mcmxlvi

then I took a nap

it might have been a
long one. felt better?
like a few years,
maybe.

then we walked
up the wharf,
had fish & chips,
& a butterfinger
ice cream waffle
cone. & then

played air hockey.

mcmxlv

When I Don't Need to Be

OK. So I’ve done a lot
of nothing. 14 months
in a house made of pee.
Wanting instead for a

call. Or anysuch. I
write. Malicious
sonnets? There-
fore, a hello. I

think I might have
mentioned. They
are nerdy by de-
sign. A burned-

up cover. Bummed
a nice weekend off
some dragon. As
I got really splendid

I remember starting
to have a good time.
Stating: Good time.
Out of a nervous...

what? Oh. Woke up
not remembering.
Stayed in bed most
of the day humming.

Which was great.
And is. I think.
But you could just
ask him. Talk a-

bout out of it.

mcmxliv

Office Office Office Office Office.

“I’m proud of you” I hear
and turn around a hurricane
that tears off New Orleans

busy sensationalism here
amidst horrible Alzheimer’s
shouting “I love this job!”

and apparently I do
but this afternoon
I’d like to fall asleep

on the flu or most of a
12-week paycheck
which makes me wonder

who’s being flashy
(or fishy) I doubt it
or September

here in this chair
sticking medical
insurance into a

cookie jar
which we share
like our thoughts

on natural disasters
and it means
something

apparently
for maybe a
couple thousand

mcmxliii

Goodbye, Please (I Am Going to Miss You)

     The cure for love is more love
                 —Julian Talamentez Brolaski

Green beans, sausage, pasta shells, shrimp,
mushrooms. Drinking perhaps three liters of
water a day. Suddenly sleepy. Still impressed
with the rain. If it can be called that (a hard,
San Francisco rain). Sitting catty-corner to

a relatively cute neighbor, only I meant to say
“new” (not “cute”) but is he? I guess I was
too busy writing poems via instant message to
all of my friends (I have several) and being in
love.

Like I love the clouds Otto painted in our
bedroom nearly nine years ago. Like I love
Coco, and the drizzle (a much better word
for it, I am thinking) and the comfort of
the company of good friends. In our
apartment. Where it’s not so very
cloudy, today.

The laundry is half-folded. And now,
thanks to my breaking the bedroom
window (which, despite the accusa-

tions, was a freak accident and not 

my fault), forcing us to move things

around a little during its replacement,
I have a new secret cubbyhole for
books that I love (and/or am current-
ly reading), right here next to the bed.
Under blue, partly cloudy skies.

mcmxlii

Just when I’m feeling my worst,
Coco pukes on the carpet. Right
in the middle of the entrance hall-
way. But seriously, I’m not really
at my worst. I’m okay. I’ve got
love, a dripping upward kind of
love. One with a warm fire above
and a cool, deep water below. So,

basically, I do nothing. I post
a twentieth poem for the whole
world to see. I use Roman
numerals. XX. I have a guy
who doesn’t have to work at
Banana Republic, even though
they really want him there.

Instead, he paints fire and
water with drips from his
heart, which somehow
float upwards and are
always just above us.
While we sleep, any-
way. Where love is.

Love is unimaginable
words which intend
only to conjure very
specific individual
colors. In my heart.
In your head. For
our eyes (which can
all four see that color,
even without its pre-
sence) and in our
dreams.

What is a very
specific, individual
color which at present
only exists in my
head? And in
your heart?

mcmxli

As a reminder: The truly ugly can be revered as hero.
By me. It’s better not to forget. And by ugly I mean
on the inside. Which is nevertheless just as subjective
as the use of the same word in reference to outward
appearance. So have I gone anywhere in these first
lines? Thus far? Three pages into a new book and
five minutes of relearning how to make words with
something that isn’t held in my right hand. I could
have been doing laundry.

Making such a (re)discovery is depressing (duh!). Not
just the realization that I’m wasting my time, but
also or especially that moment when provided with
certain evidence which knocks ‘my hero’ (ergo also
ME) down a few notches. What’s lost? Or what
was ever gained in the first place? How to adjust?
How do we adjust? How do you adjust?

But anyway, who needs to be depressed? Let today
wash such things away. Fast forward to the turn of
the page, rendering timelessness. To events nearly
eight years in one direction or the other (another).
To Lemon Zinger. To V-8. To heating leftovers
for lunch at 2:00pm, now 3:20pm, still tasting
the delicious [adjective, adjective] shrimp....

mcmxl

And What Did I Purchase?

