31 december

churned/ burned/ learned/ turned up = i've earned up chosen comfort - could listen to mumford with feet up in slippers - in sequins or mesh as i like it - no biking naked or breaking it dancing in farfetched romancing with imaginary scenes of eventual doubt - the roundabout sort - the first resort instead, as easy as it gets with no one to impress but an otherroom mirror nobody's monitoring - slowgo seen from the window but a win from within / choices / noises and questions and setaside lessons - declining invitations and unlocked conversations with the puzzles all in pieces - // - release is in the prescription and immersion in the conversion into sense

30 december

from what's to be expected there's a misdirection in the to-do list an undone twist unravels and there's plenty left undone - here we are unstrung and there's nowhere for to blame: easy are the claims and the clam-ups, coupled with the finger-points out of joint (i was waiting on, weren't you meant to, didn't he say, she mean, we thought, anyway, any day) as the world turns ferns over a new leaf - this is as the chords grow stronger - we are all our own selves anyway - we are the people who populate the lists and take the steps, make the traditions and take down the notes - we are the authors of our own decisions and the long divisions [us/ them -- me/ all else] even as the nevermind unwinds here - let's be clear that there are also trees and breezes blowing - tomorrow alarms the clock and rocks boats for the lakes to shake clear of - i will take the same picture and drive away again - a full tank of elsewhere and nowhere else to go - plans to scandalize the hopeful watchers, no one keeping track - there are blanks on the calendar and a pocket filling with crumbs (where will the forest find an edge, where will the mountain peak?) the sky will cloud and the earth will tear in easy pieces for dipping into mirrors - clearer my eyes and ready disguises for the disappearance ready to go ready to know more than the waiting ready to do more than look ready to eat to cook to create to fill the space with deep breaths and the next deflates again even as the sand runs through and flowers run out of petals that might have been loved and not and plans that bought dust instead

29 december

even as the odds number their favors in order the short cooks and the longjohns josh about touting their good fortunes with cookies and assorted sayings waving their flags and dragging their notes in four-four time : we are the rhymers of the ancients, the mariners of the faint sprints ! let's begin again. tired legs and weary dregs of accomplished day played out with spilled dirt and worked-though brewings - spewing perplexion and misdirection (which way to turn the hopeful glance / which where to worry the backward chance) even as the packages won't post, even as the rye won't wheat toast -- tomorrow is another calendar, tomorrow is another possibility for paving stones zoning through plans scandalizing with their hopeful nostalgia (twisting from the present even as it becomes less than future) -- and yet what of the story to be told : the midnight ride of notquite no -- the laterday brunch and the branching to follow / even as fiction is better to trend toward in the disregarded reality with all the whatifs politely patted on the head and sent instead to bed without supperly pleasure -- no measure for those margins enlarged in the realer sense -- and what of that bench deep with other plans, scanned to find rows lined with work to-do's and video ooo's with slideshow truths to be found... allaround the maybenext bush, monkey chases beagle : hms and what's next for darwin easily regarded on survival of the tastiest float to appear in the morning sky - kitebright wild and easygo fresh

28 december

even as i make a fool of myself i can feel the thread the needle in my hand stitching together each scene as the stage goes on the show the filmstrip rolling on in the dark we're parking at the drive-in arriving to see and be seen although i've never been one to make that grade other than the report card kind i'd never mind those kinds of labels the right names rearranged you can call me anything that makes you feel better / i know what my own name is and i make my own weather -- these are the pages i can do without and i will write my own story -- those are the circles you walk again and trot the horses two by three -- easy as pie they'll say and play the melodies in unforgivable rhythms swimming backward in honkytonk steamships eclipsing all sense of escape (we are the freight and our memories are frightful) delight in the righteous and fear no ill but darkness -- we are the birds and the trees swim in air ! these are the songs that our neighbors will compare their dinner plates to as the night comes up and they cannot abide their fortune cookies, their socks with spotted toes and unconcerned stripes, sneaking to our windows to imagine our secrets in their greedy wide eyes -- how can we have earned this wonder ? let us to our own tables guide our efforts ! let us pour our hearts to growth and art ! we are care and sun and every mountain placed with cautious crayons and wanton use of hope

