dccclxxvii

“You were more mature
when you were a child,”
my father said often to me
after I left home. Well,
no wonder. With wisdom
comes the realization that
maturity is often for the
birds. Or at least inhibitions.
Perhaps it is a mistake to
confuse the two, but my
path toward pure hedonism
has never been more sure.
Just watched Adaptation,
an overly ambitious and
lovely Spike Jonze flick.
Whatever happened to him,
anyway? Ah, he’s off to
Maurice Sendak’s Wild
Things (screenplay co-
written by Dave Eggers).
Now you know (and why
shouldn’t you?). Crab
fried rice at Thai Noodle
on Geary and Leavenworth
(my one and only venture,
before I awakened to the
superiority of Osha Thai,
just across the street). A
tiny glimpse of a hard
crush (the coat-check
boy) and a roll in the
proverbial hay with a
graphic designer from The
Academy of Art (“there’s
no sciences!”). After
crab legs, the insecure
egomaniac (therapy is
for fools) changes his
mind, gleefully scribbles
a conglomerate of words
into the sand (almost
high tide now), and
then goes shopping
for a new bed.

dccclxxvi

This jumble, this collage,
while fictitious, is generally
and often a combination of
actual _____s, meant as a
sounding board, a record of
existence (most especially
while said existence is yet
extant), and some therapy,
some food for thought, a
way to differentiate and
to show that I am and
I am not, but not just
words written in sand.
What odd weather.  He
looks luscious in it
with his fresh tattoo
of who-knows-what
in Sunday comics ink
across his back.  He’s
being sweet again.
Interesting the names I
have no trouble typing
right here, and the ones
that are just too elusive.
Me.  And not me.  The
shame in both.

dccclxxv

I’ve been two years without.
And who’s that drooling seductively
into a can of Rockstar?  I thought so.
The curtains are drawn before he can
even make it through Commercial
Variations.  Backstage he flips through
his own notes, oh how he flips, finding
“the flaming laundries gushed at your
approach” and “you munch the crusts
of dawn and jerk out of sleep.”  Curses,
such egalitarian measures have
never been less successful, but
San Francisco has yet to be invaded
by Canada, China or the Middle East
(pity those who carried the Stars and
Stripes into the bathhouses, ere well
before my own time, but here I
stand perhaps mildly corrected).  It’s
bonus in the bank day.  Ah, taxes.
The I.R.S. knows me still, and
call me while I am watching
the newest prequel to Star Wars.
Almost simultaneously, a
cloistered facsimile for “boyfriend”
reads a coat-check poem and
colors himself jealous.

dccclxxiv

Trip over whatever you meant
to say to me. Tumble into my
arms, so to speak, and I’ll
carry you gently to a
choice swath of real estate,
the deed of which just hopped a
plane to Istanbul (where an
old flame is later mugged,
twice in one day). Fall on me
heavily, like a train wreck.
And so much time passes.
We’ll walk around wounded
in the drizzle, hand-in-hand,
then go home and sleep through
the morning’s meetings. Wait
patiently for a masterpiece
because you are good like that.
Mistake Lucy Lawless for
Jewel as your forearms slam
deeply into my chest, knocking
me into what was supposed to be
the End-up, a Saturday retribution,
a date with Purple Monkey at
the Berkeley BART station, and
further into Panda Express, where
I meet a guy from Toronto
and awaken in a Scottish loft
near Lake Merritt (very good;
made me cry several tears).

dccclxxiii

My mother calls it the strainer
and I can’t find it.  For blackberry
jelly she’d fill it first with a cotton
cloth, the pure juice drained ever so
slowly.  It’s anything I’m looking to
wring at the moment, particularly
flavorful or no.  Even a memory or
two from Treasure Island, a chat over
sashimi, California rolls, and
cold unfiltered sake in a box.  Even,
sure, a movie with Jennifer Lopez,
then something passionate (how it
ever happens assuredly, electricity
distributed equally; perhaps only
a myth, nothing to wring there).
How this fits with Robert Duncan
and a “burger” of salmon fillet
is all I have time to guess.
Those were desparate days,
I have to believe; clocks ticking
incessantly, weeks of sunshine
giving way to months of fog,
and then that hour or two of
rain, a heavy downpour.  Now
it’s fever (nothing tropical)
with distant sirens at two
in the morning.  I wish I
were here, so that I could
look up to the two wall vases
full of dried lavendar and
imagine my train about to
arrive, full of magical kisses
and delicate conundrums.

dccclxxii

Asia can wait, of course,
I thought, looking up at eyes
that never saw as lovely as this.
I take a drink

from Frank’s gorges of blossom
and wink like a grandfather clock.
We’re almost to a new year,
“Happy Christmas,

everyone!”  A postcard from
Gerrit in the jewelry box
with a scarf slung over it.
The rains

come for sure, I fly through
February and March, still in
America, where the lyric
has long

filed for divorce.  What
will the sewages think of next,
I wonder, as we stroll humbly
up the corkscrew avenues, the

bottlebrush graciously
combing our hairs?  “Pomade?”
he asks, and I gladly accept.
These, the days

of neither a spot on our ascots,
nor a care in the world.

dccclxxi

I like when you say “turkey on a toasted bun.”
I like when you say “I’m taking a swimming class this semester.”
I like when Rodney Jerkins says
     “I’m trying to reinvent myself with her project.”
I like the name RODNEY JERKINS.
I like when you say “gone to pot.”
I like saying “so I get three thousand whole dollars.”
I like when you say “and, perhaps, planning a nuclear war.”

dccclxx

Hi. How can words so utterly
innocuous emerge from an
abomination such as Whozit?
We each have our own bag of
beans to carry, but I haven’t
wasted this much effort since
Post-conceptualism 101.
Watch out dammit you’re gonna
scratch my MacBook! Hey,
what size bed do you need
when you happen to have
me in it? I do like an occasional
ice cube on my thigh, but a box
full of warm tongue is a great way
to spend an afternoon. Somebody
somewhere will find this as
innovatively uninteresting
as it already ever was. You,
however, find it absolutely
hilarious, and I would really
love your autograph. He can’t
afford to say that, can he, with his
mind so convulsed in collapsed
Colfax (as in Schuyler)? Um,
do you happen to have a match?
Not unless you know how to
zipper, my friend, and from the
looks of things, I’d say that
iron futures are squeamish.
Which reminds me that my
favorite question ever uttered
at an underwear party is “Where
do you put your drink money?”
Sure, someday this will all be
famous, so calmly remove
your blinders and punch
the button for episode
two. Fortunately, I
never worry too much
about giving a false
impression. What’s in it for
anyone without an abstract
concept? Poor sot, I have
three more words for you:
quick, put this list in your
pocket, and whatever you do
don’t listen to the critics.

