he was the maple bar man
 it was all he could do
that and
watch the Oakland Athletics
but it was a losing season
 Across the bay
every seat was filled
even though the Brewers were in town
we had good seats
it was her birthday
 maybe I drank too much
maybe not
  I started rooting for the Brewers
because there were just too many damn Giants fans
fuck 'em
they were a boring unimaginative lot
and my buddy Dale
is from Milwaukee

there was a listless bumper sticker revery
  kids who snitch are dead kids
 don't laugh your daughter could be inside
the chevy astro van belief systems -
 some drove a 69 e type jaguar
t'TO COMMUTE!!
but it had an HONOR LABOR
sticker
on the rear bumper
 no one cares about your stick figure family

the stoned rythmn
of a white man on steroids
barking at the passersby
 no snow cones today
cherry is my favorite
   the black lady listened
    we are the future
 we have to
 the grey acura backed up over a hydrant and water cleaned the streets
 send your mail care of general delivery
  blofeldt, colorado
they're singing hymns in the police station
 they have internet
 out californee way
 some anyway
  we bark you bark they bark
 the dogs of your asstricks are not
poo poo ing the no fly zones
park wherever you can and come up
and see us

untoward perspicacity
 he flinched 
   the airport magazines
      were somehow unsatisfying
         there was no Switzerland
     he could charter a bus
to take them to Botswana
 maybe see a wildebeest
 eaten by a lion or croc
 maybe drink cheap vermouth
 in the gas station
restroom
and curse the flies
 or read about his ex-wife
 in the newspaper
 look at that fat retard she's dating
he's got a lot of trouble now
  maybe I'll ring her up
he drank more and went back to the bus
the sun was coming out
  but it was still raining
 

He had a bagel with butter
and sat outside
the lady that is always there in the morning
sitting on the bench wasn't there
he also had a large iced coffee
the people who ran the tour company next door
were busy moving their cars
it was a regular day
he looked at his phone
then he walked to get the train

there was no permanent marker
it wasn't blue
he didn't write on the container that held the olives
it didn't happen

they went to Iran in the seventies and worked on Robert Wilson's seven day performance piece Ka Mountain
 seven days and seven nights
funded by the Shah
 later they did Beckett
 Happy Days
  at a little space on 14th st
in the Mission
 I took photos of her as Winnie
  half buried in her pile of dirt
with her hair brush
 mirror
 and
what else?
I forget
they had a little apartment on Oak Street
 they used it when they came into town
  
 

It was that particular East Coast kind of dismal.
  Thick heavy air
but it had cooled off
 the sky had been mud colored
and buildings were an endless array of ugly old factories
and apartment buildings
 her mother had a basement apartment with a backyard
in alphabet city
 she completely cleaned it up and was doing performances
at La Mama
 she smoked pot and listened to a lot of seventies Dylan
then a junkie put a gun in her face and she abandoned it all
years before she had been the first woman taxi driver in D.C.

my headphones didn't work very well
 so I just stared out the window and wondered why the fuck I was still here
then I got coffee

She pretended not to be in the way
 she swung the backpack and nearly hit that old man
 everybody was like
jesus fuck
 more bullshit
but then
that chinese lady who always
laughs
started laughing
 and no one was quite sure
what was going on

he was the chilblain cowboy surfer asshole
 forever going on about his pot plants
he didn't like
to share
 he stole a pack of gum from 7-11
and got arrested
  his mother drove from
Benicia to bail him out
 later she sued him to get her money back
he moved to South Africa
 she said
and his father was such a great guy

She said she once stepped on Tom Waits' hand-
they had a swing in their loft in Tribeca
they sold it and moved to the Palisades
 it was grey and dreary
A painting of the famous Ashcan School teacher
  Robert Henri stared at me
his father had painted it in the early part of the century
 the view was grey and dreary down below
the pilings of old wharves dotted the river
everything was gray
 a jitney took me right to the building
I don't know how I found it
they were on the 27th floor
we ordered delivery
 and drank crunchy rice tea
or maybe we went out
 I don't remember

"I majored in whale fucking
 at the University of the Congo."

you shit on everything
everything is shit
 "you dump your rick ass on Mother Nature"
 and you watch yourself on tv having sex

He found a child
with his teenager lover
 in the woods in France
Brittany perhaps
 but we didn't go to Mont. St Michel
too far
 so we went to St. Nazaire instead
and saw the Nazi U-boat bunkers
 in his 74 Fiat
with Nevada license plates
 Jersey City is still there
perhaps it was in my van
I let them borrow it to go to Yosemite
in California
 they cleaned it up nice

The truncated ancillary
brocade memory
bottled, canned, pickled, preserved.
honey can last 3,000 years but
 a good pair of converse?
 DUDE, you've got to be kidding!!