27 december

sticking to the concrete never fails even as the abstract flails through metaphor the solid floor is stuck upon with gum and other humdrum realities and these are the pickles in which we dip our toes the roses we smell and also the trash when we cash our vacations down to pennies and return to apartments to open doors which heretofore had kept closed this stink we'd kept undisclosed to our neighbors but mostly our own selves and it's our own healths we toast now with opened windows to bring those levels to more even parameters the whirrs of sense that had spun some time ago and so and all we count the calls and keep the counsel easy enough to brush off a cough we thought to simply scoff - no need for remedy thanks, the trash will find its tank - and yet and yet and yet - the path here from concrete to beaten direction is not without surprise - the metaphor, discovered, hovered only briefly before relieving itself into reality again : scandal in the facts! traction gained and nothing gold remains of the glimmering fiction we meant to create - dinner dates and unplanned melodies - those are the trees that have only roots, ours are the sidewalks that never end - those are the stars with guitars caught in avalanches, ours are the nights that go on without watches

26 december

apart from departing there's a reason this season brings going beyond showing motion - there are oceans of quiet and riots of noise, but outside the snow and the showing of toys is a wonder of whatelse and whynot calling here we are, but out there, the space is vast and waiting, unadvertised - no bows, no paper, no crinkling announcing itself months in advance - the chance to step into fresh space with the bracing chill of no expectation - I am not looking for answers or for questions - no lessons with their tails strung to the doorknob waiting for a susudden tug and bang - solved at once. This is the steps to take - the baked bread broken - freezing out hot air on frosted destination glass to see arrival - uncover survival from a new angle - untangle peace in pieces - catch and release lungs and tongue to string along, to bring along the breath to power what's next in those darker months when the mail doesn't come - still the colors gathered in the chips collected our shells on the beach - no waves can wash away, a forward step -

25 december

opening space means an easy chase with a trip-up race to the bottom of the barrel : here is where the feral cats go missing and no one notices because no one's been looking / here is where i wonder where the attention is paid and who carries the passbook and who picks the interest rate / here is where and when is now . . . i am sitting back and tracking nothing but the wind as the spin picks off the cannon balls hurtling through the atmosphere - it's clear there are far more dangerous projectiles worth a smile or two if we could see through to the other side (it's a rocky ride in the middle but it's golden once it's crossed) - there are tossed-aside hideabouts : fair play if we ride out all the scenarios but the where we go is connected to the when we know and that is certainly classified - the hide you show up / the imagined cup of sense poured out - this bout is once again scheduled -

24 december

apartment lot christmas eve emptying over easy with an eye toward sad slanting lonely only the rest left behind to mind the lines to stay in the right order - sorting the paint drying in the cold sun imagining itself turning to snow - nothing is the movie - even as the cards harden into expectation and names are stamped damply in DIwhY cookie cutters the butter's still real in the cookies and the rookie's making mistakes we will all take for granted: one day one way to look at it one way to cook fat out of it - these are the battles worth fighting or aren't they - stopping to get involved and no wonder we won't open until everyone means more-scenes young and means to weigh in on as lids crawl closed and the dark comes up

all wrapped up and closing eyes/ in a jam with sense and spiced peaches/ reach out and check the return

23 december

patio view scatters few and among those easily strung words herds of buffalo shuffling through the pages stages of rebellion felling all those trees into books looking twice and gluing the cut-out parts the hearts and all their tangled bits the starts of all entanglements i'd like to vote here twice i'd like to question mice brought into the scene for otherwise mean ways the questionable plays where those wild hearts are broken and the dogs are all in heaven - the bread is always leavened and the circles never break - the questions have more answers than the listeners can take - let's do the things we want to do and also let us cook - we'll set aside ingredients for these and other imaginings the bringing-ups of cupfulls the struggles to be direct : let me collect my thoughts and also have bought the answers with more truths - i will never lie to you and this is true and furthermore you'd never know you'd always blow by the frozen pie in the cookbook the outlook delicious the tired legs conspicuously unnoticed the hocus unpocused this is the way that makes the most sense this is the thanks i'd rather have already sent - to you no waiting onward carbon dating the thanks for opportunity the anytime golden immunity to sense or sensibility the please and thanks and the light-up blanks that flash and wait to be filled

