mxvi

All our products will be safely delivered to your door
with full pharmacy. These MILFS want you, etc., etc.
I’m lonely, come chat with me. We can make your
meat tree mighty and strong. Think Paris is too flat?
Check it out closer. Nicole Kidman is all the red-
headed girls that go crazy in bed. Britney Spears
gained some extra weight so she needs some good
meatspace to get thinner. Unbelievable savings.
Johnny Carson anti-depressants, DaVinci, more or
less without a boyfriend, choked gagged throat, you
have registered to receive special offers by email.
Orangina, pesto mayo, watch some hot and slutty
bikini-clad camel toes storming the beaches nation-
wide, and meeting babes on the beach. Do you
think I’m pretty? Don’t be perplexed. It’s all about
soliciting your attention to transfer the sum-total of
£82,000,000 from a bank here in London to the
personal account of the deceased. Follow these
instructions for successful in this business of
learning foreign languages just to understand my
culture. Stupidly and drunkenly go back to the
Castro for a make-up artist who does strippers
before they go on stage, watch Power Puff Girls
(the movie) and wank off, that’s it. Blowout
savings awake outdoor scenery, person rickety
tropics lid. Wow your pics made me horny.

mxv

Feel the juice flow and grow bigger than ever.

Get something real to divert or warp your
attention for a while.  Three girls at one night?
Really awesome power between your legs?
Will it constantly remind me of yesterday?
Why can’t a breakup be a done deal?

mxiv

Steaming hottie ready to explode.  Threatens.

Keeping your man’s hose steel
is not a problem when you’re
dancing with us!  Kill the
competition with these
growth pills.  Get yours
before stocks run out.
Disconnect 4-wheeler
collar politicians.  Large &
wide pole available for
immediate gratification.
Shocking increase in size.
Forget you love him just
DO something.  Fuck up
any quiz on Hiragana
characters this evening.
For a very limited time
get your free bottles.
Magic blue pill with
experienced but shy
ladies.  If you cannot
see this page please
refresh here.

mxiii

Forget delays and costly doctor visits,
biting lips not to scream from pleasure
for weeks.  The Arizona stalls that temper
the mid-September heat with mild
glory holes.  WHAT A GREAT IDEA
just leave your NAME & PHONE #!
Let’s move back to Japan, learn Japanese,
never sleep, no need to buy a degree,
get our free bottles of the ultimate
enlargement supplement, briefly
wait for him after class, split again,
fucking shame, HATE THAT.
There is such power against me
and my replica rolex models,
most exclusive, 1000 pieces
worldwide.

mxii

Congratulations!  The lottery committee on
TOYOTA MOTOR LOTTERY PROMO
today officially wishes to announce that
you have won.  You are among the winners
of the TOYOTA MOTOR LOTTERY
PROMO DRAW.  All participants were
selected randomly from 30,500,000
email addresses of individuals and
companies from all parts of the world
as part of our Automobile Marketing
poem-swap, as part of our Finding
Nemo, followed appropriately by
sushi, as part of our ‘housewarming
present,’ as part of our bad movie.
But I got to snuggle and serious
talk, speaking generally with
jets in the air and a dank
smell in the bedroom, like
if my boyfriend had an
opportunity someplace
far away what would
I do.  This leads to
CONGRATULATIONS
& SCARY.

mxi

Time does not fetish a poem.

          (You’re as perdurable as moping is mawkish)
                                             —Geoffrey Young

Yesterday sufficiently out of it but
not really being too sweet.  Just
distant after drinks with lushy friend.

Fun.  Why?  Tomorrow!  Damn!
First time I’d seen him in forever.
3 months?  What a work of art!

mx

Through a combination of “aged corporations”
and enhanced corporate credit we are able to
get you up to $200K in unsecured lines of
credit for your business.  164 pounds of
running, racquetball, humor and midnight,
June 8, so didn’t eat much this weekend.
Attention entrepreneurs, don’t eat much,
take yesterday off, dose on antibiotics
that affect appetite, find a name that
sounds like “russian roulette” (Rosanne
Ouelette?  Heston, Georgette?).  Here
is the solution in Japanese: poem-swap
at my place, eat a donut, and several
boiled eggs, leftover cookies from
brunch, birthday dance, eat, eat, eat,
eat, eat.

mix

Gucci totes for your loved ones.  Gucci
shoes for the high flyer.  See if you can
get in, your email address emerging as
one of three winners, hence you are
expected to make your claims immediately.

Don’t doubt, let him show you that he loves
you.  Do not break, grasp the chance to
become a real man today.  Speak to your
member.  Eliminate all body fat.  Increase
libido and sex drive.  Do not doubt.  People

really think I’m cute, generic people.  A
little dizzy, medicine, mix & match a
romantic message in a bottle for
Valentine’s Day.  Forget delays and
costly doctor visits.  I am now thirty-

six and my back hurts while I read H.D.
over sushi.  Painkillers for massive
bedroom action.  Every single med is
available here in our massive online
store.  Your discount code # is LMAO.

mviii

We live in the jungle now, catch flies
and sometimes bagels, snow-shovel
hearts off freeway ramps, first time in three
weeks.  This message may not be from whom
it claims to be, honest hard on, lope the loop.
Monday night?  Hmm.  I mention speaking,
dear gentlemen, to the morons of advertising,
flower pupils couriered to your doorstep.
Nemesis interruptus.  But I’m better than
Monday, nay, better than the entire weekend,
black, sleepy, sun like summer, shipping
worldwide.  Feel the magic in every
language, pleasuring the ladies and
upsizing your manhood.  Horny house
wives getting fucked by other men.
Wishy-washy, balking, not getting
any attention.  None.  From him.
Zero.  None.  Nada.  Keep your
dignity, double your volume of
ejaculation.  Discover the break
through secret.  Delete forever.
Delete forever.  Delete forever.

mvii

Dear subscriber.  We make
navigating the health insurance
maze easy.  Wouldn’t it be
great if you could instantly
connect with an expert one
week from tonight?  As for
Japanese, show up for your
first day of class then see
what happens?  Only hope.
Start drafting something.
Be the love poet of our
time, even feeling shitty,
but yeah, don’t sink;
surprise your loved one
with a larger organ.  They’ve
never been so easy to make.

