re liable

last night we went to our clubhouse,
nickey, chad, ida following the sunset path
through the sagebrush, past the aspen
and the pinkening donkeytail succulents
to our place between the two pines
on that awkward slope that sores legs
or jambs toes to sit on.
just in time for that first star.
we talked abt what new orleans is like
abt a fantasy mansionhouse
and our brilliant year-round gardens.
a man came up from the house below.
we met him the night before,
he told us we got his curiosity up
bc there lives a family of fox
and a coyote who chases the babies around.
he thought we might be them.
I think abt fox & coyotes a lot
I think how I'd like to join them.
last night he came & sat with us, this neighbor
he was glad to hear there were some liberal people living in the stepford houses
he told us that we were saved for this time,
that we were reserved for this moment
to carry the future. to teach, bc we have the structure
to teach the careless generations beneath us.
he told us about his world drums, slurring his speech,
ice jingling in his plastic cup
he invited us to his sweatlodge.
I was looking at the fullnight sky, by now
envisioning you, flipping your hair
miles & miles away
I was thinking of what I'd say to you had I been filterless
promises I'd make & keep
drives to take. getting you at me.
I am not a wish
  but I am a big future
and I committed to the notions of
  gratitude & accountability
     for my good fullfuture hands
I like the wild dog path we're taking
past the sucs, past the aspen
and I like the certainty that I'm contained, somewhere
there
in a promise to the selves I will undoubtedly keep

what are the chances

that at any given moment someone somewhere is having the same thought as you?
is someone thinking abt driving in a red car through the middlewest with you
or maybe someone somewhere really wants a tunamelt, too

how likely is it that someone has invented you
and someone's laying around
imagining the two of you together
even though you'll never meet
and chances are
you aren't imagining them, at all
or, you don't feel the same way

one of my old boyfriends told me that
I wasn't his type
he told me that he didn't know who she was, this dream girl
that he had never met her
or anyone like her. he just new I wasn't she

when I was 18 I wrote on the cover of my diary
  everyone loves someone who loves someone else who loves someone else who loves someone else
I thought it was pretty poignant at the time
I was listening to a lot of modest mouse
and was dying my hair blonde and wearing white cargo pants

I don't really think abt that anymore
its just degrees
& timing
  aligned for two
and how often that happens, that two times converge
& then go along for awhile
it's probably as frequent as someone
  somewhere
envisioning a red car travel-companion
in shades with the windows down, hands on your knees
who'd love nothing as much
as sharing a tunamelt, too

hurt my feelings

okay so I've been talking to the universe, and

  I think

  I think

it's trying to tell me that Idaho is my beautiful home

  what, something about the countryside

    because I spend time there, in the sagebrush

and I love it when my hands are so dirty

  I look tan,

    cinnamon

and then my car stops working

  because I'm blogging in it while it's raining

   listening to the radio, it's all really good

    smoking 1,000 smokes

and how will we ever get out of here, now?

 that sort of thing.

But of course, I just needed to get jumped

Nickey & I found a secret clubhouse

  in the foothills, it overlooks all of Boise

  in a way that makes it seem

  like it really is a city for trees

one can't see the buildings

it looks like it did when those frenchcanadian people showed up in their beaverskin caps.

why am I so angry

why am I surprised

when people don't like me,

don't want to be my friend.

I want to say a lot of very cruel, inconsequential things

  I want to hurt someone's feelings

   more than mine could ever be

because that's what big men do 

they break one another down

I guess, so I hear

I'm not a pick-on-you

 I'm not a hurter 

  I'm not even a hurtee

like I was, once.

I am thick, I know

 but I still have these knives in me

  and I know they can be good for the stabbing

but I am out of the habit-of-cruel

 and it doesn't come naturally

so I should probably just go to the clubhouse, now

  and be sweet & good

   and forget that love-sadness-regret-anger-hatred cycle

    that I've been riding.

This is a Diary entry

  for no one at all

I just don't know how to write a diary, anymore

  like I don't know how to walk or run

   I just know how to memorize

    and to look hard

     and to feel hard

      

     and I'm forgetting how

to wish

  which is the only good thing I've learned to forget

heartline

a man came into the coffeeshop wearing an old new orleans tigers hat
which I found a little serendipitous
he made me sell him $1 worth of bulk tea
I used the scale and a flimsy cellophane bag
and he said, Your heart line is so bright you could roast weenies on it
I asked him, What the fuck is a heart line
not in those words, exactly
and he said, Your joie de vivre
he told me, It comes out your eyes,
and your smile, especially
and oh, your rosy cheeks, too
and I was thinking, either I do have a carefree enjoyment of life,
or,
this guy is fucking dumb

I'm sorry. I guess I must really just be good at my job
or maybe
or maybe I'm just a shining lovebeacon
  pretending I'm not
I should have insisted that he give me his cap, for my new disguise


THIS GIRL IS ON FIIIIIIIIIRE

I threw a vase of flowers in the hills last night

I'm still a dream
I hear the morning and I'm still a dream in it I am the morning and I'm still a dream and it
I can't sleep anymore
sleep
long sleep sounds long
I was dreaming of this to other places
in the desert now
you've probably never even seen each other
the desert
I know you see me
we missed Mount Rushmore
I don't know that we missed anything
I have a good time up there in the hills
I make a pretty calm out of it
I wrapped many things up
the ground me
the brush me
the Coors under the stars
doesn't the sky
make you hotter than I do?
I love my eyes in the morning water
I am soft down bird today
and my chest is a pain
rocks & ridges
  recognize my voice
we can be the best winner I think
it's nice to think of you first thing in the morning
it's oh so daunting
and a little bit
death

tether

anymore we can just ask straight each other
the anxious can pass, smoke
in an overcast bedroom
  chill
these being the words,
purity ring on repeat
well
may ends
well may birthdays are gone
well I have to move a mind again
  somber just doesn't justice

the flowers are so dead
  & so meaningless that I haven't bothered
  to destroy them
or to even throw them out
I just moved them from the table
onto the floor
  so I've room to elbow around

can it be managed, a life getting saved
time isn't what this was
the great length, big old distances
something so desperate
something so drown,
something so make gel bones
slither
  
   throw a brain away
   puff up a balloon heart & fly up in it
   trust only that
   your hands in the silk sand
   sands in your eyeholes, nostrils
  babybird it to me

