justwrite 31 march

if I had the starch I’d write a play starting tomorrow and I may yet it’ll only be april too soon for june and way away from all those other months I have a hunch it’ll fill up like a screwdriver head turning right round the neck does that you know and she shows how she wants it to go there are idioms and there are some I just can’t catch there are some latches I can’t bake batches of there are some hatches I can’t batten down there are crowns and frowns and I will not drown in a sea of no there are so many more answers there are dancers and prancers and other kinds of reindeer we are fearless and what’s more we have become multiplied where we used to hide in single digits now there are widgets we simply download exploding through conscious design and finding how soon it will be that we can spend our leisure time loosely defined or otherwise inclined I forgot I had a lesson I forgot you didn’t mention but the chance is undeniable we are friable just like those potatoes that you are instead of going on a date we waited up late and early and the dark was dawning by the time you came home and all alone you sat on the backporch stoop whooping and hollering like you didn’t have a collar on but you do and it behooves you to appear to be more civilized we’ve easily disguised our appearances with delirious adherences to guidelines and it’s just fine if we see things through to the end it’s just pretending that there are troubles to lend it’s just the deep end that we’d probably jump off it’s just the coffee cup that’s waiting for tea because you and me we dream of cream but in the meantime the coffee is darker than we like and that might be the tipping point we’ve jointed our backbones so we can more easily bend over but that also means we can choose to stand up straight

post 30 march

justwrite 30 march

also here is where there ought to be more writing but at this time of night just like yesterday I can’t say my eyes are too open and I’m hoping these headaches will fake out and pivot somewhere else because health is number one and while it’s fun to crawl into bed there are things I ought to do instead!


justwrite 29 march

here is where I’ll type the columnwrite about beets! once the screen doesn’t hurt so much

justwrite 28 march

when I want to start at the beginning I always end up in the middle so let’s focus on the introduction let’s strum along a melody that starts with a chord you’ve never heard before it’s not the one that goes like and it’s not the one that turns right from wrong-headed hands the scandal is that we can handle all kinds of answers except the truth and I’m used to doing it this way so let’s start again I want to talk about walking home from school the other day it takes an hour from door to door and what’s more I realized upon checking the stopwatch that kept going that I’m knowing more and sure enough another bluff that’s been called how far I can get in that amount of time just fine I’m sure but it used to be a different town around the other side of the spacetime and from my door to Baltimore just one hour no more and the less seen along those highways the more sidewalks talking back I am stunned and undone the markers are less start the reminders the maps collapsed into turns and another right makes it quite to the point where we’re left off except this time it’s just me and leaving from many to arrive at blank I’m filling a bank full of these observations ready to catch as I can and no way to cash out no doubt a piggy full of these would still fly just as easily the sky just as feasibly traversed the worst of the best the rest the test I wish I was passing but there’s no one to give grades there’s no fade to have made there’s no trade in the shade everything’s out on the open everything’s hoping for a man behind the curtain to turn some certain dial and instead of smoke and fire it’s just denial and we file forward to our reward pinning our smiles on our faces lacing our shoes a little tighter we’re brighter than all that we’re capitalized and we’re making the most of it our host can’t afford toast but for this birthday I’ve rehearsed a practical sort of joke the kind you can poke and it won’t hold a grudge we are budging no further forward with the scheming of the beginning and now I’m nearly at the end I thought I’d pretend to try nonfiction but I have a predilection for sound that drowns meaning not completely but sweetly and discreetly so while you can hold onto a few words at a time the rhyme in each line chimes so many clocktowers so many highflowered romances out of your mind that before you know it you’ve grown it into something else a chance at health and fresh air you care too much for sense and we’re entrenched in meaning so I’m simply trying to add some scening that ought to be a word some scenery perhaps you’ve heard instead so well-read you are so green with yellow with colors I am numberless with speech and here we’ve reached the end with no beginning in sight

justwrite 27 march

the best parts are the ones that appear in sudden collage the moments I open it up and breathe closer lean in to listen I find a road glistening with barelyrain and the plain is not to be found it is not spain or Kansas but a conglomeration of stations tuning in and out and doubts on varying frequencies washed away by the saying of what I see oh and hear from here it’s a bouncing turn of trumpet practiced jazzily from a seventh-floor window the way it used to be when I broadcast my own proficiency prodigiously for the entertainment of the neighbors and what’s more there’s a courtyard with a hard conversation and a frustrated gesture of what what and why do you always say even though I don’t know what he’s saying or how she’s playing hard to get or bet’s off scoffing in the privacy of the wide-open a basketball court or what’s purported to be one undone by winter but coming clean for easter the feastier days are about to appear and all those white signs bring us back to cleanliness close to the roasting of debris the free and the messy all tied up neatly we are discreetly cleaner and down around the corner back from the grocery there’s a broadcast service from inside of saint Nicholas or at least this church in his name all the same it’s saintly and the call and response with the reading I’m heeding but not following I’m turning into the tall buildings the apartments departing from modern design and retwining into an older era the interlocking parts switching melodies and offering echoes what can only be called somewhat unfortunate techno music booms into and dances through the reader the verses are lost and the cost is mud now it’s raining harder and the cards I meant to send have not yet been bought and the calls I cannot make on my undone phone mean so little the refridgerator I moved across the room and back into tetrislike confrontation with the oven and the window and the counter and the table then back when able to realize that it might have been there for a reason I am finding my own seasons in the moments the onion skins boiling along with the egg and the begging for light is sometimes answered better with sound

