—I’M NOT SICK, BUT I’M NOT WELL

  

eulogy for the last morning

 

woke up to the water 

shimmering & unclear

the only thing that won’t

turn me down 

maybe I'll get lucky

and drown 

sorting through your 

memory cauldron 

it’s enough it’s enough 

to make me wish I didn’t 

wish I hadn’t 

can't stop what’s swirling 

in my cesspool head 

a barren landscape

respite for the dead

instead I skip 

some half-formed stones

watch the waves warn me 

I’m all alone stopping

liquid taxis with no way home

it’s enough it’s enough 

some days babe 

they get awfully rough 

the bottom falls

silence like a thug

rain on the panes 

carefully drawing 

each curtain closed 

as if that’s all there is 

but never enough 

—I’VE GOT ONE MORE SILVER DOLLAR

 

…Things are looking up—I made $1.62 last week on book sales.

 

…And, hey, my heart seems to be working again. Many thanks to all of you who asked.

 

…Every Sunday I hear that same ad and I think to myself, “I’d like to ‘drink responsibly’.”

 

…You only get so many chances, then you have to make up your mind, one way or the other.

 

…Me? I’m just following instructions.

 

…Second guessing yourself really doesn’t help matters, yet I do it all the time.

 

…In case you’re wondering, I haven’t forgotten.

 

…I’m a little startled at my own willpower.

 

…I guess everyone has a bad friend or two.

 

…First office fire of the year last week.

 

…We better get used to this.

 

…Tomorrow could be one of the best days, or worst days, of my life.

 

…“Gunner!!” 

    “Daniels!!”

 

…It’s a good thing that winning isn’t everything.

 

…“You appeared in 48 searches this week.”

 

…Thanks for thinking of me. 

 

…“It’s hard to write when you’re happy. Have you noticed that?” Connie Millard

 

…Sometimes the only one who sees me all day is this office.

 

…Sometimes you exaggerate things, sure, but you don’t expect to have your bluff called.

 

…Unless said in jest, no one should ever tell you to shut up.

 

…I got a lot of things wrong, but not that one.

 

…You can’t remember everything, but what you do says a lot.

 

…Sometimes it feels kind of nice to be petty.

 

…I figure if I make it to six months, the coast is clear, don’t you think?

 

…"When you’re younger, you romanticize death, even without knowing it. Then it starts happening to your immediate family and friends and suddenly it’s a different thing."Robert Smith

 

…It’s pretty hard to listen to The Cure for long and not want to jump off a high place.

 

…Everybody’s looking for something.

 

…It shouldn’t be so hard to read some of this stuff, but it is.

 

…I always think, if it’s going to rain, it should just go ahead and pour.

 

…I wonder what it means when your hands are constantly cold.

 

…Sometimes I want to feel anything other than what I’m feeling.

 

…I’m running out of places to put it.

 

…So many appropriate adjectives to describe him. Today’s is “despicable.”

 

…It’s funny to think we’re all looking at the same moon, like everyone of us.

… “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, about having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” Gilda Radner

…Anymore, my eyebrows have a life of their own.

…When you get to a certain age, not a day goes by when you don’t think about aging in some form.

…I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this could change everything forever, again.

…“I once told my wife I was going out to buy an envelope: ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?’ And so I pretended not to hear her. And went out to get an envelope because I have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I'll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is - we're here on Earth to fart around.

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it's like we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.

Let's all get up and move around a bit right now... or at least dance.”

Kurt Vonnegut

 

…“Story doesn’t end.” Rogan Kelly

 

…Eeeeee. Okay, here we go…

—RABBIT, RABBIT

  

                                                The Thin Place

 

           He calls me Mother whispering I’m sorry Mother I’m so sorry his arm hair brushing against mine the two of us in a straightjacket embrace his frame boned like a bird chest or scaffolding every skipped meal emblazoned like crude graffiti on this man-boy I love clinging to me as if I’m some kind of buoy the two of us floating in chaos and denial me with nothing left but to lift my work shirt offering him a nipple and empty breast.

—EVEN THE SIMPLE THINGS BECOME ROUGH

                                My Wife Dated a Serial Killer

 

          And won’t let me forget it, says he was suave and smelled like patchouli, says the news never mentions that, or how he loved the zoo, everything exotic and intoxicating, koalas and red pandas, a capybara, stirring in him some unknowable urge potent enough that he’d excuse himself, though later that night, enduring a migraine, he’d write the most beautiful sonnets, describing my wife as a peach, overwhelming and juicy, left untouched, hanging from a forbidden tree whose only task was to produce fruit after fruit, a plethora of seductive flavors and opportunities. 

 

—NEXT THING YOU KNOW

  

I Don’t Like Mondays

 

She thinks about the girl the song was written about, Brenda, how she’d gunned down her classmates years before the practice became common and in vogue, how they’d asked the sixteen year old killer “Why?” and Brenda had said, “Dunno. Guess I don’t like Monday.”

Swinging into the living room, loopy already, the girl’s father draws lopsided circles in the air with his tumbler empty of scotch and asks, “What’s so funny? You never laugh.”

He’s wrong about so much, correct about so little, but this bit is true.

