mmcdxcvi

Poem

I have many treasured
friends.  But it was morning.

In the afternoon, I complained,
having skipped either work

or my workout.  I wonder about
my attitude like a narcissist; I

worry about never having had
the opportunity to slap someone

back.  I should be joyous.  I still am,
sometimes, however, I’m presently

stalling the completion of a question-
naire I’ve been asked to turn in before

a job interview that I have this afternoon.
Actually, I haven’t even begun to fill out

the questionnaire, which is really just in
preparation for a “phone screen,” something

that seems like a mandatory prerequisite to
an in-person interview these days (oh, how the

times, they change...)...so it’s really just a pre-

interview for an interview that I have this afternoon.

But that’s still an interview, right?  Yet still I sit here,
stalling.  I don’t even know why I’m mentioning this,

except it seems appropriate to include within a page of
couplets of certain lengths.  Such as the ones on this ‘page’....

I like couplets, and see fit to use them on occasion.  I
also enjoy many (additional) types of architecture, as

well as the occasional pork cutlet.

mmcdxcv

Poem

I remember books of poetry
in which the same title existed
for almost every poem: “Poem”.

Most days I am also reminded
of my confusion regarding Roman
numerals.  Sometimes I think,

sure, it’s a day like any other.
But other days I find overwhelmingly
unique.  I really enjoy unique.  And

puzzle over the notion or fantasy
that unique might be ubiquitous.
Which would eradicate the whole

concept of unique.  That’s when it
hits me that I have completely lost
my optimism.  I used to brag most

any day about how wonderful life
was, or how terrific this or that
aspect of life.  Now it seems an

effort (but at least the effort is
fairly constant?) to simply look
at the bright side.  Last night, I

met a chihuahua named Rose.
After a while, Rose hopped up 

onto my lap to have a look around.

mmcdxciv

Poem

There’s a hero in our midst.
‘Myth, maybe,’ says he of no
lisp as the fogroll turns into
drumroll.  The 4th of 4 days
in a row I walk down this hill.

It is where I’ve lived (or used
to live) for 12, no, 13 years.
So, more of the same will (might)
happen soon.  The 5th of 5 days
in a row, etc.  At a gym, I go on

record as weighing myself.  I
come out several pounds.  A
lot of them.  And later wonder
how to convert them into
stones. Or sentences.  The

Mark Hopkins Intercont-
inental Hotel is a stone’s
throw away from my
apartment building.
So I throw it into a

lot of sentences.  On
several occasions.  For
example, this is the
evening that I throw
myself at everyone

walking the sidewalk
that passes directly in
front of the building
in which I live.  I could
convert into condom-

iniums, if you’d like.
Really, it was nothing.
For example, ‘Thank
you!’  And ‘You do 

the same.’

mmcdxciii

                                  Cord word hit often   cheeseburger
          Murmur barbells  half  expect     Underfoot
                                        —Ted Greenwald

And “Girls allege verbs smell.” That Ted
Greenwald; he of lovely nonsense! I’m 

half tipsy from his poetry this morning
(2am) and happy tinged with sad (this
Gemini has a birthday coming up in a few
days!). If I were paranormal would I not
be so normal? One can only hope. And,
therefore, a boy can dream.

Boy, speaking of birthdays, I’ll give you a
hint: my 30th year high school reunion
is coming up in a few weeks. The 30th
anniversary of my graduation from
high school! I’m not going, of course.
Too much nonsense in my life already.
No offense to anyone with whom I
graduated. And it’s not that I don’t
stay in touch. There were only
around forty of us, but Facebook
somehow keeps us engaged with
one another (wouldn’t it be unlikely
we’d be in touch otherwise?).

Three of my classmates have passed on,
apparently by their own hands. True or
not, what a lousy thing to know. What
a lousy way to go. Or? I’ve no idea
if that’s true, much less, if it were to
be, what the individual circumstances
were that would have led to such things.
Which brings me back

home, to my lovely bed in my lovely
apartment on lovely Nob Hill in lovely
San Francisco, California. Upon which
sits me, myself (the Geminis), and a
purring cat who answers to the name
Coco the Loco (though sanity, as she 

well knows, is in the eye of the beholder).

mmcdxcii

                                      May the breath
          I draw become a healing touch
           to ease the pain...
                                        —Tim Dlugos

Dlugos continues with “I caused him,” etc.,
but I stop where I stop. “Here I divide my
heart,” he later notes, and I’ll momentarily
relate. It is five in the morning, and there
is no logic. Make notes to defy logic. Make
another quick note to let logic go. It is five
in the morning and the computer is making
its noises and Coco the Loco is having dreams,
nightmares, from the look and sound of it (but
how are we to...?)....