mvi

Omega watches from replica purses.
These are the first run of the 2009
models with inner Rolex.  Only
limited to 1000 pieces worldwide
and expected to sell out within a
month.  Your only hope, to work
long time on a poem, draft some-
thing yesterday.

mv

So large you will have to
change your underwear.
Who?  Who?  My friend
just sent me an eKiss!
Perhaps you have a
close friend or relative
who you want to help
stop smoking during
lunch.  Or the cute
waiter.  Yesterday,
miserably bleak.
Go.  Meet him for
dinner in some
breezy nook.
Just act & run,
first sending him
a note saying we
don’t have enough
sex and saying he
should spend time
with your friends.
No response.  Still
no response.  I know
this happens with him.
Related story, I got the
name of a therapist from
Dr. Feldman.  Have left
a message seeing if he takes
Aetna PPO.  No response.
No response yet.

miv

You make me horny for reading.
Like a bird once manufactured
in FDA-approved laboratories.
Elusive, enigmatic, holds back,
backs off, then spurts out these
lovely things.  Anyway, we
hardly have it.  And besides,
what shit, I hate business
intercourse.  I need to freshen
up my life.  This new one
isn’t real enough.  I need
to double my volume
with proven massive
gains of more than
three inches.

miii

Every single med is available here
in our massive online store. Pain-
killers, anti-depressants, ED meds
(for massive bedroom action),
Magic blue pill (from just $1) and
many other classes of meds. At
lunch, sushi on Sacramento, the
waiter looks at me covering up
my diary. Was thinking of
Fresno this weekend? Perhaps
Santa Cruz or no place. My
weekend is his. I’m starting
to feel silly with how much.

mii

I recently came upon your website and I must
tell you that you did a great job with it! I really
enjoyed and loved it and thought that maybe my
visitors would find it useful as well. I would like
to know if I can link your website from my website
MexicoVacationTravels.com. I am trying to link
to quality websites that my visitors might get
something out of. Please let me know if this is
OK. And also, do you think my website is worthy
to be listed on your website? I brought that up
and he said it’s just that things affect him so
strongly. And it’s only for special occasions.
Well. He said he lost something very important
because of it once. And it won’t happen again.

mi

It could be.  Forever.  There’s
nothing more impressive than a
man with confidence.  Someone
special sending you a nudge.

Get powerful and enlarge your
pole easily today.  Sleep soundly.
Eat home cooked country cooking.
Delicious.  Swear you have

never enjoyed dancing with anyone
as much as you enjoy dancing with
him on a Sunday night, plopping
his arms on your shoulders,

wrapping his hands behind your
neck, putting his little checkered
cap on your head, his braids,
his glowing eyes rolling up

into his head, way back up
behind his lids.

m

Here comes the sun like a cushion full of
pins and needles.  Here comes Coco
with her new brush.  It’s too much pressure.
Dare I say I’m able to relax, concentrate
on other things?  Like thinking about
yesterday writing love, love, love, worry,
love, future, love.  He promptly and
sweetly responded, but LOVE?  I ask at
Mel’s and he says it once, “I love you
sooooo much.”  Sitting on me Friday
night, watching the holes in a stranger’s
ears, corner of Powell and Post.  To
which he replies “I need you, too” and
“I will go wherever you want, do
whatever you want, so long as we can
do this sometimes.”  The lady next to me
breathing down my neck.  Sometimes.
Maybe.  Not long as.  I fall off the couch
with too much love or panic attack.  But
I told him I wouldn’t have it any other way.

cmxcix

Splash them with twilight like a wet bat.
                                   —Jack Spicer

It’s too sunny and when I sneeze it’s like
a million acupuncture needles just slid
down into the top of my lungs from the
front of my shoulders, ping ping ping.

Slumdog Millionaire is pretty good (before
award ceremonies). I almost forgot what
this was about – the chandeliers falling,
the ones with the LED piping at the new

Dosa on Fillmore, bold enough to frighten
Tinseltown: thirty-five years of lights.
You rubbed your tusks all over me (and
came back an elephant), made tiretracks

because of the thaw. You had been invad
ed by aliens and then the aliens fell in
love with me, too. It made me love you
more. It always does.

cmxcviii

Is this a mature one?

Too bad we are silent in love,
which is the happy daddy
of being silent with no love.
Too bad so sad?  Sure!
And always silly
walking hand-in-
hand to the
Nob Hill Grill.
But first,
meet me on the couch
while I finish these five books
(okay, one is a magazine) and
blog about needing to pee.

cmxcvii

It was a bisexual joke. You only get it
if you’re bisexual.

cmxcvi

You want to verb the rivers
and scythe inestimable oceans.
Water water water water. You
want the elevator but it does not
come. Come come come come.
You want out
but you do not want
to be destroyed.
Fear of being destroyed.
Fear fear fear fear fear.

But this honey-flavored mud
you found while trolling,
destroyed by fear, in the throes
of an endless impotence,
this is what you never leave

because you want it forever and forever
and forever and forever and forever.

cmxcv

get bitter

a blue fire
behind these
eyeballs what
intimacy

a furtherance
the circumstance
of which is
lengthening

a trolley
rises to
the navel

waiting
for you

cmxciv

A sort of right

How long must I be a wind
            against my long-cheated
                        sea?
Into an overwhelmed
             thing an unknown home has sunk

I have noted the bodies, right
           and correct as rights
I have located the hands,
           correct as rights
Enjoining like a right the
            good life-blows, said by a wrong
                        reporter, have belonged
The right under the steering-wheel, its interchanges
        have been quiet


(attributed to “Del Ray Cross” in Issue 1,
“a 3,785-page document featuring almost
as many poets....The poems were produced
by a poem generator known as Erika, or
Erica T. Carter.”)

cmxciii

Missouri (today’s trivia answer)

Mom sent me pictures of
her birthday flowers, sitting
next to them on her back porch.
She’s coming in a couple of weeks
but we can’t decide when.  Otto
took all the postcards off his
closet door.  Hooray!
Single page jerks into oblivion.
Oatmeal cools on the coffee table.
                       I’m still catching up.

cmxcii

Walk past “Frank is a
Miracle” etched in the
sidewalk on Mason
between Bush and
Pine Streets. Coffee,
remembering how I
love Ibsen, wanting
to read a play. So
I grab Chuck Mee’s
History Plays (Diane’s
recommendation).
This, the first play
I’ve read in over a
decade. Page 4,
look up decoction
(ditto earlier with
diluvial, apologies).
Rainy day with no
rain, further up the
hill is etched “Mika”.
Frank, Chuck, Diane,
Mika, and the lady
dove Coco watches.
The cat furious, hungry,
delirious. The bird, a
tender rooftop, The
Nob Hill Theater,
and not the one with
go-go boys next to
Sushi-Man restaurant.
Sushi-Man, Ryosuke
Yoshioka, 59, throat
slashed without
warning at OfficeMax
by Peter Fong, 45, who
suffered a ‘psychotic
break’. Sushi-Man
opened one of the
city’s first sushi
establishments
in 1979.

cmxci

I knew him in the biblical sense.

