Everybody is making love or else waiting for rain.

Originally for Jessie's magazine project.

First and foremost (foremost is good word. For most…) I just discovered this “Missed Connections” setup over at CraigsList.com. Discovered not in the sense that I am the first to know about it, more in the way that Columbus discovered America.

At first it seems sad. Sad in a wow-could-people-be-any-more-lame sad. Then it becomes sad in a they-missed-the-chance-to-meet-the-one-they-need way.

There is beauty in some of the postings. Like this one,

“You were at barnes and nobles today. you were studying. it was about 11:30am. someone brought muffins.”

The addition of muffins makes it something more. Did someone bring her muffins or did someone simply bring muffins? Muffins were brought to whom? To who? Whom or who, either way- muffins WERE brought.

You

at barnes and noble
today (which has
become yesterday,
and soon the day
before yesterday,
and then becoming
a date in time).

studying.
about 11:30am.

someone brought
muffins.

*

Question

Given the choice, do you go for the cupcake or the slice of cake (assuming both are the same flavor/type/etc.)?

*

Finish this line:

It's like...

Getting from here to there.

A holiday of thoughts.

Sitting in the terminal for my 11:30am flight.
The last time I was in this airport,
she and I were reluctantly returning.

*

anxious depression.
anxiously depressed. no.
the first was right.

*

sediment
fills the bottom
of me.

*

walk, you monkeys,
walk your pointless lives

*

No one who has seen me
naked or shirtless
has ever seen me
not sucking it in.

Second nature.
Breathing. All the time.

*

It has grown to an obsession.
Every few hours checking it.
Need to stop eating.

*

Staring out at the Sunoco sign,
I do not want to do this.

*

Missed out on the
nuclear-family experience.
Missed out on the
mother experience.

*

If I was shot in the leg
what is my reaction?

*

Things are going to change.
Change.

*

Swear to Him,
I would have, that
I gained weight this semester.
In fact- lost. Still
remarkably unsatisfied.

*

People in cars.
People in boats.
People in houses.
People in books.
People in limbo.
People in graves.
People in mind.
People in thoughts.
People in cars.

*

I did not deserve that.
Why was I not worth it?

*

In the dream, the two of us.
The dream was painful,
awkward, angry, difficult
jogging in wet cement
with no feet.
How will the real thing be?

*

There are mermaids everywhere,
and I hate every one of them.

*

Show the world the explosion
it has been waiting its life to see.

*

Well...I'm sorry too, mom.

*

Question

What would be a better color for the sky?

Mr. Williams.

C.K. Williams
excerpt from The Poet

I always knew him as "Bobby the poet," though whether he was one or not,
someone who lives in words, making a world from their music, might be a question.

In those strange years of hippiedom and "people-power," saying you were an artist
made you one, but at least Bobby acted the way people think poets are suppose to.

He dressed plainly, but with flair, spoke little, yet listened with genuine attention,
and a kind of preoccupied, tremulous seriousness always seemed to absorb him.

Also he was quite good-looking, and mysterious, never saying where he'd come from,
nor how he lived now: I thought he might be on welfare, but you didn't ask that.

A dinosaur walks.

in the / rain

Who will walk in the rain with me?

Who / will walk in the rain with me?

Who will walk / in the rain with me?

Who will walk in the rain with / me?

Who will / walk in the rain with me?

W / ho will walk in the rain with me?

Who will walk in the rain with me / ?

Who will walk / in / the rain with me?

Who / will / walk / in the / rain / with / me?

Who will walk in the rain with me?

Who will walk in the rain / with me?

Who will walk through the rain with me?

Who will walk in the r / a / i / n with me?

Who will / walk / in the rain with me?

/ Who will walk in the rain with me?

Who will walk in the rain with / me / ?

Who will walk in / the rain with me?

*

Question

Am I alone in thinking that the word clay should be a verb?

A twist of the lips.

It occurred to me just now that in the past week -or 3- I have genuinely smiled for only two reasons.

one - dragging my feet through the fallen leaves that keep the sidewalks hidden
two - when I just caught myself staring at the airplane safety information brochures hanging on my walls

*

My pajama pants are pleasing to me.

*

Two ducks swim awfully close together.
The bear sniffs the tree.
I packed a yellow bag for the trip-
the color of the bag is meaningless.

*

Question

If you could die for five minutes, under any circumstances (drowning, a fall, trampled, etc.) would you take the oppurtunity? You will be revived, but for five minutes, you will most certainly be dead. Pulseless.

A poem: one.

Speaking of Snow and Charity

There was snow everywhere. Mt. Everest?
Maybe. Could have been a solid mass
of clouds. There was earth between a crack.
I was trying to get to the top of
it, where ever it was. Not so much alone,
but I never saw a second person. There
had to be a second person, I wasn’t alone.
Salvation Army donation bins dotted
a line to the summit. One every 25 feet.
For a moment I have a golf club- ready
to test my drive on these markers. Back
to the summit and those bins. Vaguely
I consider sleeping in them. Shelters
from the savage cold, but, no, I’m sure
they are too dirty inside.
Wolves are a fear.
Snow so deep I’d never be able to run.
And what do I have for defense? My
1-wood is now a snake, and it is leaving
me here. Something erupts from the
bin on the ledge above me. A cat.
Then another cat. Then another cat.
The cats getting smaller as this
scarf-trick continues. They don’t say
a thing. Not even Hello. They just
join the cat progression and head to the
top. There must be a lot of them up there.
Too many for me to make it. I jump
from the cliff and pull my ripchord.
In the morning, my own cat on my feet,
and I wish it was one of the smaller ones.