The Bad Morning Came and Went

Too deep under the blanket, tangled,
it was funny, ha ha, I was stuck.
Forty times it looped, around my head
and down, around and down who
could it have been? Who 
wrapped me up like this? Who
saw me peaceful and, chuckle-it-up and
pop! You’re stuck. And so I was.
By noon it was a problem. 
I began to blame myself. I’m sorry
Mommy’s head is in this blanket,
it’s not your fault, you know
how grown-ups are. But secretly
I didn’t know. Perhaps it was. His fault.

But fault is not the proper
concept for a pickle such as
never breathing unfouled air
again. For such a pickle it had
become. My own wind blowing
in the microclimate of my new
and darkened life. Will I ever
laugh again? I asked the child but said
it’s not your job to know. But having
asked and referenced work he saw
the long sad hallway of his once
and future life I know he did, I know. 
It is my job to know, but see
I had this blanket on my head.
You’ll notice, with hope, I hope,
my past tense usage by this line.
Yes, I am using this unfettered form
to write from some near future time,
Hello! Well, I won’t bore you all
with what came next but know
this time next year will come
and I
will see you there. 

Fragment

I want to teach a lesson.
Or this heavy-bunned 
hairpinned feeling
is for nothing. Slow moving
jack-in-the-box,
up, up, up,
oh shit,
She’s not stopping...

Another Desk Poem

Crumble on, old wall.
Sun from Costco’s roof to ours,
bounced light given
in good faith.
Be present. There is more dust
today than yesterday.
Is that not what I seek?
No. I am here to hide
the passage of time.
To vanish the staples of
some other job. Be present.
This will not last forever.
Look at something close,
look at something far away.
Someone I used to know
is suffering. The old state hospitals
are gone. Once he told me
I was aging like a porcelain doll,
but I was twenty five 
and that was why. We didn’t see it 
at the time.
I hope he doesn’t freeze to death.
I work by the river, I sometimes remember.
I once met a man named Pyramid at lunch,
staring at the ferry’s wake.
he had high hopes for his life here.
Old wall, are you crying out
for help or glory,
I am here, I am here, I am brick
I am real.
I am real too. I have to believe
not everyone is. 
out of spite, yes, but also
mercy
and also wonder.
What else can fill a body?
I see black velvet pocked
with pinhole lights.
Be present. Winter sun.
Little self inside: still strong,
punk valedictorian, no
porcelain doll. A child whose
banana is a gun, and not a phone.
Little self, I love you. Present, gone,
productive, dust. Staples
to hold, and then, remove.

Tabs

Kid-friendly restaurant, murder, hair dryer.
Neck cream, loft bed, dogwhistle, pants.
Clearance, cookie, chaos, war. After bed
I want to look away, but there’s no other
time to look. Everyone wants to talk
this weekend. Check-in initiated. I’m safe
from my phone in the crook of your neck.
I’m never safe from you. Well, good. 
Facial, snowplow, protest, dance.
The internet figured me out again.
Let us not forget my one good year, 
long black hair always laughing cheap
clothes and not afraid of real deodorant. 
Could not even think of one thing
to shop for, besides a vintage dress,
eyeshadow, and beer. Maybe? Also
I was useless. Little white shoes, slipping. 
Not the real me, at all. I need some school
to be good at. I need a haircut. I need
to be five years younger I need
to be five years older, to find out:
was it worth it not to smoke? Science
summer camp, peptides, deals. 
Thank you for letting me be
this lame, thank you for letting me be. 

The Wonderful History

I would like to change.

I heard you could do it by breathing.

I heard you could hook your finger around your jaw

and it would become a prayer.

I have heard a lot about rituals.

I have heard a lot about skin.

I have joined religious mailing lists.

I heard you could become organized but

no one will tell me what that means.

I have failed to think king-thoughts.

I am considering spending money,

I consider and consider while expenses grow.

Some advice would be good,

but devastating to receive. 

I heard it in more that one source:

The scholar spends years on his creation,

divine mechanical portal,

metal mouth of god,

only to take a little nap

and miss its sole activation.

Even reading more about this

half-remembered fact half-fact

would be a change, in me. 

I heard you could.

