dayum!

never go into the tarot without a question
cuz if the answer comes up like this
it could blow your mind. i just spent 15 minutes and five lifetimes
thinking of the possible permutations of that reading.

1) me n the ex bf
2) me n the new bf
3) the case in court tomorrow
4) me n no boyfriends
5) travelling with many different bf. i give good conversation.

they call me bad. maybe i am. but only on paper.
i'm really quite a mouse inside.

anyway you look at all those questions i'm still fucked.
lol. metaphorically.

a. i take care of myself
b. and my son
c. and my job
d. so kind sir your offer of help is greatly
appreciated and yes, accepted.
e. a girl comes to depend on the kindness of
you- can- keep- a -stranger- at- arm's-lengths.
f. when you let someone in, they want something from you.
g. i have nothing left to give.
h. i'm sure you'd settle for sex.
i. but i'm not paying.



&


hello manequin child of laurel's blog. i finally got to see
some of your stuff. such a mayfly you can be. i'm still
unpacking from my vacation. i've lost several other minds
since then. i remember a dark room and benedictine.
i have excuses but no sorrow. i have mishandled cheques
and voyages in versage. things are going along with time
and my personal yom kippur looms. perhaps you can see
how a thing like a book might become binding for one
such as me. but a letter, a missive, a nod? i claim paralysis
of the will. i claim a judgment against what i was
and what i'll be. i claim sorrow and no excuses. a dark
desert hiway, tunneling beneath my sense of propriety.
i don't know why i write to you this way, except sometimes
i think only you can know exactly what i mean
and call me on it.

sometimes a soul mate

sometimes your soul mate


isn't one with whom you can spend your life
because the lives are too different, say if you're born
in nairobi and he was from patagonia and you're both slum
dwellers and die at young ages. so, that kind of thing.
you have to settle for believing that in the next life
you'll get together. free extra life vid game style. reset
and no one remembers but a pattern's been made and maybe the ghost
of a bit of a byte or a photonic wavicle as it were
that comprised the dream essence of you as you were
and your soul mate as they were meet at borders. you were
there playing dungeons and dragons, he was there to pick up
the latest edition of civilization and you both stopped
in the cafe for a hot chai. at some point your eyes meet
and you each feel a jolt. or maybe only you feel it, he doesn't
seem to notice men are such dogs. so you wander towards philosophy
slowly, browse the titles in sci fi along the way. bend over
to take a look at the ones on the bottom shelves. glance back
to see if maybe he's followed. why he should you have
no idea but hope springs eternal. quick scan the ailses.
straighten up, adjust your t back over your midrift
there he is. continue your shopping, with a heinlen in your hand.
in the cozy corner with philosphy you search for cioran, descartes, artaud.
there is nothing but neitzsche and bald frenchmen. romania
is an archaic idea and spain is busy with its own demise. you whisper
shaking your head. he is suddenly there beside you sliding
a copy of an obscure si'ik mahatma from between watts and wagner
he breaches the distance.
"well, this might be different" and smiles. there's no protest
you can make, no comeback you can think of. you are lost in his
yes in his eyes in his dance across the years back into your arms.
but that's later. right now, you just have to get through this level.

courthouse

courthouse


i'm here at the courthouse parking garage with all the good citizens, i've created a space no one seems to notice as the various motor vehicles drive by to the higher levels of the jury duty honeycomb. my view is of the new twin high rise luxe towers built on the edge of what we laughingly call a port. lookin big city, brah. residences begin five floors up, you can bet the floodsurge of any projected hurricane will not breach the distance. oh sure,the cars'll drown but the shutters that draw down over the double plated hrricane proof glass are steel and motorized. we're not going to be a hurricane shelter for anyone, we've got our gates locked. ok, time to head in and do my civic duty, one of the pleasures of being a citizen of the emp\ire.

maybe i won't go online. they do indeed have workstations complete with electrical outlets. i don't know if they have public online or not. i guess i want to go on, otherwise it's stuck with my own head for the reminder of the day. they didn't ask me for id. isn't that exceptional? i mean i could open a business for jury duty, come in as jane doe ..i wonder if the people manning the checkin would notice after a while. i'd have to take on a plethora of diguises. mostly made of the way i dress & do my hair. i could be the woman you thought you knew, haven't we met somewhere your face looks so familiar. how much could you charge for jury duty stand in? it'd have to be worth my time and since most people who would need such a service are working mothers i'd have to go for the luxe client. the businesswoman who couldn't get out of it, but had an important meeting that day she couldn't miss. the doctor who just doesn't have time, her patients need her. ummm, the bel aire heiress who wants to party that day, dude, don't they know it's 4/20? there's no ages on the form, no id required. if i want to be jane doe, i can.
the room begins to fill up. business peoples and students. guy with a chain on his waiste. i'm in a camel linen dress & slightly contrasting sweater, with low cut, soft camel boots, turned down to the ankle. very understated and proper. it buttons all the way down the front, sits mid calf. she can carry it off cuz she's tall. she smokes camels lights on breaks and does her hair with a pitchfork. beauty sleep was sacrificed in order to be in the proper state of zone for the jury duty drone. but yay! they have internet. i could blog my day at court. think of bobby and rick and jack and djuana. who wanna chat? rickens could but i don't want to . i think the lilly is being gilded. i think the optimum power usage has been sent out. i think i have no electrickty. there's a plug, but no power. damn. i ma have to be cautious or find an outlet. damn damn damn. it of course wouldn't be a free ride alla way.

