Category: Prose Poems

In February

IIIII

I sat on the couch with a little dog pressed against me as she sighed and licked and twitched and ran and slept and stretched. I can hear the clanking of the ships in the marina in my memory. I feel like I’m going in three directions and locked in place. I am enjoying a small glass of dragon well. I am trying to log out of certain sites as a means of slowing the waste. I hear the wind and check the weather app. I want to be honest, to a point. I want to play Skyrim rather than read The Satyricon. I see the Canterbury Tales hasn’t moved. I love a Sailor nib. I have checked my email, even though I didn’t want to. I think there are things I’d like to say to you that I’d instantly regret. I instantly regret and then again and again throughout eternity and back and back. I think I need more projects or fewer projects or different projects. I enjoy the afternoon light unless I’m trying to watch TV. I can hardly bear the profundity of my many sagacious remarks. I was listening for it for a long time. I am pleased that that anger has so far not consumed me as it seemed it might. I may give up trying to find the right word. I feel a sensation like warm jelly gently jiggling as it cools near this chakra. I’m surprised by how terrible and beautiful my handwriting can be. I suppose that goes for most things. I suppose I should do something about it. I think it feels accurate and like a cheat. I wonder if this project has reached its conclusion. I wonder if it will ever find its true and needed form. I was thinking of calling it I, ai ai, but thought that might either seem silly or pretentious, but we’ll see. I wouldn’t say yes, even if she found a way to be nice about it. I know I’m to blame as well but I won’t say that publicly right now. I am prepared to go without for much longer than you would guess. I got used to having no one and now I feel suspicious of every face. I don’t know how much longer I can. I am sure I’ve said this before. I’m running out of steam, and enriched uranium, but I have plenty of dark matter. I wanted to buy that Hello Kitty fountain pen, but I cannot understand why. I suppose the minutiae of one life could be enough to build some kind of something or whatever. I think the dog only wanted some company this morning. I wonder if I’m just writing down my stray thoughts rather than building a poem. I was thinking of the Lords of Death and how they triumph and how the twins defeat them. I suppose we will never know since all those priceless works were destroyed by our idiot ancestors. I imagine they will say the same thing of us in a few hundred thousand years if we run into some very good luck.

June 21, 2025

afternoon, Canterbury, couch, dog, dragon well, february, fountain pen, Hello Kitty, Lords of Death, marina, memory, nib, Sailor, Satyricon, ships, Skyrim, tea, weather, wind
In February

IIII

I close the door to bring the silence closer. I’m so fucking poetic. I’m trying to remember to call my sister later. I am trying to discover the best way to brew this tea. I have a pinching sensation in my left shoulder. I wonder if sitting and writing like this will be comfortable after 10 minutes. I think I have been figuring things out. I really wanted to use the old safety pen, but the ink bleeds through this cheap paper. I once really loved a Moleskine. I had a feeling that there should have been a final e, but I have corrected that and the reader will never know. I remember that e in Japanese means a painting or paintings. I wonder if this sense of tiredness could successfully be rebranded as quietude or some such. I think I’ll need new glasses soon. I feel fairly happy with a fair few of my sonnets. I can hear my neighbor sneezing on the other side of the wall. I think I’ll move to the couch. I was wondering about my need to generate rules. I brush the backs of my teeth for 30 seconds then switch to the front for 30 seconds then repeat one more round of each for a total of two minutes. I’m feeling very warm. I started to wonder where that fire and surrealistic vigor has gone is it sleeping or one more thing that only I enjoy. I am constantly taping myself into a box and trying to break out then crying over the ruins. I think of poor Waldo Jeffries. I think that was on White Light/White Heat. I used to know this like it was my job. I certainly don’t miss that job. I like the warm light from this lamp that we had sent from Australia after my father-in-law passed. I like the cold light from the tiny gooseneck lamp in the other corner, which reminds me in a small way of a big fluorescent desk lamp I had in the late 80s. I feel so old referencing stuff from those dark days. I would sometimes love to believe in a hell for some folks, but it’s all or nothing. I can’t believe I’m hungry already, though I don’t know what time it is. I want to read the news, but I can feel the waves of no already surging. I think I’ve had this before. I want to know if you can look for so long that the door opens and the mirror flips and you fall in love with the world because you finally see the two of you are literally the same. I worry that this is poetic nonsense. I worry that all my meditation, checking in, journaling, etc., are simply variations on sucking my thumb. I think that may be too far unless it isn’t. I think the thing would be to write this live with cameras pointed at the faces in the crowd so we could tabulate and adjust in real time. I wonder if this is all a way to overwrite the memory of showing mom a poem when I was 13 and she looks as the speaker rushes through sharp, close dangers, and, on the many spears of the trap of the last lines, is impaled, and dies, smiling, and that’s nice dear.

June 20, 2025

Australia, box, camera, couch, door, february, ink, lamp, mother, news, painting, poem, rules, safety pen, shoulder, sister, Sonnet, teeth, Waldo Jeffries
In February

