night Driving up the mountain on a snow-covered road treacherous until the bridge, which is strangely clean. It is night. Over the gorge and onto the left turn past the box apartments, each door with a variation of Christmas decorations: spruce boughs. Red ribbons. Blinking lights. My penumbra of…

20 shots Crazy john is there Do I wear a mask do I not wear a mask do I wear a mask? (that’s me). Stefanie tried to kill me. I said: I don’t want any of that crap liquor. Gimme top shelf. This was after work. We drank for free there. so I made out with her boyfriend on new years eve, so what?

trim I had to stop. This used to be where I live now a megacity. Highways snake around a giant circle with off-ramps I try to follow route 59. “we are in the mega-apartment” my family member says. I have no idea who these people are. The windows have louvred blinds and overlook the highways. They…

electric blue I see bill on Tuesday it’s nice and warm in here we find a booth nobody wants to work here when the kid shows up oh sorry I was tied up. Business. He has a laptop. questions and answers. the guy a Caribbean accent (where is Guadalupe?)  So if this chemo works, then they’ll keep on.…

feral Unexpectedly, Bill calls. Wants to meet at Dunkin. Ok like 10:30? He and I discuss some very difficult stuff. But I’m happy to be of service. I mean it’s not really service, it’ll be hanging out with one of my best friends. Like that. We get coffee, I see the other’s ponytail disappear…

atomic fireball Wanna fireball? Lindsey hands me the candy. Not so scorchin’ hot. I get plastic bits in my mouth and try to find a bathroom to spit it out. On the second floor of the blasé i look though the window and see the meeting down on the grass. Nothing happening. I come back at 8:30.…

thirty-year Sally At the meeting, I sit next to a man with blond hair who has just lost his son. I hug him. I am so sorry I say. “Sally usually sits there.” I am still in my seat. Sally has left in a huff. “Oh. I lead the meeting?” “Yeah,” blond guy says, chuckling. “Oh. Fuck.” Afterwards, I am…

still not ready, Brian. I opened the meeting Friday it went fine. A member was there. I tried to talk to some people. I talked to Loren about how I was feeling and she tore me a new one. Went up one sidea’ me and down the other. i went to my car in the middle of it. just sat there and cried. James…

at Jean’s house it’s chaos. The microwave sits on top of a stereo receiver. High ceilings and nothing in this cluttered kitchen makes any kind of sense. I find pizza slices in the fridge and put em in the microwave. I have pizza I say, bringing it out to the boys. We’re making fo soup says their…

leaves I was talking and my guy came in. the one who asks for change. He’s really tall and fucked up. He came in looking for coffee and Vic was like it’s not done yet. Then he came in five minutes later and Vic was like: still not done. I float on the ether of disclosure. of spilling my guts. fuck…

cheers Hello where ya been (night falls) what, no prostitutes in Bangkok? that is such a load of bullshit on the ramp he laughs, caught. We bump into each other like old friends, me him and Paula not to forget Jason, all of them like on cheers political differences well, fuck em I’m tired. I want…

nighttime in the dark house Yes. Apartment 4. He puts down the phone, disappears behind a slowly opening iron door. Nighttime in the dark house. Lighted windows behind a monolith of iron. My apartment is behind this. Are we in perpetual darkness? Rust patina. I don’t know the code. The street…

The End of the World Hotel & Casino Michael plays guitar. One-note leads. I am here to meet the family at the compound: The End of the World Hotel and Casino. Two floors of hotel rooms jammed up against the dunes. Bodies cavort in the windows. Lobbies with displays of elegance the latest fashions…

bikes in terminal apartments In twilight all the men in wife-beaters we are a crime family. Cars in the driveway cheese it the cops hide under the table with the tablecloth that goes to the floor bikes in terminal apartments everyone needs to talk like me.

