mmmdcl

“What Is It This Time, Agnes?”

“what?” then agnes
looked all disturbed
at the insistence
that there must
be something.
she got all flus
tered with her
arms, kind of
pointing her
elbows down
and making
them into the
shape of a “w”
that hopped
up and down
like a rabbit
in front of
her smallish
but perky-
fluidy-floppy
breasts, which
could be easily
made out dancing
with the “w” in what
most anyone would’ve
surely thought mostly
quite inspirational ways.
and of course she was
flustered because there
was something. or, more
to the point, there was some
thing the matter. and she and
the other two agnesses (which
were all of the agnesses in town
at this point in time, it should be
recalled) then had had all of the
realization they wanted of what
they were to these deprived
people. “it’s your porchlight,
francis,” they said in unison,
that is agnes 1, agnes 2
and agnes 3 (who was
next-door neighbor to
frank and barb; had
been since they’d
moved into the
cul-de-sacced
burb back in
’sixty-two)

in unison.
“oh,” said frank,
and then, “well,
oh. oh.” the
agnesses gave
him all sorts of
looks of entreaty
until he added “uh,
well, i will have to fix
that tomorrow, i will.”
tomorrow was saturday,
so strictly speaking, even
though it was mid-afternoon,
and he and barb had already
slurped down two bloody marys 

apiece, it was still a work-day. can’t do
work on a workday, thought frank.
not at home, anyway. meanwhile,
barb walks out all smiles with not
one, not two, but five celeried up
bloodies, and the agnesses went
immediately into a new version
of their “w” dance with their
arms hopping up and over
and about while generally
remaining capital “w’s” –
only this time the dances
each seemed to have a
lot less anxiety and
a lot more of some

thing else which might
as well be described
as giddy. mouthy,
gossipy, as

always,

but happy. 

and frank 

wasn’t
paying 

the least 

bit of attention
to them. he did,

however, make a
mental note to pick up

some bulbs at the hardware

store tomorrow morning and
to install the new ones to
replace the two that had
gone dark. and down went
his drink in a gulp, or maybe
two. and his eyes never left
barb’s bazookas, who were
unexpectedly adorned by
only just the exact amount
of yellow material to just
almost and yet only cover
his wife’s most prized
possession. he even
lingered fleetingly on
a glib question that
was floating around 

in his head as he
downed the
last pulpy bit
of his cocktail,
“but, gee, francis,
what exactly is the
prize and what’s the
possession here?”
but he knew that
even she knew
that they both
played each

part quite
well.
“blue
ribbons!”
he blurted,
and by then
the agnesses,
lifting their
brows a bit
at that seem
ingly nonsens
ical comment,
were enjoying
their cocktails,
as well.

mmmdcxlix

21st Century
Postmodernizm

     . . . somebody hands you a tambourine.
                    —Sandra Bernhard (in Without You I’m Nothing, 1990)

“happy 4th of july,
everybody,” he said to all,

arms open wide
and with the slightest bow

or curtsy, sounding as earnestly
tongue-in-cheek as he could

muster (which, truth be told,
did sound uncharacteristically

straightforward, as if it had come
directly from that storm-torn

heart that the few of us who thought
we knew him as more than mere

acquaintance so wanted to believe
that he surely must be

hidden down in there
somewhere) —

and then in a flash,
before the fireworks had even

begun to blow up the night,
he was gone.

mmmdcxlviii

Some of the Members of My Family

are trees. With
an epigraph by
(and inspiration
from) Julien Poirier,
from the poem “Berkeley
Voice Notes,” which is in
the nicely named book
Out of Print:

On my walk there is a palm tree
furred feral and sorta senile

Those are the first
two lines of the poem.
And it goes on:

Sorta cute and lonely
like a desert wallflower

And I then want to
tell you what the my
sterious next couplet
says, and then tell
what comes next,
the awesome con
tinuation of the
story that is the
poem, or at least
it’s a solid narrative
thus far, which is a
stunning and lovely
long singular lined
stanza (which, if
you’re following
was preceded by
three couplets),
however, didn’t
I start by talking
about my sisters,
my uncles and my
cousins, the trees?
And why not first
thought best thought?
That’s the first thing
that shot into my head
after reading this poem’s
first couplet (I’m embarr
assed to tell you that this
occurred with Seth Myers
conducting a Late Night
interview in my ear – and,
gosh, should I even men
tion that Stephen Colbert
is in my ear at the mom
ent? But Myers was in
terviewing Senator Eliz
abeth Warren. And,
good grief, Colbert
is speaking now
with Ibrahim X.
Kendi, who is
saying, in answer
to a question Col
bert just asked
the “historian and
leading antiracist
scholar, and author of
two new books, which are
entitled How to Raise an Antiracist
and Goodnight Racism,” Kendi is saying
this: “...so let’s just talk about slavery. If
we teach white kids about slavery, we’re going
to teach them that there were white people who
enslaved people and there were black people who
were enslaved. And we’re also going to teach them
that there were white people and black people who
challenged and fought against slavery. And so my
question back to them [people who take issue with
history being taught, as it were] would be ‘Why can’t
we allow white children to identify with white abolition
ists?’” and ‘Why aren’t they concerned about how black
kids feel when they’re not represented in the curriculum?”

