cmlxxvi
Everything happens all the time, sometimes
simultaneously. I’m just now reading a
poem by George Stanley about him
huddling outside of his apartment with
his neighbors (granted, at 5:30 in the
morning), just to get away from the
noise of the fire alarm in his apartment
building – “strangers and no structure” –
he seems to be writing with a hangover,
and then I misread “sleek & slender
selves” as “sleek & slender elves” –
well, it is almost Christmas. I mean it’s
December. Or at least May, when I am
back ON with You-Know-Who. I wish I
could remember exactly how things went
at Mel’s after watching
X Men (he was
45 minutes late!). But as I was spilling
my very soul out to him over a grilled
cheese sandwich (and his Oreo milkshake?)
I do most clearly and gleefully recall
that I saw his eyes mist over.
cmlxxv
I just dusted everything and it’s nearly
midnight. All the blinds are closed and
I’m wondering if the moon is up. Raise
the goddam blinds and see nothing but
blankly starlit rooftops. MOON! MOON!
cmlxxiv
I love it when you read. I don’t know why.
I’m reading four books simultaneously (&
doing laundry & sipping a lukewarm Sprite).
Life, as they say, is good.
Facebook, however, is taking up too
much damn time! My brother arrives
Wednesday, the place is a mess,
and I’m not going to get an ounce
of sleep tonight. Plus I just
downloaded
The Last Guy,
which is not what you’re thinking unless
you happen to be an avid videogamer
(which I’m not—
but zombies in San Francisco?
How can I resist?).
So. That leaves room for a lot of
doubt, right? Right.
That’s a lot of doubt.
By the way, nobody writes at perfect pitch
every single sitting.
Excuse me
while I go back
and adjust the margins.
cmlxxiii
arabesques & bone spurs —George Stanley
What’s real? Martinis with Kim at
Martuni’s last night. Talking the
talk. They’ve moved the WellsFargo
ATM machines to 333 Market (that
used to be ‘indoors’ across Fremont).
That’s real (though
I’d heard a rumor....).
Our building’s fire alarm buzzer
just came on full force. Real.
I walk out to see a neighbor
standing outside of his
smoking apartment. I ask
if everything is okay and he
says yeah. “Do you know how to
turn it off?” “Nope, sorry.”
And I mean it is LOUD.
Here comes the fire truck some
fifteen minutes later as I go down
(holding my ears) to check the
dryers. One. Real. Empty.
Rah! Plug her in!
cmlxxii
how I’d love to dream let alone sleep it’s night —Frank O’Hara
The laundry is only begun. Joe just signed on.
Doldrums since Saturday, no real reason. It’s
Sunday. Then fondue. I made a rather long
list I haven’t started on.
People are dancing right now and I’m here
on the couch writing a ‘poem’ – where’s the
sense in that? The bells of reason
will surely ring any
moment now.
Til then, I’ll not name any more names.
Except last night we couldn’t wait for
Cyndi Lauper. Just couldn’t wait. Or
I was in pain from standing four (five?)
solid hours. Otto sweetly patient,
gimps home with the old fart at 12:30am
after Lady Gaga and one of the chicks from
Destiny’s Child. What’s a pop concert for?
What’re my memories of dancing in my bedroom
to
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun –
and never to see her live except this place,
me 41, her who knows how old, kids of 20
and 21 scrambling by with a bump and a shove, etc...?
Sure, she’s got a lovely new ‘hit’ now –
one that even grows on you, doesn’t quite exude
the vapors of nostalgia, one I’ll be most happy
to dance at alongside a few assorted eye candy
on my own present-day turf, which is which
ever stomped- and slobbered-upon San Francisco
dancefloor of the moment that pulses with
the rhythms of a vapid-ethereal-electronical
rehash of all things past and pop by way of
a decently-escapist semi-world-renowned
DJ until the cows come home, no drunken
bumps, no live performance, except just this
bash & bash & bash & bash &...
