the impossible appearances

i was wearing a teal rosary and now there is this crick
in my neck and i've been thinking
about stigmata. all these things are true
but i'm not trying to say anything. i'd like to fly
to california and not wonder
why. the world at times can seem impossible.

scene II

she wore her confidence like a scarf
she was always slipping off her shoulders
to tie around her head and play-act
the scene of a white convertible
carving up a mountain.

they said she slipped during an art class at the Metropolitan Museum,
and she ripped through a Picasso entitled the actor.

also, there was a man. excitedly bragging
about his newly acquired Van Gogh, he was so excited
he ran his elbow right through it.

just imagine that one.

over and over and over again.

the scene

she wore her confidence like a scarf
she was always slipping off her shoulders
to tie around her head and play-act
the scene of a white convertible
carving up a mountain.

they said she slipped during an art class at the Metropolitan Museum,
and she ripped through a Picasso, entitled the actor.

also, there was a man once, excitedly bragging
about his newly acquired Van Gogh. So excited, was he
he ran his elbow right through it. Imagine that.

over and over and over again.

the scene

she wore her confidence like a shawl she was always slipping off
and wrapping around her head
to play-act the scene of the white convertible
carving up a mountain.

the impossible appearances

i was wearing a rosary and now there is this crick in my neck and i've been thinking about stigmata.

all these things are true but i'm not trying to say anything.

i'd like to fly to california and not wonder why.

the world at times seems impossible.

pity & the state of things: a good man moves to texas

he spent three days in a coma and when he woke up, he knew
he wouldn't be here forever. instead, he would move to texas.
there would be no pity there,

he would take loud deborah with him, he would take the train,
and we would call the train loud deborah--
we would wave our hands and tremble on the platform.

there would be no regulars at the bar. mostly, there would be no pity
and none of the old bathroom stalls. the bands would come through
the new town, same as the old one, especially loud Deborah

who shows up everywhere and who shows up singing
through a mouthful of hamburger meat. we'd play a song about her
and pass the whiskey, screaming sorrow is a joke.

later, we'd fallen over and into eachother
& our abandoned belongings filled the empty spaces. loud deborah chugged on
like a train with no stops, she sang
go to sleep you little baby and she clapped her hands--
she was right there with us, the whole time
recording it all: a good man was leaving us here

so loud deborah slammed the door open for the good man
to let the cat out and the cat came back too quickly
because there is no pity & the cat won't move now there is no pity
& no one gets abandoned when a good man moves
to texas.

to the piano teacher

love is a shelf where i've kept you preserved,
next to a sign which says please
do not touch.

i applied to be your piano teacher
and you taught me to play the piano.

we said little of the time apart.

we said little as we described the shape
of the large, white elephants we could never name &
still, i did not feel we were lying.

but you would leave me

in this house with too many rooms
while everyone around me left for work.

while i stayed home.
i played your piano & no one would hire me
to play your piano.

no one would tell me the chords.
i would ask them the names of the chords, i would tell them
i quit guitar to hide my lonely palms.

i would press you into the long white keys.

someone's dead and we're all sad about it
but we forget things, you know, we move
apartments and adopt new pets.

like the onetime, your dog bites the head off a turtle
and you don't hate the dog for it.

we went to school
for this kind of thing. we went to school
for so long we forgot where we went

before that & we don't sell directions on walking
backwards or through one another--

we made directions
on how to get to the moon, if you believe that,

do you believe that? you heard it
said in a classroom, maybe. you learned the year
in a song, maybe? you got sick

a few times & you stayed home...
did they let you eat soup in the big bed?

did you watch the daytime soaps?

you weren't sick a few times & you still stayed home?
did they let you eat soup
in the big bed, then?...or did they know and make you wash the dishes?

when no one was home would you break eggs
over the sink and run
the yoke between your fingers,

until it broke?
did you think of slug puddles?
mucus?...
or where you would put the shells?

