And the stony words that are left down with us greet him mutely almost rudely casting their shadows. For example, the shadow the cross cast. —Jack Spicer
What stamina! Sure, it’s amazing when we find the discipline to induce and then
rev up the necessary motivation required
in times like these, but to be strong-willed
and experienced enough to know that it is
possible, and to put that knowledge to work
by stirring up enough stamina. Wow. I’ve always
been one to beat the odds when the chips
are down. Haven’t I? Hm. Or is that something I’ve held on to, a belief in myself that is but delusional? Would it matter which way reality tilts, whether
or not the belief in myself, the confidence, was legitimate or fantastical? Because I mean, either way, here I am, right? I do have a preference, I suppose. I fancy
living in reality over existing in a universe of my own ignis fatuus. Perhaps there are those who’d want for the alternative, but for the life of me, I can’t imagine why.
More attempts at getting to the heart of a pretty difficult matter without the bother of conveying all of the difficulty. Because when I do the latter, as I some
times do, it seems to me that I’m bringing
on more grief, more tumult, torturing not
only myself a bit more with my attempts
at repeating the nature of my difficulties,
getting into the specifics as much or as little as I do, but also dispensing the tension outward to whomever might be nice enough to pay attention. I don’t
want to do that. Certainly not today. And besides, with all of the tools I can use when going through the act of piling these lines upon one another, for
whatever particular reason that I happen to be doing so, besides the fact that this happens to be what I do, that one thing that I’m compelled and with discipline to
build under almost any circumstance, the act of which (this writing) I have noted has often saved my life or at least extend ed it—anyway, to finish the thought that
I seem not to want to finish—given the
numerous devices which I can utilize when doing this, surely there is a way to express myself in way that can be
understood enough, a way in which the delivery is much less stressful than a rigid description without any unnecessary flair? Oh, there surely
must be. I tell stories. I freely associate. I understand the con cepts of metaphor and parody and whatnot, so surely there is a way
to do such a thing during which I might lift my head high rather than cower with it angled toward the ground while doing so? Or is this just a way, as
it seems to me now, of doing nothing, of saying nothing, of stalling with the problems still burning within me. Please know that is a rhetorical question. For I needn’t an answer.
Exerting a form of power used to manipulate a group who the “powerful” feel the need to sup press (and let’s look at why that
desire exists here)—to force that group into submission, into an obeisance to the “powerful”—is not a sonnet. But if it is not a sonnet,
then I don’t know what might be come the only answer to the what is a sonnet question, if I may be so obvious. What in the world is a sonnet,
then? Can it possibly be this non-rhyming example of answering what is a sonnet? Or would said non-rhyming sequence neg ate its possibility as holding forth as one?
In actuality, I don’t even know if this is really a problem. But eat around it, for sure. I mean. Look at it. It’s disgusting. Colors
bread should never see. Colors bread should never be. Although, in actuality, I’ve been to a bakery that has bread in most any color
you might imagine. But don’t eat the mold. Better yet, get some new bread. Then again, how should I know what eating mold might do to
a nice person like yourself. After all, where did we get penicillin? Or I do think that is how I recall things. That it was once a drug derived from mold
that cured all sorts of outlandish ail ments. Saved scads of actual human lives. But who’s to know, really? Not me. And we haven’t had any of that
stuff around in eons. Perhaps it’s a longstanding myth. Many of us are.
