dccix

I am in the chicken

reading the newspaper, when it dawns on me,
Jim Dine’s second reading in 40 years!

Then I remember that I was not supposed to like the Metreon.
But who knew there’d be all these tourists. Stop, drop, and roll

into a Starbucks just to start over (I didn’t like me then
and I sure don’t like me now).

                                                                     Whew, we’re a little better

now that the dragon has climbed hisself back up to the top of the cliff.
The air’s a little thinner up there, his little blond mohawk starts to

frizzle. But I think he’s okay.
Sociability does take its toll.

dccviii

I am now a heavenly body.
                 —George Takei (after an asteroid between Mars and 

                                        Jupiter renamed 7307 Takei)

What has your short attention span done for you today?
Mine brought me donuts.

The act of putting pen to paper
in order to build a record of existence.

The rain has stopped momentarily and the fog has come, thick.
Averse to change, yet always craving it,

wannabes at The Museum of Physical Therapy.

dccvii

First time with a new year.

How much
hiding behind the mirror;
how much the mirror
and its thinly-silvered ass?

Never you mind.
Take whatever you see
and slap it into the machine,
turn the crank and be done with it.

Yesterday’s joe was pretty good
but didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
The tape dispenser popped the stapler
a good one

and the little green dragon
fell off the cliff, knowing full well
how things can come up
unexpectedly.

dccvi

It was time for the fire moil.

It’s a symptom of reading too much.
And it’s really no fun when you’re 40.

Now it’s the keyboard mouse bum
sucks the juice out of every living thing on the desk,

the dogs bark under the warmer lamp
and the weatherwoman says

rain starting back up this evening
and lasting a couple more days.

Yes, the wasabi helped.

dccv

There’s a parrot-sized hole in my life.
                   —Dr. Irene Pepperberg (on the death of Alex the African gray parrot)

The world has changed.
Oh Mr. Fresh Face it is so
hip to be seen and “nobody to
turn to for advice.” (Ashbery)
Am I sorry?

Strategy: a travel reservation!

And an echo in the ears,
not quite settling in to the dizzy.
The settling into of the dizzy.
The dizzy us, the dizzy we.

Yet.  The fog fumbles.  We live on.

Time’s always
getting lost inside the fucking echoes.
Like diving into Cool Whip
for the fell swoops.

Oh the world has changed.  It can’t see through
to its next thought.

                                  Its next thought
was a sandwich, a pasta salad,
and some iced tea.

dcciv

Dish at the Feet of Sandwich

(wait four weeks)      I shall not fall
at the feet of a sandwich
get a fish a philosopher fish
with fries and wait
til all of your dishes are done

and fish! I just ate a Big Cookie
with fries
a Big Cookie and
joy in the mail for Xmas

I just want your Big Cookie
Just wait til all of your dishes are done

I ate Big Cookie
so passe

Joy in just you wait
the SF blue gloom SF blue Xmas for
(wait four weeks) gloom
got it Big Cookie (BC) ??

I shall not fail you
wait for the fry and fall at the feet
of the philosopher

Do you read your emails?

I shall not
I shall not ate

I shall not fall at the feet of
philosophers (there is joy in the blue
gloom)

I ate Big Cookie

dcciii

Short of worn shorts

Avoid permanence
Avoid perfection

“I’m sorry about your hair”

“Well, have fun in Vegas”

dccii

Two women at Starbucks
watching a big man with a hammer
throw his yellow bag out into the middle of Market
right in front of a bus. The bus stops.
The man runs around
shaking his hammer in the air.

Headache. Magnolia
at Masonic and Haight
after shopping for memories. Box from Mom
with 500 minutes phone card, 4 pairs of socks,
and a Trivial Pursuit calendar.

Haircut by a lady who says
“Your mother didn’t let you sleep too much”
referencing my well-rounded head,
“rounded real good.”

dcci

Never end with a bang.


       [               romance



        Sometimes it just takes longer to get there.

dcc

A Social Turd

Do you have anything
for Saturday after say around 3?
The following week?

He dangles better than most;
catches it in his hip pocket
before a slow-moving suicide.

No, I’m serious, somebody who’s
NOT FUNNY AT ALL
decides to make a joke,

writes a funny poem and it REALLY CRACKS ME UP!
WHAT a PLUM!  Existing home sales slump
again this month, what’s going on with you,

and why are you making fun of Denise Levertov?
Actually, no, lemme take the 5th at 10.

dcxcix

Special Ketchup

Clay Theatre, 6:30pm, forward,
but try to remain laid back.

It’s process, the stapler smacking its lips
(a pure-spoken lesion)....


              Filberts in the afternoon.


Speaking of sex, oxen sex.

dcxcviii

working with anger now let it usurp all faculties
art is not madness it’s clarity art is
vanity means romantic or action

our date has been put off until tomorrow

the new universality of gargoyle hip-hop
yes I did

dcxcvii

your life of mine

airhead vs. sweet, confusing and frustrating
December prissy and pronouncing things funny
you’ve got a right to aristocracy star-fucker

I just got a scholarship of living in the library
it pays well and doesn’t come with a telephone

not mad at anyone but myself vs. the sofa
the spilled glass of nostalgic inkwater ugh
go home you’re wasting my time

get in line for a migraine
twenty-seven dollars at Walgreen’s
yeah you knew

dcxcvi

How far out on a limb
do I go?  Fuck posterity!
(It had to be said.)  But
who has enough lava
to singe new ruts?  What
should I do now go home
and take a nap?  Probably
so.

dcxcv

When has there ever been
a lack of “alienation and

purposelessness” (Kit’s posit:
What are the rules of

the game [poetry, whatever]
and what would it mean

to break them?)?   I see.
Then where are we now?

