If you stop time

you better have a plan

Nicholson Baker's plan was to undress women 

Literary maven

I think I would help the poor and feed the needy

ransack billionaires houses and steal all their forks 

Sign Trump up for a lifetime sea cruise with

Diarrhea Vacations-

shitting himself in Fiji-

but he's used to that maybe

something else

 I dreamt someone I once knew

was here and she

said she'd spend the night with me

and we kissed and

it was nice but someone

else was here and she was drunk!

Blah blah blah fucking dreams 

 Guh-loomy!

AM in San Fransucko

Looks like a AM Radio Station

 I'm bothered

by falling asleep 

at 7 pm

Yeah that's a bit early

waking at 4 am

Old guy issues 

Gotta pee again 

Whoopty 

Sometimes it's just nicer to be fucking asleep

Oh well

I'm awake now

 If you wake and the moon is broken

If you wake and the moon is broken

don't despair

If you wake and the sky is torn open

don't worry so much

If you wake and you're still drunk

better roll over and thank the stars

 The Queen of Memory

searched in her boudoir

for her frontal lobes

"Frontal robes you ass!"

 The whole world has disasters

But I'm only concerned about me

what's up with that

say people not you

but someone

and to them I say

something about Darwin

 

 Nothing to say/

morning/

weird nights sleep())(()))))))))(())()))()

Yeah tell me more/

Okay nothing/

World's a mess/

Carlos the Jackal is still alive/

 In the land of the blind/

a one eyed man is fucked/

 

 In the kingdom of fools/

aardvarks are latent/

Hoodies are yellow/

No one is mellow/

 

in the kingdom of forgetfulness/

like a dead peony/

sitting and thinking/

more of the non complacent/

forgetfulness/

 Walked today

Got a Grey Goose martini

Then I stopped in another bar

but I had to go 

It would have just led to trouble

and I didn't want that

 

 Tweaky Tweakenheimer 

was having a moment 

tweaking away 

on a humid Sunday like early am

slightly rainy

in her brain

painkillers had helped her back

but nothing could help her brain

except puppies

 

 

 Laid up

Back tweaked

Upper middle left side

When I try to stand 

Pills after a walk and then 

two more pills

Some pills my housemate takes for anxiety

She gave them to me to help sleep

But I don't think they do shit

But it was nice of her

 Move over 

Proboscis

Morning Glory

of Doom

Fate hands you a shit card

what are you gonna do

Cry about it

Bow your head and chalk it up

to another morning of shit and gloom

But you wiggle out of bed

try to not to fuck up your already tweaked back

And make your way to the coffee in the kitchen

COFFEE COFFEE

SWEET COFFEE!

Blessed art thou Lord of Beans

 The Kingdom of Memory

Yielded many a numerous tome

bequeathing some form of forgotten permanence

To an unyielding passing

Of monotonous billions

Of rocks and Ricks and Marybelles

Seeing the words put their minds at rest

and gave meaning where there had been only doubt

 A twisted neurodivergent teenager

was beaten to death by a tagged 

UNICEF wandering slow plein 

There's nothing funny about any of it

 The random prairie dog

had an idea 

but he got rid of it as soon as he could

He'd seen where ideas led

Like walks on the black trail

He busied himself stowing acorns

for some reason

 The Fountains of Forgetfulness 

were beautiful to behold

shimmering aquiline aquifers

imbued with magazines about who was never here

or was 

I'm not sure

see the forgotten sirens singing tunes

before they knew who I was or you

 

 A particular religious sect in the Dakotas

lived in a community called Rustic Acres 

They might as well have called it Huckleberry Hound Town

It had as much to do with one as the other

 The Art of Forgetfulness 

was primary to the Arc of Nothingness

I forget why 

But it is

 Binary Decodence

was instituted in the hope of prevailing against Prairie Dog-ism in Eu Claire. The problem was they couldn't seem to find any. 

"Either they've moved on or have burrowed deeper than ever before. We can't be sure." Said one local non-expert. 

