mmmlxxvi

climate change

30 years
of leaving
arkansas.
that humid
heat. for
a cooler
life through
ohio, boston
and then
here in
idyllic san
francisco,
where i’ve
lived now
for two
decades.

mmmlxxv

fight or flight

in secret code
the two beans
like peas in
one pod bleat

whispers don’t
work when you
’re in separate
hemispheres

mmmlxxiv

Where do we go from here?

The problem here—
the catch; or to
overuse a cliche,
the irony that I’ve
just unwittingly
set up—lies in
the plurality of
the word we.
Meaning (ob-
viously), in this
particular case,
many (mini-)
mes. Or, more
likely, Me (n):
despite his del-
usional and ov-
erarching life-
long ass-
piration of
being a wit
(...of some
renown), has
been here-
tofore per-
ceived in-
variably (if
at all) as
quite a
twit....

(frown)
....Never-
theless, he
does most
often enjoy
being per-
ceived (if at
all. And) as del-
usion (which,
guffaw,
if all goes
well—fingers
crossed—will
be what gets
him up out of
bed and on
his merry way
to wherever
it is that he—
or we—shall be
at this time
tomorrow).

mmmlxxiii

Shadow Confrontation

Many a mother mutters lullabies après plastic surgery.
Tight-lit glowworms gnaw at Kaiju and Kaiju rankles, 
glowers into enemy frowns—Evil Ferocious!—Monster!
Zero, he lures moms through Chinatown’s wet barking
buskers. Something’s clearly in the air, yet he reddens
like Italian sausages. (Look which language this pigeon
chooses.) He screws me through a sky and space writ
large above the perky crickets. He sees twentieth century
masterpiece “Half Full of Stitches, Onward”—crafts its
democratic buzz to stay the horndogs of inevitability.
Each red dragon chews them up, gives us all a rubber
complex-bot, chucks the green-bruised birds into the
burnt-out sky. How varied our dim bulbs’ white lies
echo—each frilly fib halves our [dorkening] blade!

mmmlxxii

Shadow City

The spotlights dim as clunky towers crap out in Ninja
Kitty City. Glowworms growl and scurvied legs plot
rhythm in each broken alley, never quite a cakewalk.
Chinatown’s headachy with blottoed pigeons. I can’t
sleep beneath the rainless starts and stops, am driven
to torturing portraits. Life’s dim bulbs burn orange,
burn red at the vile bay’s cumbersome berths. Eyes
to see with, Zero looks forward, spells trouble, glowers
for apocalypse. I have a pain down my shoulder, right
behind my [heart]. Make it somebody else’s ocean;
wring its grease-rags of each city-borne sneeze. Dumb
stars debunk death, bite attack rockets mounting escape.
There are none. Life is never less than apple. Blink again
Kaiju, blink until we each glow red with death’s bracken.

mmmlxxi

Rocket Beach

Many a muttererer makes Martini-Man blink, his bleary eyes
heavy as twice-pickled onions. Look, there he goes now along
Rocket Beach, all taken with humanity. The blue blue couches
are snoozing by the watered windowpanes as Zero neatly prances
through Chinatown’s wet drooling hoses. Zero drools too. And
by all measure of predictability at most things blond and burnt.
Nobody’s built a rocket since Mount Dragonsnort erupted. And
nobody’s broken a code since the dragons built their bulky berths
on the bay’s barren shores. Winter’s a humdinger this year. Many
a true tale gets lost on Ninja Kitty City, each one languoring for
the lie-squeezing bubs. We watch [death] bury each bitten plot
beneath the gamboling sun whilst rancid dog-lovers yarl at the
piggy pigeons caught in an interminable autumn longueur. Such
mini-mutterings make Martini-Man blink his eggy eyes again.

mmmlxx

Pussycat

How cliche the rhythms of the bony snowmen.  Each
pelvic thrust another cheap revolution, each coal-lipped
mouth brimming with little white lies.  Zero is in the
bathroom putting on his [airs].  Summer’s come and gone
with its leather pills and its blue shoelaces.  Day dorkens.
My final decision, as always, is to milk the fiction.  This
inspires the navies and the tweeds, perks up the bottled
waters in offices everywhere, each suite replete with
blighted dog-lovers and deviled pigeon-feet.  We work
our whispers fiendishly, nursing the plotbots with our
bitter yarls.  Zero has finished his airs.  Now we walk our
dim bulbs.  Now we attack our earnest portraits.  Now we
ignite Ninja Kitty City with our errant apples, our eager
headaches, our bloated verbs and our groused iPods.