dccclxix

What I do is creepy but I still feel you
through each and every explosion.
They’re usually brief—like the one
this afternoon under the PG&E building—
but oh—each are so momentous
(yeah, that’s too easy, I know). I’ve
lived in this neighborhood for six years.
It keeps vanishing and then reappearing
with slightly different smokestacks.
Today I want to give some of it back—
some of your passion (I know why you
lost it)—but you’re never at the intersection
I take a picture of every day at 5:30pm
(sometimes later).  And besides, the evidence
always gets destroyed.  Either I lose my
camera, the negatives are incinerated
in fires set (Accidentally? I wonder.)
by the neighbors’ dogs, or the
             —memory—
I suppose you’d call it today, simply
dissipates into oblivion.  Fortunately,
this is one easy Thanksgiving,
four and a half hours before the train
takes off to the upper reaches of some
vapid mid-section.  It’s the last train,
I might add.  I am, as ever, the
curmudgeon sitting with the pain-in-

the-ass pair of women on cellphones,
who wind up in Rochester, sitting in the
cafe car sipping a ginger ale.  I’ve
been here before (haven’t I always?).
And I’m so sorry I left you out of
every single story, but these tracks are
endless, and besides, it was all for
good reasons.  Such as I’m still too
busy watching teenagers get ready for
their naps as the moon rises permanently
over Cedar Hill (where, incidentally,
a lost Macy’s parade balloon just exploded,
filling our night with legions of fresh-faced
youths, each one looking for its very own
swish and bump on the runway).  Yep, it’s 

still me.  I am here.  And always at the ready.

dccclxviii

      Penn Station
with Dunkin’ Donuts,
the busiest travel day
of the year.  Suddenly
I’m a creep.

      Not hot.

The higher I go
the dorker it gets.

           My del
     usions have
     subsided im
     mensely
     but

Swimming in a
sea of underwear.

      this fantasy
never dies – which
leaves me in the
lovely position of
Square One –

     ( ...say some
thing useful,
you...)

and pleased.

      Rochester,
pretty wound up
passengers getting
on my nerves.

      This is when
he really loses it.

      The possib
ilities, of course,
rather endless.

dccclxvii

If you’re happy and you know it
stomp your teeth. Did I just hear that
for real or in my head? Ninety degree
San Francisco is hallucinogenic.
Also, vacant is the new black.
It’s a lovely day to walk thru
Central Park to the Whitney to
see its Gift to New York exhibit –
lots of Jasper Johns, two Gustons –
get sidetracked by the Best Swimsuits
of the Season, head back out for
some shopping on Broadway and
the upper 70s (Fishs Eddy). Do
laundry, get haircut, How often do
you get it cut? Three to four weeks,
whenever the mood strikes. Lunch
with Sarah at Gaylord. Note to
self: need to work on the voice
(more sincerity, less sarcasm).
Later it’s to the Lush with Kim
for fwozen wattuhmelontinis. Con
fidentially, nothing but sky-high
clarity; the mood barometer
up two points like the Nasdaq.
No longer Gong Show rejects, we’re
the dorks next door we go on
Mexican cruises in October and
rarely keep our slaphappy teeth in
side of our slaphappy mouths.

dccclxvi

“Are you trying to be hilarious?
Because it’s working.”

Barrage and Posh are
two royally boring lounges.

Spinoza in Her Youth
is infinitely better fare

while I’m eating an apple
with sore gums.  “Blah blah

soil spots on mind’s brackets
blah blah” (to paraphrase)...

“What’s doing?”  “Nothing but
filling up the tabloids.”

“And where is everybody?”
“At the Blondie concert.”

I was getting to something in
New York.  Oh, the big ’uns;

today he’s 22.  I love him.  We
bore each other into being single

and just thinking about love.
Then I picked him up,

kissed him once or twice
and threw him in a cab home.

Okay, corndog time!

dccclxv

Frosted Apples (or Nothing Doing)

Reading Schuyler while waiting for
Mike makes me think of driving
through Northwest Arkansas
as a child, stopping for apple
butter in Tontitown (now home
to a grape festival and the “Rollin’
Relics Car Show?”). But all that
reminiscing is not for me,
with hardly an ounce (a gig?
a byte?) of capacity (like the
ginger ale, “never had it,
never will”). It’s not for
lack of nostalgia, surely
(this diaristic process, a
case in point: “Well,
look where I am --> the old Roasters,
which is now Torrefazione Italia.”).
Ah, more poems. Why worry about
how it all works in together.
     Would I even like apple butter
any more? I know I’d love
the drive, perhaps in October, a
firestorm of Ozark Mountain leaves
along the way. The problem is
a lack of focus. I can’t just
stand in the drizzle all day
(or sit with my elbows on the sill
looking out at the drizzle)
like Jimmy did. (Unlike me
to use the familiar that way;
I never met him, but what if I
had? We’d no doubt have little
patience with each other’s company.)
All that struck me was the
(yes) memory of driving the
winding roads (before the new
I-540) to Tontitown. Maybe
that’s where I was that same
dour October day when
he rhapsodized on a bluet
(“There were frost
apples on the trees in
the field below the house.”)
Who knows? And nevertheless,
on with my own dour story and
“Oh, I see Mike – his hair is shorter –
so I’ll close for now – ”

dccclxiv

Tiger Woods Sudden Death vs. A Poem about a Soccer Riot

I can’t read about golf.  Today, the bay
is aquamarine.  Ten more days of the bay.

Split pea soup for lunch, a banana for
afternoon break.  Taking a Sudafed without

pseudoephedrine.  Sneeze thrice, drink
more water.  A man sitting against a window

looks like a pinstriped shirt filled with
helium.  “Death by blunt instrument”

(I imagine it was a stapler or tape dispenser).
The German books arrive, hurray! Cele-

brate by drinking more water and
wiping nose. Take a nap with coffee.

Had to throw away the azalea. Makes a
royal mess but now it feels so much better.

Victoria Adams (Beckham) was born April
1974. She does not like being called Vicky.

Sleep life away. Approaching Schenectady,
an older man in front of me nattily

dressed in a sweater-vest and jacket. “You
are now the proud owner of a healthy plant.