22 december

source material pours in as sinking swims through the channels staticky and panels of alarm warm to the occasion i'm facing nations here united in their distraction and it's overwhelming attraction but i'm pacing some tracks just a balance to counteract a glance in a different direction - i'm sorry? was there other? some churning buttersworth kettlecorn whistelstop anyway otherwise passerby drip drop droop let it go as the snow changes path trails trajectories in fleecy pajamas and runs to its mama's house - mousy with shyness, a sketchy royal highness to command some other weather - but the pleasure's all mind if (i'd more earnestly defined something that i'd needed i'd hardly quite have heeded such a call and it's all the better to see with my dear)  a crinkle-eyed peer as the spring cats appear in winter, splintering the midnight disbelief - a wreath of stars instead of numbers to tell the time and it's easily fine o'clock - neither tick nor tock as the pass goes - the trash goes out and recycling's a thing - let's bring it all together at some point and appoint a - what? a purpose? a title? a recital of observations? better yet - the fascinations ought to still remain awaver leaving wonder slightly quavering in the hopeful but a rope full of knots to climb up there's supper in the freezer but let's go out instead

21 december

at the top of the list the slipped disc trips into the right track and counteracts the balance beam -- an easy scene to steam open with the curtains all flapping free -- the breeze too treasonous to tell, the stories to freezing to carousel along the delayed lines of inquiry -- the worry-free shoppers, the corny old poppers with the ears in a twist (risk is a game and also the answer) (takes one to know one but let's not be dancers) even as the microwave go macro there's a whole lot of cheese that's waiting its turn as the world spurns opportunity and turns to soaps binging on episodes and overloading hope with the dopey block of anything else -- our greater selves and awkward elves all shuffled in with the same closets depositing dicussions (to invite or not as the clock ticks tockward and the lists are not to-done) we are strung along like lanterns paper with enchantment and lit from hopeful sparks -- there are childish imaginings, easy strums of tragedy on sideways commercial breaks, but we fake out our attention and we focus on the vaseline-bleared scenes : this is what we'd like to see, the airbrushed view, the skin and teeth who have never imagined imperfection, no other direction but clearly straight -- the wait and the wonder, the trip and the blunder -- we are out and we are in, we are sinking as we swim -- let me admit i am distracted, let me say my mind's contracted around one thing and one sting operation to be carried out for the answer but the dancing around is far more profound of an opportunity and if you ask me -- although really, who would? -- it'd be far more good to keep that center and shatter the rest to stress those tests to keep the tasty and tilt the whirl to swirl the shake-off cake down (more as we follow along - for now, it's easy eyes down and locking stocking barrels as the pieces get rearranged)

20 december

ready set and betting on ten minutes for the win spit back as the track lacks traction i'm collapsing the mug idea as one goes missing it's spaghetti-uh-oh and nobody knows what happened to the other (and who to ask?) an errant task gone wrong/ too strong a listener to bluff/ to wild a broken heart to stuff in the sack -- crackalack shattered glass and sorrowful apologies (guilt tripping over) red rover singalongs and this is where the chords go wrong: where was that field i was talking about before? where were those circumstances laid out by that door - remember when it opened and we thought we meant goodbye? always room for pie but i never clean my plate / always room for time and there's always another date to expand into to remand those few priorities truths and hopedfor exploratory strands - hand it to you (gotta) you oughta know - that easy flow (you know what i mean) those simpleso scenes that play out onward - scriptless but onboard : cue the alarm clock ignoring and forward the forgetting of other key facts : let's collapse a few key points but i'd never ever disjoint a delicious strand of uncovery the brass tracks and other bits the informing pieces and looks and seeings how it all fits (i could have danced all night/ and other songs) colors that i've been looking for and twists i can't explain / the package - no label - remains unjudged - the budge (no budget) unpushed, a mushed-up oooo and ahh of yesplease whynot where the snip is hard to clip and the scene is tough to truncate the wait is yet a wonder and there's nothing still that's known just some guesses and clue-stranding and vague missions all their own

