mmmmdlxix

More Colours (xvi)

gosh! as i read more of these to you, i am
realizing how
anxiety-ridden they are. or this bunch
seems to be. certainly are.
so i get lost in thought wondering what to do about

such a
tedious epiphany. maybe this is less of
an aha! moment than
it is a
nincompoop one.

mmmmdlxviii

More Colours (xv)

recently, i’ve been working tenaciously to try to
understand what people mean when they say
be
yourself.

sometimes i
lie. i suppose i do this quite a bit,
i do, just as i’m confident most
people that aren’t me do, as well. also, i’m a
perfectionist.
essentially this tiny truth is
revealing only when i add that one significant reason i am
still writing these daily poems is they’re an easy exercise to force out a few in
public.       #maintaintinghumility

mmmmdlxvii

More Colours (xiii)

twenty-five years, or almost, it’s been that
i have resided in
california. these have included my best times and the most
kick-in-the-nuts hard times that this
lovestruck loser has
ever encountered. so i endure. this mixed bag
does not mean that my general

positive outlook and the love of my state and city have diminished. but
i might should say that it has certainly evolved. i do hope i don’t come across as a
negative nancy, countering what i have laid out in the lines above. if i do, that
knowledge would rip at my very foundation, for i’ve too much to do and i’m
                    giddy as can be to get it all done.

mmmmdlxvi

More Colours (xiv)

vilifying an
individual, for whatever reason or reasons, does
not necessarily or even usually
take care of
any of the alleged problem(s), does it? but is it strictly not a
good idea to do so? i mean how might we best
eradicate

the
underlying problems posed by any of these
rascals, wherever they happen to fall on the
quite
unavailable (but nevertheless can we get one?) scallywag scale?
oh, i don’t know. but at some point, people like me, at least, must
ignore them for a
stretch, if for no other reason than to refresh, to
energize enough that we go back at them with clearer focus and renewed vigor.

mmmmdlxv

More Colours (xii)

be well, on this, the 82nd anniversary of my dad’s birth,
ripped from the world too soon, as they say and, please
understand, i
say it, too. were he still around, i wonder what
he would think of his weirdo son now. pay attention long
enough to anyone and you’ll begin to
detect their flaws. even the charming idiosyncrasies might be

adequate enough to lead to a downfall, a crisis that
looms largest in the overall trajectory of a life.
understandably, these
may also lead the victim of these faults to
inevitable betterment, but
no matter whether it’s from the outside looking
upon or literally experiencing it in person, odds are that
many of these self-defeating characteristics can be chalked up to genetics.

mmmmdlxiv

More Colours (xi)

he’d tell the story
every time the extended family held
a gathering of any kind. he’d been a
rowdy kid. and a sleepwalker. he’d work from sun-up
to sundown at the ranch that was
handed down from his grandpa to his dad, and it was expected that
soon it would be his, being a full-fledged
teenager now. and while of course that was a fate worse than death,
one night he dreamt he was in hell’s belly and he was furious to escape. the
next morning he awoke on the grass just a few feet away from the
embers of the home in which he’d lived his entire life. up until then.

mmmmdlxiii

More Colours (x)

the story of christmas
it now seems clear to
me, has been, will always
be, a story of fallen trees. and power. take, for
example, i mean, surely you know the name if not the purported reputation,
remember that no matter how dear that good king

wenceslas may have been, he was
out of his realm, to put it poignantly. and he was never anything but a
lumberjack. actually, the ones i knew should have, could have toppled the old
fart. and they’d have done so with ease, precision and grace.

mmmmdlxii

More Colours (ix)

 quietly, we played our parts
 under the broiling sky. when
 asked what we were doing, we’d make
 rather vague motions with our heads.
“redecorating,” one of us replied. we each cradled a baby
 yew, the roots faintly moist, so delicately that neither of us broke a sweat.

mmmmdlxi

More Colours (viii)

                 And then the crunch. Luncheon is served.
                                                —Bill Berkson

can we just not with the bang?
only i heard the anecdote more than once, or
not. at least in my imagination, where wires are incessantly
crossed (something to do with my name, for a buck).
really, can we not, if i say this is more a demand than an
entreaty? regionally, we crossed paths in bolinas. not.
to thunderous applause, several times a day, he enters and
exits. in other words, i only exist. here, take this chunk of mirror.

mmmmdlx

More Colours (vii)

boyfriends are not what i’m supposed to be talking about this go-round, rather
extolling a subject at hand, or creating more fictive fun narratives. keeping it
frivolous and relevant, in
other words. to basically
reiterate in a straightforward manner, the device of this
era of acronymic poems based on the plethora of color chips i have left is

thus far trending less romantic, less thematic, more one-offs based on the
here and now. or whatever it is that this (may i just say, my, rather than boring,
eccentric brain concocts the moment i sit to write one. These seem more

relaxing, a way to wind down, but it is an
almost an impossible task not to bring the hero up now and again. (
in this one, for example, he floated me $90 so my bills don’t bounce. in a pinch.)
night falls. it’s nearly christmas. if this one’s a bit flimsy is it a good or bad thing?*