Unduly sweet and moody
whitecaps with spindrift.

dcxciv

What to do with [history]
when everything is NOW
& nothing is remembered?

Smart moves don’t always
have to be incoherent.  (Must.
Up. Lift. Spirit.)  Self-

important drivel, blah blah
blah, running races around a
few words just to forget (or

remember) them.
  -a rainy San Francisco
  -what twisted taste he has
  -tapping a beat with Kenneth Cole
  -turn on the blue fan
  -tap tap tap

Notice I am addressing you
as This [Nothing] That Is?

dcxciii

a small blister of hope

The window looks tri-sected, an optical illusion
Tall bird, three pounds
Wacky book Christmas party
Piddling away time on solid ground
Anti-academic white trash thesis proposal
Remove staples        i——i      i——i      i——i
Little clots of blood form on human-shaped apertures
Why aim for the mundane
              when it’s cheaper to get a cigarette in Chinatown

dcxcii

the moonstone      that’s a piece
of cheese fell out of the moonstream
                                   —Robin Blaser

Stocks are up after the Fed cuts interest
half a point.  Coco the Loco watches me
snip nails next to the bathtub.  Next is you,
my love, a panoply of opaque sliver-moons
into a wet trashbasket.  A haze over the bay
doesn’t take it over, just relaxes it.  3-
ring notebooks, computer notebooks,
logo’d pens and gargoyle postcards
litter the desk.  Not to mention the
poems.  Vacation dwindles into
history, snow-capped Rockies
flatten into a rainy desert
with great suspense.  A
conversation about how
unhealthy it is to forget,
strictly held via instant message.

dcxci

here we are
December

flashing gizmos
(Coco Loco
and the Digi-cam)
in Colorado

snowdusted
with a serious
breathing problem
(cf. yoga)

supersaturated
coterie or no

                   it’s a
different kind
of prolific

dcxc

top of the class, I’m sure

some horrible snore
that goes on for hours
several seats up

taking a pick-axe
to a cello
surely

sold out night train
the frosted-over windows
in the observation car

“0000000” (Coco walking
on my laptop at home)

Yankee Doodle Dandy
plays over the announcer
on the 3:10 to Yuma

Cagney’s stiff
upturned ass
as off he prances, stage left

dclxxxix

not exactly radio

walking into a room full of mirrors
all the jokes about sheepherding      and WHO
do YOU see?

often rakes the leaves
with windchimes

sexuality and
snow lean forward into a warbled sauce

finally an elevator
full of summer fruit salads
scrambled eggs          brusque salmon

30 minute ego
too old hat

not me

no me here      none amenable

sits in his place
sit at his place        wanna take a shower with me tomorrow?

seasonable housewarming
economy of spirit

it’s a good enough dose

dclxxxviii

blue sky                       carmen perpetuum

a grocery bag on each arm headed east

flappity-flappity-flap of a
sex-sated pigeon taking off up Nob Hill

touchdown           a goal of some sort
depending on      the sauce of
the season

walking off this language mush
and lazy television conversations

to find a way to get rid of them

moms who read (and understand)

this week’s tourism                           (up the hill)
cannot force the words out of a mouthful
of okra                       such a nice breeze

                                                      I meant a warbled source

ambiguous dogwalking
rude honks and buzzes

new nickels in a Mexican bowl
it’s ok as long as it has a name

what a fantastic evening

                            drawing the blinds to the fog

a grocery bag on each arm headed west

dclxxxvii

I love my job,
but I love juicy fruit even more!
        —juicyfruiter.blogspot.com

and the sudden gozzle
of every moment, gone
with a birthday cake
sugar rush. Paris
on bicycles.

I guess these feelings
have always crept in
like Carnegie Hall.
still reeling with
the same zip.

but getting there....

an afternoon regatta,
a large Hockney interior,
Guston’s knobby knees,
potato leek soup,

heavy egg, wide noodle,
afternoon ‘delight’,
Jim Dine waterpipes.

friendly,
uncommunicative.

dclxxxvi

Contemporary Chinese Peanuts

I’m reading along and I get goosebumps.
Severe ones. This so rarely happens
when I’m reading. It’s The Grand Piano,
issue 3, Lyn Hejinian.

Which tastes better with vodka? This
transition from state to state, sincere,
ironic, and full of shit;

I’m on the Acela heading to New York.
It’s a fast train, dizzying at first,
especially after a cross-country trip. Eating
Beverly C’s fabulous bundt cake from last night.

Lovely out Connecticut. Lovely Connecticut
with all sorts of guilt or hard feelings. And how,
so that I can relax, unwind, think, read,
write,

and never know how to end, I am working on
appearance. The intelligence facade.