justwrite 26 march

tired of the right-hand scene the scheme of the left is all we’ve got I’m not likely to reshuffle into matter there’s no way to scatter the country or the map and the collapse of all those digits and you in it between the bookpages raging against tears for the machine for fears we are steering forward into the forewarned darkness there is a fire in the courtyard and there are hard rows to hoe we know our own answers but we are tired of the questions we keep asking our tasks to get done and no one wants to listen our glistening pages the stages we thought we’d overcome sometimes I’m numb and smiling blandly into the sun with me eyes slit in surprise and sometimes I feel too much to touch any sort of wondering with a lonely tinge the motivation binges its own urges purges repeatedly in the heat of varied moments the phone calls itself home and there are no numbers to call there are no hands to hold I told you once before and I’m sure it’ll be repeated every Friday night every twenty percent of the deal or so and we’re more than there we fare well unfairly or otherwise disrespected or self-congratulated where is the conversation where is the fascination where is the planning I can handle where is a schedule that can’t be meddled with and who will buy the broccoli who will talk a mean streak out of hair the blonder side of whitewashing all those trees up to their knees in white skirts glaring with bright at the insects and the easter preparations we are nations united in dividing time zones waiting to leap forward and to call all those kettles back in black tracking the highwaymen into texts the novel ideas I have wrapped myself in instead of reality I am the giant of my own imaginings now I am become undone

justwrite 25 march

you can tell when the fell swoop wins in one there are unhung portraits in hidden galleries behind my eyes I am smiling in wild style and imagining the pile of ideas collecting being sent in my direction this morning on the bus a no-fuss priest with black cassock and coat and duffel bag appeared to be a surfer from Australia with blonde ponytail and slight moustache but his costume included a bible of biblical proportions many cubits high and wide and deep and this leap of faith carried him no more than three stops and atop his seat perched this preacher and upon his face he laced a smile almost a smirk but on the near side the polite side gliding along through songs and psalms humming no harm but in the middle of a secret joke hopefully the rest of us would laugh too if we knew and I wanted to catch his eye unhatch his disguise and receive a conspiratorial wink enough for me to think I understood which would be good because there’s so much I don’t and I won’t be doing so for a long while so I’m smiling here hoping for a sign but instead he’s off this bus and it’s mine to define to decide as I like and the right answers too far away too chancy to say out loud we are proud of our own celebrity we are deciding how much frying can really be managed our egos are bandaged and the cookies are hidden away we play our fingers in lingering lines typing blind and hiking behind the sun following along the strong-armed lakes the crooked rivers shivering into the sunrise we are surprised to find bread instead of cake but there is no mistake and we take as we are given we receive we have three chances to be good or to be turned into goons too soon we are alan paton too soon we turn sideways toward Africa too soon we are imagining our own scripts on the lips of others before these are written we are tripping over our fingers our tongues are hung out to dry and all the crying games stop toppling over pop hopping on down the bunny trail to no avail neverfailing always wailing out some tune or other crooning encouragement from the battlements the ramparts and all along those other watchtower parts

justwrite 24 march

let’s talk about the declarative let’s make a fib and falsify it let’s try it out when no one’s cooking when everyone’s looking in the mirror making their faces clearer and their eyes wider the shuteye the cattle cry low and the morning doves go on and on their songs too long for their wings and as they lift of the drift of such melodies brings tunes from the moon to north Dakota a remoter sense there never was a cousin and a brother and a turnip and its mother all have headaches all make mistakes all take cakes and give them to charity comparing we the dreamers and you the dreams how easy it seems organized into themes with so many lessons for each and so many ways we can teach ourselves to pay attention to gain dimensions