I wanted to go dancing earlier, but I passed out
cold while playing games on my phone. On the
tattered couch. Fully clothed. I’ve spent the
duration of the weekend, thus far, here at home,
alone, but for a lovely and all-too-brief visit on
Friday evening with my former neighbor and
classmate (from 1st grade through high school
graduation). We caught up over a bite at Nara
Sushi on Polk Street before stopping on the
way back to our respective home & hotel at
Trader Joe’s to pick up some groceries together.
She and her husband were off to Napa the next
morning. I remain here at home, in the fog,
to write it all down.

Which is what I’m literally doing these days.
Writing. My hand is cramping now, in fact.
So I’ll return to Dlugos’ “Healing the World
from Battery Park.” In hopes.

So long for now. I’ll be back again very soon!

mmcdxci

Outer Space

What I know and what I don’t know.
Is equal in nature to
what I see and what I do not see.

Cut nature a pair of slacks and
please bring back the variety of birds
(the ones I usually hear as I wake up

each morning). I haven’t heard them
recently. Nor seen any to speak of,
except pigeons and crows (which I

shall not call, as some do, the lowliest
of the fowl; I am simply lamenting).
I’m simply lamenting the lack of variety.

And now, after crying for an entire year,
I wake up. Poof!
......(I do hope that I awaken....)....

In such hopes, I’m tidying this,
the place where I live (e.g., see
photo of me wearing the house-

plants). I am mostly comfortable
spreading myself upon furniture
that needs to be replaced (e.g., there’s

no lasting sensation within the body that
currently spreads upon this tattered sofa
and begs for the body’s removal from it).

mmcdxc

“Whoa, Nelly!”

     A film may run in the same sequence each time it is
     viewed but it can never be viewed in exactly
     the same way.
                                           —Susan Gevirtz

Last night I saw San Andreas, the movie
with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and the
‘EARTHQUAKE’ that devastates California.
But it turned out to be less of a disaster flick
than a send-up to the Sunday night TV movies
with which Walt Disney bombarded my child-
hood.  I'm not really saying anything bad about
the movie, I’ll admit.  However.  This week
I’ve been rereading Kevin Killian’s delicious
collection of poetry, Action Kylie.  And it just
so happens that the film last night had a
completely useless cameo appearance
by none other than Kylie Minogue herself.
Let’s just say that I never see this film again.
If so, I’m pretty sure that the key significance
of (or any memory that may be sustained from) 

this morsel of family fare, for me, will surely 

always be Kylie Minogue’s appearance as The 

Rock’s ex-wife’s new man’s ex-wife.  She 

appears once.  Directly before the earthquake, 

the fault of which the movie is named after.

mmcdlxxxix

Intermittent Garble

We’re in the
back-together
phase, where
we aren’t tell-
ing anyone,
which has
been fun.

I’ve just
finished
Woolf’s
Jacob’s
Room and
downloaded
a few tunes
by the likes of
Stefy, AFI, Jack
White, and The
Raconteurs.

And, as a going-
away present
for the new
citizens of
Texas, I’m
currently
eating a
Loco Moco
at Hukilau’s.

mmcdlxxxviii

                       Every maybe has a wife
     Called maybe-not.
                                    —Kevin Killian

Moving around has
cast a pall over
everything of late.

I am taking St.
John’s Wort; it
doesn’t seem

to be helping.
Hospitals are
scary places,

like on Wayward
Pines, the first
episode of which

I watched late
last night (alone).
But, when I lie

perfectly still,
or stay in bed
reading, like

this morning,
like every
morning

this week,
things are 

quite good.

mmcdlxxxvii

Marooned

I’m at work.
It’s nearly
4pm.  To-
night we
go to Huk-
ilau’s to
meet with
C & M (
they’re
moving
to Austin
in only 2
weeks!)
4 drinks
before
heading to
The Bridge
to see
Beyond
the Val-
ley of
the
Dolls,
hosted
by Peach-
es Christ.