cmlxxi
(Like the Muffled Roar of a Corporate Giant)Welcome to my series of utterly honest
sarcasms, bitter to the core, each with its
own violently clever and overwraught (one
and all!) twist that makes one wonder if I’m
possibly this stupendous or if I’m merely
lucky to bend a few attenuated ears with a
garden variety of half-baked jokes, ha ha,
which are quite possibly aimed at countless
dull replicas of your very own self, Dear
Degreed Purveyor of the Enlightened (known
colloquially as Illusioned) Guess. A rather
lavishly fluid volume of, let’s just go ahead
and call them postmodern aggregations of
memoria, each one built, if you will, upon
its own wondrously appropriate paper head-
stone; each grave (or any assemblage of
graves) to be interpreted as nothing less than
a mockery of all poetic traditions, espoused
or otherwise; and yet, each blithe construct
is a scientifically sound disputation of the
very poignant, earnest, brilliantly straight-
forward argument or narrative – that is,
the very carcass – ensconced within each
brilliant contraption; individual ‘disputation
vs. narrative’ duets can by gosh downrightly
be summed up as disposable ‘get on over
yourself’ sermonettes craftily parlayed
tongue-in-cheekly as chorus to an endless
knell, and always a sly misreprentation
of the deviant, My Own True Self, sung
just as deservedly to all kith and kin who
spend their days, their nights, their final
breaths languishing in the company of
words, wordettes, and wordy wordisms.
In toto, I might add, because it should be
iterated, these incomparable casements
encompass a fabulously excruciating
excess of divinely harmonic redundancies,
deliciously rabble-rousing bon mots, and
just plain inimitable sentences, which to a
T are gloriously impossible to repeat
unscriptedly, and naturally inconceivable
to utter in completion without the loving
assistance of at least one strong arm
slipped deep and ever so slowly
up the utterer’s wazoo.
cmlxx
Is this our way to be alone?I daresay a day or so of
silence from you is an
unmitigated joy; it’s several
sheer pages of unmottled clarity,
a remedy for this year
and next.
“Life
is a Jumble Shop,” and
I’m too busy wedging Frank O’
Hara’s timelessly snappy coigns
into each well-intentioned day; I’ll
drum nary a knackered word of my own
into this chest, nor beat one, pithy or not,
into our veritable daily dough.
Why worry a jot over
kleptomaniacal tendencies?
I am perfectly satisfied just to
seek out that one clear frequency,
to pick up a clown-sized megaphone,
aim it in any general direction.
And transmit!
I do reckon there are occasional
incidental problems around which
to maneuver, but there’s clearly no
need to reinvent the all-glorious antenna.
I did have my mind on this
one thing, though,
that really needs to get fixed, but while
said slipshod mind cozily drifts off into
something like eloquence, watch closely
as the rest of me resoundingly remains
a fully functional and beneficent instrument of
conveyance. Meantime, how’d you careen so
magnificently, so sublimely out of control?
Hm. I do seem to recall some vague gesture
for direction, an ever-softening motion toward
relevance. But I’ve had a few kooky dreams since
that I could have just mixed it all in with,
not to mention I’m as down with love as
either of us can ever hope to be. So cut out
that racket! I’ll be damned if you’ll catch me
screwing with my pitch-perfect reception!
cmlxix
I think I understand what he was
talking about – about the eyes. I said
‘burning’ and he shook his head,
but I think I get it. The long hours
of abuse. The unwillingness to
put on a pair of glasses, either of us.
Or better yet, shades. The eyes,
those pathways to the soul.
What corruption, what utter
turpitude we’ve unleashed
into the very guts of our brains
and the very moats of our hearts.
I might as well shrug my shoulders
and, oh what the heck, give my dick a
baloney sandwich and repair forthwith
to the basement to drool over an
Andromeda of jars filled with pickled
anatomy, choke out a joke or two
of prayer aimed at each suspended fetus
in lame hope that just one of them
might possess, loosely tethered
to its gelatinous spine, that very last,
oh so tiny figment of humanity I had
erstwhile proudly teased myself into
believing belonged to me, my singular
possession, to nourish and to cultivate
lovingly, to dote on its every whim,
only to throw it up at Starbucks
at half past nine this morning.
cmlxviii
Lovely that Shame decides to make an
extended appearance just as Self-Confidence
has finally and resolutely learned to subsist,
indeed thrive, on its very own. Is there a
massage therapist in the house?
Name one higher purpose than Ego. Neither
another heart-blackening disappointment in
my One True Being nor the maudlin iteration
of my next crisis of faith will help me conjure
a retort to that one. Whatever Magick
one deigns to practice is to be used
strictly toward implementing
the most current upgrade of
one’s paragon set of smoke and mirrors
built neatly upon the myth of selflessness.
(And oh so stealthily at that!)