the first time i met you

we were both taking the elevator
& we were both going to the fourth floor,
only i got out at the third floor
because i was nervous, and also,
because i thought it was the fourth floor,
so i took the stairs and hoped
you thought i had some brief sort of business on the third floor.
once before that, i thought i'd seen you
at the grocery store & for some reason
i thought you'd seen me, too. i had headphones around my neck
when i got in the elevator
& you could hear paper back writer, because the music
was on loud and the headphones weren't very good.
you talked about guitars & the first time you'd heard the song.

then i watched you disappear into your mind for a minute.

you know, i read in this book that autistic children can't stand being touched because they become overwhelmed with emotion and it feels a lot like drowning but at that time i hadn't read it & i didn't know as much about dairy cows & i'd never even heard of a squeezing machine.

there are children outside

there are children outside and they are screaming and running around. they move like a train through my yard, across the wall under the wallpaper but between the boards. they dissapear. one of the cats scratches at something in the corner and the heater does something similar. i remember more about last night and cringe a bit. drink apple juice from a coffee cup. there are two forks, one glass, two mugs, and an empty bottle of beer on my desk and my desk is green. it is not my desk because it belongs to will but it seems so much like my desk. i wonder where my desk went. a girl lives on broad street with my furniture. i haven't been in her apartment, but the furniture never leaves. my furniture lives in a nicer apartment than i do and will's furniture lives past the crosstown. if i were furniture i'd rather be a suitcase and the children are outside my door.

man turns into woman gives birth

maybe i'd sold the books-- could be.

ankit says he'd kill himself but we wouldn't believe him.
instead i drew
sharks & airplanes on bits of paper. made jokes.

make jokes, for the love of god, make jokes.

it was the best
remedy for everything, including gout
and back pain.

so my analyst wants to be a photographer
& there is a book i saw

we'd parked the car at the beach past 5:00 and debated
whether the sand was really snow or the snow
was really sand. the world was blue

and whipping at our throats. new york, nice
enough but the cold caught up
inside us and the cigarettes are too much.

so we ran out quickly. he is living in a basement
in park slope & his room doesn't have a door.
the curtain rod keeps falling.

they cut a line down my father's face
after they'd called it a cancer.

consider a run, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, depressing
he says- ridiculous.

will would move into town, into these stretched
& useless arms. they call you up & no one answers.

we ran out quickly
after that-- should've seen you & i'm sorry.

to avoid all talk of babies & make bad jokes
as i'm leaving, i sleep through goodbyes. i leave things
behind. i dont blame you.

i should've met you in the city & i'm sorry.

they cut a line
down my father's face
& i'm sorry.

the garden is hurting this winter.

he says depressing and i make bad jokes about leaving
things behind me. it is hard to be here and always leaving.

help me build a dog in the snow. this is important
i'll say, when you want to go in. we'll sleep foot to head
in a room with no door & i'll leave before the snow dog melts.

it is getting used to be here & always leaving.

in between i slept

in between i slept and dreamed my love to smithereens!

revelation

i dont want a soul sucking job. in fact, i dont want a job at all. haha! what luck to know oneself!

two millets scamper in a field and i lie in between things.
i am soil. i am grass. i am air. i am feet. do not ask me how many.
i know all these people, they tell me tick tock tick tock.
they turn to eachother and say tick tock tick tock.
in between them i lay down and pat my sleeping bag.
i dream my love into smithereens--
wake up an unoriginal thought and no new words.
is this life now the old life has died? i would ask frank o'hara and his love,
but how cruel to expect an answer.
how cruel, even, to answer.
the cuckoo bird never asks the time.
the cuckoo bird never shows up late.
the cuckoo bird isn't even a bird.
i am soil. i am grass. i am air. i am feet.
do not ask me. have many, how many, or how.

to who only wants one thing

the lost picture,
having only shown once,
slipped back into the purse.
(a safe place in between traveling)
in between safe places.

today is a day we will not kick ourselves,
i see her saying. it has always been this way,
i see her saying. there, in a musty classroom
the desktop ever so bent
towards our laps. crowds of listening
and gum chewed. Giotto with the wood panels
that took a year to themselves
just to dry. the frescoes
needing each day
to be new again, or were they
to be completed in sections.
it can always be this way, she says,
& only this
in the bed of defining. it can always be this way
again.