mmmlxix

Ninja Kitty Neon

Back to square one. No way to see which language
stinks of rotten headaches. The soaked pigeons of
Italy have flown their coops, recouped rosy Mount
Dragonsnort. Everyone lies in true stories. Always
curious, Ninja Kitty knows nothing of details, examines
each symbol like a rubber apple. Death to the plotbots!
Life is never less than normal. Each valiant player has
her own set of rules. E.g., Zero equals one. All of the
squares know that. With Kaiju and Zero in cahoots,
pills flow freely. We milk the summer for each dim
bulb, every cheap bruise. Look at the water—back to
Zero! No way to swim into it, not the soaked silence
it used to be, going nowhere. Scratch hard our velour
[rabbits] – in another language this wouldn’t be okay.

mmmlxviii

Ninja Kitty House

By now it must be clear that I am in love with Zero.
Because I never publish political poetry. Because
I sit in the very same seat every reading and leave
without talking to anyone. Because I don’t write
political poetry. Because I am fashionable. Because
I am opposed to plastic surgery. Because I’m a
poser. Because I’m terribly shy. Because I detach my
self from one scene as I hurriedly paste myself onto
another. Which poets are really stand-up comics?
Sorry, old question. Never, ever write anything
during a poetry reading. Because I am not super-
intellectual. Under the influence of any other
[writer] (always this), there is no myself. Here’s
a little something to shake up the current program.

mmmlxvii

Ninja Kitty Haunted House

Here’s another true story: It’s eleven eleven and I am
watching the pretty-color sky.  There goes my shooting star.
Zero sees it first.  Mine hits the ground somewhere near
Mount Dragonsnort.  More giddy, we keep walking.  No
where is the whistle of the train, nor the whimper of its
many sell-outs.  Nowhere Kaiju.  Watch what happens.  The
disparate fictions of mini-languages.  And we are desperate.
Zero keeps running into the rotten headaches with great
measure of predictability.  Our [legs] go around the plot as
we find our dim bulbs, punch out every growth spurt.  Re
lying on our evolution, we carry ourselves through a dumb
limbo for many bruised years.  Only kidding is the yarn star
who knocked himself into that greedy mountain.  Our allies,
the London Squabs, call all the blue taxibots for reinforcement.

mmmlxvi

Ninja Kitty City

Many matters bubble beneath Bubble Girl and her mini-
meanings.  For once we make speak, talking the talk of
the speak that cannot speak its name—names like Ninja
Kitty.  See Kitty’s city, we all belong here, yet who a
mong us crawls its spaces yet like rats, bemused by all
its snaking plants, its hard snowmen, and its violent iPods?
Serious answers lie beneath each twentieth century master
piece.  Take Mister Fiction, for example.  He cannot
find Zero for the life of him, yet his algorithms are no
finer than Anysoul’s algorithms.  What makes one rhythm
worthy over another?  Let us escape portraiture!  These
are the pithy words of dance, commingling among the
in- and out-boxes of yesteryear.  Let us forthwith to Now,
our fat [berths] mingling gleefully among its many mini-spurts.

mmmxlv (2)

Monkeybot Rampage

Welcome to the word-colonies.  Can’t we move beyond this
brazen earthquake I wanted to ride toward a more romantic
sonnet full of good advice and complex rubber plotbots?  Death
trusts no one, especially Murder Girl, who doesn’t even know
noir when she sees it.  Then I snoozed bluely on the couch
and listened to the mist hit the windowpane.  [Zero.]  Zero is
at the lab and I just ordered take-out, which is usually about
$10.  The squirrelbots are coming unhinged.  They screw me
over to the creek full of broken numbers until—I AM LOST.
No unencumbered clodhopper could stomach such brazen limbo.
I meant the glory of these clouds, this essay on clouds, the glory of
holding forth under the soullessness, our overlapping guests, un
hinged mallrats with red gills.  I have Friday look at my request.
If you ask to be a member, you cannot be a member.  Help me, Zero!

mmmxliv (2)

Kaiju Swipe

I think I’ll just [read] a poem. It’ll tell my story and
make me feel good. The poundings of that thing that
is pounding in the lot next to the lot where I work
are as loud as Kaiju, who swipes all of the buses in
the terminal. I’m too noisy to look up at the clouds.
No more birthdays in progress. Nor merely the coolest
blue, suggestive of the bruises of inevitability. Para
normal? Non. We divert all gut-punches into the sense-
driven swift of the mainstream. Blunt verbs utter little
burnt peeps into the shadows—but they don’t keep the
bricks from imploding. Go, Kaiju, go! Four pills and
several desperate languages later, Zero arrives with
Martini-Man. Martini-Man arrives with a fruit-bat, a
burnt bulb and a snowman. All is well in the city.

mmmxliii (2)

Kaiju Breakthrough

I am watching the pretty-color sky and the dragon
hatches out of it, a new century masterpiece.  It is a
diagonal dragon and it arrives truly with a red sell-out
scheme of featherpills for whom I am uncertain.  But
it knows Zero and lands on this nearby mountain to
burn more snowmen who snout for him.  I don’t like
Mount Dragonsnort but a quick vacation is a nice idea.
Martini-Man gives me a bright red camera to hold onto
in verity.  Verity, verity, I say unto you, this new berth
to the sky is no less than gospel and is the great new
language until none other is pinkish and low-spoken.
Go dragon!  I say [nothing] here.  Us new babies are
less diagonal, though, and is a little tired from sending
FedExes all day long.  We bury our big green bruises.