justwrite 23 march

I cannot tell you the truth fast enough but the tougher it is to listen the harder it is to fall out of place the shelves once held all the volumes in order but now they’re resorted in sordid disarray we play our own tunes ring around our own rosies we are riveted we can do it yes we can and the man the plan the canal can’t hold a candle to panama we are all we find entertaining in ourselves we have greater healthcare debates than our states allow the confusion pressed into illusions and baked into cakes makes mistaken travesties out of international scandal handling all the nickels with tickled pickles on the table the recipe unstable and filched from furniture-protecting in-laws see-saw the no way out doubt can’t stand those parking lots always with the white lines and the yellow and if one fellow gets it into his head to turn European or Japanese I really think so what and he thinks he’s got it going onto the roof and under the boardwalk down by the see you later swing by all those sweet chariots and we have talked about his recently and I know I said and you read and millions have misunderstood there are no cherries in this song I’ve always been wrong even while driving along those roads with the full family load along with apples and dappled cookiecrumb napkins trapped in between seats singing those words into sense and out of time through the lines along mountains and curving toward relatives it’s all relative it’s all warm air in a small space it’s all string cheese and carrot sticks and a box of triscuits I made biscuits in my sleep last night and when I woke up they were all gone probably because I ate them!

justwrite 22 march

running along the slow road the horizon seems surprisingly far away the mud today was enough to encourage my feet to stay in bed the home instead of home the warm way the blankets keep toes safe from the damp morning there was no new rain there was a plain plain with no spain janes mary or otherwise to disguise the progress that should have been made we dig spades with our own piles of dirt we hurt our own estimations with our fascinations we are saving our nations from uniting instead of untying we are pledging our undying allegiance to one sort of thing or another depending on the weather driving along Taneytown road there are no holds barred and the sheep kneel down they look to be practicing yoga or triangles but clearly upon reflection they are seeking the sweetest shoots the tenderest roots of all sunlight green at its feet and neatly disguised as grass their faces placed nearly to the earth the razzledazzle notwithstanding but withoutsitting off to the side hiding its shiny face in shame the lamest idea the angles of pretense we cannot mention our own disguises we hide our willowtrees and beat our knees back cracking eggs in competition listening to the horseradish recipes that reddish work done at night in the light of the crucible the proctors all so goody and the two shoes out to lose each other in the surprise of jealousy and confusion the illusions of truth and the reality of fear in that sphere and every one since and before and what’s more there aren’t always Arthur millers to script our lips into spitting well-crafted lines and our monologues don’t rhyme but go on incessantly either internally or otherwise and we surprise ourselves with what we’ve memorized aye and god’s icy wind will blow and so he says to the moon and so the camera comes up close we say zoom we swoon with dramatic ecstasy and wait for the curtain

justwrite 21 march

in this world of ups and downs the one the shunned the light fantastic gymnast tracks mud all over the sky and flies jazzhigh in search of somewhere to land a magical place erasing yellowbrickroads off of an exploding map the explorers exposed the holes in the ozone and the flipphones all can’t be wrong the songs ringing down the aisles in trolleybus style cannot all be in bad taste I have erased the space that used to embrace me and I have replaced it with wide open the hope is this will not last forever there is a shiver no sweater can warm no mudbellied streetside dog can go wild miles before I sleep deep in fur the touch of something real a pleasant feel that is not simply my blanket wrapped tighter in the night there are spaces I cannot chase away even as I turn off the lights even as I let the phone keep ringing I am stringing along my ideas over and through the useful and past the last turn a racetrack counteractive to intelligence the time I’ve spent constructing this tower overpowered by ivory doughnuts today we are all Berliners we are winners of our secret soccer matches catching jazz balloons and puftaloons out of a fantasy tale there are ninety-nine and they are all red instead of zippers these boots have mouths we are flying south for the summer the winter and when I remembered how far away next year is I was shocked I had docked already in the pleasure of a visit and all the people in it but for now there’s time to plan there is time to slow down into each minute to be in it and to listen more closely I am toasting my own marshmallow sun the cannonballs are calling straight across the plains the plans too simple to work the grass too green to grow straight I am waiting we are collating all the pages and staging a rebellion quelling the noise and the lonely dark the space parked around where no one enters no hands no arms no close

justwrite 20 march

all the starch fell out of those sheets to the wind the scene the screen saved itself and the health of a thousand cookies freeze-framed in the refrigerated section the store all groceried and the hokey all pokied in the eyball split-screen special effect budget busting untrustworthy superstore and when you see this you free your mind from being confined to the theory that I am a writer your days are much brighter than my nights are dark and I am parking my glass ceiling bottom boat in order not to throw stones where the wild things are I had a car and I sold it I had a story and I told it and then it told me what for and how long and how far and where we go we follow the swallows and tell our own stories in glorious relief the maps with collapsed elevations the stations of the crosscontinental zones the Appalachian stations tuning in and the hymns directing our thoughts upward and outward forward bound and unhappily browned like a sunworked underbelly my thoughts are smelling and my head doesn’t work with all the lights on