can’t stay here Bert says “maybe the president should read it” (the constitution). “Outside issue” nat yells, “take that shit upstairs.” Brian’s plaid shirt hangs over the chair where he left it two days ago. It was there yesterday. It was there today. (Are these extravagant promises? You bet your…

the fat one I am in the country walking on the road in foreign parts strain to see the road sign where the hell is this? What town? (once you make a right you are in the screeching city ) a woman and her child approach me. I pull down a giant pole using only a rope., jesus, I didn’t mean to do…

black iris Walking down Little Tor Road in the brilliant sun. Up ahead south mountain looms so tired no way I could climb to the top to see the outline of the city. A woman in the heat and light sells black irises on the side of the road. All is beautiful. I look up toward the green of south…

surplus I’m listening to a lot of doom metal. It’s great. The weather is taking a shit on a roller-coaster. There is a surplus of insanity. The cat is crunching mouse bones, mouse guts, in the night. Turn up the music. Some people present an image that turns out to be totally untrue. Why I care…

uncool together At the hotel we bought, summer trees hang down in the hallways. The outdoor corridors. Messes of leaves, boardwalk pathways. The place is hoppin. Somebody runs it for us. It is warm and calm in the bustle of folks who stay there. it seems, surprisingly, relatively happy. I hang out…

working for the big boss I cleaned up the whole loading platform. Full of garbage. Of grease. The girl with the broken ankle helped me. Then the big boss said we had to shovel the snow off the platform. All of it. We did it, even tho my bra was on backwards. The boss was trump. We worked at the…

whatever A little of this. A lot of that. Sometimes I lose faith. I am Hester Prynne, scarlet letter whatever. I’m either being called grandma or being looked at askance for talking to stupid earl, and the guy who spilled his guts at the other meeting oh god, forget it.

better in here “Got any change?” he says to Dodie. “No.” to Laura. “No.” She clutches her purse without clutching her purse. Her hair hangs down. he sits at the table with a little ceramic coffee cup, long rip-jean legs to the side. His red hair. His darting eyes. After a while he leaves. The cup…

Kerosene jesus Oh no. Another lace dress is coming. At the wedding they ask my background. Is Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior? Shit like that. They all wear lace dresses. The women. “Lindsey? We haven’t seen him.” “I wish he would come back.” The house in Etna has room after room, with giant…

enough (MONOLORD RULES OK) My guy was there. the homeless guy from the morning meeting with red hair and talking to himself. I have no idea how he made it thru this brutal-ass fucking winter. I was so happy to see him he came in at the end of the thing and bert was dealing with the coffee pot and…

on the beach Me and John Lydon drove through all the houses of squalor on the hills in the tiny lanes. Down the rutted snow hill he drove that Volkswagen all in first gear to the beach. The girl on the beach selling overpriced shells for euros. Cash. What’s it in US dollars More. 103% more. In the…

multicores Jaime won’t help me do my laundry. Nobody will. I have to collect the sandbags (necessary), but the man won’t listen to how to load them in the truck. Jaime leads me through houses on the beach. the rooms and open spaces bathed in an aching orange melancholy. I follow her in the…

an angel/a demon On the map, the road forms a right angle and is very thick. This is odd, but I don’t worry about it because of the dream. A brown-haired man. this is his home, but the waterfall will take you down and kill you. You must avoid this. everything else is achingly beautiful. how could…

big-face I have friends now. I don’t participate in my own oppression. I went to the place today. It was all very impromptu and shit. Bill called. I said: hey how about we meet at quarter to eleven? And he was like huh? Okay. I went. There was probably gonna be unpleasantness and meanness on the…

the good and the bad In the rain should I bring the car around? (me, Lois and Nate). I can’t see. It’s raining! Wait, this is worse than sixth avenue in downtown Manhattan! The traffic in college town. Four lanes each way. Green highway signs. What? We drive thru laneways of brutal, fantastical…

Dunkin Dump I hardly ever go there at all. So what’s her problem? I go to the Dunkin dump today. That’s their latest ad, I swear. Gyrating sweating girls drinking some kind of protein concoction and doing splits. Lot of lipstick. I don’t go there much. Maybe once a week, once every 2 weeks and…

another one All this shit going on. I think back to the first time I met my mother. She was on a couch in a back room living room of her house that was so out of the way it felt adrift. She was scribbling something in a notebook and rocking back and forth slightly. If you were a boy, she says.…

“TEA & HONEY” There is a round headed, younger guy there. round all over. Pudgy and obnoxious. Says his name is gallon, like the jug. He has a big wallet chain and gangster style, with a baseball cap that says GOAT. Tuesday night I drive in the freezing cold to the radio station and everyone is…