Your help is needed, however, to keep it
alive.” Aw, triple-thanks, but I think I’ll

deal with it. Spent the afternoon breathing.
A kiss in the hay leads to hay fever.

dccclxiii

He farted for the last time

in zero degrees Celsius
on teevee here.

Then a beautiful person
whose name I don’t even remember

stepped across the street to Kinko’s
where I sent e-mails,

Union Station,
Chicago.

dccclxii

It hurts to say your name.

To the point.
Type it here.

Beyond that:
[Omission]
Gay old time.

Lethargic
Stupors.

Perhaps redundant.
Almost.
Nevertheless.

dccclxi

When my hands show up
in the video they are the
hands of an old man.
One produces a
signature.  What is
my signature?  I have
entered beautiful
barren Colorado.
My partner
across the aisle
up all night drinking
Cutty Sark.
Guy behind me,
catty-corner,
his wife left him
after six years;
he’s moving back
to Philadelphia
with his family.
Helicopter overhead.
For obvious reasons,
smoking, incense and
candle burning are
not allowed in the rooms
(and this movie is
definitely not available
for public consumption).
Red mountains,
snow on the riverbank,
whoops and hollers
from the pergola below,
a “laughing” seminar.

dccclx

An angry wasp
is trying to escape.
They are of many clams.
A fresh roll of tissue paper
and two purple pillows
thrown at the wall (white).
A smudge of paint on the
window (also white).
The blinds half drawn.
[Omission.]  Two pastel
prints hanging bedside:
one signed “Leary 1988
Asheiah,” gangly flower-petals
falling into a chalky
purple stream; another,
“Lauren Leary 1992,”
could be a daughter,
green, mauve and brown
watercolors – a quarter-
sun emerges from
sewage in the
upper right corner
above a lute-playing
sprite on a lily-pad.

dccclix

even on blackheads and biers

The pleasure of caressing a disguise.
Ron backwards is nor.  And so
this is what I see: 5 khaki-colored
garbage cans, maple and some-other
leaves, the wildlife here isn’t very wild
(what I can hear: a brook gurgling,
a generator generating). His finger
and thumb uplifted into a V,
he strokes the chin of his
mask. [Omission.]
The summer sky,
pale gray beyond the
window-screen. This
I see. Dander fluff
floating in the breeze,
a fly and a bee
(what I can hear: the trill
of a blessed bird, a father
calling for his child).
In a loft of utmost
pleasantness, overlooking
trees, naked, reading excerpts
of Ed Dorn’s Gunslinger.
A breeze beyond description
in its perfection
rises through the trees
(through the maple and some-other leaves)
and washes over my body,
through my hair, over my neck,
down my back, artfully disturbs the hair
on the backs my legs. The ever-slight
moan of a laptop and a harmonica
in the distance. “In the distance”
could be China, the dander rising slowly
and making its way over a mountain,
a Pontiac whose engine interrupts Eden,
a pimple on the corner of my forehead,
an obituary.

dccclviii

we couple in the grace
of that mysterious race.
           —Frank O’Hara

#1 Businessman here
waiting for thrain
(in the rain for the train).
9:15am, hand off
apartment keys,
Montgomery & Market.
A frowzy jay
trying to get into
a bag of popcorn.
My guy
all the way
to China.

Look up.

Look up!
Get your stinking nose
out of the
spine of that book!

dccclvii

The birds are singing
about coffee to my
growling stomach.
It’s easterly to be
miserly. Proof that
gay people are more
likely to diffuse a
tense situation
with humor
(i.e., gay!).

Au revoir, Monsieur Russert.
I’m leaving for vacation
first thing in the morning.
Tweet, tweet!

I’m a year older
than Frank O’Hara
when he died
(a year before I was born).
The city is fantastic,
but sometimes it’s just divine
to spend an evening or two
in the middle of nowhere—
a couple of miles from
Middletown, California, even—
sifting through books,
a pain in the neck from an uncomfortable bed,
waiting for a mountainside cup of coffee
as the birds welcome a new Saturday.

dccclvi

Rituals are soothing.
         —Lewis Warsh

A doe and two fawns
have slipped back into the wood.
I got up this morning,
read a few pages,
climbed down the loft....

It has been about an hour
and ten minutes since I awoke.
It’s a cool morning.  Birdsong
I am unfamiliar with is
playing out my window.

Writing from the memory
of hunger.  John Tranter’s
The Floor of Heaven on my
table.  I have to admit I
found the whole thing
worthwhile.

Dunno his name, though.
Tall, thin, with a tattoo
around his wrist,
in a relationship (open)
with a Swiss guy who
just bought property in
Thailand,

the setting for the novel
I’m reading.  One per year.

dccclv

I think or am thinking of him who has
exploded into something different in my thinking,
listening to the geese honk,
the trickle of water go
down the hill
as the sun rises over it.

Thus I begin—
having read the best poem ever written
(“How to Be Perfect” by Ron Padgett).
Although maybe it’s not precisely
the best poem ever written,

simply the best list of instructions.
Who’s to tell?

Escaping – somewhere to Chicago maybe –
I could SEE him in Chicago.
P.S. I will be in Chicago on Sunday.
Would you like to see me?

And then the turkeys cross the dirt path.
The fan falls from the ceiling.
My white shorts tucked into a chair
with a dead phone.

I’m really happy with my transient leanings.

dcccliv

I drank half a jar of
pickle juice last night.

A list of poets who ‘get it’
(imho): Lewis Warsh

....  There’s more, I guess.
Racquetball, sashimi (Combo A),

MOITHERPFUCKER
bit my fucking lip again

Zero Star Hotel, the pianist.
Then I decided I was over
the whole thing.

Question marks
in the form of an answer.

Plus signs as periods.

Apologetic voice mail,
sweet email.  Go thru red file.
Can’t quite shake him.

The idea of clinical depression
with Johnny Depp.

That feeling of utter confidence
sitting next to someone you once
“truly loved.”

dcccliii

Will the willow borrow
The fruit of the moon for car money?
                               —Jordan Davis

I got a moon
for your wheelbarrow.
Shanghai chicken in the
sky with white stripes,
highways all night.
Gavin is a Libra, too.

An awkward hug
on glamorous dusks,
his brain exploded.
It was Spicer.
The bus, no money,
the saké, the wonder.
Like jumbo buffalo wings
nearly bleeding to death.

I remembered creative.
Orange yarn everywhere,
the boss with a big
smile on his face.
Boats blow through;
big tugs. My brain
of wild willow
afterwards,

no money nor death.
Just a blue fan in the face.
A severe lotion for
age reduction and
pleasure. A quick
survey. You don’t
have to move.

