cclxii

here he is again not listening. here I am again
with a current of jazz and a note full of chai. I’m
crystal distress again, aware I made a poem until
last night. like wire and something novel. what
shall I call it? disregard shall I call it myself.
this is what is outside with the cats’ poems. back
to being frequent, the cat under the bed trick,
a little S.O.S. in my diary which works better
when the tea’s good. I can call it whoever
shows up to do some laundry with the kid brother.
a silent talk that bonds with the scaredest cat.
the smokers’ eadrums are the sexiest. this
I register with the kind of attitude that makes
turkey go faster. I guess it’s okay to gossip when
deep onions are pushed onto one another. I guess
that’s okay down in the silence that stops him
at airports while he is maybe writing. it’s all okay.

cclxi

the buildings bring the house down
and the hills are on fire again.  it has
already been a week of wasting time.

I think how oily the salad.  my
heart is racing.  my heart is not saying much.
I think, instead,

they sold American State Bank!
random.  Sunday repeats itself.
oh he’s just wonderful, just perfect.

the building’s on fire.
movies like I Guess You Have the
Wrong Number open Friday when we

begin evaluating straight men.  this one is too
lumpy.  this one is too awkward.
this one is too too.  the shorthaired brunette who

I think is a pediatrician.
much to recount as I flip through the
pages, bear in mind the rustic

fireplace in front of which
we made videotapes.  and then there is the war,
and its belt-lipped busboy’s buildings on fire.

cclx (2)

I saw the same lime green everywhere
he had his little argument
about the surgery while the
white wine buzzed a
full frontal waiterfetish
still after all these years
(not still)
he had his neat little pill for which
to see all of the boys on the floor
they hovered in some sort of vibrational
new Madonna album download
his argument about the
sugar (flip cellphone)
his argument about the surgery
is me reading someone else’s poems
and I can’t shut them up (not really) (there
was a real surgeon) (see fan buzzing to my left)
the old man in front of me in taupe shorts
his blank little calves are
charging charging

cclix

home is where I need to say
my breath smells like vinegar
only the pink sky is awesome and
stinking like last winter when
the snow spits into the air its winter snow
spits into the air for a while over a home

this pink sky is therefore awesome
and my breath still stinks like vinegar
the almost Dove-like blue sky is
awesome or what I fail to say
for the first time in months
is the air is not
simply
a cold glass of water

ah it is a hot day in August and
my breath fills like vinegar
I’m gaining on this last breath like
the snow that is long gone long past
yet gaining to stoop and to write
(these two are like science)

home is not only what I meant
by these various words on my breath
which still
yes
these pieces of me I’d like to see again
are gone
yet nevertheless are all gone
and in me they are almost Dove-like
never to lose sight of pink

     nothing much about me today
     only this game I like to play
     and invitations
     to several parties

cclviii

You guys have my hardon, right? The rumor has it
I read the news this morning and maybe it doesn’t
matter at all what we’re doing. He’s been methodically buying
cute duds and dresses lately like a skaterboy. In
side of his sleeping pants I am filtering the events of last night.
They tell me oven-roasted salmon is nothing to filter.
I say hello boyfriend those

(my joy is in here)

were the days. Look at this gorgeous day inside of the
Sierra Conference Room. Here is something
new about me: last weekend or Friday I saw
Blue Man Group.       Part two. I made four reservations
it was freezing and that was the best part. Hello this boyfriend
my car got bashed. My boyfriend car got bashed. Bashed
in the parking lot behind Blanchard’s boyfriend.
Can I get the vegetarian lasagna with that? For twelve?
Caesar. No brownies.

cclvii

sun softly over the chest and over the
sleeping rock until I run into Crazy Eddie
sun softly over it’s true, it’s true, sun softly
makes the glass fires on the side of the mount

and then I went home to bed
no more sun
and then I read to my grandfather and
Steven Spielberg and then cleaned my
apartment and then I napped
and then I drove to Holliston

later, sun softly over the burg is
Colorado on Saturday
it is a pretty boy party sun softly and
it rocked until I ran into Crazy Eddie

and then I felt like I was back in college
and then I think we had fun
and then I know I slept
with his friend while we were there

sun softly over the diary
sun softly over the scrambled eggs
sun softly over the embarrassment
and over the pancakes on the balcony

and then I did laundry
and then I cooked dinner
and then I watched another movie
it was twilight

cclvi

at first glance it would seem time to make the poetry sausage hostage but the
big boat worms itself out of the Embarcadero-lip (the Embarcadero-mouth?)
            it needs to go back into its box. I am telling you this story about at first 

glance The Chambermaid and the Titanic (it’s a French toast fest) and the
glamourless woman who plays his wife who said the clouds and the porny sausage
(pony sausage?) who says the parfait is delicious (which one?). excuse me it’s
Tuesday late Friday and we need to go home—before that we had drinks
(mini vodka martians). “this morning’s working document shows the following:
Monday: 12:30-3:30pm telling him stuff that’s been going on (this is
almost the entire entry) Tuesday: 12:30-3:30pm it would be
time to make the poetry schnauzer but the big boat comes out of
its bruised berth” (something I don’t feel like). wait, I’m telling you this
story here from this workbench (in my workbox)—this is my workseat and
I write poetry here at [my workwork] while to my left is the woman who plays my wife.
not to be confused with what is really going on in here (bangs head).
(French cloud fist) obliterating the day. wait—his wife said the
parfait was great schnitzel. was great converschnitzel. this is almost the entire entry.
anyway, here I am with a bottle of scotch tape and a stapler for my enemies
(not for cocks) but yet we fight this war of clouds to end the daylight savings time.

cclv

the gift of my body walking down McAllister in
the interest of names is wanting to hug the bricks

c’est moi since I wrote I can’t go down on Frank
there is a brains donation on Saturday after thanks

to what I am Thursday giving much to Jack as I’d
like after admitting jury to housecats I’ve got to

sit on me watching sex or I am barely able to lift
that which I could with my hand to my zipper in

a 3rd party of mind my James Market Street or
a blown off body at still 9am in this morning and

I can talk for a little bit about white picket fences
or in a couple of bony triads Mike don’t necessarily

see we are since pooled & feel “good” about Darren
blow visits into a cup of Steve about his destructive

ok it’s more than a couple of kink relationships his
dick in order to maintain this destructive kink in

