mcmxvii

The Balancing Act

     loans upon loans upon loans

                              —Brent Cunningham

I had a breakfast bar at around 10.

And then I balanced my checkbook.

I mean I balanced both of my check-

books.  By which I mean I thought

very seriously about finally balancing

both of my checkbooks.  Despondently.

mcmxvi

Competing Publications

Thin crust with hamburger and sausage

and extra cheese.  Is that ok or would you

like something different on your half?

There will, of course, be boneless chickens.

And cinnamon sticks, too!

mcmxv

I believe that you are now witnessing /

experiencing one of the most ridiculous

performing arts pieces ever conceived.

Why are you not recording this??

mcmxiv

Actually, I can now see how there’s

something really quite terrific about

being gagged like this.  Gagged?

Bound?  Whatever—a triple-layer

of masking tape around my head

and over my mouth (tightly).  It feels

liberating.  Like a big relief.

A few folks pop on to check us out.

On occasion.

OK, long break while I do other things.

Unbound.  Like chat with Jeannette

about the weekend, the divine weekend,

and become frustrated with formatting.

And how to ‘properly’ note publications.

The whine of somebody on this side of

our apartment building (this side?—by

which I suppose I mean that it sounds

very nearby) taking a shower leads to

a desire for a shower.  The sound of

dishes being put away (also very

nearby) has me up and desirous

to clean something.

In the end it must really be worth-

while.  The relief of not hearing

my voice for a few minutes.

But isn’t too much of a good thing

not so very good after all?

mcmxiii

Isn’t it power

to think about

power in new

ways (mis

reading

Bruce Boone).

mcmxii

Shall I perform for you a modern dance?

You just read a novel.  How

did it feel (in 10 words or

less)?  This morning, after

moving the boys to their

new spot near O’Farrell

& Divisadero.  I have

always wanted to put

these notepads to use.

But of course you

would say that I’m

wasting paper.  LOL.

No.  I am not.  This

is not a waste.    Pause

while I send Curran an

email asking for his new

work email address and

his new home address

(these things for which

we pause).  Don (the

retired priest), writing

in my ledger (of late

this generally trans-

pires in a cubicle),

Saturday (in no

particular order)

....  But back to

the weekend.

Blogging in

Calistoga.

A lot of time.

Correspondence.

And, for my

tombstone:

He got lost

in the beat.

mcmxi

A slow Monday after a nice weekend

Hold on.  Let me give it to you

like a surprise.....  A slow Monday

morning after a lovely autumn

weekend full of apologies.  Like

sorry I might be writing a poem.

And thinking about that can be

a mess without an apology.  Like

this bed.  Or my nose running

(but I’m sorry, I promise).  A

box of Kleenex, though, be-

cause you are always prepared.

In hopes. 

                It’s two weeks to the day

since I’ve seen you.  Pretty good,

huh?  The worn stack of Post-Its,

Blistex (of all brands & sizes).  I

check to see if there are any stamps.

Of course there are stamps (always

prepared).  A drink with Don (the

retired priest) and Josh (his cousin).

And Fred.  On Mondays, in the cube

next to mine, they go on all day about

the weekend and its parties and party-

ing.  All apparently drunken.  And

before too long (sometimes almost

immediately, sometimes years later?)

we are back to another weekend.

And like always, unless I’m very

careful, it’s always filled with

so much more time than

I actually have.

mcmx

A Thin Slice of Coconut Cream Pie

It looks like today will be nice and slow.

Or perhaps better put would be the calm

before the storm.  I know I’m supposed

to be paying attention to something, to

someone.  I can never tell if he’s drunk

or high or back on his various meds.  Or

all three.  The procedural act of disengag-

ing has been initiated.  And I am  s l o w

with peace.  Or pieces of it, anyway. 

The trumpeting phone interrupts and

I misinterpret my disengagement by

picking it up.  It’s I.K.  And that is

surprising.  We probably haven’t

spoken in at least a year (maybe

two?).  He was bored.  I told him

so.  I’m losing this game, struck

dumb by the (seeming/seething)

politics.  And then the world

traveler shows up, speaking

even faster than usual (my

stomach churning).  The

buzz of traffic in the dis-

tance is no competition.

At all.

I wish that I could take back

everything between then and

now.  However long the gap

that remains I’ll bet it will

stick around to remind us

how much better it always

was.  Better than even a

whole day of wishes.

mcmix

unhappy bathroom moments

I just closed my eyes for a moment

and watched an animated version of

one of my kidneys pass out—in slow

motion—of my body.  There it lies,

gasping for breath.

A ream of paper is not a closet.  So

this closet, without a ream of paper,

means that I have to go to Walgreen’s

as an excuse for a prescription that

I cannot write.