III

I am afraid I have missed my shot. I’m thinking of whiskey or maybe mezcal. I admire the white jellyfish on the nib when I pause. I wonder if this is any better than what I was writing in high school. I find the tea too bitter and nearly cold. I try to wait as long as I can before the evening entertainments. I think about looking for a proper job with a 401(k) and all that and feel the concrete coconut slip and grate farther down my gut. I find it harder and harder to imagine a future in which I want to participate though I know my imagination is part of the problem. I wonder how many minutes the dog spends licking various parts on average during an average day. I wonder what I will make for lunch since disposing of the suspicious stir-fry leftovers. I wonder how many days I should do this. I’m aiming for Midwinter Lite rather than Maximus Junior. I find it slightly irritating how the paper slightly curls when I try to write in this notebook on top of this notebook on top of a pillow that rests on my lap. I do like the size of this notebook, the paper one, which is more or less the size of ones I used in college but much thinner. I don’t know why any of that seemed relevant. I’m not really sure how to judge. I’m concerned this may start to sound too similar to itself. I want to add fire. I just watched the episode of The X-Files called Fire which starred an actor I almost didn’t recognize because he was so young. I remember him from an episode of Firefly and Doctor Who as well. I have been enjoying The X-Files and Twin Peaks and Farscape. I worry that I’m falling into the poison idiot quicksand of nostalgia. I desperately want new toys. I wonder if I worry too much or not enough. I just sent the wife a picture of the pooch. I tried to record her snoring, but the beauty was far too subtle for these coarse machines. I wonder when the delivery will get here. I worry about my wife when she goes out to meet friends and the weather is less than perfect, which is how I was raised. I think my parents must have made themselves sick with my sister and then my own rebellions. I think I must be a late bloomer, but perhaps my sister is just faster than me with certain things. I can dish it out but I can’t take it. I remember finding a bit of poop on the carpet that was swirled with green and brown and red. I mean the carpet. I feel as though I was eating a sloppy joe and a pellet of joe slipped out and that is when I discovered the poop and why I never liked sloppy joes. I’m not sure if this is conflating two memories. I’m pretty sure it happened. I can see certain aspects of the home in my memory, but it swirls and is liable to be unstable. I think of the poetics of space and maybe I should try to read that again. I remember enjoying what I read, but it’s something you have to approach with plenty of time and patience. I already feel quite hungry and it’s only a quarter past ten. I recall the line time is an illusion lunchtime doubly so, but have to look it up to get it right.

June 19, 2025

coconut, Doctor Who, dog, Farscape, february, friends, imagination, lunch, Maximus, mexcal, midwinter, poop, sloppy joe, tea, Twin Peaks, whisky, wife, X-Files
In February

II

I am still tired and hungry and thinking about the sea. I mean tea. I am coming and going. I’m thinking of buying that pen. I am scratching my head. I was thinking about the dog who wandered into our yard and stayed two days four decades ago and we bought canned food and a box of Milk-Bones. I was writing about the past before. I was trying to put the jigsaw puzzle together in the dark with my hands battered and tender. I’m making up a few things and being honest about others, but that hardly matters. I’m thinking of Canterbury again, though we’re not a week into February. I wonder if it’s too late to bake a sweet potato. I watch the dog’s little rise and sink rise and sink the sun shading one side on the blanket her new toy by her head. I was thinking of a friend who used to live nearby. I hear the wind tour the chimney and out around the yard and back and watch the bare limbs of the locust try to scratch where they can’t quite reach. I’m thinking of Neil Gaiman again and I want to read the Vulture article and at the same time I’ve already heard too much and someone said can we expect the guy who writes creepy stories not to be creepy. I wonder if he thought of it as a kind of bastard research or as oh why bother with this. I really liked the few things I read and don’t know if I’ll ever read what I haven’t. I am tired of news like this and at the same time pleased people are speaking up whether or not folks I like get flushed. I thought of that song towards the end of Joe’s Garage he was such a nice boy he used to cut my grass or something like that. I fear I am falling into prose. I feel a certain energy rarely. I see shadows out of the corner of my eye wriggle and escape. I am second cousin to snow and icicle. I am half of what I once was and twice as something as I may have been or something. I think I should delete my Facebook account. I want to be familiar with GBV’s entire catalog but I’m already 50 and I’m not sure if I have the time. I am dissolving in abstraction and thinking of graham crackers and chunky peanut butter and maybe I’ll do more stretching, but maybe first more tea. I feel as though I’m hypnotizing myself. I wonder if that dream machine works. I think a somnolent mind might be somewhat more prone to an hallucinatory stimulus. I think that line sounds best in a quite post accent. I would like to rest my hand. I am worried that I won’t be able to something in the morning. I wonder why we never swim in the ocean. I would love to feel the enthusiasm I once felt for a variety of people, places, and miscellaneous whatnot. I would like to remember in a clear way unimpeded by the meddling mind unmolested by ego. I would write it down in a little book, once edited. I think it could be the inverse of Pandora’s jar. I hope you look it up. I will continue and try to say good.

June 18, 2025

Canterbury, february, icicle, Joe’s Garage, Milk-Bones, ocean, Pandora, peanut butter, sea, snow, tea, Vulture
In February

I

I am a little tired. I am halfway through this cup of tea as the next one cools. I am falling into daydreams. I am mad. I am really pissed off sometimes. I am searching the past. I am looking away from the future. I am already tired of this idea. I enjoy thinking myself an explorer of inner worlds. I have always been blue-black and green and orange and sometimes purple and largely red though in a small way. I used to think it might be with those folks and then sometimes the opposite. I am tickled and transformed by Ovid as always. I am gulping tea and moving on to cup two. I am feeling a pain in my back. I am pleased after only a quarter of a page this old pen feels like my finger leaking purple ink. I am a servant of the Secret Fire. I’m not sure if I mentioned that. I hear the wife open the fridge on the floor below and maybe I’ll call her Persephone but then who am I painting myself as. I thought I could be Hermes once, and yes we all know how intelligent you are and yes, you mentioned memory for trivia isn’t the same as intelligence and yes, you said trivia originally meant a crossroads and is associated with the various gods who loiter there blessed be their comings and goings. I’m looking up trivia on Wikipedia. I feel a pain in my toe and hear the neighbors on creaky stairs. I am trying. I am trying to remember what else I wanted to write. I am a wet fart. I am a defective salamander. I am a failed alchemist a ruined poet a lazy fuck a terrible true singer a reluctant pervert a secret squirrel enthusiast a sad sesquipedalian solipsist a collector of pens and tea bowls and bad memories. I am running out of steam. I am losing faith except in my time running out. I am really impressed with the ink capacity. Waterman really knew how to make beautiful simple precise pens 100 or so years ago and what was that. I am hoping you will excuse my handwriting. I got a second idea halfway through a word and bred involuntary monsters. I’m sure that’s none of my business. I am too small to succeed. I am the stone in the maze beneath your heel. I am singing in the shower, but so softly. I’m thinking about the nymph and the passionate shepherd. I wonder if it really was a nymph or if I misremembered. I’m grateful that I picked up a pen today and practiced drawing by copying one of Timm’s Cat Girls and a naked Vampira or is it Vampirella. I will look it up later. I hope to find things to celebrate. I hope I can drop maybe five more pounds. I hope I can buy less liquor in the future. I hope that I will find my people once again. I will try to wrap this up. I am glad the wind has died down. I’m thinking of Bernadette Mayer on this day one day after Groundhog Day in the year of the wood snake in the year of our great confusion 2025.