19 december

in the field between spaces let's place no claims but skip - this is a natural motion - these are easy devotions to whisper into windy lines of inquiry: worry not but plot the courses as horses run free in dizzy woods (as they could have talked to foxes, as they could have lived in boxes - eating eggs and ham). we are all the paradoxes taking each other out to lunch we are listening even-handed we are quietly undemanded at any other table -- stables full of footprints as the race is yet to run... let's pause fun and disregard the china cabinet case : breaks and other worries as the tape can be replaced with scissors, built again with timeworn wizards shivered into user guides - pizza pockets run and hide as salad beds are laid to rest : the best-laid plans are tired of chicken walking off across the street ... we are the ones we'd hoped to meet in this parking lot alarm clock ring - going off the deep steep jump : a stump speech ready to launch : ready waiting, carbon dating all the choices in sweet rejoices (please don't mind if i skip - don't mind if i do) i'll slip but flip these pancakes overquaked onto your plate : a birthday take times two and that's how you knew the true blue nature of the view and if you'll see it's me saying so - i'd go a step further but that's a dance to be studied - that's a diagram to be flooded with attention and i'm interested, yes - press play

18 december

pleased to say there's a way to mean well and to spell out letters that i'd like to send = to end that mean streak there's a leak in the hole in the bottom of the sea and the whale and the tale and the story i'd like to tell has a happy start has a heart full of water and a lovely pair of mugs there are shrugs of indifference too often i'm scoffing in that direction and in need of some correction i'd like to suggest a bequest of some living attention in the nearest dimensions let's care and by there i mean here and steer clear in the path preferred absurd as may seem there's a meaningful - whoa - there's a show and a tell but i'd rather not step that step rather leap that skip and swim that stroke rather hokey that poke hotter than a hoosegoew and other sorts of phrases rearranged by ages and eras the oft neglected tyrannies of bleary eyes and weary pies that no one saved room for that easy tries ballooned toward i'd rather turn away too full than wish and never have asked / it's a task i'd set but i'd rather be joined in the discovery hovering over the opportunity flashing like cashing in a machine for which you make your own sounds = clowning without makeup the shakeup of senseless pleasure measure beyond treasured shelf-fulls of dusty whynot and if i'd bought that cameo curio buttondown anything i'd sing my heart out back in sinkswim overunder just to have it all undone once more to do it all again let's say to play it true and fast the flash the blast of feelgood reeling in stick it on the stick and toast the roasty as you like it benedict and beatrice and blisstwist in your hair compared with other worries let's blur those by pie who needs that shoe to fly when i make my own dreams and come them true just blow that balloon and never mind the pop let's stop when we've had enough and it's hardly that time yet

17 december

yet in the meantime the lights the music blew through us we trusted ourselves to imagine healths safer than wisdom the trimmer fits of wind and the wider twists of spin the cotton tails the winter whales of cotton bought and sold golden like nothing green can stay - easy days and fellow travelers nothing we can't kick if we lick those wounds and croon those songs together we weather the odds and corn those cobs even as the music gets conducted - odder than the evens are the stevedores - easily implored like so many dodges (artful or indifferent, helpful and melifluous - we are all the good we give, we are all the good we take) - let me bake mistakes from other ingredients and turn apart those pies - i've forgotten the lyrics to too many songs and nicked too many names - let's start again : i was born too ready to jump too ready to pump my hands in the air and cheer for others no one needs to be the martyr this time no one needs to force this rhyme but somehow it happens sometimes we're clapping our hands and another joins in suddenly unalone suddenly there's a stone or a broken glass i asked for that embarrassed together and a storm weather we're chameleons we're stealing the limelight and swirling it around scotching the tape these are the clues i'm using to truth it all together how do you feel about this how's this dish to be served up how's the twist reverse bluffed by the listener the glistening fault lines i feel fine and i'm making a fool of myself the wealth of opportunities spread themselves thin and yet onward cashing in sinking to swim and so much the richer with whynot to lose