Alone,
in bed,
on the
3rd day
of a hor- 

rible cold.

mmcdlxxxvi

Motivated

I see your
true colors
shining through.
And your wardrobe
clashes with your
personality.

You know
what sucks is
that you don’t
mind getting
sick. So please
touch the lion
gently.

If we back up
to the border
of dying, there
is so much
good stuff
that I dread.

It’s you
I’m having
trouble with.
Everyone else I can abbreviate.

mmcdlxxxv

I anachronism writing as if I believe I recall something
                                                                   —Susan Gevirtz

Unable. Unnamable. It
was like that. I recognize
the face of he who does
not sound like a decent

person. It is not simply
that we frolic. I have
just come to know
better than to different-

iate so cleanly, better
than to leave first and
second (and third)
impressions anything

but malleable, just a
thing to work with.
The have of a wonder-
ful time predates the

sausage. It predates
the elements within,
which reach back
as far as the elements

without. I grew up
half a block away
from the element-
ary school with no

kindergarten, no
radon on its singular
periodic table. And
despite our bouts

with rabies from the
occasional rusty nail,
oxidization did not
exist in those days;

and American flags
weren’t the only
things fondly wav- 

ing each other down.

mmcdlxxxiv

Nearer Dying

It’s Easter.
All colored
with eggs.
A chorus of
empty carts
are piled
near the
garbage.
Er.  The
garbage.
The garbage
is us.  Acco-
lades of
rotten eggs,
our breakfast,
to see us up
and out this
particular
mourning.
No stone gets
unturned, we’re
thinking, as we
rise to the occasion. 

Or get raised for it.

mmcdlxxxiii

Thud

At Target, I need to pee.
Important things keep
vanishing like cowards.

The waitress spends
part of an afternoon
looking for a therapist.

Coming down for air,
pronouncing it with-
out any teeth, on our

last legs, we each
blink loudly, un-
like memory, which,

notwithstanding,
still has its original
two legs and knows

how to use them,
bites like a granny
apple, and shows up

like irreverence.
Someone crawling
around with a

loudspeaker has
the nerve to use
it. True or false,

this experience
makes the current
Target, its location,

irrelevant? No one
is here. It’s sum-
mertime in San Fran-

cisco: go now (not-so-)
young man and fall fool-
ish and stupid in love!

mmcdlxxxii

Nothing goes well this week,
and for good reason, I think.

The sun’s mostly down.  The
‘underwear party’ is at 550

Barneveld.  The waitress at
Lori’s who keeps repeating

bananana is still working
at Lori’s.  We still call every-

thing bananana at Lori’s.
We still used to call out

for banananas.  I’d give
anything for one about

now.  Feel free to take
that any way you want

to take it.  I think too
much and hope for

nothing more than
a hello.  My target:

to be beautiful.  At
Target, I am beautiful,

but I really need to pee.
Things vanish, like memories,

thud!  Just like that.  I spent
too much on the best part

of an afternoon, which
lasts for most of winter

and pretty much all of
spring.  Summer love....

mmcdlxxxi

     A way of remembering thinking
     A way of remembering is thinking 
                                            —Susan Gevirtz

I urge us all to drink and dance,
or at least dither. No one will
listen to me anyway, they’re
not having any of this. Which
makes it all mine. Mine and
mine alone? One or the other.
The hunger has subsided. Cof-
fee’s good for that. In fact, stop-
ping here at the Language Pool
first was an overall excellent
idea (where else base my
existence, my overarching
priority lists, my goals, and
the day-to-day?)! I could
easily turn another page.
Such redundancy really
does keep me revved.
However, time always
finds me here.  [Shh! 

I’m on the lam, you 

see.] Oh, hello, I

almost forgot you
were here. What good
soul does to minimize
boring can be a lot like
needling a haystack.
I point several directions
at once. The crazies call
me rude. And they’d
know. For that I’m
truly sorry. Go that-
away, I say, pointing
everywhere all at once:
feeling duped; the hay-
stack; the pleasantries;

the seagulls.

mmcdlxxx

I attempt the tango.