The girl turns up the volume in her earbuds, the lyrics simple yet complex, a masterclass or blueprint for those in the know. The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload.

Her boyfriend is a year younger than her father. Smells like sulfates and peppermints. Hairy knuckles. Always with his fingernail grin. He says he’s her boyfriend undercover of the night, constantly squeezing, pinching, and biting as if she’s a chew toy. Boyfriend teaches Introduction to Chemistry. He could be good at it, but there’s always some experiment going awry, smoke and explosions that no one ever notices until it’s too late. Until it’s them.

—MIGHT AS WELL JUMP

  

…Friday, you sneaky bastard, be good to me today, please.

 

…I get fined a lot, though.

 

…Things that make me feel safe: warmth, books, puppies.

    Things that make me feel unsafe: Satan, T.

 

…Do you believe in signs? I wish I didn’t. 

 

…I’m tired of losing all the time. I forgot what it feels like to be a winner.

 

…Today’s song is “Lullaby.” Probably not the one you think. Until just now, I always thought it was “Rock-a-bye.”

...I definitely have a positive bias when it comes to book readers.

 

…It’s a little unnerving to get a buzzing notice on your watch and not be able to do anything about it other than gaze at the leap or divot of a beat.

 

…The thing is, everybody’s a little full of shit. So, try not to take it personally.

 

…It might not mean anything to you, but it means something to me.

 

…I guess it depends on your definition of close.

 

…Sometimes I’ll read back fragments of weeks-old writing and think, Who the hell wrote that?

 

…Two things I hate: Getting in the shower, and getting out of the shower.

 

…Nobody looks good when things go south, but that’s when you find out who the frauds are.

 

…Somebody’s got to do it, but I’m still sick of companies trying to get me to buy needless stuff. 

 

--Reporter:   “How much of your songwriting is true?” 

--Dylan:         “Let me put it this way: when Johnny Cash sings, ‘I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,' do you really think he’s a murderer?”

 

…I may be turning into a moody F*&%#.

 

…Ultimately, especially now, it all comes down to the things you care most about, and what you’re willing to do for those things. 

 

…Who doesn’t enjoy a good rocket launch?

 

…It’s pretty easy to find new things to worry about. 

 

…What if there was no “best part” of your day?

 

…Scented soaps are something I miss. Especially citrus, green tea and mango.

 

…Can’t a guy just write what he wants to write?

 

…Twelve days…

 

…Whenever I realize I have to pee, the urgency ramps up by ten. Especially in a car. Especially on a plane that’s just landed.

 

…I’ve never found it harder to be less judgmental than right now.

 

…I don’t know if I really want to know what other people are thinking. Maybe that makes me close-minded.

 

…Listening to my stomach gurgle sometimes is akin to that cassette tape in The Sixth Sense.

 

…I can sometimes go an entire day without saying more than 100 words. Seems like there should be some kind of award for that.

 

…Other than Cinema and History with Leroy Ashby, Environmental Science was my favorite class in college. The professor warned us on the first day that we might get depressed when shown all of the pressing threats to the planet—pollution, overpopulation, starvation, a hole in the ozone… He was right to do so. 

Remarkably, we’ve since fixed some of those problems, while even more glaring ones have emerged. Even though they look daunting, I keep thinking smart people will find solutions eventually. So it was nice, yesterday, to read that scientists have created COF-999, a chemical compound/powder, that can suck carbon dioxide out of the air even better than a tree which, over the course of a year, removes 40 kilograms of CO2. So, yay. A small victory among all the outlying gloom. 

 

…If the planet’s still here in 100 years from now, I wonder if there will still be conflict in the Middle East.

 

…“Who is sitting in that empty chair?” Eugene Ormandy

 

…

On Another Panel About Climate, They Ask Me to Sell the Future and All I’ve Got Is a Love Poem

 

   How rare and beautiful it is that we exist.

What if we stun existence one more time?

The earth remembers everything, our bodies are the color of the earth and we are nobodies.

Been born from so many apocalypses, what’s one more?

Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire.

But for what it’s worth, I’d do this again.

Gamble on humanity one hundred times over.

Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them.

I’d follow love into extinction.

--Ayisha Siddiqa

 

—CONTENTS MAY HAVE SHIFTED

 

                                                      Wallet

         In my cell phone the woman’s voice is gritty and shifting, a gold miner’s pan, uncertain now about this, her offer to meet me, perhaps dredging up horror movie scares or past ill-fated meetings, but she names a 7/11 in Darien, not far from where I filled the tank and bought a six pack and made a promise to myself that this would be it, no more, even if I was alone with no one to confer.

         I get out of the car sensing an ambush, I’m that disoriented already, from the beer or glare or panic at being late, a flat tire hissing in my head, a trapped bee there.  The sun is scalding, sun is angry, sun is a roiling, boiling mirror.  I get chills and go dizzy as sweat drops spider-crawl to dank places, my pits and groin, the crack of my ass.

         Sign of something in her eyes, something I’ve seen others wearing—fear.

She drops my wallet and back-peddles away.

         I hold it in my hands.  I realize how light it is.  I hear cars on the freeway, trees taking on the wind, gargled music, laughter, a child’s scream.  I close my eyes and let the sun brand me.