It’s not that I don’t keep writing

stuff down like “You made me

drop my mind along the way,”

“What am I, a robot?,” “BTW,

have I always been stupid

or am I just now realizing

this?,” and

“Leaving so soon?  But you

haven’t even tasted this

big bowl of poop yet!”

[all pasted-on smiles &

junior prom waves as

everybody shuffles

out the door.]

mcmviii

I Rip You Out Like Wasted Space

Is music typically mostly just varying sets of

aural conflicts and resolutions?  If so, though,

how is it that we come to know what conflict

sounds like?  Or, of course, resolution?  I’m

having lots of these nature vs. nurture

conversations lately.

                                    Jesus is not a

                      pearl necklace!

That was a crass maneuver meant as a

diversion, to get us safely into a car and

on the road to wine country, I’m thinking

Friday evening after the rush, crash in

Calistoga, then Saturday we can do

tasting from spot to spot (our limit

generally remains right at two spots,

although perhaps on this fair trip

we’ll hit three), and maybe catch

a massage and a dip into the

warm pool at Harbin Hot

Springs on Sunday,

                                turn the car in

early enough in the evening to relax.

Then birthday cake with Kim.  Then

meet Fred in the Castro for drinks.

Next morning, pee incessantly

while putting together a bunch of

procedural questions for Colleen,

like how to do an expense report,

how to procure what seems to be

a requisite corporate card, buy

$107 worth of groceries, cab home,

a couple of questions to Lara from

email once I’ve washed the dishes,

then cooking up hamburgers and

french fries, which were awesome.

But Indonesia is so very away.

mcmvii

What was I going to say?  Oh.  I’m

going to bed now.  Yes.  Trying to.

I’m going to bed but kept up

by Rae Armantrout and Bill Berkson.

Time is I say their names first only. 

Does it make me more like them (

thinking positively because of the

actual love, this whatever-it-is with

people we admire and read and even

occasionally have the opportunity to

sit down at a table and talk the talk

with.  To talk business with.  What-

ever the case, I don’t mind, really,

only I’m never of one mind.  Tonight

I’m just here with them, or they with

me, for real with the dust that climbs the hill—

Hey, Bill!!   Hey, Rae!!  Love is as free of

cynicism as my good man Brandon Brown

is today (my good man, I said it!). 

And that’s pretty full of something

really divine, like what’s floating up

from down Mason tonight—a trumpet

(perhaps pulled from somewhere mid-

last-century and blocks West—a bleaker,

ballsier Fillmore Street (perhaps I have

the decades confused).  It’s all so very

un-figure-outtable to me, but a lovely

dream of cool air for a stir-crazy evening.

And now there’s strumming—a banjo?—

Nob Hill’s brimming—from every possible

direction until I’m...I’m....well, I’m going

to say this, too: I’m sated!  Hey, Brandon!!

Hey, Ron!!  Hey, Steph!!  Hey, Cynthia!!

A big hello to Rodney & Auden!!  And

hello again to all of the Bills, every

last one of you!!   Hi, Mom!  Hi there, Otto! 

And how do you do Miss Coco the Loco.

Hello, everybody!!  Hello, everyone!!

mcmvi

This blank poem is unavoidably intentional

I belive that’s warning enough.

mcmv

self-absorbent

Realizing the profundity of saying this on

Facebook...but Linkedin has gotten pretty...

hilarious.  

I’m taking a mental health day.  And I

must need it because I nearly walked out

the door with a mouse in my hand.

mcmiv

I just finished a piece I started a couple

of weeks ago.  Look at how it sort of

glows under the afternoon clouds.

mcmiii

That Is So Drunk!

Hector Camacho and Larry Hagman are dead.

Psy just beat Justin Bieber’s record number of

YouTube hits.  So, yah, thanks for the encourage-

ment, it means a lot.  While this upcoming week

will no doubt be difficult, I’m trying to mentally

prepare rather than just be mental.

....I do feel better now that I have the echoes of

positivity floating around in my head a little bit.

mcmii

Sorry, I Learn How to Waste a Day

You don’t mind if I just

throw that old coffee maker out do you? 

Man, I’m really fun this morning.

Let’s move out of the area of I AM

and into the area of I WILL.  (9:37am)

Thank you for the coffee.  I

really don’t know what you put

in it to make me high all morning.

I ....

had the most amazing Facebook

conversations today. I had completely

forgetten that’s how people communicate.

I’m sure the kids are doing something.

I totally don’t know I’m so out of it.

Maybe telepathy.  It’s like talking

only the noise is not my mouth.

I ...

look like my grandfather is pregnant

in this picture.  I love it.  Thank you

so much for

sending it.  In an emotional world with a

volatile economy, Singapore is numb.