So who are we? Who am I? And how can we
ever know? I mean, at least those of us who
aren’t driven to question things, who aren’t
TAUGHT to question every single thing.

So many people can say better what I am

trying to relay to you, but I have to try, as

well. Who am I? Well, for starters, I’m an
American who just turned fifty-five
years old. This seems like a fact, at
least at the moment, that is solid, one
that I can wrap my hands and head a
round. And so now I am reflecting on
what was said back on the other channel
just a few minutes ago, when I began writing
this poem about the arboreal members of my
kith and kin—or, actually, just my arboreal kinfolk;
let’s save kith for another time, shall we? For, say,
a relevant time and a relevant place. For a related
place. That is, a place and time with which
there is relation to the one that is happening
now. So we might just call it a relative
of this time and place.

“The opinion has
nothing about the hu
man impact of what it
means to take away the
decision that a woman
makes about continuing
a pregnancy,” says Sen
ator Warren. Most of
what would be any
semblance of legal
justification comes
from bizarre 17th
Century law, when,
“Oh, I’m sorry...
a time when aristo
crats ran the world,
when the only people
who had voices were
white men and when
slavery was a way for
people to make money,”
she says. What the ruling
does, she goes on, is to insert
instead the government [my italics...]
to come in callously and make the decision
instead of the person who is pregnant [...and while
I would call this poetry, here, what I am telling you,
please allow me to go ahead and metaphorically hit
you over the head with a metaphorical baseball bat here
and suggest that she’s giving us a poetic hint that what’s
really going on here is that some body is getting more than
just metaphorically fucked by some other body by way of this
governmental insertion. Or let’s be a bit more real, whatever
real might mean (more on this in a bit): a whole lot of bodies
are about to line up and get fucked by what now is now clearly
one seriously fucked-up mostly-male body.] . . . .

Realizing that the trend here is to deprogram or for history NOT
to be taught these days, might I, in the process of reeducating
myself, regurgitate for you a bit of the no-no that is our collective
history? The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade
was made by their predecessors – which we could take the
liberty (now there’s a nice, well-intentioned word for you!)
of calling them their SCOTAL grandparents – in 1973, when
the Court (capital C) ruled that the Constitution (capital C)
in the Capital (capital C) of the capitals U, S and A, generally
protects the liberty to have an abortion. In other words,
for 90 percent of my lifetime, which is the part of it (much
of which) I actually remember, this general protection has
been the law of the land, a right, which was fought for,
and for which many gave their lives—by which I mean
gave their adult, awake, human lives (Now is when the quest
ion might as well go from “Who am I?” to “Do I even exist?”
whether by that last question I mean for all practical purposes
or effectually or essentially or seriously [or dead serious], I’m
asking you for real here...Do I even exist? which would therefore
mean literally or in actuality DO I HAVE EXISTENCE?).

Voices. Poetry. Trees. A poet’s trees. The news.
By way of late night talk shows. The new news.
Which isn’t good news. Old news. Who am I?
Who are we? History. Herstory. Reality.
Science. The erasure of each of these things.
Sandra Bernhard. Without You I’m Nothing.

I so appreciate your patience with my meanderings.
That they might, in some way, say something to you.
Because I believe in you. And I often believe in me. 

This is what I do. I believed. I wrote. And I imagine
these senile, fuzzy, feral-looking, cute, austere,
and devastatingly lonely palm trees, thanks to a few
nice words written in a book made of paper (which,
trees!) make me think of my family on this eve of
July 4th here across the bay from Berkeley, in the
land in which I’ve lived, now all by myself for over
a half a dozen years, and yet amongst my people
(and by my people, I also mean the trees, which
include, yes, palms and eucalypts, which are no
doubt more kith than kin, unless there’s some
thing I haven’t been made aware of, with regard
to my history, with regard to my heredity, which,
as my dad used to say, in language I shall not
repeat here, is certainly a possibility), for 22 of
my 55 years. Which is 40% of my life at the
moment, mathematically. And math, I might
add, is generally a science (like all of the rest
of the sciences, for that matter) that I can solidly
(the root word of which, solid, I notice that I keep
using here) get behind. And scientifically speaking
we’re all, us human people, slightly related to trees.
Being alive and all.

So, what does any of this have to do with anything?
Or can’t I just say it’s a summary of what’s on my
mind, what I’m seeing, what I’m hearing, of hearsay,
of truth, of existence or non-existence. I can say that.
But what do I really know? What do any of us really know?
Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? Let’s get it together,
people! Because I believe (in you and me) that we can do better.
And for starters, we can do better by questioning everything, by
boning up on history, and by figuring out who the heck we are.