Reflecting on his topsy-turvy but mostly hard-earned, lucky, modestly successful life – okay, it had been a rollercoaster,
especially here at what was surely to be the tail-end por tion of it. He had never be lieved in karma. That was
too illogical. Oh, he had his dreamy fantasies, and for a man bent on engagement and logic (to a fault at times)—I
mean he was a poet—and he could let his mind and at times his body and spirit get caught up in the big notion of romance,
of love, never fate, he was too much of a control freak, but he’d often make big decisions based on gut instinct and butterfiles,
knowing full well it was not a leading cause for true success. Not for him. However, for one so internally steeped in logic,
he’d lived through some fairly karmic circumstances, the biggest example that always came to mind was that he’d
historically denigrated even the idea that a long-distance relationship might be a serious one at all. One borne of long-
distance, at least. And he’d think occasionally of the very attractive man he’d ghosted after a few dates for the simple
reason that he incessantly e
manated a dourly pungent odor
of garlic from what must have have been every single pore of
his body. He would even joking ly tell this story if ever the right
time (to him) arose. The years went on and began to take
their toll, most especially be cause the bright fortunate life he led from place to place had taken a tragic turn one mind-
altering day, changing his life so incredibly, and only in the worst possible ways, the ones that seemed impossible to rise above. Then,
wouldn’t you know it, he found himself in a long-distance relation ship with someone he had met on the internet. And with someone
who seemed as satisfied with the virtual ways as he was uncomfort able with them, perferring the phy
sically present ways. It went on
for many years, and even
when he eventually found
himself in its seventh year (having only had the
pleasure of his company in the same physical space for
less than a couple of weeks’ duration).... Well, ithout going
into any more details or giving away how that turned out, there was also the time he had what he thought an
amazing connection on a date some time after he’d parted ways with garlic man. There seemed such a connection
and on so many levels, but afterwards when requesting what he figured would be an easy second time hanging out,
he was blatantly told it didn’t seem in the cards because he didn’t like “the smell of your clothes.” Well, at least in that
case, crisis averted, I suppose. As the old man grew closer to sleep (hopefully just that) one night late in his life, as he was
thinking about these events in which he’d been a part of, had molded his life in perhaps quite significant ways, each circum
stance, on their own, he recalled his stance on astrology, which he thought quite related to all this stuff.
He hadn’t put any credence whatsoever
in the unscientific practice, even as his
world seemed inundated with examples
in which the practice foretold severe
truths. But he had found at an
early age how enlightening it might be, how truly engaging it was, when one was first getting to know a person in which there was obvious interest,
or attraction, to ask the familiar “What’s your sign?” and then move on to a deep analysis of how each of their astrological signs gave so many
clues about how terrific (or, heaven for bid, haha, not terrific) their pairing might ultimately be. He could not even be gin to imagine the hour he had spent
in long conversation on that subject, and how it had brought him and the person with whom he was conversing most always closer, but sometimes al
so further apart, which could have easily been taken as proof that astrology was all but a spot-on science. And that was his last thought before, lying in bed in
his rather modest-sized apartment where he’d lived alone ever since that great tragedy so many years ago, before which he’d lived such a wonderful, blessed life.
If one had been watching over him they would have noticed the early deep but fairly quiet intermittent rasps that would occur in which an onlooker could tell
that the old man in the bed was working his way toward sleep. And while there was no literal onlooker,
those intermittent rasps turned with
some haste into what would be long,
ugly, extended snoring fits. A nightly routine the poor man had no idea of, having lived alone for so many years.
As the dated references fly out the window into the field of forgotten. Show of hands, black and white movie? Anyone? Thought not. But fear not, because guess what! Time.
Gothic Constellations Lead to Western Destinations (regarding abstract poetry)
abstraction
i presume or from what i gather is quite different from culture to culture
and in ours for sure it’s too head-scratching for most
-(but that’s poetry)-
it seems to require quite a bit for numbskulls to get into it.
even considering 20th century art, etc.
but also
it’s about a step away from trad poetry, too.
because poetry thinks so highly of itself
that everyone generally thinks of as difficult.
we have to work sooooo hard to understand it. right?
(i suppose this is our multiculturalism topic for today.)
or do you get that notion?
not you yourself but don't you think others think that way? generally?
and i will say that if so they are indeed misguided at best.
but there are a lot of different structural mechanisms.
poetry architecture
and a lot of different—
what’d you say earlier?
literary devices.
ruses one might call them.
so people go oohhhh i just don’t get it; it’s so hard to get.
what a lyrical fallacy!
writers do have plenty of traditional devices.
readers might enjoy them or roll their eyes or be oblivious or
realizing they are upon one, get triggered into oh, how difficult poetry is.
writers are no more complicated than anyone else.
likewise, readers can run the gamut but overcomplicate the simplicity of reading.
can make things complicated.
can prefer or wish they were reading a novel or short story because
poetry=difficult
novelists and novels can be quite complex, as well.
but.
the words, the writing, the poem itself is for a READER
who absolutely should not generally need to know—much less understand—
any poetic devices, anything whatsoever except how to read and listen
or read and/or listen to get stuff out of what’s clearly on the page.
to get big stuff out of it, even, like what’s not obviously there, or what might be—
oh no—
complicated.
but like surfing, a sport, something i have no interest in but a lot of people do, you just need do one thing besides simply read/listen.
