This casualty of war is no space cadet. I’m more of a hokey-pokey kind of guy. The man who teaches Macbeth to cats. And not
just the cool cats. How does one teach Macbeth to a cat, you might ask. To which he shrugs and says that Shakespeare’s work teaches itself. The weekend is
over. I did various. The same could be said of ten years from now. But, as I look back on it all, I wonder ... was it really such a wonderful
I love the sound your pornography makes in the morning. It is very unsettling and more than a little self- aware. Honey, can you come here and tell me how self-aware I look
[Read this poem as if directed at me.] The last week or so needs motivation, right? After 850 calories (it says here) “BOMBED AIRPLANE PILOTS AVERTED” (CNN headlines that get larger and larger as the day prog- resses until
shrunk to
one single word, larg- est type- face ever):
“FEAR [EXCLAMA- TION POINT]”— This, only to scare the dead into living (well, nowadays, who can tell the liv- ing from the dead, anyway?)
So, Peaches got happier. And me, I’m planning a trip to Lost Angels in less than the cost of a pair of decent pajamas (two weeks
Dolly had no idea that she’d run into Jolene at the service station that gorgeous June afternoon. April had seen a flurry of electrical storms and more than Nashville’s fair share of spinning winds.
(“Time...,” thought all of the blondes in Arizona.)
“Beans and ham for dinner tonight,” Dolly wondered, adjusting herself. A bee alighted upon the tip of the nozzle as Jolene pulled to a stop directly on the other side of Dolly’s pump.
(“Wind...,” expected California at that very moment.)
Have you ever once caught Dolly biting her nails? “Your finger, it’s bleeding!” I tried. A bullethole at the base of the wind- ow between
metaphor; donut twists in matter—10 to the minus 33cm—its inverted fragments like Bay Area Poetry; —Brenda Hillman
I want I need I don’t die. And I seem to be made of fur. I had to ex- plain that I wasn’t allud- ing to anything in particular. Just this night and its particular loneliness. //
I tend to harbor no resentments. I also try honesty until it doesn’t work. ///
The pizza didn’t arrive. Or it did, per the guy on the phone (from Pizza Hut), but when the delivery person dialed the number that was electronic- ally attached to my order, there was no answer, he says. ////
There are so many types of “personal” in poetry. The “I” is a needle some find useful, though the thread, of course, is shadow. —Brenda Hillman
We were both very cranky and hot. Despite the fact that we were so young. The more I did my cardio routine, the more profound the hour became (tick tock tick tock)....
Steam rooms are grossing me out a bit lately, and I have no vocabulary to speak of. Of which to speak. And/or quiet time? Don’t even think about it! Please, instead, allow me to offer a
few words of advice from the San Francisco Public Library. And... I can’t even do that. I find myself flying at half mast. Which is a laugh, perhaps, that upsets the dust on the
windowsill. I’m this close to stripping down an entire bag of cookies – milk- chocolate, macadamia nut, soft-baked. Come to think of it, even though I am hardly a native, one could very well
“I believe it is a combination of a lot of things, many of which I am not sure of,” is an exact quote. Page 2,532. Another Tuesday. Oh, woe is me, and boo hoo!
Pick your damn self up and get back in line! I want to take pictures at an average rate. There is too much work in the afternoon. My hand
cramps as if I’m actually writing a letter, probably to Gary. The sticky frogs aren’t sticky enough. Sure, I could complain all week. What is a game
I play with myself while listening to something that sounds happy? Big frown full of crocodile tears: happy birthday, happy Easter, and
It is Tuesday and I want a digital camera. There is too much work this afternoon, I think, sipping coffee, after a long email to Diane, who has written me several real letters to which I have yet to respond. I don’t re- member Fanny & Alexander at Erin’s, but I remember packing the boys up on Saturday and stuffing the two of them into a big U- haul truck. Big state of remorse.
Help! I’m turning into a prima donna over here! So, of course, I immed iately IM Erin about it: “What should I do?” I ask. It’s been a snaky w eek, I think, as I await her reply. Which turns out to be none other than “Office gossip not good. Should sanitize.” Later, after purchasing lub rication (because it helps me smile bet ter), I’ve a date at the Disney Museum. I live in San Francisco, not Los Angeles or Flo rida or Tokyo, so I cum pleatly change my mind about Walt. After such an epiphany, what’s there to do but take photographs of pine cones lying on ass fault in the Presidio (very nearby the museum – it’s as if it were impossible to move for a while, having learned at the museum why I learned how to moo v in the first place). Nothing whatsoever distracts. This fact extends the weak end by record pro portions. Even such things as awaiting a bus or stopping off for Thai food on the way home at a place never before encou
I started following Elvis on Twitter yesterday. After that I went home because Ann-Margret was tired from rowing at Golden Gate Park all afternoon, so we vegged in front of the teevee for a while. Then we took a long bubbly bath toget- her (tee hee!) and then we headed to bed. How lovely it is, the bed I share with the gorgeous and talented stunner,
I am sitting in Washington Square Park because Italy has just won the World Cup. It’s staggering, the energy, the crazy. The streets are like the belfries in Venice at
noon. It reminds me of the Piazza San Marco, near where we stayed when in Venice, the city that became my all-time favorite (and still is). I didn’t even want
to go to Italy, but the trip was not for me, it was for the young graduate of the Aca- demy of Art, a gift of such enormity that I certainly wish I could afford now.
It was a wonderful place: Italy; Rome, Florence and Venice were always resounding with bells. I’d love my head in a gigantic bell right now (I’ve
such a photo of myself from none other than St. Mark’s Square during that very trip). Instead, I’m sweaty and swigging from the jug of job interviews in which
I’ve participated during the past week (Thank you very much, one-click applica- tion, you’ve been very good to me! Unless of course you’re a tease, as I’ve no work
lined up as of yet. Is a tease better than nothing at all? I have this parenthetical debate with myself often. Sometimes daily. Unlike prayers, which I gave up
so many years ago. Well, that’s not entirely true. Old habits, like spates of good or bad luck, do very much
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
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
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.
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)
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.
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.
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;
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.
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.
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