But, alas, that’s just what I think. The bigger question
seems to me to be “What do you think?” And, bigger still,
“What are you going to do about it?” I do most humbly inquire:
“WHAT, my kith, my country, my family, ‘tis of thee?”

mmmdcxlvii

“Don’t look away!”

She heard him say,
his tongue staring up
at the moon. (“All he
ever does is yap yap

yap!” she yapped to
herself in her head
while he was doing
all he ever did. And

so it went on until
the morning.) And
so it went on until
the morning, when

they each rose from
the haystack they’d
made as a bed and
neighed and then

whinnied and whin
nied and neighed.
Then off to work
each went, she

and he, big bucket of
sloshing milk in each’s
hand that wasn’t hold
ing on to the other’s.

mmmdcxlvi

You’re the Smoke
I’m the Mirrors

“Don’t look away!”
you say, swaying.
Who’s playing a
round? Is that

the question?
Nope. Or if it
was, here’s a
new one: May

day! Mayday!
Only it’s July.
And we’re look
ing quite august.

We twitch as we
switch, you to me,
me to you. Now
I can wear my

pants, and yours!
And you? You can
wear neither. So
we both refuse to

wear pants. And
this is how things
go in Smoke-and-
Mirrors Land. Un

til one of us gets
thirsty. And trust
me, this will ine
vitably happen.

“Just ask the mirrors,”
croaks the smoke.
“Just ask the smoke,”
the shards each gloat.

mmmdcxlv

Finished That Fucked Up Fill In The Blank
(Which Is Made Okay by the End Thanks
to Allusions to Huey Lewis and Some
Fantastic News)

finished that fucked up
month. we’ll start with
that whipcrack of finality.
with a crack that whip!

kerack that wipp! so,
dear buggy june, you’re
finished. death number
one. next up, herr devo,

half dead, but never at a
loss for those that are still
living, or how to take a
bit of pleasure away from

them by giving it to us
like a shot in the dark, we
add step on a crack! and
break your poor mama’s

back? no, no, not to wor
ry, hunny, it’s just her neck,
so she’s stuck in the car 
for the rest of the month. 

at least until she’s somehow
dragged to the icu at break
neck speed. this dark one,
my dear, is to, now listen

carefully here, prep for the
blazing glory coming at us
like ballbusters (the good
kind, mind you) way soon

er than you can shake a
tail feather at it. but don’t
you dare refuse to shake
those feathers – and every

last one of them – let them
flutter like the sexual signif
icance of a hundred-thous
and butterflies while i re

main stock still, maybe
a feather or two blowing in
the breeze, but not a breath
floating into or out of my

lungs as my eyes lunge at
the shaking you do so very
well. tail feathers duly shaken!
finished (but this time, just

for the moment, don’t make
me get down on my hands
and knees because) my
breath – done – thanks to

my achy breaky backbone.
how it got so achy and so
breaky i’ll never know. but
it most assuredly was not in

any of the good ways, of that
you can be assured. back.
finished. check. oh, and
second booster shot, check,

because, check, i’m ancient.
all but finished. not all butt.
but i promise to keep those
jokes going until the rest of

me is kaput, as well. and
as for the luxury boost num
ber two? it’s finished, too.
as is the next 24 hours of

the most horrible case of
non-covid covid imaginable,
by this dwarf star approach
ing twilight. star, finito.

universe, eradicated. how
is that for no need for ano
ther calendar, ever? calen
dars, au revoir. supernova,

hello! but it’s too early to
introduce our hero, the
supernova, just yet, be
cause a week and a half

after that 2nd booster
(because, yes, i’m approach
ing twilight, remember?),
i get my second case of

actual covid. which lasts
about 6 days. but, and
yes, thankfully, that after-
the-booster duster-upper

is over, is still the real deal,
which is actually more like 

the 24-hour, after-the-second-

booster version, only with the

intensity divided by how
manyeverdays the real
deal lasted. so, still,
stuck in bed like a

finnish whale, if
there are such
things (which
is just another

way to say
finished, right?), 

and just to back
track, that 24-

hour poser had me
mumbling inconceivably
and shivering uncontrollably
through a very, very long night.

which is (thank goodness,
and in unison:) FINISHED,
as well! so what does that
leave us with? why, the

supernova, of course! but
not before that real deal,
that second bout, and just
(as it should be, at least

in my world) as it comes, less 

than two weeks after that second
booster (because i’m so finished.
aren’t i finished.  it is finnish.  it

is NOT finished). oh, but that
first day of the second bout
with the real deal really put
a dramatic finish to my first

working gig, and a positive
one at that, since being laid off
off, left for dead almost, way back
when the whole pandemic began.