June 17, 2025

Bernadette Mayer, february, finger, Groundhog Day, Hermes, inner worlds, nymph, ovid, Persephone, shepherd, tea, trivia
a little thread through pine scent and leaf mould between bird call insect chitter it smelled so nice I followed without a thought hungering curving through oak and maple hills and hollows and almost so many times but slowly it got thicker more sure effortless and then this small tree with little stretched globes clustering on heavy branches nearly thick as cells in the hive and soon I found the one that was calling and on the underside I saw a small opening it was so hard but I squeezed squeezed I felt something snap pop but I was home

December 11, 2024

bird, chitter, hive, home, insect, maple, oak
It’s not as hard as you may imagine or have heard. Don’t believe what you’ve read. Have plenty of ice on hand. Take your time. Start on either side. Numb the top as much as possible then push it through, inside to outside. Next, do the same on the lower half when it’s sufficiently numbed. Slowly work your way up and down until you’re at the other end. Remember why this is so necessary. Remember what you are giving up. It’s hard to predict how people may respond. The thread should be black or red, but this is less important.

October 25, 2024

ice, thread
I want to tell it as honestly as I can. They were all masks. The indecipherable cartoons. The levitation. Phrases plucked from a radio in an abandoned car. Trying to appear simple to hide a different simplicity. New Ugaritic hymns on vintage clay. It all fed some demon that fed me unfortunate moods. Quasimodo as Beckett playing Don Quixote with a shard of glass in his or just K. Kat singing to the mittens the moment before the impact of love gee aren’t images grand?

Though immobilized by what those thoughts might and whether they could be liked loved subscribed to at midnight this pen becomes a pin when the free preview expires but I have groundhog burrows to inspect and potatoes to prepare, which brings me back to, and by which I hope to prove, once and for almost all, in the fullness of, and we’ll see how it goes. But soon the orange smear of our star glittering just slow enough out of this restless salt and then

August 30, 2024

beckett, car, cartoons, don quixote, groundhog, levitation, masks, potatoes, quasimodo, radio, salt, simplicity, star, thoughts, ugaritic hymns, vintage clay
if/then promotional notions for Fragment

If you’ve ever looked up the name of a wildflower, or fallen asleep listing the names of the wildflowers in the park by the water, this book may be for you.

If you have look into the distance, closed one eye, opened it, closed the other, and so on, to inspect the jump of stop-motion perspectives, you may understand.

If you look kindly on squirrels and their acrobatics and wished one of them could write poetry, this is definitely for you.

Just be careful, this one has teeth.

May 20, 2024
Fragment 71

to keep my optimism fueled for this thing. I still can’t tell if it’s working or not or if it ever will, but can you

it’s not the worst assignment you’ll get just wait until your task is repeatedly plucking the legs of various cicada from the gaps between their rotting teeth you’ll want to go back to blatantly secreting soil from the fingernails of fresh corpses before those hoards encircle the city once more fulfilling the prophecies that

really judge that standing in the middle of it? I’m still not sleeping very well. I think I might have to go back to journaling

wafted from the mouth of a lost puppet by way of the museums of mice who have feasted on the rusted flesh of a half-eaten apple in the dust of a reluctant decision gnawed on for twenty years which is whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the bland job I neither hate nor love or bow to the boughs of trees the crowded subway the bass line of a new song deified in the sun-symphony of her hair her smile but can worn images steer worse to better the cards show no numbers no suits just your reflection in the mirror across the street beyond the sparse forest with darkness closing in to sleep

before bed. I did do an extra half hour of meditation last night and I think that did help me get to sleep. But then it was so hot in the bedroom that I was sort of tossing and turning a lot. And I think M was feeling the same.

softly beneath the black warmth of the legs of your horse the river talks loudly tonight and through its nature imparts a restless feeling to those who love to be astonished so we may once again make a claim on the portion of the kingdom we believe is our birthright but the verification process is tedious and it’s more often the other way around grasp it too tightly and it shatters cuts your hand and everyone at the party looks and I bought so many things that had to be indexed labeled filed maintained to feel some emotion in regards to consumer accessories my skin was getting better but yet it was not enough I could say that my plan was not quite world domination though I knew what I would have to do but one day the mountain carked

and ran through what was left of the town the people stood by as they had for so many generations and I felt the wind on the sand on my thighs looking for an escape well I might be busy that evening but we’ll see it doesn’t sound enticing but I can’t say that to him you know how sensitive he is about these things and it’s only now that he has found the tools with which to deconstruct the various elements that form afterward instead of watching the snowball