which is ride it.
go wherever it takes you.
wherever that is.
and where it takes you is never wrong.
i mean you can get the wrong impressions, you can wind up someplace unintentional, which is sometimes fantastic, and sometimes not, but it’s not wrong. it doesn’t make
the journey incorrect or even difficult. i mean especially if you enjoy the ride.
take it wherever it takes you, and you E N J O Y that in some form or fashion, or have that dumb i hafta solve this mentality like you and i tend to have.
keep riding and soon you begin to learn the different kinds of waves,
and how to ride them each best as you can.
and they all take you someplace.
often someplace beautiful
forget sharks & stingrays and shit.
i mean you may encounter those, too. like in real life. or actual surfing.
which you may enjoy much more than poetry.
but after a while, if you want adventure, you can find and appreciate sharks and stuff. and you can learn to ride more and more bizarre or bigger or smaller
or more unpredictable waves.
you can get a desire for those. a fetish so to speak.
you know, this is precisely the kind of didacticism that is pretty unnecessary
Something comes undone, I can feel it, but I’m not going to say that I love it. Like belly buttons way before they’re ever sexy. Unless you go for that shit. Somebody always does.
I’m working on this thing. It’s a process. We all work. I spend an hour or two trying to de cide if that’s just fantasy. We’re all messy fakes and it is fuckin’ fantastic how much dirt
shows beneath the tips of the nails; we’re just two disagreements from the hammer really banging ’em in, our piney lids, our soft- spoken sepulchers. Nobody’s getting re
ligious just yet. That’s a good boy! I’m reaching under some pronounced jawline to give a little rubby-rub into that soft goatee that sprouts like a tiny upside-down haystack
about two inches too close to the pooch’s goozle. The doggone eden’s apple. The mange gets a thrum of electricity that flows through it, scrunches the mangled haystack of the concocted chihuahua,
cradled, as it weren’t, like a mewling ampersand over its mamma-daddy’s pin-pricked forearm.
Approaching the End of Some Things (Good and Not-So-Wonderful)
I’m looking forward to the next return (of Saturn). I don’t know
what’s around the corner. If life’s taught me anything it’s that I
cannot predict what’s going to happen but I look forward to the
first human robot marriage on tv and um that we will have run
out of water and we’ll be drinking other things duringthat return. —Amy Poehler on a podcast episode of Good Hang**
You know how it is when you get almost to the end
of a book that has blown your mind? Some of you do
(show of hands*). *Attempting to pretend I’m not taking
this notion very seriously. Except I am. Diane, by the way,
you rascal you, I love the angel on the cover of your Christ
mas card (the only one received this year by me). I’m having something lately that I don’t have very often: family angst. All of the bronze-colored stars around this bronze-haired angel
make me feel just a little bit rich in my paltry apartment. Today,
this morning, two days before 2026, this is a good thing, and I
appreciate it. I appreciate you, angel surrounded by bronze, which
is to say I appreciate Diane. And the book I’m almost finished reading
by Kim Hyun, yes, entitled Glory Hole. Mind-bending. That’s enough for now.
I open the photographic pages to Dad’s birthday, December 27th, to determine things that have happened on his birthday. For this exercise, I make nothing of the fact that he has been gone for nearly
twenty-five years. These are just things that happened on December 27th. Which is not entirely accurate, nor even likely hardly accurate, given that the dates on so many of my many photographs are incorrect, have been
waiting to be corrected, a process I’ve been going through for what seems decades now. Has it been that long? Here are some things that occurred on Dad’s birthday. A man sits at a desk in a home I resided for thirteen years. The man
is awaiting his transition into the enemy, into evil. In 2018, an unidentified person, a blur, really, passes two trees decor ated for Christmas in what appears to be a mall. This shows up handwritten on the date January 7th, 1961, written by his
mother-in-law at the time (my maternal grandmother): Glenn came in tonite with his family Thurlow’s Dad had passed away. On that date in what is noted as 2014, Hiro and I are in line to enter the Endup to dance. Hiro is visiting. Between and behind
our faces in the picture is the face of a gentleman with whom we were both flirting for the duration of standing in the slowly moving line into the club. All smiles. 2023, a nicely made up bed in my last apartment, everything so clean and tidy it for a moment re
moves the nastiness that I now associate with that over six year home of mine. 2016 – in a apartment building I’d never been before, on a jaunt with a friend of mine, a photo of me with my phone apparently taking photographs of this apartment building lobby in which I had set
foot for only the first time. My stance is more that of someone who has a gun in his hand and is ready to use it. But I’m smiling. And I’d never. At a Mexican restaurant in Dallas, Texas, it says, with my friend Don and his partner, Patrick, who passed away several years ago. Big tipsy smiles.