But I digress. It is 9:20 on a brilliant
Saturday morning and maybe, just
maybe, I am rising from these most
current depths.
And with what gravity!
I’ll exit this muck a sourpuss,
wipe the sewage off my boots
and ascend that imaginary plateau
(what a quick learn I am, too,
already hip to the sacred gospels
proving slope and altitude just a pair
of plucky post-coital legends) –
please be sure to watch carefully, now;
take as many notes as you must – because
I’ll do it all with as much ironic pleasure
as a well-burnished fart
presented gleefully adagio
at the butt-end of Thanksgiving Day.
cmlxvii
Caught in his porn-like grasp,
the pen loses all meaning. This
could be the furthest gone you’ve
come, like a steel drum forgetting
its last few thrummed notes, or a
first generation iPhone left in
a taxi-cab’s backseat crack.
Well, I just did it. I just
hunkered over, gave in,
sent the man one more
“we never had an ‘us’
but let’s grasp each
other to strangulation
so we can finally
have one” note.
Men. When did we start
calling them such. Start
calling him such. Either
I’m evolving or he’s
devolving.
I’m so sure of things. Certain
as ash in the craw of this pipe.
One split second leads to
another. I export each file
five different ways and listen
for the soft cough of the muse
as one after the next they
whistle a burn into the
recordable DVD, then
quietly slip the disc into its sleeve
and just as quickly forget why I’ve
spent eight years rewriting
this ridiculously innocuous
portion of Act I, Scene I.
cmlxvi
Markets Crater in Closing MinutesIt is almost 1960. Another
decade laid to rest or ruin.
Yes, another love poem
as we run out of time;
same cast of characters
(pretty much), same glib
narrator, same bistro after
another besotted Sunday
night. Then the goodbye
letter, which backfires,
just as they all have. Oh
how I wish you could enjoy
these last few carnal moments
with little old me. You know
better than anyone how I’ve
a soft spot for giddy doom
and gloom. What better
excuse for a party, no?
cmlxv
Poetry is drugs
don’t fight it
be hedonistic
it’s perfectly fine
to be high and
optimistic. Some
times. Finally,
a new life
with sushi on
Powell Street.
Turn the page
and here I am
with Fleetwood
Mac. Stephanie’s
coming over
this evening.
Which decade
is this? Ten
pounds in one
month, rather
sadly reading
diary entires
from when I
was ‘trying’
to get over
the last big
someone. Def
inite. Rep
etition. Then
home to Sepia
and email from
Kim who says
“we’re going to
Mezzanine, hope
to see you there.”
Things to do in
the meanwhile:
learn Japanese
at City College,
elect a new
president,
shampoo,
and relax
on this
vibrant
Sunday
afternoon.
cmlxiv
PNG Alpha Transparency with MSIE vs.
Auto CEOs fly private jets to ask for bailoutThis movie pretty much confirms my transformation
into a postmodernism-hating sap. I think. But I’m
happy to be coaxed or convinced otherwise. The
whole thing so pedantic – except to say the refusal
or inability to live life to its fullest every second
(reasonably enough to continue to live to the next
second) – much less spending an entire awkward life
of unhappiness – simply does not resonate with me.
Furthermore, I fully believe you can embark upon a
“lifetime art project” (silly, tragic, or otherwise)
with mucho gusto and all the while be perfectly
capable of milking reality of every last ounce of
happiness or pleasure that is in any way available.
I’m at the Tenderloin Pakwan’s after picking up
X-Men DVD. I do like my hot pakoras. Orgy in the
steamroom today: all white guys. I just finished
Rae Armantrout’s
Veil – really got into it. Also reading
Torn Awake by Forest Gander. I promised a week
without dates – a week all to myself – but how can I reneg
on this invitation? I remain, as always, ready for someone,
anyone, to knock some sense into me. I mean I’m
not saying I couldn’t get good & well engrossed in a film
about the tragedy of never being able to do those simple things
you need to do in order to experience love & happiness & all that
if it were actually well-written.
That’s all I’m saying.
cmlxiii
How redundant a question
is “How can it be November?”
Pretty much redundant, but honestly,
here we are again? Really?
Reading Bill’s poems, checking the
telephone (occasionally), turning
the page of this year’s calendar
(
1,000 Places to See Before You
Die? Really!) – Isle of Skye,
The Inner Hebrides, Scotland.