*if one has to clarify something within the explanation of a series segment’s
  schtick, wouldn’t the easy response be “his roundabout way of saying what
  he’s currently writing about in one of his series sections with the larger pro
  ject, i mean, having to include a footnote, especially, but yet still different
  iating fairly specifically between two seemingly similar series-within-the-
  projects seems such a confusing meta, i have no idea what to call it, a
  clueing in the readers, should there be any, ever, of what is transpiring 

  might just be a way to create a life that isn’t there. does this, then,
  eradicate or further allow it to remain stuck in his subconscious so as to
  not really talk about anything? but i dare you to suggest i talk about
  nothing. in general. i didn’t say it was relevant. i just argue it isn’t
  nothing. that this might be a life that is worth recounting in some way
  presently and/or in the future, should, again, one choose to read any of
  this. many authors might call these particular meanderings juvenile. in
  general. in the way they are presently presented. go ahead. you may if
  you want. preferably, to my face. the joy that would bring, as i imagine
  it, is no doubt exponentially less than that which would be true were it to
  actually happen.

mmmmdlix

More Colours (vi)

     ...but who wants to hear about my identity?
     I see two hands raised in the back row.
                                                                         —Ronald Palmer

see dick rethink language in everything they take in (
money might be everything): every song by Dire Straits, every
opera, even the ones they wrote that master’s thesis about, every film.  all
knowledge somehow just stops and gets rewritten.  but seriously?  they’re
elder, this has to be something like dementia, like

alzheimer’s, but with such mind-
numbing speed it’s more like, say, a stroke?
dick’s worst possible scenario is feeling like

a stupid idiot, slipping toward the median, or off the cliff.
suddenly, there are no apologies for how they were raised.
hegemony!  dick’s brain-blown by the ramifications of evolving.  and at this hour!?

mmmmdlviii

More Colours (v)

are the embers
faint or are
the
embers still that bright
reddish-orange?

take some comfort in the
heat, of course.
embers are deadly, yes, they are

fire in one of its more resonant forms.
i’d say mediocre,
rather, but one must present a template of
example for whether we want to be pyro or protector.

mmmmdlvii

More Colours (iv)

now i wonder about quality. about
improvement with age. i’ve
gone through a few sets of these.
how for well over
twenty years i’ve been working on this

one project. a project
which, each night, i
lean further into, linger upon, wondering about the ridiculous.

mmmmdlvi

More Colours (iii)

i know what i think sometimes. the revolution,
now, almost at its nexus. it’s the most

terrible thing to be lying on the floor. to
hear with your very own
ears how

disgusting those without paychecks
are. while the
rich
keep getting richer.

mmmmdlv

More Colours (ii)

 energized by the mood of the family gathering,
 lawrence felt it was finally time to push the
 envelope and spill the beans about the entire
 prickly subject he’d been unable to bring up thus far.
“hey,” he’d stood up and started walking
 around as the rest of the family were interacting with each other,
 not paying attention in the least. realizing this, lawrence’s head spun, he was 

 teetering toward a breakdown as his uncle lay unconscious in the basement.

mmmmdliv

More Colours (i)

“ready, set, go!”
  ally thinks to herself before picking up her
  iphone. she dials. they’re waiting for her. she
  nods and begins to
  sell her experience.
  this goes
  on for about an hour. the next morning, she’s
“ready, set, go!”
  maybe. but, also, maybe not.

mmmmdliii

Do It Again

I said I was going to do
something else, so tired
I was of doing the same
thing over and over.  Well,

here I am again in typical
repetitive mode.  I wonder
how often I’ve said this very
same thing with completely

different words.  I imagine
I’ve performed the selfsame
function utilizing alternative
choreography.  As I lose cog

nizance, I wonder if tomorrow’s
sentient creatures already exist.

mmmmdlii

Identity

As a kid, I’d hope so desperately for preppy,
well aware that I didn’t have what it took:
money. There’d be ways to get away with it,
as I would find out inevitably. I never wanted

to be normal, though, or plain, and sought to
confuse the look with something off-kilter.
Which had me at times come across a bit
Elvis-y. Which was cool. Then uncool.

Before it got cool again, I hung out with goth
kids, wanting not to look like them, but instead
to sponge a bit of that punk attitude. Did anyone
notice? There were also the tattoo boys with their

ears and noses pierced. I so wanted ink or just one
hole, but portrayal is pretense and I’d be no wannabe.

mmmmdli

Some Partial Responses

Sometimes throwing up is not
not part of the answer.  Listen
to Holding Out for a Hero (the
best part is when the guns

start going off toward the end
of the video) and once you are
thoroughly grossed out allow
the behind the scenes version

of the video of Bonnie Tyler’s
Total Eclipse of the Heart to
randomly play next.  That’ll
really get your day going.  Re

fuse to attend any funerals.
Celebrate life and the lives of
those lost alone while watching
the tide roll in and then roll out.

mmmmdl

Unprecedented

One might say without hyperbole
that each morning we manage to
wake up to begin another day, much
if not most—or, really, all of what

is experienced each hour of that
couple dozen hours, should we
make it through—is unprecedented.

As we cross the threshold of any
new moment we’re going through

something so unique it has not been
done before. T here is such meaning,
poignancy we can take from each.
This routine can take on a normalcy,

in that it is so familiar, so constant.
And then, holy shit!, there was today.