     If I had it to do all over again, I think I would
     choose a career in the sex industry.
                                                    —Franz Wright

This was supposed to be fun.
I wish that I could say that I
don’t pay so much attention
to my environment. As I
scrutinize everything with-
in my purview, I segue into
the plan for tonight: cooking
dinner for everyone. I’ve
been so utterly happy lately
(don’t look—I’m rolling my
eyeballs all the way back
towards my brain again).
But I’ve found a remedy
for happiness. Overtime
creates negative space.
Whoops! Be careful not
to complain. But if you
do (ah, bachelorhood),
the top of my list is
going to be therapy.
He’s a brutal boy,
overwhelmingly.
Also, I’m waiting,
cruising, so much
further than ever
before (overwhelmingly,
you silly pilot!).... Also,
I’ve gone green (like gays
everywhere; I’m such a
follower). Or is it guys
everywhere? Thank you
for not being alone and
depressed on Sunday night,
peering into Castro Station
at the bitter end of Pride
Weekend, which is an
oxymoron, like me
passing out afterwards.
Currently, I’m passing out
flyers for a dying dragon.
And Lady Sinatra’s boots.

mmcdlxxix

“N41”. . . “B6”. . . “B10”. . .

Playing bingo on my phone,
I realize, is at the top of my

list.  I crush on this for a
good while.  These days,

I pay much less attention
to my environment (on the

whole) – I find it much
more comforting to

focus on something
small, something most

anyone else might find
insignificant.  In the

middle of each game
I receive a phone call

from a toll-free number,
which of course I ignore,

am even bothered by, as
it interrupts the flow of

the game.  All is, app- 

arently, not well.

mmcdlxxviii

Blitzy’s School of Magic

I met him today for lunch.
We went to Gaylord (the
Indian restaurant in the
Embarcadero Center
with the unfortunate
name).  I said it’s all too
much.  But I’ll change my
life to accommodate.  No
problem.  Anything he
wants.  Lucky me, right?
Do I turn 29 in less than a
week?  Or 15?  I’m asking
for real, so please don’t
laugh, because I don’t like
a lot of what I’ve been feeling
lately.  This might possibly
have something to do with
birthdays, which bother me
less and less each year (birthdays
have never been the problem, un-
less you count 28 and 39, but still...).
I find that I live in a universe where
distinct and extinct are synonymous;
that I’m very tightly wound; that I find
myself dividing (slowly) into several
pieces I cannot tell apart (although I am
assured by others that each separate part
opposes each of the other partial selves,
the non-selves, which seem to be nearing ex-
tinction, but again...).  To find that each of
me is a wound exploding with words at which
others either nod, give puzzled looks, quickly
run away from, or do all three in simultaneity
means that tomorrow I will write something like:
“Actually, I’m okay today.”  This will be true.
Is true.  And I will even believe it as I write it 

down.  I do.  That this thing that I am here
writing to you is something quite like truth.

mmcdlxxvii

I am powerless to the lie.

I lie here
hating on
the internet.

When it’s use-
ful to anyone,
why bother?

If that were
really my person-
ality, I’d have

a free lunch
by now: a Quiznos
turkey sandwich, say.

...Why can you
never go hungry
in the desert?

Because of the
sandwiches there.

mmcdlxxvi

The Horribly Exuberant Interlude

I was home. I was angry. I was,
as they say (meaning, of course,
as I’m saying...as I’m saying, I was),
stressed out. Sleeping came, but
only in fits and spurts (and not
the good kind). I’m not known
to sleepwalk, there are many
folks who would or could come
forward as witness, easily,
if I were a sleepwalker, so
the evidence is stacked
against that notion, but I
found on Saturday morning
that I’d walked all the way
to someone’s place, let’s say
we’d been more than just
acquainted even before this
exuberant incident. I crawled
into bed with him (see, I am
remembering). What followed
was fun, quite nice (ah, memory!).
When next I awaken, my first thoughts
aren’t very comfortable. I can recall
this pleasant, very chill, very free-
flowing timespread from the previous
night with ease, but it is evident to me
that it has gone, that it will have dis-
appeared, everything about it. How
wonderful it was in those moments,
how easy, normal, and momentarily
infinite. Disappearing acts make me
sad. One hundred eighty degree
shifts, just like that. Infinite. In-
finitesimal. This produces an
increase in negative space and
reduces capacity. Why, I wonder,
did I keep thinking, keep writing
“horribly exuberant,” when I was
simply trying to erase reality? To-
day’s subject is horrible. Our topic 

for this week is going to be death.

mmcdlxxv

Once More, But This Time Make It Exuberantly Horrible

How can I make the best of any
not-so-seemingly-wonderful-at-
the-time situation? I’ve been told

that more isn’t always better, like
more loud pessimism, and I do have
those educational degrees in theatre.