I'm sorry my heart is an infant
it should never have arrived alive
it should have been stillborn
I should have had more to drink
  while it was parasiting, puffing
but now I've to raise it up
  nurse it
I can strap it to my back when I go camping
and I can toss it in its harness
  and pull it taught until it snaps back to my arms
 
come on, baby
    grow already

butterbody

I'm sitting in my opaljade colored subaru legacy outback
smoking a cigarette
it's pouring rain out
cheesecake on the countertop,
nobake
I'm a dying thirst
I drove to the gasstation & couldn't barely tell
the man abt the smokes I wanted
I sat in the car,
smoking
I read aloud
I did that thing where I tell myself not to move my lips when I read
I said this loudly
& I moved my lips so fully
I have such a humor
my dad took me out to this bougie restaurant
: An Italian Joint
  and I told them about my weekend
                            about what I'm sortof trying for
& the gross waitress hovered
taking away plates & utensils
in the corporate fashion
I reaaallly don't care about this place
but I ate  puffy smoked salmon stuffed
I mean, why lie? it was fucking delicious
but you won't be seeing me there again
   unless I'm dead
  like if someone really felt the urge to bother
with a corpse or a murder
for an overpriced fuck-me-I'm-pastad party
oooh happy birthday! the waitress fake-squealed
and she asked if I wanted some birthday girl dessert
  and come on, you think this fyne 33 yr old bod keeps its way through dessert? get real
I do thank you, & sincerely.
  they gave me a beautiful backpack
      so I'm trying not to be so awfully mean

diarrhea, entrails, repeat ∞

   we look almost nothing alike
pushing gently at the soft 30
  babe in the rain
I have been a smoke cloud
I have been a sadsack
my smoke face
my smoke stacks
I've been   I've been stuck under the street, gooey
  gummy, gutterblast
a little petrified thing.
I feel a little snaky in my old-skin
but I'm flowing. I mean, this shit's a gust, we're august
  up in here
   thickoil
go down
  my drains. I draw it up, little guzzle guzzle
my body's a goodmeat, my heart
is a harness
  a wetwish
  a no-way bore
and my brains are wrinkles
and I've that good
  innards rope
     double noose, holding them, side by side

  noose me to your pocket
            the one you dropped
  we're on this high plane, now
out of the rot
     plains

I got no grief machines
  driving my bod
  its inward mechanisms, abuzz buzz buzz

Merrill means shining sea in Welsh

we learned a few french words
  we felt awfully proud
     we pooped our bits out
        we stormed the crowd with party
            we danced away
        with our cranks & cogs
      and our ropes are strong, metal
     and the slivers they make are silver shines
   like some
iridescent sea

bros

boys chugging wine out of a jar in the cabana parkinglot
boys getting nervous before going in the bar
boys being disinterested & brave
boys acting cool when they see the girls they came to see
boys getting cocktails
boys getting handed a matchbook with a phone number, an address
boys being glad the girls are stupid, too
boys texting boys first thing in the morning
boys driving to sad breakfast with other boys
boys listening to that girl's alt-country band
boys laughing
boys smoking pot in the car in front of the house
boys smoking smokes in the sun
boys hiding from their neighbors
boys laying in platonic bed together
boys eating cold fries in bed together
boys listening to all of their joey-exgirlfriend CDs in bed together
boys talking about how gay their exgirlfriends are
boys in purple, lavender, blue, chartreuse
boys suggesting that maybe the next girlfriends they have won't be sad, or broken
boys laughing because that will never happen

one of the top 5 best bars in boise

I am too happy

I am soooo sad

the only thing they play is the pixies

  at this stupid bar 

but the news is good

last I was here was with you

and this time I amn't

and I don't like your person

and I don't like a mean poem

  but I'm just glad

you died

worth it

I came back
   the same
but so filthy
I don't want to ever wash my hands again
I am a touched girl
I have a sunburn or a cinnamon tan or something
I held the hair at its roots
  oilcan hair
  make that face
given me a corduroy elbow
given me your smokes
given me a double-sided noose
your dirt hands
that good clean mouth
  make my stomach muscles pain warmly from laughing solid for two whole days
  get it
under that big moon... there is some kind of agoraphobialike condition
  where people freak at the airport
  when they see how fucking big the sky is
I freak at that moon in ocean-sky
  around the fire,
& I just stared deeper
  & finally got it
we're finally burning sadhouse down,
  watch her ghost away

this is our vacation, now

so we're headed to raunchfest
in matty's whip
kyle is riding in the scub seat
girls in the back
kari gave me a bottle of makers for my birhday
and I've that good watermelon beer, like duh
  I stole these $50 shades from that designer rich 30yrold woman store
  when I was drunk on my birthday
it's cool that people can afford
kyle made activity lists for us in preparation for raunchfest
my instructions:
  1. brood
  2. mill about with cocktail
  3. where's my cocktail?
  4. rubber hose
I think we can do it

  because I'm happier than in weeks & weeks
  being 29 is gonna rock the earth off its orbit
 

plastic surgery

I'm attached to the idea
of being attached to an idea
  I finished my project
19 drawings for 19 days
  the last was done at 6am
    it's just a couple of lines
                a couple of depressed leaves & branches
   with the date stamped depressingly on it
  I think it's okay
I mean, I did it, right
   accomplishment
I ate only part of my birthday tunamelt
  Ida ate the other half
I drank two strong beers
  and had to walk around the Basque block
    to cry out some little-girl birhday-tears
I tried to tell Nickey I wasn't going to be sad
  and then I stopped myself, and she was like, ya right, I know
  but I've the close ones with me
and I'm not a tender misery
  I'm ready for the new-year
and may will end
and summer will
and I'm getting out
and no one will see my emotion-crumples
and my wax face
and I will iron my memory-wrinkles out
and flatten back to life, sewn & sinched

