That first week was fine
But now it’s just like
I don’t know
Right?
I’m like
Oh my god
Are you kidding?
I mean
Are you sure?
You know what I mean?
Like come on
It’s like
You know what
I don’t know
Like you’re basically hearing him die
It’s just like
Oh my god
You’re ******* serious
Are you kidding me right now?
It’s like wow
No ******* way
It’s just like
I don’t know
You know what I’m saying right?
That’s pretty much it
I’m getting used to my hair.

You Made Me Go Through All These Experiences Just So I Could Write About It? (too long)
or
TISFU (that is so ****** up)
Or
Next!
Or
L’enfer c’est les autres
Or
I Hate Strangers!
Or
Street Corner Conundrum
or
Is that Approaching Drunken Psychotic ******* Yelling At Me?
Or
You say Zombie...I say Zombie Works
Or
I’m Happy **** It! 🤗
Or
You Sugared? The Peas?
Or
Does He Have Balance Problems or Has He Been Body-Snatched?
Or
Digital or Analog?
Or
Get Your **** Outta My Face
Or
A Rose By Any Other Name
Or
Extreme Peripheral
Or
Is That a Cowbell?
Or
You Said That The Lord, Jesus Christ Wants To Mug Me?
Or
Winter’s Coming
Or
Do It For Less
Or
Yes My Legs Are Great!
Or
My Friend Says That People ****!
Or
******* Rabbithole
Or
RabbitAss Hole Hole
Or
Dingbat!
Or
God the Couture Warned Me!

It was disturbing enough
to wake me
in total darkness
And I chose then
in my kind of horror
to go to the bathroom to ***
Shaking my head
Troubled
In the wee hours
Not again
Why does this always happen to me?!
Not only is he a ghost
He’s a very old ghost
So what am I supposed to do with that?

She was dead serious
This voice in my head if you will
Earnest
‘But you don’t understand’ she explains
And I wonder where this is going?
‘He’s in love with you’

Okay?
Now what?

There’s a list somewhere
that I compiled years ago
Of questions that never had the chance
to be posed
Although approved officially by Robert
and perhaps by Bob as well
I was going to revise it
to make them even more
Impressive
Robert said that I was a genius
but to stop showing off
Questions concerning Jack,
Mass media,
The World War
in which they never fought
not for one second.
I think now
that I would like to have added
Something regarding
middle class conventions
and their subsequent
however
reluctant
disappointments
And what it must have been like
to aspire to them
In the 40s
When instead there was
Times Square and The Village
****** and Bop
Errant ****** activities
And the San Remo
Huncke suicided
by misbegotten sidewalks
And hapless blue precincts
waiting

Robert mentioned a brief car ride taken
in some Confederate State
Maybe he was in the backseat
and a joint was passed to him
He
who doesn’t indulge
if you will
Although pulmonary carcinoma
would claim him in no time at all
It was his finest moment
Sandwiched gleeful between these two
Literary
Giants
The radio not working
Now they are all dead
And I would like to think
That they are together again
encased in squeaky automotive  
Upholstery
Somewhere unearthly

Laying in bed
before sleep comes
in the new year
KNX newsradio
read the press release
Issued
It was cancer
It was terminal
There would be nothing further
and I said nothing the following morning
Staring at a wall of books and
climbing along on a rolling wooden step ladder
This isn’t even my department
The people coming through the door
were grim and silent
having bought their plane ticket to NY
To sit by his bedside
While he lay in coma
With Bessie Smith records
play softly nearby
and atmospheric
This was not a time for personal aspirations
Nor nursing the loss of a regretfully
jettisoned exchange
And although I had been warned previously
About a certain someone being
prickly
and possibly ******
and very short-tempered
and I had wondered
heretofore
how it would all go down
On the telephone
The two of us had shared a brief
‘What is he looking at?’ moment
That time here in LA
He staring at me from
a bit of a distance
on the court
And me in my chair with yet another
cigarette,
turning my head around to look behind me
to see again nothing
(God knows how many times)
Until I
An idiot
Realized that it was me that was
The subject of his eye
And I thought again
As I had done in the morning mirror
My god
My hair looks terrible

That list whereever it is
Perhaps in that laptop
That leans against my bedroom wall
Dead
on the floor
over there to my left
The one that I always pass
On my way to the john
The one that I stumble by
in the dark,
THAT list that exists
still
in my brain,
THAT I still tinker with,
THAT list exists
I would like to think
in both;
a list of questions that will always have
no answers.
To Allen
Who loves me.