I concentrate on how to make such of
life’s unexpected trifles into something
much more more horribly exuberant

than, at the time, might even have been
unimaginable by myself, much less by
each of the uneasy participants (witness-

es does not seem the appropriate desc-
riptor in these cases, however unwitting
is something I am most certain comes up

later in their thoughts, as in if only I’d
just walked away earlier, etc.). Anyway,
a lot has happened since then. Like the

moment a tercet seemed better, seemed
somehow more appropriate than any other
means to a sordid end. These moments
happen. Like, all the time. For example,

at Yosemite last weekend (which, now,
I’m wondering exactly who played whom,
with regard to exuberance, that is): “[here
we have a] marshmeadowmountainforest.”
Well, not so horrible, that. But how about,

while driving in circles through the valley:
“Jesus rims” “penguins on the harbor” [so]
“plug in your drunken squirrel immediately!”
I’m not sure what I’m saying about being a
drama queen, much less feeling ugly and
over-the-top, but this actually happened.

What’s so horrible about hilarity? At
least at the expense of Jesus, penguins
who happen to be at the harbor, drunk
squirrels and drama queens? The dark
under-story is often that which was
one of the best times I’ve ever had.

So what?

mmcdlxxiv

I talk dirty to stay alive.
         —Dodie Bellamy

Eye. Ewe. Hee. Chi.

   💥      💥      💥

I lie here, unable to

control my get-up.

On the teevee, the

comedian is telling

the 8-inch pianist

joke again, to the

comedienne host-

ing the Johnny

Carson show

(and therefore

it arrives warp-

edly at us, the

intended audience).

It’s the only joke my

father ever tells (un-

less you count ‘De-

feat of deduct...’) . . .

   💥      💥      💥

Mime. Emery. Myan. Heritage.

mmcdlxxiii

Soon, I Will Not Have Made It.

And this could make me very
sad, surely.  But what would
I have done differently, know-
ing soon what I don’t know
now?  It’s 4:32pm and I have
yet to write a quick, large
stone across my face.  This
morning I say (to myself)
for sure.  I will go the gym-
nasium in the evening (for
sure).  The day, however,
having wound down....
I’m beat.  I’m unwilling.
And, like Tom Hanks, I
hate the internet.  No-
thing whatsoever use-
ful in here [hear me
knock that hollow
knock knock].  Read-
something is reading
anything, I say, or
think, or think I say.
Information is time,
and all of the time,
so I have with me
presently a stapler;
it is fancy and red.
If I told you that I
just moved seven
loads of laundry
from washers into
dryers (ploddingly),
only to be locked out
of the laundry room
for the entire week-
end afterwards, would
you care enough to
believe me?  Or, per-
haps: “Look, I have
blisters on my toes
from wearing these
gorgeous new flippers!”?

mmcdlxxii

Pig Poem

Doesn’t
this poem
kind of
look like
a tall cat
staring
at you
from
the top
of your 

dresser?

mmcdlxxi

Keep Feeling Need

Today it’s chickens,
ducks and pigeons,
but tonight we’ll
feast on famine,
the familial.  I don’t
speak harsh on An
sel, but neither does
the thunder.  OOPS!
Did the thunder just
speak(?). . .(?). . . T
hen, after fourteen
chops of pork (not
hen) we were off
to see the mount
and.  And what
a true oracle.
But wait (slash/
slash)!  Halfway
there we’ve for
gotten our bills—
our auto-mobiles
(on planets such
as Mars).  Aw,
the nerd wars!
So it’s a blatant
turnaround that
won’t get us there
any longer.  In our
stead, we go no
more.  Is that all,
folks?  Sing, close
all of your eyes,
and cling to one
another like in
a happy dream.
But the big bad
box wouldn’t
even budge.  It
just stood there
all unopened.

mmcdlxx

Nothing Hates Me Worse Than Nobody Does It Better

I can’t stop                                                             Are you alive?
scribbling on                                                           If so, go ahead,
the itch. “                                                               I say (even meta-
the field aches

                                                                             phorically.  Write.
it is only an                                                            Write anyway.
echo of its own                                                       Writing poems
enormity” (L.
Shufran).  On                                                          is easy.  Write
                                                                              poems are easy
TV, we saw                                                              and feel the buzz
how we mis-

understood its                                                         saw flickering
own enormity.                                                         through your
                                                                             internal head.

mmcdlxix

The Cat The Canary Ate

I can hear her
right now,
twisting around
on top of my
laptop.  Please,

let it be known
how often I
do not know.
What I’m saying
might not be what

I’m doing; might
not be what laws
I’m simultaneously
breaking.  Smash
me in the mouth

if I get this far
(I ask this with
immediate sin-
cerity, and ever
so gently).

