mlix
It was a leaky pierce. I emptied
a tiny Visine bottle and blissfully
siphoned as much of the sweat as I
could off the floor, squoze the sweat
into the bottle without losing even
the tiniest drop. We still don’t
have a microphone.
mlviii
May is the best month to
climb Mt. Fuji. What’s
interesting is never the truth,
especially when one’s fantasy
is realized. Glad to hear that
life can punch you in the nose
every once in a while. One
wouldn’t be the least bit
intrigued with it. I’m
making a grand assumption
about your tattoo as it melts,
oily drips that stagger down
the small of your back and
pool up into my belly button.
mlvii
BTW you type using bananas —K. Silem Mohammad
Reading along you think he was
never really on location there’s
nothing personal on this page.
Oh, wait, but I was there and
kissed you on the mouth
after you bit off your
eraser.
mlvi
Into my mouth a kind of oblong
secret. Trade joy with elation,
flummoxed by the hopeless
giddy drive to remain alive.
All night long and into the
next day this overwhelming
write it down in case I forget.
Every detail to the touch.
Tight shaved mouth are you
really who you are? I can’t
tell this moment. Only this
moment let’s not go back to
is it good enough for every
day. That prison I claim
to have broken out of in
order to become alive.
mlv
Dancing on love really stomping it into the
ground. It’s not another lazy dance. Din of
the bathroom stall, fiercely and for all history
overwhelms its magic mirror twenty years ago,
some kind of crazy heaven in my ears. For
better or worse, I’ll throw it away before therapy
(like eggtoss & tug of war). Having a senseless
crush on him for years, this isn’t going to be a
minor disturbance. It was even better than
anything that’s crept into my prolific
fantasies and wallops my first attempt
at power-dating into insignificance.
mliv
A Huge Clam Tree (And Inevitably, An Ocean)
(Chiefly Non-Satyrs)Build one eponymously.
mliii
You’re such a nimrod Mr. Verbs-Aren’t-
Usually-Funny! (Especially when they’re
semi-contractions.) Humor never had it
so good (without words).
Take that, Arm & Hammer!
mlii
“My finger keeps wanting to go inside of my
nose what should I do?” “You’re making fun
of my poetry by mocking me showing me
how I never say anything at all aren’t you?”
“You didn’t use Google at all for this one
did you?” Clarity is the archnemesis
of Triumph.
mli
“Jack of All Bats, are you tired
of being tired?” An accomplished
sense of humor and pilgrimages
to Fallingwater. Therapy Session
Number Four. He just turned 19.
The jasmine tea is good, but a
bit too hot, and my appointment
is in 18 minutes. “Are you sure
it’s not a grasshopper with a
little piece of dandelion fluff
stuck in its eye?” Lonely
is relative.
ml
To sponge is to bludge. In which
OMG has no oomph, becomes
flat like West Texas. In bed
with a coin, the thunderstorm
makes air out of air and we
breathe sex into sleep faster.
Bludgeon the coins spun
from sponges.
mxlix
the enormous sauce of deep emotionIndistinguishable noise. Critical reception
was mediocre and verged on political even
though he was not trying to be political.
Fuck work all hail poetry, etc.
Right now achy, stuffy, coughy, sore
throaty, sitting at Peet’s in Laurel
Heights thinking about last night’s
thunderstorms around 4am I think.
In bed with transition. Something
squeezable yet reduced to a pulp,
great fun, hugs, I should have
loved you more. How come
when history begins it’s
just not clear? Kick yourself.
mxlviii
I get so many submissions I simply
cannot keep up. Sometimes I wonder
exactly what I am doing on Facebook.
After baking salmon and making a
light salad his presence really fucked
me over and he was following me
around trying to get my attention. OK.
mxlvii
Like a Fanatic Reading MerrillShould my lips shout revolution
my mask would be complete. “And
what a waste,” you’d say, if only for
the birds flying around like cows
stressing everybody out. Do you
want to take a quick look at
the week’s squabble, Donald?
