I decided I would give up
writing the musical about
Charles Guiteau and the prose-poem book,
Twice as Nice as Mice on Ice. Who
knows what’s best and what’s a mistake
nearly every bit of gold I’ve
chased has curled to a brown leaf in
my little claw but I’ll give those
old groans some sound and rough shapes and
padding for their feet as they find a place
and sing them to sleep if they let me and
maybe after years of shuffling
we’ll have a little machine that
sweetly encircles it all
with luck and a sweet incept the rest may
flow just don’t get too obscure or you may
trip in your light and don’t worry if the
end comes first or pay too much heed to that
needy voice from the middle or convince
yourself that you know about conclusions
though yes each belch is yours and yours
alone as a clutch of eggs or
the slowly unfurling limb of a pre-
or post-historic forest the
teeth of which I have long loved and
please accept this apology
I never meant to and never cared to
make puzzles though I play one on TV
I mostly agree, but think they
could use a nudge. The idea
that whatever we may be may be
subject of some study is sound
but to say those old scientists are just
in it for the publishing rites is more
than I will digest so let me suggest
the potentiality of
a labyrinth of secondary lite
entertainment based on the primary
data. I think it’s naïve to
imagine our keepers failing to laugh
at our low tragedies or exude no
small sigh as we toddle off to what’s next
try to write a face the eyes aren’t
right teeth crooked the wrong way the
night cold the flame hidden I make
another cut so long but too
late across the blue ink sounds of
[inaudible] but leave it there
even if it barks all night will
never invade the earnestness
of tiny drinks while the bright black
so tight we thought the stones in our pockets
might help us too with a few tweaks
it could be the scene of your first triumph
but let’s not crack the old door anymore
those dreams are grand but I wake a headache
Once you’re reasonably seasoned
I want to complain about my
hands and the where and what that they
have failed to do no matter which
precipice certain delicate
papers have been balanced upon
today which way they flail is of no
grey matter for any of us
as the storm threatens from each point of
the compass rescued from the bright
dust at the bottom of a mound
of sticky surreal boxes
on the outskirts of a
once-distinguished suburb
that sentimental day we recite our
atrocities a la mode which at the
time rhymed though less in retrospect
which we hope may serve as a warning
to any newcomers peddling dewey
gospels though we had not calculated
all that this strange gravity would inquire
of our ancient components which
likely will take weeks to tweak but
if you’re around we can descend
the canyon and investigate the
rumors of this miraculous vegetable
they say it’s like drawing your hand
with the hand that’s like drawing your hand
he heard a tink and thought of his wish and
where his hand didn’t want to go
and went there and there it was a
perfect miniature aureate
boulder so thanks were given and soon a
system—spray bottles, a special
strainer, fresh hand towels, a glass
container for storage and sometimes the
irregular borders brought blood
when they slit but he learned to love
fingers in filth for those gleaming nuggets
and later he’d have such elaborate
but fundamental stuff made most of which
was melted down in the end or, after
I can see their unwillingness
to laugh and let go of that loud
restless voice that caused so much
trouble but which way if I want
oh never mind I’ll stay here and
ply the wildflowers with
ever more restless names
and try to see in the crazing
of frost on the landing two hours
before dawn some message or hope
for a few more steps before the beeping
and surveying on all sides as
I sit and think of some tasty hasty
something for the some bit of some sentence
Some mornings I feel bad for those who had
to die for me to waste away
Anatolian and Achaean
Andorian and Orion
all due to the creep of those first
wounds we fight hard to not turn brittle
or snap and for a while I wondered
if it was all some psycho-sexual
game fueled by the misery of others
or perhaps the two were