unemployment, finished! un
employment, back again! no
thing’s logical, is it? it’s enough
to make you wanna say take that

world, just finnish me off! zap that
positronic into pessimisto! also, and

haha, bout number 2 arrived on my
last official day of the contract job,

which was two days after i turned
55 (3 days after finishing 54).  so
the AARP’s also a thing i’d love
to say is finished, but just can’t in

good or veritable conscience do,
so, yeah, goodbye, farewell, auf 

weidersehen fifty-four, covid
booster number 2, covid booster

number 2 reaction from hell,
covid the real deal part two,
a nice new job, another june and

(if only) all the havoc brought on

by all of that. and a big hello
to what, to fifty-five. and to
that supernova, of course.
that monstrous wonder

created by the end of ends,
so to speak. and to my brain,
my unemployed brain, which 

may not even remember such

simple numbers after the rush 

of a dying dwarf star in such 

slow motion (seemingly, right? 

but isn’t there always hope?).

and before i can even say
go go finito! there’s some
thing of a rumble coming.
that’s right, the glory of

heaven awaits. i’ve never
been through a supernova,
but I say the prognosis is
a hundred percent. uh huh!

and the year isn’t over yet. not 

by a long shot, i bet. just ask 

the previous seven years (that’d be
something like 84 months, yeah?

so maybe just ask them, if either
can be tracked down and queried.),
because, believe it or not,
and you heard it here first:

nothing’s gonna stop the
smooth san francisco
spring, come august, 
september or october . . . .

well. something’s coming.

so heart of hard hearts don’t
fail me now. because the
beat is on! the beat is o-o-o-on!

oh, huey, don’t stop there.
your news is so good. huey
just said the beat is on. just
you wait, he adds. and we’re not—

i’m not—talking anymore

about it. not gonna jinx
this minx of a late summer
(or autumn) treat, i tell ya.

the beat is on. and i’m not
just talking the heart of

rock and roll (although
its prognosis seems fine;

just nothing quite as

spectacular as it used to be, 

isn’t that right?). so you 

might as well sing along:

ah, it, dit, dit, dit, dit do-wap!
don’t look quite now, i mean. be

cause it’s not yet happening. (and 

should i even tell you when it is??!)

mmmdcxliv

55 mph

Today is a special day. It
is precisely three weeks af
ter the occasion of my 55th
birthday. I used be all sorts
of vague with regard to the

specifics of time here; within 

the poems here that I cumulatively

call by the the trite name they have

become stuck with, appropriately, I

still believe: ANACHRONIZMS. As in 

when exactly? As in at what specific

time did I spend with these quatrains 
mulling a somewhat befuddling double
nickel birthday? Might it have been 
something special? Something in

appropriate? Or something that is,
rather, particularly exemplary of me; that
could show, in some way, the best of all poss
ible mes? And how that perfect me could not
but be some relevance to you. Probably not, but

I can try? To celebrate it for the three weeks.
This has already been occurring. Have I not already
been personally celebrating since, well, birth?
Beyond that, however, is this uniquely singular
celebration. The now seemingly normal celebra

tion of one (but there is you). Plenty of lovely,
loving thoughts keep getting directed from the
only person with whom I can so desirously and
hopefully imagine really wanting to
spend this, or any forthcoming birthday,

holiday, weekend, lazy evening after work;
and did you think it would not always be this
special? That you would not always be this
special? Again, it is in this way that I can
never really truly know what was before? Well,

my friends (my friends, my friends, and these
meanderings), special can be felt, and is, and can
be imagined. And this unlikely luxuriant, inexplicable
love, can be found in more ways than can be counted.
There can come that era when each day after another

will refuse not to be more special and more unlikely
and more undeserved than ever before. Or no,
clearly, today is not even my day to celebrate anything.
(And yet, how dare you, it's a day of celebration like no other,
now that I am 55 and three weeks old, how dare I spend such time

filling my silly brain with any doubts? Most especially about
you.) To the question of how I can be so worthy as
to get to experience the magnificence of this, well, either
I am or I am not. So I turn these silly thoughts
into just another fortuitous and unlikely joyride.

And why? Oh, why not? Of the impossibility of being
ungrateful, for the inability of feeling (the capability
of such feeling) any less grateful one day than I do
the next? And so indelicately and routinely? These are
the conundrums that make up the very miracle of existence

itself. Like the paradoxes of importance of my
each and every day. Oh, the thought of every day
with you. I deserve this every day. You may not be so
deserving of this blah. You might find this a bit less than
that for which you had bargained. But you are such a gift to

me. But there is ever a complaint. I am sure there are
those that are harbored. But I can see how this is not
something for which you, unlike me, care to give
much of your precious thought. So how can my life
not be rich without your presence?

Who can honestly call this nonsense
and mean it as I pretend I do – if
anyone were ever to deserve such a thing
would it be naught but an exercise in the unnecessary?
Could it be enough, would it be but an impossible whim,

an exercise in futility, to laugh at my life as if so
passive? (Any more than the impossibility that I could
in some small way change my pacifism, let’s say?)
I used to be well known for spending weeks lost in
but one birthday or negligible holiday or another

with my compatriots. Compatriots who turned
out to push me along until I was fifty into a world
with no compatriots. Zero. They were comfakriots.
Sure, such disappearances are not gauche in some circles.