justwrite 19 march

if all of the hearts and the smoke and the screens cleaned each others’ pipes we would forgive such tripe we would each eat our own melons and quell rebellions of the larger sort the cavorting will have to stop or at least it will have to be kept down there are crowns and there are drowning pauses wrapped up in clauses too stylish to be independent we can go our own ways we can save our own skins and bring the pieces back into a painted attack the colors are all numbered and the path seems longer than it was before the breadcrumbs not as tasty as I remember the last time we climbed this mountain we stretched across this Sunday afternoon park we were listening to the dark roll in and the calls of the whistling fish the darkling birds landing like moonlight on the water because where else could they land in such understated elegance it is the dependence on simplicity that keeps me from throwing more things up in the air it is the lack of proper prepositions that keeps the glistening scenes from coming too true to bother with when the menu went away and the food didn’t come I had to simply thank my lucky paper bills that I could pack my fill of crinklysugar peanuts and seedy rolls controlled by the most expensive cheese this walk home has ever seen my boots are too big and my tights are too tight and the light in the courtyard is reflected off of puddles in the middle we muddle our schemes for our leftover dreams the capitalized contents of a refridgerated misgiving I am using these phrases I am underlining each stage of the discovery process I am wondering who will come to class who will outlast the teaching of a subject we all already know and the show going on overcomes the tendency toward timidity I am ashamed I have hidden behind a name and a napkin and so slowly I’m adapting but I cannot be someone else instead still nor will i

justwrite 18 march

I am sleepier than a leapyear there are clear forecasts for cloudy weather and the fever won’t break if the sun won’t rise there are cries from the catalog to be bought on top of a registry the pageantry pulling out all the stops and topping the pops the box office hit to bits the snit all paraded out the smithereens squeamish but still gleaming in the spotlight the night bright enough to serenade the hits the bits we thought were good enough are scrambled into the eggs our last legs were enough to feed us a whole onion each and we teach what we can reach and we eat all the rest the stress of a test you cannot pass the mass you cannot outweigh fast enough the rough edges and the drafts crafted with your raft in mind your makeship timbers making a ship-shape ship in tip-top shape taped together with scotch and also masking tasks built upon each other bundled into the wilderness and tucked in early there are lectures in the morning there is toast without a toaster which is to say bread because if you think instead of sense you ought to fire up your oven then you’ve got a new hot thought comin’ around the bend and it’s about to get told to you straight if you can’t wait for the answer then at least listen to the question what’s the dimension before the fifth unrehearsed in the worst way the ceremony going off along with the alarm and the music is playing swaying with the guests the honor the attitudes the rude dudes and their entourages and who would be your best man and who would tie on the cans in this lesson who would head off to the hills and drink his or her or their fill of all the right pronouns and never make it back from the end of the town without james james Morrison Morrison

justwrite 17 march

I am losing certainty in and over under through around the capitalization of rivers themselves not their names or their tags but their waves ripples edges banks what is a firth and what’s a verst worth in terms of modern measurement why would the vendor put dirt in his mouth to show how good his piglets are how many ways are there to transliterate the same word and to flip it up into an adjective and to give some twists to pluralized nouns that don’t all come with an English s at the foreign end there are trends easily fixed but the confusion comes when we’ve mixed quite a few rules and I’m asking how do you do this in your own experience and the answers come in a different language and hang the baggage we’re trying to tell a story only it’s to the glory of another author and we’re trying not to scoff at the heel-tips creaking and the lollipops squeaking in the hands of children crying to their mammies wondering how the snow will damage jammies but that’s jumping off the screen past what remains to be seen and I am trying to fry another alarm clock I am trying to talk past the morning sleep-in but who’s looking when I put on my clothes and who grows tired of me in the mirror it’s clearer than ever who’s not to be forgiven for shivering into that same space from which I chase images and inches twitching into an attempt at action and thwarted by reactions from the universe but no unrehearsed play gets staged by which I mean to say the rage is against the machinery the system is all down and the network crashes with burning desire the fire putting itself out on my doubts and I am leaping feetfirst onto a dry sidewalk and a cool morning with no one looking and the perfect swishy motions forward into the better side of view

justwrite 16 march

I’m not sure what to say in the place where space is filling up the cup doesn’t flow over or under enough it’s tough to stuff the water in for the plant you can’t hold all those teeth in with your tongue you’ve got to string along a wide-strung alabaster carnival or how will you ever play those marvelous notes you wrote in the shower last night the tight limbs and the sea swims back and forth toward the elsewhere but there are no suits for this bathing there is no noise for this raving and I have got to get this island off of me I have other ideas and I have circumstances I am dancing in a trance a fine romance with the weather and other colors there are numbers that I can’t call there are horses and houses too tall I am taking over it all and I am imagining fireflies wiser than my own suppositions if you listen to what I’m saying you will wonder who I am if you can hear my own narration I’ll beg your pardon and ask you to avoid annoyance and other such reactions I can put myself in traction with danger or hilarity I can hardly compare the deeds with the weeds growing up over the list what I’ve missed and what I intended the friended corners and the names popping up we are stuck in our cabbage-washed kitchens and we are listening for the next holiday the next excuse we’ll use to pass through the scheduled to wrangle up a mess a caught blessing of fish and loaves but I’d rather have cheese not that I’d sneeze at anything made of dough but fish are just so alive and the meanwhile station plays a number of reasons why they ought to stay that way so let’s just say we’ll stay out of the water and they’ll stay out of our mouths