really one troll who knows
maybe it was a bad
day that happened every day in
all caps I can’t say but I will
And these long pauses when no one
asked but then did I I think maybe from
time to time but no not enough you
see I wanted it all yesterday and
never learned to let my liquor drip
not that I wanted to learn I wanted
to complain I was unfound though
that complaint is unfounded after
decades of this and more of this a
thumbs up or heart renews no lease while
that scab-picking goblin prince longs
to turn away once-adored faces when
and if but of course I would grow new
arms despite these keenly sharpened teeth
Is it to quiet those sounds from above
that won’t leave me alone or to drown the
noise of the dog’s desperate licking where
does the source hide itself but such thoughts are
not really for me I get too excited
rest badly and when the excursion starts
I’d rather stay in bed but mostly I
want to write about something besides an
ugly bag mostly filled with water though
it holds some moderate pleasure toothsome
despair and thick clotted rumination,
which may not be to everyone’s taste but
helps exercise the moist gray maze when
I would have had little else but sleep
Ten more pounds as you breath this air in
while small flying things establish more
colonies on a significant
portion of your disregarded
land mass while an occasional storm
brings no relief to little Tom
in his prospect of geraniums
thumbing in peace far from the noise of bones
being broken for the amusements of children
days grow too dark under the broiler
strange birds visit for a moment and
fly back as one of my fathers
said those wandering clouds at least
are worth a couple careful words
Ada Rae Merwin, T. S. Coleman,
Allen Louise Eliot, Edna
Limón, Geoffrey D. Graham, Anne Glück,
John Kalytiak Davis, Emily
Gay, Joshua Sexton Cummings,
Jorie Whitman, Gertrude Stein, John
Armantrout, William Aimee Wordsworth,
Tracy K. Marvel, E. E. Ashbery,
Wanda Joy Ginsburg, Kimiko Bennett,
W. S. Dickinson, John Rich Smith,
Ross Berryman, Andrew Keats, Walt
Nezhukumatathil, H. Harjo
Hahn, Adrienne Chaucer,
Olena St. Vincent Millay,
it’s often the way when days are
less generous with their light and
walking the dog in trees furry
scents and a noise near or far you
choose to ignore those little hopes
for the weekend with green softness
over the lawn insects float or
dart the breeze that might keep me up
tonight I know it’s not your fault
you know the darkness catches up before
summer gets going I should stop
saying you know you know anywhoo the
last time we met you were spitting
in the eye of some hurricane
other people’s postcards and the
problems you carried from home but
with new hats from the shop they said
you must visit after some mountain
muttering about air some vista
back and forth in brightening dark
cold coffee chirps though later and
once the music mercifully
stopped and after the little chapel’s
oily beams were whittled into
pencils for disappointed tourists
the sound of the little fountain
took us though we didn’t know how to go
in the small blue shell or its cold shadow
But we’re not in that desert anymore
honeysuckle on the breeze bad news
finds us dead nettle stork’s bill what else
did she teach me as we barrel toward
the base please remember your training
and try to finish your letters though
not every editorial will
be published we have done what we could
to spread word of this once-in-a-
millennium sales event we
wouldn’t want them to miss but we must
carry on or deal with that pesky
voice talking about time and something
jogging though as long as we keep busy
It’s the way though innit the muse leaves
and your mouth aches for more song, but
the veins are filled with foul air and
dust muscles do not move So what
do we wait like house cats why not
as long as we’re in service we
must serve and hope the mistress one
day deigns to lay down a circle
of honey no, of course we’re not
worthy but keep the pen handy and with
any luck we’ll find some lunch and
sell a few things and maybe tip
that dusty bottle from the snow-capped
shelf where the third expedition failed
But how can I talk about it my
images veiled and the word I want
grows small in a mouth while no one waits.