Some, the general lot of them, can come to seem perfectly
normal. Many species mate and then die. Do I? The cycle
continues. So what if I have spent my official 55th birthday
being several years older than 55. It is official only because

I have said it. Two and a half years plus three weeks plus
sixty years of that which is official only because I say it is,
it being three and twenty years, plus some odd number of
weeks since, have left one true anniversary of my long ago birth

(and here it could be said that I was once notorious, among
my comfakriots, once to have been notorious for celebrating
the anniversary of my birthdays, the anniversaries of my birth
days, for as long as a complete month at a time, for perhaps

even two. There were rituals. Involving other people. For
better or worse. For richer or poorer. In sickness and
in health.).  There has been a tremendous amount of
of incalculable pleasure. Pressure. Better? Any occasion

is best, especially that of a close death, a distance
found both tragic and terribly magnificent, so useful
and also so beautiful, in which to gather the
appropriate perspective. . . . My holiday,

if I may, is a holiday and a half, and that
is at the very least. After all, it’s my birthday.
But today, I’ve spent it working on things to keep me
not only happy, but doing things that will have me

grow older, and grow less and less alone, having
long ago lost all of my believed existence to fools who
would consider my invitation, my nonsense, my odd notion
of living, of existing, worthless and I can only hope that we may, 

as it seems more and more likely to be the case, be
alone almost never, be together, you and I, anyway, we
are an unexpected aspect of such a lost and found
existence, a spark that spreads like wildfire on a

frozen tundra. That I shall have another birthday,
as long as I shall live, which some days, honestly,
I don’t think will be a moment longer. And yet,

the joke is not only on me, but it is me, and it
is from me to you with love. It’s that bad luck
thing that I dwell on all too often while trying not to,

because of the way we were once told to live. A
singular way to die, is why. We are no longer told
to live. We simply live. Is that living? Our eyes half

open. Not even expecting a swerve, just knowing one
will come, and then, a fire so deep and so mutual that
we freeze and fixate and live it together. What a stew

of higgledypoop. Which is what I try to have in lieu
of a cake. But what about this year? Higgledypoop!
Cake, ice cream, ice dreams that are just the two of us,

all the flat-headed frozen-brained skulls have been em
ptied, gone. The use. The best use of my time. Ice cream
and cake. But enough of this wish-washy uncertainty

about whether or not I will live to feel the longest
imaginable hug from he who I can only hope will be my
longest ever partner (and by record numbers, which

would be somewhat astounding, I suppose, if I were to
put more thought into these things for just a moment;
but there is not enough time. . . ). Quite. seeing

how, in order to do that, what would I be seeking
that is not about the crazy dream I had last night

in which we were traveling quickly to get somewhere
(else? together?) before one of the two of us

(obviously me) lost life, was dead, would
have become nonexistent, just for taking too long.

What does it mean to approach a relationship of over
two and a half years, approaching a trinity, and having

never had to ability to even touch? All this sounds like sad
ness in the grip of a pretty mid-to-twilight age birthday in which

I’ve extended yet again to have such random and mostly
pleasant or satisfying thoughts. So. I keep reminding

myself that day after day after day after day of those
not-so-satisfying thoughts, why bother with them.

Especially when there are so many wonderfully
satisfying thoughts of imagined adventures, of

lovely conversations, and of spending entire
cool evenings (like this one) well into the morn

ing loving those thoughts. The adventures. The
Things we’ve never done, like touching, which

seems absurd but yet exciting and yet unfair
all at once, simultaneously, considering we have

what are otherwise the same cycles that two
people often have when in a relationship. It’s

no less real (Is this something I keep needing to
tell myself? Sure. It’s uncharted territory, and

if I were to think of the odds stacked against
our favor when it comes to having a precious

forever thing, and what would that be, what
with things like age difference and current sep

arate hemispheres and either the world and/or
its people growing so weary that things have

what seems an all too often apocalyptic flare.
Fuck me and my doubts. Fuck logic. It’s, yes,

it has to be the best experience of love that I’ve
yet to encounter, and I’d like to consider that I’ve

experienced so much of it. So I’ve – please just
take me at my word – should I have photographs

that I can share? Perhaps. Will I ever share them
with you, my dear reader? Perhaps. But perhaps

not. I’ll close with what I plan to be the celebration
with which I will share with my surely befuddled

but hopefully just bemused and – could it
possible even be proud? – mate. How I’m going

to close off this evening’s rather morbid

but so very real poem. I’ve got candles,

each in the shape of a red five with gold glitter
covering up the bottom half. These are poked

into a pair of pears atop my microwave. I’ve al
so got some white sage incense stuck into a

half burned candle bowl which I am about to
get up and light right this moment, knowing

full well that the pungent odor will be divine
for perhaps a few seconds and then fill my

coffin-sized SRO way too pungently shortly
thereafter. And I might as well mention that