Taylor’s new book

Julian’s Advice for Lovers

Bob’s Jack the Modernist

Jack Collom’s Second Nature

Renee Gladman’s The Activist

Joseph Ceravolo’s collected

Juliana’s Well Then There Now

a new issue of Shiny

Yedda’s Darkness

                               and...

Snowflake / different streets by Eileen Myles

mcmxxxix

At work. Monday. Start of week 4.
Soul food on Fillmore, then off to meet
the adorable Bucket Vancouver. Have
I got it right? All down pat with the pet?

But what happened Saturday? What did
I do on Saturday...?
Jogging along the Embarcadero to
Mission Bay. It feels like a movie.

Not how a movie feels, silly! Foggy.
Beautiful. Later, take nap. Wake up
grumpy. 3rd big fight we’ve snapped
into, tense evenings these last few

weeks. Stress. Breakdown. Retract.
But we got okay. I took us out for a
stroll (ever the [revisionist] hero),
Walgreen’s, dinner at David’s, up

to City Lights to spend my $50
gift certificate I got for working
for 5 years in San Francisco.

mcmxxxviii

Ah, sorry, I’ve accidentally broken your culture.
                                                          —Alice Notley

How long do you think it takes to read a
book? It takes me? To read this book?

She doesn’t care. She cares she answers
with a series of purrs. The jets do not

scream. The tour is starting down the
hill. “We’ll talk a little bit about our

farming practices,” says the tour guide.
Etc. I’m a little nervous. About tonight’s

SHAMPOO 5th Anniversary Celebration
and Reading. My mind a-daze from my

third week on the thirty-second floor. The
elevator drops. The elevator lands with a

thud. I step out of the elevator. I am in
step. I am on top of things. The dashing

lead, the man who has raced to the ends
of the earth for his dame, arrives early
at the premiere with his lover, Pierre.

mcmxxxvii

     some things never run out;
     my poverty, for instance...
                                                  —Tim Dlugos

One fun thing about words is not knowing what they
mean and using them anyway. Although that sentence
could be—clearly is—retribution for my bitterness
after being told that “one shouldn’t use a word unless

one knows what it means.” Words are innocent,
carry no charge. It’s the mouth behind each word
that inflates or ignites or disinterests said word,
that then has potential, perhaps ‘carries a charge’....

I’ve received both ways: electric breath and flopless
fish breath. And I can honestly say that it’s (practic-
ally) impossible to volley with a dead fish.
I never fail to flush with embarrassment, however,

when told straightforwardly that my breath has
quite a charge. But that’s the thing with electricity.
And, given the relative wealth of many executives
in the electric industry (and various other power

industries), perhaps I should consider charging.
By the word, would it be? If so, I can ensure
that I’d be executive material in no time flat.

mcmxxxvi

Language Is A Map For Culture

He’s breathing into her banana.
Even though her banana, it
seems, can breathe just fine;
needs no help whatsoever.

The peacocks are making noise,
as if only for us. One of them,
a male peacock (of course),
poses very specifically.

Then, then, it starts running
around and around (in circles)
trying to figure out who in the
hell we are. Evidence of this

confusion (or curiosity) is
forthcoming. Possibly.
Depending on how the
pictures turn out. But

if history repeats itself
(and why wouldn’t it?)
they should be very
pretty pictures indeed.

mcmxxxv

What if society were founded on arousal instead of disgust?
                                                                                 —Bob Glück

When you say the word usurp,
so tipsy with innocence, I just
want to eat you!

My handwriting is bad enough.
But I cannot even read my own
text messages (even the sober

ones).  However, it does clearly
say right here that the peacocks
are making noises.  And thus it

seem to saith (right and verily here):
“...so list with innocence”—
I really have no idea what I

meant.  What that was.  So...
(yesterday, for example, it was
clearly “lithe with innocence”) ...

Huh??!  And, honestly, why
mince?  Because it then says
(right here): I don’t remember.

And, furthermore, that it
sounds like a sneezer
(these are clearly my e’s,

so it [clearly] wasn’t a snoozer.
(But a sneezer??!)
(Sigh)  I could have

perhaps meant the lisp
of innocence.  Just as easily as
I could have hit snooze.

