dccvi
It was time for the fire moil.It’s a symptom of reading too much.
And it’s really no fun when you’re 40.
Now it’s the keyboard mouse bum
sucks the juice out of every living thing on the desk,
the dogs bark under the warmer lamp,
and the weatherwoman says
rain starting back up this evening
and lasting a couple more days.
Yes, the wasabi helped.
dccv
There’s a parrot-sized hole in my life. —Dr. Irene Pepperberg (on the death of Alex the African gray parrot)
The world has changed.
Oh Mr. Fresh Face it is so
hip to be seen and “nobody to
turn to for advice.” (Ashbery)
Am I sorry?
Strategy: a travel reservation!
And an echo in the ears,
not quite settling in to the dizzy.
The settling into of the dizzy.
The dizzy us, the dizzy we.
Yet. The fog fumbles. We live on.
Time’s always
getting lost inside the fucking echoes.
Like diving into
Cool Whipfor the fell swoops.
Oh the world has changed. It can’t see through
to its next thought.
Its next thought
was a sandwich, a pasta salad,
and some iced tea.
dcciv
Dish at the Feet of Sandwich(wait four weeks) I shall not fall
at the feet of a sandwich
get a fish a philospher fish
with fries and wait
til all of your dishes are done
and fish! I just ate a Big cookie
with fries
a Big cookie and
joy in the mail for Xmas
I just want your Big cookie
Just wait til all of your dishes are done
I ate Big cookie
so passe
Joy in just you wait
the SF blue gloom SF blue Xmas for
(wait four weeks) gloom
got it big cookie (BC) ??
I shall not fail you
wait for the fry and fall at the feet
of the philosopher
Do you read your emails?
I shall not
I shall not
ateI shall not fall at the feet of
philosophers (there is joy in the blue
gloom)
I ate Big cookie
dcciii
Short of worn shortsAvoid permanence
Avoid perfection
“I’m sorry about your hair”
“Well, have fun in Vegas”
dccii
Two women at Starbucks
watching a big man with a hammer
throw his yellow bag out into the middle of Market
right in front of a bus. The bus stops.
The man runs around
shaking his hammer in the air.
Headache. Magnolia
at Masonic and Haight
after shopping for memories. Box from Mom
with 500 minutes phone card, 4 pairs of socks,
and a Trivial Pursuit calendar.
Haircut by lady says
“Your mother didn’t let you sleep too much”
referencing my well-rounded head,
“rounded real good.”
dcci
Never end with a bang.
[ romance
Sometimes it just takes longer to get there.
dcc
A Social TurdDo you have anything
for Saturday after say around 3?
The following week?
He dangles better than most;
catches it in his hip pocket
before a slow-moving suicide.
No, I’m serious, somebody who’s
NOT FUNNY AT ALL
decides to make a joke,
writes a funny poem and it REALLY CRACKS ME UP!
WHAT a PLUM! Existing home sales slump
again this month, what’s going on with you,
and why are you making fun of Denise Levertov?
Actually, no, lemme take the 10.
dcxcix
Special KetchupClay Theatre, 6:30pm, forward,
but try to remain laid back.
It’s process, the stapler smacking its lips
(a pure-spoken lesion)....
Filberts in the afternoon.
Speaking of sex, oxen sex.
dcxcviii
working with anger now let it usurp all faculties
art is not madness it’s clarity art is
vanity means romantic or action
our date has been put off until tomorrow
the new universality of gargoyle hip-hop
yes I did
dcxcvii
your life of mineairhead vs. sweet, confusing and frustrating
December prissy and pronouncing things funny
you’ve got a right to aristocracy star-fucker
I just got a scholarship of living in the library
it pays well and doesn’t come with a telephone
not mad at anyone but myself vs. the sofa
the spilled glass of nostalgic inkwater ugh
go home you’re wasting my time
get in line for a migraine
twenty-seven dollars at Walgreen’s
yeah you knew
dcxcvi
How far out on a limb
do I go? Fuck posterity!
(It should be said.) But
who has enough lava
to singe new ruts? What
should I do now go home
and take a nap? Probably
so.
dcxcv
When has there ever been
a lack of “alienation and
purposelessness” (Kit’s posit:
What are the rules of
the game [poetry, whatever]
and what would it mean
to break them?)? I see.
Then where are we now?
Unduly sweet and moody
whitecaps with spindrift.
dcxciv
What to do with [history]
when everything is NOW
nothing is remembered?
Smart moves don’t always
have to be incoherent. (Must.