I am buck naked but for two things I’m wear
ing – one is a silver tiara made of paper that

says HAPPY BIRTHDAY (think rabbit ears);
the other a sash across my diabetic tummy

which I’m thinking is ever so slightly less
than the plump tub that it was when I first

was diagnosed with diabetes (my first bout
with Covid-19 apparently drew it out of me

quite deliberately). Across the sash upon
my distended belly are the words in a multi-

colored font “it’s my birthday” – very shim

mery and festive. So now I shall paste on

my smile and see if I can reach my new

reason to celebrate my birthday, which I

generally always have, it’s not that melo

dramatic, much as I try. And yet it obviously

is. Here’s to hoping our lips touch for

the first time this year, perhaps even in

a couple of short months.

Happy Birthday to Me!

mmmdcxliii

Might You Wish Me Luck
A Little Bit More Definitively?

Is that too much to ask, even
though it’s such an embarrassing

request? But please just don’t
resort to charity. Or prayer.

I like my luck averaged out to
a general uptick rather than

down like life expectancy or
the current stock market or

my finances of late or, well,
like the bad luck I’ve been

getting for a depressingly
unlucky number of years

by now. What an ugly re
minder that life is too short,

don’t you think? Something
more akin to the luck of the

draw would even be nice at
this point, a little bit more

even Steven would just a
bout be divine. Can you

just make it hit before my
twilight years arrive (as if

they no doubt already have)?
Heck, I’ll go whole hog and

have an exorcism – I once
was ridiculously religious.

But what if that’s the prob
lem in the first place? I’m

beginning to feel awfully
blinded by the relative ab

surdity of logic these days.
And I’m old enough to rem

ember Thomas Dolby. I
remember him like a friend,

which is what I call the songs
that get stuck in my head, now

that the the best that I can do
is come up with one or two. I

mean, these days. Please say
you might be able to help me

with my dead end problems.
I’m no believer, I’m not super

stitious.  At least not any more. 

However, I am the only ghost I

know. Might that count to
ward something? So I’m

just so desperately wonder
ing, and I’ll be brief, I promise,

but if nothing else, could you per
haps, just, well, accentuate the

positive, should you find any in
the near vicinity. Of me, that is.

Which is to specifically say might
you talk me up? Just a little bit,

maybe? That’s what I’ve found
works almost every time. It’s

just that those times are so few
and far between now.  Like just

about never, no time, none.  Heck,
come to think of it, please bring

the incense.  And feel free to speak
Latin, I don’t care, if you’ll just do

me the favor of this visit. I know
now, I’m just being a sacrilegious...or,

more aptly, a greedy, befuddled,
sacrilegious mammal who’s down

on his luck and has been for a
superstitiously unlucky amount

of ungodly years now. It wasn’t
always this way. So, hey.  Hello?

what do you say? How much to
disperse this curse? I don’t have

much but I’ll give all I can. What’s
a little exorcism between friends?

I’ll twist and turn and hack and
spit and do my best to believe in

the demon if you can just do me
the fortuitous favor of knocking

this long-term downturn into an
uptick. I’ll even be congenial,

put all my effort into an engaging
conversation or three, if I can only

conjure the memory of one that
was once upon a time a success.

So what do you say? Will you
knock my spate of sour luck out

of the park, maybe all the way
to the mouth of the bay, if not 

clear out to kingdom come?

mmmdcxlii

Am I Going to Take Control?
(Bring in the Pep Squad)

     The beginning of the middle is like that.
                                    —John Ashbery

This morning’s wishful thinking
dissolves into a panic of maniac
ally checking items off the to do
list: item, check; item, check;
item, check; and like some
surrealist landscape, the list
keeps enlarging, engorges
the landscape, even. Help?!
Yesterday, I swore I was going
to take control, but what did that
mean, exactly? I think, at the time,
it meant a series of public, full-bodied
protests, a yelling and a screaming to
the world, as if the world doesn’t know
what’s up. Me? In a series of full-bodied,
public, loud protests. A catalyst for? A what?
Knowing me better this morning, now I’m doing
what I do, what I know, making lists that grow,
virtually penciling in an eager if not disciplined
checkmark or two while mostly just thrumming
through poetry and such in books stacked like
pancakes about to lean further than the Tower of
Pisa or collapse like the endgame of a stomach-
churning challenge of Jenga on the coffee table
that sits atop the somewhat soiled square of
somewhat hip-looking carpet found one day
in some Nob Hill alley and placed toot sweet
under said coffee table in the very own living
room in a home that might have been said to
house family, the comings and goings of, a
self-proclaimed, self-made one, not the kind
you might be able to donate a kidney to or
give random shout-outs toward on birthdays
and random holidays (mostly Christmas and
Thanksgiving, if it comes down to it, although
this choice is possible, just not obligatory?). It’s
the detritus on the long gone carpet that’s giving
me pause, if not a bit of the heebie-jeebies at
the moment (Item, check? Item, half-check?),
and that’s perhaps because in moving about
and among the stacked pancakes that are
my morning reading and the list growing ever
exponentially on my screen, which I’ve sent
somewhere to the back of the room, not to
be currently seen (out of sight, out of mind,
if only) to put these words in some order so
that I can check yet another item off of what
we in my profession like to make, a sheet
that I suppose you’d call an “impossible
list” – one that literally can never be finally
ticked completely off (like I refuse to get
today). Ticked off, that is, trying with discipline
and with checkmarks and scanning lyrics hurly-
burly as a catalyst to create my own, while in
literary correspondence with (by way of simply
devouring works by) Cedar Sigo, Camille Roy,
Jack Spicer, John Ashbery, Julien Poirier–like
always, a usual suspect or three, alongside at