the carpet of memory unfurls into a blue
future, the unfinished
into questions. the origin of memory is black
& white or set in the real
and the non-real

but this is convoluted, colored--
layered and abstracted by the passage of time
& new memory (distance).

mary magdalen with the foot raised to her lips,
remains as a needle
pulled through,
in the few ancient trees
we've come to remember and to lose

the picture again
like the slanted desks
to sit & stare
at gold leaf & wonder a year
at a self just for drying).

i came in loud/ i left loud.

i came in loud. i left loud. in between, i slept. it is always this way, isn't it? this morning i read jack lemmin was born in an elevator. before that i watched the front page. i didn't sleep, but could have. it is always this way, isn't it? i smoked a cigarette in the snow and pondered a fake-stone turtle on the back porch balcony- his stony face peeking from the snow shrouded on the rail. i pulled a red coat towards my chin. has it ever been any other way, i asked the tortoise but he did not say a word, not even shivering. you are stronger than i, i said, pulling the door closed and wrapping the butt in a napkin. what hasn't been packed yet...too much. which things am i forgetting and when will i realize? it was always this way, it won't matter. i came in loud. i left loud. in between, i slept and did not know myself.

the clerk

the clerk stands up. sits down. the clerk stands up. stands up. the clerk sits down. the clerk goes to the window and pulls out a cigarette. the clerk drops the cigarette out an open window. lafrica has mud on her boots where its rained. lafrica has mud on her boots and is tired. lafrica is walking. looks down at the mud on her boots, sees a cigarette. lafrica smokes. jerry says cigarette smoke is a dying breed. jerry makes the mashed potatos. cliff thinks its sad, he could never own a boa. he couldn't fed it the mice, he says, he just couldn't. we've been eating too much corn, i told her. our resources, are shit. oh stephen hawking, why wont you tell me the weather report? even kool-aid is made with corn. i want it to be the 4th of july, i want to be seven and someone throwing candy from the float, yes, a parade. max has got his tonsils stuck between his ears again. says he cant hear anything. says he needs the sleep. oh, sleep you change my mind so often, you drop me off of buildings. they put a hole in the first stomach of the cow, enough to reach your hand in, dr. enough to make you sick, dr.?

little chickens down the shute: green & down the shute-- a love song

you know that move baracka and the part where there are the little chicks and the factory worker picks the chicks off the conveyor belt and puts their heads under the metal. then there is a green dot on the chicken head. its a mechanical motion. those little chicken heads. throwing them down the shoot. like a pattern, like a yellow river & full of deformities. i always think of those little chickens. a lot of life moves like those little chick heads down the shute. the notion of an apple. the woman in a hairnet who we all know and do not know. there are no names that will be remembered. the blur of green green ink on a feathered cheek. little chick heads, just hatched, green and down the shute- a love song.

i bit my own filling

out of my tooth and i had to go to the dentist. the dental assistant talked to the dentist, who i've known for a long time. i think about dental erotica. the dental assistant says to the dentist, "did you see in the paper the guy who killed the guy worked at Butterfields?" "yeah" said the dentist. what is Butterfield's? would it be called dental erotica? i like the feeling of the orange doo-hickey on my novocaine tooth and it's funny how the dentist rests his hand casually on my face. i'm glad i don't have to talk at all. where is my tongue? the dental assistant asks the dentist, "did you get a new paper boy?" "i don't know if i got a new paper boy but i got the paper." resin? she'd asked in the beginning. i'd thought maybe it was a term about smoking but they didn't even ask.

day 16: if i hAd a child,

life is tough! i'd say, get used to it!, shoving him out into the snow and laughing.

day 15: i heard

drew barrymore saying all i want in life is a dance partner with an affected accent. a dance partner. a dance partner.

day 14: pregnancies

i don't think anyone looks at the food pyramid anymore. i would want to be on top of the pyramid which means i would want to be fats and sugars.

the thing about me is i cant handle certain situations.

the thing is, is when there is something eventful or traumatic or important going on, i always think the best thing i could possibly do in that moment is say or act out something wildly inappropriate. i can't explain it but its thoroughly genuine. i always think this will make things better.