Up. Lift. Spirit.) Self-
important drivel, blah blah
blah, run races around a
few words just to forget (or
remember) them.
-a rainy San Francisco
-what twisted taste he has
-tapping a beat with Kenneth Cole
-turn on the blue fan
-tap tap tap
How am I addressing you
This [Nothing] That Is?
dcxciii
a small blister of hopeThe window looks tri-sected, an optical illusion
Tall bird, three pounds
Wacky book Christmas party
Piddling away time on solid ground
Anti-academic white trash thesis proposal
Remove staples i——i i——i i——i
Little clots of blood form on human-shaped apertures
Why aim for the mundane
when it’s cheaper to get a cigarette in Chinatown
dcxcii
the moonstone that’s a piece
of cheese fell out of the moonstream —Robin Blaser
Stocks are up after the Fed cuts interest
half a point. Coco the Loco watches me
snip nails next to the bathtub. Next is you,
my love, a panoply of opaque sliver-moons
into a wet trashbasket. A haze over the bay
doesn’t take it over, just relaxes it. 3-
ring notebooks, computer notebooks,
logo’d pens and gargoyle postcards
litter the desk. Not to mention the
poems. Vacation dwindles into
history, snow-capped Rockies
flatten into a rainy desert
with great suspense. A
conversation about how
unhealthy it is to forget,
strictly held via instant message.
dcxci
here we are
December
flashing gizmos
(Coco Loco
and the Digi-cam)
in Colorado
snowdusted
with a serious
breathing problem
(cf. yoga)
supersaturated
coterie or no
it’s a
different kind
of prolific
dcxc
top of the class, I’m suresome horrible snore
that goes on hours
several seats up
taking a pick-axe
to a cello
surely
sold out night train
on frosted glasses
“0000000” (Coco walking)
Yankee Doodle Dandyon the 3:10 to Yuma
Cagney’s stiff
upturned ass
as off he prances stage left
dclxxxix
not exactly radiowalking into a room full of mirrors
all the jokes about sheepherding and WHO
do YOU see?
often rakes the leaves
with windchimes
sexuality and
snow lean forward into a warbled sauce
finally an elevator
full of summer fruit salads
scrambled eggs brusque salmon
30 minute ego
too old hat
not me
no me here none amenable
sits in his place
sit at his place wanna take a shower with me tomorrow?
seasonable housewarming
economy of spirit
it’s a good enough dose
dclxxxviii
blue sky
carmen perpetuuma grocery bag on each arm headed east
flappity-flappity-flap of a
sex-sated pigeon taking off up Nob Hill
touchdown a goal of some sort
depending on the sauce of
the season
walking off this language mush
and lazy television conversations
to find a way to get rid of them
moms who read (and understand)
this week’s tourism (up the hill)
cannot force the words out of a mouthful
of okra such a nice breeze
I meant a warbled source
ambiguous dogwalking
rude honks and buzzes
new nickels in a Mexican bowl
it’s ok as long as it has a name
what a fantastic evening
drawing the blinds to the fog
a grocery bag on each arm headed west
dclxxxvii
I love my job,
but I love juicy fruit even more! —
juicyfruiter.blogspot.comand the sudden gozzle
of every moment, gone
with a birthday cake
sugar rush. Paris
on bicycles.
I guess these feelings
have always crept in
like Carnegie Hall.
still reeling with
the same zip.
but getting there....
an afternoon regatta,
a large Hockney interior,
Guston’s knobby knees,
potato leek soup,
heavy egg, wide noodle,
afternoon ‘delight’,
Jim Dine waterpipes.
friendly,
uncommunicative.
dclxxxvi
Contemporary Chinese PeanutsI’m reading along and I get goosebumps.
Severe ones. This so rarely happens
when I’m reading. It’s
The Grand Piano,
issue 3, Lyn Hejinian.
Which tastes better with vodka? This
transition from state to state, sincere,
ironic, and full of shit;
I’m on the Acela heading to New York.
It’s a fast train, dizzying at first,
especially after a cross-country trip. Eating
Beverly C’s fabulous bundt cake from last night.
Lovely out Connecticut. Lovely Connecticut
with all sorts of guilt or hard feelings. And how,
so that I can relax, unwind, think, read,
write,
and never know how to end, I am working on
appearance.
The intelligence facade.
I’m so funny I make me laugh.
dclxxxv
Is this growing up? I don’t wanna.