justwrite 15 march

while there’s no place like home there’s no space like a foam floating hour towering over the heads of a mislead afternoon I am imagining the sequence of events as insequential but consequential notwithstanding undemanding I am drinking tea that is green and thinking of a scene that is the same the idea is to free enough parts to start the heart again to climb aboard whether it’s a balloon or the moon there are roads and yellow and bricks but so rarely do they come together so rarely the weather is fair it’s unfair to have to pay such fares for farewells but so long the goodbyes and so high the ticket prices I will tell you where my finger have gotten to and I will imagine the wildrice as a different spice of potato there are no good stories that can be ruined except when you give yourself up when you cup your ears and box your shocked socks in and out of tense I forgot to mention the ideas you meant to have I forgot to remind us both of the open road the quotients we cannot multiply the division so far from joy that the ways are unbearable I cannot compare full text with neglected wrecks and the daughter in the ballad is always glad to see the ship return but how often her waiting earns nothing of value the mermaids have been busy and the seahaze is dizzy and jack is not there when she goes to sea and the song we sing in beauty the voice of a campfire and the hired maturity of a distant tale twisted into a velvet cloak and the smoke lending mystery to such a history the crew tells the wind swells and the waves wash away all but the song

justwrite 14 march

despite the hourglass I am powerless to substitute those hours how the showers will bring flowers and where the pilgrimages will lead to rocks or to Gibraltar who will falter and who will fade into the waves when we stretch our hands across the ocean do we feel only foam or where does home fit into the fingers do the lingering wonders blunder across the stage in poorly phrased monologues and who will interrupt me I am pleased to see the map but I cannot tell where it will lead I cannot feed myself on paper alone and the stone’s throw from here is too far to fear I am leery and weary in the same breath preferring to imagine what’s next as an easyrise sun over toast at the most convenient moment spread across and sided by a donut and most likely coffee we are toffeeslow and caramelsmooth in our reminiscences of a future worth creating but the dating of each event is meant to be pushed back is meant to be tacked onto a strong-armed farewell to today I can’t stay too long I have to pack I can’t wait forever I have to get back to the start of the ending and we’re all pretending that the sun will shine on the snow as it did today as pulled me away from washing dishes with a flash of delicious surrealism the schism between the freezeframed catalogue of what I’d like to order and my hankering for disorder too closely linked for a rhyme but the parsley and sage will have to keep up the rosemary too hairy for a second glance but we are all going to the fair oh and such a one in this village and all the children and their sweets and their mothers and their pottery the poetry of Cossacks and their tracks made their wide steppes having leapt through the pages and arrived back into retranslated states of the union untying all confusion with ceremonial pomp and romping through a friendly farmyard carding all the animals and asking who will buy the next round ground

justwrite 13 march

in conclusion the porch swings a little too fast sometimes and the sidewalk zooms out of view there are true stars and false flowers but the hours pass by and no one can tell the difference in the mashed potato moonlight the noon brighter than imaginable a tragedy of wideawake proportions because sometimes a little distortion is the key to too much clarity my answers are all frozen and the cattle call stalled out in the middle of a stampede half-heeded by the chums of some young republicans and their armies marching with drums overcome by rhythm and unconcerned with melody they’re making some headway and the breadlines grow fine and dandy the candy their teeth are shattering chatters up the sideways sandalwood the thoroughbred instead of the half-matched candlesticks we slipped a few cents into the collection plate waiting for the right one our favorite accordion player to layer a new flavor into the wetsnow halflight the day of white in korea the sea of galilee in a mixed reference text flexed like a bicep tried out like a pterodactyl and I am pro-rated by that protractor ever after and before again the wonderland fad and the radical ideas fleeced like the nation greased like a squeaky wheel and feeling fine enough to dine alone

justwrite 12 march

there is just no best way to say this the test may be passed but it won’t be the last there are bums there is dharma there are snake charmers and caravans of traveling musicians who camp out in the front yard of your scholarship and build trapezes out of flying accordions I was young once and I had dreams that seemed to be invisible to others too clear to stuff under the covers and too imaginary to be realistic we kissed it all goodbye when we refused to wash the dishes now we will never eat again we will spick and span our minds out of time for croissants or other delicacies the French kind the rewound back and forward chocolate with a doctor and the butter and the workers all on strike you hiked backward into the somewhere else and settled right down on the edge of the grid which has now rehinged back to enclose you to suppose you are already seven what would you want to do next there are only so many sidewalks and so many carnivals the chalk has talked its way through your morning and now the afternoon is dawning full of cartoons and open cereal boxes we have tops to spin and to take off and to put on and when I count to ten we will fend for ourselves but I’m sure we’re all prepared right and I’m sure we’ve all compared frights back in the green room back where we tried to swoon with excitement and fear but then it turned out quite clearly as a surprise when we opened our eyes and found ourselves upright afterall the calm after the fall that never came the cries that never met the floor and what’s more the trip in the ambulance that fancy dance with the medicines and the messages and we are all just waiting for our turn to be consulted