But what a (forgotten)
moment to remember,
the shadow of him,

so lithe, so list, and
such a hot lisp, all
tipsy with innocence,

a moment that, once
it’s gone, sure
couldn’t be any more.

mcmxxxiv

     I wonder whether you’re still
     writing Allen Ginsberg imitations
                                     —Tim Dlugos

For lack of an offbeat ________, today is
Monday, March 18th in the Block Fortress.
I could be updating my purchases into my
new golden laptop (while attempting to

salvage the corrupt brains of its laptop-
daddy [who is currently on life support],
gathering garbage from laptop aunties
and uncles, and dumping it all into less

garbage-looking slagheaps...).... (cf:
this analogy heretofore forbidden) (
okay, wait, they say never say never,
so let’s not promise the kibosh, but

instead throw up) for your entertain-
ment, a few tidbits from last night.
A sort of juggling act (which I will
now misspell cat) involving well

over twenty-four hours of time
travel. In which I park the car
(a lot) and roll over onto my
back for a massage (which I

now misspell message). And
unlike unliking, this never
grows tedious or tiresome.
There should probably be

three t’s for redundancy
but I’ll now turn the
podium into a chaise
longue. Which isn’t

yoga, per se, but in-
volves a provocat-
ively dissonant
hum.

mcmxxxiii

How can you write a musical without the internet?

This morning’s creep watches the cat watch me. In my
imagination, of course, because all of my friends are
dead. Except the monkey who wonders if wearing this
shirt will offend any of the people whom I’ve chosen

to take to the dance tonight. Tonight’s dance is the
cryptic dance of the green-glitter saint. We can dirty
our senses by marching forward, into the fog, but we
can only dirty our senses a little bit. Is it never enough?

This is the day I begin looking for a job – no holds barred.
It’s never enough to just stare into a penguin’s eyes. One
luminous blink and what grows in the garden is but a sack
of potatoes. If we took a picture of ourselves next to the

potatoes we’d be frozen in time, for sure, but when the
last remaining inhabitants of earth board the starship to
humanity’s next residence, nothing will be frozen anymore.
And then where would we be, you and me? I hitch my

burlap skirt up enough to exhibit my knees as if
to emphasize this point. As if.

mcmxxxii

I forget why I am doing this. I forget why I am doing this.

Stranger conversations than this have begun with
less enthusiasm. And tasted less like onions.

The bubblegum in his mouth grew less and less
dry, like the language of commodity. If I really knew

that I were here, would I really care? Rather than, say,
there? My primary plant wilted as this did not blow

my mind. At all. For emphasis? Which threw me into
a bingo frenzy. I daubed well into the night and awoke

from a narcotic frenzy of shallow, binary dreams. And
to discover that I had not vacuumed. After all. As if.
As if I had forgotten why I was doing this.

mcmxxxi

He must have a different pair of software than I do

I thought one of the rules was that it was okay so long as he’s straight. (He
wants to come stay the night. Like on a Thursday and a Monday or something).

Omigod someone’s calling and I’m not answering the phone. (That’s the 4th one.
I’ve gotten 4 so far.)

Don’t you make fun of me just yet.

mcmxxx

a twist in my sobriety

there are only 2 things i will ever ask of you

in this next 5 minutes:

1. strawberry milk

and 2. afrin

mcmxxix

hey

helloo

o

o

i just wanna check to make sure

that

it’s

well

it’s ok

for me

u know

to go to the living room

for just a couple of seconds yo

(& i'm a wee bit in the raw...)...

coast all clear?

roger

and out

mcmxxviii

If literature has a holy task, is it to resurrect the dead?
                                                             —Lyn Hejinian

It’s a joyous Christmas in the tunnel of love
despite all the hacking and sneezing.
Christmas came ten months early this year
and we are all as happy for it as we are

proud of it. Mixed in with a pair of
valentines it’s the ablution of love.
This is the ablution of love (mixed
with two or three valentines and

the bells of Grace Cathedral).
“Come out! Come out! Where-
ever you are!!” Ah, but I can
hear you purring under the bed.

The peacocks are also making
noises. And they pose for us
(of course). The tour starts
down the hill: “We’ll talk a

little bit about our farming
practices.” Etc. Next up:
driving home; doing...

mcmxxvii

What is this dog complaining about?
         —from my Doodle-a-Day calendar

Serious emergency: our huggable rabbit has an
ashy face. Almost call 9-1-1 is hardly a solution.
Any ideas?

What if my journal from 1979 met my iPhone
app diary from the day before yesterday?
Would they be fast friends and
giddily catch up on all of the gossip?
Would I be indifferent at
their even meeting?

That wasn’t romantic. At all.
Unlike our dinner and its
resplendent berry crisp
at the Calistoga Inn. We’d
better go soon.

I perked up a bit after some guy gave me a
My massage was rough, especially at the base
of my skull rub. It was rough. Especially
at the base of my skull. It was pretty windy, too.

There were lots and lots of mountains
after we purchased the little cork candles
and sipped our favorite muscat.