I heard it drop
from her mouth
to the floor be-
hind the door.
I heard you

drop.  I watched
as you dropped,
ever so slowly,
ever so silently,
cold, onto the

flickering
electric 

keypad.

mmcdlxviii

Nobody Knows My Names

I’m really
very sorry
that I stole

your new
meme, but
somebody

was going
to do it 

anyway.

mmcdlxvii

I laughed until I cried

when she said that
there mayn’t be
any there over
there, but that
there certainly
was a whale 

of it over here.

mmcdlxvi

Twisted Love Letter Stolen from Lauren Shufran
                                          —for Lauren Shufran

     |How I Learned to Stop Worrying>
     |and Love (that I’m) the Bomb

mmcdlxv

The Butch Forest

I’ll admit that I’m not
the best at giving dir-
ections. But I’m most
certainly over-compen-
sated for getting from
here to there.  This,

as the Mini Cooper
slides (emptily)
off the overhang.
What I’m trying to
say (and not in a
good way) is that

I know you and
you know me.
And if all we had
to do every day
was step aside
once or twice

just to get out
of each other’s
way, wouldn’t
you be one
pissed off
witch, too?

So get your
square-toed
boot out of
my Death
Star, you
big black

hole.  And
don’t you
dare go
and “Yes,
sir!” me,
’cuz Mamma

you know
I don’t have
a single clue
what I’m even
doing here.  So
don’t!  Don’t
you even!

mmcdlxiv

              That’s no figment in my pocket;
That’s a growing pain.
                          —Lauren Shufran

Please kindly remind me which one
of you is just the pretty face?  And

is it be kind, rewind?  Please kindly
remind.  (I wanted to end there, but)

Desire was tough to come by back in
those days.  She wanted it all.  And

honest.  Who wouldn’t?  She showed
her roses at the county fair late last

year.  Later that night, she shoved her
roses into a tiny mailbox while some-

body somewhere shoved his tiny
berated trip to the moon.  “Them’s

the shakes,” moans nobody, while
shifting gears or slamming on the

brakes.  And who was she kidding
after all. She still wants it all.

“And honestly,” we all wonder (just 

a tad too audibly), “who wouldn’t?!”

mmcdlxiii

Next + One

Waiter, that’s no fly
in my soup, it’s a
spy in the house

of love!  What I’m
trying so hardly
to tell you is that

there is a Spy.
In the House.
Of Love.  But

in the end
I had only
dreamt that

that was her
name.  So wake
up, you idiot!

“I’d be lying
if I woke up
next to you.”

“I mean I’d be
flying if I woke
up next to you,

Sugarcakes.”  I’d
only be lying if
I were to say

that I didn’t
care which
one of us is

the axe and
which one of
us is the tree.

“So let’s to the
forest at once,
pretty please!”

mmcdlxii

Why So Sinful (Simple)

I might hate my guts
(and this is no laughing
manor), but I almost
committed regicide

with a little dearth
the other day.  Yes,
Alexander, and, in
Texas (as in all my

exes live in...)!  No-
body does it better
than Candy by
Robbie Williams

(my rendition,
however).  His
rapid fleshless-
ness is excellent,

like Mike when
he counts his
bones.  This
time I really

don’t mean
boner, I

promise.

mmcdlxi

All Of This Is To Simply Say

It isn’t so simple.  Even on
paper.  “How can I recover
from this?”  it asks.  “How
can I recover from this?”
echoes the author.  Hello.
How might I possibly be-
gin to recover from this?

mmcdlx

Such A Tiny Journey
(Which I, By All Means, Extend)

Today is worship day.
Not warship day.
It is neither Saturday
nor Sunday.  Okay, it is
Saturday.  We are all
liars.  I can say this
knowing and not
knowing.