justwrite 11 march

la-de-da-de-da makes sense outlouder makes me prouder to hold a hand I can stand I can’t imagine any other stuffeder shirt hurting in hope of words that make more sense the rent so steep the call so deep into the blue we are truly the receivers we are the givers the believers I shiver in my sleep and you turn to touch the light the windowsun earlyin and I am listening to your breathing the surprises we can’t imagine will happen in the future in ten years of the past the first the last I have to buy more water to teach more lessons in pressing shirts until they wonder why they’ve been repeated in a world that’s just so wordy so wardens cannot catch us up we are anxious for deliverance the deer the traditions I have learned about the bread instead of locked invitations licked by unstrung tongues notice these repeated words notice the belly the telling tales I cannot imagine this song going on much longer and now it doesn’t I have pressed the button I have smitten myself with smiting I am igniting in my ears the feel of quiet whispers we will pass over yoga we will press recipes into each others’ hands I am standing close by I am trying to make sense enough to mention I am lessening the ingredients in expedient ticket-buying my throat is lying but my nose is fine I am not interested in sickness at this time this weary-limbed contagion I have been lucky and the ducks they are seven as I hang my head low or swing a chariot full of cherries this is what I thought of when I heard that song a long swoop down from the sky a mountaintop cloudscape with a great sleigh of sorts overflowing with cherries swinging down into view and coming for to carry you home and leaving me wondering

justwrite 10 march

to give the assignment it would be a divine cent spent on a stamp dampened by anticipation and welded to the ceiling with healing powers the likes of which have never been scene in a place in a play where the thing is itself and its health represents the state of the union the confusion we offer in place of answers spaces the dancers right out and the doubts come on the strong-armed conversationalists twist their steps and repetitions are the only response the vaunted haunts the flounce that pounces on its own best interests let me tell you how the phone rings for whom the knock on the door is in store we are more than our own worst critics we are cynics sitting in it and stewing and stirring our brews the truths we cannot fail to miss are blissfully floating in remote circles overhead watching our moves and the sun and the lengthening shadows imagining how long we can keep moving how long without water the progress without fodder the food for animals the bands we pull out of nowhere and press into existence the music the names we claim for our own and for our children big enough to be real the imaginary canaries crying out for a return to the coalmines where it’s just fine and not too bright with those headlamp lights don’t worry about the peripheral just consider the ahead and the behind won’t remind you of itself unless the doctor checks your charts unless the stethescope touches your heart and we will all know we will show the results of this surgery to our closest distant relatives and forgive the forgetting and worry about you and your hands whether the commands you’ve presented deserve the enter key the return the discount the receipt the packing slip flipped over and served with breakfast the crispy version and the starchy packing peanuts delivered not into styrofoam

justwrite 9 march

I am thinking about the future today I am paying to play it fast forward I am wondering what the word for what should be and we are taking this in stride hiding all the answers to be sure that no one cheats or teaches or some other verb that’s not quite right but has most of the sounds in sight to smell a whiff of wondering is to search and the destruction of whispering to ask for an answer and to give one three feet away is to say that the teacher is not listening that the accountability can’t add up to subtraction a divided number can not fraction against itself without turning whole I stole a look into the mirror and back out again the friends of our past selves are returning and our present feet turn back the clock tocks its tickly way around and the situation is somewhat admirable we travel we unravel our scarves to keep our feet warm and then curl up into hats to trap yet another catch the hatch the show the print the Nashville arts the man on the mail box sending out his message to the world the guitar notwithstanding just for sitting and on hitting the right notes he quotes all those jumbled prepositions his letters listen to the world that never wrote to me to we the undersigned the somewhat maligned we have rhymed again I have a tendency toward inner dependency but it leaks sometimes and I find my hands entwined with the pockets of others the rockets rolling into red glares and I do my best to apologies but it you could see me then and how and now there is something back there to point at I’d like to say that wasn’t me but you can please think better of me at this juncture I’d hedge a conjecture that there have been some things you’d rather pass over like around easter and the feast days high and holy and rolling like pins without and within george harrison the cloud prophet of nines