I got fate and a
ball separator,
my glam bane.
Good night, Sweet.
You’ll bring a
variety of
dressings.

dccclii

Who’s archiving this?

In the town of your house,
what kind of woman (the man)
it probably is to be?

Pictures of Yves St. Laurent
with a babe on each arm.
It’s like a death watch over here!

When the classmate and that person
who always passes each other,
that woman who is always happened to see
            by the streetcar and the bus (the man),
            normally it has lived,
            the woman lifetime probably to go round, (the man).

                         Roger Dodger!

Please input metropolis
(I should have seen it coming
       every day with
            “Don’t think things look promising”
      “breakdown of sorts” “not really feeling it”)

and districts deme town village and search [purohu].

(The bird in the purple/
gets blinded/ don’t move your eyes/
the wind lisps/
                              music from Mexico)

I eat these chips too fast.

Your future starts moving just a little.

dcccli

Calm down.

Tomorrow’s birthday
on the beach with tall
bronze-dipped what’s-
his-name on Treasure
Island. Short cocoa-
lipped fella concurs
(or so his lips...). Aw,
mug me already. Br
eakdown at Pall
adium on Satur
day night.
Right.

dcccl

There are so many things I could get into.

But chiefly I refer to variations in brilliance.
                                                     —Jeni Olin

(Arguably the most innocuous of her lines, but....)

With poems called “Xanax” and “Vicodin”.

Let’s just spend the entire poem talking about it.

Mike says that Randy died.  In his sleep,
heart problems.  And Mike was in the hospital his
self this summer, something about heart rhythm,

so he doesn’t drink or smoke any more,
just one mugga joe a day.

Drifting...

Tomorrow I’m having drinks on the patio of
The Gap Corporation with Otto, Sean and Kim.

Today I have energy.  Unpolluted energy,
or so I like to think (fish oil pills, One-a-Day for Men).

My ears are giving me problems, however.
Maybe the dryness of the apartment.

And last night
I dreamt I was heading deep down into a cave to live.
My family (a generation ago?) had lived there before.

I was told there would be electrical outlets
if I looked hard enough for them.

But I couldn’t get a Wi-Fi connection.

Drifting...

Fall in love with a poet just to prove your
good judgment errant (done went wrong).

dcccxlix

Across the cheekburns
owing that debt.  The luxury
of the 15-minute condo haircut
(counting the walk to and from).
Regulated fog.  Decrepit.
Plus we’re going to Spain
next year.  I mean Italy.
I mean Hong Kong I mean
Japan.  How to feel good.
How to know what I feel.
How to love.  How to
share.  How to be serious.
How to question everything
and write a full page of
erotic text.  Enjoy
the same skill-set
(what a f#$koff
word).  How to
pay money.  No
pay real money.
Waiting for the
tenant to sign.
They all think
I’m a big jerk.
“Clowns live
forever.”

dcccxlviii

California offers such a variety of climes;
in one simple swath a glimpse of what would
naturally be each individual season in Arkansas
or Boston. We almost had summer in San Jose

night before last. Earlier in the day it was clearly
autumn. I didn’t actually see a snowflake,
but still. Waters run deep. No pun intended
here, just trying to get at the hazy borders between

the jagged (or lopsided) clouds and the sky this
somewhat steadfast Monday. Reading about
movies I don’t remember and taking old flames
out to lunch (“he doesn’t talk much”).

Allergies this morning. A raucous weekend
(wreaking havoc) on the brain. Still
waters run deep. This has never been said
of me. Nothing complex here. Only more

poems. Pulitzer Prize winners. June arrives,
almost perky. The stapler is mouthing off
at the tape dispenser, and a little curl of sweat
forms between my neck and shirt-collar. The

cool air numbs my tongue so that I am given to
dampened chortles at the drive-in cinema. I grab
an oar and beat the living daylights out of the
jacuzzi. Kelsey Grammer has a mild heart attack.

dcccxlvii

I grinned at you?
Probably.
You were staring at me in the dark.
I thought it was an invitation.
Drinks at Lucky 13.
Went home sotted
with a new t-shirt
and a Polaroid camera.
Then the truth comes out
like bad seed.
“Hi.” “Hello.”
What?
Oh that’s just the world
turning upside down.
I wave through the window.
You wave through the window.
We start laughing,
waving through the window,
unleash the fire
that rends it all to ash.

dcccxlvi

Lawn of rhyme

But am I optimistic?
I like to think.
The pages of a much-relished book
drawn to its close. Something I
take a break from
just for a little more time. My
heart hurts. Perhaps it’s gas,
and I get this now and again,
but like today,
sometimes enough to worry.
Will I wake tomorrow?
Why should I be anything but
grateful. Life is good,
no matter what the pundits say.
I pick the book back up
and here’s another poem,
short,
and not until the end
do I realize it’s in rhyme,
ABABCC. I reread it
and listen to the white noise
hovering over this
all-too-depleted workspace.
Work is what (albeit oft as
redundant as rhyme
and riddled with an anxiety
almost as good as death’s)?
Nothing so good as a
few words pertaining to
nothing at all, a diversion,
two solid panes
between me and the
aquamarine delusions
of the bay on a summer’s
day. As always, I’m
making too much of it. I’ll
be here again tomorrow,
mowing the same grass,
whiling away the hours
in my aspic-colored slacks.

dcccxlv

Wrangling with myself over feelings.

So I like him a lot and really love

the sex his face holding his hands.

Downing a hatchet would be like

eating an ax.  He doesn’t want to be

figured out.  Blue haze a face could

do better than forget. I  should.

Get up at 5am tomorrow morning my

favorite time to walk the city especially a

Sunday.  The approach is honesty like

dancing with Church & Market

for a frozen cosmo (our usual place).

Go home fall alseep and stay the night.

Dream in Polish (not Russian).  I’ve

been walking to & from work/home

every weekday now several years.

Have been listening to the music

of the city in every state.  Dank

late May fog morning or

Mondays in January the rain

washes the weekend off

the back-alley eaves of

Chinatown.

dcccxliv

                                 the axman came
                                      —August Kleinzahler

Oh, to be attached as the grounds turn sausage.

“You’d better hope he has a crush on your beard.”
“But I like to know whose ass I’m chewing on.”

Sweet.

Sweet to be attached; a bit of a tango,
spooky, creepy, goose pimply, and then...

the axman came.