Andrew so gravely connects the necktie or tuxedo
for Ians I’ve been thrown into when worn at Louis

it’s off-kilter for Joe the good to be back to be hand
some prevalent crush of a feel all Thomas who looks

good in a lion or harness or a hoary tux are you horny
horsey do these words trot and yet I am no horn we’re

set to connect but I can be Rob to do yet more damage
I can’t see but will cut off my Ed if it is 24 hours yet

ccliv

the poet’s work of late daytime keeps
poetic inevitability at bay (such a vague
redemption).  sitting toward stratton
once again having been frazzled
much of the day i sit myself on my
owner’s manual while reading a
dissertation on labor (dropped w/
other gifts at my office late yesterday)
and so I had dinner & chatted w/him.
carrying him home the next evening
the diner lady wouldn’t let us in (i’m
trying to be as cordial as I can and
reiterating how happy and faithful i am).
then i watch a bird fly into a window.
this analogy is particularly re
vealing if we say we are going to die
in a few weeks, like he does, verbatim.

ccliii

today’s solution—an iPod with a new playlist—Groovin’
beeps into the dark down Sutter—stops at Starbucks
5:03am first customer—orders a triple redundant latté

this sequence consists of five of her “bodypoems”
stitched together in a sequence for New York—she’s
had various training and has been called post-Butch

at 5:04am 10 questions about your birthday presence
and a creme de siècle revelation—empty pockets—
I don’t have half a million dollars for a studio-condo

but today’s problem—I want to have sex with everyone—
enjoys a pre-dawn glow down Sutter—I stop at Starbucks
6:08am and he should be just the person to talk to about it

these bodypoems—inspired by Jean Cocteau and loosely
based on elusive fragmentary texts which are printed—
printed in the program of fragmentary texts—printed at

7:05am when the videoconferencing technician has
stirred up a creme de siècle revolution—Gay Pride
Saturday is postponed from last month’s Starbucks flood

it is the fifth and longest section—“Moon Moss Blossom”
where she smears her lovely face and upper body with
bronze makeup—works her way into a fantastical

whirlpool: me—1:51pm—dodges questions about birth
day birds—yesterday at the Unitarian church—I’ve blown
the first Starbucks customer—order me a triple Margaret

cclii

Took a lot of time walking Powell Street for a MUNI 

bong. The sun contemplating self has arrived, its

big long cloud is my damnedest mirrors.  Treasure
Island slightly windy.  Tonight Jamaica Pond and

a fang-reading after buying a hearse.  Dinner with a
Connecticut Yankee.  I have no time to myself not

poking at all.  Mulch kinda funny.  Nice uncomf
ortable boats in the bay.  Such as BankBoston.

Mortgage more lifespan into each poem.  We’ll see.
Got color and spoke.  No more time for me too loose.

ccli

I come to this place to swindle
coming not to be an artist

I could write for days here
a blueness that doesn’t lose me

is adazzle in the arbor I’m looking at
look at the jazz with my BOY

FRIEND fairly whomever I could want
I want to want to write with what I

am I spoke with him earlier 

about this cloudmatter

but now he is sick at the sun shining
I could come for days to swindle an

artist coming not to write for arbor
for arbor doesn’t lose me but

I have wrapped myself into a world
and now I have a cold blueness

a cool place I wanted I could write
a warmer place I wanted with jazz

I could write for days here but
there is no need for either of us 

to get dependent on the luxuries

of whatever art and truth might be

for I have come to this place to swindle

and—ohh!—

what a sense of accomplishment it would

have given me to have thought that 

perhaps, just maybe, I could have 

fooled you into believing

ccl

we made leeway on the Myles Myles Stratton.  gone UMP
is my diet of trees and trees and June.  but hopefully it is

gaining in Blackberry and noseblowing (TRIUMPH
ant) characteristics of noseblowing and

hopefully pounds back.  treesblowing is it is a veterin
arian is where is the rental car and June?  I am Angel Memorial

or is that two L’s as in “Del with one L” – trees RUMPH –
treesblowing leeway on the veteran pounds I am gonna

go do that now.  back!  I have been going through a bit of
Semester.  immediately.  yesterday we WE got an orange

reminder the fact is that that is now 3:41 EDGY.
andisEDGY.  but hopefully I noses immediately (one L).

ccxlix

I made a new KLEENEX for the truth about
a postcard of. of me attending a conference in London L

ondon Look at the PACKING TAPE I am writing a brand new
PACKING TAPE pretending this is why I write pah see

feh go to The Grove and eat BIG BLUE BINDERS this is
the way I this is the leaves are beautiful in October

are blood oranges and everything I read about the Chicken Kickers
but the ocean is all I have to say. all I have to Find me hiding. all I

alive hiding underneath alive the redbrown lights of the. all I’ve
WHITE-OUT is not how a thing goes wrong I made a TRUTH

about the London it was writing a leaf chicken. fuck red.
light out ocean HANGING FILE FOLDERS are beautiful are.

ccxlviii

Five fifty-six o’clock and the
tacos are clear. I check the bathroom
financials and think about eternity savings time.
A poetry I haven’t written is this tree I travel
to the lightning I lost. It’s like a cut-off cushion
under the sun-puffed clouds and I like it. It makes me
whole. I lost last night in the corner of the park next to
a meal I couldn’t eat. It was the tree in me.
An ochre chrysanthemum.

ccxlvii

marketing the subversive, here’s when you
know it’s not for you: read it once, stop,
go back and read it again, not remembering
a thing, stop, read it again, don’t remember
where I was on the page, nothing familiar,
all in ten minutes, phone rings, Peony
Pavilion here, ride the train, say goodbye,
forget to ever write again, women and
surrealism (lots of Kahlo), halt, Mike’s
Pastries (typo: Pasties), naked Francesca....
next May we sit in Starbucks, sip triple
you-know-whats, dine in fondue then
crash, fizzle, crashes tickle (tickle,
tickle), not at all funny, where is my humor,
not at all worth reading.  I go back and read it
three times for nothing, eating sweets, hell,
going back to the butterflies, back to Stafford.

ccxlvi

Hello there poster child for a foreign exotic country,
welcome to the new sound of freak-folk!  Also, the
timing of your courtesy flush is way off.  But nice

news (mews) a baby cat in the sky gives us paws a
bove the war (on words).  Half of Wednesday off
life adjustment—never a dull moment in the box.