"She's completely lost, she's perfect for you."
 "Get me a scotch on the rocks and let that butterfly loose."

borderline denial and a frozen marmot
"I'll split hairs to make you believe!"
 the coast was clear
again,
I ran

sensory overtime
two goals;
one: get out of the bus's way
and
B: don't itemize

 D.N.

  D.N.

  D.N.

 R.M.

 R.M.

 

  D.N.

R.M.

I piled the books in the hallway
 you mentioned the dvd's
 like 400 blows
 and city slickers
 what
 that's not mine
  there was a Wegman dvd that belongs to
D.
  I think I have his Kerouac collection set of LP's as well
Carolyn borrowed them
when did we go out?
1994?
 jeez
there's something to be learned from all this stuff
  get a bigger house!
 
 

on the time removal
episodic
disavowal
police tactics
I do not answer questions
  i fade into
the system
of steerage
   sensing a break 'you know the one
hey yo what up
writing for comedy
 thievery is a
mistake
for you
baseball cards with bent corners
LP's - RECORD ALBUMS
 the fuckface card
 Dock Ellis animatronix
 'what's the matter with you'
  georgia pines!
   assemblage by Arp
Duchamp
 7picabia
   These are the voyages
     9lets not
(oh yes!)
  10 trying it again
Hah!
 Episodic renewals
  Pining tactics
 rank
peer
ages
  !-25
 I could use a cold beer




   

it's improbable
how much I can sleep
  I should get some cats to monitor
or a television

maybe I'll go backwards
use a typewriter
 and butter
   have sex on the ground
 it's not magic
 or a fantasy paperback
there are
 no amish astronauts
    working in silicon valley
sex is still the same
 there's a certain amount of motivation
one needs to bring
without it
  the future is no longer
so clandestine humor
 in shopping cart adverts
  "you should love your real estate agent"
 what did Scout grow up to be?
a geologist
maybe
a lover of patooties?
no doubt
 Site 300
 is still near the motorcycle park
but now it's a commuter road
  There used to be towns out there;
Carnegie,
 Pottery,
  and low grade coal mines
 The Hoovers used to live out
there
 then well
let's not talk about it

the fog is in
and I'm under it
you on the other hand
 I dreamed
 you had a baby
and it wouldn't wake up
 but then I spoke to it
and it smiled

they tore my cubicle apart
there were two young women with telex machines
I asked them
did you find the bodies
  and where are my canes?
Karen's office, they said
but it's in a different building

 we made coffee
  and you wanted to go away together

whats he doing up at this hour
whats the time in Nantes
whats the frequency,  Kenneth
whats the fuck

we knelt and
in silence
  photographed
  with our phones
actually we just texted each other
drawings of horned creatures

they asked if I was related
  and being a jerk I took them seriously
 I fucking kav magra'd her thorax
 I blame the local news

he caught fire
  with that back
yard lumber
 it was grist for his mill
   of course nobody
invited you to buy shitty equipment
 instead we played Mr. Rogers
toy keyboard
  and turned the amp up
past two
that was all it took
 that and a broke down van 
 

the slow descent
the Friday night brain fuck
weeks go by
years go by 
  the same videos
 we're not sure why
 

I know
 I talk too much
I say too much
   shit
I know
  you don't know
what the hell I'm talking about 
  but at least you know
I'm crazy

oh you would
Pol Pot that shit in a heart beat
 khmer rouge on your cheeks
 

She who eats cake
"I NEVER FUCKING said that"
well,
 they chopped her head off

I could forgive
you being an asshole
 but to have you say I'm not your friend
that
I cannot forgive

one measure
of stocks and bonds
is how many free tecates
 did you get
 i have no eyes
 you are sleeping in your
    judgments
    and the cat is as attentive  
the neighbor knows
  the cat's name
 it's Bob
 but you are sore from pt

at least the watermelon looks good

they stormed the Bastille
  monument of unspeakable horrors
torture and death
for the gunpowder
 to fight the Royal army
A loaf of bread cost a month's wages
'He with the empty stomach complains loudest'
 they marched to Versailles,
the fishwives
these women worked hard every day
 and they were out for blood
 pitchforks muskets
and longknives
  Louis was moved to Paris and
becames it's prisoner