mmmlxii

Fish Cat

I hereby acknowledge that I have outlined my ex
pected responsibilities, per Zero’s Italian masseuse.
I’ll be responsible for seeking guidance from the
local news on my walk to the burger joint in the
afternoon. How so fruitful this foray, evasions not
withstanding. My final decision endures the sheer
transparency of this desperate language. I blow my
blue rose into a punch bowl, Zero’s favorite red one,
reboot, and bitterly escape narrative, by an inch or a
milliliter, depending on London. I’ll ask how much
lunch is on boiled snakes and high-squeezing snobs.
Sounds better non-plural. Promise me we’ll be green
in December. The lint on my [apples] is a Cheshire
smile, but its yellow bow-tie won’t snap us out of it.

mmmlxi

Drum Bird

Dumb little bird done gone and made its way to
May Day.  Dumb little blue bird of the infested
elephants.  Didn’t know which rhythm to function,
which mega-fiction to fathom.  It’s a cheap thrill
to keep Zero from living-breathing.  Snake-plant’s
found a way to make him seethe and bruise, but
that only stretches the elements as they rattle Italy.
I’ve got stars on my PJs and I do know the headcode:
seven sonatas in five-four tempo.  So blow me.  Thai
food’s gonna arrive and dumb bird’s got dim bulb.
I wanna wake [me].  This ain’t my bow-tied take-
out but a stanza worth repetition.  Rhythm func
tion.  Cheap bruise.  Fun pill to reboot my horn-flute.
This dim plot just blew a break!  Bam!  Pow!  Bing!  Bopp!

mmmlx

Deathbot

I know how to get to Zero. Make it somebody else’s
ocean caught my eye before the boot-faced elephant. Ping
the cop-car drafting a naked young gentleman from Italy,
all blond and burnt. It’s nothing but an inaccessible rev
olution down here, no way to see which language this
work is growing, which narrow agents laugh their way
through Chinatown’s wet bruised burdens. Know the statute,
Zero. It’s your own honest dog-lover of buzzes, not mine.
Find your inner portraiture, escape all the snappy punches
that bring you down to nobody; no greater thrill than wrap
ping one’s leg around a soiled and greedy plot, this [head]ache
of a masterpiece finds us minding our own peaches. I’m a
shamed of this direction. Wrestle me with the twentieth
century fiction, Mister Fiction. Find my bulb, Bubble Girl.

mmmlix

Crop Shadow

I am dumb fucking dumb fucking dumb for Zero. In
me is another me that can yet see this nothing story 

develop. U equals the Italian postcard that I shall
never C. That is only a small crumb of this dumb
limbo that I write for the dogs. The unflattering
crop circles proceed to digest the inevitable pill
kisses of summer. Red roses red roses let Moses
come hither. I am dumb fucking dumb and this dis
ruptive intimacy is, by all measure of predictability, 
a wash, a big green turtle wash. Like you said of the
elements, of the brew brew elephants, it is another un
volve of me another flaw like the birds another warmum
for supper. And it tastes like [apple]. Find me another rend 

ering to begin with. Boy, this one stinks of rotten headaches.

mmmlviii

BBQ Time

This is just the sort of evolutionary honesty I have come
to expect, moreover to desire, from Zero and his verse.
We wend our way alongside the pasture’s creekbank,
looking for the amateur narrator. Cattle low intimately.
This pit is full of lava and the snowmen have their own
allure. I raise my spatula to the bruised pigeons of Italy.
They have their pills. They do not but seek revenge for
the snapshots, only for all cameras everywhere. The old
bulbs wanted more than just another dud story, another
sell-out scheme of escaped narrative. I’ve seen several
movies interjected into various beds, each electric in its
dog-loving warmth. Lift your [voice]! I lift mine. Zero
will be home at nine by all measure of predictability. Life is
not but broken. We have yet to see the bony snowmen burn.

mmmlvii

Bar Time

Zero is at the laboratory and I’m sitting here with the salt
and pepper shakers trying to figure out his bowl of fruit.
All the mail is sorted into its various bins.  One haiku
and a bookshelf of the movie that somebody loves with a
handlebar moustache are wilting on the stovetop next to the
pink flyswatter.  Hanging under the snake-plant is a cigar-
box lid and its trolleycar cruising the dog-loving couples.  He
feels the red pills drying inside of his gut.  Who’s given him
the police car from Italy, lately?  If it were indeed Martini-Man,
suffice it to say the feeling would be a-okay.  But intimacy isn’t
something you simply tangle into your shoelaces like burrs. 
It’s big-named [moviestars] who are in line with this red-carpet
feeling of getting there before the other hungry elephants.
We must yet beat that dim spotlight onto the last of the apples.