When I first caught glimpse of
that jimmy-rigged
thirst trap insta-photo with your
bobble-head
leaning alongside the lowest
base note piano keys
I considered you a casual medium
invoking with the guileless eyes of
the deceased once-was heat of a
surly yet
casual Pop Star

I couldn’t help but notice
that your flame, if you will,
as his flame before you,
was
OUT
Like the last embers
of a campground fire in
Yosemite National Park.

Depleted
Discarded
in a basement somewhere
in the San Fernando Valley
shoveling coal like Cinderella,
You
Never to be allowed near a stringed instrument
Nor a mic.
Nor an amp.
Not even the littlest sister’s
Cowsills Tambourine.

I’m not the only cuddly toy.
I’m not the only choo choo train.
I’m not the only cherry delight.
I’m not the only
I’m not the only

Stage 8 hosts
a gathering
of dem dakota witches
and while they tried to concur,
Rosemary screamed
into her chocolate mouse stupor
“This is no teen dream of 1974!”
“What about the 60s?”
a naked old witch
encircling her bed
inquired tentatively.

You could be absolutely mad
Which would explain
the kooky
flirty-fishing
cultish
eyeball thing
but what’s the success rate
after all this
photography,
I reckon?
Who would take the bait, anyhow?
“You’d be surprised,” sneers another witch.
“Shaddup” snaps Castevets
Fozzie Bear just told you to **** his diseased ****.
Roman stands behind him
holding his own,
limp,
between clammy hands,
hopeful and
biding his time.

!

Funny it should be
Me
who would be the
One
to make
You
feel
Sad.

“I think the terms are about to change, ” screeches another witch,
this one standing by
the yellow curtained
shuttered window,
Which holds within its folds
the electric air-conditioning unit
Whirring
Like Mary, Mother of God.
Or a corpulent and rotund
Laughing Gelatinous
Belly of Buddha

So, it would appear,
that in just one year’s time
or perhaps just a couple of months
Trapped in your household
With audio and visual stimulation
of all
permutations
keyboards
delivery services
and real-time isolation
Within an mise-en-abysme of
traps upon traps upon traps,
thirsting,
that you’ve become perhaps madder still.
Mercury in the lining of the top-hat mad.
“And who hasn’t?” asks that naked witch again.
I’d add that you’ve put on a few.,
Which a lot of people have done lately,
No judgement
But I doubt you are baking a lot of bread
And you look a lot older than you should.

So I wonder,
how do you get to that
vibratory chi
when you’re walled off like this?
Once you get to the real stuff
you’ll look
so much better.
This quandary engages me enough
to indulge in a whirligig
which can incorporate, if I want it to,
Courbet’s L’Origin du monde,
the envy-soaked diamantine stares of a *****
yet perpetually ignored roadie,
Vampires
And street-level prostitution.
It’s a crisis!

I would have thought that you could just
Draw it all straight to you
Without actual flesh
Bring it through the stucco’d walls
Or down from the ceiling,
quickly and upon demand.
Sub-molecularly.
No traffic and clean air make haste.
But no.
That’s not working right now is it?
Magician Reversed.

The darkness of oxblood naugahyde booths barely steeped
in feeble candle light
Cocktails upon cocktails and cigarettes until we realize,
my companion and I,
That we have been completely blocked in
No chance of escape
Not even to ***
So we’re basically sliding out to nowhere.