Aristotle of Bond movies
  his features were an iconography of languor
you should iron those sheets
   the bustle of Canal St in NYC
and three card monty
 but you knew better
two shills one dealer and one sucker
August was just too hot
but we had a key
and a bit of money
 but not much

Big Sur
 walking with a carpenter
on a hot evening
  your aura is such blah blah blah
I guess that too much red wine and pot smoke
 made her an authority
the mother was embarrased
the sister was having a nervous alcoholic breakdown
 the husband needed hip surgery
and I talked about socialism at the dinner table
 at least the cats were happy

oh miracalis]
framed behind Latino asides
peace brother
 you of the golden mephisto
  9 torturing for 
the ages
sensing a lactose differential
outside his purview
[lets not edit]
 scene 3
the sidewalk meets the road
...and the chickenshit called his broker on the telephone

grieving for the lost weeks of my time in a hurricane storm your mother paid for
i was kept in irons in the hulks
magwitch he said his name was
said he busting out
heading for the colonies

Biochrometer echelons
in Uppsala
noted local historian
leaves trash at the curb
is this news?
the spiral jetty time sense columnists
speaking on the red billed thrush
a diverse ambient temperature flux
we had rain
and so on
and so forth
there was a broken chocolate bar
and a can of espresso left by the bed

R.M.

D.N.

R.M.

R.M.

R.M.

D.N.

D.N.

D.N.

D.N.

 

a strata in
an incorrigible polarized
analogy of said differences
there was no tv
there was tv
we tuned to the sound of a fiberglass duck
we motioned the aerials to
  Kodaly
    ta ta ti ti ta
the was no auto
there was auto
  his hands held the pipe
 and two canes
 we smelled the farms
in summer
 we saw the silos
we ate lima beans and
smoked beef tongue
she served it whole
  the bereft magic of drugstore purchases
and comic books
 we timed the delivery
and got it down to 2.4 seconds
   the strata was
not tv
the strata was tv

it was a baby blue 65 chevy long bed
three on the tree
the bed was wood and starting to come loose
we lay in the back so no one could see us and gulped the vodka
we got very drunk very fast
my buddy had to play trumpet in the pep band at the basketball game
he didn't play so great
everyone knew we were drunk
I guess I drove home drunk
one time we drove that truck to the beach
a bunch of us sat in the back
and drank Mickey Big Mouths
I think I saw a girls tit
did we get sunburned? Maybe.
my sister got in an accident with the truck and it got a dent in the door
my dad was so mad. not sure why. it was an old beat up truck
later it started to have problems and you'd get stuck a stop light because you couldn't put it into gear.
you had to lift the hood and jiggle some wire to get it to work. serious.

Blessed be the Marked Man


   born beside the blue mountain still
laying in the back
  watching through cataract eyes
 listening on the phone in government offices
  he swears on a bible
 and fingers his blued service revolver
  it's stolen from the grandfather of a dead friend
whose testimony was ignored
roughshod runners of central nervous system
 the cracked code of behavior
 in starched shirts and biting dogs
we the people
 in foreign interest
bisecting the difference
 fingers dirty from the
need
 arching backs
stretching
 laughing at lunch
"Did you see the look on his face?! Haha!"

The sound of
television loud speaking a foreign tongue
muk waaaaUH
muk waaaaaUH
Is that racist
 I wish they'd turn it down
"They were talking until 11 last night
it was the Fourth of July"
 the last days of Saigon
good thing we got a wheelchair out of there
she had the sheet pulled up over her mouth
 they don't stop for pedestrians in crosswalks in Pleasanton, California

the trifles
 and sniffles
 caramel lindt chocolate
like a golden ticket
trip to Wonka's factory
 or assisted living
 most in wheelchairs
 "you requested a pain pill?"
"an hour ago."