I’m so funny I make me laugh.

dclxxxv

Is this growing up? I don’t wanna.
Turn on blue fan blue like
Alka Seltzer package I
rip open for a headache and
new age metaphysical smoothies
(J Kyger). Paint a picture
lasts longer. Sometimes
maybe. Brightest white streak
across the bay some young
yacht. Fetching
from way up here.
Perhaps it’s just a ferry
sending earlybirds (the
stock market crew) home to
Vallejo. Tuesdays. Beautiful
Tuesdays after astonishing
evenings. Hungover MIT
with three Cel-rays from Bill
and what a swell intro! 21 poems later
I’m up a hill and on my knees.
Flag flaps briskly
in the San Francisco wind
six years after the two tall towers sunk.

dclxxxiv

Sometimes I tell the words
writing the words
GET OUT THE DOOR!
A certain mass
remains in the writing.
Getting through the door
just past midnight,
lapsed architecture
(Sears Tower
a Dunkin Donuts) and also
the desert poem.  Disob
stuff I’ll shut off.  Like
light.  Watch nothing.
I am home.

dclxxxiii

I put the 5th DVD onto the list. It’s
been a while you aren’t supposed to
notice. In Russia they’re testing
the “Father of All Bombs”:
“All that is alive merely evaporates.”
Is this what I asked for this morning?
Reduce search and rescue
over vast stretch of land (or water),
menu-plan for the weekend,
which haute vegetable next to
coconut and kiwi,
how many miles to the moon
for after-dinner mints. Etc.

               Sunrise in the Midwest. Breakfast
               with a family from Iowa,
               wife went to Wellesley,
               now she’s a hospital librarian
               who studied with Frank Bidart.
               A sculptor, as well. Later, in the
               observation car it’s Sam this
               and Sam that. I’m getting nostalgic,
               my second day without a shower,
               thinking of Bowling Green and Toledo...
               so many Sams ago.

dclxxxii

Dogberry[]will be/ the broken indicator light.
                                         —Taylor Brady

That’s why he put all the little creatures
in the pot, Papa Rabbit and the whole
family. I have to protract them.

Little dollops of mountain over
White Teeth and breakfast announcement
after jiggle (jog) with Otto

all excited about the 17,000 cranes
on the pagoda but they’re just little
whimpers of pompoms that’s all.

Daniel’s taking up both seats so I’m
back in the lounge car to give him a rest
and watch the Colorado sunrise

even pinker. No trees but a dull
headache. Denver. Dusk. Dirty
snow on the mountains and

bald eagles. Mountain goats.
Tenderloin’s rooftops. Slightest
wind. Fuzzy little rabbits

hop one end of the living room
down to the other.

dclxxxi

I’ll wake up now.  On my first long-distance
train-ride to Boston.  9:20am.  Happy I
can’t even describe.  4pm now my seatmate
a good portion of the afternoon Daniel

a skaterkid going home for Thanksgiving
asks me what I do.  I say write.  He responds
“that’s tight” asks me if I have any books
and I say I’m a poet.  “That’s hella tight.”

Dinner talk.  Older gentleman going on a
“genealogy expedition” in Salt Lake City.
5:30pm reservation.  Back in dreamland
Coco comes running into the doorway

scared look on her face.  She’s been lost,
racing around like mad to find us.  Try not
to drool too much on Daniel or the
fluffy Nevada clouds.

dclxxx

Tooth bone toll booth
bed good beg god aimed
at curbing chime. I’ve
notepads on this. Un

recognizable when
adding up each character
istic. Alamo Square
directly to gym dog wags

4th dog that’s walked
up to me in this
short time. Not so much
actual correspondence

the pain traveled
up the zipper and into
my back as I sat in a bus
for long periods of time.

dclxxix

A Big Dinner of No Cooking

Copper penis.
A hole in his shirt.
Harry Potter.
Show me yours.
But no serious.

dclxxviii

We were arguing the subtleties of
“Indian Summer” — the biggest
yogurt pretzel clump of all time.

A new blue cardigan and a broken-
into car.  Taken: my diary, my train tickets,
my 2001 day planner with addresses.

It could have been worse.  Fool.
I need to lay out the map
or something.

dclxxvii

[                                    ]
                 —from a fortune cookie

Coco
wrapped around my left foot

Alice Notley
reads Tony Towle to Robinson Jeffers

in
a painting by Larry Rivers

find a penny pick it up
sex all day               (lack of focus)

dclxxvi

It is not a complete
lack of memory
peeking around the corner
and showing a little bit of face.

Realizing
at a party
how forward I am
about the lack of lust,

over and over
how it is
to read things I hate—
so important!
This

a kind of buddhism
of how to learn.
Gives people
(authors,
folks at parties)
personality.

Taking a memory,
a degenerated disk,
and showing up
happily
and with shame.

dclxxv

I’m sitting here wondering
why the waterboy isn’t naked.

Bill Berkson is in the Examiner.
Talk about living.

Happy 25 with fish sticks,
lima beans, macaroni & cheese,

and a birthday cake
with butterfly candies on top!

Why not just tear a page out
and keep it for later?

dclxxiv

9.3 / 10.30 / 6.8

I’d rather
stay in a cool room
listen to the swimming
but to hike alone?  I think
maybe a hiking buddy.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have
told her I have arthritis
in my lower back.
I’m obsessed
with watching men
meditate.  Baby
echoes me with
“Why!  Why!  Why!”
Stephen Ratcliffe
on my birthday: “back
and right shoulder
pulled into a knot.”
I agree.
Reading’s a gas
day before Halloween
with fish tacos, Days
of Heaven and Aguirre,
Wrath of God.  On
later recollection,
remembered rain drop
ping outside window.
Making absurd
sploshes.

dclxxiii

These are the days of
oops I took the wrong pill
and wild turkeys on the front porch.
They don’t gobble much.

Then I realize
there’s NO TRAFFIC!

Of course not.  High up
this mountain of peas
and turkeys.