In time the tabletop becomes covered
with the rings of dripping condensation
from Guinness cans.
Wet ring upon ring sparkle and
At times aluminum is slammed down upon the table,
And not at all casually.
You see, we were being marked
as theirs
A mighty squadron of faux suede heads
blocking access so
that no **** Yank may approach

(and this is Hollywood)
They might as well have hung a Union Jack)

These two birds
We were territories to be given
To Her Majesty.
I’m Hope and She’s Glory.
Or is it.....

They keep announcing to us that
“Diana is dead.”
And we keeping replying “yes, we know,
the tv is on,” pointing behind us.

Earlier that night
we sat on the floor
At the coffee table
Snorting narrow lines of *******
with CNN on in the background
They announce twice as we lean back and wipe our nostrils that
Diana, Princess of Wales
has been in a motor crash
and has broken her wrist.

Well that *****.
A broken wrist in Paris.
We returned our focus back
to the coffee table
and the announcer comes back
this time with a completely different tone
Sombre
Really sombre
He states
Diana, Princess of Wales
Is Dead.

Dead?
We announced to each other
with jinx simultaneity and incredulity.
It was just her wrist?

Once at the bar we made cracks
About off-shore bank accounts
receiving wire transfers from the Queen.

That previous summer in the first food aisle of
Rock and Roll Ralph’s
I turned towards the sunlight and
saw her image on an American tabloid
Displayed in the point of sale racks
At checkout
There were two rather fuzzy photos
Shining golden hair on a turned feminine head
A blue maillot
A diving board off a yacht
Arms wrapped in the Sea
And I thought softly to myself
“Oh no.”
But I can’t even tell you why.

Out of the edge
The very corner of my eye
In the free-standing vitrine
Assembled under plexi
with various small pieces
all 1800s
In what at that time was
a richly coral walled gallery
Deliberately
A small marble bust
Yes I’m calling you out
Although I don’t know your accession number
and you’re no longer on view
Nor will be
any time soon
for that matter
You took advantage
You waited until my very last
moment’s attention
and as I turned my head away
a quick trick
the head turns
A flash of movement
Or movement is how I understood it
Because that’s what my brain
told me it was
You know that I saw this
of course
since you did it on purpose

At the time I told you to cut that **** out
NOT FUNNY
Or words to that effect

I thought that that’s
how you must handle such things
And I still do
It’s childish

Yet it only comes to mind now
That you must have done this countless times
To so many
The contexts endless
Though it must get old
But you
are old

It would be nice to know when it started
And why
this parlor trick
For I’d never felt watched or scrutinized
or judged

by objects on display
which is what you are
Particularly in this gallery

you went straight to
“provocation”

Perhaps you meant
“help me”
but I doubt it

One imagines that anything would eventually get sick
Of being looked at
Heads leaning in for a closer
examination
You’re such a
little thing
which may be part of the problem
It could feel like a curse
to forever be a
lapis lazuli ormolu encrusted vessel
for the rest of eternity
It never occurred to me.
I never thought what must it be like?

Trivialized to surfaces.
Put on the shelf.
To fall out of history.
I should have understood more quickly
of course

I remember hearing
that an old drawing done of myself
had been on view in a gallery
without my knowing
without anyone bothering to mention it besides a vague
throwaway
aside
made well after the fact
like a tossed cigarette ground into the sidewalk
outside a dull party

I don’t remember the image
but some part of me was hanging on some wall nonetheless.
Had it done anything untoward
to some poor **** walking past?
An alchemical interruption?
I certainly hope so.
Confound dominion.
Assail the event horizon of metaphysical politesse and proprieties.
Defy a petty corporeal quarantine of sorts.

To throw off this mantle
if for just one split second.

Two and a half weeks into this quarantine
Rainy days and
no poems
No words forthcoming
All quiet
I decide that perhaps
if I just put one
Word
In front of another
And keep on for a time
Words upon words
something will come?

At 8:30 every morning
A man passes
walking a Pomeranian mix
A joyful little dog
(I’d steal him in a heartbeat)
They walk
He twirling the leash round and round
The dog leaping higher and higher still.
They dance together eyes meeting
and smile as I know a dog can
and I remember
how I would dance with my last greyhound.
We would tango and box-step.
I always led.