     Roses die upon a bed of roses
     With mirrors weeping at them.
                           —Jack Spicer

This was in Tower Records with
a better quality of life.  Opening
on October 12th at the Galaxy
Theater.  Where we never were.

The

goutish ocean lapping at the eaves.

Rain is all elation today, with an
umbrella held by another’s
bronzish arm, loving and
smooth as the forgotten
sun.

Rain is where we go when all is
lost, or thought so, but look....:

We had only begun to forget.

cmxc

Shall I courier a carrot over to your place?

But first, where’s my bananas?

cmlxxxix

Rain drips down the venetian blinds/
Fourteen years we danced like this.

Things I wanna do tonight: read this
stack of books, etc.; go to End-Up;
finish listening to all the music I
downloaded this week; put the new
liners up in the shower; finish the
laundry (48 more minutes); watch
this 2-hour Japanese movie from
Netflix (watched all the rest the
last couple of days); dance; figure
out how to edit movies; drink a
liter of water; make the first journal
entry of the new year; finish this
list I’ve made here on my coffee table
(completely separate)...

cmlxxxviii

I can taste your make-up

and the laptop sounds like it’s going to explode
or take off to Mars or something.  The sun shines
amazingly and I’m inside making lists.  How to go
beyond the list?  Get something done before
the explosion or take-off?  Stop picking up signals
from 1991 radio waves, keep looking up songs on
YouTube, fantastic tunes I’d completely forgotten
for over a decade, like Aldo Nova’s Fantasy,
Red Rider’s Lunatic Fringe, Saga’s On the Loose,
and, wow, Van Stephenson’s Modern Day Delilah
from Righteous Anger, 1984, one of the first
albums I ever purchased, with cash earned bagging
groceries, cassette tape (my first ever album was
Queen’s Greatest Hits, that one my one-and-only
8-track tape, but that’s one too many diversions)....

cmlxxxvii

Glenn Close’s Exit Makes Room for Dessert

Dear Cat Who Likes Dogs,

Your flying saucers are so gonna hug me.  Our
helicopter is way too low, but I appreciate its
NOIZE like Coco purring somewhere over the
Tenderloin.  So.  I download New Year’s and
break all of my resolutions in less than a minute.

What have we to spare?  One lonely stack of
chaplets in front of a close-cropped TV set
(its tweaky echo of a recent episode of
Battlestar Gallactica – the one trying too hard
to be like 2001).  We’re still brilliant, and

always will be. Which brings me to today’s
trivia tidbit: Which two states have official
donuts?  The answer, it turns out,
is Louisiana and Massachusetts.  The beignet
(of course) and the Boston cream donut.

Love,
January 10 (the day after Mom turns 66)

cmlxxxvi

Fie! Yer Breeder!

You’d that camera
to capture goal of
readingwritingdom.

Ran 4 miles on top
of skies that scrape
the weight off buns.

Darren just called
and wants to bor
row two hundred

dodos. And this
Japanese anthol
ogy, Yikes! Ez

ra, Ezra, Orphan
Andy’s. Even af
ter lukewarm vis

age I am still
filled with love
& I am just

trying
to feel
it.

cmlxxxv

When will it end when will it end when will it end.
10:30 or so wilting roses in front of me dark pink
lungs damaged from last night’s sleep. Upset most
of last week though haven’t eaten much at all
pieces of mac & cheese with Alex yesterday at
Rock Soup Cafe then to Mitchell’s for an orange
sherbet cone that’s it. You want to go to bed again?

E on Friday night said the sweetest things to me late
in the night “I don’t know what to say or what to do
but we will be the best” “I love you sooo much”
holding my hand sitting on couch next to dance
floor “next weekend we can go some place quiet”
and later “we need to get our picture taken together.”

Coffee seems weak my life of little substance I’ll just
read with my omelet. How to revamp erase start over
like I am somebody else. No longer good.

cmlxxxiv

I guess I just don’t want to be famous enough.

How do I feel?  Somewhat free.
I’m such a loser.  I’m such a loser.

cmlxxxiii

Johansson puts snotty tissue on eBay

Collective unconscious.  Reading
Japanese poetry.  Darleen sends me a
message on Facebook but I can’t find
Darleen she’s invisible or unreachable.
Can’t reply.  Message from a ghost?
Not in Japanese, silly.  Cassie loaned me
this book with horrible introductions,
but now I’m down to the good stuff.
Unable to drink, spend the week
keeping the wobbly upright,
erect. I am not a good poet.
But I just gave birth to
something.

cmlxxxii

Stop thinking?  Dance a tarantella
on the couch.  Turn two burners on high—
spike us each a tomato juice.

Now what?  Who am I

kidding; how could I ever finish this book?
Let’s never end, my pretending you’re
here—tis the season and I’ve an ingrown
whisker.  When shall we next

have sex?  Are you becoming the man your
mother divorced?

Drink the broth as Ron delivers
one file after the next:
ding! ding! ding!

cmlxxxi

I’m not 100% sure
it would have been a
better way to spend
the evening, but
I offer you this:
would you will-
ingly read and
reread an ounce
or two of semen?

cmlxxx

What a day
to be in love
with someone
who only wants
to sleep with you!