Turn on blue fan blue like
Alka Seltzer package I
rip open for a headache
and
new age metaphysical smoothies (J Kyger). Paint a picture
lasts longer. Sometimes
maybe. Brightest white streak
across the bay some young
yacht. Fetching
from way up here.
Perhaps it’s just a ferry
sending earlybirds (the
stock market crew) home to
Vallejo. Tuesdays. Beautiful
Tuesdays after astonishing
evenings. Hungover MIT
with three Cel-rays from Bill
and what a swell intro! 21 poems later
I’m up a hill and on my knees.
Flag flaps briskly
in the San Francisco wind
six years after the two tall towers sunk.
dclxxxiv
Sometimes I tell the words
writing the words
GET OUT THE DOOR!
A certain mass
remains in the writing.
Getting the door
just past midnight,
lapsed architecture
(Sears Tower
a Dunkin Donuts and also
the desert poem. Disob
stuff I’ll shut off. Like
light. Watch nothing.
I am home.
dclxxxiii
I put the 5th DVD onto the list. It’s
been a while you aren’t supposed to
notice. In Russia they’re testing
the “Father of All Bombs”:
“All that is alive merely evaporates.”
Is this what I asked for this morning?
Reduce search and rescue
over vast stretch of land (or water),
menu-plan for the weekend,
which haute vegetable next to
coconut and kiwi,
how many miles to the moon
for after-dinner mints. Etc.
Sunrise in the Midwest. Breakfast
with a family from Iowa,
wife went to Wellesley,
now she’s a hospital librarian
who studied with Frank Bidart.
A sculptor, as well. Later, in the
observation car it’s Sam this
and Sam that. I’m getting nostalgic,
my second day without a shower,
thinking of Bowling Green and Toledo...
so many Sams ago.
dclxxxii
Dogberry[]will be/ the broken indicator light. —Taylor Brady
That’s why he put all the little creatures
in the pot, Papa Rabbit and the whole
family. I have to protract them.
Little dollops of mountain over
White Teeth and breakfast announcement
after jiggle (jog) with Otto
all excited about the 17,000 cranes
on the pagoda but they’re just little
whimpers of pompoms that’s all.
Daniel’s taking up both seats so I’m
back in the lounge car to give him a rest
and watch the Colorado sunrise
even pinker. No trees but a dull
headache. Denver. Dusk. Dirty
snow on the mountains and
bald eagles. Mountain goats.
Tenderloin’s rooftops. Slightest
wind. Fuzzy little rabbits
hop one end of the living room
down to the other.
dclxxxi
I’ll wake up now. On my first long-distance
train-ride to Boston. 9:20am. Happy I
can’t even describe. 4pm now my seatmate
a good portion of the afternoon Daniel
a skaterkid going home for Thanksgiving
asks me what I do. I say write. He responds
“that’s tight” asks me if I have any books
and I say I’m a poet. “That’s hella tight.”
Dinner talk. Older gentleman going on a
“genealogy expedition” in Salt Lake City.
5:30pm reservation. Back in dreamland
Coco comes running into the doorway
scared look on her face. She’s been lost
racing around like mad to find us. Try not
to drool too much on Daniel or the
fluffy Nevada clouds.
dclxxx
Tooth bone toll booth
bed good beg god aimed
at curbing chime. I’ve
notepads on this. Un
recognizable when
adding up each character
istic. Alamo Square
directly to gym dog wags
4th dog that’s walked
up to me in this
short time. Not so much
actual correspondence
the pain travelled
up the zipper and into
my back sitting in a bus
long periods of time.
dclxxix
A Big Dinner of No CookingCopper penis.
A hole in his shirt.
Harry Potter.
Show me yours.
But no serious.
dclxxviii
We were arguing the subtleties of
“Indian Summer” — the biggest
yogurt pretzel clump of all time.
A new blue cardigan and a broken-
into car, my diary, my train tickets,
my 2001 day planner with addresses.
It could have been worse. Fool.
I need to lay out the map
or something.
dclxxvii
[ ]
—from a fortune cookieCoco
wrapped around my left foot
Alice Notley
reads Tony Towle to Robinson Jeffers
in
a painting by Larry Rivers
find a penny pick it up
sex all day (lack of focus)
dclxxvi
It is not a complete
lack of memory
peeking around the corner
and showing a little bit of face.
Realizing
at a party
how forward I am
about the lack of lust,
over and over
how it is
to read things I hate—
so important!
This
a kind of buddhism
of how to learn.
Gives people
(authors,
folks at parties)
personality.
Taking a memory,
a degenerated disk,
and showing up
happily
and with shame.
