justwrite 31 may

In the interim the sinkers swim and the bobbers take their socks of their rocks around the clock and that’s what you do when the dog can’t chew and the bone runs off there are scoffers and there is elegance in the turned-aside cheek the weak ride out and parade their arms wave their harmless flags and drag a little in the wind we spend our time in angled rhymes and substitute diversions we feel the newer versions of ourselves coming around the bend defending the homeland against its natives the creative waves of restless alarm we are swarmed with work and swamped with elevators up and down like staircases replaced with shoelaces we have whole cases full of justice and the fish that can’t tell time will be left ashore again and what’s more pretending is now found to be better than reality it’s plain to see from the rain we freeze in laboratories the acid content that’s just eating away can’t have its say anymore we’re playing four square with three triangles and as much as we want we can’t have circles the circus maybe but that’s hocus pocus and the cars don’t start we’re part of the whole you know and we keep falling in we’re stalling in too many different directions and the way we make corrections is to white it all out is to snip the gray about knee-high and call for the goose the gander and the neighbor down the street we are meeting our enemies and asking them to tea we are filling out documents and offering them up with lemonade mentions the tension of the high wires and the recording artists still inspire even after the lights go off we’re holding our breath and we’re letting go but when you jump you know she’ll be there and you will plant the garden together

justwrite 14 may

I sent it but if it wasn’t received than I’m all the more deceived by the idea of delivery my shivery hands and shaky veins as the waning moon starts shining its shoes you could lose the attitude and no one’d be the wiser but it’d be a salad surprise that’s what I’ve got to say about it the fruit the doubt it’s nothing to carry on about the trout swim up the stream and the rainbow’s dream comes true to land in a pile of gold coins a cauldron full of funds the humongous nature of that word spilling itself out of bounds I frowned at that misspelling hard to tell well enough in advance but I’ve chanced to remember a dance in December the kind of cold hopping people do when the windows don’t quite close and I suppose it must have been January otherwise it wasn’t that bad with the kind of winter we had or half had we have had some sort of spring too which is to say it’s gone through right to june but hang on we’ve turned and earned another sort of chill which will do for now which will fill the sow’s ear with silver the liver’s full of iron but that doesn’t mean I’ll eat it the streets are full of sidewalks but no one wants to drive we’re alive and we’re smelly but the television is sweeter and the sky that’s dark again will rain down sun tomorrow we have no laundry we have no quandaries we have nothing better than love and that’s run low again in the pantry but why one kept it there is a hard enough puzzle to ask let alone answer we’ve fancier questions to query when we are weary of these but the pleased expression in the mirror says I must be getting nearer to interesting the besting of the westing game the seventh-grade book we acted out on camera and I with my childish delight I who was grace Windsor-wexler with a silky red shirt with the high two-buttons-on-the-back neck I the awkward still-new kid I made the role my own and this was noticeable even on vhs I cannot see today the mrs. Curlen way to fit in and I think there was really something to it something to pretending to be someone else so that others could see who you were underneath a neat trick but hard enough to manage when you’ve got a script let alone without being left alone without

justwrite 12 may

And there was a day but it already happened and it’d dampen the mood to see it all spelled out like that but there were pieces of sun and also a headache on the couch I haven’t sketched it out just yet but really it already played and it fades out easily through long stretches I was trying to keep running just so I could write and then I kept running although the breath was thin and tight and the sun was too strong along the street the trees were scraped away from the scene and the buses were exhausted with the heat smoky protests sent up and out and overall it was a simple day there was coffee as well as a delay before taking medicine two while medicine one had its chance had almost its day but I had wanted to take out clothes and show them a good time show them a plastic bag and the shady side of a dumpster I had wanted to write about reflections on these actions there will be no more winters in Ukraine and I will not need this sweater before july that sort of thing but it rang true enough though the bluff was called when the pain collapsed my eyes and the blinds came down letting there be dark

justwrite 11 may

For someone so together that’s a lot of self-doubt that’s a lot of rooting through the grout to find the route of how she’s put together the weather changes and it’s a shift of anxieties the covering up and the turning away the looks booked from last season only starting to wear off now she is looking around and of course she doesn’t care what other people say think do but staring might be real or if might be a tweak there’s a freakout waiting somewhere in a mirror and she’s clearer than ever in being herself but there’s a shelf where nothing fits and a closet blitzed by anxious morning minutes it’s a stereotype which she’d like to be beyond especially here when it’s especially clear that no one needs to matter that they will never look again those strands will be unbraided and all will go their separate ways faded and stonewashed and acidtossed secondhand fashionable is cheap but not quite fitting and the price is twice the worry in right-shifted zippers and tiny stains with lost belts looking at pictures and shop windows there are roils of dark of self-disgust that can’t be trusted waiting for a compliment that seems to be true but not trusting if it does no you’re hardly that you’re no way fat you’re looking good and those jeans look great but here she goes to summer and it’s not a competition and it doesn’t matter anything anywho anyway but it’d be nice to breeze right through it’d be nice not to do this to herself to spend that wealth of energy in some meaningful pursuit something infinitely more useful than lame leaning toward collapsing self-esteem with reams of lines ready for dictation let’s try extraction instead and see what’s left after all see what the call answers when the closet rings in the morning and the window opens wide straight on through to the street

