mdcxx

“Do you plan to use it up?”

Usefulness exceeded.  Take flying leap.

Directive (outward) or mantra (inward)

[Is the Buddha within?] at the Buddha?

Rat-tat-tat sometimes go bullets.  Two

pages in, I sigh.  Perhaps I can never

read again.  Water plants.  Pick up

quarters (off the street?  from gutters?).

Practice a soft and solemn laugh (short,

almost a chuckle).  Ever so slightly de-

press (contemplate depress) an aging

mattress (the aging mattress) that im-

prisons (eats?) dreams.  Yawn incoherently.

Wonder about dipping sauces (the lack thereof)

at Ananda Fuara.  And video monitors (the lack

thereof) picturing Sri Chinmoy (Masashi says

it’s because he’s dead now).  Pictures of him

everywhere, though.  Just none moving.  Does

television exist anymore?  Cancel subscription.

mdcxix

“When I grow up, I want to be kara’age”

Yuki steals people’s hearts.

People turn off all artichokes.

(Pleadingly) I calm myself.

Kudos to Camille.  Upstart

iPhone game competitor

gloriously stumped by

kudos.  Udon for lunch.

Udon for dinner.  Unable

to define friend.  Someone in

Category 1 (subsection 2) sends

an abundance of photographs of his

new love.  “Sexy, right?”  Of course

he’s (photo-montage’s) my type.  I’m

his (Cat1/Sub2’s) type.  We saw each

state before each minted quarter.  Found

altitude (yesterday) and altitude sickness.

There is glory in the scuffle.  ALL HA

IL pointing a finger at a loose emotion.

mdcviii

Is everything a little bit okay?  Write the pain (of/or

withdrawal).  Or into it.  Like a jetplane flies into its

business.  Something that looks up and out.  I’ll be

nude them.  (This is not your forest of typos).

Interrupt with descendent of related algorithm.  The word

underage used only as a metaphor.  A flood of friends an

open floodgate (usually only TV or cinema but Jake Shears

number onstage).  Is it the male gaze that omits Ana Matronic

or...WHO DID THIS?  [point blame; like photo and get berated

same afternoon for never looking at pictures “IT WENT UP

A MONTH AGO!!” – long pause...]....  Who is this?  Ger-

iatrics?   [pleadingly] My forest??  Resign not to empathize

with hundreds of thousands.  Negotiate birthright.  Suck on

cheese sticks (after willingly picking from a variety of perhaps

more admirably or lustworthy choices that, if you were an item

in a refrigerator, you’d most likely be: a block of cheese).  Los

Angeles, California (return address for American Express bill).

A blurb by Eileen Myles.  The remote control.  Tiny leftovers.

mdcxvii

     When mother comes to murder me I’ll be in the shower

                                                                      —Jim Behrle

My wings are tingling.  I have promised to call you.

I step in blindly.  But the phone keeps interrupting.

Text after text from the left.  Right?

Currently I feel good but I don’t know what best to do

with words.  Could it be that I want it?  This hamper

myself?  This less relevant (given the chance)?  Dust

in the wind.  All we are is a stack of books and a

long handwritten list (antique, almost) (all I am,

I mean).  And the evening and the morning were

Mazatlán.  Could somebody please tell me who I’m

talking to?  Is it the lady crossing Pine Street?  Or the

man at the drycleaners who always gives me peanuts?

I’m at a loss or am lost or am most likely just loss.

Currently I feel good.  To make me best.  A clothes

hamper in the hallway of some relevance.  A rainy

noontime.  More on this soon (given the chance).

mdcxvi

Should I update my profile to note that English is my

only language?  Should I include my cell number

in case of emergencies (or if I’d like to also receive

text messages – added bonus)?  Am I in danger of

becoming too sucked into THE NOW?  In mock

horror, I go back to cataloging my digital photographs.

I’m up to September of 2008 (oh, gay cruises!  oh, holy

Toledo!  oh, Boston baked beans and southern accents!).