Hello, I am looking at the pictures from our trip to
Arkansas and I have lost nine pounds all in one week
after walking to Waterstone’s and vacuuming my bed

room. Now my stomach is a wee bit upset.  Hark
October!  Hark tree of life and all that good stuff,
pretty one, beside my tummy, snapped for posterity!

ccxlv

Wow, great juice of an English bulldog,
food tastes GOOD!  Hello
guy eating an apple I love!  Mark
the night with rivets make it riveting!
Seven years and thirty pounds later I wonder
at material.  This stuff

sucks.  Remind me I got a cat to
night to call my own.  Remind my mouth to
mato weather of the English wonderdrug.  Hello
Hello Sepia the Cat and Dr. Superintendent.  I am morning poem.
Hey two cats:
I’m so hungry let’s try that again.

ccxliv

it’s rather a little unusual for
him to show up
in these poems. the fog
is eating the cheesemartians. i can’t
help it. says the ocean. those cart-
wheelers who shot at the blue and then.
(this is the future) stephanie
reading a poem to a congress of hummingbirds.

ccxliii

never a better time for codename
provincetown 1.436. it was a rebirth
day of surprise and omigod a poetics.
stolen excerpts include: “nebulous
sojourn for the mineral...currency”??
and who doesn’t like caps (“capsule”)
in a pill of “retro-jello” (why quote
now?) but “slippery rocks” of “in
significance” “on wax waterwings”
must win something 6.09.10.20.fog.

ccxlii

never once-over a page like some
glimmering on the other side read
ing it like a bomb.  which is to say
boom you say that?  yes next page a
goldmine full of vipers’ vests and
a spooked out clambake.  this bake’s
disorganized, disengorged, and what’s
more, I wait it out to be hungry to be.
poetry—tab—schoolwork and look,
a few more leaves blown while the
world collapses like clockwork,
only this time with feeling.  how
many times did you say that feeling
breath-rent—half gone to keynotes;
half to phone messages?  block time
for quoting, reread this a third time
and feel sad, feel ugly.  nothing
doing.  dance like a goldfish
out of goldwater.  finish big
like a goldbomb at a goldbake.

ccxli

a spidercloud flies over a trolleycar on calif
ornia street and they’re shooting another movie
on pine. says here the hominy is cooked with
cheddar cheese followed by the sky falling in a
pleasant sort of way. happy birthday to me at
addis red sea with a cast of a thousand forgotten
canvases on the living room floor. big crane
building up a new hotel on top of the hotel astoria.
stop for a minute. rue bush at café de la presse.
take chicken from freezer and place it in the ref
rigerator “that never thaws it does it?” turn thirty-
one bend over and stretch a little.

ccxl

you need to go swallow a dollar

I snuggle in bed with your resignation

the walking FBI offers a reason to feel sixty more

I look at my blackberry bill I am on a salary

your resignation allows my resignation I am a cell

my cell has walking dogs becomes 3 cells more in one note

your church’s soft-skinned note is not burning

it swallows repetition for a rude aworkening

but the entire lipstick is a note full of burned necks

lots from stretched cars which go down lost

this note scaled down by FBI museums and birds looks at

my blackberry from a still life with two gold oranges and at

a still life with two oranges forcing me

on a scale of one to green resignation

ccxxxix

Friday get a better voice therapist.
Where are they going to love me to
day? Not here under the disingenuous
stormcloud. Find a tree that looks
perfect and make another snap. Snap.
Drink your breakfast and find another
tree. Snap. Go to the luncheon and
peel off a rose that doesn’t snap. Ah,
June and we’re practically naked.

ccxxxviii

Thursday get a better Massachusetts
with a little bit of torsion. Relax,
my fax number is outside the window
with your priest. Death plus love equals
more salad (snaps). Yes, it’s the two of us at
Clos Pegase (more snaps) – nice view,
great thumb! What was your question again?
I’ll see if I can make that change on the
spreadsheet—but be sure to look at everything I
erased in answering your question.

ccxxxvii

Wednesday get a better haircut.
In the street holding hands I was
halted mid-thought by a smile I forgot.
We are the unlucky few, many of us exploding
five nuclear warheads in retaliation for
Clinton’s speech on murder. Stop the
violence! No I’m serious! Everyone is
speaking Stradivarian in here, be at my 

place around ten. Nice reading last night,
do I get a raise? This is why I haven’t
responded to your lovely note.

ccxxxvi

Tuesday get a better job. Repeat after me:
please note: I rec’d the invitation to my birthday:
a one-hour working session re:
making sure we’re not going to London: Done!
I used to sleep with you and yet attractive artists
everywhere are torn between making future plans
and wanting to leave things more open,
tentative title. Marauding blood pressure and
work-related massage at the
Ethiopian restaurant. P.S. Please
keep November free.

ccxxxv

each clunk a feeling in my gut that rises like taking off with
my best friend or something in here missing rather than losing our
lovers on the airplanes of inevitability or where we might as well take off our
selves or send our best friends’ lovers to those bosses
who land by the way in some undiclosed locations
which are only undisclosed because unihabitable by MY SELVES.
now it leans toward me this poem of disrepair. I would not know it more willing in
Boston Common nor know it better in this box, my incessant box,
nor on Treasure Island which I mention in
cessantly because I cannot see it but from my box nor never will touch it nor since

it does not matter with my own hands up inside of it. swans over there fading.
Wallace and Gromit warehouses burning down and
Wallace and Gromit movies at number one on the box office and
Wallace and Gromit cartoons next to David Hockney and
Isabella Stewart Gardner over the rush of what I do not have but more
work to do. each boat which leaves another trail of pigeons each
absolute perfection of temperature each Saturday where no one
showed up for the poetry each dinner at Bickford’s followed by
come home and cuddle on the back porch before this war

that can’t happen its way out of my head. ducks and swans
and muppets and devils and delusions of lovers and lovers of lovers and lovers I never
take off nor possess nor whatever it is that one is supposed to DO with them.
I must I must museum with some of my imagined somethings things missed is always
always un un

ccxxxiv

and seeds we could to flower.          but hey guess what?

I believe you need to reach the lab tonight.

I think (on the porch) I’ll order us the cheeseburger pizza when I get home too.

I got home last night guess what?        you reach to wonder why

I don’t need to go to lab tonight.          I slow

I slow never mind and guess.            I guess I never smile last night to reach out reach out

to you.  do you like your new camera flower?            it shoots from leaps and roots with

sadness.   the negative sadness.          no sadness it springs to saps from leaps to

how’s my head?                       (a little late)     breathe.

hey guess what I need to take a new flower of your head that holds

its rings inside mine with a brown leather bracelet.

ccxxxiii

Do you pace in elevators? We burke the question. “Youth
isn’t the automatic turn-on it used to be.”  Things that go away:
like a headache
reading a magazine
in the jury pool.
I still have a little trouble in the chest tuesday 45 minutes beyond the
prescription.  At the picnic: sunshine 12:30pm chime street vendors
older man in mascara with swimming pool parties (thank God we never went)
you picking out the fat pigeons the cool pigeons the seagulls that chase the
pigeons the fresh fruit salad with your fingers til I give you the fork.
Last night I
dreamt of
him who can
never leave me.  A DREAM.
You and I grow older every minute.  Summer sun soft glow.  See
the sailboats play with each other making new shapes.  Moonlit headrush.
Dry mind
and hunger.
This is why I should be writing.  Take me to the uncomfortable
picture somewhere let it out.  I spoke again long distance.  Hunk curve
ocean bull whispers horn salve.  Thank God I’m
consistent.