We fell apart at the seams as oh,

but he came. And he came and he came.
And he came and he came and he came.

dcccxliii

Opening Day at
fog’s bearded back
Bill’s new book w/
wine on Jim & Ivan
yes of course we’re
interesting (a white
boat sings on the
grizzled horizon) –
& my headache –
I don’t know
what I’ll step into
at 41 (nor what I
just stepped on)
but I breathe
a dragon’s breath
upon a singeless
hummingbird
atwitter with
happy endings
both blatant
and discreet
[
groove back in
Mister Fog
]
whilst with my
scissors slice
bloopers thru yr
ratty knots

dcccxlii

what a weekend.  began Friday night with a double date
(two dates in one night).  poetry gossip
“welcome to the board.”  quaint Salvadorean restaurant
followed by an oyster bar.  Thomas Crown Affair
(new version).  on my own again Sunday morning wake-up
started these new combines (RIP Robert Rauschenberg)
from 1996 diary entries & what’s going on out my window.

sweltering San Francisco.
itchy beard.  cool fan.
cut a swath through the city
in new shoes (Financial District,
Tenderloin, Civic Center,
Hayes Valley, NoPa...)

home sails slump against his mouth.

instead of fighting for gay marriage, we should be fighting
the state’s stranglehold on the marriage business and
putting our energy into altering the mainstream american
mindset, so that ALL people can live how they choose
without judgment or reprisal.
                                                           –Curran Nault

where all have you lived
and when you are in such a prison
are you encouraged to be so serious?

chat at Film Yard
then to Burger Joint on
Haight for lunch then
Castro Street Fair lots of
drinks on the streets
hold hands smooch
and shower but
seriously.

the new sincerity.

dcccxli

hot today / hot elysian summer

“When’s the last time you saw
an Eagle snack?”

“And what, pray tell,
was the pig doing in the
Black Forest anyway?”

“Hello?”

“I would like a pickle.”

“But mostly, I would
just like a hug.”

“Mick Jagger.” (onscreen)

“Or if it were a concert of rollercoasters

                            that might be fun.”

dcccxl

Squarely at odds
with the lip of this notebook.
Boy, I’m sluggish.
Thought I’d tell a story
about the breeze on my face,
a San Francisco breeze
that “rekindles the spirit” —

I,
the story,
like a husk of a man,
slept all weekend with fever.
Apparently, he really likes me.
I can’t tell a story.

Don’t open up.
Walk on.

dcccxxxix

Flying Up Into Some Sort Of Oasis

Growing variably
awkward, old, dirty,
and itchy. I wanted
a new look and
I got it. Haven’t
written in weeks.
Apologies.

dcccxxxviii

You’d think he’d become more prolific with age.

Then maybe I would lighten up to the tarot
but now I’m using a book.  This month ends on Wednesday.
Fantasize these cutesy mechanisms keeping us awake.

If you’d rather not receive future emails of this sort
please opt out here.    I stayed home for this?  Large-
scale vomit.  I feel like I’ve read you before.

“Prolific little bastard, aren’t you?” says Tod Something-or-Other
as he’s cleaning up my computer files how-many-odd years ago.

Never deny the homosexuality of criticism.

I need to ask Otto if this is perhaps bitter melon.
I thought it was cucumber,
boiled it and put it on top of the rice, next to some baked chicken.
Otherwise it may be a vegetable gone very bad.  But it’s too late,
I’m eating it.    He writes me

two emails daily.  Sweet ones, a little out-of-English,
but spry.   I find I want him.   Regularly.

Racquetball Sunday.   The bottoms of my soles are bruised.

dcccxxxvii

Literary theory is definitely not a priority.

The heel of the shoe works much better than the toe.
I think I read that page already. Time to transfer
$500 from one account to another.

Did I mention I’m on page 2000?! Let me
show you my world. Leaning on the bathroom sink
reading a few poems,
listening to the birds beyond the opaque window.

Smell of detergent (Tide with hint of Downy) on my fingers.
Hungover at Tony’s. Happy anniversary on Friday morning.

Said hello on the sidewalk. Shook his hand.
He seemed happy I remembered him. I love
the feel of his hands and arms.

dcccxxxvi

My Priorities

Not museums.
I can’t get there.
I’m on the board.

The carpet needs vacuuming.

I walked twice to Japantown
or three times in two days.
I’ve seen seven movies in five days.

Lending itself to artificiality.

Never having been thrown out of
anyplace for sexual activity.
Eating a sandwich.

Nuclear holocaust or the denial of politics.
Postcards. A warm we don’t often get.

dcccxxxv

I make the decisions. Decide to pour coffee.
Pour coffee. 9:10am.

I try to imagine a thunderstorm.

Those few words that make me think less of you.
A broken button. Your excuse for
having no emotion.

Bright clear day. I could learn to surf.
One doesn’t think me graceful, right?

She REALLY worked the draft she showed me the other day.

dcccxxxiv

It’s the work. I can try to answer your questions
placing one shoe on each page. It’s kind of cold.
Some books I don’t understand. So I drink.

Here comes the trash man. It’s a lovely day.
I can try to answer your questions. I’m on number 4.

I’m still cold and I can hear the Playstation 3
breathing. Sirens above automobiles. Doves,
motorcycles and eucalyptus branches swing.

Reading bad books is okay for the patient.
Everything is a truism. The coffee gets cold.
It’s work. Moss takes over. Some final questions?

I couldn’t see you because of the horndogs of
inevitability. See, I’m quoting myself. The
confused pigeons walking around concreted azaleas.

STOP
I’ve already done
comfortable.

dcccxxxiii

Moving Day

I promise to stay sane and nice.
I’m at Lucky Penny.
Marge isn’t here.
More Schuyler poems on the bus-ride,
last day at our old place. Guess
we’ll come back sometime during the week
to clean up and walk thru with the manager.
In 2 months I’ll be on the train to Boston
and New York again. I hope by that time
this heaviness has lifted.
Maybe,
yes.

dcccxxxii

I remember getting lost in an ivory tower

30 years ago July
Philip Whalen
watches the waterfall
“(more accurately, ‘water curtain’)
[i]n Beale St. PGE”
directly across the street
from where I work—

same water curtain
I pass heading to get
Sushi B from
Tokyo Express
or, today, for me,
Dragon Roll Special

dcccxxxi

$1.00 finance charge
on top of $1.75
when I thought balance was
PAID IN FULL!

A crow calls.
Where is it?

Coal Miner’s Daughter
plays – the last movie
I’ll see here
(except one half of
Nashville).

A boy with a basketball
hits all his hoops,
his hair sways
aptly. Two ball guys (bald)
at the other end
having fun even.
Sunbird.