Memory lane in 2,408 files (one month).  I’m on my way

to somewhere.  Thirty-one thousand two hundred and

seventy-nine postcards I’ve sent myself thus far.  In case

remembering can what?  Equal a lifetime?

mdcxv

Nothing special about your referrals.

     I couldn’t figure out poot from whiz,

     and neither could my father, or his.

                                —Albert Goldbarth

Is this really interesting?  Phone rumors?  Cavorted into a

marketing campaign designed to ready your wallet for what

might possibly be the latest in electronic biscuits some

several months into the ‘future’?  Of course it is.  This is

all too much.  But please be kind enough not to ask if I

(myself) have stood in line for each incarnation.  Have

anticipated each’s demise a few days before the

warranty dissipates (conveniently around the same time

a new incarnation appears with glorious fanfare).  Just
disregard.  Right?  What is this something new that I have

promised myself?  Do I just step into it (on it)?  Can I get

$550 in my checking account (the rent is due)?  I dunno.

I have promised.  No premeditation.  And on Friday, as I

have promised.  And I have promised.  Is there nothing

special about faith?  Are we descendents of roosters?

I eat another banana because it is in the bowl.  Something

I try to forget is still going to happen in a couple of hours.

I open a Twitter account.  I send Dean a picture from the

ceremony.  I call Mom and reinstate movie nights.  I start

a new game like Scrabble with a friend 2,000 miles away.

mdcxiv

Awesome Online Cherries

     You show me a tropical fruit and I’ll show you a cocksucker from Guatemala.

                                                                                                     —George Carlin

So this is it?

On the way to the fireworks, somewhere between the barbecue and the coffee, we

pass a sign that gloats “Enjoy erotic aquatic adventures!”  Everyone blurry from

broken glasses.

There’s music coming from the shower in a bathroom somewhere between

yoga and Diana.  I’m just over here looking at pictures dead people took.

Of me.  How to explain

it’s not the fame that I seek?  How I got where I got (I am where I am)?

To simply (directly?) say something.  To clean the bathroom, do another

penguin postcard for Kevin, purchase a tiny canvas for Otto (already

no secret).  Up at 6:15am, job interview at 10:30am.  How to be broke

and somehow ease out of financial services.  Get quarters, pay bills,

be an industry.

4th of July.  Nothing better to celebrate than a survey of George Carlin

on YouTube (extend all the way out to pre-bearded Carlin; even his

lopsided gay Native American gag a neuron-busting wonderment).

Walk to Ghirardelli Square with Otto & Erin to meet friends.  Engage.

Meet more.  Live long enough.  Finish Bill’s tiny book, taking forever.

Even the fog refuses to make an appearance.  Disappoint everyone by

leaving early—no need to stay for the fireworks.  Life is good.  If not

downright awesome (amazing).

mdcxiii

New pen.  Reading Lyn’s iteration of

Best American Poetry.  The dots that

people our lives.  The glorious futility

of intellect.  This stuff I (almost must)

stand for without learning too much.

Too much a thing.  Just as important

(or more).  Obviously something is

already here.  Someone walking a

Weimeraner.  A great poem by

Charles Bernstein.  Rotund puffs

of self-importance lemming for a

tweaked-out spotlight.  So then

what?  Do a possibility?  Almost

(almost) artist?  Be a selfish baby

or learn how to make one?  Practice

perfect (intermittent seizure)?  I

believe it is.  I ink work and work

to school.  I knit dress.  I someone

journal.  I vacate.  And did I?  Va-

cation?  For the (I think) sixth

time?  I might live a little longer

and (puff, self, cock, guff) look

back and (cringe?) (cringe?)? 

Maybe no.  Maybe no awe. 

Look back and awe.

mdcxii

     And who can square

     I want nothing at all

     with I want it all?

                 —William Corbett

No photographic memory here.