Lately, I’ve been wondering about cigarettes.

mcmi

Cockrings for Obama

I’m watching this week’s episode of

Dueling Hairdos for the third time:

“Chicks like it.  That and the way I

eat peaches.”  It’s funny every time.

Time?  It’s 12:49am.  It’s November.

It’s Superlove and Spirit Indestructible

and She’s So Mean.  Yes, we treated

ourselves, but not to Target or Cloud

Atlas (my third attempt at getting out

the door for that one, even though I’ve

forced seven people—thus far—to Lana

Wachowski’s acceptance speech for the

HRC award.

mcm

‘Don’t,’            an election
                                                                                         —Stephanie Young

Let us now to recapture the joy of our youth.  The joys of our youths. And the joy of
youth!  Even in the smelly underwear of it all, however, we must eventually find
(and step into) our pants.

Time’s up.  So I’ve made a reservation at a bed-and-breakfast in Calistoga for August
12th and 13th.  And tonight we are going to dance.  Are you in?  Are you in?

Then I realized the binary nature of every poem written in this century. That I’ve read.

It’s either about Attention Deficit Disorder or it’s not.


‘Yeah, well,’ said the peach modestly. ‘you know—the days go by.’
                                                                                         —Lyn Hejinian

mdcccxcix

This Company Should Resume Uptrend

The uptrend continues on huge surge volume.

Walk to polling station wearing a cock-ring

now that you’ve inhaled an extraordinary

amount of poison.  Omigod that was an

extraordinary amount of poison!!  Duh!

Don’t you think it’s confusing that we

have to sign our name twice on the

mail-in ballot OR THE BALLOT

WILL NOT BE COUNTED?

And what’s up Daylight Savings Time?

I went to bed three hours ago but now

it’s midnight, I’m up, and Pizza Hut

is on its way.

mdcccxcviii

1970: Starts writing poetry.  Early influences include John Ashbery, Robert Bly, Jim Carroll, Kenward Elmslie, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, Thomas Merton, and Frank O’Hara.

     —from the Chronology section of A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos

         (edited by David Trinidad)

Now here I am having lunch, reading Beverly Dahlen’s

Reading.  Today at work (day 2) much better than

yesterday.  Right?  Even though I am terribly fidgety

without IM.  Eyeballs nevertheless glazed over from

staring at the computer all day.  Work.  Work.  (See

note about first time I ever had a flat screen and don’t

like it.)

This morning we watch Ellen step out as a curvy

mermaid dressed as Sofia Vergara and of course

we anticipate the punch line of Sofia Vergara

showing up onstage to both stare down Ellen

for her audacity (and the purported hideousness

of her Halloween costume) and bask in the glory

that is mimicry (the greatest form of flattery, etc.)

while graciously trying to “teach” Ellen how to

speak Spanish with a Columbian accent (or with

Sofia Vergara’s “accent”).  And we watch Cher

and Kathy Griffin teaming up to tell us who to

vote for (if we are a woman or a friend of a

woman).  Cher calls Griffin “Kathleen” and

Griffin repetitively does Cher impersonations

paid for by the Jewish Council for Education

and Research (the same folks who brought us

Samuel L. Jackson in the bedtime story Wake

the Fuck Up and Sarah Silverman’s gun-toting

grandma).  Tuesday is in two days and my

ballot is somewhere.  It’s on my list.

My head is hurting and this new job is....best

word is lonely.  Let’s see if I can take a train

of thought through to somewhere.  I start

reading the new Tim Dlugos compendium.

Carolyn says Suzy is in detox.  Somewhere

here in lovely California.

mdcccxcvii

I love it when people ask me where I

got things from because they’re usu-

ally from a different country.  Ask

me where I got this shirt.

I, having walked here a million times

with it being closed, both before &

after the gym, am at Bistro Burger on

Mission, just cattycorner from

MY OFFICE.  (“How do you spell

vinegar?”  “V-I-N-E-G-A-R.”)

Now here I am having lunch (“

How do you spell peroxide...”)

Turkey burger, fries, vanilla

milkshake.  I can easily go

from don’t like to like and

sometimes all the way to love.

mdcccxcvi

I keep imagining someone slowly pushing a xanax bar into someone

else’s eyeball.

                                                                                              —Tao Lin

I misread the word prisons and thought she said “All the penguins

are fragile.”  Del the documentarian.  I can’t stick to one subject

because I’ve already spent it in my head.  Quick note: I am alive;

I shall purchase a suit

more suitable for reading

poetry with short lines

(must start reading).

188 pounds at Starbucks

on New Montgomery.

Incredible line-up, a

bit intimidating.

“You’re funny,” he says.

“Did you even know the

widow was open?”