The waves haven’t stopped for a minute but
amidst the churn there’s a still bubble
reserved for you and one other though
there have been so many lost packages
and delays in dreams in which you slowly
suffocate while delivering the speech
that could have saved you and in the back
of the room that talk that you wanted to
have with her maybe just a few words might
dissolve the dam but I think too much
of the poison hows the light escapes
But first into the palanquin don’t
worry it’s all above-board and just
a little indulgence for the weekend
when certain leaves are likely to
fall or stay though we find it’s not
half as bright or sweet as we had
hoped so underground for a few
rounds and yes we would rather be
back at the dig where we hope to
confirm our suspicion that the
dinosaurs were really quite small
and by means of a process unique to
the ancient earth over barely
countable aeons grew enormous
You think you know the way, but two turns past
those thick oaks and you feel you’re rushing
boldly into some imaginary
battle without reading the instruction
manuals all the while calmly writing
but too calm shouldn’t there be a thousand
lightning strikes each second but
maybe this is the gray way
far from those warm golden fields where
with the first crocus we try to
place the best bits next to each other
and hope some small energy may
pass but the experiment has not been
successful so I may try to breathe again
You see, since we escaped I’ve had the odd
liberty of thought and this cogitation
has uncovered several quite serious
plot holes which I’ll fill you in on later
but first where is that golden bottle whose
essence you say rhymes with late summer
which too many have claimed is our only
commodity but I never
studied such things and fear I speak out of
season and if so beg the courts’ pardon
and would happily, instantly, return
to my cell to scratch out what remains with
a few favorite books I dreamed about
as a boy in the bough of a tree
I couldn’t see the myth in my
early rising and had to rely on
this box with a badly worn recording
device and a failed maze which would
with any luck add some seasoning to
the tedious reading of the
will which leads me back to the original
problem (art, rime) though fathers’ words
about not quitting ring in the
holes that once (I think) were ears and what’s so
terrible about quitting when
they expect you to speak nose-deep in a
sewer but this rain will not ruin our
picnic and yes it’s rude to mention it
hoping for something chocolate covered
hurry up wait what was I saying the
shoreline shortens birds gone from the sky due
to a lack of how’s it with you those headaches
back I have just the oil and volcanoes
for it though maybe the coasts blame the
center and vice versus our scattered
poems may stitch it but we’re in it
now did you hear what the final
butterfly whispered as your phone
oh I’m no better I just like
to fly and sting so maybe you
should check out the dog filter
that clown one does nothing for you
it then sails over that hill like hot oil
down your leg but you need to get dressed for
the evening execution though since our
cat food is gone perhaps first a stroll
to the river past the perimeter
guards and through the rubble passage in the
southwest corner where hopefully
our stash of obscene poetry journals
is still intact in rooms so completely
similar to this dusty light we may
have been poor and by god we will be so
again but where was I going
with this nearly full skin the sky
is getting dark the bushes full of feet
in an age when close and distant cloud
I make what you won’t want to eat and wait
for the snow scrape and salt that wakes us too
early or too late little mountains pen
in sugared cars I try to lift this snow
with homemade rhythm into clouds
like berries almost black but how
long do I have to long for long-lasting
mud and birds who stay a bit and fly back
a breath that leaves green leaves to shake
so let’s finish the crackers and
call them cookies we can watch a
movie through the neighbor’s window
just balance on this pile of skulls
three kinds of salty licorice
a sweatshirt with an immense kitten
some more maple almond cashew
butter a disc of aged white tea
cardamom seeds in their own grinder
a multipack of Sugru a
Kaweco Lilliput fountain pen
click lick click but is it too late to pluck
the prized moon-blooming oh you’re back already—
what did you say about the lack of laurels
in the breezy storage space—perhaps we
should look instead through an Olympic screen
that obscures high and low so the worm may
spare my stomach on a warm winter day
Perhaps there is something more, but with
the pressure of an undigestible
chicken knuckle cartilage nugget
pressing perhaps a breathless sip of
weed killer with lime, but no, that’s not
the monster I want to feed though a
look at my neglected hooves shows me I
have made the usual mistake of
trying to coin a word that
means checking to see if the dog wants
to learn to dance as a small way to
lengthen my displeasure with this work
which is far from interesting, but
keeps me flush with fresh digital badges
More errors squashed found squashed
then more of more of the same and by this
point in the story you’re looking
for the restroom while nodding politely
but this little fire you’ve changed the
flint kept her fueled and ready but hope to
of course the yoke left a deep mark
the fingers then got confused wrong
words stumble out needing mending
and you no longer yearn for that
historic restaurant where once
your teeth ground through a heavy sky but
it has air conditioning and is not
affiliated with many poor choices
I was never sure which were jokes
which mistakes it all happened so
fast as I was thinking of some
thing else so I’m sure I missed a
lot of context but learned to be careful opening
cabinets as those stuck stacks of dishes might unstick
and whitewater down at other times they
may test your eyesight on a small silver
splinter of moon but by next summer we
will move on to new games and leave
the unfinished trilogy in
some still closet across town but
we only bring it up if enough
have shared equally trying things
And this question of how leans into the
darkness inside our attempts to start a
fire, this apple, this bamboo in a pot.