ccxxxii

Yesterday when I was giving away more heartattacks
I put this information from an old diary entry into today’s thoughts,
events, environments and then I e-mailed all of my lust for the
tall skaterguy who showed up on yet another Oscar-winning spring day.
I’ve never worked in a place where so many people fart at the urinals.
Here I sit creating life, a new fiction that sorts out our selves, plus: (sad sad bleak)
which I occasionally get to write about while at work,
like when I wrestled with the whole idea of writing flower
spaghetti sorbet and strawberries on my nose.  Since I write all of my memories
this sort of thing teases me into reremembering,
shakes up what it can, like that square poem about bonding with the moon
or for blueboy who died yesterday.
Sometimes we become more boring
without a diary,
we cannot label nor reinvent our life.  Look out:
I am breaking into another peach.

ccxxxi

wait liberally
til tomorrow to not inspire
to tell _______.  reading Mom
to tell you I did call mine
tomorrow at the lap of dawn.
face V legs drawn sit on drawn lap.
I am more at ease more at ease
with the French dearth I think I heard.
face pants.  V liberally til
I am more at ease.  force more
ease to move.  ease a trident
force entry easy symbolism.  love the
trident.  wait.  an embolism
of sexual liberation.  a rid
iculous tenet of liberationship.  slip tri
dent.  await forced entry drawn lap.  legs
a V to not inspire.  force.  force.
at ease.

ccxxx

let me tell you the dream last night of us being neighbors.
somehow i was hiding from you (who is you?). then there was
a slice and then another slice, like lemons, with a bit of pucker –
couches, carpets, backyards – the things you can have as neighbors.
right here is where i splice tombstones and sandwiches, indiscriminately,
into tombstone sandwiches with backyard condiments, this is my recollection
of the dream, a dream i remembered while we were brushing our teeth,
together, your arm draped over my shoulder, each of us looking into
the mirror at us. you are my love birds, me and you and that mirror.

ccxxix

more about me
I sip the green tea like that for it is of myself to want to sip
two cups per day question mark getting a picture taken during cocaine
my chest blurts evidently the left side my left occasionally a great blurt
a great blurt of pain erupts my chest at the top of my head momentarily but shocking
we are spoiled buildings ready to be demolished I should get to the root of it
what the problem is is we should note more about the buildings being broken
being destroyed in our left lung is not symptomatic of my telling you what I am wearing
what I am wearing is the problem that could arise by how I like to enter
I like to enter any machine that needs to be troubeshot
but more more about me later

ccxxviii

I want you to know how it really is. My lip swells, or just above
my lip, just below my nose, usually on the right side, my right side,
after I take aspirin or ibuprofin. I feel boxed in because I am.
Nice view and all, but I’m bored. Not bored all the time, because I
don’t have enough time to think. When I do think, it is for nothing.
That’s not true, either, as I do think sometimes of you. Most often.
But I think of other people, too. How are we connected? In the
simplest terms, I mean. It’s 2:30pm and my boss is conducting an
interview. Is he looking for my replacement? No. I drink more
water. This is filtered water from the sink next to the refrigerator.
The southeast refrigerator. In my candor I forgot to mention my
brothers’ birthday. They are 29. I mean they are 36. Jogging.
Sit-ups. How demoralizing.

ccxxvii

well, yes, I wasted last night with MORE
MARTINIS! so now it’s time to go to Le Coloniel
and colonize YET MORE MARTIANS! I was trying to
say let’s have a couple of vodka commas
but then it became one of those vodka commas at the end of each line
vs. a couple of no commas things. I
could add: (I caught you smoking)

through the smoking corridor

but it’s nearly time to rocky road.

ha! false alarm. the sun is brainy.
we chow down at Doyle’s for his sexual
recidivism paper and then I help him with his
sexual offenders. after that we walk
for days (we always seem to do this) (thru non-smoking corridors no less!). hey
I got something special for your book!
I have this special bookmark I got
in Cantonese: HOUSE OF FURY. it
marks page 33 well (cue new look):

says “hot hunk undresses off showing his great body”

underneath “check out this new high quality insect site.” ok no more false spams.

oh and next time we kiss at the corner of
Fremont and Mission let’s please not forget
there are people walking around with hot dogs in their hands.
nor the building across the street that got demolished. end of story for now.

ccxxvi

we set up a bridge
for le beautiful nonsense...
its “unlet downy days”
is what is written and they are
too much comfort for my shrunken face. no
quotes allowed for the laptop shock,
the equivalent of which – “are we grounded?” –
gets no answer under “not this biscuit!”
this biscuit
has leather two-piece snaplets we reach out and
grab to remove hence bread is a
red herring (best eaten and beaten with cattails) which reveals:
“sunswiped pea.” a beachbum swordfight ensues
on the beach,
that’s the rock-fisted gist of it:
swishbuckle! so then I bought roses because I’m addicted.
pink ones seem to do the trick but there’s also
do laundry kiss and make up for being all tied down
strapped and spanked – I mean
cuz I got the folze, the fourscore frizzzles
(poetry) (beams) the Folsom ffotos of you (finch
buns) a la dolce ziti.

ccxxv

Dis
connected. Was I
walking down Folsom
when a distant friend called?
A pear and two golden-wrapped
pats of butter. Now I’m finishing a book
at Union Square when it decides to happen,
but I’m reluctant to remember everything at once.
An ice cold boyfriend (meaning each old boyfriend),
each translucent riddle. Many friends are giving birth
to books, each joy a dim remembrance. Not 100% true.
I get a big shock to my head every once in a while.
It’s a flashpan invocation of the threesome rule:
take a nap stepping backwards (with fever pitch).