What a day to be
happily married
and madly in
love with someone
who only wants to
grind you
like a roasted
Colombian
bean!

cmlxxix

The conversation begins as a
happy accident, like a newly
burgeoning relationship that’ll
blissfully last for years to come
(except when one chases the
raw-eyed other from the
warmer end of a jointly
leased studio apartment
to the other, back and
also forth for a good
long time, all the while
beating his head with a
broomstick). I finally got
the nerve to ask (yet and
again) if he thought we
could “move forward.”
And he said

yes. Yes.
I was dumbfounded (and this
was back when dumbfounded
was cheap and easy, which
was either 1991 or
the day before yesterday).
So he came

to my place and we
spent a lovely night,
highlighted by a
long set of soft
slow kisses both
nearly but not quite
climaxing. The
next day—

well, morning,
our beloved other’s
furtive fingernails
jostling around within
our very own unique
intermittent “can’t-make-up-
its-mind-what-to-hold-on-to”
grasps, we skitter dizzily,
each and as one,
to Jamba Juice for Orange Dream Machine.

cmlxxviii

Let’s do the opposite. Rushing
onto the dancefloor trying to
start something. You, Mirac
ulous Stranger, you cum
obvious close—and
not only do I accept
and giddy appreciate,
but also reach out &
grab your dick.

Why’d it turn so
soft all of a sudden?

cmlxxvii

Del is striving for avuncular
                       (the apocalypse must be nigh).

Imagine that I am in love with this city.
Well, fantasize.
Too hard?  Maybe, but I do love it.

Pick one line.
         “OK I was cut off.”
Right.  Pick another.
         “Long story short?”

Long story short, my one and only ex-girlfriend
finds me via Facebook last night.  Same day I
get a sly note from my first college roommate
by way of yet another college friend.  He (the
roommate) was quite hotly and heavily engaged
when we shared our tiny campus domicile.
They got married soon thence and, inevitably,
divorced.  She (the other college friend) was
a classmate from India and a fellow chemistry
major (chew on that!) who arrived stateside
our freshman year via freshly arranged
marriage to the new physics professor; in
short measure she was lauding a newly-
found ‘liberation’—and soon thereafter was
happily divorced.  Next week, I have been
Facebookly informed, said He and She will
depart for the Caribbean, ensemble, where
they’re sure to whip up some riproaring mid-
dle-aged fun in (and no doubt out) of the sun.

One of my closest childhood friends’
kids is now at NYU on full scholarship.

cmlxxvi

Everything happens all the time, sometimes
simultaneously. I’m just now reading a
poem by George Stanley about him
huddling outside of his apartment with
his neighbors (granted, at 5:30 in the
morning), just to get away from the
noise of the fire alarm in his apartment
building – “strangers and no structure” –
he seems to be writing with a hangover,
and then I misread “sleek & slender
selves” as “sleek & slender elves” –
well, it is almost Christmas. I mean it’s
December. Or at least May, when I am
back ON with You-Know-Who. I wish I
could remember exactly how things went
at Mel’s after watching X Men (he was
45 minutes late!). But as I was spilling
my very soul out to him over a grilled
cheese sandwich (and his Oreo milkshake?)
I do most clearly and gleefully recall
that I saw his eyes mist over.

cmlxxv

I just dusted everything and it’s nearly
midnight.  All the blinds are closed and
I’m wondering if the moon is up.  Raise
the goddam blinds and see nothing but
blankly starlit rooftops.  MOON!  MOON!

cmlxxiv

I love it when you read. I don’t know why.
I’m reading four books simultaneously (&
doing laundry & sipping a lukewarm Sprite).
Life, as they say, is good.

Facebook, however, is taking up too
much damn time! My brother arrives
Wednesday, the place is a mess,
and I’m not going to get an ounce
of sleep tonight. Plus I just
downloaded The Last Guy,

which is not what you’re thinking unless
you happen to be an avid videogamer
(which I’m not—
but zombies in San Francisco?
How can I resist?).

So. That leaves room for a lot of
doubt, right? Right.
That’s a lot of doubt.

By the way, nobody writes at perfect pitch
every single sitting.

Excuse me
while I go back
and adjust the margins.

cmlxxiii

arabesques & bone spurs
                                —George Stanley

What’s real?  Martinis with Kim at
Martuni’s last night.  Talking the
talk. They’ve moved the WellsFargo
ATM machines to 333 Market (that
used to be ‘indoors’ across Fremont).
That’s real (though
I’d heard a rumor....).

Our building’s fire alarm buzzer
just came on full force.  Real.
I walk out to see a neighbor
standing outside of his
smoking apartment.  I ask
if everything is okay and he
says yeah.  “Do you know how to
turn it off?”  “Nope, sorry.”

And I mean it is LOUD.

Here comes the fire truck some
fifteen minutes later as I go down
(holding my ears) to check the
dryers.  One.  Real.  Empty.
Rah!  Plug her in!

cmlxxii

how I’d love to dream let alone sleep it’s night
                                                    —Frank O’Hara

The laundry is only begun.  Joe just signed on.
Doldrums since Saturday, no real reason.  It’s
Sunday.  Then fondue.  I made a rather long
list I haven’t started ticking off.

People are dancing right now and I’m here
on the couch writing a ‘poem’ – where’s the
sense in that?  The bells of reason
will surely ring any
moment now.

Til then, I’ll not name any more names.
Except last night we couldn’t wait for
Cyndi Lauper. Just couldn’t wait. Or
I was in pain from standing four (five?)
solid hours. Otto sweetly patient,

slow-walks home with the gimping old fart at 

12:30am after Lady Gaga and one of the chicks 

from Destiny’s Child. What’s a pop concert for?

What’re my memories of dancing all over the

bedroom I shared with my two brothers to
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun –

and never to see her live except this place,
me 41, her who knows how old, kids of 20
and 21 scrambling by with a bump and a shove, etc...?

Sure, she’s got a lovely new ‘hit’ now –
one that even grows on you, doesn’t quite exude
the vapors of nostalgia, one I’ll be most happy
to dance at alongside a few assorted eye candy
on my own present-day turf, which is whatever
stomped- and slobbered-upon San Francisco
dancefloor of the moment that pulses with
the rhythms of a vapid-ethereal-electronical
rehash of all things past and pop by way of
a decently escapist semi-world-renowned
DJ until the cows come home, no drunken

bumps, no live performance, except just this
bash & bash & bash & bash &...