How far can we trust it when we turn our
backs? How red is my red, really? And do
and do you notice it in the brochure
you couldn’t put down and kept hidden so
or was it this squirming dream of again
unwittingly shared though months pass
without anyone mentioning it
anyway, the event was full of sweet
words gentle smiles from about five paces
we knew we would likely never see each
each other again on any timeline
After the storm left cool air and a snack
of peanut butter and a fig now I’m
hungry again just thinking of it now
where was I going with no plan nothing
to wrap in some rhythmic finery or
what passes for such yes I’m now running
out the clock as you guessed though we could turn
this thing around if we had the will to
reach into the bush braving blood for
small berries that might by now be ripe
though hard experience has taught us that
turns around the old neighborhood turn no
things around and the last bump that kept you
up still lurks in the cold sweat of your back
This contraption over which I crookedly crane
my contorted collection of calcium see
caps lock control and command the castoff caret
and the clever with this collection could construct
a colonnade a colophon or the kee kee
koo of the critter whose call we couldn’t confirm
conscript a comrade to crystallize our cozy
canals of consciousness and claim a cult center
of concrete comforts to commend cunning corners
craving a clarion crow call
for a clean coronation of
cacophony while circling comely
cool cantaloupes close to consumables
of cress conspicuous for consumption
It’s hard to focus on blankness
at day’s end or read my scrawl or
tell if I’ve said any thing at
all—go faster maybe it will
work when they pack up their cornhole
gear and move back to the converted
garage where the mildewed rent is still
too high. I want to spend some minutes
staring at the lawn in the lingering
light and write something you might want to
read with a flashlight at two or
three—something just a little bit
desperate but with clear honey
for lips covered in cuts and small wings
Why can’t I just say it
plain why are there so many
modifiers on this bright
morning of single digits the
dog imitates a restless sea
at various locales as she
wishes while darkness sparkles and
each is questioned and crumbles
my fingers slowly covered in
spots will lunch be any good is
it too early to give up and
have a smoke too late to burn my
stuff and start again too late blinded
by the icicle’s gleaming drop
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To go to bed and churn through the night folded
and rent by the sharp lines of half-boiling
dreams as we try our best to imagine
we can forget what we might have had to
make yesterday once the anger of the
morning has faded and our clothes are once
again dry though who would have bet against
the successful failure of the unabridged
chronicles of that self-made hermit whose
hedge maze was never real but the feeling
of being in it turning right or left
faster then much slower has never left
no matter which season finds us deciding
once and evermore to learn how to knit
Our parents were fine but not really
up to the task though neither were theirs
and so on back to darkness and so
what more backache more allergies more
stuff you don’t know how to get rid of
the closet has been full since we moved
in and the water reaches only
so far as leaves tightly spin up a
bit and then a small spiral down but
don’t worry about these discarded
takeout containers from the cheapest
places someone will clean up later
after all look at the precisely
folded mountains the peaceful cold lake
After crawling on 95 after
a salty meal after recycling the
last ideas pinned to the moldy cork
after snoozing some forced friends then after
humidly leafing through the museum
of wasteful catalogs after walking
the dog and cleaning up after the dog
washing the towels plates and small forks of
our ritual dessert once the air is
cleared of sulfur and mildew and the old
toilet is passably clean the new car
charged the simple altar dusted we may
find a stick and throw it into the sea
and see what kind of tomorrow we can buy
It’s just the little lighthouse keeper who
notices and tries to raise some kind kind
of alarm but with arms weak from bad and
bad sleep, cheap food, gives up & decides to
stroll those sentimental streets where gangs of
rival lawyers perform intricate
dances to win the most flavorsome of
clients though all the clouds here smell of sweat,
ketchup, and fermented fish but these
days while dining we encounter
foul stained fingers in our pies as
markets grow cold and distant in the dawn
I didn’t understand his last email
but did you see those girls who just walked by