He’s swatting flies in the living room. Big one.
Tiny one. Still life with cones. Still life with
pitcher and two apples (green and red). Still
life with bananas, lemons and indecipherable.
Still life at the shoeshine with a hug and a kiss.
It’s a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Noises are
reminiscent. The cat’s lazy. Flies slap
the window. The plants need water.
Trolley cars buzz the breeze.
Green couch. Brown socks.
I finished a book. It was
good. Honk. The
sky soars.

ccxxiv

Good evening from the sympathy ride.  I tried calling you several times to
tell you that the Red Sox were hurting.  There was no number so I wasn’t
sorry enough.  I died and they sent me to Cleveland for still MORE sympathy.
They brought me back to life and we played frisbee for a while but then
I needed a blood transfusion.  The only blood that would work was
Fenway Park so I tried calling you again.  Still there was no answer.  So I
died again.  I’m in hell now.  Awww.  1-800-560-7702.

ccxxiii

woke hell up
working

broke early
music beacon

fourth floor
window barking

he sat up up
set so gets

up works
barks Boston

beats last
warm drum

barks some
more ful

some quest
ions gets got gets

worked gets
pored over

I wish he was
up so much

ccxxii

misted committees
of hooligan tugs
secretaries of the
Embarcaderos
whooshes
into an avowed lesbian
of less than an hour

sew some pretty flowers
on my boyfriend
me: boyfriend.
boyfriend: yes?
me: pretty flowers.

boyfriend paints me
sitting in my tea he’s
bleeding on the trains

I cries and misses
the next red paint meeting
makes me a money check
for silly romances
it was Easter
17 of us around a table
11.8% vegetarian

daisies tulips
pretty little headaches
sprung up before
churches antiquities
noses in roses lavenders
honeybees’ honeysuckles

ccxxi

nothing universal about the poetry I SCREAM and called
the bank yesterday as it basically told me that I was over
drawn thru existential crisis—it was amazing without
feeling and kinda PLUS on the manic side which with me
always puts me into an exaggerated intensity.  I have

so much fun writing narrative poems and as I’ve said before

I should try to combine these two styles into a narrative
urgency somewhere near the surface of PEACE like how
I’m using my emotiCons and at the same time not really feeling
that sort of blankity-blankity-blank kind of FUCK the other
half of the world loves to get paid I LOVE TO GET PAID I

love to get paid a lot on Friday which makes my emotions all

ROCKIN IT SO HARD otherwise maybe we can have some
drinks.  something’s definitely eating me off today these
faces of my favorite poets these faces of my all-time favorites I
FACE THE PROBLEM I say hey I’m free tomorrow this
sense of urgency every night to tell a fucking story I can’t

sense the urgency every night to tell a fucking story I can’t

remember even having that consciously intentional KNOW
LEDGE that kind of “walk in my shoes” thing where I’m grip
ping this guy & he’s “driven” with a LICENSE TO GRIPE
that replaces all of my periods with quotation marks.  no this

wasn’t today.  it was rather today’s instance.  it was only one
of several where I learned another sort of meditation.  NO THIS

wasn’t today it was rather an afterimage.  it was only the NO
instant which today stands for.  is how it was today THIS?

ccxx

Some Ideas For The Poem I Will Write:
ArtList DoList NewProject Keep Going.
Fresh But Tell A REAL Story!  ReEvaluation:
Why Is Memory Important?  I’m waiting
for the SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY it’s just me sitting here
JUST ME conFusing words I Like
(Not This Poem) (Read Less Poems)
The Fog “Yes You Can Go In Now.”

this does not work to slow things down

I Love You Even Though My Heart
Hurts (Maybe Just Gas?) NOT
EATING THIS YEAR...but finding
how uncomfortable it is to wear
the wrong pants.  pants that are
NOT THE RIGHT SIZE.  particularly if they are too long
or too tight or too short (that never
happens).  I got rejected.  I cried.
End Of The World Now.

ccxix

It’s the last page! $5 drink at One Market
today WE BREATHE it’s so damned
SQUARE we’re just hectic. Kerplunk there
goes that door again what door where
SOBER is that door I’ve never been through
that door before MY BUTT have you? It’s
unavoidable nicotine today was so LAZY
ASS hectic. Oh I said that. Short note:
I have tons of ACTION dirty laundry
there goes that door again where is that
door RUN OUT OF INK? I am PRETTY
much different any more I hope MY POCKET
I hope my KALEIDOSCOPE or LIFE
IS Emerson Hall is close I hope. When I sit
with my memories again I read four articles
from the COST OF RECOVERY POWER
TO DETAIN JUDGE RULES AGAINST
DEMOCRATIC RIVALS TO PLAY NICE
New York Times travel section April Fool!

ccxviii

I’m sweating TIME TRAVEL
too much while he photocopies
all of his PHOBIAS for the Mechanical
Engineering Department. Doctor, I
guess I’ll leave him alone then to his
claustrophobia it’s the HOTTEST DAY
OF MARCH, I’ve gotta run. We nail
a fennel salad, bake quiche, GAY BEAR
spaghetti carbonara – now that’s a
flashback!! I need to make a STUD dark
in liberty out of this poem from yesterday,
stop writing POEMS! They hurt! I’m
HOT dreams of thirst (even if he’s back
from San Francisco) all this babble gets me
nowhere. What’s his name from Cleveland?
ME sweatwalking from Whole Foods with
fake bacon and lemon tarts lots of sunshine
TOO MUCH not really. I changed destiny
so that I could be famous in my own mind.
It worked. Oh SHOOT the woman I used
to talk to in Geneva.

originally published in BoXoN

ccxvii

another gorgeous mushroom kisses. I’m attending a poetry
gravity and I think I ate most of it. I owe you 7 spinach kisses.
all those words I think Suzy liked it. esp. 9 red bell pepper kisses.
discovering language I was moved by all of the poems, inc. Santa Fe
and the poem about murder. he wanted a throw-away sentence like
we taped up my bedroom with Monterey Jack cheese kisses. it felt like
I feel: tingly good and maniacal. don’t let me be dotty tomorrow.
I was driving to poetry this morning and I saw 4 fake bacon kisses.
they were on the jump-start list, chunking out phrases like Lincoln
lasagne & apolitical quiche followed shortly by Ginny O’s cheese rings.

ccxvi

gorgeous crocuses.
if I make enough of them
some of them will
become dumb.

even the sterile
campus bleeds its
dawn, a form of
heartache (forgery).

started working it
earlier.  indeed, its
circumference was
staggering.  smoke

bells.  ten words to
jumpstart elocution:
he’s so in love with
okra now.  my mood

went downhill.  then
we walked up the
fillmore steps to the
jasmine glitches.  he

says he’ll drop
out of school.  per
haps I should walk
back to my shoes.

but then tomorrow?

ccxv

We’ve developed an eye for the
WRITING breathing. And it should take
time for it to be FUNEREAL. I just turned on
just turned on my manservant and OURSELVES
say “I think I’ll have Masto today” whatever
that is. OVERWHELMING dream about that guy
that guy with ISSUES. I haven’t really been been
consisting a lot THINKING about last night’s Fatt Dogg.
It was ok CARING. Kind of NUMBER ONE hard to eat
and messy. Long dogs. Short buns. MYSELF. And good
relish. I dreamed about about CAN’T I EVOLVE this guy.
He was bawling, terribly upset because he’d just been
dumped across the Mass Ave. I wanted to take a LONG
trip to find some some STUN some enclosure of a
couple of STUN poems. Funky flat screen TV over the
condiment stand self-absorbing pig can’t handle CNN.