April 19, 2024

bed, cards, cicada, corpses, fragment, horse, job, legs, meditation, mountain, mouth, puppet, river, snowball, soil, song, symphony, teeth, thighs
Fragment 58

should look at the NaNoWriMo project

for years so one day you may enjoy the feel of it in your pocket I suppose that’s the story isn’t it in some city of broken shells and unavoidable night work

and see what I feel about it

perfecting songs of pain gargling with gravel and when they wake the tender young ones scatter to the traditional winds

because of course I’m having some

though of course this is plucked from moldering magazines I found in the abandoned shack I can’t say whether or not we are quite so cruel today why do you ask oh I see that’s a fair point and maybe

doubts. I have been enjoying

you’re right my catchphrase could use some polishing

forcing myself to write more than usual

but in some tree is the bird that will steal back my girl

though. And there is a part of me

as it tangles its talons in her dark hair and we all laugh over the situation like in a commercial

that wants to see it through

hawking a subscription to an ulcerative colitis treatment but that won’t keep us for long

to the end. And there’s also

so let’s pretend we’ve done all that and go on alone we’ve had quite enough of that thank you very much so let’s enjoy these pastries and take an experimental drive through the local green I’m sure it will do us some good to get out of the theoretical and have

that part of me that wants

the warm ground beneath us no that’s not an analogy for whatever you have in your back pocket though those pants leave little to what little imagination I have

to have already given up and moved

that’s not crowded with ghosts demons blimps goblins wraiths widgets rebates succubi incubi gorging chupacabras mini pastries vampire guarantees windy and crypto boys kappa trolls blind meddlers not to mention

on to other things. I mean,

undigested bits of last year’s and last decade’s forced and corporate-mandated merriments and yes though it sounds and is tiring typically there will be half a moment in which

I feel bad that I haven’t really touched

you can run out the door into your shiny metal cube and disappear

into the clouds as is the style these days which of course implies

the sonnets in a while and

but let’s pause there and instead try to look sweetly upon them

I haven’t looked at my haiku. But I suppose

I can tell you they cherish the feeling of an insect crawling through their hair not that that detail matters I just fell in love with their elaborate vocabulary for describing these hirsute hijinks so perhaps it’s better to

you have to what? I guess I

investigate first and take a furtive shower later as they say then we can finally return those socks that were supposed to cure our bunions no I didn’t have hopes as high as I had hoped

April 12, 2024

bird, blimps, chupacabra, demons, fragment, ghosts, goblins, gravel, hair, incubi, insect, NaNoWriMo, pocket, shells, succubi, talons, tree, ulcerative colitis, widgets, wraiths
Fragment 35

wanted. And I wanted all
the toys. There was always
some commercial or catalog

base of this house here you see where the original foundation was laid and this line is where builders had some kind of cozy dream 100 to 150 years later or it may have been a fire or perhaps something we have no language for or understanding of and so if you look and keep looking we can steadily unravel how the building grew from egg to newt through adolescence to senescence not of course quite the same as looking at an old tree its dependable circles always circling but perhaps like a person in that we do sometimes grab

that would feed my greed for
new garbage. And even if I had gotten
all of it, would I have felt any better? I think we

hold to the love of a season and bolt it on to ourselves hoping it might give us another internal closet a bigger bathroom a better view past those irritating neighbors from a tastefully ornate balcony but we also need to be aware of what we’re building towards and what our foundations are made of but yes maybe it would be simpler to keep the trees in mind and start the whole thing over from the roots or look at the growth of a quartz crystal if it’s a particularly dark day with some drizzle in which you want to

know the answer. And then I think,
in the past, when I’ve gotten something
I had desperately wanted the excitement

feel a bit of brightness at your core the feeling that you too could become someone on your chosen stage and when you speak people drop their phones and look in your direction maybe our example needs a quantum of precision in order to neatly fit in the hole left by the puzzle pieces whose homes we have already discovered the right void needs the right bit of the garden shed and that tiny edge of cloud that makes it pop and the deeper green of the grass in the background however we must start here in the mottled foreground

wore off quickly. So I don’t know that I can blame
my childhood. Maybe this is the way I’m built

where we stand and the simplest way to go about is sometimes all we need I think well no one likes a know-it-all and that fact has led to irreparable wounds and bruises yes all self-inflicted but what is it that you fear some unkind remark or the sound of nothing who can blame you but somehow we have to find a way to keep letting the world know that we’re here and still waiting for the secondary elaboration as promised in several recent communications so can we touch base on that first thing Monday morning please and thank you

or programmed or whatever. But no
matter what the cause, I have to face
and come to terms with it.

[And click here if you’d like to take the plunge.]

April 10, 2024

balcony, bathroom, bruises, crystal, dream, fragment, house, mind, monday, neighbors, newt, puzzle, toys, trees
Fragment 23

I want to take a break and I think that helps. One thing that’s been irritating me this week is a case of cracked lips.

why do you ask oh I see well yes that’s fair maybe that should be my catchphrase but in that tree no that one over there you’ll see the bird that stole a jewel from your hair you assumed you’d never see him again but that tiny hat is unmistakeable unless things have taken another strange turn in the woods I suppose nothing would be too surprising these days but you’re right we should pretend not to see him we don’t want any trouble this forenoon so here we come to the stone ruin the information plaque is badly faded

I think they got chapped or maybe sunburned? I can trace it to when we were eating outside at Valencia last weekend. I had the sun on my face for the whole meal. I don’t know if that’s what did it but that was the last time I remember not

but we can make out a date from the last century and something about a fire and a great experiment that’s mostly the story of all of our lives isn’t it if only there were something steady to stand on instead of these slimy rocks but then beneath they work day and night perfecting pestos and symphonies guarding eggs and their tender young they scatter when the rock is lifted though I know we won’t do anything quite so cruel today will we I can see that glint in your eye when you’ve had your last cup of tea and

the dog is curled up snoring beside you when the world seems a word of calm between breaths and pick up your book while we wait for the apocalypse that is taking its sweet time think of that person whose death will give you wings but if we don’t find that inspiring perhaps we can review the correct pronunciations of the latest drugs and open that box they asked us to keep safe and sealed what’s the worst that could happen of course it’s just a slight song from the dinky walnut deep inside your brain or deep inside the

forest which is the analogy we’ll use for your mind brain included at no cost though skip the extended warranty if you oh you have money to burn well burn away who am I to stop you I just feel so tired so unable to there comes a time when you think perhaps the rotten floorboards should be replaced before we lose another guest in a sudden collapse and have to clean the carpets yet again I know we should have dealt with it centuries ago but time being what it is and our hands what they are the moment

having a problem with my lips. I’ve tried to use some lip balm a few times but I don’t know how much that really helps.