cmlxxi

(Like the Muffled Roar of a Corporate Giant)

              which you may call a fantasy

Welcome to my series of utterly honest
sarcasms, bitter to the core, each with its
own violently clever and overwrought (one
and all!) twist that makes one wonder if I’m
possibly this stupendous or if I’m merely
lucky to bend a few attenuated ears with a
garden variety of half-baked jokes, ha ha,
which are quite possibly aimed at countless
dull replicas of our very own selves, Dear
Degreed Purveyors of Enlightened (known
colloquially as Illusioned) Guesses.  A rather
lavishly fluid volume of, let’s just go ahead
and call them postmodern aggregations of
memoria, each one built, if you will, upon
its own wondrously appropriate paper head-
stone; each grave (or any assemblage of
graves) to be interpreted as nothing less than
a mockery of all poetic traditions, espoused
or otherwise.  And yet, each blithe construct
is a scientifically sound disputation of the
very poignant, earnest, brilliantly straight-
forward argument or narrative – that is,
the very carcass – ensconced within each
brilliant contraption; individual ‘disputation vs.
straightforward narrative’ duets can by gosh 

downrightly be summed up as disposable ‘get 

on over yourself’ sermonettes craftily parlayed
tongue-in-cheekly as choruses to an end

less knell, and always a sly misreprentation
of the deviant, My Own True Selves, sung
just as deservedly to all kith and kin who
spend their days, their nights, their final
breaths languishing in the company of our
words, wordettes and wordy wordisms.
In toto, I might add, because it should be
iterated, these incomparable casements
encompass a fabulously excruciating
excess of divinely harmonic redundancies,
deliciously rabble-rousing bon mots, and
just plain inimitable sentences, which to a
T are gloriously impossible to repeat
unscriptedly, and naturally inconceivable
to utter in completion without the loving
assistance of at least one strong arm
slipped deep and ever so graciously
up into the whatever utterer’s wazoo.

cmlxx

Is this our way to be alone?

I daresay a day or so of
silence from you is an
unmitigated joy; it’s several
sheer pages of unmottled clarity,

a remedy for this year and next.
“Life is a Jumble Shop,” and
I’m too busy wedging Frank O’
Hara’s timelessly snappy coigns

into each well-intentioned day; I’ll
drum nary a knackered word of my own
into this chest, nor beat one, pithy or not,
into our veritable daily dough.

Why worry a jot over
kleptomaniacal tendencies?
I am perfectly satisfied just to
seek out that one clear frequency,

to pick up a clown-sized megaphone,
aim it in any general direction.
And transmit!
I do reckon there are occasional

incidental problems around which
to maneuver, but there’s clearly no
need to reinvent the all-glorious antenna.
I did have my mind on this

one thing, though,
that really needs to get fixed, but while
said slipshod mind cozily drifts off into
something like eloquence, watch closely

as the rest of me resoundingly remains
a fully functional and beneficent instrument of
conveyance.  Meantime, how’d you careen so
magnificently, so sublimely out of control?

Hm.  I do seem to recall some vague gesture
for direction, an ever-softening motion toward
relevance.  But I’ve had a few kooky dreams since
then that I could have just mixed it all in with,

not to mention I’m as down with love as
either of us can ever hope to be.  So cut out
that racket!  I’ll be damned if you’ll catch me
screwing with my pitch-perfect reception!

cmlxix

I think I understand what he was
talking about – about the eyes. I said
‘burning’ and he shook his head,
but I think I get it. The long hours
of abuse. The unwillingness to
put on a pair of glasses, either of us.
Or better yet, shades. The eyes,
those pathways to the soul.
What corruption, what utter
turpitude we’ve unleashed
into the very guts of our brains
and the very moats of our hearts.

I might as well shrug my shoulders
and, oh what the heck, give my dick a
baloney sandwich and repair forthwith
to the basement to drool over an
Andromeda of jars filled with pickled
anatomy, choke out a joke or two
of prayer aimed at each suspended fetus
in lame hope that just one of them
might possess, loosely tethered
to its gelatinous spine, that very last,
oh so tiny figment of humanity I had
erstwhile proudly teased myself into
believing belonged to me, my singular
possession, to nourish and to cultivate
lovingly, to dote on its every whim,
only to throw it up at Starbucks
at half past nine this morning.

cmlxviii

Lovely that Shame decides to make an
extended appearance just as Self-Confidence
has finally and resolutely learned to subsist,
indeed thrive a bit, on its very own.  Is there
a massage therapist in the house?

Name one higher purpose than Ego.  Neither
another heart-blackening disappointment in
my One True Being nor the maudlin iteration
of my next crisis of faith will help me conjure
a retort to that one.  Whatever Magick
one deigns to practice is to be used
strictly for implementing
the most current upgrade of
one’s paragon set of smoke and mirrors
built neatly upon the myth of selflessness.
(And oh so stealthily at that!)

But I digress.  It is 9:20 on a brilliant
Saturday morning and maybe, just
maybe, I am rising from these most
recent depths.

And with what gravity!
I’ll exit this muck a sourpuss,
wipe the sewage off my boots
and ascend that imaginary plateau
(what a quick learn I am, too,
already hip to the sacred gospels
proving slope and altitude just a pair
of plucky post-coital legends) –
please be sure to watch carefully, now;
take as many notes as you must – because
I’ll do it all with as much ironic pleasure
as a well-burnished fart
presented gleefully adagio
at the butt-end of Thanksgiving Day.

cmlxvii

Caught in his porn-like grasp,
the pen loses all meaning. This
could be the furthest gone you’ve
come, like a steel drum forgetting
its last few thrummed notes, or a
first generation iPhone left in
a taxi-cab’s backseat crack.

Well, I just did it. I just
hunkered over, gave in,
sent the man one more
“we never had an us
but let’s grasp each
other to strangulation
so we can finally
have one” note.

Men. When did we start
calling them such. Start
calling him such. Either
I’m evolving or he’s
devolving.