It is not just about
who’s quotable
enough to make
the point for me.
To help point to
something like
a red herring
(what of it?),

or who’s quotable
enough to divert
attention away from
the reel-to-reel,
here, now, then....
Narrative is

like that.  And
it’s almost every-
thing.  And especially
pretty much everything
else.  But in case you’re
working too hard to notice,
or hardly notice anything at all,

“I might turn out a good lyric but
I’m sure to make your dinner
real inedible.” That’s direct
from Lauren Shufran.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

mmcdlix

An Attempt at Remember (Interlude)

       I Was a Duck; My Schtick was Just to Sit Here
                                            —Lauren Shufran

Years later, I stayed over. The next morning
I was completely broken, bawling into my
tiny phone: “Love!” “Love!” “One plus one!”
Deliberately. Twice. Please don’t let the
floodgates know that he’s not you and that
I’m not me. I couldn’t believe how sweetly
he responded (how he must have felt!). Del-
iberately. I, so utterly occupied, had let go
of the one quality that kept me myself. What-
ever honest was went for a walk. Incredibly.
After this, bittersweet juice, as ever. We’re
faeries at the Ferry Building, a morning show
which actually happens years later, an after-
word. I’m up at 7:15am. I’m real. Real. And
here he is lying in bed. Right beside me. Lying
but not lying. Real but surreal, or awake, or
aghast, but no, with me, pressed against me
in his way, it has to be. Or. Somehow the
warmth permeates from the other side.
Remains in reel to reel. In conclusion,
the interlude. I get up sometimes. And
soon I find myself somewhere. Famili-
arity dissipates (family disappears);
even as I lie here (I am not lying!).
Same bed. Same bedroom, save some-
thing’s glowing. In the sky, something’s
glowing. It’s the sky. No. The clouds
are glowing this morning. I’m
in the shadows, having been awake
for a while. I’m waking up. The move-
ment of shadow over my face awakens
me from a long dream. Look how the
clouds are glowing today! I must go visit
with them. I’m going to go visit them now.

mmcdlviii

Self, Other, The Lack of Reason & The Paradox of Pleasure

Can this just be the interlude?
Can this just be who cares?
Can this please not be heart-
break? Can this be the story
of how my grandmother came
to be with my grandfather? For
fifty-something years, yes? The
ick of hosting an anniversary party
for them at my childhood home;
me, perhaps a high school senior.
Was it their 45th? In my heart,
and to this day, that was and is
a very big deal. I might slump
a bit as I type this, but I hold
them up as heroes in that
regard. The template. And
the wonder of the why and
especially the how of the how.
I did not see this through my
teenaged eyes, but from this
much older pair I see with
verity. What I,
myself, have sought,
and that which I’ll never
truly have. But haven’t I
lived? And thusly, such a life
that both of these heroes would,
I know, be in awe, so proud
(well, I am their grandson), if
not even a bit envious.... I left
home soon after for college.
Papaw passed on, and then
what? She lived on for
another decade plus. Even
saw another man (Papaw’s
closest friend, then a widower
due to her—Granny Louise’s—
closest friend’s passing). But
the pain, the declination,
was so furious that I could
never look again through those
loving eyes. To find equanimity
in the inevitable heartbreak
of a life spent living. I try to
continue to want this. I seem
unable to even suppress such
an aspiration. Even now, with
the stupid grin of such an age,
knowing its impossibilities. 

But, yes. Now more than ever.

mmcdlvii

Last Night

Had I been
but played

like one of
those mini-

ature sob-
bing violins?

Perhaps.
The sweet

dreams of 

naïveté....

mmcdlvi

Him, He Balks But Still Attempts To Sleep.

Him a little time.
Decided time to
go.  Him decided

but him divided,
unsleepable since
the great under-

cover escape.  Yep.
Him decides 4am
(by then).  Sits up,

blinks, and says
“No...”  (which,
to the one lying

next to Him,
opposes what
follows: “...

we can talk;
this is obviously
something that

is important to
you.”  To me:
the opposing

team still under-
cover, lying as
flat as a postage

stamp.  I’d been
so gentle.  Upset,
absolutely, but

without anger.
But this throws
me, is so new,

and welcome.
We only spoke
briefly, but that

one sentence
was all that mat- 

tered to me.

mmcdlv

“I’m going for a walk.” (part 2)

....I’m here, still in bed, with
my notebook beneath a
drawn pen. So to speak.