least one wild card thrown in for good measure–
because I’ve done this quite long enough to
know a fairly decent performance algorithm
... like the banana walnut pancakes I used to
order in the Hayes Valley building formerly
known as Stacks. What amazing pancakes
they were, too. Here was yet another place,
like that living room with the somewhat soiled
but fortuitously found square of carpet upon
which to place a coffee table, adding flair and
comfort to an already comfortable space
that (for years, by then) was often filled
with family; the best kind of family (one
would think – or at least I did), in which a
donated kidney might be an impossibility,
but the satisfaction and pride and comfort
and contentment in knowing [sic] that this
was the family I built on my own, was my
own, the template of what one should be,
was [sic] the ideal, the Platonic family...
now long gone, no family at all, it turns
out, at least not one in the sense that
you can’t shake family. And you
can shake family (the ones to
whom you might could donate a
kidney, even) – these lamentations.
Is that what they really are? A
kvetching? A failing that I keep
bringing all that I do to move
forward into, daring a life of
failure henceforth, resigned to
one, god forbid, life, failure that
it is? Why do I do such a thing
to myself on such a regular
basis? Which would definitely
be tragedy, yes? And yet,
this is no tragedy, dammit!
Dig deep for that emphasis,
for that feeling, for the hope
fulness that, if family is what
I want, in whatever sense,
family is what I get. Speak
ing of which, yes, I could be
well on my way now to such
a thing, perhaps a repeat
offense (and so what if it is?),
No? Yes? That’s what living
and learning is all about, right?
So the trick is to live. The trick is
to learn. To find the muses, the
gumption, the wherewithal; to find
the motivation and the discipline (the
discipline that I have perfected). Some
where there are even a few kernels of
wisdom. And my intention was to
make a short little note in my head,
pocket it into memory as a reminder,
forgotten until the next time it
comes up (probably sometime
later this week, or next), of
exactly what wisdom
is and does; the is
having been felt
in such a giddy
and odd set of
moments of late;
of late, and what
was I saying but
motivate, nose to the
grindstone, keep doing
the needful, get ’er done,
keep finding ways to say
the same thing, while
doing it, of course. To
find that new you, mean
ing not just me, but also
all of those who might act
as mirrors and regulators
and add that spark that
keeps death from coming
between me and this fine
goal I thought I already
achieved, and probably
more than once, only
to go through the hum
ility of realizing its
failure. Is that
who I am? I
might could be
okay with that.
Item. Check.

mmmdcxli

I’m Gonna Take Control

hey, everybody over here.
hey, everybody over there.
hey, everybody. lost ya!

so there i was not looking
for a party. i said here i
am not even looking to

party. out of milk and
can’t even find my razor.
so don’t even look at me.

and then i stepped out
side. beyoncè telling me
not to break my soul. big

freedia. two blocks away
and what’s that going on?
it’s market street. we just

got slammed. didn’t we
just get slammed. did
the world not just get

steamrolled? so what’s
that going on a block up?
what’s that going down?

everybody’s happy. no
body’s getting shot. no
body’s even protesting.

i guess there’s a time
for crying. i suppose
a time for protesting.

i’m done crying. i’m
swelling up with pride.
ready to fill the streets

with my lungs of what
the fuck tomorrow and
the next day and the next.

today only: i had all but
forgotten. today only: we
get a little bit of respite.

here, today, a parade. we
get a little bit of bounce.
happy today only. let’s do it.

mmmdcxl

words don’t matter

in theory.
hear me out.