hmmm, the access is incredibly slow. incredibly. forget chat. forget even possibly the idea that i will be doing this all day. my battery's gonna run low and i'll be forced to find a place after a couple of hours. shit. all i have to read is a tbt . no paper. no pen. i thought i was prepared but i'm not. i could have brought jack's journal i could have brought a gasp. book. gasp. ok the access is local only. what a bullshit thing. why isn't the access for the internet. why the fuck do i want local only????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

wobble

the sun's been going down earlier and earlier and earlier. oh not perceptibly but
it's been shaving its legs closely from one year to the next. june knows this because
it's her job to watch the sky with a stopwatch in hand and record the exact split
second the eyelash falls into the gutter. when it rains or clouds she feels the spin of the earth, vertiginous. she's been recording the times for five years, takes triangulated measurements
calculates arc and density in the columns of light that thrust through the sky behind a thunderhead. she's very often correct but not correllative with what the navy predicts. the results
are never published. not hidden, exactly, but buried like a face between thighs, satisfied
fat folders of data that no one looks to for trends. it's all about the rub. her colleauge, hilda
whose job it is to collect the morning sunrise on the other coast, says she can feel the vertigo too, but june doesn't believe she's even taken the data. her numbers match the sunrise times predicted, to the nanosecond. june thinks hilda sleeps thru the sunrise. she wants to know if this difference is significant, but she can't even prove the difference without correct data. the two times together are designed to encompass oceanic line of sight, the most acute avaiable for the human eye. robots and sensors aren't trusted for this kind of work anymore. expectations become their own exisitence. she's supposed to record to the third digit but she's watching the fifth. she's looked at the data from the last three years yesterday and the trend is there. but only on her side. one of us is falling down on the job and it's not me .she thinks. lt armistace creeps into her cubicle on little rat feet, sniffing around. "so leiutenant . i've seen this anamoly..she begins. he's not paying attention to her charts. he's looking for the copy of the order for 458 pillows for the new recuits to be housed. after all, this is just a minute part of my job she remembers. puts the data into the sunset folder and clicks on the link to purchasing. it's gonna be a long nightshift. the radio begins to play a mideastern loop. she's on the phone to the px, putting in the lt.s request. the sky glows over her head out the window, erasing itself into black.

blinds

the observatory is 2 flights tall
the springs cold, clear , housing
ponce de leon's wife in a silhouette

the moon begins to write itself into the sky
behind distant fog. there's a family
of americans, with dog. the boy speaks

to his father ,points up - hey daddy look
the sky's cracked. the park closes in 20 minutes
and the ranger wants to go home on time

but the cirrus are on fire in the twilight so they
make their way to the tower where you and i
pull away revealing a cleavage of horizon and sea.

turning over the tables at the temple of "love"

so i break it cuz
no i won't just leave you hanging
you want to know my issues
and i say let's wait till we're face
to face let's wait till we can talk
about it without my phone saying
you only have five minutes left
but you can't. i hate taking on the role
of d but i won't make those mistakes
i'll make my own goddamn mistakes
and damn the torpedoes. i told you
it had to be about trust and you don't
trust me, and maybe you don't have a reason to
after all how well could you know me
when i don't even know myself anymore.
so i speak to you in plain language and you have
reasons
you have rationale. i wouldn't want to take
them from you. it's your time of life for that.
now you'll have a problem with the ex.
but uranis is up there doin its thing
droppin me into a roller coaster of intuition.

oh what does the goddamn tarot say now?

sometimes i know i'm crazy

and it bothers you
because it might be
contagious, ebola for the brain.

just don't eat me.



the dwindling stacks of words
held their sheets to the wind

the cancelation of criminal
was foremost in her mind.

the judgement came without a trial
like life, you know?

how the hell do you even spell judgment
oh without the e. ok.