No more fireworks just instructions
in a language in the shape
of a forgotten snake or
a hope for a better harvest
though with our dried plans now
buried how but I stood for far
too long the brittle hunger of
wind taking bits of the
but what exactly went
wrong and why did our words
fail to move it even an inch
when we were told to draw a line
under the bubble inside the
stale loaf our last tooth would not bite
Put on sturdy gloves before you
handle history it may suddenly
ignite without warning which may
among other things tend to leave one with
out a date or eyebrows for the big dance
but maybe some message is still slowly
twining up some neglected balcony
sewing a subtle missive near
the color of the last clinging maple
leaves if only we knew how but
looking out the window or similar
is no use in this hallucination
maybe don’t update me on the progress
until the streets are ripe the peaches clean
The cool morning clouds radio chatter
from nearby. This rough dark fabric with me
in air on ground through cruel layovers
now a wheel city
sidewalks half consumed must be replaced or
the last journey was the last journey my
sturdy friend so with hands clean and odd tools
a few small turns and off it pops but peek
inside look an unknown wound festered now
sharp shards of broken plastic slide smoothly
from the gap the room fills with perfume of
action figure trapper keeper childhood
tears trials in rough slivers and
the radio moans the dog licks
In January the tea on
my thin undusted desk as my
neighbor again starts to exercise
looked so stomp thud woozy stomp I
wanted to run to some mountain
but instead retreated upstairs
to a cool toilet and sat where
from the open window from the
courtyard come echos melodies
splash ring soar sink bouncing off white tile
on all sides of this cave to remind
but the dream broke when the crow said
it reminded him of a lost draft of
my novel destined for obscurity
But when you’re young and dream of
escaping narrow Westchester
for exotic New England. But
before summer was over we
were. I returned carrying some
cigarettes, Sometimes I Wish I
Was a Pretty Girl, your hand-drawn
map to the clitoris, and when
I think of your face that one day
hair bright honey light your smile our
world holding your hand through the years
hoping something might fit like that
only better. But the dusty
manuscripts, the unicycle,
The feel of cold river stones in the hand
on that one day when… Or, well, anyway,
maybe some music, some dinner, a tale
that turns on some jade pivot but the pen
drops and rolls towards that corner of my
rusty cheese-grater head. So, tomorrow?
It’s OK. He’s not a real doctor. Wait,
were we talking about you or me? No.
Something with zucchini, I suppose. When
those noises had stopped I felt I was just
about to remember a mineable
dream, and I don’t want to be a bore, so
once the cicadas have emerged we’ll leave
town for another dozen years or so
Do we have time to unlearn the
first frown and move on? I really
don’t want to bite your nose off. It’s
just that I haven’t slept well since
Reagan and like clockwork a black
ooze rises to cover far too
much and did I mention my back
shoulder knee and oh I did well
we’ll leave that and look down at the
silver city where there may yet
be room as many claim and though
our souls are quite used to other
terrains we must try as each moment fails
to return or else another foul wind
If I can’t do it now, we’ll have our
answer, but I want you to know that
I am trying certain overly
specific methods most would agree
are not often exactly the most
optimal though yes I clearly see
why I should not have told so many
extravagant lies to get into
that law firm and why I stayed as long
as I did, but with those days done and
those shadow corporations dissolved
for now we are not liable to
anyone and may leisurely plan our
next great work, charity, etc.
Why not a sonnet while the dog
sleeps her little sleep before bed
while I write a sonnet while the
dog sleeps before night in which we
might dream a scurry of squirrels
free from bonnets and the snores of
little dogs resting before the
big sleep while I write what might one
day snore into a sonnet for
a little whitening dog who
sleeps her little dog sleep here on
the sofa minutes before bed
where a big sleep may creep unto
all sleeping dogs creeping to sleep
From as safe a distance as
possible and with the best
of what was left in those days
we stared into the center
for millennia black
holes combined coalesced
larger repeat larger
and the news sites with
a fresh hope each day but
we knew and couldn’t stop
staring into the all-
eating mouth where a few
strands of light wove a final song
through empty stars already gone
other animals 