blanket

millions of pillows, windows open
  we have had an excellent try, molly
  we went to a movie
it was made by those who brought us the twilight saga
  bc all I wanted was some icecream
  to solve my 29yrold headache
I brought the leopard lisa frank blanket
  and I wore it to my legs
  and snugged with my milkshake.
I sat with nickey, and britta, and that tall one with the sparse face hair
  and the long feet in long shoes
    that's my favorite thing on him
  besides the 13 inches he stands over me
but he doesn't know me very well
  he had changed into a handsome date sweater
  but I'm guessing he rarely wears it
    rarely dates in it
we didn't hold hands, or touch or anything
in the car we leaned toward one another
  with a seat between us.
he knows enough, maybe
  like that I won't ask
                 I won't try
who knows, can you hang?
  I had a crush on him because of 7th grade orchestra
  he played stand-up bass
  and I was usually last-cello
    so I'd get to sit by him.
  he never talked to me or looked at me.
he was a skater boi
  he'd dyed his hair black and he'd headbang while he played.
  he doesn't remember the jr high me
    so is it cool or not
that he wants to hang 17 yrs later? with old-new-me
  I guess
    I live in boise, so
on our first date we went to the gasstation
  there were 5 dudes, all posing toward various audiences
  one bro was absently chewing a box of nerds he was about to purchase
  and I was able to look around at each of them
  bc none would make eyecontact with anyone
he bought me one of those giant glitter-fleece roses
  and he held up the line while he filled out the card
  he spelled our names phonetically
    which I found pretty endearing
       even though the flower is hideous
         and it makes this gross crumply sound when you spread open its petals
  I guess when you want to be a good date you do things like that
I had a dream I was going to nebraska
  and someone said, I heard you got a bus ticket back
  are you really sending me a mixtape?
  is it going to be a lamentable one? are you an across-the-country date?
  is that something to look for
when I came home, I asked my new landlady
  how she felt abt overnight dates
  she really doesn't like the idea
no smoking pot
  no sleepovers
     is this the kind of adult I'm expected to be?
fun
  I guess at 29 I'll become like you, then
paranoid
anxious
and lonely
with no one to share
  my millions of blankets with

where are those good izod boyshorts?

I just came out
  1 in the afternoon
being
on birthday
ima birth this day
ima birth ima birth ima birth
I wasn't alone, fuck it
  I have a headache, we can't find our underwear
  but who needs it
we're virtually 30
  I said fuck it & you smiled pretty face kiss-me-mouth
  and then you said happy birthday, molly
 
nickey says it's weird to cry so much when you're getting madeout with
or when you come
  but I think it's more strange
that no one else thinks it's strange
  they just kiss tears off a face & don't ask
   maybe that's what Poets do
   they think in tears & come
   so when someone does, its not a shockershocker
   or maybe they think I'm tender
   or sexy, when is sad sexy? AM I SEXY, NOW???
  I got out of the car at 5:23 this morning
& I said fuck it
my birth
   I'm soft
touch me leaky
tell me happy birthday
tell me you disgust yourself
tell me you're a disappointment
tell me you're alone
tell me you'll never leave
 
  fuck it, I'm virtually 30  
    let's just do

jerk

so I think the universe
  is trying to get something out
I think the universe
  is becoming an excuse
this is why a bar's a bar
  bc it gives me every drunk reason
    to blame
     the universe
poor innocent little universe! how small & helpless,
  what powers have you?
I'm a jerk
a terrible friend
a bad kid
kick me to the curb.
  I'm apparently waaaay too date to care
  too date to drive
  too date to be attentionful
someone else.
someone, somewhere else
  tall
  tall
  ugly
open the window
get me a glass of water
open up the compliments
get me those compliments
  you're just so well spoken & eloquent
    I like your face
      I like your smart
         I like your have-a-heart-that-feels
  I like your body.   give it here
  will you marry me? let's just kiss-away each other
  under the waxmoon
  by the river.
I used to love to watch the trees sway from my window
I don't really do that, anymore
  let's clear the room.
  tell me what you're trying for.
  tell me how instinct this is
  tell me how incest this has become.
someone else
someone
  else, tell me more
    blame me
      I'm a guilt
  tell me I'm cold
bc I'm a stonegirl
without all of the arms to hold your bones from shivering
  get impressed & sleep silent pretty
    and shock, then
           shock at my
    jerk

mondays

I came to the bar
  for the first time in five mondays
life is just a series of mondays
  put that on your coffeecup
  for your office
  to sip out of
  to set on your desk
who says I can't flirt
oh yeah, scraping the bar for sure that's likely
  the kids are onstage, now
    the cute blonde joey
   21yrs old
ya right
    welcome to the bar, I'm virtually 30
     I'm a doorknob
     I don't need to go inside this bar again
     I have lifeplans
     & I'm surrounded
by people
by people, I don't
by people, I don't want
by people I don't want to
by people I don't want to make
by people, I don't want to make out
by ppl I don't want to make out with
:(
  bummmmer bar, l8r cruel boring world

because everything destroys

a man came into the coffeeshop

and I force-smiled at him as I gave him his coffee

and he said, What a great smile!

  and I was uncertain

  was he serious?

  did he not see my almost-cry?

and then he said, You must be having a great day.

before he left he told me that my smile was the best part of the whole experience

  and I wanted to punch his face off

a trio came into the coffeeshop

a massive stroke-victim in a wheelchair

  asking question after question

  his dainty, birdlike hand turned awkwardly on his knee 

  he sort of demands an avocado sandwich, which we don't have

  and as he's asking questions, an uncertain woman comes to the counter

  so I take her order

while she's ordering, the child with the wheelchaired man

  interrupts to ask if we have banana bread

  and we don't

I tell her to hold on.

  while I'm helping the other woman,

a man with a thick german accent pushes up to the counter

  and asks if the pork sandwich 

  is served hot.