Death ship On the ship, there is something wrong with the food. One group gets this, another gets that. Lois leaves. I have no idea. At the beach, our section is blocked by two wires. I walk alongside the wires until I get to the other section. Huge waves crest and crash over a coral wall. People…

potato head I work late at the restaurant and can’t find a machine to punch out my timecard. Wandering the hallways of the giant school. Teachers line up tiny children in wooden chairs. They glare at me as I walk through. They don’t take any breaks. They are welded to the caregiving function. Out…

this is what makes him a man Is this good thinking? The b names aren’t working out. I should go with Dave the Original. Is this a good idea? my head! I mouth the words of a prayer. on tv the guy was on his stomach and had been tased by multiple cops, all the while chanting the serenity prayer. I…

medium cappuccino Today I met bill at the ugly Dunkin. At 1:00 in the afternoon, past the time other bill would be there. So. Fine. Just fine. Bill is doing good—appetite good, no ill effects from what he’s taking. Glasses girl was there. Actually she ain’t no girl. Wattle effect I have one too,…

katy in the race for my life. Katy. “You did this to me many years ago,” she says. “I’m sorry.” She puts me in the Mexican deconstruction chamber to pay for my sins. I emerge, sucked dry and a monster. “Look,” says the man, “here is a tube. We plug it into our necks. We become revitalized.” I must…

NY. Ontario. I’m in a hotel room where I live with my strict father. On the wall is a door, made of a piece of plywood nailed on. there’s a tiny gap and I can see the Indian man and his thatch of black hair as he sings and drums. I can just see the top of his head but the music is beautiful.

shoe guy My Justin cowboy boot is coming apart. This is a problem. I get a curved upholstery needle and some embroidery thread on it. Sit there and try to jam it thru the leather. Nope. I can’t see trying to fix this myself. I’ll totally wreck it. So. Go on my phone: “shoe repair near me”.…

pop-up demons In the giant city the entrance to the building. I go in. Mobs in the pulsating mall of consumption. jostled by crowds I am carried past a pizza place. “I have a check for $12. Do you take a check?” “No.” jostled away where is the exit to the street? I just want to get to where the…

boy The water buffalo grabs the gear, pedals with its teeth. “leave it alone.” “no. it has to pay.” “what’s wrong with you, O’Reilly? Are you just that sad?” the baby hippo. The buffalo. They’re just sad. “Stone them to death.” the men drink whiskey and hurl the rocks. I am his boy. We live in a…

lead fingers We live in the open-air trailer park that goes down to the lake. I get a job at the Mexican place and put the peppers on the stove. Lois has a fit and we discuss. Fear of abandonment. I will not abandon you. This is not the same. My fingers grow nails of pencil lead. They are square…

lobster Heartache and despondency at the grocery store of the middle east bazaar. I sit on the conveyor belt the women don’t notice me I am dead. I walk into the covered parking lot. A man with lobsters in a cooler. “how much is a lobster?” “$535.” “Oh. Ok.” Movin’ on. Men in black yarmulkes…

mule feet Are these my clothes? Yes. Wear layers. See my parents. Under the truck in the shed he pushes the vehicle with the other guy I see his mule feet in flip- flops I just want to run the streets. Not be here squeezing thru this small hole in the wall, married to jeff. Did you see the sun…

いちめんの椿の中に椿落つ into a field of camellias, a camellia falls - Tokizane Shinko #senryu

happiness is: an unfinished flower arrangement mid-morning #senryu

morning laughter, several cups of after-Christmas coffee #senryu

Night night Blue Sky dreamers! See you on the other side! Sleep tight!

freeze-dried The top of the building is ugly. It is orange with awnings or some shit. It is Dunkin. I go there today, to meet bill. My friend. Not the other asshole. I go on Saturday at 2pm because even if donut man is intent on being a company guy, I think it is highly unlikely that he’ll be…

hard case A cold morning at the church the guy is standing in front of the stairs, dragging deep on a cigarette and squinting at me. He has red hair, red facial hair.  Blue eyes I’m sure. I’ve seen him at the coffee pot before. He gets coffee and leaves right away. He is a hard case. He is…