But I, too, remember the death

of the milk bottle.  Was it slower

in Arkansas?  Probably.

And Cecil, the driver of the

Wholesome Bread truck (my

mom would wave whenever our

Pinto crossed paths with his boxy

red truck).

Obviously something is already

here.  Obviously.  But what?

A Union Square Christmas tree?

An 11:20am meeting at Mont-

gomery Street Station (as Otto

heads from work to school)?

My pen running out of ink?

Love?

I believe it is.

I should be as important as

bad American poetry.  A

selfish baby on these thoughts.

Why don’t I believe in the

futility of persistence?

Then the stuff I stand for

without learning too much.

To get it out.  Names names

names, some of whom jiggle a

bell, somewhere a tiny tinkle,

but mostly....

A small hole through which

only the perfectly ignorant

can squeeze into.  And, per-

chance (AMAZEDLY), through.    

mdcxi

     It’s hunger and territory

     although we choose to call it song.

                             —Birds by Albert Goldbarth

Too full of self?  Hello!  Self too full?

And he feels I pull him away from his

family.  What do I do, wondering about

vacation, Charles Bernstein, talking on

the telephone in a knit dress?

We are poverty and war?  A

month without a newsblip

sifting cartoon sand with

blistered feet, the (pixellated?)

facade of Notre Dame as backdrop.

Stupid telescope.

I’m reading some of Bill’s Columbus Square

Journal for (I think) the sixth time.  Someone’s

walking a Weimeraner in front of me, left to

right.  Otto’s going to “hip hop.”

The world is calling out (like inocuous bird-

song: to what? to whom? to what? to whom?). 

Something is already here.  Is it intent?  Is it

intelligent?  And, if so, translatable?

Structured?  Cacaphonous?

Is it me?

mdcx

fluent in blasphemy

          —Stacy Blint

I’m drinking a latté at Borders

and I go by X.  What do I do

about this?

Are your friends bizarre, too?

mdcix

Nice Rapture

By now I am super fucked up.  My

rental car is towed, I’ve a third of a

dollar, and a day in court.  How is

anyone supposed to know if I am

the one, anyway?  And who is this

Forever?  Does he resent your

always having to know where

he is? 

Pull away from the family

that is always running

out of ink.

mdcviii

Marching beside me I felt that breast of onion!

                                                —Kenneth Koch

I’m all trying to be objective & help.  Then he tells me

he masturbated 6 times in a row last night!  Scrub floors,

clean kitchen, contact Western Digital for access to my own

server.  I’ve got Los Angeles of the mind and I keep hearing

electricity in vivid colors.  & my angels are merciless.  Nay,

ruthless!  Then I realize it’s coming from my own desk;

my electronics are against me.  In some sort of electro-

nics blow-up.  I cover my job grid and get ready to

water the plants.  The birds are downstairs and

there’s shampoo in the oven.  The birds.

My angels, the beautiful birds.

mdcvii

Perhaps I’ve kicked the illusion.

Like zonko!  Perhaps it’s all bad, all water

under the fountain.  Why worry?

I go for a walk because Nature is so almost

perfect (Camille Roy).  Donuts on Polk

Street nature.  I bone up on headaches.  Men-

tal nausea reduces depression.  I mean.  Like

Slam the door like a stomach!  Sue Rosen

said this on June 10th in 1957.  At least I

think that’s what she said.  I wasn’t there.

Suddenly, it’s so interesting to me how

anything can end with a sentence.  A

dream, a delusion, a character you

never wanted killed, Judge Judy....

I’m counting the animals in the room.

There’s a rooster on the top shelf (we’ve

a few of them; & we prefer ‘cock’), a

dinosaur next to a bunch of bunnies (from

outer space), a couple of lions (matching

bookends but on two separate bookshelves),

and Coco, nestled among the wires next to the

mega-multi-power-plug under my desk.  It’s

the middle of my 10-day birthday and I’m playing

scrabble with friends and strangers.  It’s nearly

one in the afternoon.  I have yet to shower.  I’ve a

page full of ‘to do’ items and I’m surrounded by

piles of books.  It is clearly a gorgeous day.

mdcvi

What can I say?  What’s the point of this melancholy brain fart.