I have to tell him to hold on.

I have to ask all of these people to stop interrupting each other

  and the man in the wheelchair makes me want to cry

  because his left side is so soft, saggy, delicate

  and he is so demanding & angry.

I wonder, would I be, too

  I am going on a very long vacation starting now

I have no idea to where

  or when I will be back

   or if

    bc we're 28 yrs old still

     & I'm not too curious

sexy

guessing what comes out? melancholy & sanguine.
sometimes sacred. mercurial baby
  bet on that rocket
  rock me asleep, stone me
    to death. print me with letters
      talk me out of it, talk me into it
close me up
  close up beside me
     close into me
      close, into me
maybe it's the weather
maybe I make the worst weather
  tengo mal tiempo
I wish I had allof the world's balloons to ride
  back to last August or July or someplace
    to some preplace
      when I was just a kid in the sun
         with a different kind of weather
I'm sorry I've been a wrath
  I hope I am honest
  I hope I am a trustful
bc I can sleep through the nights, now
  I do things before bed
  I draw those flowers
  I let Kafka in my ears
& my melancholy blood
  it is a pretty lot still, me
    I mean, I could be a graduate with this mind of mine
  I could muster the strength of many men up in here
  I could rally
    my virility
       I could smoothe her hair
          caress her down
  make less lonely how-it-is
I wonder if I'll get fired for taking all of these breaks
  but I'm trying to get true broke, see
    bc I've heard that sometimes you need to break it
  to snap back into place
       

equanimity in allthings

two women came into the coffeeshop
one asked, which of the green teas is less "greeny"?
I asked her to repeat herself,
  I wasn't sure if I heard her right
  and I wanted her to repeat herself so I'd know she'd heard, too
she doesn't like green tea but wants the health benefits
  Nathan refers to the two women as the Brain Trust
  I think Nathan says it right, sometimes
like when he referred to you as a sad husk of humanity
  sounds like something you might say, no?
  I am not a patience today
  not a temperance
but I am learning.
  I am leaning out the window towards it.

a million bucks

thank you for the invitation

  I woke up with flowers in my eyes

  something happened when I was asleep.

  what happens when one is asleep?

all of my millions left me

I was knocked at the knees and 

all of the change

  is in gutters around.

    where are my shoes?

     where are my cadillac dreams?

        where's my word of today?

perfect

  mercurial

I was trying to flirt yesterday

  with this miniature bikejock

     he asked if the tunamelt was poisonous

I said, Hey guys, mercury is in retrograde right now

  so it's left the giant tunas of the world

  sucked back up into the atmosphere, right?

I mean, that's what that means

  I want to empty out thermometers in you

  I want your insides to burn sizzle out

    or is that mean?

I had a million bucks yesterday

  and I blew it, on a couple of things I wrote down

  on a drawing I made.

I felt the soft edge of some bend

I felt me pulling round it.

but dream memory

  and reality sad come by

    even in my silk vermilion blouse

       and the woolen plaid & everyday's tiedye

         I am still a solid wish 

                        a wonder

                         a so very solidly disappointed

I'll break my own record

  it's a tedious thing
  
   and what's left

                   but to wonder at         disappointment

there's nothing to be done with it

there's no effective

diss
diss
diss

airport

I'm sitting here in the cadillac
I've been ignoring the family
who keeps asking for it back
bc it's my whip, now
there's the trash, rodesoda cans
allofthe blankets off of allofthe cabin beds
a blue-painted sign written I think in my grandfather Bruce's hand that reads,
silk purse
and on its alternate side,
sow's ear
It's a special item
& also the carved wooden fist, I had to break it off the doorway
I'm glad I noticed it, else it would have been crunched
so
it's my whip, now
& I'm in jetstream aviation's parkinglot
picking up my passenger
and really, not sad at all to be at the airport picking up my passenger
I'm no sadball
I'm ballless
& ignore me, nothing abt me is an ugly one
or a gross thing
or a sucker
May be I am a full fantasizer
a picture-of-the-futurer
a let's try it
but you should check out my most excellent smile
it's the one thing I have for your face
give me sentiment, give me nostalgia
give me
a present a future
give me my good face back,
  an idgaf face
give me
bc I'm a neurosis queen taker
a narcissistic give me give me
   I glow
   I'm a glow machine
& no one blow me down now
fly here, flyaway
  whatever,
I'm taking the car
& I'm out of this twobit town

poets diversity college

  John Shinn & I are going to start a college

the ad will feature actors of indeterminate race- 

  headshots in high contrast puce lighting

saying the name of the college

  in various intonations

"poets. diversity. college."

"poet's diversity college."
   etc.

  John Shinn & Molly Stoddard, famed photographer & artist, respectively, know the challenge of finding a college that works with your needs.

  "Every student who attends pdc receives a laptop computer and a wheelchair, if needed, to keep, if they graduate, ABSOLUTELY FREE. Not sure which path is right for you? At poets diversity college, you will learn that everyone is a poet. Just ask yourself the question: how poem am I?"

we're pretty big on diversity, here. there are wheelchair ramps on every entrance

there will be clubs to join for every race, sexual orientation, religion & creed

oh, and speaking of religion!

try checking out pdc's sister school, poet's diversity bible college

because you can be a biblebanger & a poet, too

just ask history

no

wait, 

be a part of history

in the making. 

all the wheelchairs have a built in laptop table

so you can poem 

from the comfort

of your sleek new ride.