The cukes are gassy.
mxlvi
Yellow blobs appear on each page,
smudges that float up and down
over the words, the words which,
when read, are the sparrows
singing, the sparrows, tucked in
the lethargic eucalypts. I spend
so many hours trying to crack
the secret code. What is it on
my desk that sounds like eggs
hard-boiling? What is the cat
after? Not the words or the
birds (this time) but something
utterly engaging like a drycleaning
stub or a piece of kitty litter. More
to the point, what am I after? A
more slaphappy morass? Perhaps.
An albeit familiar goal, a place
I’m good at getting.
So here we are.
A full moon passes
over Geneva and I’m caught
in the gunk of the moment.
Darker gunk than I’m used to,
though. Gunk that could use
a little bit of your moon
which, while often swollen
and always inviting, is
dim enough to avoid
any collusion.
mxlv
I Have Warely Witten Inebriated
mxliv
Toulouse Gardens and Scenic RailwaysHangs a little to the right
without trying to bombard
your senses. Feels a bit like
fish and chips, inspiration for
an Elephant and Castle poem
with its hair on fire. Something
on cherrywood with MasterCard,
disrupting the world as we know it.
Rain after years without it.
mxliii
Holy secular scumbag. —Anselm Berrigan
The idea that we’re communicating
is a joke. You okay with unorthodox
humor? I dream warm with addiction,
how it creeps into dreams keeping things
substandard. Like your bank allotment.
I’ve no idea, hot dudes. But literally,
advertising NEW LASER and MORE
RESTROOMS is totally insane and
sexy. He’s got nice hands, very at ease
and comfy to be around. Now it’s
Monday, that’s the round-up, sending
off heartfelt notes to yesterday.
Back in Quito. Bye for now.
mxli
I’ve been smiling a lot lately. You’re not bothered by this?
“This monastery is one of several perched on towering
monoliths of solid rock.” Attend a benefit for security bars
(for their windows?) then wander around the Castro with
someone who graduated in math (“I like art I don’t have to
THINK about.”) – turns into a 24 hour date. Where have
you been, lately? He’s got nice hands, mildly corporate,
snuggly, and comfortable to be around. Oops, someone’s
having size problems. Maybe it’s Enrique Iglesias. I’ll
forget him in another week, perhaps at Sunday’s
Australian barbecue.
mxl
Through the Ghetto DarklyDo you have the gut to take me home?
You don’t really think that, do you?
G-U-T gut. Don’t swing your teeth
at me like that you might cause a
hurricane.
mxxxix
Backstabbing ClassifiedNo I am not bilingual.
Get out of my
contraband. Got a
minute let me show you.
mxxxviii
Welcome to the North Texas Church of
Freethought where we’re overwhelmed and
underwhelmed. Or did I just overthink it?
Was it a mistake, my everything up until
now? A too sparse on the details mistake,
yes.
mxxxvii
a sort of patch put on a leaky fireThe mercury of universal flesh
drips eloquently down the side
of a mirror. You are somewhere
in the midst of ultimate comfort
when you notice it. You report
it as spam. At first. But it keeps
dripping, reappears, moves you
to new dimensions, seizes the
day, takes you on a picnic
and buries the evidence.
Everything’s useless,
even if we catch some
body parts. And I
don’t like my new
friends. We’re too
ashamed to show them
off. Is it our inability
to fall? Way down in my
gut I think about yesterday
and that’s when it always happens.
Not simply the airplane back to nowhere.
Just overwhelmed with complicated
and glistening matter.
mxxxvi
Casual CatfishI’ve a pain in my elbow joint
like I did in Hong Kong only
this time it’s the other elbow.
Or walking the streets of Paris
after one a.m. looking for an
open pharmacy (to no avail).
Something was open, the word
kept arriving, but it couldn’t be
found. Creativity obdures, it
cannot be helped. Old remedies
become sterile. Exactly.
Dip dry fingers into warm wax
and apply each pink feather
and quick. No one knows
why we come back to
evasion. At some point it
becomes the weekend but
who has the chops for it?