ccxiv

the awkward 4pm stairsteps A LOT
a sign a sailboat up at the same cloud
where the hallway spirals into PSYCH
OSIS same staircase we pass in mornings
as each cloud in my head is another
ROBOT that has subsided the academy
the same damned number of boats each
pleasant ripple BALLING found conversation
it’s stifling and/or boring and/or my DOLLARS
of diagonal shapeshifting its one thing was
completely was writing a slime UNSETTLED
and unearthed skyscraper FLEEING with yellow
window-washers sailing anyway into one another
a MEMOIR of our communications restaurants
movies saint DAFFODIL something-or-other
its peanut noodles indelible DAFFODIL indel
edible tablespoons of peanut editing eating
a DAFFODIL MEMOIR was

ccxiii

someone fell on top of the ICE glass
sculpture between our buildings.
ARKANSAN upon the concept that
sculpture is a generous term for
what it was, EYESORES do see death. do so.
just like us SYNDROMES, my legs
miss your legs. SPRING pelting the
windows between us. it’s not so
complicated and ICE as all that.
we were united yet a third time and a
RENEWAL has happened this month.
LILY TOMLIN crunch, people fall off bridges,
are trampled or thrown or are suffocated
and also are DROWNED. I sit SICK
in a box for ten hours every day.
my last grandfather goes THRESHOLD,
I write nothing about the filtered
butterflies I drink, three liters every
day, nor the coasters they flutter upon,
nor the plastic bottle I fill constantly,
full of LOVE butterflies, a 31-day-old
bottle to me, I wrote about it now. see?

ccxii

got thread
bare wish
in head
ache line
at ATM
machine
its jolt
my nerve
a type
of flip
flop hope
ful mutt
er in yr
ear your
ear your ear
ring’s caught
my tooth
ache ingot
& I got no
floss it’s
fine my del
icate trick
don’t turn
your eye
no more

ccxi

I am with
the pressure
in my head.  We
met with a vengeance
outside a plastics purveyor
on salt and pepper office day.
He kept me writing about it 5%
while into the vegetables.  Now let
us take the plunge, be slickened like
smushed grapes (cuz making muscat
is good for a picnic).  He bought new
pants and his new ass looks great!
If I can get down to 140
promise me this,
death to all
muses.

ccx

last night we
danced so
close to the
war.  in Vir
ginia where
ever James
Madison
College is
last night
Kevin and
Aaron each
said a poem
to my heart.
last night we
slept in or
outside of
Roanoke.  I
was teach
ing him how
to drive and
he was teach
ing me how
to skip a
beat.

ccix

we meddled once. sitting
in the front passenger seat
of my car. what are your
rules, mister? soon we’re
in Nashville, hard to know
where to begin. I dropped
my fork to look at an ass.
too many details in each
death. March falls. then it’s
the cleanest day in August.
countless birthdays doom
corporations. after my first
shower alone in years, I
cannot write in this car.

ccviii

I like myself writing more
corporate establishment
on the kitchen marble
with the window open
down to the dumpsters is
enriching and feels very
comfortable these waves
these incoming waves
incoming via cable
all the way from
Jamaica Pond wailing
“all the pretty eloquence
is stifling me...”

...meanwhile it’s in
the internet where I
funded those boys’ words
they founded me via the
flotsam I flung at the
stiflement via Ma vie
en rose and enriched my
peeing more trips
round the corner
to the men’s
room via the
dull hallways thru
each office door a
slumped artist with a
clean view of the bay

ccvii

this library steeped in my
head where people get
to know me if I let them
not likely for this paper
its refrigerator humming
disconsolately while no
poetry is in my soul like
a good mood no letter
in my brain no word
from Boston because
he doesn’t want to meet me
hi
we shook hands yes
terday
this room was safe from us then

ccvi

rainy day in Ca
mbridge town.
guy who reads
newspapers on
toilets the day I
get my first ever
corporate card
and drinks a V-8
with shrimps and
sausages criss
crosses campus to
determine men
us.  reservations
about Ogunquit.
we’re wacky for
Roger the sexy
Britlet (fantasy
vs. reality).  dis
burse $670 in Lev
i’s baby brother
or sister.  put it
hard on a
horse, for me
an important
process (note:
wrote a report).
sure, I’m not
a language, nor
an insurgency.

call tonight,
a lunatic.

ccv

too bad I’m not
rockstar cool but
I guess it’s ok to be
niceguy cool. this is
not about sex or
politics. let’s say
you were really
looking forward
to working for Banana
next week. am I
niceguy cool? here I am
alongside my
first corporate
fill-in-the-blank.
that sounds good.
like a dart-blower or a
martini with two onions.
I’m trying to eat
and write at the
same time. phenomenal
finalists. check. let us
kneel. check. kissing
the page. check.
remember the
quick trot to work
after losing my first
slam. check. further note:
fiercely. fiercest big
loser. fiery hearted.
hearty heart heart.

cciv

today’s fun is calendar fun!

what fits today’s schedule: think
more seriously; obnoxious destinations

like this spot: FUEL!

see the guy with the long hair who
shaved half his head off (the left half)

what does that mean?

so we grumble through the morning fog
into a pleasant afternoon, whose

reflection sits nicely upon Embarcadero 4,

south side. now officially accepting
one job after another. years go by.

I am here. starting Monday.

cciii

what does he mean by
what should you put
in this poem???  “you should
put something not of yourself.”   what?

that means I’m
further in the hole
than I’d ever imagined.

that means this coffee is awful
and soften this headache.

how dare the power of repetition!
it repeats itself.  this poem
I just read sixty-one
times.  sixty-one
poems.  sixty-one
dollars of poetry
(plus fiction,

so sixty two?).

just yesterday we dined across the street
at Botolph’s.  had roasted tomato shiitake mushroom
pesto sandwich on focaccia bread.

now we are playing
the stock market.  picking
feathers out of pillows.  cheating on each other
with words.  sixty-one.  sixty-one.  sixty-one.

ccii

he landed on the president in the middle of his presentation
a good fellow but his butt’s too flat

at the end of a Valentine the
bulbs blew up to grow good poems full of Novocaine

when I say blew up I’m not talking about the Crocker Galleria
I can’t imagine a poem feeling that good

my second reading was a line thru my forehead
you can fix that now in downtown San Francisco, he said

lunchtime’s one piece of chicken and one more piece of chicken
made way for eventide’s Grandma cookie (peanut butter)

no more smut for the soul but oops four more wrinkles
one Mississippi two Mississippi three Mississippi four

cci

turned around to hear my
stomach screaming at me indeed
it was ticked off by my yoga instructor “money money

money money money!”  gas bills
medical insurance cellphone
vocabulary intelligence

what a bunch of words I hate words I
do believe I’m losing
my calm

where’s my lover’s ear?  I lean over to put my
mouth into my grip on the
border between the kitchen and the
living room and lo he reaches up from somewhere and

the storm passes away he picks up the spills
and I lose my grip to the fleeting thunder

cc

waiting for my pinto pilaf. the snow
crackles unanimously like hailstorms.
marble windows barking. the
bay seems dull bluish, dull grayish or dull whitish.
several boats pore over it...