I’m so sure of things. Certain
as ash in the craw of this pipe.
One split second leads to
another. I export each file
five different ways and listen
for the soft cough of the muse
as one after the next they
whistle a burn into the
recordable DVD, then
quietly slip the disc into its sleeve

and just as quickly forget why I’ve
spent eight years rewriting
this ridiculously innocuous
portion of Act I, Scene I.

cmlxvi

Markets Crater in Closing Minutes

It is almost 1960. Another
decade laid to rest or ruin.
Yes, another love poem
as we run out of time;
same cast of characters
(pretty much), same glib
narrator, same bistro after
another besotted Sunday
night. Then the goodbye
letter, which backfires,
just as they all have. Oh
how I wish you could enjoy
these last few carnal moments
with little old me. You know
better than anyone how I’ve
a soft spot for giddy doom
and gloom. What better
excuse for a party, no?

cmlxv

Poetry is drugs
don’t fight it
be hedonistic
it’s perfectly fine
to be high and
optimistic. Some
times. Finally,
a new life
with sushi on
Powell Street.
Turn the page
and here I am
with Fleetwood
Mac. Stephanie’s
coming over
this evening.
Which decade
is this? Ten
pounds in one
month, rather
sadly reading
diary entires
from when I
was ‘trying’
to get over
the last big
someone. Def
inite. Rep
etition. Then
home to Sepia
and email from
Kim who says,
“We’re going to
Mezzanine, hope
to see you there!”
Things to do in
the meanwhile:
learn Japanese
at City College,
elect a new
president,
shampoo,
and relax
on this
vibrant
Sunday
afternoon.

cmlxiv

PNG Alpha Transparency with MSIE v. Auto CEOs 

fly private jets to ask for bailout

This movie pretty much confirms my transformation
into a postmodernism-hating sap.  I think.  But I’m
happy to be coaxed or convinced otherwise.  The
whole thing is so pedantic – except to say the refusal
or inability to live life to its fullest every second
(reasonably enough to continue to live to the next
second) – much less spending an entire awkward life
of unhappiness – simply does not resonate with me.
Furthermore, I fully believe you can embark upon a
“lifetime art project” (silly, tragic or otherwise)
with mucho gusto and all the while be perfectly
capable of milking reality of every last ounce of
happiness or pleasure that is in any way available.
I’m at the Tenderloin Pakwan’s after picking up an
X-Men DVD.  I do like my hot pakoras.  Orgy in the
steamroom today: all white guys.  I just finished
Rae Armantrout’s Veil – really got into it.  Also reading
Torn Awake by Forrest Gander.  I promised a week
without dates – a week all to myself – but how can I reneg
on this invitation?  I remain, as always, ready for someone–
anyone–to knock some sense into me.  I mean I’m
not saying I couldn’t get good & well engrossed in a film
about the tragedy of never being able to do those simple things
you need to do in order to experience love & happiness & all that
if it were actually well-written.
That’s all I’m saying.

cmlxiii

How redundant a question
is “How can it be November?”
Pretty much redundant, but honestly,
here we are again? Really?
Reading Bill’s poems, checking the
telephone (occasionally), turning
the page of this year’s calendar
(1,000 Places to See Before You
Die? Really!) – Isle of Skye,
The Inner Hebrides, Scotland.
Pausing to note a certain 20-
year-old. Tall. Smiles. Likes
sex a lot. Maggie Gyllenhaal
is awesome, I’ll learn how to
pronounce her name in a
few years. Darren at the
Café. Vincent, who
drops in for a little
entertainment on
his way to the
airport. The new
books. Serious
prospecting with
Gerrit Lansing.
April, January,
Thanksgiving.

cmlxii

Synechdoche, New York vs. Welcome to Collinwood

I’m just sitting here waiting for
something I can get embarrassed about
as the banana on my desk turns brown,
trying not to get too worked up over a
movie everyone loved but me.  Got to
show everyone the error of their ways.
Ingratiating indeed.

Not that history is bound to repeat itself.
How to relieve oneself (of selfish existence)?
Sex.  Twice during the movie we don’t finish.
And once this morning as we awoke.

No worries, good spirits, have met with a
calm. don’t be shy of unkindness /
why be afraid of hate
more O’Hara to stare me down
in the bathroom mirror at 5:10am
on a Thursday.

My favorite hour to walk the city.

cmlxi

Eerie aurora, galaxy smashups
                           —CNN.com

It’s not just that I steal such
glorious blighted words. I
don’t know who I am and
never did, but how could I
turn down such a golden leap?
Back we go to Captain Kirk’s
boyhood; let’s join him in
giving the world the finger.
Or let’s rather be realistic,
buy a couple bananas
so we can make it to five
o’clock and gingerly,
oh so gingerly, cross
Natoma while the Tuesday
noon alarm brings news
of day’s daydum.
Breathe it in anyway,
every rotted second of it,
dirty or not, displeasing
or not, splendid it will
always be. What foul
pleasure this, the bold
new galaxy unfolding
in front of our very arms?
Cannon to the right of me.
Cannon to the left of me.
Awkward I stride as each
ugly awning espied’s
blown well asunder,
yet our bloody entrails
ever blue and verily
intact remain – our
waxen appendages
engorged (for how
else react to each
brilliant starburst,
a carnal gift from
every last smithereen?).

cmlx

Orange is lying bleeding in my hand!
                                        —F.O.

What is your favorite color?
Mine’s yellow, as evolved from
purple and green. Otto’s is white,
which isn’t a color (debate
amongst yourselves). The
market staggers into red,
or is it black? I never
remember. I’m opaque,
or approaching same,
with no view of the
bay, absolute remorse,
pain even. Give me
a view of the city
or give me an
orange bled
blue.

Sidenote from Otto (by way of Wikipedia):
(White is a color.... )Since the impression of white is obtained by three summations 

of light intensity across the visible spectrum, the number of combinations of 

light wavelengths that produce the sensation of white is practically infinite.

cmlix

Last night,
rereading text messages,
feeling fresh
(a start),
email “enough!”

Sniffle.

               Met
James. Smoked.
Watched a show.
Three episodes.
I’m okay now.

cmlviii

Blood,
that we have martinis again.
A will-o’-the-wisp naivete
shorn of its adolescence.
Something to live for,
overnight,
in the heart of Spain,
like a high score
in Mob Wars.

cmlvii

Tears done (crybaby tears),
extension filed to the IRS,
two weeks since break-up
(number 2?), ominpresent
intimations of reconciliation.
Nowhere near as blah
as yesterday, and
there’s this fit
of confidence to boot,
swelling near to a burst.
Edward,
who lives nearby,
will never talk to me again,
yet asks me
as he’s walking
out the door: So,
if we were to have sex,
who’d dominate?
Yawn.
20 now equals
15 years younger
than me.

I see the delta.

cmlvi

...and then drink his blood.

Ah, the poseur, with his
absolutely intentional
unintentionality. The
tender blister between
thumb and forefinger.
Better Luck Tomorrow
by way of Phone
Booth causing the
bang of love. Causing
strife or maybe no big deal.
Causing the upside down
kiss at various angles
on the couch.
Biting lip, say

I’ve had a wonderful evening
but this wasn’t it.
                                           —Groucho Marx

cmlv

the unrecapturable nostalgia for nostalgia
                                            —O’Hara

How early does
Taco Bell open?

