any other video this past month.

Next is not her title track, but the first song 

on Demi Lovato’s album from this year.  Lovato

is an artist that has over the years been for
me intermittently hot and cold, and who
I’ve never had in rotated play, I think,
until this song: Low Rise Jeans.  It’s a 

clear tribute to Britney, especially with 

her choices for percussion and beat (plus
the song opens with an ethereal riff
by what appears to be a choir, followed
by Demi’s singular word intro, “Work”).
The chorus has her in her “low rise jeans.
You don’t need your imagination.”  But
that sexual common denominator is
prefaced by a mind/body dichotomy:
“My head and my heart wanna ge-get to
know ya/But my lips and my hips, they got
other plans.”  Lyrics to go along with the

worthy chill summer vibes of the music.

Qveen Herby was half of the popular dance duo
Karmin who rose up the charts quickly in the mid-

2010s, but after establishing themselves firmly as
rising stars on the dancefloor, they dropped
their label and she has been independent ever
since, putting out albums most every year,
along with a self-help podcast, and she seems
super-respected yet seemingly glossed over 

by critics, perhaps because she’s hard to

pinpoint genre-wise.  She’s Qveen Herby.  Her 

latest album, Isle of Qveen, opens with an upbeat

song called Aura Poppins, and if you’re thinking
Disney, you’re on the right track.  Always expect
the unexpected and yet absolutely fun danceable
down to diva R&B sensations (Sensational is another
song on the album – I could have picked any of the
songs on this one to showcase; she collaborates with

a favorite fringe singer of mine, Thot Squad, as well, 

on this record) to just plain old-school crooning
to Eminem-level super-fast rap.  Here are the first
few lines from the song:

     Freaky little kinky, super raw, super fly
     Got a spoonful of sugar, love to show a little thigh

     Coochie clean, aura poppin', bitches know that I'm hot (hot!)

     Supercalifragilistic, yeah, that's what I thought

And that’s just three songs that I highly recommend anyone

give a good listen, if you have the time.  Thank you for indulging. 

I’ve intermittently thought I would love to be a pop music critic, 

or at least megaphone for those I find worhtwhile.  And there 

are always so many songs just out that give me redundant joy 

so this is an attempt to do just that, offering it up, spreading

the word in hopes others will find the same joy I do with each. 

mmmmmlxiii

Eulogy

So, late night
Talk shows....  To
Each their own?
Probably.  But for decades, I’ve had a few
Heroes behind these nighttime interview desks.  All things must
End, I know.  But it is
Not without a long drawn out sense of dis

Comfort and disgust with (what was once)
Our fair country’s
Leadership (not to mention its almost intolerably
Bleak forecast) that the show’s
Eulogy brings.
Rest in peace to the better portion of late night
Television.  May you not be gone forever.