These days the little
Pomeranian can’t get his attention
anymore
The leash doesn’t twirl above its head
He’s pulled along impatiently
There are no more smiles
Their eyes won’t meet
He’s slow to realize that he’s become a drudgery
I want to yell out the window
I see you
EVERY MORNING AROUND 8:30!
Where’s your joy gone buddy?
Don’t you know that’s all you’ve got?
You’re bumming me out for real
and your dog loves you!
Wake up! You fool wake up!

I think that now I’ll walk to Ralph’s
I have various thoughts while doing so
Children race their bikes passed me
as if they’re in an entirely other reality
altogether
and
maybe they are.
The wind blows through their hair
effortlessly
As if it couldn’t mine.

Front lawns offer up fields of dandelions
as if their orbs the most prized bounty
Freshly mown grass smells new and clean instead of putrid, rotting in the sunshine
The fulsome wafts of springtime’s
jasmine and osmanthus heaving with citrus and pepper evade me as I pass their blossoms
Yet on the rare occasion a fragrant rose pierces through the weft and hits a nostril
but I can’t tell which bloom.

The smooth talking
homeless girl
has finally covered up that
diabetic open sore on her left ankle
the size of a flattened crimson football
which is something,
although I can see that
she’s being told to move along as
she just can’t sit anywhere she pleases.

I’m counting every time I see the word “dead” along my way.

In the store the ladies that buy
their bottles of white wine in the afternoon
are starting earlier now
with supplies and deliveries
unsure
It’s one thirty and I see
Two bottles of Clos du Bois
And four Domaine St. Michelles
in the cart to my right
and nothing else
as they do.
I’m not going to ask her
about her dinner party.

While I stare at packages of coffee
A man pulls off his mask to sneeze into the air before him
And I say to the older man approaching
I don’t think that you’ll be going any farther
in that direction.
It was under my breath.
He didn’t hear me.
I have a mask on.
He turned his cart around and walked back
the way he came.

I have this urge to talk to everyone.
I have this relentless desire for ice cream.
I miss everything.
Nothing here
will satisfy anything
to do with me.
Can one survive a global catastrophe
with candy and magical thinking?

Older people
And by that
I mean really old people
Eye me suspiciously
Almost fearful
As if I myself alone
embody
the menacing contagion
and I guess I could.
Perhaps I do.
It’s hard to read emotions with these masks
But their eyes seem terribly unkind and
brows, furrowed
One stares at me hard
with beady anger and a ready insult
another will jump me in the checkout line
and with great solicitude
unwrap her money from
the white notebook paper
pulled from the manila envelope
Now re-folded with
rubber bands and string
And placed back
into her chest
She is so sweet to the cashier
with her black acrylic wig askew
that he seems quite shocked to hear
she cut in front of
fifteen people
without so much as a word.
Who cares really?

My first mask made me sneeze for four hours straight and made my nose burn like a hit of **** *******.
I’ve been handed a free mask by
a representative
from my local assemblyman
made of a softer material
I find that
it won’t stay up and fogs the base of my glasses.
I don’t think it’s working.
It reads
We’re All In This Together.

I still can’t breathe.

The doomed asthmatic
selling his single ciggies on the sidewalk
dies on Staten Island
from a policeman’s chokehold.
Eric Garner
In those desperate last moments
of
his
2014
despite his pleas and confusion
surely there before him appeared
although not quite the end that he’d envisioned or feared
what with steroid inhalers from the pharmacy
a crystalline moment
when he knew without a doubt that
he’d never take another gasp of air
like a bloated goldfish on its side
expressionless and saucer eyed
outside its bowl
What happened to his mind then?
What will happen to mine?

It has been said that
certain tribal kings
have brought before them
after battle
their most worthy enemy
in the process of imminent death
while they sit in numinous splendor
and wait for that perfect moment
to lean in close to the mouth
and inspire greedily
the purest
most sublime
expiration of their life force,
now a pristine delicacy of the infinite,
for themselves alone.