Even so, I can’t allow
anything but sarcasm
for six a.m. naked waterdance,
moans to the left and moans
to the right,
and the one naked hula hoopster;
can’t take my eyes off her shaved
hula hooper-oo.

Later on Craigslist,
the Air Force “fighting terrorism”
(imagine him using his fingers
for the quotes),
penis at the bar,
some sort of weird rock formation.

It’s the blue warbird
“Keeps away intruders!”
and not much better a tune.

A week in a day.

                                                   —eloquentlyme@hotmail.com

dclxxii

Good morning, yogis and yoginis.

Woke up 5:54am with this phrase
on my tongue:

                 [clearly]
                “If you could do a man
                 half a favor:
                 expect by glint
                 and zoom right thru.”

....all I remember is
it wasn’t a high concept dream.

So I hopped up,
wrapped a towel around me,
slipped out the door,
and slunk into the hot pool.

Then there was the tall Arab incursion.

Sorry,
my memory was infected,

no better way,
40 years later.

                                  —Summer of Love (that’s class consciousness)

dclxxi

The bird-feeder
over the waterfall
(burbling brook)
arrayed with tiny yellow finches.
Finches?

Some cats swoop in
to check out the waterfall,
babbling burbles and all that:
apparently something’s
in there.

Nobody knows what
but the cats.

Reach over for an organic walnut,
that’s me. What’s going on?
Well, George Stanley!
Saying he’ll send me a copy of his chapbook.
That’s fab.

Television’s not, though.
Watch Enterprise, West Wing,
South Park (well, maybe),
Primetime Glick(??),
all down the lackluster tube.

No more teevee for a few years, I say.
Maybe invest in some books or
yoga? Netflix? Sunscreen (SPF 30, at least)?

dclxx

Inside a flower, a wonderful moon.

Even though it had to be the worst massage ever,
with Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,
every Irish dirge known amongst the sweet Irish dirgers,
and some screaming kid running circles on the roof,

over and over, the roof also some sort of party deck
for naked people. Naked kids and massages
don’t mix. Two episodes of Mad Men
divided by the current issue of Adbusters

equals sitting outdoors at my favorite North Beach pasta joint
with Ken Bolton’s book. It’s a beautiful night
and yesterday was a beautiful day
a hundred degrees in the shade.

Six thousand strewn pages,
Room 10, Fern Cabin, Harbin Hot Springs, California.

dclxix

Some Peru

It’s no use asking for a pronunciation one night
when the next morning you don’t remember it. I was
five years old then and you were 1,878 miles away.
Whales of rain in one hundred degrees of heat.

“Does he have sex with men every day?” “Maybe
it’s just the way he writes.” How unreasonable
to think I could get through half of this stack
of books on one three-day holiday. Charge

battery, flip on the green fan, clean up Coco’s
water-puddles, rinse the reusable coffee filter,
strip down. Cool evening, Alameda, Brandon,
then Julian on and along the Gowanus. “Sludgie?”

dclxviii

A Beautiful Bed Of Moses

Now that I am 25% vested in my 401(k),
anthrax is killing D.C. postal workers.
Not good.

Poetry soiree, attend panel on
Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo,
poetry soiree, BART closure,
new coffeepot on Otto Brew,
running a race to cure breast cancer,
Golden Gate Park, Scarface,
Fallen Angels, Robinson Jeffers,
Larry Rivers, Gary, Tim, Jack.

Without a bridge I’m thinking I could
accidentally get stuck in East Bay.
Nah.

What, no women?

dclxvii

A Jog In The Heart

Eat peanuts when hungry (dates)
half the day for high anxiety
and Death of Mr. Lazarescu;
t-shirt that says “Hot Butter” with
big-hearted flamenco flower.

This little pigeon sees chic balcony
with bruised martini.  Your materials
inside out.

Glad that number’s over.

dclxvi

Turn to him, Rupert Murdoch

Something is wrong with my
heart—sees celery panties and
I sweep the floor (J Kyger) out to
Bay Bridge (closed on Sunday)
while I buy Yoga for Dummies
and capitalism for my trip to the
naked hot springs (Harbin).

“Don’t you think I’ve been
several persons since you’ve
known me?” or still the same
all along.  Not feeling so
horrible but slept most of a
THIRTY-SIX HOUR PERIOD
(fears mostly).

What jerks men are sometimes
and not just in the 1960s.  Now look at us
slipping into regularity.

dclxv

In the fern bar, a hand tries a knee, as if unplanned. 
                                              —Albert Goldbarth

“What kinds of knives?”
“Just regular knives. For chopping.”

Later, at the Genius Bar, I’m recommended
NeoOffice and VersionTracker.com—
both work like peaches.

Over Indian food at Gaylord,
much talk of depression and anxiety,
and the right pills for the jobs.

Two loads of laundry.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti and leftover quiche,
Mulholland Drive and Pyaasa,
chewing gum, turning pages,
crack of dawn to dead of night.

dclxiv

Harps

Trumpets out each bay window.
And a glass of water (with cucumber).

I walk him downstairs
with a keyboard, hail him a cab.
He’ll play a few bars
(lemon and lime, ba-da-boom, etc.)

Harps!  My fingers bled each night
during rehearsal.  It doesn’t matter.
You still get played.

Sometimes it’s glorious.
Touch my skin
underneath this spot
where I shaved
and maybe someday they’ll find a tumor.
Read it aloud.

We’ve got medicine for that, too.