cigarettes and hating of self.
how to get past the squirmy feel of hook.
the rotten examples, the mushy apple
the broken screen. everything once was clean.


in the window, a breeze. i should say
good morning to your morning. stop being lone
and all pastagacio.

yeah, mozilla. no one knows that word.
there's a line being crossed today.
after there is not going back.

there's a place i want to go
and i hope it lets me.

let's see.

captive of my own ideas
spinning in the wind, a hanged woman.
this is the point. if he bores you
tell him? if he is repetitious aren't you?
what mirror do you have to inhabit? stupidly
you think that will may be possible.
won't may be.
i'll read this a few months from now
and wonder what i meant. i'm just a river.
bank me. i'm a fire, throw down some dirt.

when your soul is young you're closer
to god. that's just the way it is. you feel
the water rise in your roots. poisons hurt
but they don't kill this desire to be.


i saw the one, partially. i'll see the other now.
three fates and relationship. how very wrong.
it should have been reversed. i know, i'll
multiply them by negative one. come on schroedinger
give me your goddamn calculator.

it's noon. no time to write now.
i'll have to just go live this indeterminancy
and see what life has in store.

burn baby burn

long term memory is known to be affected
by circadian rhythms. joey from miami
has suddenly discovered that there must
be more to life than bass hammer and buzz.

the boys cleaned my house this morning. i awoke



to sounds of mutherfuckin this n that
and i told my son to do some science.
he handed me a note about a big surprise
and promptly went to sleep. walked into the rest
of the house. the the floor was vacuumed, the toilet brushed.

to say i freaked would be a lie but
sometimes life holds things that are surprising

like this appearance on the scene of a man my age
who appears to be yang i've been needing. my mistrust of it.
the way i'm still cruising the sites as if i were looking
for someone else. i'm sure it makes him squirm
like i did, on the hook, waiting to become your mermaid.

no, not you. YOU. the composite picture in my head
of men in general based on the last few lovers and the ones
i didn't have too. my mind lover. the way this man seems
to have my role in his body. only with a cock. and how is it

that i've taken on your role so willingly. how can i be
doing to this guy what you did to me. twice. i don't get it.
is it that i cursed the universe and now she's taken
my capacity for belief? hah, that's it, blame the outside
world. nothing inner here.

i guess the question i might have is would you want me back.
i don't wanna go into a relationship with the idea that one day
we'd reunite. plus, now stupid is that whole concept? you
can't go home again.


i guess it's just stupid to keep wanting
what's past. as if you could get up out
of that coffin and dance on your ashes.
i don'tdo
well with stupid.
but it's how i've been acting.
will continue to act. deletion is
a consequence of judging your work.
always find it lacking. how to say it
in ways that might be like a push into
possibility.


*)___



sometimes when you wade thru the watery
bog next to the lake you come upon
the sapphire wings of a florescent dragonfly
shimmery as dew, a quivering of your underlip
right before you realized how impossible
this was going to be.


that was where i spent
my time, remembering green.


the intervals become as important
as the lift off . thorax
strung to belly
strung to sings as wings.
a song i've heard in three phases
none of them match yours or the quail
under glass we're having for lunch.
i'll miss you at my table. we always


we always thought there'd be plenty
but never is enough
of time to catch up with each other
we thought our children would play
with each other or at least meet
once a year at the mountains
remembering green. remembering the insect i was
the tidal wave you became. then

how we switched it up. you took the front seat
and i was the big satisfaction. i never liked
being used that way. too much effort. but i found
a nice set of handcuffs for xmas so be sure to look
under the tree.






*








i want a big bonfire
made of the manuscript we wrote.
nothing in this room remains of you
except your ghost. one or two pictures
of you scroll thru my screen saver
but really, there's nothing much left

i threw your last shoe out
when i swept my closet. i didn't
have the energy to donate
it to goodwill. even your name's
misspelled in the gardy loo flyer.
the one with the ten legged
octopus on the front.

you could never have existed except
who then gave me this sliver chain
who from, this necklace of flowers
and missing black agates?

which of you survived?

















long pause. a lesson in print.
to say confused is only partially accurate.
my heart has a pain that i put off to passing influences.
chemicals gone wrong. caffeine and nicotine and weed
slogging thru miasmic blood, giving a push
to the pump that wants to falter now,
pull into itself and sluff out a final beat.

the next phase. you were talking about agnosticism
how it appeals to you as a rational person
but you're still shopping for the fable
in which you believe. it's your time of life for that.
burn truth into you like a poem you understand
for a moment, the scent of it armies on the battlefront
of time. references that fade as animus does.
the drifting off warning, signal lights moving
further away the less you strain your eyes.
your eyes becoming me, closing.