Pausing to note a certain 20-
year-old. Tall. Smiles. Likes
sex a lot. Maggie Gyllenhaal
is awesome, I’ll learn how to
pronounce her name in a
few years. Darren at the
Café. Vincent, who
drops in for a little
entertainment on
his way to the
airport. The new
books. Serious
prospecting with
Gerrit Lansing.
April, January,
Thanksgiving.
cmlxii
Synechdoche, New York vs.
Welcome to CollinwoodI’m just sitting here waiting for
something I can get embarrassed about
as the banana on my desk turns brown,
trying not to get too worked up over a
movie everyone loved but me. Got to
show everyone the error of their ways.
Ingratiating indeed.
Not that history is bound to repeat itself.
How to relieve oneself (of selfish existence)?
Sex. Twice during the movie we don’t finish.
And once this morning as we awoke.
No worries, good spirits, have met with a
calm.
don’t be shy of unkindness /
why be afraid of hatemore O’Hara to stare me down
in the bathroom mirror at 5:10am
on a Thursday.
My favorite hour to walk the city.
cmlxi
Eerie aurora, galaxy smashups —CNN.com
It’s not just that I steal such
glorious blighted words. I
don’t know who I am and
never did, but how could I
turn down such a golden leap?
Back we go to Captain Kirk’s
boyhood; let’s join him in
giving the world the finger.
Or let’s rather be
realistic,
buy a couple bananas
so we can make it to five
o’clock and gingerly,
oh so gingerly, cross
Natoma while the Tuesday
noon alarm brings news
of day’s daydum.
Breathe it in anyway,
every rotted second of it,
dirty or not, displeasing
or not, splendid it will
always be. What foul
pleasure this, the bold
new galaxy unfolding
in front of our very arms?
Cannon to the right of me.
Cannon to the left of me.
Awkward I stride as each
ugly awning espied’s
blown well asunder,
yet our bloody entrails
ever blue and verily
intact remain – our
waxen appendages
engorged (for how
else react to each
brilliant starburst,
a carnal gift from
every last smithereen?).
cmlx
Orange is lying bleeding in my hand! —F.O.
What is your favorite color?
Mine’s yellow, as evolved from
purple and green. Otto’s is white,
which isn’t a color (debate
amongst yourselves). The
market staggers into red,
or is it black? I never
remember. I’m opaque,
or approaching same,
with no view of the
bay, absolute remorse,
pain even. Give me
a view of the city
or give me an
orange bled
blue.
Sidenote from Otto (by way of Wikipedia):
(White is a color.... )Since the impression of white is obtained by three summations of light intensity across the visible spectrum, the number of combinations of light wavelengths that produce the sensation of white is practically infinite.
cmlix
Last night,
rereading text messages,
feeling fresh
(a start),
email “enough!”
Sniffle.
Met
James. Smoked.
Watched a show.
Three episodes.
I’m okay now.
cmlviii
Blood,
that we have martinis again.
A will-o’-the-wisp naivete
shorn of its adolescence.
Something to live for,
overnight,
in the heart of Spain,
like a high score
in
Mob Wars.
cmlvii
Tears done (crybaby tears),
extension filed to the IRS,
two weeks since break-up
(number 2?), ominpresent
intimations of reconciliation.
Nowhere near as blah
as yesterday, and
there’s this fit
of confidence to boot,
swelling near to a burst.
Edward,
who lives nearby,
will never talk to me again,
yet asks me
as he’s walking
out the door:
So,
if we were to have sex,
who’d dominate?Yawn.
20 now equals
15 years younger
than me.
I see the delta.
cmlvi
...and then drink his blood.Ah, the poseur, with his
absolutely intentional
unintentionality. The
tender blister between
thumb and forefinger.
Better Luck Tomorrowby way of
Phone
Booth causing the
bang of love. Causing
strife or maybe no big deal.
Causing the upside down
kiss at various angles
on the couch.
Biting lip, say
I’ve had a wonderful evening
but this wasn’t it. —Groucho Marx
cmlv
the unrecapturable nostalgia for nostalgia —O’Hara
How early does
Taco Bell open?
And what could
make anything
I would have to
say worth the
trouble of
passing along
to you?
That didn’t say much.
Except notice how
I’ve less than subtly
twisted it all up
into a bother only
selfishly burdensome.
No trouble at all.
I reached a new low
last night. And
to add to the
festering swale
of redundancies,
I spent all morning
trying to find 2003.