the only for-profit poetry college in America

  & don't forget the promises you'll make & keep

    & the free laptop & wheelchair you'll get

I heard Kyle Crawford just got his MFA, and his driver's license

  so he'll be teaching there, for sure

novelty

tear down that mtn, she does
we do can
there are tries alloverthe place
tries swarming around me, I'm swatting at them
I am in an apron I'm sitting on the curb beside the gasstation in the hot sunlight
in thick tights for summer
I am a teen, I know
but I am thinking abt new orleans a lot
wondering?
when, will we?
is it a novelty, now
is everything abt me novelty?
you fell in love with a novelty
it was too romantic, too impossible beautiful faraway to be anything
but
words, pics, drunk affections
like time pulled over
in the big novel countryside
and then the countryside shattered
into a million impossible pieces
and I was shown in the bustedup reflections
the impossible
our faces, bodies, voices crunching out
us, irl
the beautiful invisible novelty
that we were

velma

I love this name
it's like velvet
it's like crushing old
it's so labial
elllmmm
elllmmmm
it is my mother's mother's name
it's Kyle's mother's mother's name, too
it's the answer to some official security question we have in common
I never met her, Velma Sullivan
she died in her early 40s of lung cancer
my uncle had just joined the mormon church
& he wanted to convert her
in her dying hospitalroom
which pissed her off
and it pissed my mom off, too
my uncle's wife and some of his daughters just recently left the church
the wife left her husband
and probably some of her family, too
which probably fucked up the family band they all played in
no more angelic female vocals
no more angelic female fluting
all that's left is an acoustic guitar and some manly drumming, I'd guess
I don't know if Kyle knows his Velma
but I'm jealous, if he does
but I guess we'll probably have a daughter one day
and we'll name her after them

they're tearing down the cabin today

how to ever know which are your last days?
last days at gayulz
last days at work
last days in idaho
last days in love with someone
last days of health sex
last days of new carpet, scented oils
last days of cabin

It's really coming down now
  we were trying for the lake
we're sitting on the sunporch
  in the cabin
Nickey is taking bed still-lives w John Shinn's camera

It pours on the tin
  I will never sit in this room again
    at the round redvinyl-covered table
  windowalled room
choppy lake

 the contractor came by
  asked what was left upstairs
beds, I said
  he asked if I was going to take them
    "it's all gonna get munched, anyway" he said

 why would the universe say anything to me?

let's be humans

drop me off
who really figured out the earth isn't a plane
I mean, it's plains
but I don't know
I mean, it wasn't columbus in his three speedboats, I mean of course before he got his boats
christopher columbus was going along in his three boats
with his slaves
when he discovered that the people whose land he'd discovered
were also darker than he
so they could be his slaves, too
#extraslaves
drop me off
the flat plain earth
so I can float in space
upsidedownless
rightsideupless
bodiless, totally Mister Onlymind, here
     Cassavetes & Bergman & Fassbinder etc made a lot of films
in which the losing of one's mind, or the journey into a woman's spangled neurosis, is chronicled
  I've always loved watching stuff like that
watching someone crumble into the mind-abyss
lose a self in another, or a loss, or an absense or something emptier than that
it puts it into perspective
because I sometimes feel like I'm teetering on the edge
of some similar plains
just wondering if I'll ever tumble
but we've to remember that we're just human beings, here
like columbus
like his captivated
like Cassavetes & Bergman & Fassbinder
we're just rediscovering what's never been discovered by us
or discovering what has been, already
traipsing the sinews of a brokenmind
floating on the new eternal sea
or in new eternal space
to find someone with whom to hold hands
to clutch on tenderly
till the infinite brings us round again

new orleans

the universe is trying to tell me

the universe is telling, urging me

that here, it only gets bad before it gets worse

that these brainjolts are the spark

because, come on now I'm an engine

  so

let's hotbox the cadillac

let's mildly check that sunset from a cornereye

let's put those rugs we found in the upper upper cabin bedroom

  on the 200 yr floors in our new apartment

let's ride the goddam streetcar

admire the great muddy

crack exoskeletons in the dingy dim dreamed-of divebar

curtains of smoke drifting lazily

we'll sit around, sit about

we'll sit all over the place

fantasize about the escaping from city life

eating sandwiches on pontoons

we'll meet fat new bugs

and that rich-weather

the I'm-holding-you-now weather

let's choke on humidity

on coffee by the emptying

let's fishtail around the festival goers

and get wealthy on bourbon

let's get tall

taller than whatever buildings

and we'll crush the catacombs & crypts

slaughter the sarcophagi 

mush the mausolea

turn bones to dirt to under our fingernails to our mouths in our gullets

& reproduce it all through our skin

respirating 

and then we'll watch a jazz band

  and we'll make fun of the saxophone

and we'll hear some blues on the street

  and look wildly about, calling out names

and maybe we'll drown

or blow away

or 

or

or

maybe 

  maybe we'll really like it there

the universe is trying to tell me

to have a happy birthday,
what does the universe tell you?

there's this awful person
she's my mother's realtor
she wears a visor and a vest and has a lexus mini suv, but this isn't what makes her a bad person

we were reading about her type in this self-help book at the cabin, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

she's a Blamer

I knew she'd try to make me cry

but I just feel a wind at me to get me going now

like all of everything & everyone I know here is pushing me gently to an edge

and I'm supposed to fall crash fly whatever

but what the fuck ever

hey

I'll never be pretty again

hey

I'll have the best bursts

hey

I can explain it all

GTFOOH 

   byedaho

virtue

I moved inside and logged

  that fire

write in the light of it

with wet woolens dangling

there isn't a dictionary

  no one thinks to bring one

     it rains on the internet

   but I still find out that nemesis is the word of the day

                     

              but we have a different word of today

  

manliness,

      excellence, 

           godliness,

                potency

Virility & Virtue

    an advertisement urges me to click on a link: why men fall in love

  and its subheading: remind him why he loves you

  I am not a virtue

but a virtuous woman might

  just

remind a man

    why he loves her               

          

  like I am virtually her

  like I am virtually here

         I am essentially, practically there

  like I am essential, practical.