I don’t care
about the air,
the turbine
or foghorn
repeats itself,
I breathe it in
as petals litter
the hilltop like
snowflakes.

Eucalypts, brie
and crackers. A
calm breeze
turns the page.

dcccxxx

And here I am watching some long-haired kid
take small puffs of cigarette quickly
tap-tap-tap the ash with thin fingertip
and quickly again another puff.
Tap-tap-tap.

I have failed. The ringing in my ears.
“Patience, my love. What comes next can’t be worse
than what we have now.”

Try on a new chair at Design Within Reach.
A basketball nearly smashes a little dog
(what’s the name of this park near Fillmore?).
Massage appointment, Persepolis,
wandering thoughts, watching the maids clean the mailboxes
on Pierce Street.

dcccxxix

The neighbor’s window is a mirror.
There I am, the same cat, at a very young age (kitty),
eating dinner, second meal I’ve ever cooked:
zucchini and bell peppers stirred over
mockingbird pasta.
Bellisima.
Cut him out of your heart.  Cut him out completely.

dcccxxviii

Nice white stripe on your wristwatch.
Bury it with me will ya?
Woke up this morning on vacation
and carrot pudding. Kept wondering
how important this was with arthritis,
nearly chopped off. Sniff.
Imagine money. Sniff.
If you only knew how much I would love you.
Sniff sniff.

dcccxxvii

Let’s forget about the 70s.

Your voice bears the sentimentality of a
pair of underwear I can’t quite recall.
Look.
Look at what?

Last night at midnight after my athletic guest left
I felt tired.  Clear it out.  Watch the sidewalk
with Jay Leno.  Carter skewers Reagan with a latté.

Apartments for rent.  Your condo’s on fire
and the water’s too loud.  Chaste enough?
My mind was already empty anyway.

Something about it didn’t sit right with me.  Gasoline.

dcccxxvi

Try and get something grab up at me.
Good for nothing half-
ass style poetry with meatball soup.
Please.
I am good for nothing. I really meant to say I
don’t want to be a student anymore. I am your stud
ent. Blah. I am nothing nobody’s meat
ball.
The day is a beautiful shut up
he’s opening the window. I am good for
bread and taxi. Three men under sun gesticulating broadly.
One-up tax day. Laundry and dishes done.
Fireman
round the corner. Purple bow. I been there.
Ice cube next to Rendero’s Trucking Services
blocking the sun. Let’s get up and leave. A protest.
Protests never work. Haha.
Last night I dreamt
I was kidnapped and shot three times
once by myself
when one of the kidnappers threw me a gun.
He said I was burgeoning. HUMMINGBIRDS.

dcccxxv

At ease.

Running a couple minutes behind.  “Elephant.”  “Which one?”
“The one watching Lord of the Rings.”  “Oh.”
Very warm and daydreamy.

Apologies again, discretionary spending enlargement.
Please fly my circles.  Wake up and smell the suck.

I drink some H2O.  We starve steaks.
Thump, thump, thump.

dcccxxiv

Tigers.

Focus.  Moosely resentful
downright midnight.  Tiger’s moose
had to hurry past.

Find theater today.  (What good is theater?)
Make a way to nearby theater today.

It was restful.  I feel like I did nothing.  Do not
emote.  (That is try not to.)

She is so pretty.  She is so pretty.
Boy talk.  Boy talk

having financial shrimp and omelet sandwich.
Very lonely out there.   I could go on.

Angel Island coffee with Lars Von Trier.

Forgot belt.  Feeling like I am only one quarter here.
Belt feeling.  Belt feeling quarter with Lars Von.

Pick at moose’s loose tooth with tiger’s paw.
Deconstruct annually.

Standing stock still with no emotion.  Rawr.

Just
just let them take you over.  Don’t worry enough when you
shed a tear
and they roll down your face like mountain goats.

dcccxxiii

A little chocolate tomb for a dead maraschino cherry
                                                —Philip Whalen

“Once my workout routine is set
I won’t mind eating a whole beast.”

I need eyedrops.  Are you having the baby?
How are you doing today,
chaotic?

Beautiful bay emeralds suggestive of
peacenik days but then
nowhere was there ever no war, non?

Broke.  Happy.  Beautiful beast of a bay.

dcccxxii

I Got a Splinter

Sto
mach       id
entit          ies.

Spli          ntering
Hemo         rrhages

Someone       dared me.
Please re                activate your account.
I wanted my par          tner to notice me.
Be like sex machine        w/

                           BI(G       P3NIS.

Bree      zy
Ba        lmy
             NIGHT.

dcccxxi

I Can’t Taste the Sandwich

The Black-eyed Susans
are everywhere. It
came to us via
“pegging porn” –

Hold out,
you have no yoga!

Yeah, I’m the dead man you can see right through me
on this park bench on Commercial Street. Very amazing
sushi. Trying to sell a car. Date last night
(presumably the last one).

Timing. So one full week now.
You lost your sense of humor.
No mail yet. A makeshift bed
with Madame Bovary
and green tea
(reciprocity).

She’s rubbing his head, smoking a cigar. It’s peace.

Trying again to sell the car. First response:
“You son of a bitch your mother birth dog jerks”
or somesuch.

“Wouldn’t that be funny we hook up?”

Oh, also I saw Orion for the first time. Good omen.

dcccxx

I give you 10 silver stars
(silver, being yards better than gold.)!

The mountain pass
barely wide enough for a
full-size car. We get out
for pictures:
one of us smoking on a tree stump;
another, a giant
among redwoods.

And now,
heaven before me,
I have spent last week or since Monday
in a new place.

Daisies rush to be golden.
I give you 10 silver stars.

dcccxix

Heart
sick.

Six years of New Life.
Partially moved places.
Normal doubts and
stomach hesitancies.
Twist with this regard.
To this thing. In times.
Of uproot.

The dove I already mentioned.

dcccxviii

Plot Pilot

Each sentence exploded in my head so I
looked away
to the pinkening azalea and the gaping orchid.
Then I
poured it over all of my friends
so they would feel better.

He cried and it made me want to kiss him.

Don’t walk away with the romance
(down the hallway).  Stay right here
to keep it going.  The attic fan is on.
I buffed the floors (his mother did).

The cup of coffee wasn’t meant to be.
Down today, wept last night (no kisses).
860 Bush Street, Apartment 603.

The point is I want happy
really fucking in my mind even
afterwards keeping it ignorant
as time goes over to a new place.
The point is

Where are the people I live?
And my hair.

dcccxvii

Have a nice comma!