It must surely have
died a good death.
cmliv
I’ve not much
more reasonable
time left to
flirt with 19 and
20 year olds.
Is that a good
enough excuse?
Very well, then,
I’m doing
research for
my next book.
cmliii
After confidence, then what?Like Frank O’Hara,
who found a way to be
proud of his penis,
I, too, had a dog named
Freckles as a child.
cmlii
I’m sawblades
working against
each other, one
misbegotten attempt
after the next,
jump-starts and
broken knees, YSL
at the de Young, a
fine coat of rain;
amnesia. I’ve
lived this moment
for months,
splitting the days
wicked smitten
with smudged ink,
staggering proof
of sexual encounters
I don’t even
remember –
the sawblades, the
rain, the Xanax,
the homosexual
subtext (fantastical
and realistical),
and wouldn’t you
know it’s a glorious
day, come together
like magic, blowing
me from one glorious
page to the next.
cmli
I think my girlfriend
actually wants to get married with me.
Sign of the times:
I now own my first pair of
prescription sunglasses.
“Whatev, Bub.”
(She’s Beelze Bub’s cousin,
for those keeping score.)
I’m less interested in
devastatingthan I am in a Calgon-esque
“Take me away!”But I do need to weigh myself
on a decent scale,
preferably while breathing
the salt air as it wafts in
from the Adriatic.
Uranus is bloated tonight;
a measured gift from the sky –
this faraway sky.
cml
April 12th, my stomach sunk
even deeper. Got the email
around 7 after running 3 miles.
Walking home, feeling good.
Immediately afterwards,
blank.
Rented
Road to Perdition,
watched half of it until
the return phone call:
“Well, you can still
love him, but obviously
that doesn’t mean you
should still be together.”
OK.
Rarely have I felt so out of place
as I did in downtown Mazatlan,
until we found the cathedral,
walked inside – like taking
a dip into a pool during
100 degree heat. Sat on a pew
near the back. Just sat there
for a few minutes. Then
got up, walked back into the
sunlight, the open arms of
Jesus (and a pope?).
With just such therapeutic
disorientation the city
becomes mine.
cmxlix
As absurd as 2,000 queens
on a ship off the waters of
Mexico (a niche market).
As absurd as going back
to work after an eight day
hiatus
(spent on a ship off the
waters of Mexico with
1,999 queens).
Which is queerer?
cmxlviii
And yet I disagree. The city
can exist if I work in my
“white shirt” at my small
desk in the dollar mark
of the city. I don’t do
dollars, I just watch them
go by, along with the
city, forming distinct,
curvy S’s up and down
the hills (no matter the
grid). All I ever wanted
was to not be bored. In
the ennui sense, that is.
Here at Gaylord, I’m
sneezing and reading
the second issue of
Pom². Last night, I
met Donovan for
sushi and a really
bad horror movie;
back in mode, loss
of libido, having
a good friend say
he’ll bend over
for me, looking
into my wallet
at a whole lot
of nothing.
cmxlvii
First words. Sashimi combination B
OR the sexy Japanese guy across the way
(with his girlfriend – or without). Find
words. Talking in the steam room
(usually a no-no, but not this time) with
a guy whose brother is a professor at MIT.
He just got back from Chicago and his
apartment is sweltering. Making notes.
At the beach with the little green bug
yesterday and then to shabu-shabu
with someone I’m madly in love with
but will never work out. This way.
First something, then something else,
like Coco crawling up into my lap
and purring like nothing but sweet
love while I read
Paterson, Book I,
Part III, pages 29 through 32. A
little shaky from a triple shot –
the sun slowly burns its way through,
10:01am Pacific Time.
cmxlvi
Take refuge in a long poem. —George Stanley
Buzz saw in the distance. The
noise of the back-up drive
picking up each new word.
Downloading pictures from
the cruise to Mexico. Dis
tracting myself from writing
by tidying up the place.
-ing, -ing, -ing.
The crack along the side
of the cylinder – mostly
empty container of
blank recordable
compact discs
(700 MB).
Just a few lines down, there’s
Write carelessly.
Hadn’t read that when I first began
but how true it is!
Thinking –
hopefully erroneously (in just some way) –
how this
can’t work.
This poem fits nicely onto one page.
But then...
there are 945 others
that do the same.
Then, then,
how repetition,
repetition...