[And click here if you’d like to take the plunge.]

April 5, 2024

bird, dog, forest, fragment, hair, jewel, lips, rocks, ruin, tea, tree, valencia, wings
Fragment

I’m very excited to announce that my latest book, Fragment, is available! I hope you all take a chance on this collection of little poems in a trench coat trying to pass itself off as a novel.

April 3, 2024

fragment
I’ve been cutting, editing, re-editing, cutting some more, massaging, threatening, coddling, encouraging, &c. this book I’ve been working on.

We’ve both been through a lot.

But I think we’re getting there.

Anyway, here’s a chunk of it…

we imagine our selves as rushing through though these crumbled things need their own slow time as a plant in a pot but in the forest from the slipperiest slime mold to the always hungry deer to the most sturdy studious generous genial old oak and all the families it supports the water that runs off the leaves through tiny rivulets rolling down over rocks and aerial roots to river arms and off out of our little story where I feel a need to prod and poke make my fingers dirty cutting and clipping grafting fertilizing in a place like

this self-publishing business is that you’re so alone. But I guess that’s true no matter what kind of writing or whatever you try. All the same, it is lonely and that isolation sometimes makes one doubt the whole endeavor and more. That said, I do believe in the work, though

this and for a purpose I should not speak about openly like digging up a seedling to check its progress let’s hope that the ground in me is fed well enough and that the wildflowers weeds and insects flowing up and out know to dance when the time is right for the red orange yellow paisley beach towel that’s now a blanket for the dog in bright autumn sun the breeze still with warmth rummages though the kitchen where pickles bubble to the front door where mail waits to be recycled the little table with keys dog bags and other

things to grab before one leaves next to the bench for shoes near the stairs where we hung two scrolls from Kyoto two tiny paintings from Queensland and two astronomical prints outside the bathroom which was recently redone and the tour continues upstairs but not into our bedroom where we have three walnuts carved with dozens of very small Buddhas and a somewhat dusty singing bowl the little nightstands we bought years and many apartments ago in the reclaimed furniture shop that closed down during the middle height of the pandemic did I manage to answer your question that time

sometimes I feel I’m still hammering out a voice and style. With my previous stream of consciousness prose poems, I’ve enjoyed writing them, but I’m not sure if anyone else was really interested. But I am intrigued by the possibilities of the form and sometimes it surprises me. The way

we followed him without a thought without a word despite the cold air and our unsuitably thin pants what else could we do the song he sang moved our feet swayed the trees the very stones but no that’s too much up and down and down and up through rocky mountainside the long way around skirting the boggy pond collecting the colors of leaves the tiny mushrooms on fallen trees despite the fragrant muck densely gathered on our shoes his song’s long melodies and intricate yet easy phrases remained pure in our unworthy ears as the stars swam before us

February 16, 2024

fragment
Here’s a very happy Friday excerpt from Fragment…

would lead you to believe I do appreciate it all and other times I can manage a laugh that wiggles out from under tons of earth in which I tried to dance but perhaps soon I can emerge though the soil is cool and cruel though maybe I’ll stay here with the low rumble of worms and voles in my ears and make a home no matter what they dump on top of me or how the plates collide one day this dump could be a mountain range higher than the Himalayas with me pressed between an ancient deli meat

November 10, 2023

deli meat, earth, fragment, himalayas, laugh, mountain, plates, voles, worms
Here’s another section from Fragment…

and our time is up so please throw the book mark away and reabsorb the book the queue for rebriefing will be on your right and the airlock two doors down on the left and you may enter there if you have the proper stamp but no we haven’t always been so formal you know back when the place was run by the gazelles there were trees growing in all the courtyards and curious snakes and lemurs feasting on the various fruits that dropped all year round while we learned the vocabulary if not the grammar of the mighty river

November 3, 2023

airlock, book, fragment, fruit, gazelles, grammar, lemurs, river, stamp, trees, vocabulary
A special Samhain section of Fragment…

it’s certainly not the worst assignment you’ll ever get just wait until they ask you to pluck the legs of another cicada from between their teeth you’ll want to go back to using a toothpick to dislodge the dirt from the fingernails of our fresh corpses and find a way to harness that moisture before the reluctant clouds encircle the city once more as they slowly waft from the mouth of a lost puppet by way of the mouths of several mice who had feasted on the rusted flesh of a half-eaten apple in the dust of a reluctant decision

October 31, 2023

apple, cicada, city, clouds, corpses, fragment, mice, moisture, mouth, puppet, teeth, toothpick
One section of Fragment, an upcoming work.

for you they reluctantly offer a handful of change and assume your bones are their bones but that time is running out or so we have foretold in our heated meetings behind the Dairy Queen scooping frozen sweetness from a disposable cup while we smirk and cheer ourselves on in plans that don’t have a Y’s chance in an X’s Z to come to anything but sometimes the planning is enough sometimes that’s where you find out who your true co-conspirators are and who the moles might be of course we’ve never actually skinned one as our newsletter heavily implies