Maybe I should write a poem about it.

                                                                          —Camille Roy

“Not history – fuck! – I mean our presidency – fuck! – nevermind.”

I’m too exhausted to even trail off into nothingness.  And this time it’s

politics?  Such a bummer. 

For the most part I’m still reeling from a conversation I had 2 nights ago.

Til 2:30.  He says he doesn’t know how long – no – whatever.

Sleep.  Snore.  He doesn’t know – DOWNER!

I’ve never thought of birthdays as tragic.  Perhaps I’ve killed the illusion.

mdcv

I have gotten a bit carried away with making things happen.

     Now I am bleeding,

     my mouth especially.

              —Linda Norton

But I’ve never been in a fist fight.  A rite of passage, per my

father.  An appropriate and meaningful stepping stone to

manhood.  Although I have been chased around my own apartment

by a person wielding a broomstick.  And I have... ... ... ...

Feeling ... not so good?  A little down?  I want to be able to look

hopefully at the future.  My outlook is generally on the plus side,

right?  And I live almost every moment with a metaphorical

encouraging nudge (for me and the growing number of folks I...)

and a slobbering grin.  It seems to work.  It’s incomprehensible

walking around in a cloud of negativity.

Brunch on Saturday with Chris who talks about attending a fight recently

in Thailand.  Kids.  Talking about what a bloody mess it was (I picture

cockfighting, a ‘sport’ to which an uncle of mine has considerably

given.  Kevin Hurley, a classmate from 1st thru 12th grade, who committed

suicide some time ago, and some guy I forget, stirring up a whole lot of dust

behind the Circle M at lunch break back in high school.  My father’s eyes glued

to Muhammad Ali on television.  Tying a tooth to a doorknob and slamming the

door just to get the damned thing out of my mouth.)....

The mouth of a penitent liar.

I’m sorry.  These limbs forget the bloodshed they’ve caused.  Stupid limbs.  Brilliant

limbs.  Whichever the case, I will not be blind.  War is inevitable.  It’s a lousy day. 

I still hope for tomorrow.

mdciv

Fog leather?

No, something more serious

than that.  Only serious is serious;

it’s all I seem to know any more.

I have already forgotten the day before

yesterday (haircut, check between sheafs of

paper for important but secret information),

close out the rest of the world.

     btw, are we txting?

     bc u never responded to my txt

The world is un-close-out-able.  The coils in my

neck tighten to reduce my line of sight but a pair of eyes

has already emerged behind my ears.  My filters are

inadequate, to say the least.

mdciii

...but when a hurricane blows into town you don’t

notice the breeze any longer, does it even exist?

                                                    —Kevin Killian

Ensconced in Schuyler letters.  Something in me

I can’t quite let out (envision mystery steam).  A

block away something fantastic is happening.

Otto says he loves days like these, he closes his eyes

to the cool breeze and imagines he’s flying.  We’re

walking up the hill from Woody Allen who is

taunting us with namedropping and literary trivia

designed to both skewer and embrace the

bourgeoisie.  He never catches up with us.

We’re discussing inevitability.  I mean infidelity.

In the future I won’t watch Nip / Tuck but instead

Battlestar Gallactica.  I wait months between

each of the last several episodes, not wanting to

finish.  Later, I chat with my aunt in Missouri.

She’s pacing in front of a storm cellar watching

wood fall from the sky (and reporting such via

status update).  A few miles from her, Joplin gets

blown away.  Back in outer space, where weather

doesn’t exist, we’re discussing irreconcilible.