Angels’ wings draw nigh.
A new set in time for breakfast.

dclxiii

Polish your poems

Martin Munkacsi had tea
with his camera, shot Fred Astaire mid-air.  Bang.
Shot Lucile Brokaw running on the beach,
so fashionable, daughter of Irving Brokaw,
“Manhattan socialite and ice-skater,”
married to James Duane Pell Bishop,
“socialite rug company” employer.
Shot a bunch of kids in Germany at summer-camp, 1929—
they do look dead.  Fled Hitler’s Germany
for Harper’s Bazaar, etc.

Ninety degrees in October,
cool August breeze,
slip camera through hole in fence under Golden Gate Bridge
to snap its underbelly.

dclxi

I rebuke the concept of poem as child
with horrible, painful birth.   Oh, the stories!

But how random is life;
taking a cab to the Golden Gate Bridge,
searching for the right bunker.   Random!

He gave what I can only assume was
a guarded performance—
the right combination of seductive, pop,
nerviness, pause and articulation (he had a cold,
kept sniffling).

This isn’t difficult.   Embrace life’s simplicity.   The cars
make their individual noises, one by one, up the hill.

“First rape, last rape,” thinks Viridiana.

Up every hill.

dclx

so what if my underwear is on backwards

today looks good
in a yellow shirt

clothes drycleaned
I’ll do this from now on

my new shoes are boats I trip on them all the time


part of the world are missing

2 new books from Zoland in the mail
and tonight sit quiet for
Sam Witt and Timothy Liu

5 miles in 20 minutes, down to 162 pounds

the wild happiness you hung up like cottage cheese
was never more than this

dclix

without a gimmick

with neither trend-setting nor trend-following
the show mush go on

as all the curb-sifters on Leavenworth know
on Saturday morning
looking for a small speck of fix

elsewhere on other streets: mull possibilities of New Places to live
either City or Country
also New Job somewhere

finishing the James White Review tribute to Joe Brainard
as more bombs dropped
on Afghanistan

Afghanistan

                                    looks funny

more bad karma: his database crashes
so he downloads porn and wanks off
to keep from becoming too depressed

if
we all come down with anthrax
would be nice at least
to die without
a country

dclviii

jogging with meat in it

yesterday it was the butterfly bushes
(or beating the butterflies out of the bushes)

today it’s Chinese witch hazel
(because it’s red?)
swung like a censer next to the fencerow

close your eyes
and check for the grumbles

who’s for lunch?

“if you’re going to take her in on Saturday
you need to change the carpet appointment
which I was so excited about”

                                                               and then the
jumbles which nobody even cares about
check them too

then let’s drive to Berkeley
and get naked with a 40-year old

_ _ _ _ _
but driving is the ultimate hassle

dclvii

Boxed in
like an island (“Is Cortez expensive?”)
on a hazy day.
The writing was good there.

Ruinations,
an entire section of a book
devoted to a mother’s date of death
(and comic strips).

The database is down!
Us too busy
to make words.
“What we have here,”

Mr. Rogers our President,
lined up
for the dawn,
“is a speck on the wall of fog,”

our heavy daily pudding.
“Cortez is too expensive!”
he says.
And squeezes the comic/book to death.

dclvi

the sunlit pier at 5:30am
a mugging

she has to be reading Jeffers

       jury duty hangover
       with glasses on


if this were only for me (Coco Loco!)
and he steps onto the treadmill

and he stinks


I’d be dreaming well past the new building blocking our view

dclxii (out of order / half forgotten)

Jet, far away, like a distant storm

If I could begin to have a conversation
with a poem—when I do
my mind wanders.  Poetry goes
someplace
between here and the howling moon.
Moons—
(a small dog with a loud bark!)

Take me out of this.

A walking moon, 1935,
alongside a skiff.  The gorgeous
shards of an automobile—

eleven mangled boats.

dclv

where it come up

more than just another entry
no room to cut back

mugging into French
it hits home

the fog burning a fire into several buildings

clean as the ferry’s wake
                                                             as tilapia

dcliv

ripping the morning glories 3 times from the pot
                                                                                      —Joanne Kyger

Up Drunken Hill for blood sausage, yogurt soju,
and a Korean popstar all of sixteen....

Sorry I spilled your drink all over the gallery floor
and threw the keys into the blueberry pool

while watching Triste.   “You’re beautiful,”
he says to the moving pictures screen.

Then we slept extravagantly next to Duchamp
and the National Guardsmen.

{Next morning}

                        Five people dance into the elevator,
all thumbs and Blackberries.   “How fun

it was to see you last night!”   And I concur,
even at $12 apiece for Red Snapper

{a miniature Bloody Mary}.

Last night, after stepping out of the gym
into the bus, we had a spectactular lightning storm.

dcliii

Black-clad morsel

She can make it to Lee’s and back;
she has ten minutes.

A table full of mild acquaintances,
strangers no less.   Giddy sailboats

sail Transamerica on Montgomery;
turns out it’s just a “trade” consulate office,
so we can’t move to Canada today.

This is poetics?   It’s all about knee-jerking
war and romantic cravings,

Ghost Dog.   Leave it to
Beaver in his new outfit and

scrunchy-face.   How do they get it so smooth?
Such a tapestry, fomenting
solid left indent and

nonchalance, pools like thread.
Pick up the (virtual) iron-on

crossword puzzle
and spoon like a river.

dclii

Yesterday tickseed; today weigela.

Fog rolling over a wooden cross.
Fingers pulling at the sand.

Intermittent twittering.
Ephemeral silica.