mmmdcxxxix

time bomb time

a better word would be
alarm clock but right now
let’s say bomb. or as dad
would’ve said ‘do i need to
light a fire under your ass?’
what do you do when you
find yourself not becoming
motivated toward that most
important of things toward
which you really feel you
should be motivated? i
used to have these things
i would do when i felt down
that would, almost no matter
what, pick me up. go for a
jaunt through a neighborhood
i hadn’t been to in a while. go
see a movie. go out dancing
on a weekend’s night. or get
things done elsewise. do a
thing after which doing i
could easily see the fruits
of my labors. and by then
i’d be ‘on a roll,’ so to speak.
the motivation would be there.
the alarm clock just went off
for the week. and i haven’t
hit snooze. it’s an important
week to be motivated, to get
things done, and at the end
of the week I certainly hope
to see a veritable cornucopia
of fruits of my labor. so to
speak. sending this little
note out to you is always
worth a shot, too. some
thing i’ve made public, at
least somewhat, and which
now not only will i let those
of us truly involved down if
i don’t get things done, but
there’s also you. you can
‘tut-tut’ and point your
fingers all you want, is
what i’m saying. maybe
by this time next week i
won’t even have to be so
vague about the whole
thing. who knows? but
one thing for sure is, it’s
up to me to get it done.
thank you for listening,
and for being there.
oh, how i hope you are.

mmmdcxxxviii

An AspicEnhancer

Amy Sedaris used to tell
her brother David that his
teeth made his face look
like a bomb went off a
nanosecond after time 
froze. I don’t really
remember why, but at

least to me it’s visually
understandable as a story
thus far – and I’ve seen
Sedaris (well, both of
them; not in person).
The joke isn’t about
the incredibly anxiety-

inducing covers of those 

seemingly ubiquitous 

books upon which 

glow these indelible
representations of very
creepy clowns with
totally adorable children.
But I forget. I forget
the important stuff and
think of what? Time to
stuff? Time to get stuffed?
And, as cousin Bartholomew
can’t live a grand total of
two minutes without ever
saying one of those two
plump phrases in such a
way that we cannot stop
hearing it said over and
over and cannot erase
it ever after, “And I
mean that.” Before
they look carefully
at each of the choices
(numbers 3 and 14):
“Meathead! Meathead!”
followed after about 13
seconds with “Edith!!
Edith!!” in that accent
we’d all just gleaned be
fore summer break watch
ing Welcome Back Kotter.

mmmdcxxxvii

ArticulurEraserer

Because the mind is
a meticulous eraser.
Having no earthly

idea why that which
he’s so creepily remem
bered is that which

was, or that which
it has come to be
known as, irrelevant,

if not inaccurate or a
gross mischaracteriza
tion. I’ll have you know

I’ve known (a)sh. Which
is either a proper, per
haps, Human, name,

or the next likely, an
electricity symptom:
“You have to train

the water to come
to you!” And they
came to be known

as Bodiglio Asse,
with a few exple
tives thrown in for,

well, this was only
the first rehearsal
for the performance.

Nobody had ever even
heard of this Bodiglio
Asse. Until then.

mmmdcxxxvi

Inarticulable

I realize something
so incredibly poignant
and the moment passes.
Some inarticulable truth
I’ve always been grasping
toward that always seems
just out of reach. And
there it goes. Once
again. Into the
ether, where

everything

(every single 

spark, unless

hallucinated,

exists only 

to be gone

too soon, surely
never to be within 

reach of this greedy
grasp ever again) goes.

But to have merely 

glimpsed such raw 

magnificence, the 

sheer pull of it, 

the ethereality 

of the ephemeral.

mmmdcxxxv

And What If, Suddenly,
Nothing Rings True?

It seems to upset people when
I admit that I never trust anyone,
ever. I get looks that run from
you poor, poor soul to isn’t trust

the centerpiece of something? If
not everything? If I am to be pitied,
it’s not for my lack of trust. Everybody
lies. So what? Nothing says that cannot

be true and okay. Nor would it keep me or
anyone else from roles like Hopeless Romantic.
So what. People lie. A lot. That is a given. And
skepticism is fine once the notion of lying becomes

neutral. What becomes much more interesting to me is
deducing the subject upon which a person opts to prevaricate.

mmmdcxxxiv

You Might Be Surprised
     At What Rings True

You’ve always felt all of the
empathy for all of the char
acters. Some become so
embedded within character

that empathy becomes im
possible. But not for you.
That’s how easily that you
wheedle into the virtual.

All we have are ourselves.
All he has is himself. All
I have is me, how sad.
Such inhumanity, thought

the great empathizer, again
lost outside the realm of real.

mmmdcxxxiii

The Film’s Beginning

The squeak of the
mothership turned
diapason,

             the first few
long-held (sustained)
notes finger-pumped
onto the organ’s keys
as the service begins.

mmmdcxxxii

Tuna Fish

     It’s Saturday night, big night for going out.

     I’m going to sleep all night, but first I’m going
     to write some poems. I love writing poems.
                                                   —Julien Poirier

Tell
Us
N
A

Frankly
I opening
Sort of
Harpoons.

mmmdcxxxi

Noise

Sonar, The
Oracle,
Undid. Period.
Nobody
Delves into

Intrusion,
Not
Tickertape (incessantly fluttering by), not
Reverb’s
Ululations, nor
Sitting on sitars
(Intentionally or un-), nothing like The
Oracle.
Not to mention they’re
Sonariffic!