October 27, 2023

bones, conspirator, dairy queen, fragment, mole, newsletter, plan, time
Here’s an excerpt from my upcoming book-length prose poem travel essay surrealistic self-consuming self-creating experimental nonsense-adjacent work Fragment:

for you they reluctantly offer a handful of change and assume your bones are their bones but that time is running out or so we have foretold in our heated meetings behind the Dairy Queen scooping frozen sweetness from a disposable cup while we smirk and cheer ourselves on in plans that don’t have a Y’s chance in an X’s Z to come to anything but sometimes the planning is enough sometimes that’s where you find out who your true co-conspirators are and who the moles might be of course we’ve never actually skinned one as our newsletter heavily implies

October 21, 2023
early evening early in the death thinking about death all day the video game deaths I played the music death all the death TV shows the same even if they try to death it my back still sore but better death than the dog deaths her new toy

and no I never did get around to that I gave up on connection and went down paths they warned me about to make blurred photocopies of those same mistakes my hands stumbling fat then thin leaves fell and grew the early sun in winter faithfully rendered in Minecraft reddened the tips of things in a neighborhood or that or this heavy frenemy in my chest sometimes makes his strange will speak

May 26, 2023

back, death, dog, evening, frenemy, minecraft, mistakes, music, sun, toy, tv, video game
do I admit shamefully sheepishly that I love the stream of music video podcast my phone tablet computer can provide the immersion in old loves missed opportunities new lush lands to be lost in but why not what’s better for those of us who lose the thread so quickly what was that Pavement tune that Philip glass bit I love but maybe I’m getting too Prozac I mean prosaic I think maybe now anyway all the hints can drive you mad you think they’re heading somewhere but one turn around the lake and we’re back at the front door unkissed

January 3, 2023

computer, door, hints, lake, loves, music, opportunities, pavement, Philip Glass, phone, podcast, Prozac, tablet, thread, video
I am a dog walker I am cooking beans I am the misprint in the formula I am heavy snow at night the scrape of the plow I am bored and ashamed of my boredom I am eating cashews pecans sunflower seeds I am a deer of seven tines I am the sluggish pulse I am a new sound in the deep forest just once I am an empty bag of highly flavored corn chips by the off ramp I am the mistake that leads to greatness I am a wave breaking on dark rock I am a wave breaking on sand

September 5, 2022

beans, boredom, cashews, corn chips, deer, dog, forest, formula, misprint, pecans, plow, pulse, rock, sand, snow, sound, sunflower seeds, tines
Weekend in PA

Broad Street Market Harrisburg

Amazon FedEx Ground Crispy Chicken Strips Mazda Subaru Chevy Hyundai UPS day lilies widening the highway tree stumps deer on its side judging mind Ford Tesla Rocky Mountain Chocolate Toyota traffic slow for no seen reason sedan SUV truck sedan sedan SUV I’m a lucky man to live in my building SUV SUV truck tired left turn off the highway narrow streets crawl for parking low-grade worry red brick humid cigarette scent black raspberries cherries fat ginger root sunflower seeds dried kiwi cherubic girl in a white bonnet unsmiling all out of sea moss smoothies and some other kind I don’t care about peanut butter cups in unimagined combinations melting Indian Bangladesh African Korean Burmese wish I had skipped breakfast huge sharp fans in the ceiling whole fish cut fish sweet corn and bean stew sweet potato noodles summer rolls three ways rice cakes canned boba LGBTQI espresso oatmeal and molasses and white chocolate chunk and monster cookies thick radishes chunky carrots kale and chard crisp stand at attention third planet is sure it’s being watched hot half sour dill pickles pickled garlic canned pear peach salmon and coconut and toasted cheese and peanut butter and sweet potato and grain-free dog biscuits outside cooler air still singing

after lunch the next day

the shine of my copper pen a bluebird chasing a chickadee from the white birdhouse rabbit crouching low as I walk the dog doesn’t see her then speeding away street corn flatbread Harvest Grill s’mores dessert cup rows of daylilies again and again by homes the side of the highway the forest ripe raspberries tattooed lady selling dog treats smiling my back not hurting too much helping mom set up for the food bank distribution with Rachael volunteering us the folks enjoying the nuts nut butter dried jackfruit we brought down telling and hearing the same stories seeing dad improved some of Lori’s bread for breakfast sleeping better the second night they’re still using the bidet seat I recommended yesterday getting down on a single charge glad the folks watch less network news finding some old books to read once or again getting some decent writing done

back home from the old home

a dog barking in the complex nonstop for how long now why does it bother me so much why does it jump inside and start barking at my heart split my head but I hope that dog has a good life what else can I do what would it be like if I could control all the dogs in my heart somehow worse I’m sure am I sad to leave the folks 200 miles away with no career in the north am I worried about my own creeping doom inferred from their eyes am I ripping someone off talking like this but who I can’t remember might as well write some more right and then the neighbor on the other side of the wall music for hours bass thud you can hear commercials this guy still listens to commercial radio I shouldn’t judge what does it matter but why not use headphones still I don’t know his whys and whatevers fucking autocorrect why can’t there be silence when I want it and something else when I want something else but that’s a child’s mind I know but I can say what I want does venting help or does it dig the hole well deeper well

September 4, 2022

bluebird, bonnet, carrots, chard, cherries, chickadee, commercials, cookies, daylilies, deer, dog, dog treats, espresso, food bank, ginger, heart, jackfruit, kale, kiwi, mind, noodles, nut butter, peach, peanut butter cups, pen, pickles, rabbit, radio, raspberries, rice cakes, silence, stew, summer rolls, sunflower, well
the knife tears a little more into the muscle with every move though he thought he was clever he couldn’t hide it forever and one sunny seasonably cold day the power went out and we all sat around on hard chairs and chose the dreams we would have liked to have had

August 30, 2022

chairs, dreams, knife, muscle
the secret decoder ring she was buried in the meadow where she first was offered the crown and its dangerously circuitous instruction manual and the peculiar delicacies that only appear once the night is nearly gone to birdsong