Happy Independence Day
I’m not ready to talk about it
but I might be dancing
in Ecuador come autumn.
mxxxv
Who are we to become more and more
about less and less? July 1. Twice
daily or weekly to be more substantive?
Fuck energy. Art is held high by the
word and only the word. We see it
when we look out the window at
the horny dove or the black rooftops;
a barbecue in Oakland; a row of
friends at the table who will remain
friends for many years to come
(who knew?). Substantive? I
need a date. Take me to the
Pink Party, take half a hit,
wander around with Joe
who eats firewood,
meet [list of names],
go to [name] where
[name] is and also [name]
was there. WILD. Dance
most of the night waiting
for the substitute.
mxxxiv
I can kind of feel my brain coming back
like at the end of a _________, the fog
dissipating, four lines to a swipe.
Separately, I don’t really feel
comfortable downplaying a
financially shitty existence. And by
ass I mean wide motherfuckin’ ass.
mxxxiii
Rounding a sloppy corner,
approaching the column of ass,
bored out of time, tooting shitkickers
for the cowboys, nearer and nearer
a recommendation of whatever,
obviously the one cutie that sits
further away than usual with his
ball of blood and wire: some frenemy’s
dumb blog with pitiful dumplings
wondering if I would go this far.
mxxxii
Gonna Totally Do Something F7unI can relate very quickly the matter with the
information, then act according to my own
judgment to solve the problem very self-
confidently. Nimble, am not naturally
artificial, and have a strong display
ability. And you sit there with your
racist tongue twisters.
Haha. So cool. I know I’m bogus
but who’s boguser, I dunno. Maybe
by the end of this particular notebook
I’ll be able to speak in an entirely
new language.
Therapy is draining. Everyone is at the
beach today. I’ll be here with this latté,
then walking to the new gym at The Biltmore.
mxxxi
I write this with the frog that couldn’t be
seen in Hong Kong and the old man
who tried to sing along with the birds I’ve
only heard here. The warmth that comes
isn’t from too much sun in the distance,
but the waves that get up and do their jobs,
the laws of physics crashing and burning
as life does, as something roasted arrives
to smash our tongues. He’s turned me on
since 1990 and now, lying next to me
on a bird-strewn beach he does it again,
sound asleep with his tattoo on a
towel. The birds fly off like a parade
featuring Elvis. The Kowloon sand
busies the risky wind. I wrote this
hard-on for the frog. Grab the moon’s
dogs, you lecher, and tease them out of
our impossible freedom.
mxxx
Here’s your special nudge. Something
satisfying in going to bed at 2am, getting up
at 5am, drinking a glass of orange juice.
These brush-offs come in waves, but
they’re just a pair of mawkish 20-year olds
pounding. Horny Polynesians. Excess
beverages with 40-something hard-ons
and orange juice for blood pressure and
allergies. Stop nudging (lying on my
stomach as I write this). Destroy my
line of view instead. Find a remote
control and ask it where you belong.
mxxix
Another Arm-ache from Too Much Cyber-fistingI’m a late bloomer.
These waves come in waves –
all at me like a portrait –
waving me down the street,
up a staircase. Lie down flat,
Late Bloomer Up a Staircase.
Or the concrete’s too freakin’
cold but we do it anyway,
buds in winter. Next week
it’ll be my one and only
bathroom stall. And hot,
like it was just this evening,
skin from 25 years ago.
I would say I remember,
and I do, but how deep do I
have to go? Just to conjure
Blondie (all mine and
ohso mortally male).
How fast did we type?
What mode of communication?
Something along the lines of a
sink leak. Codes banged on
walls. “M-Y. R-O-O-M-I-E-S.
G-O-N-E.” Over and out,
I’m over! Plunging into
that pool so dark it
could be blood.
Warm Central.
Until security
wakes us up,
wipes us clean
like a bad disc,
something viral.
Let’s last a whole
year without a clue.
And we do.