 He claimed 

He was one true Nothing

but 

he proved it 

he said

"I have no friends!

Everybody hates me!"

We couldn't argue with that. 

 The Art of Nothingness

was lauded in every print newspaper on the planet

Total: Zero

 

 Josiah of Esephus was unhappy.

The Arc of Nothingness was too much to deal with.

'We need a story, a cosmology, of how we came to be here, wherever "here" is."

The prairie dogs were not impressed. 

 The prairie dogs of nothingness

knew something was rigged

they couldn't put their finger on it

If they even had fingers

 He studied Ecclesiastical philosophy 

in his spare time

Spare time!

Hah!

 The prudent prairie dog

Knew the time-

It was rumored to be a far distant

relative of Eliot Ness-

but had never appeared on the tv show

 The arc of nuttin-ness

was vaguely related to Eliot Smith

there was some rumor of collaboration

but these ended upon his demise

 The arc of nothingness

Is a fountain of forgetfulness 

it leaves no shadow nor trail

But certain prairie dogs 

Know its grandmother's address

 The arc of nothingness

shines daily

mirroring the days 

Spitting its venom

like a cross eyed horney toad

fighting three scorpions

 I have oblivion in my head

It resides and pays me no mind

Echoing thru anxiousness again and again and

again and 

again

 The road to rock bottom

is well traveled so fuck it

Let's go 

must be something to it

 Protect your weary self

the ides of March are here

knives are sharpened!

blood thirst is

in their mouths

their robes are very fine 

silk and Egyptian cotton with

a filigree of Etruscan hyacinths

Their teeth are large 

in laughing mouths

stained with wine and shanks of mutton

They thirst for bloodletting 

like a disease

of their soul

 Measure your vices

versus your dreams

I wish my dreams had been more vices

sometimes it's good to be bad

walking the streets

Looking for a place w no sign

heaven closed years ago she said

And hid her cloven hooves

She had her hair in Byronic braids

attempted self surgery with a leaf blower

Carried a Hermes rototiller hairbrush

to beat her children

 A Day at Mt. Tam

Baffled 

by stodginess

crude and old white haired 

woman

fallen trail side

wouldn't or couldn't get up

mean little white haired dog too

three emergency vehicles

showed 

she bad mouthed the guys 

who called them

"They didn't help me!"

 

 The rubbish

Piles up

Yesterday

Today 

Tomorrow 

Oh wait

No don't

It's not here 

It's in your head

So what

Who cares

Dogs bark at neighbors

Never turn your back to the sea

 Speak for the living

They have no voice

they trudge thru life

Eating their cream of wheat

or whatever it is they eat

They build cast iron bridges to nowhere 

Uh huh yeah they do

Then they lay out on the roofs and sing

Louis Armstrong tunes

Or listen to Showtunes

In dirty dive bars at one in the afternoon

and talk about how their gall bladder has to be removed

or how they're moving to Puerto Vallarta

After their colonoscopy 

Cheerful stuff like that

You drink a tall Grey Goose martini

 Grey August morning

In SF

so nothing unusual here

not cold 

not warm 

no sun

not yet

just grey morning

Blah blah blah

 

 Road 

into California

long ago

Ocean and dry 

Oak trees and I forget what they're called

thistles golden 

and dry

Fog rolling over hills 

and dry

California 

Say what you will 

Green Gulch

Kathy drove down the hill to the Zen Center Farm

Singing and honking her car horn

So happy to be there

Did the people meditating appreciate her joy

Zen koan like a slap

Laughing and honking wooHOO

 He said nothing 

showed nothing

It was a lao tse 

Kinda tse tse fly

You'll be very sleepy

Soon

 No trace of William Napoleon Norris, grandfathers dad. 

My uncle found his name in a listing at an orphanage in Georgia. There were two boys there with the same name.