         a word on mouths for 600 years

  being as a fact but not as a truth

the fire is virtually dying

the fire is dying with virtue

nothing in the translation 

  of an old dead tongue

       can truth it real

& our descriptive grammar

    is proven absolute again

(so I know: another log for the fire, another wine for opening, feed them)

  

    I ate potato pancakes from the pancake & christmas house

  they were virtually crawling with onions

    why isn't that so true enough

      that I commit to it always?

and so drink & glorify in the 

older-than-that 

  words

the I-came-before-you words  

from a landscape slammed

  before latin was the only real shit

  Let yourself in then, your valor

        your worth  

  let this ancient adjective upstand

  let it be goodness

  let it rein america in

  let us men be strong

  let us be members

  let righteous members abound

But where's your tuff?

  where's your I'll-show-you-molly

  where's those gods-in-your-veins

  where's your justice?

  where's that wishful name

  placed pressureful on your slumped shoulders?

can't live tuff
  hide-in-a-name jelly skeleton

a nemesis has 

  Just indignation

      Righteous anger

         & thrashes & divines wrath up allover everything

  the virtuous

& the goddess of vengeance? at a Party sometime

   taking some beerbongs

     bodyshots

  Virility's glistening biceps in his threadbare tank

Nemesis' dampened tramp stamp

  and sunkissed bejeweled stomach

    glistening in the fluorescent basement lights

the Good & Strong & Excellent & Essential

   versus

the Defender of Justice

  who can shotgun the most beers

  who can kill that keg

  who can take down the party.

Who is splayed on the patio

   at the outcome of a chicken fight

 which one asks for more

   & which begs to be left off

  

  

I was due today

  there's a bull somewhere inside of me

  a taurus bumbling around

I'm sitting on the rock by the cabin

crept up the mossfilled footholds

tips of moccasins mashing the wet needles

slip off tread slide down.

we used to climb up here & we'd eat huckleberries

  cutest thing we ever did

we did a good job

  fell asleep in rain windows         layers in

  cotton silk wool cotton wool

    distrustful black hoodie,

it's chilling out and 

 we live on the mosquito plains

  but I'm a rockform

    tearing up  tearing down the mountain

like all the other pretended birthdays ever

a weather inappropriate watermelon beer in a colder that reads, 

  I'm still hot but now the hot comes in flashes

    

   what is virtue

   what are justices

  I wish I had a dictionary or a diary

   I wish I was another call

    I found the face.

 it's chilling out 

  on the mosquito plains

 fashion models taking some shots here

 denim + bronze

    when I'm a typographer                                 in the future

 I will design my own font

  that only gets used

   for my boutique's logo

but it will be patented

and it will make me billionz

           I'm an earth mother

        not a Typist

    especially since being always 

on the lichens, in the moss

swatting mosquitos 

pretending we were plains

but I wasn't born today, or yesterday

   there was just a broken heart drawn on my mother's baby-calendar

   followed by 5 days of things like, 

    

this baby won't get out of me

I'm tired

I'm done

this isn't working

I can't do this anymore

John Shinn brought a dictionary to the cabin

  

  we looked up indignation

      & found dignity

FOREST HONOR STODDARD

"The typist lived in a kind of limbo, hovering between heaven & hell." C.L, The Hour of the Star

tiny brimfilled winejar

just colors to design us in

someone's exploding

across the lake

  catastrophe bangs echo

are we in a rough neighborhood

I feel like a tough place, sometimes

on the lake in a dark wet breeze,

    Do you think we do things on purpose that are harder & worse for us?

it's raining on me, on my books

  my winejar has turned into a kalimotxo jar

it's raining around that good lighter

 and on The Hour of the Star

   and on The Blue Notebooks

Forest Honor Bali

  at the cabin we wear our

cut off cardigan sleeves

  as legwarmers

over our jeans

     they end up looking like

  festival wear

      burning the forest down

       with all the lights & smoke & vibrations

I have smoke face

mouth, ears, nostrils all smoke

smoke in my eyes

do clouds get thinner when they rain?

is it just

  I  L  L  U  Z  H  U  N  N  N  N

trying to be a poet in the rain

  trying to use a notebook in the forest?

           Climb a boulder

           Drop a laptop in a lake

  attend poets diversity college

   and get one for free

     if you graduate

bros

boys sitting around drawing portraits of flowers
boys laying in platonic bed together
with candlelights
boys telling each other that this song reminds them of their exgirlfriends
and then telling the story why
boys weeping when they drive
or when that phosphorescent song plays
boys in sleepingbags that smell like sweaty girls
boys apologizing to one another for being dicks
boys explaining why they're being dicks
boys talking on the phone for hours
boys buying boyznberry pie
boys crying when they pass the bookstore
or a tall road
or a tunnel
boys understanding other crying boys

solonge

my last night at gayulz. hooooowwww do i put this. i don't know, i'm just a man. if anyone tries to get me to do aaanything before noon, i am such a sucker. i am writing a goodbye poem. i have full sentences now

okay, i don't

i am a liar

i haven't told you guys i'm a liar

which isn't even true, i'm just trying

to be a man in this world

when am i gonna fall in love again?

i don't know, what

are you doing

later?

okay, i do

i know what to say in a goodbye

dear... what even are you? i've moved in & out from you

3 times

i've never moved into & outof something like that

it's okay that i never want to see you again

that the last thing i want to see

before i leave is the worst part of you

the dank scary underground

with the stupid song 

the darkness

the place i kicked someone over

and would scrape someone off

the scary underground

that was my underground rumble

i am ready to destroy that shit

there's no paper in the world

strong enough to clean 

me

I'mportant

I threw a mango in the bushes

I threw the ball for the dog a couple of times

do any of your sentences not have I in them? 

matty said that the other day when I was wearing those skates

I was talking about the cabin getting torn down

I was wearing those socal shades, they broke the next day I think?