Driving out of control
through the seance.  Question mark.

It’s a storehouse of shit.  (I’m Mrs.
Oh My God That Britney’s Shameless.)

We knock down walls
to splinter ourselves.  Then we undo

couplets with tiny glasses
like distant lumberyards.

The apartment.  1985.  Man grunting.
Same naked lady on balcony.

Plot, plotter,
plottest.

dcccxvi

All Mens Need This

Kiss me while you say
“mash potatoes” –
won’t you?

There is also: “the same fast
fine restaurant as lust weekend.”

And: “Britney Spearheading” ... and
“Don’t really know what to expect.”

Food so good. Brighter today.

Lush weeks,
nay,
years go by like this.

Kish me again, True Being True.

dcccxv

Your mouth was there, but...

Things I think
I am good at.
Like looking at your face
one last time.  Where did you go
all these years?
The star atop Harry Danton’s
Starlight Room
spins democratically—
then the phone rings.
Don’t answer it!
You came back
under the orange pipes
for fire emergency.
We had a fire
years ago.  The
bathroom towels,
the ones on the very bottom,
still hold a trace of it,
like smoked ham
or turkey.  An airplane
streaks through a
gorgeous sky,
looking something like a
grass spider.  I used to
waken to them
walking across the
ceiling.  Grass spiders
on ceilings?
Perhaps not,
but gray ones.  Spiders
build webs,
trap other bugs,
suck the life out of them.
It’s only a memory.
You mean the world.
Some worlds may be
greater than others,
easier to recognize.
There are new commitments
to make, to try and keep, new
gems to unearth
and forget, different
languages to learn.  A
few new faces to trace.
I love them all.

dcccxiv

You never saw a pale so green!
                      —Philip Whalen

So I’m a user.  I don’t listen to
Rachmaninoff whilst writing,
neither Thelonious Monk.

Talked to Mom.
Got her secret
for cornbread.

“Better to have an iron skillet,”
she says.

Some things should be left
obvious
except to me.

“Who says anything?”
“Lots of people.”

dcccxiii

Had a terrific line in my head
while exercising last night!
Can’t remember it
sitting next to a mirror
at Coco500.  Can’t think
anything at all except
how I’ve aged.
Today’s feast is
no more poetry than
this burger.  Coffee’s
brewing: Dunkin’ Donuts
for Old Boston
(Ed Barrett’s and mine).
And then I’m in Berkeley—
Shan Chat House, I
could be wrong with the name.
Indian, cheap and delicious.
Saturday morning,
new materials for
shirt-making, Frjtz
with David, Central Y
for racquetball,
veggie samosas,
three handjobs (same
hand), fish & chips
and the Galaxy Theater
for Baran.  Amazing.
Now I’m watching
the baby sleep,
doesn’t look like I’ll
get any cheek tonight.
Making lists my
answer.  How are
you?

dcccxii

Jury Duty Haiku

So busy in library
reading Ashbery’s
“As Umbrellas Follow Rain”

dcccxi

Anodyne

July 31: salmon teriyaki
w/California roll at Floating Sushi,
Grant & Sacramento. Walked
to Chinatown for lunch,
office brisk.
3300 Club
w/Rodney Koeneke.
Odd venue,
old Irish pub.  Then
up Bernal Hill,
this is neighborhood.
The right motivation
finally
to move.  180 pounds
despite new form
of relationship.
All this.  Sun.
Sunshine.  Anodyne
for nearly anything.
Three prescriptions:
vitamins, lotion
and Prilosec.  Spam
from British Airways
now that I know how to fly.
March 20: cool English pea soup
and just about the
best hamburger ever.
Shades drawn,
car horns in the distance,
a panoply of open books.
Gratitude that
verges on obeisance.

dcccx

4:27pm,

I need a new pack of gum.

Wrote a David Bowie poem
and somebody put a spell on me
for a few years.

“Hey, who paid the phone bill?”

I’m still getting over it.

dcccix

How did he do this without the internet?

You can’t Google that.  (“Yes, he’s
wizzling his pizzle again.”)

The entire salmon season is “in jeopardy”
here in Califoregon:
at the intersection of
T Pynchon
N Tesla,
The Prestige
& P Whalen.

(“Holey moley, looks like Izzle’s in too deep!”)

Gesundheit, gym object.
Celebrities who smoke
eat vegetarian gefilte fish.

Sex/lust.  Unify Unify Unify!  AC/DC!

You do an even better Snoopy dance
than Charles M. Schulz.

dcccviii

Disruptive _______. ??

Ankle cramps.   Blurry sailboat.
Treadmill & jogging is bad for your knees.

Jean-Michel? Jean-Denis!
Those two guys in Paris
you kept bumping elbows with,
took us out to a bar afterwards
and there was a song came on
everybody started singing.

“I wish I knew the song.”

Don’t give me that look,
this is how it works.
You say things, I write them.

(failure)

“What, you think I quote myself?”

He’s relatively new my ears said to me.
No lemon but i’ll survive.
Span-no-hm-write it out
and then substitute a word of your choice
any one.

“My ears are problems again like Sunday.”
“We stopped at the Seven-Eleven after the airport.”
“Then along the ocean my lips hurt.”

dcccvii

Only 13 pages
before another petal falls off.

                                               Drip.

Off it went, down to the walnut.

               A swollen river over a limp flag
bursts with tedium.   (down to the walnut)

               A circuit date (restaurant,
       cafe, record store, bar,
           drink, dance,
     drank, smooch,

drunken whoopee).

He’s luscious;
                    shallow.

On Saturday — Sonoma!
At the advice of the lady in the square,
venture up to Benziger,
drink muscat under a big tree,
crackers, brie....

“Hey, is this walnut?”

On to Olive Press,
eat olives.

Then

Valley of the Moon,
the moon under an azalea bloom.

                                                       —Plunk,

dcccvi

I don’t feel that way at all.

“Why does he write like that?”
“It’s definitely not a good phase.”

Title:   Onion Tube Socks

Feel like shit.  Couldn’t sleep.
Tongue stinging.  Weird, weird,
yuck—I should just go home.

               H    A    Z    E

Crap.  Had dinner at YMCA.
Oops.  Another Sausa
lito sausage.

Pinch off and pocket
(pink) moose-shirt-matching
azalea bud.

                             —Sir Francis Onion (of the Tube Sock Onions).

dcccv

“How’d you find love?”

I hate the movies! And
always promised to stop at 31.
I’m a little too sick to stop, though.