And Indonesia.  The funeral full of women

with whom he’d been ‘unfaithful’ (was this

my father or a movie?) and crying buckets

(which is what we’re doing presently at

Cafe Mason).  The super sexy Italian waiter

still works here, I think.  I call the other

Larry to wish him a happy 25th birthday.

My hand and fingers feel crampy as I

stare at a bottle of wine.  I concur, it’s

nice weather we’re having.  I don’t fly,

but just sort of lean into the cool breeze.

mdcii

Then why do I write stories like eroded holes?

                                                  —Camille Roy

Sometimes it’s all about the context.  Other times

it’s all about the game.  Either way, biography

is always fiction.  Each composite mask is, naturally,

impossible to control or to define, particularly by its

adorner, its “owner” (its purported “creator”).  This is

not only eureka but religion (I speak personally, through

the holes in my own).  If HONESTY is the utmost (yet

impossible) goal, we can gush (with humility!) at

each step forward, each tiny evolution toward the

(unachievable) reconciliation of our red interiors with

our visible exteriors.  My truth is a shambles (a scene

or condition of complete disorder or ruin; a great clutter

or jumble; a total mess; a slaughterhouse).  Truth can be

proactively discovered, can be accidentally stumbled upon,

can be purchased for a sum, can arrive piped innocuously

through a soundsystem in a mall or a building elevator,

can be thrown at you with the intention to cause injury,

can breathe heavily at you during a suspenseful dream,

can be delivered by a mailman, or can land on your

shoulder like a bird – can comfort you or freak you out.

No delivery method should be judged harshly.  This is a

nerve-clustered masquerade.  Awareness is imperative.

Soundly seek the holes in your environment (it’s good

practice to vary your settings with an over-achieving

frequency); approach each with equal amounts of

caution and optimism, pausing to experience its

vibration (a hole’s ‘fingerprint,’ if you will).

mdci

I read everyone’s twitter and felt so connected

                                                       —Jim Behrle

What are you derived from?  What derives you?

I don’t joke with strangers anymore.  Except about

Jennifer Lopez.  To whom I’m now deeply indebted.

I’m feeling giddy.  I do write.  Sitting in front of $50.

U2 album in boarded Borders still reverberates (a

storyboard for a final class project).  Daydreaming

the wired charm of inelegant disclosure while

looking out at the big Christmas tree in Union

Square.  I’m reading Iduna insufficiently lit,

thinking of kari on my couch, a housewarming

on Bush Street.  Determine when unemployment

ends, laundry, water plants, sunglasses for the L.A.

trip.  Losing two pairs of prescription sunglasses

in one week.  I keep broaching the subject (in-

elegantly, insecurely) that is the false victim of

our loudnesses.  A blanket of silence, very Zen.

An earnest desparation ensues, becomes louder

lies or mumbled nothingnesses.  A conversation

with the California Street sidewalk stippled with

unintentional vibrato (tragedic, operatic).  Wreaked

by uncontrollable shivers, a body heaves such a

melody.  Tomorrow, the calm swans of Boston.

mdc

I Mean It

The urgent violence that is honesty

calls me out of a long nap, like a

cat smashed between a row of books

and a wall.  If one describes oneself as

charming?  And then ducks back into a

hut, pencils I’m so frightened of losing?

I used to be sober when I was serious.

The mental capacity to stomach en-

joyment.

That was wild.  Slowly I take each

book out of the bag, stack them on

the table, become a person who wants to

hide his true self.

Nothing is the right way.  Just a smile

to enjoy.  The delight of a mustache

over a drink of cool water.  Shopping

for groceries (frightened of losing).

It’s a shame, this grasping of my red

interior.  Nobody’s mouth to put a

finger on (to shush).  What’s a list for,

anyway?

I appreciate a residential neighborhood

I can call my own.  The ironic beauty of

certain vandalisms.  A capacity for with-

holding evidence.  The smell of a

freshly mown lawn.

It was a narrow escape.  We clutch our

hearts.  Enjoy the walk.  Enjoy the ride.