I said fuck off, I think

I went around to the side of the house and sat down and started crying

I had friends pulling up from different cars, 

I stopped crying, but my shades were off

I told them about the cabin

for some reason, I apologized for crying

I got hugged

I laid next to matty later on the beach

he & I looked up at the sky

like we were on a dock

like we were 

and I were

I

I

I

I

brand new balcony

let's get marrowed

dreams not talk, but I have that fresh air

 a fan blowing around you

I dyed the pillowcase blue

it's so pretty now, it looks like cloud springsky behind those little blue flowers

it's funny my immediate intentions were

 to send the pillow in the post immediately

 to pillow you

 but I got greedy

 and wanted to roast in the gone-scent

it's funny, I wish I would have 

 a non-pillow

but I've the bedding to change

because we're never rollin in the club, here

closed ∞

  get yer coats on, take the shit out of me

  the balcony closed even to girls, now.

over the winter the sparkleporch, attached directly to the cougar den which is the vip lounge of gayulz club 

  closed to men

  not because we're inherently sexist, here at gayulz

  but because boys in the balcony ruin it

  make it dangerous

  it just took two bigbodied slams to unhinge the thing

  and it became girls only.

it's like the balcony of the club parked in front of Kyle's

  balcony party

  girls in the back

  like six chicks deep

  could.

I like memory

  it's like a bite

  or sometimes a cut or a bruise or a break

  then a veil

  and a thin little blood vessel

  or a juicy foods

but I'm digesting at every turn

and ingesting them all to marrow me

hardening the arteries of my softbod

the uncut fruits of our little labor

the smiths

dear diary

it's the last night at gayulz club. i lit the last smoke with the last match, am drinking the last gold beer. reel around the fountain is playing, i'm on sparkleporch, room empty but for floorbed and table, box & lamp. for the first time i can fit my clothes into a dresser, i'm suddenly dismissing & emptying. it feels almost just right. & the new room is a tall rectangle, animation blinds. i'd have to show you! come over, there's a joke closet. the stuff i keep is adorable. i'm writing full sentences, now. 

   oh just set up a table. oh just do it. the things are right, a rightbrain is you. many congratulations to strange summer. my brain is coming tiedyed, i fell out of bed twice. say something you've never said. 

   i got to hear about the bigger things, the deals of those i love. everyone is asuffer. i am a little perspective. you are a little. she is big to me, he is to me. may! you are a pretty month, in your surprise-destruction. you never do this before. i'm wearing the hat you left in the cushions. she said what to do with sad t, sadly folded reading only to keep, and i said don't tell me about it just put it somewhere. so who knows about that? mementos try as kill-futures. i didn't have a bad time,

   here at gayulz club, life was supposed to be a spa. we would steam everynight, and waltz out onto the patio in robes, reeling in the spring fall winter night, have a cocktail, rub lotion on i guess, nails.

   it would be soup & slowjamb sundays, which we did for awhile, so much soup & people would come and they'd eat it & compliment us, and we'd dance to toni braxton etc.

   last week i discovered that my office was on the patio, cushion seat near the ground, the small desk, & opposite, the job interview swing seat, you could meet 2 at once. A typewriter if necessary, plugins everywhere, & even an assistant in a clever white collared top (sassy) with imbedded black vestlet. she can't bring coffee or file or write because she hasn't opposable thumbs, what she's useful for is telling you when someone's arrived to see you.

   i am excited, i am looking at it, i will miss you gayulz club. i have moved in & out of you 3 times, this final forever no more. it's a relief. glad i got to sleep outside in a bed in you, so happy to have met all the ghosts here, & to have showered occasionally & painted the studio so it could be looked at. leopard carpet, marble bathroom. kevin over the fireplace, dumb dumb dumb

WHA

To quote Candy Crowley, life is hard
To quote the bulldog with feather headband poster,
smile... it could be worse
Naked from the waist down
reading More, the magazine for women with style & substance
Real women with Real hair
fierce hair
rape victim, whistle blower
mother, teacher
sister, helper
tough fashion divas
monsels
peroxide
lidocain
sterile water
sutures
syringes
chux
lap drapes
must have fall looks
color! blossom inspired hues
re ersing the body's signs of aging

i love this place

alone in a room of people

a dream in which

i had to pull you down by your beard to kiss you

i'm on my toes gasping for kissing

and your mouth is dry like sand tongue

and i scream inside, so i know i'll wake myself up

but i wake up in a small theater

and there's this avantegarde comedy play

and i'm embarassed bc i went to sleep and woke myself with screaming

it was just rude of me

i kept trying to sit on these blanketed seats that weren't mine

and in an effort to make friends, i loaded a bowl

but the others took the bowl outside to smoke without me

i dreamed there was this new interactive blog

like cutlass but with cartoon skies you could go inside of

with little animated planes lying around you

and anything could be posted

it was being updated like every 30 secs

i watched words & sentences fly past me

and of course i was overdoing it

i was doing it like once a minute,

it was becoming annoying for some of you

was it i who said sleeping is fun 

well maybe it is bc i just remembered the final part of my dream
there were bigcats on balconies
giant shining gray foxcats
so pretty
and on all of the balconies in this depressing town
now this is what i sleep for 

LML

oh no

  everything did wet, then

    and the trail from the bed like a 

slugtrail, the sailboat skirt 

empty bottles

  and... oh no now I will certainly never read a hundred years of solitude

   because it's wetter than I've ever seen it

at the garagesale an old man sat on one of the diningchairs

  he bought a lot of books and he said to us, There must be a really smart person living here