August 22, 2022

crown, delicacies, instruction manual, meadow, morning, secret decoder ring
Reading Tender Buttons always just about to make sense a half-learned a real language you can still laugh like kindergarten maybe or waking from a dream having to pee you guess what Susie Asado looked like from the tea maybe maybe maybe tea maybe not maybe it’s all too sexy a stupid man like me will never understand and I am as mutton I know she’s from a different book but so what if it rhymes like butter falling off bread to glow too glow wait where are you going are we going don’t tell me don’t tell anyone the secret keeps the bread fresh the glass hurt

July 29, 2022

book, bread, butter, dream, glass, language, tea, Tender Buttons
still searching for the new sound for so long that the trees we planted in the wild days have made it to the other side of the desert and at night we hear heavy fruit drop sonorous into still water but this is not enough there is still a hair unreachable in the throat in the morning we find the ruins of another city it must have been spectacular with those stones in the sky

July 27, 2022

city, desert, fruit, sound, stones, trees, water
In the morning you can reach out and see on the breeze in the mind the damp stone tightening straps keep him in place the pain in his cell the confession conversion meaningless at this point or the life by the sea rough stone grey the children I pushed through and lined up in the earth and the cliffs so beautiful lonely one time one town on the frontier barely built I can still smell new cut wood that simple home sun creeping through seams in the wall another sunny place warm weather sweet breeze always fetching writing down his many thoughts the wine was good

July 20, 2022

breeze, cell, children, cliffs, confession, conversion, earth, frontier, home, mind, morning, pain, sea, seams, stone, straps, sun, thoughts, town, wall, wine, wood
while the computer is updating I dare to go outside & immediately swarmed by a cloud of cicada who clumsily ram into me the neighborhood cats gather to investigate insects collapsed exhausted and finding it boring wander off to practice their Latin which ensures that they will be in a terrible mood at least until dinner time

July 18, 2022

cats, cicada, computer, dinner, latin, mood
can’t remember if I’ve read this one before and dotting the letters that need sway into a ditch made muddier by my mouth and how do you say all the that’s inside behind mirrors twisted down a blind alley stuffed between cushions on a couch no one likes but no one wants to give away

July 17, 2022

alley, couch, cushions, ditch, letters, mirrors, mouth
In Which a Poem Is Spontaneously Generated by Accidentally Recording a Conversation with the Dog Sitter and Some Impromptu Training while the Phone Was in My Pocket

I know drop her off she was just like would not my friend no actually no she gets in a Miller play salsa with her squirrel she was in back with the rest of it easy so good for shaking so much just a little bit of chicken on top of her food or fussy or whatever any money right away when I get herself but she yeah she gave it to a couple other ones by five or some fun a lot of like painting this weekend we got company coming up in North Carolina next weekend South Carolina to do some painting touchup stuff it’ll be hot in it OK thanks for absolutely you’re right oh boy what inside inside good girl outside not inside inside inside inside inside good side OK inside the dorms OK Minnie

July 14, 2022
shopping with my eyes closed and the fist but there is still space for a three point turn the car alarms deep into a special night when the landing was postponed sure every other day is a fine place to start but I know you’ve already tried and for all the good it did I may as well have had decaf but there are the inconsequential moves we make that turn heavy when it wears off and of course I have to admit that these lullabies are lovely so many things to click before retiring with that same headache under the same lonely star

July 10, 2022

car alarms, decaf, eyes, fist, headache, lullabies, night, star
it then sails over that hill like hot oil down your leg but you need to get dressed for the evening execution though since all the cat food is gone perhaps first a stroll to the river past the perimeter guards and through the rubble hole in the southwest corner and hopefully no one else has found this place with its improbable stashes of obscene poetry journals good to eat for 1,000

beers we drank in rooms so completely similar to this dusty light we may have been poor but by God we can still be now where was I going with this nearly full shopping cart the sky is getting dark the bushes full of feet

rabbits in the parking lot obscured by the halo of the horned moon

July 4, 2022

beers, cat food, execution, feet, leg, moon, oil, parking lot, rabbits, rubble, shopping cart, sky
so let the long way round wrap its feelers around your best escape plan though they never seem to notice the little ways you applaud their best blunders & it’s over before you know it while several species of spider set up medical offices for the oncoming collapse but wait you say when you realize that the manifesto you’d been working on has slowly transformed into a cookbook

July 4, 2022

blunders, collapse, cookbook, escape plan, feelers, manifesto, medical offices, spider
a strange rhythm wakes me from a sleep I didn’t know I had taken from the closeout bin of a dingy store while the rain ruins plans we didn’t want to keep

July 1, 2022

closeout bin, plans, rain, rhythm, sleep, store
This bullet is for you he said and poured another drink. Of course when the robots take over no one will notice. Har har gulp. But should I really tell you about the feeling that came over me one day vast as the sky while I watched insects swarm a red mass of hair and bone by the side of the road. If only. The day was hot and he had just been forcibly removed from office so we thought we’d throw a little party. Little did we know that her speech would sour the whole thing and make each of us long for the home we would never see again tucked into the side of a mountain where dogwood blooms and that little pond with so many frogs in spring. But that’s the way it goes. When they bring it out you try to eat with a smile.