I’m at a grocery store, perhaps in Chinatown, the photo is entitled “Copy of
Green Vegetables” – nothing can be seen in the photograph except for what appears to be zucchini, or possibly cucumbers. Most likely zucchini. A photo of me in a peacoat and with a mask, during the pandemic, a bit
of an unhappy look can be discerned upon what you can see of my face, and there is a caption in yellow: “have i mentioned that i’m hungry?” 2011, photographs of depictions of critters, likely in some department store, of: a dragonfly, a blue and white bird, a sleek dog or maybe a fox, a turtle, a
ladybug, a parrot, it appears, wearing a top hat, I can make out parts of additional dragonflies and turtles. Probably a completely incorrect date, but it says 2016 (has to be 1999 or 1998, probably closer to summertime) me standing out on what would be the land’s tip at Provincetown, Mass.
No depictions of my father appear on the pages in which I used the simple search of “December 27” – there seem to be only a couple of photographs even from before his passing in 2001. The exercise feels a need to be twinned,
I would think for better purpose, with photos from another search of his name,
I am the founder and editor of a magazine. It has been on hiatus for some time now. Years. In times of crisis I might say, “I’m going to start working on it again.” This is
a time of crisis. However, this is also the day after which I made a promise some months ago that at that point (this one) I will begin working on new issues of the
magazine again. I figure if one says some thing publicly, like I am doing now (mega
(Tossing out the garbage. Preparing for what’s new.)
It is 2025. These are strange times. Why not note this with a year. There are always split screens, but do there always have to be? May be. In 2025. And it is Christmas Eve. Man,
what a shitty holiday season this one is, and surely will end up being. So low on the list. Obviously, the Fall/Winter Holiday Season and New Year generally have been times of
significance. Among the strangenesses, a lack of clear perspective. I, for example, have been perhaps exaggerating how low this season is on the list of all seasons, on
the list of the past decade of seasons. The
Holidays, to my mind remain the worst time
period, a decade, too. How can I gain perspective?
I cannot trust myself. And I’ve so few people
around (I count three aloud, who, 1 with more regularity, who really knew me earlier than 2015 – there, I’ve split a screen – 1 who knew me from directly before the big
change, and 1 who is special to me but I see
perhaps once a year on average since, if that) that, well, how can one truly get perspective. To be unable to speak with anyone who knew
me back then. This seems to be the crux of so many of the problems that have arisen in my life of late, as I’ve for the first time ever dealt
with everything on my own, or just with help from
a distance or from, alas, the government. My few initially persistent attempts to make a difference, to have more reality infused into what was such an astounding and almost
unmanageable change. Hey, but I’m talking about it, and I suppose I have with some consistency, perhaps too much, but clearly, a bit more clearly. How do you know what I’m talking about? So is
this directed to them, the folks who just faded away all at once, some stating such damaging reasons (at least they told me, at least they had them), others just gone, some finally relaying nonsensical excuses
years later when I thought, well, at least I still have that person in my life, there had been no harm, no foul. But no. Not in the least. And the way each was unable to or the way they decided to explain or not explain – the
ones who acted as if all was normal. I had gone through what I’d not been able to imagine going through beforehand, normal life events for some, devastating ones perhaps or unimaginable for others. Merry Christmas. Who cares
what anyone thinks? Except. What I’ve been left with is a mind-boggling set of circumstances that were and are tragic. And damaging. Life, of course. But again, all at once, and during what was clearly the most horrid duration I have
ever known. So toward the next tomorrow, it’s the same
thing as always, only at this point, considerably worse than
it has been for a few years. Silly, vague whining I’m doing.
I want to think for purpose. I want to be less vague,
rather simple. And the goals I’ve reached in this, 2025, again with a timestamp, as opposed to each year previous for about 10 to 12 years, GOALS MET – a wonderful trip to South America, a new kind of relationship, dealing with
goals but not being able to meet them fast enough, making if not friends, at least new acquaintances. None of this had been accomplished since the set that vanished. I have such
gratitude for those three who are still around, what I call
the local three, and he two or three afar who have re mained, who make such huge differences. I no longer know the definition of family, real or chosen. The very concept leaves me exhausted when once upon a time, giddy.