My uncle said he was the Chief Engineer at the Jacksonville Traction Co. but I haven't found any verifying documents. Supposedly he was a boozer which fits the family pattern. He left his wife after she came down with rheumatoid arthritis. They said he got mad and walked out because there was no butter on the dinner table. Grandpa and his sister Gladys destroyed all memory of him and wouldn't talk about him. Gladys was a teetotaler and I don't remember Grandpa drinking that much. The old woman lived with Gladys and her husband Carl or Carlos in Florida. My uncle visited when he was in high school and said the old woman wheeled herself around the house on a little cart.

 I drove to Bolinas

on a foggy Monday morning

I hadn't been there in thirty years

They used to remove signs explaining how to get there

but now you just follow Google Maps 

It wasn't crowded 

An older shop lady at the coffee window said

They're all at Target! School starts next week!

An old man with a run down hippie shop was printing some tshirts behind the counter

How much for the sweatshirt?

With tax it's eighteen even

Thank god for people like him

I gave him a twenty

Keep the change!

 The casual exclamations

of Howard street

and barriers to the lost Fort

Washington came thru

But now mostly Koreans

They had to craft a law saying store signs

had to include English 

 

 TECATE

WAS A LOST CHILD 

IN CUERNEVACA

SHE HAD NO EYES 

NO EARS 

BUT SHE HAD A MOUTH

AND SHE DRANK

LIKE THE GODS DRINK

WITH SCORPION CHASERS

AND PLYMOUTH ROCK DREAMS

SHE HAD SEVERAL THREE CORNERED HATS

AND A GREEN SET OF OCTOPUS DRESSES

SHES SLEEPING NOW

SSSSH DONT DISTURB HER

 I rode the thirsty so thirsty stallion

Black as the night

Thru glaciers and brambles 

I rode the stallion

And here I was 

Not anymore here is gone

There is no here here

That makes no sense

Go buy a dictionary 

And look something up

Before I chop your head off

Or make bacon and eggs

And English muffins 

And bury you in the basement

 even dreams are a let down

bummer eh!

Ah well 

Whatcha gonna do?!

 I wonder why

everything has turned to shit

I blame myself

"If only..."

 

 I gave up

There's not much I was really after

just a few good paintings

and a lifetime of beautiful young women

the women all disappeared pretty much en masse

But the paintings continued 

in one form or another

they weren't all winners

but I had fun making them

That's all you can really ask for

 I stowed my soul below

the sickened body

I had no shoes 

or cares

Newspapers were my bed 

Laudanum was my god

we feasted on April opium

Gave thanks to Pinchewon 

Our forgotten brethren soldier

and took the 7:38 bus to work

 catching the stars of a fleabit morning

We sleep too late

the pills we took finally making 

time inconsequential or something

so shredded wheat milk bananas

and COFFEE 

and dreamlike thoughts of a midwest man

Unmarried in the religious sect

he seemed sad and lonely

corn and turkeys and giants tractors

 I walked to Montgomery station

2.6 miles 

Then I took BART to 16th st

got a taco

Woot

 Granted ok

I think I'm pretty freaking fucked up

but I'm just a regular person

or maybe not

Or

I'm a genius!

A mad man 

In the form of a white Anglo sexing precedent

Beknighted by the Queen

Queen of marigolds and poppies

And King Manzanita 

in his frosted low grade coal mines

309 miles from the oceans 

and thousands of tiny shells outside his barrow homestead 

 

NYC 2024

 

 The heart of nothing

Was left to you

In the barricaded libraries

of paperbacks 

James Thurber, Arthur Cowell, 

and others 

You'd lain there with a friend  

tripping on the barricaded lsd

and saw a pattern on the white wall -

A piece of marble glued above the fireplace 

with sealer used on atomic bombs

your dad said proudly

Projectiles with depleted uranium he said 

would penetrate the beveled armor of Russian tanks -

The pattern

Which both you and your friend saw 

was just a ski logo

repeated K2 K2 K2 K2 K2

 Back

     back

     back it up

midwest 

days 

   day-o 

   warm and sunny

and white

cheese curds

 And fragile chips

 wagon wheels

and religious sects speaking German

Corn 

     Corn

    corn

more corn

and beans

   Vintage shops 

antiques

  $4 Charlie Brown mug