I could show you my life in 200 poems.
several years’ worth. “he’d never an ounce of
credibility,” nods one profile. you can just make out
a halo over it, or swirling thru it....

got plenty of revisionist sleep last night
after arguing about doppelgängers.
this is not a diary entry. this is reality.
I took off my shirt and nearly walked out the door.

but I’ve certainly been a domestic sloth. my
heart heals slowly when there’s a need to
reach around and feel my face, its nose
tangled up in the lavender that sprung from the wall.

I’ve been trying to appreciate being alone
and I’ve been very successful. which makes
the perfect boyfriend better.
here he is rounding the hallway corner,
no more antibiotics,
a nice change of pace,
200 ghosts spitting ice.
and here we are asleep on the greenish couch we crumble upon.

cxcix

pity i have to
prove myself
to be myself.

the benziger pea
cocks.  see them
strut.  drink wine.  who

can see a butter
fly from the
33rd floor

w/o experiencing
an identity
crisis?  he

sketches me.  we pic
nic at v sattui sans
naked loversoaking.

chill, i’m a star
ting to (blech!)
really love my

job.  pity.

cxcviii

I find my death
in a comic book.  It
looks like a

clown dressed
as a heart.  This
surprises me.

Consequently, I
lose touch with
who I am.  (Death

serves vodka with
Red Bull.)  In
novation is over

rated & I’ve lost
my touch.  Why
are vegetables

more sincere
than meat?  If
heart is broken

then death is
fervent, eager.
Problems may

arise from
heart killing
brain.  Pow!

cxcvii

being his birthday and all
I get a very nasty note

these drunken notes HE
CALLS to punish me so I’m

all upset shoving
the cat off the pot

pee in here it’s better than
being upset on top of him

I tried to respond and I
did but then I unsent it

it’s so easy to lose says the
square blond kid dancing like

Archie and Jughead
I’ll give him his stupid TV

cxcvi

we colonized the patio, but first:
sushi with no service. I thought
the sun decided to think about
seeing us through the fog but got
blown up over the hillside instead.
he adjusted my cardigan in the
poem. I read it to my father.
then he died. it made me
happy to write.

time to water the plant before
flying. first I wrote ‘lying’ but
that was a gamble. neither of us
are flying. we’re like penguin
wings.

the proof will come in the poetry
database. this was my thought
as I drank a bowl full of roses.

cxcv

a grievous blue bay topped by a tanker
under a sepia sky divided by cricket chirps
more phone calls from the roadrunner cloud

it won the race to the neighborscraper so I didn’t
have to boast but wrote my first poem on a trident

and what did I do today? me, too. turkey burger
with poem by guest appearance its shadow lurky
near the two moles we had for breakfast or supper

eagle ships certain to tide me over til Calistoga’s
headlines rip Waterstone’s submissions into
the study I keep interrupting but he’s trying to
figure out his major and doing volunteer work

my fingers dry the little line on my thumbnail
creeping up for coffee he was depressed and
bored with unemployment its goose a goner

I mean I finally looked into the mailbox

call mom and dad to let them know about my
situation something nice to wear a bright blue
bookmark oh my Dahlen it’s all over it’s almost
over from New Year’s Eve to Autumn I write a
poem a page a poem a day an overdue movie

and something to keep the t-shirt holes dirty

cxciv

we didn’t finish the history of fidgeting,
but it does seem they’d like to hire me. now
I’m a Boston fruitcake, spend time with
the slugs investing in Herman Miller futures.

the complacency of a certain 20-year-old
as said complacency relates to my com
plicity in said complacency = big tits
in a feel-good movie. an understated

performance. my four-line stanzas are
sharper than your four-line stanzas about
my lingering feelings for you-know-who.
only, seven ages ago, you-know-who was

you-know-where. we grilled margaritas,
donned our chaps, danced, pinballed,
drank, and fried mushrooms. ever the
chameleon, he passes out from the

screams upstairs, having nearly shoved
me out of the way in time for the movie,
sparkling debate about the mood ring
on my finger. for example, marry him.

as usual, the mushrooms were delicious.
but my strategy engendered poignant disc
ussion, a flop, quite unlike our rough
and raunchy flower scene. I can still feel it.

cxciii

he thinks he wants to look like he’s
in the action without moving.

the monotony of the bright spot,
that which has firemen working

underneath my pillow. we’ve
eaten too much landscape. he’s

no more somewhere than the out
side. the golden moments of

evening when the dust settles,
haze on Treasure Island, real in

viting. the more we watch tele
vision the more we focus. I sit

somewhere in the charcoal. OK
we can do something there, per

haps a little editing. a winter
storm with lots of salary. two

pennies basically told me not to
apply for any more positions.

that’s golden like the sleepy room
where lips and lips ellipse,

notable only for their first week in
Cambridge. many other positions.

unnoticed harem we focus. more
somewhere than here, an island

full of misfits. misted. OK per
the little hopes, the moments.

today is shifty. in which out
rageous century am I most contented?

cxcii

I felt guilty about the
memory that I had
paid for it. As you’re
starting a project,
you should see its
end. Lunch break.
MIT. Which took
place yesterday. 5
gals and quail kebabs.
I had to do something.
Same guilt burning
the haze of desire. Or
I burned lunch, a
memory project. I’m
riddled. Who I am
falling fallen who is
anonymous. Practic
ally a breakdown. I’m
always insensitive.
No dichotomy. Happy
anniversary celebration.
Cat pee in the China
Doll pot. Costs
lunch money. Makes
quail crying bob
white my angel.
Bob white.

cxci

can stick out like a dumb sore. there’s
a woman who walks like a man. she
says awesome too much. I’m not in
fallible. it’s cold in here so we just drop
and then we drop again. no fallacy this
latest Newsweek with the Pope in Cuba.
see the tugs gust through the haze (may
well have the guts). then we haul stuff
to his dorm room my head aches and
watch X Files for our official one
month Burger King. too much guff.
busy busy that’s why it’s all funky.
I had fries. you’re right, I only wanna
eliminate the bottom line.

cxc

then cook tediously
sitting on a blackberry
and get quite loaded
quick note. I’m alive.

lunch in Quincy Market
one sandwich full of mayo
four laps around the treadmill
is started late today. need

notebook. need poetry.
he wrote my mother a vanilla.
waited two hours for a fingerprint.
top left buttcheek burns.