And what could
make anything
I would have to
say worth the
trouble of
passing along
to you?

That didn’t say much.

Except notice how
I’ve less than subtly
twisted it all up
into a bother only
selfishly burdensome.

No trouble at all.

I reached a new low
last night. And
to add to the
festering swale
of redundancies,
I spent all morning
trying to find 2003.

It must surely have
died a good death.

cmliv

I’ve not much
more reasonable
time left to
flirt with 19 and
20 year olds.

Is that a good
enough excuse?

Very well, then,
I’m doing
research for
my next book.

cmliii

After confidence, then what?

Like Frank O’Hara,
who found a way to be
proud of his penis,
I, too, had a dog named
Freckles as a child.

cmlii

I’m sawblades
working against
each other, one

misbegotten attempt
after the next,
jump-starts and

broken knees, YSL
at the de Young, a
fine coat of rain;

amnesia. I’ve
lived this moment
for months,

splitting the days
wicked smitten
with smudged ink,

staggering proof
of sexual encounters
I don’t even

remember –
the sawblades, the
rain, the Xanax,

the homosexual
subtext (fantastical
and realistical),

and wouldn’t you
know it’s a glorious
day, come together

like magic, blowing
me from one glorious
page to the next.

cmli

I think my girlfriend
actually wants to get married with me.

Sign of the times:
I now own my first pair of
prescription sunglasses.

“Whatev, Bub.”
(She’s Beelze Bub’s cousin,
for those keeping score.)

I’m less interested in devastating
than I am in a Calgon-esque
“Take me away!”

But I do need to weigh myself
on a decent scale,

preferably while breathing
the salt air as it wafts in
from the Adriatic.

Uranus is bloated tonight;
a measured gift from the sky –

that faraway sky.

cml

April 12th, my stomach sunk
even deeper.  Got the email
around 7 after running 3 miles.

Walking home, feeling good.

Immediately afterwards,
blank.

Rented Road to Perdition,
watched half of it until
the return phone call:
“Well, you can still
love him, but obviously
that doesn’t mean you
should be together.”

OK.

Rarely have I felt so out of place
as I did in downtown Mazatlán,
until we found the cathedral,
walked inside – like taking
a dip into a pool during
100 degree heat.  Sat on a pew
near the back.  Just sat there
for a few minutes.  Then

got up, walked back into the
sunlight, the open arms of
Jesus (and a pope?).

With just such therapeutic
disorientation the city
becomes mine.

cmxlix

As absurd as 2,000 queens
on a ship off the waters of
Mexico (a niche market).

As absurd as going back
to work after an eight day
hiatus

(spent on a ship off the
waters of Mexico with
1,999 queens).

Which is queerer?

cmxlviii

And yet I disagree. The city
can exist if I work in my
“white shirt” at my small
desk in the dollar mark
of the city. I don’t do
dollars, I just watch them
go by, along with the
city, forming distinct,
curvy S’s up and down
the hills (no matter the
grid). All I ever wanted
was to not be bored. In
the ennui sense, that is.
Here at Gaylord, I’m
sneezing and reading
the second issue of
Pom². Last night, I
met Donovan for
sushi and a really
bad horror movie;
back in mode, loss
of libido, having
a good friend say
he’ll bend over
for me, looking
into my wallet
at a whole lot
of nothing.

cmxlvii

First words.  Sashimi combination B
OR the sexy Japanese guy across the way
(with his girlfriend – or without)?  Find
words.  Talking in the steam room
(usually a no-no, but not this time) with
a guy whose brother is a professor at MIT.
He just got back from Chicago and his
apartment is sweltering.  Taking notes.
At the beach with the little green bug
yesterday and then to shabu-shabu
with someone I’m madly in love with
but will never work out.  This way.
First something, then something else,
like Coco crawling up into my lap
and purring like nothing but sweet
love while I read Paterson (Book I,
Part III, pages 29 through 32).  A
little shaky from a triple shot –
the sun slowly burns its way through,
10:01am Pacific Time.

cmxlvi

Take refuge in a long poem.
                          —George Stanley

Buzz saw in the distance. The
noise of the back-up drive
picking up each new word.
Downloading pictures from
the cruise to Mexico. Dis
tracting myself from writing
by tidying up the place.
-ing, -ing, -ing.

The crack along the side
of the cylinder – mostly
empty container of
blank recordable
compact discs
(700 MB).

Just a few lines down, there’s
Write carelessly.

Hadn’t read that when I first began
but how true it is!

Thinking –
hopefully erroneously (in some just way) –
how this can’t work.

This poem fits nicely onto one page.

But then...
there are 945 others
that do the same.

Then, then,
how repetition,
repetitions...

cmxlv

To invest in the inevitable

Plunk the sentences out with
giraffish awkwardness (a
phrase stolen from William
Carlos Williams)...

not quite via George Stanley
in Vancouver: A Poem,

which I’m reading as I
get off the ship; realizing there are
many ways to delay the inevitable.
To prolong the inevitable.

The brain a snarl of death scenarios
until the Xanax fogs it up for the
puddle-jump from LAX to SFO.

We’re talking simultaneous reading
to stave off (to enhance) the
San Francisco fog.

Walking Otto halfway to work,
stopping by Starbucks for a
triple venti latté.

What this city means to me
on a day when I don’t have to
“work” – the city –

the incessant noises of SoMa construction –
a newly forming cityscape huddled against
the west end of the Bay Bridge –
bouncing off the buildings of the
Financial District,

off the Tenderloin rooftops
and into my very own living room.
Back home with the intensity of presence
as overwhelming as this desire for
another turn of the page.

cmxliv

Roman candles bleeding into their mouths

“Let me have your attention folks, the
Albany stop is fast approaching with its
wet, red timber.  Don’t forget your
Emergency Window Removal followed
directly by your Emergency Exit
(Pull Handle.  Remove Rubber).”

Break it down to the exact moment I
realized I had to take an Ativan.  It was
at __________* – which is debilitating
(i.e. imposes a ‘lack’) for the words
and for the memory and for the
memory of words, so at some point...

walking to the Chinese Tea Garden –
“it’s free today” – is remembered
by downloading the pictures
just to get the name of the deli:

  *Kenny & Zuke’s.

Good thing he likes to take pictures
of words.