Richard hadn't read a book in months. He just didn't. He spent most of his time looking at the internet or watching TV shows. He drank a lot and smoked cigarettes. He remembered reading some stories by Hemingway. The Nick Adams stories. Nick liked to fish and he had been in the war. The war had taken a toll on Nick. Richard liked the stories. There was a lot unspoken pain but Nick was stoic and sought relief in nature and hard work.
Richard hadn't fished in years. The last time was several years back when he was living in Idaho. Ironic, perhaps, because that was where Hemingway lived when he blew his brains out with a shotgun.
Richard had taken his friends dog, Rocko, who he was watching while his friend was in San Francisco, to the Sawtooth mountains and they headed for a remote lake. Rocko loved the wilderness and it was beautiful in July in the mountains. The trees were incredibly green and the water in the rivers was ice cold and crystal clear. Everything seemed hallucinogenically hyper-beautiful.
They didn't see a single person the entire week they were in the mountains. The nights were cold and the dog didn't seem to sleep much at night. Richard would wake up and hear the dog outside barking and running after some critter. Richard hoped he wouldn't chase after a bear.
Richard's dad had taken their family camping many times when Richard was young. His dad had a fly fishing rig and would spend a lot of time cursing his sinking flys. Richard had a standard reel on his fishing pole and frequently used a lure called a super-duper that would spin around and attract the fish.
Later his father stopped backpacking and took up sailing. He bought a boat and moved to Mexico. Richard would fly down for a week at least once a year and bring whomever he was dating at the time. They had fun going to the playa, eating barbecued fish, painting watercolors, and later going out for dinner and drinks and then maybe dancing or just bar hopping, stumbling drunk through the cobblestoned streets back to the house.
But those days were done. His dad had senile dementia, they sold the Mexico house, and put him in an assisted care home in Mountain View. The home complained because he would climb out the window and go for walks.

The bus broke down outside of Reno. The driver said he phoned the company and they were sending another bus but it was in Carson City so they were 'going to have sit tight 'till it gets here.'
Robbie went outside and had a smoke. They were at a rest station off Highway 80. It was a grey day and cold.
"Hey, do you have a smoke?"
It was a girl about 18 or 19. She was kind of cute. Kind of hot.
"Um, yeah, here."
He lighted her cigarette.
"Thanks."
"What's your name?"
"Kiley"
"Huh. My name's Robbie. The stupid bus broke down. Fuckers, haha."
She laughed.
"Where was it going?"
"San Francisco."
"That's where I'm headed. I've been driving for four days from Chicago. Do you have a driver's license?"
 "Yeah, I do."
"Do you want to ride with me? You drive, I'm sick OF DRIVING!" She screamed.
"Haha oh hell yeah, awesome. I'm gonna go get my bag." He pointed at the bus.
"Okay, I'm in the brown Subaru wagon, see it, with the dent?"
"Yep."
Robbie ran to the bus and got his duffle bag and backpack.
"I got a ride." He told the driver.
He walked over to the Subaru. She was still smoking the cigarette.
He looked inside the car. She was obviously moving to San Francisco. The car was packed except for the front seats. A cat was asleep on the passenger seat.
"Okay, let's go!"
She tossed him the keys. 

Aditya went into the house. His mother and grandmother were in the kitchen cooking. The house smelled good. He was hungry.
"Aditya, did you bring the flour?"
Aditya had forgotten to stop at the store.
"I forgot."
"Aditya!"
"I'll go get it right now."
He ran out of the house.
'Shit.'
Aditya had completely forgotten his mother's request and had spent the money on a falooda. It was delicious.
He ran to his friend Daha's house.
"Daha" He shouted. "Daha"
The girl appeared at the window.
"What?"
He waved his arm for her to come down. She held up one finger.
A minute later she came around from the back of the house.
"What are you doing here?"
He told her what happened. How he spent the money on a falooda and now he had no money to buy the flour.
"Haha." She laughed.
Aditya got mad but he had to take it.
"Okay, I will lend it to you but you have to pay me back. Promise?"
"Yes."
"Yes what?"
"Yes I promise."
The girl ran back into the house and came out a minute later with a small purse.
"How much do you need? Flour costs sixty five at Gupta."
"Give me seventy just in case."
She tilted her head and then fished the money out of the purse.
"Here, now I have to go help my mother."
She turned and ran to the back of the house.
"Thank you Daha."
He shouted.
"Remember you have to pay it back."
He heard her shout from the back of the house.
Aditya knew the flour at Adhanyi was cheaper. He'd go there.
He took off running.

There was no money in the till.
"Dude, there's nothing in here."
"WHAT?!"
"Nothing. There's no money in here!"
"Myesha said they always leave the cash in the drawer."
"Fuck! Godammit!"
"The drawer's in here but no money."
"Fuck it. Lets grab some cases of whiskey or champagne. And cigars"
"Okay I'm getting drunk tonight and then I'm gonna slap that bitch."
"Word."