I miss you notes.
notes note misses.
I do whatever that means Ani.
so familiar am alive and loaded.

I’ve been dishonest lately.
time can make that more intense.
I logged four help desk tickets
today alone.

clxxxix

I went to the doctor in a blue car.
There was a rash under my arm full of
red and golden stars. He said it was a
bacterial infection from coffee. Loving
isn’t very easy. No big deal. Either way
it’s not nice but I’m happy I’m
not really contagious.

clxxxviii

I went outside.
I took a nap.
I’m rash. I have a
bathroom. I pray the
Lord. And miles to go.
It’s warm. My head is gone.
Exquisitely warm. I sleep.
I went walking in a park
before my nap. A
security guard saw me. He
clinked his keys (or change).
Change. I dreamt I was
in a basement during a
tornado. We slept. He’s
going to work now. I’m
not. I worked five years.
This is my last day of work.

clxxxvii

It’s an hour before church meth church mouse
high on St. John’s in Jamaica Plain those
blowsy clouds put out to dry. Right by
Josh where Josh lives and what did we
accomplish but an hour of church and I
cleaned up and organized some. Some
what? I thought my heart was going
but when it stopped hurting I was
running for a week. I need a smoking
appointment at church for graduate
admissions to pay rent with. It
smokes more when the clouds
are cloudless. Send a certified
letter to Gulf. Pay rent and the
rest of my bills. It’s right by
the nib of the nob, its
repossessed business
waiting for the bread.
The bread of the
holy sun. Need
some shades.
And more
bread.

clxxxvi

lovely Sunday ok let’s con
centrate in the park its mis
begotten pink new year’s
balls flying into the fogbottom

rode its giant cypress-like prick
all the way up to Rhode Island
where trees with Woonsocket-pink
pools out-puncture the girls

then we have dessert at Grumpy’s
our shades a mirage of fog and
fountains on the ridge of hope
where I plant my feet “I’m grounded”

more ground than you fog
that ate the Golden Gate Bridge
probably more than you fog
in the street in front of Postrio

I’m a little nervous because it’s
snowing and so I thought we’d
drink more muscat for the pleasant
rise up the Filbert steps less pleasant

with each new step a new sweat
and then later we go ROLLER
SKATING how romantic -- isn’t that
pretty darned romantic no?

it’s the first day we don’t talk
which makes Lombard almost pinkless
but rollerskating -- wasn’t that just
delicious? yes it’s way past 1998

the girls keep asking for more
“GQ action here boys” and
Buddha says “is there room in your life
for one more trip to the moon?”

clxxxv

the thump of a thumper
or a thumper thumps

if someone sunk a
THIS IS YOUR LIFE

in front of my face
wouldn’t we be struck

by the redundant
abundance of it

coffee and too much
talk and too much

Christmas letters and
poems snowing oh

I’m all jackhammed up
this hearty rhythm’s got

inspired by suicidal
hairs a duo of graying

hairs inspired by the
snowscape out my window

what a fantastic gift
and an awesome offer letter

these diamond ear
rings and a blanket of

snow thunked like
thunk a fucking lack of

vocabulary its vocation
an evocation vacationing

this list could go on
ad infinitum

clxxxiv

sweet Christmas come and gone
along the beach its mutilated
curves a second truth indeed
it was almost romantic

a gift I’d never given
muddled here at Mildred’s
and lacking the zest of
some recounted scenes

these last few days
of peace and intermittent
sun of structures sound
and wizened

shit this guy over here
has lit a cigarette
I never gave to you
this story

the one I got around a tree
where a few windchimes and a
Big Sur bird that hadn’t lost
its sugar

each packet pecked it
flew it up said tree
and to its startled mother
a little bit of Christmas

well this coffee stinks
but the last few days here
except for the icy drive
were wonderful

I think I’m going to boycott Mildred’s
no more life
no more worry

clxxxiii

a cafe mocha I knew then
was a bit of an intense dawning
his dad’s family brilliant in feat
that I had come to the right face
along with his sister, also brilliant

this could really be something to cry up
into a totally oakened boulevard
because those holidays remind me of, gee
guess whose flowers I don’t always feel like

mind over flagpoles

optimism is he who is beyond wonderful
is forecast into the last card turned apocryphal
focused was I, ere I saw brilliant

the fact that I am only a potentially wrapped trout
an eclipse of unkempt sediment
a gull finding its way nowhere
over oaken optimism and it’s okay
that it’s noon now that I’m aloof

I will remain poor for a very long time
such forecasts are beyond forpaloocy
are beyond carkatootle
are beyond pattersnat and abanaddle

I try to telapode within that realm
but okay the potential is, gee
guess who:
arkapeen stamantopi marbaleen

not even so much as his family and my short role
have the hapless stepping into distraction

only a few minutes longer and the faces of
moonlight settle down into the corporate dream

clxxxii

An inverted compliment said
you will see me somewhere this weekend. I had coffee
and dropped off my final destruction. This caused
split pea soup (a bit). Why bother being invective?

I kidnaped him last evening to come study at
my place. This caused e-mail dialog, I guess, and then
we went through a bit of a rough patch. Also,
a conversation in the kitchen about how, individually, we can

become a company or digress toward a felicitous
utterance. Another inverted compliment. It doesn’t
really matter, does it? The anger is pretty mundane. This
builds understatement. Now he’s alive and well and apparently

going to visit his family this Christmas. ‘Dialog’ connotes
there are two of us, but how many do you count? One
more sense of no direction. Perhaps it’s simply my
lack of work; not worth my concern. But yours?

clxxxi

i should produce
something every day.
with goosebumps on the
phone, reading something
with my attorney, the bank.
and then I stopped off at the
post office, a stranger. he is
drinking beer with a lemon.
i mail off all of christmas.
my subscription to boston
expires, my application for
membership to the library.
i finally finish my goal.
he engages me. eight
reprints of a picture
of us kids.

clxxx

buoyantly hello HELLO!
I trembled when the door opened
saw my face smack.
a superior joke.  yesterday I was
miserable and then coping, lost, trumpeted.

tell me if I could write a play, implying
counterintuitive headache and
sauce for the whole party.  angel
an ultimate sign of affection.

he held me in a humbling revelation, some
flowery, honey-dripping vocal sensation.
fuck words!  a cartography, self-deprecating
age-ist withered lung.

my birthday is joyous.  space-aid.
a surprising tactile mayhem.

when I am lifted up to this hole
-- the end of the fortunate --
so many penniless, rhythmic; intelligence
is deliciously comic.  trying on a new pair of
high heels.

purple peril.  the edge of nervous
baby deficit.  teaching.  touching.
lift arm over working lung, heart,
bruises on right side, left for you,
left hand, tiny hand, left hand over
empty shirt.