Madame Bovary AND Annie Hall?
This must have been a last resort
before dinner. Damn!

We definitely had a moment,
though, with a capital “M”. Or
am I trying to write a poem?

Sorry, I don’t want to see you.
I mean please call again tomorrow.
The calendar is just too compact.

dccciv

The One Thing

(She likes sticking people
with her needle.)

If you and I are blobs
where is you or I?  Our border,
the surface where we touch
(a funny-looking wave)?  I would
stick you but I am a blob.

I had Certs for breakfast
at Grey Whale Cove,
overcast and warm.
My blob on the sand,
just beautiful
like the last couple of days.

Smog check today no avail.
Take ticket, find pines
like Alice Notley
(green and rust) for sticking
the truth.  Rest in peace a
squirrel.  Rest in peace
another wave.  Misspell
squirrel like sheriff.

You are the one.  Just wait
two and a half years
and you will know it.

Dream as if I am not a blob:
we smooch for thirty minutes
then have enormous sex
followed by (ack!) talking words.

Go to sleep on peach
(mistype – in peace!)
after flushing toilet.

dccciii

Trying to reconcile Harry Potter’s hairy chest

Nice day.   Felt peachy
all along.   Painted the sky blue.

“Oh, Sun,
which face shall I wear tomorrow?”

A siren in the distance puts in
a request: “Supreme Fiction,

please.”   But I’ve more a mind
for a teddy bear & a pink feather boa.

I’m gay at the gym (he was
leaving, I was coming)

looking forward to a very nice run
with a servile grin.   And then.

He walks into the bedroom
with a mohawk

just as I slobber gracelessly
toward Happyland.   This gets me

incredibly romantic and
a little insomnia.   Thus,

I pick up the television set,
or try to.   I broke my back!

Lying here in recovery.
I love the papadams and

the fish pakoras.   Lesson:
don’t you listen to no siren.

dcccii

I want you to read along with me.

I want you
to read along
with me.

I want
you to read
a
worthless moment
with me.

I want.
And read
this farce.

I want today
Wallace Stevens
and did
last night.

Like which?
And reading
and reading
along.

I want you
to read
me just escapes.

It works.
Reading this stuff
with Whitman
in Pittsburg
please.

I want you mix
you market & yearn
environmental lingo
you mantra you
arrondissement.

I want you.
(ahem)
I want you
read me please.

Like
thanks.

  

dccci

What You Feel

“Look, he’s taking off his pants.”  And
here we are, pondering an uncertain fissure.

Cuddles the Cat purrs an interlude,
jumps off the tv and pees on the carpet.

Pear salad, plenty of salty vinaigrette,
harsh onions, and frozen lettuce. Emergency

room accidents, including one with a 2-foot
dildo. Death by dildo. Shit happens.

Lesson number twelve: get over your ear
infection, learn to read cursive, skip the

butter, drink antibiotic soup, stop writing
couplets,

stop writing. He still has my glasses.
Let’s go to Carmel for the Bach festival.

dccc

Wake up this morning.

Everything loud
droning
like airplanes.
Cat scratching the door.
So I just slept
per instructions
til 1pm. Then
I started returning
phone calls.
Tony Burgers
again. Wake up
on top of a
new book.
Run outdoors
for Devil’s
Backbone.
Circle a strip
of park,
Panhandle.
Back on Lyon,
Nina Simone,
waffles w/
strawberries.

dccxcix

Mistake number 1 is asking for a glass of sake (rather than a bottle).
Order second glass.  Pay extravagantly.

Mistake number 2 (the night before) is asking for the
premium unfiltered.  Not sweet enough.

Busy tonight.  The waiter and waitress whistling in the wind
they stir up as they glide past each other.  Some Cajun tune,
I’m guessing.

Depressed!  Had sex twice yesterday after jazz at
Shanghai 1930s.  Not happy about that.
Silly me, I just don’t know what to do
to make things better.

Letter from Bill with Philip Whalen poem.  Poem for Whalen.
And letter from Diane (piano music overhead).  Big
dumbbell ding on bottom of iPhone
from throwing iPhone at dumbbell.

dccxcviii

And then I’ve been thinking that I haven’t been
spending that much time with you because of school and work
and I feel bad.  See we’re both being torpid and we can’t have that.
Now I’m crying.

                         Your hair will look good no matter what you do to it.
I feel like I can’t unwind
like last night.  Don’t cry.  I ran from class to meet up with you
and I was trying to just relax.  Plus I feel like I have to
put aside my worries and my thoughts
in order to cater to yours.  Like when we

went to so-n-so’s new place on Portrero Hill talked about
sex all evening cooked okra, black-eyed peas.

9:38 AM Overall you’re a good boyfriend
9:39 AM Ugh...

dccxcvii

9:21 AM just hanging with friends & new acquaintances getting to know
everyone and saying how my comments make you feel insecure.

“Which ones?”
“You just mentioned the school thing – which was about missing you.”
“That made you insecure?”

July 3, Chevy’s after Anarajuat (fast runner),
first draft/facsimile – some sharpness                   TEST PAGE

9:23 AM I took it as you more thinking about yourself–

But that isn’t necessarily–
“BITE YOUR TONGUE YOU

want me to stay home you don’t like my friends
and tell your new boyfriend that I was boring.”””  How come

some of the clouds still up there

dccxcvi

I think you and I are just competing to play the victim or something.
Don’t forget the nice things like the flowers I sent you yesterday.
Nor the fact they taught me to like Jimmy Carter and then
how to love Ronald Reagan.   Pizzeria Uno with a copy of
Ploughshares, playing,
but not at my best behavior, particularly with you.
Or walking hand in hand on the sidewalk on a beautiful night
with gorgeous long hair.   A moon to die for.
How smart you’ve become lately!

That was obvious fodder for Altman, chewing on a towel,
watching the bridge lights turn orange.   Having painted over
each and every cloud.

                                                                               —Poetry on the 4th

dccxcv

I would put myself on the Kinsey scale about in the middle
between dancing and sex
                                                       —Carla Harryman

“Good boy,” he says.
The mirror says nothing,
wasn’t meant as funny,
and cannot be seen.

Being able to live again,
be reborn, saved. Cert
ainly a pleasure. But
why unwanted? I.

Value reinvention, new
ly elided plotlines (
not omitted but slurred
over). Surely that’s

NOT the word.  Mix
it up make it new.  I
wanna be loved by
you by you.  And

maybe others.  For
peanut reasons.
It wasn’t too hot
on the dance

floor.  I like it
wet.  Send me a
check next week.