Anyway, I made it back up to my
room and popped a pill, then down
to Rite-Aid at Broadway and Alder
for Prilosec, Rolaids, and a stapler
for the holes in the back of my mouth.

cmxliii

No, I am not seeing double.

But airy, lightheaded, happy—momentarily;
I can be for now, at this moment, when it is now.

Jim just posted a dozen orgasms.

So either I have an incorrect perception of myself
or this is a digital luxury.

He calls me over the soldiers, says my
mouth is like the Golden Gate Bridge.

He’s got a million of them.

I was thinking of what that might look like spoken.

cmxlii

The self’s weakest self funnels batter as
quickly as it can, into cakes.
                                 —Stephanie Young

I go out to buy an umbrella but it stops
raining.  I chance the rest of the weekend
without one.  Why fear wetness?  “People
in Portland don’t use umbrellas.”

At some point it is important to tamp one’s
conversations with oneself and release
those words on actual people.  The
word I keep using is “engagement.”
“Engagement” has become my
important word.

So I buy a red shirt covered with important
words and wear it around town.  Ever the
wallflower.  I am engaging even as I
break up or give distance a chance.
This is how I discover that I’m
really an extrovert.

cmxli

I’m trying to download a tree

Wake up with a slight case of nausea
in my neck. Walk down four flights
for the best coffee known to man,
so as the rain pours the nausea turns into a
heartache which slowly dissipates under
a good book. “It wasn’t supposed to rain
today,” says the apple tree in Rodney’s
back yard. Darren dreamed he was
swimming in the bay and got bombed
and died. The tree dies, becomes a
jigsaw puzzle with an image from
the dream. Whether or not I live, 

I will want to remember this moment.

cmxl

I gambled with love, and in its stead I found status anxiety.
                                                             —Kevin Killian

What mode today?
A la mode!

With 9 clear windows
across your face.

Never use the
obvious example

unless it hurts too much
to tell the truth.

Switch gears
whenever necessary. Some big hills.

All my life I thought I was an introvert
until I took the Myers-Briggs test.

Being a wallflower does not make you
introverted, it turns out. 

You are yet THERE!
You NEED the PEOPLE. (Or at least I do.)

But it wasn’t until I started taking
Wellbutrin that I realized how intense
the social anxiety is.

Last night when I
offered to a handsome

bike cabbie as he was pedalling me
from one nightclub to another

that “cool, we don’t have these in
San Francisco” I thought he said

“course not the difference between
Portland and San Francisco is

some big pills.”

cmxxxix

In Portland, I’m going
to be very nondescript.
Twelve years later I’m
looking in the same
general direction.  Sun
shine!  I don’t want to
pick up the clock for
fear I’ll let some of
it go.  I pick poems up
instead.  The air condi
tioner rattles the rust
outside the window,
bright orange.  I’m
in the Ace Hotel in
the room with the
Best and Strongest
Ladder and wool blank
ets, military issue-esque,
that make me think of my father.
Portland rain.  The last time I
was here, he was still alive.
Yeah, that.  But I’m not
melancholy.  I’ve got a big
ladder and I’m going to climb
up to the roof and sink my
teeth into a big Portland raindrop.
Goes well with Stumptown coffee.
And poems by Kevin Killian which
in Portland seem even more romantic
than in San Francisco.  But this is
my love for Portland, Oregon.
And the little bit of sunshine
I brought with me on
the train.  And a
kiss on the cheek
to my very first love,
with whom I lived here
years ago, but long after the
cacophany had dissipated,
and whose namesake I
ran into just last night
after searching hours
for a dancefloor; a
pleasant stranger
in whom to find
that old and heart-kindling
familiarity.

cmxxxviii

I would like a little of the
sunlight to come over me
here on this bench, spectral
me.  I shot through the St.
Francis a minute ago to
see a little bit of the blue
ocean, its blue a bit Mex
ican, not like what you
might usually call the
stormy blue sea.  I see
someone I’d like, but
he’s not blue.  My
glimpse was enough,
however.  I must have
really been in Mexico.
Yes, my spirit got
caught in a loop and I
nearly lost myself.
Yet here I still am
indecipherable on
this chilly bench next
to the azaleas the
birds hide in to keep
themselves from the
city for just a minute
before stretching to
the west, losing our
shadow in migration.

cmxxxvii

A big blue crane rises up, up, up,
rises belligerently up the Macy’s
building, wants forever to stop
at the Cheesecake Factory for a
one hour wait and pastel cock
tails. The square cafe makes a
lot of noise waking up and the
jukebox is lovelier than you
ever wanted it to be on a day
like today with 150 years of
oohs, ahhs & wows. Otto’s
getting arrested in the subway
for possible terrorism (can’t
videotape without a permit).
Two men write a poem on
the same day (Tim McVeigh
is executed). What comes of
each? We are all reincarnated
inappropriately. I’ve found
this morning in Union Square –
nothing worth writing home
about until the Sudafed
kicks in (“Look, you’ve got
the old kind,” dug lovingly
out of the bottom of his bag).
Somebody’s whistling like
Bing Crosby while a high-
spirited red-jacketed Saturday
morning playboy hoses down
around a trash receptacle; the
city abloom with the clang
of the trolley, afull of morning
joggers and pigeons, agay
with bench kissers and aloft
with dreamy purple flowers
and me.

cmxxxvi

blog fodder from the new world order
(stocks rally on halibut fears)

I’m telling you right off the bat I’m high maintenance.
I’m itching to try these new whistles you practice.
15 minutes you don’t have to sit down in front of a blank page.
Find the answer to this question and millions of others
in Mommy’s car made of plastic rope.

Okay, people, I know we’re all broken up about it.

Yeah, so these are some pics from the wedding
and the tight knot that is my stomach.
The brain can do more than just initiate a quick
retreat from the source of pain.
And this one is a dead ringer for the pancake house I worked in
while in high school.

Set it up and dismantle the tower or derrick cranes.
A vote of no confidence would make it
impossible for him to stay on the job.

cmxxxv

the sun tits

a big demo
nstration a
long love
with the
orbitz girl.
walk and
workout.
kick him
to the curb.
chase a wino
who spills
beer on you
calling him
anyone un
der the sun.

cmxxxiv

How come all meaning gets
squandered, just sort of
washes away like sand in the
shower as we approach what
is haughtily called WIZDOM?

I’m hungry.