post 8 march

justwrite 8 march

once we add up all the total number of subtractions and divide a few seasons for scattered reasons we’d rather not discuss it is incumbent upon us to remember the tidings and also the tides we have wide acres of knowledge and also of mud today with the sneakers and the music but the dogs and the houses that could not have belonged there that might have squared off in a different kind of catalog the trough notwithstanding the outhouse a doubtful accessory but the cabinstyle bricklike guard dog birds flew about with their absurd colors all ablaze and the amazing part was the departure back to sense from whence we all return sooner or never and forever ago the fever lifted we have drifted through different circles we have tightened the bagels into smaller rotations our nations are united in appreciation the fascination with holidays glazing over the nonsensical amount of ginger poured into that idea I am translating my listenings into glistening understanding pretending with a face that says otherwise we are smiling back and forth and the north doesn’t snow what the east can’t show like we always used to say back way back when geography wasn’t born and storms brought lilacs instead of rain and you might patiently explain again they are related but friend I do not need a lecture I am dwelling here upon conjecture and if you don’t like my hypothesis then you can floss with this farewell for the rest of your stay and your clean clean teeth will greet the mirror but we won’t be any nearer to understanding each other and it’s a shame for your mother is so kind and it’s truly a musical interlude when she exudes a tune or two of sense in your direction and I happen to be standing nearby but if this is goodbye then that’s fair well enough

justwrite 7 march

the carbohydrates date the fated figs growing big in the middle then dropping off plumly making up numb tongues to do their own bidding forgetting when and why and how high the sky has to go before it grows greener and then dark the park in the sky is a wild idea but to drive up there simply means Virginia it’s that easy and the treesy breeze calls back at once having had a hunch that there was more to say having waited past the point of useful exchanges and replacing them instead with colors and numbers of pages we are waging pointless pointings-out against the sense of it we have immense trenches of it into which we keep falling calling out for the orchestra to be more beautiful to perform more dutifully and remember when we hung up but we cupped our ears to listen for more and to store each word for easy recycling let us return to the burning I am tired of making faces at myself and imagining my health of the most significance there are acres of other things to consider and the figures don’t add up in my mirror but there are no clearer signs no easier designs to blueprint than a lack of control over the whole strolling crowd there is loudness in we but for me it is quiet there is no try it is only a badge to earn in front of a stern audience and the scarf is soaking it is a token heatwave past the last one and I am stunned with the lack of right words on either side startled by the lack of closure after any exposure but this is not the right word either aching with a fever of empty depth and having leapt into the light finding it all much too bright

justwrite 6 march

there are starches that will not keep this shirt straight I have waited for the fated button I am cutting open the rent and finding inside a chicken and it is hatching from which came first the rehearsal hasn’t started but the curtain is going up lifting cupped hands full of fools the hope that you’ll put your numbers in the right order when you go to pay your taxes that I will learn that to relax is a miracle cure and when you’re sure that your plan will pan out then you can call me full of troutstreams these scenes are and the jumping is hard to follow and the morrow is worth the sorrow of a thousand turtledoves folding themselves into cranes the luck that runs up and through and never out the south and the north switching sides and hiding in the closet until the other comes out to play until the stages are set we are ready to forget I am too awake to fake sleep and I will keep my eyes open in hope in search of boots in search of lutes playing themselves into spring the second hands the third and the words in the right order are sorting themselves out snoring all the spaces into place we are rhyming our thyme and parsley with rosemary and scarborough fair on the way to thanksgiving we are praising the raisins we are forgiving ourselves for our lack of forgiveness the bigness of heart we see in ourselves our selfish shelves of stored-up glory we are proud and quietly loud about it the cattle are lowing but we are growing our self-images up in the backyard guitar-playing imagination we are collecting our thoughts and publishing them but maybe we should keep a few for ourselves maybe we should start a fire maybe we should admire our dreams but measure too our accomplishments and we have sent ourselves packing in the other direction we are wishing that lessons came with answers a special key given to the teacher unlocking the special features and telling us what to do next when the text turns into choose your own adventure

justwrite 5 march

adrift on a rift in the abyss the void avoided by deep sheep and the sleep of ages the rock of cages and stages in cabarets the old chums coming undone at the seams and seeming to dream outside of Technicolor the blunders all up close and the most of the least like the best of reliefs and the worst of rehearsals all ending up on a warm lap to sleep and to be relieved to have answered questions and lessons learned we are churning up the butter the better forgetters like the letters that make numbers out of holidays I am staying awake I am taking the cake and letting them eat it we were discreet in our butter and honey but now they want all of our money we are living off of carrots and socks but the locks can’t be broken with such cheap tokens the goods are for sale and the carpets are turning into a tom waits song too long we’ve missed the bits we’ve risked the reminiscences we are wishing for some other dawning or an awning without eyelids heavy on the looking glass classic screen green turning blue and nothing we can do but to ask for tasks to be completed to be repeated with certificates and marks pressed back into the dark no recommendations for higher stations no relations no quotation marks of that style no tiles on those ninety-odd pages just stages of history blistering in the steppe having leapt over tongues for unstrung distances there are resistances and I am many of them there are circles and I have drawn a square there are here there are where they who say when how you count your stars and keep them lucky strung up by guitars and tickling their ivory smiles as the miles to go before you turn right pass by and suddenly they have left

justwrite march forth!