   I mean, I'm just lookin at these books thinkin,

     Man

       so I kept trying to interject I live here, she lives here, we live here, we're totally smart

     but he just kept shaking his head

   at how smart whoever lives here is

   he paid us $10

to seem as smart as whoever that is

I know who lives here

            ghosts

     there's the one ghost from the way-off

       when I fell in love 

                 I fell in love when I was 15

       in driver's education, where I learned to drive a manual transmission

       and I cried for a year

       and I called the beans in my stomach evil butterflies

       and I was a bad teen, and I got to go to therapy

       and the therapist said, I think when you fall in love with someone

       that you truly want their happiness, that you'll do whatever it takes for them

       even if you have to give them up forever

And I was like, forever's forever, yeah right

   I can't

    but of course I did, and we were free for awhile

 But he came here, to ghosthouse

     and he slept in my bed days

     and I said, I'm taking you to colorado, now

     to see how you exist

     to keep remeeting you after 11 years

     to feel what I felt keep feeling what I made you into 

     the teen bleached-blonde you

     to keep eating your past-skin

     & swallowing your hair & beard

     until I've overstayed my overeating

a ghost

  I fell into bc of his bookshelf

     I saw that thing and I cried come

        & I thought, I have to meet this person

            he will become my best friend

              we will play cribbage we'll fuck

                  and we did, and he told me that he already has enough friends, thanks anyway

a ghost. a sad triumphless one

 we stuck our claws in

   to gather strength

    to gether strength but together was lost on us. 

we ate mussels & crabs & clams & fettuccine & drank all the world's booze

  and we killed each other for summers

   floated on summers floated on wet tear beds

     ripped sweaters on doorjambs, broke doorglass, ripped door down

      and I'd sobdrive away

        thinking, is this my beautiful life

a ghost

 fuckadream

  let's be friends

   let me lay on your back

    let me grow out my little nails

     so I can scratch it sweet,

       submit you

a ghost

    we rained on

       I was a guiltmachine

          I was an apology, but stay here with me

       I was giant, round, full of it

      & months goes & you've said it

a ghost

  was a forced-upon, let's do this

    anything, get me out of anything

     but first forget me

   just as I'm a warmup

a ghost

  with hangers

   with somother smothers

    shortest days of the year

     like longest cutters

      like I'm in bed all of the time

       like where did I come from

a ghost

   threeweeksolder

    strangefaced tallbodied creature, get out of town, I'm falling

     in love with someone else's

a ghost lives in my shell

  pillowghost

   do you have some new dates, ghost

    does your ghost snore at your sideghost

      do you moan in your dark morning

       do you picture yourself there, do you picture me there

        do you dream drunkdial

         do you quit-it-ghost, voicemailghost

no one is smart here, everyone's gone. I moved inside bc wetbed is coldbed

but now there's the snorer in here, and it's a breathing vaping ghost

 a ghost

  we just got here

    let's get married

     let's drive to nevada

      let's have sad breakfast 

       become sweet in capable years

I'm out of this ghosttown, l8r

waterbed

I don't know whether I can do this, stay the rest of the night outside

but there's the cerulean edge light

over the silhouettehouses

and the earlymorning carsounds, bc it's worktime

I woke up to the sprinklers on me

soaking halfbed

thanks for helping me move furniture so late/early

but I'm determined to get beneath blankets I'm dreaming of these blankets, too

sticky feet

tuck me in, unfold around me

I'm dreaming of how badly the blankets smell

how gross they all are

and I'm wondering at a full sleep

and I'm wondering at going to the dr today

and I'm wondering at will you really hold my hand while I get this done?

and I'm wondering at will you promise to keep up how we talk to one another

  even with drs and nurses and strangers in the room?

GET IT

GET IT as you hold the mirror by my thigh

I have a million beans growing inside of me

it's the best

I am a gaseous system, I'm pretty out there

I can feel all the beans dance

have a funparty in my bod

I've always had a partybod to share with all of the worlds, you know

hey, do you know me? in a wet bed, with a dog, sleeping in silk in flannel, outside

  sometimes

sleeping is fun

 I miss it when I don't have it

  but I am no longer good 

   too good for sleep

    to party for sleep

     to wet for sleep

      too date for sleep

sucker

I'm a fad

I'm a goosewhite

walk on the ice, little webbers

  rubber sticks rubber suctions

they swish the cold out, could

I'm a variable

I'm a water

    Molly Stoddard, you're my hero

 you're my baby

I am a graduate

magma cum laude

I'm a suckee

I get sucked out like you wouldn't think

 the empty water, a wash

 flash flood, freeze me

walk on me

   congratulations

I have hair for centuries

 to comb,

  to braid on the beach

   to look at under nightlit light

those veins musthave gushed

I'vent straw teeth

I'vent suckers on

I'vent reasons to dig

I'vent bloodlust thrustin

I've my own blood for guzzling

& mine's with the white fighters

& the murdering connivers

birdhouse bodies nesting

  near the ground of me

  settle in

  get your young down

  fluff in 4 life

I'm no cannibal, I'm a husky eye-ear-mouth haver

I'm no ear-mouth-haver

I'm a husk lover

I'm a fillyou-upper

I'm a 

let me in

  I'm a toogood

of

an idea

       to let you have

20 saved messages

what do I do here
in the shake skizm
in this roundabout way
I decide things
like the colors to find
me
I want burnt orange, ultramarine
ultra ultra ultra
ultimate
a cloud of silence, halo of silence
hello peace, wrap around my brain peace
storm soft me peace, storm brain me please
give me a tough little Rain
I want them wet tufts
I wanna get all puffed out
shook off, sealskin
evapoheart
dissolvelungs
jump your bridge, how did I miss you?
wasn't I always a knot obvious?
how was I missed? & how long will I keep
them all
till the sky breaks across my swarmy head?
I spose

up

so many bugs in your hair to wake up in

a goodmorning place to be

shake the leaves out

shake the leggies out

iridescent wingers

green shine

morning muscle

in a back all taught with tough

morning tuft, curls
shake my halo

smoke hair halo

wave smoke, docile eyes

bee dance, twirl

such a shorty

mourning doves

all of the others in matutinal jam

singing for summer

and overcast under outside bedclothes

I can sleep through the night, now

I am a furnished hole

a piece of finish, sometimes

suspend it

not be disbelieving