16 december

here's the draft I'm crafting too rough for much but I did capitalize myself a helpful shelf to stack tall enough for a second helping which is what I get when I serve here I deserve clear through to the second story but live on the third absurd as it seems this may be the fourth

traveling north I meant to start my draft here and so I will skip again begin again begin

it's about putting by setting aside tucking away

this is why my cupboard is never bare but I am always running out of what to eat the boxes of chocolate turning to wax as they wait for guests to test their creamy centers or some other kind of mettle the middle always wondering against itself the hrechka from the russian store in boston tossed in up against the hand-delivered bag from my ukrainian boss-no-more exploring the inside of the second shelf: well there they sit waiting for the right time and I am saving them and waving goodbye until the Right Bright Moment where the doughnut holier than itself scoops its own middle and falls through : the truth set free -- I am breezing by this point too ridiculous to say :

we're saving the good silverware the china the tablecloth for when company comes -- you are what are nothing are not worth are less than are something other and therefore and wherefore and my father told me Things Are To Be Used but oh the sadness when my tablecloth was stained by careless guests who covered up their spill for days in the living room bedroom dining room sad as they took the bus away and I lift up the oh no lesson but who was learning who was earning life lived Life Is To Be Lived And Often Stained with no blame

the story of driving more safely with someone important in the car the idea that you are the caught-up nostalgia for the hope of something else the captured self in a side-angle mirror I am putting by these ingredients these treats -- the Easter candy, now for Christmas, back for Easter, Christmas again : all the sweeter for the stocking, all the boats in the mindchannel rocking

15 december

who even knows anything the denizens of the deep creep merrily along as the songs turn off key / lazily the marigolds unfold their alarm clocks - talking of michaelangelo and the peaches they dare not reach as the overexposed danger zones swerve though highbrow overblown pancake makeup - let us not assume these things - let us all make short, swift swings and laundry basket nanny goats - the boats, i meant, the rushes and reeds - the stories of times of far-off deeds - the mythology so many believe is true - the answers and questions from me to you - the building we're building and bricks too thick - the sticks too heavy, the straw too thin - the three little pigs and the wolf calling bluff: these are the answers, never too tough : the lights came on in a far-off field, and the camel that showed up was kinder than necessary - a topiary garden, a dromedary hardened by winter and the splinters of warmth spit out by a fire built for s'mores - no norms in that scene, spun out from the dought of a thousand light bulbs in a snow-free carnival - fall and spring and in between : father frost and the cocoa queens

14 december

in the meantime the green rhymes mark their thoughts down in round rows and count crows (none the richer for the practice, none the wiser for the mattress where they sleep in deep contemplation of a maybe-later nation where they'll maybe-someday wake up and they'll maybe thenday take up shelf space -- a saving grace note of hocus pocus reality we plainly see in take-off mode) let's explode the ground floor models, coddling opportunities and practicing immunities (achoo and you, it's me, it's me) we plainly freeze ourselves in contemplation of repeat and lather those easygo matters of losing focus and are we there again is the sentence running on ? with occasional punctuation but little to recommend itself to end itself on dependent clauses? i'm lost in a closet of too-unfitting clothes and the door seems stuck but the buck isn't stopping and the frog keeps hopping so no kisses here just a coast unclear and a foggy eight ball/ calling all taxi cabs with drab exteriors and monologues inferior in standard deviations (the constant conversations of incessant reservations) we're making hesitations out of awkward interventions but the market can't be bought and the lessons can't be taught when nobody's in the listening nobody conversates with the filled-up ears we're all too busy hearing ourselves we're all too looking down for the stand-up kids for the what's next crew and the who-else truths in the where-now bends of the runalong stream / gleaming as the cotton picks licks of sticky sugar from its manufactured tongue / unstrung from confusion and tossed into a hopeful strand of sweet imagined dream / taunting self and twisting health into the challenge unraveling before and into against the prepositions into the mission : onward co-conspirators, traveling alone