justwrite 9 may

Speaking of victory there are questions there are lessons but no one’s learning just winning on and on and the colors of the crayons are wrong but on we scrawl and have a ball or two of cheese crunchy if it’s that kind or really just about any sort will do it’s true we want to hear ourselves speak but the creak in the chair means I’m up without a paddle and the skidaddle that happens next leaves me in an empty room only it’s not empty if I’m there so that’s something and really I’m surprised to find the space defined that way with here I am and all so let’s go to the map collapsing skirts and other perimeters of what to wear tomorrow and other grown-up sorrows there are no thoughts that end with sense in this regard trying hard to match the season and mishmashed occasions the lazy phrases we use and the suppositions that we offer each other in place of reason yes a thought for the rhyme but nothing much doing there so over where the sky is accented and the colors taste better there are numbers here to punch and a whole bunch of reason lining up the rhyme we’re timing it double and working out the snags dragging crooked fingers to pull up stockings and rocking loose teeth once more into the breach but right there I need to stop don’t need to top off my dreams before they start it’s an easy part to play with the teeth but they stay right in place if I have anything to do about it because that’s what my dreams are made of when they’re made to order like sandwiches wrapped in crinkly paper driving across Pennsylvania provolone cheese and black olives sheetz I’m coming home

justwrite 7 may

Taking medication with some hesitation it proves to be effective does that mean that I’m defective and waiting for a cure is there more in store or are all the pieces in play if I stay on course of course I’m a horse of a different sort which is to say no sort of horse at all but if I stall and say nay then what’s the difference the least resistance is the way to fall but calling all birds have you heard the word and it’s absurd to go on like this but I’m not sure of any other way and some other day I might play different keys strike different chords I’d win awards or at least a claim or two the truth ties my shoes but it’s magic that polishes buttons I’m smitten with realism but it’s marquez who I hesitate to name the fame shame blame game of why aren’t you there yet is a fair bet to topple the most timid of novelists it’s an abominable monster of snow and so it goes but the wonder is will it cease and can the caught be released we are pleased to inform you we don’t want to alarm you but there are some questions I’ve got hesitations and some frustrations but the questions yes I’m thinking wrong and writing else I’m stuck on the shelf with halfhearted answers leaving half-heard wonders wandering on their own how long is the baggage claim open and can you claim whatever you like if you have a ticket can I stick it there for two or three days and do the ways rule the means or the other way around we’re above ground now there’s no metro no subway no sandwich whatsoever and the weather isn’t fine but it’s plentysweet for sleeping I’m keeping track of goings-on but the socks are soaking yet they’re soaking wet and not quite clean but in the meantime they’ll be fine until their turn comes up and that’s the lesson for the day if you’re stuck in a bucket but probably you’re not so you’d better be self-taught on this occasion and many others too as many others do as they stir up their own stew

justwrite 6 may

You are on my map I said and the collapsing folded in those who weren’t adapting came unshuffled and huffed their way offstage we’re caged and bottled but all the problem solves have already done their work and are off dealing with picnics at this time there’s no rhyme here and the reason is a little thin but remember in the beginning what the goals were and who cares about the mirror who cares about the steerer and the road there’re explosions in the sky and some of those are lightning the missions some of us are on imagining that the others are wrong or at least a little off we’re wondering who to scoff at and who’s right fighting the dark with colors and light and maybe it’s just superstition maybe it’s a lack of total inhibition but acting out and carrying on have a lot to say have plenty of ways to present themselves what are the reasons we can leave and why can we keep away who will I be when I’m not this one who is other will I also be other or will I someone else the felt thoughts dampen in the rain and form fuzz in the twistturn wondering who will I be and what should I do to get ready when this couch is not waiting for me in the other room and the cool air of early summer night isn’t pressing through the screen between the cross-courtyard windows and my own steaming bowl of soup cooling vaguely on the table where I left it there is only so much soup to be had at any one time and that’s fine with me though someone entering the scene at this time would be certain to ask what is that soup doing here and I would be certain to answer it’s waiting for you and so it would be and if someone eats it after this is written and that someone isn’t you it’s only because you didn’t get here soon enough