I won’t say that it’s true it’s you it’s a few too many variants the chariots swing so low there are no sweet cherries the berries are all aflame and the names slur toward the same syllables we are riddles solving ourselves and thrilled with our cleverness the clovers picked never have enough leaves leaving something to be desired firing all comers and calling back no numbers for three or more days the golden leaves the wheat the rye all the catchers snatching earth and sky borrowing water and air everywhere you can get them we fit them together puzzle pieces in a captain planet ring singing again and again the same words I would like to say there are ways and there are exits we are collecting our tickets and seeing how they add up we are cupping numbers and letters and sweating the big the little and the middle verses they try to rhyme but the fine-feeling reels can’t steal the spotlight bright enough to bluff the listener we are twisting our ankles and thanking the stars the bars and cars all crashing into each other and we avoid all others we are quiet in our corners we are pushing away the mourners and waiting for the sun we are carrying by the ton the world the steel cables coming unhinged from the beginning and the end we send the inbetween dreams back to their original stages asking for pages to be turned one at a time and it’s fine if no one’s reading there’s no drive to be succeeding faster or long lastinger than real words can reach but to teach is something and to sit is not

no idea what to write is the plight of so many frames the names disappear the clearing where the birds sing they are flinging their merry way to the other side of tomorrow there are sorrows and there are joys all employed with regular jobs of lifting up nice and setting down mean and in between dreams we drift we lift our heels and our toes and we slide forward we glide toward the next step we have leapt off the sidewalk we have talked ourselves to sleep again we are diving into the deep again and arriving in a thriving scene green and beautiful we throw off our dutiful list and we miss all our appointments caught up in anointing the new season with plenty of reasons to sing

justwrite 3 march

today the heart is a lonely honeymaker the drone with the miles to go before smiling to sleep and the steep incline looks just fine from the other side of the tracks the river shivering into shorts and looking at pictures of the gone world cannot go back cannot keep track of those letters the ladders all let down the towns evolving and solving their own equations we are saving our stamps for the damp when the humidity will free all needs and push forward into the glorious mailroom the stale gloom of stickiness tickling pink each ivory tower we are listening for the piano we are hearing the guitar in the stairwell and that’s just as it should be the ringtones all phone home to the ears of others and their mothers ought to know the candles ought to glow brighter in the nightlier news the anchors can’t choose which cavities to chew without those doubts I thought I shouted out earlier but maybe it wasn’t aloud maybe we were not allowed to tell stories like that we weren’t allowed to make or keep track of the racks of collapsible bedposts I am tired before most of the rest starts to happen but if I can get through the next day and the text may find me but I’ll remind me that there’s plenty of time for no more answers we’ll take our chancers

justwrite 2 march

let’s talk about priorities let’s sort out from these some of lesser claims the fame is nothing but the waning moon is wanting soon to have more to explore in the night there are bright lights and big cities and large dogs and small kitties but that has nothing to do with where I’m going what I’m doing tomorrow and three days from now the cows will come home fast asleep and little boy blue will stick in his thumb and pull out a candlestick diddle diddle dumpling over the hills and far away and quack back come the ducks and the luck doesn’t run out but sometimes it jogs or skips a little there are bits in the middle but the outside is unclear there are fears but they are not worth saying out loud this is what I should be learning this is what makes up what I’m earning we are burning midnight oilcloths and counting our losses in cheese we are freezing our ears and calming our eyes with surprise invitations that have already been accepted on your very own behalf and you can do nothing but laugh and pass the carafe to a nearby giraffe who appreciates the gesture but simply nods it along the line the circle or finely twined marmalade smiles the kisses in style the wild children who don’t have to worry the furious alarm clock the translation exercises the surprises when you realize where your calendar went and you thank the person who sent you the clue so you could find it rewind it and set it back a few hours more just to find out what’s in store when your eyes close early

justwrite 1 march

the first day of spring brings with it a cleanup effort the sounds abound and the splashes catch us off guard it’s hard to walk and to talk at the same time but we feel fine even looking down at the ground so our feet don’t meet puddles we are muddled and befuddled over where the leaves are when the cars and the boots will be clean again waiting for it all to be green again we are friends and friendly lending good feelings and clean dealings until the time is up until the car horn sounds until a round-up of the hours results in flowers and in sunshine feeling so fine and ready to march there are parks to be explored and work to be ignored with that energy stored up over winter and turning now to blossom