June 30, 2022

bone, bullet, dogwood, drink, frogs, hair, home, insects, office, party, pond, robots, spring
the rain over my eyes a plastic yogurt container dug up after thirty years with a note asking about the neighbor’s rhododendron

and I want to quit this empty Dorito bag instead of violets world

but I lapse into something like prose and the gnomes leave in disgust their thimbles still half full of sticky beer

June 26, 2022

beer, gnomes, rhododendrom, thimbles, violets, yogurt
something wants to burst but changes direction with every dollar store bass note from cars speeding past the red white and black opossum stinking the praised summer sun

June 3, 2022

bass, cars, opossum, summer, sun
at the organic cafe unsure of your unwrinkled hands scraggly long hair scraping fine features the constellations of pimples your rough shirt dark stained apron standing tall and to the side you grant a glance and goddess you were all beauty pink cherry trees burst and burst my eyes wide as fried eggs

May 17, 2022

apron, cherry trees, eggs, eyes, hair, hands, pimples, shirt
though the team was broken up we still hoped that somehow we would triumph over the league of loners though we were weak and needed supplies and spicy food with which to regain our competitive edge and as the day finished drawing obscene doodles in the clouds through the gaps in the tall buildings we occasionally glimpsed the blimps of our enemy scanning for weaknesses to exploit though this all feels like ancient history since the hastily written but iron-clad armistice ushered in the new golden age no one really wanted

May 11, 2022

armistice, blimps, buildings, clouds, food, golden age
all that gold plucked out and the oldest trees cut down for no and we sing the malls of our vibrant young and walked for miles with pretzels for the cassette that changes everything

April 29, 2022

cassette, gold, malls, pretzels, trees
What solar-powered syntax will break through the city’s thick walls later wielding a heavy pen he stumbles never to blink again

But the pen won’t start so the precious possibility with a suitcase secretly packed disappears beyond the hill

Where the music comes from on those nights though despite his best attempts we left feeling as though we hadn’t eaten at all

April 9, 2022

blink, hill, music, night, pen, suitcase, syntax, walls
never with anything to show for the veins of leaves lost feathers of the long day and those thin bones from which perhaps flutes but now I have broken my own rule and as you see the birds die

April 7, 2022

birds, bones, feathers, flutes, leaves, veins
To Cross the Sea

Bubbling on the stove warm nonsense on TV I misspell the important words of other people’s stories on the line nothing drying my legs sore the floor somewhat spotless what else to binge nothing stops this war

should have had iced coffee but trees start to stumble the hot earth becomes I tell myself breathe look at the leaves completely still August 30

at the end of the day whisky cicada hit send a cool breeze down that road in any direction you end up laughing

March 25, 2022

August, cicada, floor, leaves, legs, road, stories, tv, whisky
From the Loathsome Autobiography of an Aspiring Hermit

we were all impressed that he had trained himself to overcome the sweating and fits that accompanied riding the elevator to the top floor where all those who helped you get to where you can finally hide the body in peace once you return those calls but really there’s nothing out there but the occasional chirp the grinding

sound of some industry in the distance that we all struggle to identify and some vague concern about retirement which tends to stay asleep except during certain phases of the moon in early autumn before the serious shopping starts and we depart for one day the air goes out and not every part of us is of use and of course those unseen forces you

go on about we peel off and set to one side to admire the fine and final finial detail but then we risk wandering past the border of our little park where we make miniature watercolor landscapes to please the passerby no matter how full of rage or foreboding before retiring once more to the dark closet with the machine that spits out hot air though today even that might be welcome as we question every word

choice and how many bodies we’re inhabiting while we wait for a more immediately impressive one to leap to the lips and be able to sing clear in the narrow streets where we wasted our youth on such games as need not be mentioned here though we remain softly pleased that its secretions were not the same as those found by the famous detective or his brother for that matter

February 20, 2022

body, chirp, detective, elevator, fits, games, landscapes, lips, moon, shopping, sweating, watercolor
sometimes the skies are so bright you just can’t wait to do the stupid thing that makes you smile despite the rotting animals and bright plastic toys crushed by parade after parade of oversized novelty SUVs crammed with the skulls of children

January 1, 2022

children, plastic, skies, skulls, SUV, toys
splinter

as you try to catch a glimpse of the burnt remains it crawls under your skin where the bright sky of the north holds sovereignty over the too-short winter

December 25, 2021

burnt, north, sky, winter
when you tried to kiss that star and fell haltingly down to an earth full of vole tracks and pebbles left from the unending work of burrows your mouth burnt but with the promise of new tender skin you walk on

December 18, 2021

earth, kiss, skin, star
but when we came home we felt awkward contesting the changes in the living arrangement since over in what we called the valley a whole industry had sprung up centered on that idea so for awhile we played along

November 27, 2021

home, industry
sorry to bother you again with this amazing opportunity but those sharp teeth are starting to yellow and with back-to-school shopping about to get underway you’ll be kicking yourself later in either case

November 20, 2021

opportunity, shopping, teeth
I realized I had to leave immediately and was fairly sure I knew my way to the station and it was so good to see you after so long though I was irritated because I knew I would have to borrow money for the train.

As we puzzled through narrow brown brick streets and spitting rain a hummingbird stole the cash you gave me flew around us in fast circles then leisurely landed on my chest and released what turned out to be a poorly made counterfeit.

October 29, 2021

brick, counterfeit, hummingbird, money, train
my boss, a collector of insomniacs walks the halls on stilts, examines every coffee cup, for progress and, avoids the stairs today is Friday, and the small dog always by her side, will have its nails cut, when we hear the yelping we instinctively check our 401(k)s, and count the leaves of the cypress, as our greatest asset, in a moment the weekend will, begin and the dreams we share, shift to images of pirate ships, chained to a monstrous wave of silver fish

September 29, 2021

boss, dog, fish, nails, pirate ship, stilts
Sunday afternoon while light won’t stop streaming past the sudden silence of unbroken bare trees and what apologies to make while the ink dries and the thinking machines reset in the year of our lady redacted

July 11, 2021

ink, sunday, thinking machines, trees
in the forest where they planned that nasty surprise tiny flowers try to take over the world fish look surprised and sure he was never one to

and what could we do but invite him if we were going to the summer house as you waited with the light straight down from the clouds in planks and the ducks looking like they’ve lived through worse though

the party that night with everyone still feeling a bit raw from the afternoon staring into their drinks waiting for someone to mention going to bed so we could say oh yes what a good idea me too

June 27, 2021

bed, drinks, ducks, flowers, forest, summer