But I persist. And I’m not sure that’s good. At least without significant change in my mode, in the way I go about it. I do not like how these sound, these pieces I build upon lamentations (chips on shoulders) and hopes, but they seem to insist upon
continuing to come, if but only, thankfully, on occasion. I do a lot of reflecting at the end of the year. Things to get rid of the grief of whatever has blanketed me, and ways to celebrate the newness of what is to come. Next to concentrate on that
new stuff. Or that is to my mind how life best works. Sometimes
I get stuck. It would be an easy time to start to find myself
slowly being pulled into that quicksand. I will not let it happen, I say to myself. And to you. With gratitude. Happy Holidays.
Suffocating girl with a shiitake-colored face. —Kim Hyun
We all want to look good. And from so far back (was it that far?) we have tried. It is oh so sub jective, this good looking. And how harsh we can be, thinking ourselves on the perimeter, out
of bounds (way outside the boundary), butt ugly. It’s a ridiculous thing that is perpetuated from day to day, from month to month and year to year. WE DO NOT LOOK GOOD! Who says? Mama? Daddy?
And why was that? How long ago? Still, it rings in our ears. Or perhaps that perception came from the books we’d read alone in our rooms every day and night (flashlights under the covers). “How old were
you when you realized you were sexy?” asks Chuck, the gay cheerleader. “Forty-five,” answers Fred, the dance-a-holic. To be Fred. Oh, to be Fred. And last forever and a day past forty-five on that dancefloor.
Boy-man takes control, wants the power, has it. The room is stifling for the rest of the adults as this goes on and on. Something in Japanese plays loudly in the room that is normally so quiet nobody notices anything
except breath. “What this room needs is a girly-gal,” mumbles the Grandpa, half-asleep. Once, as he sat in the worn reclining seat in what he used to call the den (there was a gas fireplace), he’d have the control – the mechanism
by which a thing called a television could be switched from station to station. But televisions went out of fashion long ago, then clean out of existence. A bit of drool at the left hand corner of Grandpa’s dry lips falls like a teardrop
onto his bare leg. The chair no longer reclines. Boy-man laughs at a scene in Japanese. Japanese laughter is quite unique, thinks Grandmother, who sits on the most unworn portion of the long sofa, directly across from the gas fireplace
that can no longer be lit, no longer warms, warmth being so completely unnecessary. She is moving her arms around. It is an imaginary blanket made of yarn that she thinks she is building. The crochet needle imaginary, too, as her real
crochet needle had been used years hence to eliminate
Man-boy’s mother and father. Did Grandpa do it? Did
Grandmother? Maybe neither knows. Maybe both know.
The main character is calm. Perhaps you’ve been following (me), which means I should maybe put in a spoiler alert warning? Spoilers. They don’t exist any more here,
presumably. At least in most generic cases. The train snakes through the once overpopulated desert terrain. Now they’re playing croquet with lesbian undertones before they head to a diner that looks a
lot like the one from Paradise. The mind wants to know what the writer is feeling, and she tells the mind that she used to have long yellow legal pads that she stole from her office job. I’ve made myself breakfast but I don’t feel like
eating it. Is it the barebecue flavor? I never liked barbecue. Especially sweet barbecue. And it’s messy. “You’re going to have a visitor,” says the mind, after reminiscing for the first time about when she was an individual and not part of the hive mind.
Then there’s my breakfast. I am getting an upset stomach from the sickly sweet smell of the barbecue. And me from the South, too. The show is over. She’s going to get a visitor. It’s become quite the suspenseful motivation so I keep watching it each week,
among all the other wonderful things I could tell you about it, all of which make it an incredibly fresh show. This, of course, is an opinion, and I begin to wonder what being an actual television critic might be like. My stomach sours thinking about that.
Because they eat each other? They eat people. This has become a pretty significant plot point. Oh, they don’t kill the people they eat. And they will starve in a determinedly short period of time (not via climate change). But they sustain for now, among utilizing other
ways, perhaps. By eating other people. People who have died. There is
always death and there is always living. Oh, I could tell you so much more,
but I’ve definitely lost my appetite for my breakfast. Who eats barbecue for breakfast? And these new humans, if that’s what they are, eat people.