Fuchsia(!) lagoon,
Carmel Beach Park.  Ocean,
she crashes (almost so distant as not to be heard—

the wasabi (a heron)
extremely effective (seaweed)—
(marry the land) where’d my [  ]

Where did my party invitation go
)
.

dcli

A collapse I am ready for.

Time-lapsed text message arrives:   “Sweet” —
that’s it for now.   Purchase new bed-linens

like we’re indeposable.   “When did you
start liking him anyway?”   That was the

nonsense part.   His films, “I’m nobody,
fucking jumpy with loud noises, man!”

Stomach sunk shaving his head
reaching down into the hole

may release inhibitions.   Is our
economy collapsing like pancakes

makes me want to gag too.

dcl

The people who do r money

are not related to Rosie O’Donnell
and haven’t been fed 12 oz. pitted dates
and 1 qt. tomato juice from concentrate
in bed with two personal handheld devices.

Thy will etc. finishing
J Spahr and steamrolling into
J Kyger at Quetzal with _______
who needs to iron down his butt-snaps.
We like him anyway.

Tomato juice from concentrate at
8:38pm (‘BEB’ upside down)
with prosperity candle.

Rosie with spandex
drumming it up for Cyndi
on every nostalgic freeway but my own.

Hello from a little bar called Hell.
Add margarita get horny
attend poetry reading (maybe last one ever)
and move to Canada.

Unless I get naked first.

It’s called Skylark.
Jazz playing in the background.
U drive your SUV into my motorcycle.
Dim lit candle with a little R-O-M-A-N-C-E.

dcxlix

An ounce of self-doubt (hardly)
in Spokane.   Raw tuna at the
Samovar.   PROPHECIES
getting back to normal (he had
his palm read but he can’t
tell me about it).   I’m going
to move to Montreal.   Scrub
windowsills, dust, polish.
Meet up for chips and salsa
(he’s been so cold
it makes me miss the snow).

dcxlviii

What they said was clearly spinach.

I think you’ve made your point already.
This machine’s working better than the other.

Coffee, Tea & Spice — such a pleasant nook
replete with algae’d aquarium.
Good to be alive alongside
this old book of essays
essential in order to
get up out of bed.

Regatta this and regatta that.
Wiping the sweat off his face with the bay windows.

dcxlvii

The word is my oyster

over and over and over again.
Like that. His pose
in the photograph
always and always.

Now he’s at a funeral
and I’m reading about sex.
Tufted words. Ashy words.

Markets crumble and
cellphones arc and flounce
from hallway to hallway.

Obviously our word
has changed, been rocked
by yesterday’s horrific events.

Nostalgia. A gaping hole.
Train tickets in November.
Woody Allen’s Manhattan.

Tonight with candles.
Tomorrow in the shower
as we wash away the words,
chary and oblique.

dcxlvi

Sex isn’t enough.

Thus spake Albert Goldbarth.
Where’s the context? you might ask
(or not)
oh You-niversal You....

Here’s the context:
Life is okay this weekend of brain all over.
I finally let her know my situation
and asked if she’d given birth yet.

We played around with vices
thrusting online and off
our bedside hampers and vacuum cleaners

into a world full of white bleeding hearts
cornflowers
and dusted-up roses.

dcxlv

Juvenilia.

Music to be made fool of.

My fool.

Seems like I should remember this for some reason.

A glass of water from the refrigerator
has lost its cool. The fridge dying,

horrible gasps,
sometimes sounds like birds.

Music.

Work out, long stay.
Yesterday I made it through

to a bookshelf.

Built it myself big as I wanted.

Would not fit in the car alongside a 6-pack
of cheap wineglasses.  Yellow coffee mugs.
And a new upright lamp.

Sleepy Hollow and Dead Man.

dcxliv

The isolation — a sentence

in Oakland or Emeryville

or

a major language barrier.  Still nobody around.

In all the excitement he sent
what he called an X-rated picture of himself,

headless, but with hands pushing his underwear down
just enough you can start to see something.

Every word is lonely.

Each word I get lonelier.

Then last night.

The one with me in it.

dcxliii

Absolutely delicious at 756.
That’s the number Ed writes.
Baseball poems.  Whoops.

Sated, sitting at Massimo’s
another six years,
during which the franchise
expands.  Am I acclimated

after a good rum?  Another
stretch, absolutely
the last day for lunch.
A night slightly sweeter.

A couple of weeks in Toronto,
his grandmother’s
service, arms open wide.

The fog rolling over
a dark blue shelf.

dcxli

An American flag
gasps for air.
I am here
on Labor Day.

dcxl

Difficulty concentrating?
A piece of sand
inside a wet wad of chewing gum.

And if that doesn’t work. . . 

dcxxxix

Two hummingbirds and a bottlebrush bloom.
Suspense.

And we’re “bonding”

lying in a hammock
with the sun beating down

to burn us into a love story.

dcxxxviii

I am having a religious experience
about only cooking healthy. Just this
quick note. Last night we watched
Suspiria. He says he got his revenge.

dcxxxvii

Aren’t we witty with our candor?

Our DayQuil LiquiCaps
flying out the door....

The weekend was a big step in that direction
I think
and good for me

dragging Eric back from the storm
through the din of the crackling eucalypts.

This iPod USB Power Adapter
does not work.

The jets in the stereo.
Twist my nose to crack it.

dcxxxvi

She deglazed the peppers
with diluted sauce, finding
new happiness at forty.

Getting out of his head
required new methodology.
He slumped his shoulders.