I like my awesome new desk

with a Vanilla Bean Espresso

on top.  Tedious day of lady

jazz.  Third day of running.

Overheard:  Needs new notebook....needs new porn....(or poem?)....Pigeons

....Finished Brandon’s e podes....Read to my mother while waiting for finger-

prints today....Security badge.....Walgreen’s then cook.....Me laundry.....

Miss you notes from Erin....Should I read a little Dahlen or write one.....

I’m writing this as though I invented it, but it keeps getting truer

and truer.

                                                                                              —Alice Notley

mdcccxcv

How much swagger do I want?

                                —Dana Ward

Woman falls of cliff while raking leaves.

Scratch that last thought, I just ordered a

pizza.  But my skin is very oily.

Won’t you come with me?  With you

I’m always more social.  He asks me

how I lost all of my charisma.  Freud

suggests it’s on hiatus.  With my

libido.  (Drumroll, please.)

Many hours later, I don my

windmill costume and join you

for lunch.  It costs forty-two

dollars and seventy-five cents.

mdcccxciv

No wonder nobody gets me.

Even I have no idea when I’m

being serious and when I’m

just clowning around.

Losing a pound of ecstasy

in one weekend must be

critically severe, kind

of like a disco death.

I wouldn’t know, though.

What I do know is he’s

so ambitious.  He even

sews.  He doesn’t phone

her.  He doesn’t write.

But don’t forget, folks,

that’s what you get, folks

, for makin’ whoopie.

mdcccxciii

Maybe it’s just impossible for me to pick my

tongue out of my cheek.  Do they hurt like

the worst kind of splinters, which today I

confirmed is hair splinters (this is one of

the things I learned from Brook, my new

barber, my barber of today)?  It’s not that

I haven’t tried.

Is somebody going through a rough time?

I know somebody that’s going through a

rough time.  And I’m just no good at

‘being there’ for such things.  Especially

what with how cruel the world has been

lately (you know who you are!).  I run

from D for Drama.  Even though a little

piece of my heart gets an erection.

Maybe not entirely, though.  I can emote.

Right?  You saw me last night when you

played that new P!nk video.  That was

art.  Totally.  And she worked so hard

for it, too.  Which makes it art with a

hard-on.  Omigod, I mean art with

purpose.  But I’m sorry it’s just

impossible. 

Which of course is why when you

played the new Lana Del Rey video

immediately after, I just couldn’t

let go of myself.  I know, I know,

an hour of non-stop criticism for

a poor....brunette now, I think,

right?....for a poor brunette

with a wobbly voice and a

bizarre penchant for interm-

inably long poetry-reading-

esque voice-over narration

before, during, and after her

[musical number?] during an

Easy Rider vs. Anna Nicole

Smith music video—is just a

bit much.  Wouldn’t you say?

mdcccxcii

Most Dreams Are Real

Aw, is your rope-a-dope

strategy not working?  I’m

usually not good at ‘being

there’ for such things.  But

I have taken my medication

and I have come prepared.

One of us needs to roll

up our sleeves.  Ugh,

work!  We stood around

for a while just looking at

one another, but after a

while we each took a seat.

My exhaust runneth over.

Giggles.  Someone thought

they heard it coming through

the ventilation system.  Some-

where in the future of global

warming.  Somewhere in the

future of an all points bulletin

but before the final point is

made.  .  .  .   Everyone in

the movie collapses, but

the film plays on.  People

stare blankly, first at the

open fields (of celluloid),

and then at each other.  And

slowly, one by one, folks

start to rise and sort of aim

themselves down aisle-ways

and out doors.  Everyone is

gone before the credits roll.

Except Otto, who just wants

to make sure there isn’t a

teaser for the sequel.  Not

to give anything important

away, but in the end, all

of our dreams come true.

mdcccxci

For better or worse, I have never

blacked out.  Not really, anyway.

I haven’t even passed out.  Ever.

Unless you count pre-surgery

anesthesia-induced counting-

backwards-from-ten-to-maybe-

three induced unconsciousness.

Sometimes I’m envious of those

who occasionally reduce their

faculties to nil ... recreationally

or otherwise.  But there seem

always to be such absurd politics

in the determination of which

parcels of land get to be called

National Park.  Or get to keep

that name.  Or get to discard

that name forthwith.  This is

just one reason it is invariably

difficult for me to force myself

to the voting station.  Or connect

the dots or lines or whatever,

stick everything into the allotted

and postage-paid envelope, and

tote it downstairs to the blue

mailbox that (invariably) has

a mouthful of graffiti.  Raise

your hand if you look good.

That’s all I’m saying.  No-

body ever got this far without

a little bit of shine.  I didn’t

even blossom until later in

life, but look at me now.