(excepting certain occasions* where i can react in no way other than laughing uncontrollably.)

other times however, such as this new years eve when my cousin christine and her husband mark decide inexplicably to travel to my parents house and stay the weekend for the new years holiday. this of course, sounds crazy and it got crazier and i reacted in the following ways:

1. christine and mark arrive at the house. no one is downstairs. i see them approaching through the front door window. instinctively, i run upstairs and shut my door and pretend i am changing when the doorbell rings.

2. i come downstairs to say hello three minutes before i know my friend and gay pothead accomplice jonathan will be pulling into the driveway. hello i sAY, HOW ARE YOU.

3. i return to the house high and with the intention of leaving shortly and also taking a chinese bussing system to new york city. me and jonathan are sitting in the driveway and we see my big hairy uncle looking tipsy and mildly confused and wild in the front yard. he comes to the window. i am sure he smells pot. i wonder if he likes to smoke pot.

4. christine is pregnant he says. "oh" i say, then "OH!". my pothead accomplice and i walk slowly towards the font door.

5. inside i am shown a sonogram in a picture frame. "OH!" I say, then "conGratUlATIONS!"

6.my gay accomplice and i go into the computer room to record a "televison show". we have to stay for dinner. it is new years eve. my mother comes into the computer room. i whisper "i cannot handle this. we will eat dinner. we are going to a gay party. we are already late. i need to go to new york." my mother concedes to the terror in my eyes. "we are not all baby lovers" i tell her, then "you are in a safe place."

7. my brother, my gay pothead accomplice and i sit at a card table next to the kitchen table: dinner time. "have you ever been to the red fez?" i ask my brother (who is asian and doesn't drink**) "no" he says.
"whAt is the red fez!?" my mother asks excitedly, thinking this is a good idea. "its that middle eastern gay bar where all my shit got stolen last new years," i reply.
(silence)

8. everyone sits down. christine drinks o'douls. she is 3 months pregnant and i think the o'douls is a little premature of her. later i will tell my mother i thought drinking was good for pregnant people, mostly so that she remembers to be afraid of any pregnancies i might be capable of achieving later on. everyone else is drunk or drunk-ish, thank god, excepting my gay accomplice and i who are very stoned and my brother who is asian.

9. "who will say grace?" i ask, attempting to recover from the gay bar comment. i often think of asking this question at the dinner times but always end up deciding it is too inappropriate and awkward...until now. "why don't you do it?" my mother asks, once again thinking this is a good idea, as if she has chronic amnesia (which i often think may be the case). "ok" i say and chug my glass of wine. everyone holds hands. i am blanking on a good sermon so i start singing.

10. "New YoRk, CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE oF, THERES NOTHING YOU CAAANT DO000" the hands are dropped. my gay accomplice looks to be plotting escape maneuvers, so i spend the rest of dinner trying to make him the center of conversation/ tie his personal experiences to the topic of conversation***.

11. i think people having babies freaks me out.


*such as the event of my friend shitting herself on the way to my birthday dinner...while riding the metro...in paris

**and has spent the holidays playing an asian anime video game where asian anime people stand in cafeterias and schools-- (this is all i have seen happen in the video game)

**for instance, i loudly fake concern over jonathan's broken elbow (his left arm is in a sling) by asking "Jandy! HOW did you BREAK your ELBOW!?! MY GOD, what EvEr HAPPENED???" this is very fun, because then jonathan must relate the story wherein he is wasted and his gay accomplice (my gay accomplice once removed/ second gay accomplice/ gay accomplice-in-law) convinces him to slide down the banister going into the subway in new york. jandy mounts the banister only to fall eight feet of humiliation onto his ELBOW. only jandy is too embarrassed to lie there and goes home to sleep away the pain, only to awake and find out he has to take the train to boston in order to get ELBOW surgery. i usually try to get him to include the part where his parents are "mega pissed." this makes me seem like a better child for being merely emotionally scarring & inappropriate as opposed to physically and expensively.