She threw a temper tantrum
and flew to Manchester.
Boy, was he coming over!

dcxxxv

Good morning, gentlemen

...with savage frankness
and bursting with enthusiasm.

Glenn Close appreciates those
who see through the bullshit.

“You’re just like me, darling,”
she thinks.

“I liked your old stuff
better.”

Did she say that out loud?

And we stop.  After our
mozzarella sandwich.

dcxxxiv

Lunch at eleven

Having forgotten how to love
he wraps his rope round the first word he finds
behind each belt buckle.

Playful.  Harmonious.  Seductive.

I don’t have a signature.
Plus, I deserve a pizza.

It was great and bubbly
talking about poetry
with the windchimes.

My mind is a fuzzhead.

Chime one for me, Somerset.


                                 —X marks the spot.

dcxxxiii

Turned Away

Let’s blow it all to hell just as things start to get sensible.

Today’s flower, the bugleweed, perks up like a belltower
whenever the animals speak; a purple embellishment.

I’ve written a trillion miles in ketchup. I wrote one inside out. Huh?

                        It was the sweetest at the turning station
                        though I thought he was a bit of a bigmouth.

Hey, I love you too much don’t get run over by a car!

dcxxxii

I knew something about Shanghai

The colonel shifts gears,
dispatches his buckets.

All your base are belong, etc.

Do you really think this is a good enough thank you?
I can’t get all of the hair out of my ears.

I asked him what the sermon was on
and he said “fashion photography.”

One loses one’s edge, grows duller each birthday,
which is everyday, and not limited to parsecs (at least).          Let’s move to China

where we’ll prick our fingers
and watch each bright droplet bead
upon our waxen floor.

The gleaming floor—a sign of prosperity.

dcxxxi

130 Year Old Outhouses Yield Treasures

I’m tired of chewing.
Everything I do involves chewing.

Have a good time.
Always develop.

Sent off for free copy of
Warren Buffett’s socks—
new miracle cure
guaranteed to enhance
redundancy.

He’s got a napkin fetish.

dcxxx

Today I am.

And I believe he is telling the truth.  Yet all in all,
he is too eloquent for my taste.

This is where the best conversations take place,
each lingerer drops a few signs of his quotient,
intelligence and otherwise,

careful not to give too much away.

How reputable.

I’m hungry, my nose is dripping, I’m tired,
and I just got back from the orthopedist.

dcxxix

An eighty-year-old man
sits on a train
making stories of each passenger.

Always better things to do. But,
submerged in the din of our heritage,

Hello, Harry!
Hello, Larry...

We make it to the pond, its fish,
we’ll come to know in spring,
frozen;

pretty much nearing the invisible now.

I like your scent,
he says to the ghost.

I wasn’t particularly fond of his work,
he calls to his partner.

The train rumbles
past a gymnasium, twilit boys with
sparklers in each hand.

We lost our memories
to the crackling of the ice-blanched grass.

Yes, I believe...

One boy coughs
a complicated cough.

Some of the passengers stir, look around
questioningly.

Push away the trombones from around me,
he whispers.

And hurries into a fragrant sleep.

dcxxviii

A petroleum must
(a whiff of)

shows up
(in reality)
15 seconds before appearing

with newfound
celibacy.
Add meat

dcxxvii

I’m No Terrorist, Grinning Serial Arsonist Says

would be further
out of place

until and unless
you’ve seen and known
everything.

Should I eat a fish?


                    Deep cleaning
                    a must.   Driving
                    without glasses
                    illegal.


Such moments
all directions;

which would be

                                        moving apart.

dcxxvi

Unique.   Try to see
or think
from blank.

A bowl
of disasters.

              Humming-
                      (a dead burden)

              Has gotten really

              How do I


                      Proposed
                      minimum
                      staffing
                      organism.

dcxxv

Headlines again.

                He is not
available.

Day is up with simulation.
Hide and seek
exhausted.

It was death without a period.

dcxxiv

Man Drowns After Earning 5 Degrees

Research underway
(just books,
not criticism).

Obsessed
with “singularity”.

Spicer calls
with comments.

Monday,
and all is well.

dcxxiii

                              Bright burning moon

Hard to bear it underwater

dcxxii

Foggy summer day

Big sun tattoo
              in steamroom

dcxxi

I was listening at a potluck
to hear if anyone was in love
and trying to figure out who
wished to sleep with whom
when the fireworks took off.
I opted for less flash,
simply looked off toward
the heart of the city, not the bay,
but its residential areas
dimpled with streetlamps,
avenues, and buses.
Mid-afternoon I walk
to Office Depot for
colored file folders,
out-of-office envelopes,
presentation binders,
and numbered index tabs.
When I get back to my desk
I turn on my little blue fan
because I’m sweating
through my pale green shirt.
Earlier we’d watched two movies
that exhibited nary a sign of life,
being somewhat enjoyable,
and then drank margaritas.
Today’s flower is fire pink.

dcxx

garbage in the window
blowing basil in the sink.

it’s the night the marquee
blew up.   broken letters yet

litter the sidewalk.   what
wheat [blip] bird with spatula

and frying pan.   a gucci and a
starbucks of course.