13 december

this is a day i didn't write/ a day the night came up too fast/ my head was filled with vegetable soup/ the potatoes too sharp for comfort/ bumping first into my bowled bold head/ ready to go anywhere else/ too selfish for anything but sleep/ deep in disregard/ harder to be sore on that point/ goodbye i didn't say/ waiting until the last minute to pin it to the donkey as the tail end spins/ winner goes the chicken dinner/ pop goes the weasel/ feasible plans and sandable ledges/ wedge heels and treasure chests/ best bets and hedged let's/ neverminds and easy finds/ i know i am but headaches/ great escapes and exercises going through the motions/ call me anytime you get this/ fit to be tied and the list's not to do/ sidenotes and motorboats/ this is the day that i thought but didn't set aside/ this is the night that i settled, didn't swipe

11 december

Square like a knot I caught my breath and hemmed the haw - called like a bird I heard in an alleyway I crept past the nightingale and hailed like a merry-go-round down the round rugged rocks like a ragged rascal running faster than disaster -- I am wearing the wrong coat and this is the dream where there's no remote much less control (who is the one who wanted a TV? who is the one with the heebies and the jeebies?). We are the enemies of our own estate, we are the subjects of tired old debates in which no one wins, everyone spins out of control and the locusts out of focus are their own worst enemies - hazy in the breeze and the childish appetites for the darkest clocks of night while my batteries reset (though it's anybody's bet why the wall hands never match and the time can never catch (up) with the loving (cup) full over merry rover go-rounds/ oh, we've been and back again -- let's have that conversation once/ let me tell you I picked that up and knew it was for you at once/ let me say there was no question/ let me say the fifth dimension/ I would like to learn more about the special features but wait there's more but wait but wait and also I'm tired of nope that was a hiccup never a run-on sentence that we can't catch and latch and giddyup ahead! Where were we? Still standing still and back again but I could ride that smile til the cows come home and my hair's so straight there's a market for parkas if you know what I mean and I'm sure you do if that tone of mind is any indication -- there's a whole league of nations based on those kinds of accords -- houses of lords and other coats of arms not withstanding. Cases rest! Easy best! Play that rattletrap beat and I will listen and sing along --

10 december

Thought I was looking the other way, but I staged that play to mean what I would have said – too late to have read the message on the board I’d stored in case of disaster, I ran a little faster out of time (too easy for the rhyme, too wicked for the world) with the east coming slower and the rest a half-beat off: two coughs means disaster and a window lit means peace, so there’s rising means for markets and a lower cost for yeast! Let us go now as the birthdays close, even as the pillows fall, even as the shadows quake for citizens to take their turns, blowing on the dark – wait for dreams to fall apart, wait for stockings still to rise, wait for chimneys after fire underneath the roof to grow. We are logic made of sense, we are answers in our time. We are waiting for the light to climb into the sky and shine. Missing the beat I skip ahead – listing to the left and straddling too many bridges beyond my limit (as if there was) (were) (could be) – I am an eventual orphan, a mutant, a sacrilegious militant of absolute empirical waste. We are the land and we believe we see the sea! The sky! The closer sun to set! Bet upon the moon to roll, crops to grow and fields to sow with sour grapes (easy mistakes and harder to swallow) – marshmallow dandelions toasted by the sun, exploding into disregarded hope and alabaster shock – this is the light fantastic, blow into a thousand surprises. We are amazed by the what and the whyhow – we are alarmed by the quiet of the deep. Where are the secrets of the tires, whistled to the passing and the else – where are the limits of horizons, where are my feet when I sleep? Listen as the wonder goes, listen as I close my else. I am as my fingers are moving, I am as you hear me, see the whatelse that we wonder. This is as the going on continues, this is as the slide picks up on the sidewalk and you lift and look through projections: as the next comes up as the next goes down, this is what we see, this is the narration, call it what you what, no senseless hesitation, filling up the cart with curious creation

9 december

what i meant to say is tired how the fired oven was hotter than the cantelope pickle how i tickled the fancy of the fantasy league but the uninspired hiring manager couldn't put his boots on fast enough and so i bluffed that listener and tottled on home to roam those plains again - the standard answer bears up like a loving cup of regret (you bet, and other refrains) remaining to be seen, and other queens of the stony stare while up the steps comes another regret (the egret having elapsed the timespan of availability due to a proclivity for poor scheduling): we're hedging our bets again and the wet end's up the park bench! the wrench in that one is surely to be damaged at this rate and there's a gate that ought to be closed but i am indisposed to mention much and i would rather not have a gentle touch as i'm walking away i'd rather hear that the play's the thing and i am just played out (just a stage, you know, and i am not hanging anything on the wall - i am not ready yet to take that fall when the spring comes - when the summer runs over into whatever else the other one will be - we'll call it winter, but we'll whisper, lest the weather catch the word)