The Motions

Sometimes it is all of us.
I turned my face to the snow and roared.
What if screaming did what screaming
claims to do?
The promise burns bright 
and out. It didn’t work, again.
Let us elevate the mood, open
the mouth and let the gods in.
Fooled by demons. I knew it, I
forgot. Will I really never
join the Hare Krishnas 
(I think, hours later, feeling better),
chant beats shout, 
heads or tails,
edible glitter,
stray cat,
mood ring,
face machine,
fog machine,
I run away 
once a day,
bound to 
get 
caught

Snow Emergency

Yes, the snow. Emergency.
Children. We are a hill
neighborhood that means
our memories are

necessarily
perfect. Emergency! Unpleasant
moment NOT allowed in winter
suffering is divine I see
the snow enter
the boot, my god, discomfort
of the type I’d left behind
how soft we grow, emergency.
The children. Are. 
Out! Their ears could snap
clean off they do no NOT 
care until they do, aha.
That is it, the problem! I
care before I must,
and thus, my life goes
pff pff pfffff and puffs
Away. Time to live
by sled hill
neighborhood
rules, at last at last,
please God,
at last.

Time Lock

I don’t know what a time lock is.
I could look it up. I could guess.
Seems obvious. But if you had to ask,
and someone did, I don’t know.
This sculpture is called “time lock”
and it’s vertical, not horizontal,
so, given the context of trauma
displacement, injustice, racism, war,
and personal disappointment,
what would that mean? How do you,
yes you (that’s me), interpret it?
And I think we can agree,
that is not a work-appropriate question.
I want to say “I don’t know what a time lock is”
but I say “interpreting art is not really my
really my really my really my really my
and that goes on until someone
shows mercy but what I mean is
“I don’t know what a time lock is,
in the first place,
actually, so.”
As I have plainly stated here. 
So that is what I’m saying,
and that is what I mean,
but neither is what I’m thinking
which is:

What would Buckminster Fuller

Watch on YouTube?

God I hate to imagine

Which is relevant in the sense 

that I think “time lock” meant

something specific to him

which is different 

from what it’s starting to mean to me

which is rooting this musing

in my moment, an anti-timeless

impulse that locks me in,

January 23, 2026,

no future, all past,

date me like a letter,

I don't care.

Do we all feel it?

A slab of marble saying

STOP

time lock looming vertically

and then what

Cowardly lunch

Midday the new midnight:
apparitions, superstitions, threats
Lunch grows colder in the mouth
Dusty nightstand coffee
The day’s second half
teeters like a breaking branch
that ping! Becomes a mere
twig on the head.
Still alive. I begin to look for you
in there. Are you ok?
You, asleep in my mind
all morning. Did I wake you?
No? Well why not? Talk to me.
I’m lonely. How often have I had
to say.

Children's Theater

We should make children’s theater.
In one scene five people wear one shirt
in the next someone runs by in the dark
someone is a king and also a metal horse
in the foreground there are toys, in the background
ghost eyes.
It all makes sense and why not?
There are scenes, and between we rest.
This is natural. Why demand otherwise?
Something happened last year.
Another thing is happening now.
I’m at the pawn shop
with my fool’s gold
of continuity and plot,
valueless rocks.
Give me a single jewel
busted from its band
next to another, and another
now that would pay the rent

Pre-Maps

I used to write directions like:
Exit near intersection of
President & Smith
East of President towards
Hoyt
Right onto Hoyt
Left onto
Carroll
See my line breaks?!
Wow look what they
Took from me
At the same time I’d say
I have spent the past
Twelve months
Learning to be useless
I always had it in me
(again, my notebook for directions)
And then:
West on Bushwick
Right on Dekalb
Left on Evergreen
Then a bald man getting pecked in the neck
By a goose with an arm and then
Why
Of omens many
Halfway up by nightfall
Granite ground
The moon set rapidly
I could not defend myself
I have been tired and I missed you
Very much
B38 -> Joralemon &
Court
   (after Fulton &
Jay)
Bread 
Grain
Cheese
Turkey
Tofu
Cat food
Now THAT’S the way to journal
I have no idea who “you” is but
Seeing I bought turkey
With undefined “grain” 
in 2009
Changes everything I thought I knew
About myself

Reflections of a Naturalist

Before you know it
Benjamin Bunny is grown
and married to his cousin
and it’s a happy life

We didn’t see it coming

but we didn’t need to.

Not everything needs

to be a story.

Can you imagine

your children are 

trapped in a sack

by a badger but

all’s well that ends well

A happy life can hold

an episode or two

of terror

And a rabbit’s life, so short!

If they can do it,

fictionally or otherwise

what is my problem