31 minutes over 3.5 miles.
take a nap and break an

easel.   wind up with waffles
haven’t made those in

a long time.   the sound of
a gas in the neighborhood.

the whistling firs mixing
chinese with english again.

dcxix

waiting in line for an iPhone.
the refrigerator is on my shoulder.   a bird
the sign of a heartattack.   he’s got

purple hair,
he says.   cars honk and sneeze.   there’s
a cool breeze, a pain in my shoulder

or beneath it (the sound of a lumber mill or an elevator).
a new 60-story building full of condominiums—
it only takes a few days to get it up.

ok, let’s say it’s a heartattack, then.   and poodles
that bark past midnight, or so the story goes.
an upset stomach and a bowl of daisies.

migratory pornography.   selective dishevelment.
run the bacon for twenty-four minutes.   recover.

then he made me eat a lychee!   well, it was boring—
he only had 4 gigs left.   power back up the hill,
past the salon thru the Starbucks and under a jet:

sex and/or romance to calm the nerves;
a new habit involving right index finger
and lateral incisor (lower right).

dcxviii

This is the goose that
back from its vacation
is not happy and tries
to explain music.

This tongue.

It rings buds sprung
from dishes of rice
and the dirty laundry
all burned out.   Drafts

from which I write
22 pages up the coast.
This lying causes
diarrhea and a travelog.

This geese.

It’s admittedly dull,
a little melancholy,
and it looks forward
to moving forward.

This explanation (evolution begins Monday).

The explanation goes
poorly.   I am waiting
for him.   I lie waiting.
We are lying and cheating.

This mask.

Evolution begins
Monday alongside
ground geese where
tongues must fluster.

dcxvii

The beautiful pink streaks
strewn across the bay.

Day 2:   Fog tumbles across the bay,
an absurd wreck of degenerate sentences

in a cereal box.   Coffee Crisps
wrapped with a pink bow,

only from Canada, mere
confusion.   Drunk the night of the 3rd.

Walking along Ocean Beach
next morning, sitting in the dunes,

writing,
trying to.   Road trip,

drop off
Oakland Airport

while fireworks go off and off.
Then back into his bed I’m

illegally parked
in front of somebody’s garage,

way too stoned with
The Simpsons.   Somehow

neatly make it home.   No
empathy—1 mph.   Please

allow up to six weeks
for each blade of pink fog.

dcxvi

Here come my favorite little Italian
allergies.   Thirsty, but not too hungry.

He appears innocent until put to bed.
Cover your eyes with fire

before the animals arrive.
The weekend?   I was moody

at Cloud 9.   Talk about a break-up,
show some slim hunk the wares,

then drive to Cupertino
with Stonehenge.

Should I join Netflix?
Sorry, I just ate a poison cookie.

dcxv

You’re tall enough.   Be it known that
I am at my desk
an uninterruptable siren

all the way up to here
singing closely into your holes.   Everything is resolved.
Eat two fruitbars at noon.   Busy

cute tall glassessed
and walking to the
Japanese Consulate without protection

to dance and Sing
apore.   He’ll do.   Paging the Tokyo proposal (duh!).
Paging the bartender’s upset stomach.   Paging Liz Claiborne.

He bought that groove to
remember tomorrow’s last gag-day.
It’s lubricant, Stupid!   Look

I don’t want anybody to know about this either but
you have a stupid face.
Surprise me with intelligence.

Judgment as form.   Leave lousy out of it!
Dichotomy Tommy
taken from behind.

dcxiv

Six years today
sitting at Gaylord
finished eating
sipping water
continuing to read Kenneth Koch
happy that my weekend
nevertheless although
a ‘date’....

My one-year review.
It’s a tear of happiness.
Buy some gum.
We’ll see if he writes back.

Eyes welling up
next to the rusted balls
like artwork (or so-called)
and the one (not rusted) hung round the neck
that looks like a dumbbell (a dumbbell ball).

“Five years ago,”
he said “we broke up
this very weekend.”
He remembers dates.

dcxiii

What a day already.
I have lost my brand new gorgeous glasses.
Ripples, or lines, maybe more cones
of blues and yellows on the (rippling) baywaters.
I am at Sushi Rock SFMOMA Yerba Buena
with its Hip Hop Nation and yellow-orange sun.
“It’s nice to know that you were there.”

Big Guston, mind’s gone bad.   “Open our eyes” I remember that.
Had all sorts of engines getting started.   My head
now knows who he is.   He showed me his favorite Pollock.

“Open our eyes.”
Then coffee, him coming down from being stoned.   The seagull.
Losing my glasses on the dancefloor.   Something has gone off.
Arguing with the nicest guy.   A crazy liplock.

“I remember” when I lost my mind because he fluctuates
between seeming comfortable with his sexuality
(I should just say sex) & then not so.

Our plan tomorrow is to watch the parade somewhere.
Anyway the sushi is pretty good.

dcxii

And then there was the line that made it all worthwhile.

Night’s pallor.   His numbing (and I did not say humbling) failure.

He piled all of the words onto the sofa and went to bed.

dcxi

On the verge of a meltdown
or at least an epiphany.

(What a gift!)

Then, suddenly,
everything makes sense.

(What a letdown!)

I went to the bank
six years ago,

met a mathematician,
all of 23,

tried to convince me
he was 38.

How old does that make me now?

Hello from the patio across Clay Street
under a tree.   Another beautiful day

for luxury apartments.
Nice view but pretty lame conversation.

Then all of the sex went limp.
The rest is dental repression.

dcx

Heartbreak is so much better than this.
All the important questions.

It seems that, for just a moment,
________.  (a brick floating on the Seine)

It’s the same day
nine years later.

dcix

Surprise me again.

Dinner and a beach.
Make it shallow.

Have Cool For You
on grilled cheese sandwich.

Later with a sour stomach,
insomnia,
and no reason to live,

refill each prescription.