I’m actually only day-
dreaming (if it can even
be called such a thing at
this late hour).

Of that 4am walk, one
among many, but one
so eloquently alive,
so very yet among
memory... how
screwy that it
must have been
one taken some

9 years ago.
My screwed up
priorities. The
odd discrepancies
between heart and
mind; love and logic.

It was only last night
my heart got crumpled.
Ah, to be stumbled upon!
Like a tumbleweed. So
out of nowhere. But
eventually emptied

of even the rustle of leaves, the birds
out my bedroom window (useless
without you), the tumbleweed
rolls ever-so-del-iberately off of
the silver screen. Someone new

becomes the idol made in the
likeness of all of you passers-by
(oh, the night was once so young!),
who’ve now disappeared. Poof! Vanished
like the magician’s rabbit once he rolls out
a long-toothed saw and what looks for every-
thing like a coffin, the home of a vampire who 

walks the lost city at its darkest and quietest hour.

mmcdliv

“I’m going for a walk.”

He balks but still tries to
sleep.  Out the door.  I seem
to have lost another love:
the 4am hour, historically
my favorite time of the
day (or night) for a walk.

The breeze is cool and
doesn’t bother to linger
as it passes through my
hair and in between my
fingers.  I close my thumbs
deeply into each palm,
an old habit, perhaps
for security.

No, for intimacy, I
now think.  How
about that?

In my head, I do the extra-
ordinary: wad up a piece of
paper that has lines of ink
up to half-way down the
page, attempt to toss it
from my bed into the
pitiful cardboard trash
receptacle that sits
somewhere next to
the double-set of
portable closets.
“Whoops!” I let
out, as I see it’s
landed in the
wrong box of
litter (it’s
Coco the
Loco’s
private 

bath)

.....

mmcdliii

I went into my room and closed the door. For twenty years.
                                                                     —Susan Gevirtz

Thanksgiving in Saginaw. I wasn’t in on the boiled squid joke.
A tradition, apparently. Initiation into the family. Another
family.

I wasn’t feeling so hot by the time I got to the dancefloor.
Once there, I was completely ignored. Or almost completely,
except for immediately getting the eye from Y. That “under-
stood” “you should be flying away by now” look. But I was
not flying away. Levitation requires concentration,
among other things.

By the time we left (3:30am), I wasn’t out of it, but I was
most certainly completely over it. Understanding history,
I ask him if he wants to go directly to sleep, to which he replies:
“Hopefully.” So much for the eye in the sky.

Flash forward a decade and a half, let’s say, when I’m still
restless, still upset, “I am lost I am lost.” Such things often
bounce around in my head as if I still have the eggshell skull
of an adolescent. I wander aimlessly, imagining aimless a
worthwhile goal.

Why do I do this? It’s either addition or long division, I’m
not sure. Addiction or algebra. “I’ve lost it” bounces around
like a stray electron. And what have I lost?

Family comes. Family goes. I am 37. I am 47. I am 57.
My date of birth either coalesces or vanishes. “Hey, Mom?”
Another echo. “Hello (person with whom I’ve shared the
billowing clouds of bedroom and hallway for years)!?”

Several decades pass, at least, without any boiled squid.
Thanksgiving arrives and I sit at the table in the sunken
den, the one with all of the kids. I’ve fucked up the turkey
but I’ve stepped just inside the doorway with a warm pie
of pecan. Sweet as the dickens, very like the South.

I am greeted like the prodigal. Or like a great-grandfather’s
last wish. “What’s your pleasure?” I ask everyone, perhaps
with a latency that doesn’t express the joy that crackles
near the bottom of my throat. “I love you all!” I say,
as I go straight down into the sunken room that is 

reserved for those who are the especially alive.

mmcdlii

How Will I Ever Type This One Up?

I used to have a
tundra.  He was
miming a crime,

up with which I
shall not put.
Forty diseases

later (or was it
fourteen?), we
found our slow-

jam.  It was in
the attic, which
was the only

groove we never
had.  How were
we to know, as

we roamed the
steppes, that
we’d soon learn

to cloned?  Daddy
lost all of his gold.
The bank was

hard up.  “Knock,
knock!”  “Who’s
there?”  “Fort

Knox,” says the
fox to the nuc-
lear hologram.