8 december

biding our minds as the clock unwinds, we tire our cars and tickle guitars for fancy - the nannygoats nibbling nails in the screwed-up marmalade tales of vinyl-styled Sesame Street beats - the defeat of ever-after cartoons of the looney sort and the trickle-down shorts we'd rather not jest at, we confess stats are not our strongest suits - the greenest roots run deeper than the waves as we save our ketchup for the reruns - we've hung our sleep-in disregard on the lampshades while the lemonade cools down but it's two towns the richer and one town too dry as the alligators cry and the horses sign off - I've got muscle-bound daredevils carrying off my thoughts - I'd have bought enough for all of us but thought I'd be at home - I'd have tried to keep the chimney shut but slipped and slept instead

7 december

In recentering I return refind those pieces I had tossed into the middle for reconsideration - the hesitation and the condensation, felted pictures and the fuzziest focus: hocus the locus of control and breathe out the doubts while the wonder sneaks in / swimming in amaze (I cando) (anything) even as the rabbit holes open up and the gaping goes wild - styles of one thousand hedgehogs prickly in the eardrums simple as a cattle call, tired as the birthday card - let me be the maybe yes - let me have a different answer / tender kind and wonder bread - I could leave at any time - this is how I take small steps even as I watch the sky - we are all the clouds today, we are all the comforters / let's have answers while the dawn becomes itself - the flattery imagines stars behind its ears - even as we tune our exits - even as we bide our minds

6 december

but when the drain came out the stained doubts rose up and broached ducks all in a row - the cataloged roller coasters - most of the leaders and plenty of the cents, easily the gents and hopefully the ladies playfully with the fading sense of wonder as the doubt drains out I see the best minds of my closet hung up by mismatching and accessories for a fact - to the effect that I can't deliver, I'll never shirk off these wonders, I'll never think back the plunders of our task force - though the remorse is somewhat to be regretted before the schedule even plays out - before the notes even ring true - I'm chiming in open on those even-handed playground equipment gains, trying for the rockets to turn dark - listen as the citizens all turn the other cheek and the antelope are thinking of Old Rome

2 december

sorting out the doubts
the pages I would change
the ways I'd rearrange my fonts
(I want to understand how to hand it to you)
I'm through true and blue enough
why to bluff a listener -
how to tough a glistening post
why we're missing the most obvious tenses
we mention what is happening offhand
the random candidates voting for themselves
keeping shelves while really they're ajar
cars off the road while the roller coasters load
(locking, clocking the hours until sun)
let's imagine a different tire tread
wedded to the track as the tire burns

I'm earning an earlier out
with bouts as the sun goes up (one two)
let's bruise the apples but not the pears
peaches can handle it - grapes stay home
for now we've got to stay (three four)

grammaphone country
piano plays class: listen as the story gets told

1 december

following closely from afar
pride - a fall/ listening for a call to arms/ two legs, two hundred thousand
rattling sabers, awakening neighbors -
these are the fears, those are the underlying streams erupting -
lava on the squares spilling -
thrills through the crowds as loud explosions of tiny words
tweeds and two-bit beats of info-spits
some right, some ripped from not-quite
passaround tactics, distract-o-graphics - let's save ourselves, our ideals -
let's feel for the exit, stumble toward the light

30 november

Driving with the clouds thriving the day breaks wide open and scrambles the sun as the rainbows unstrung from the prism so easily forgiven and latch into clasps: we clap for the hope and we rope up those dopes to hogtie surprise and then set it all free! Whee go the chickadees and whoosh go the cockadoodles doing as the please as the breeze rushes mush in the corniest of senses, our forgiveness and recompenses on both sides of our neighbor’s fences: let us ask and let us give; let us wander and let us shiver in the warmth of a sunny disposition given out from our mirrors, clearer for the saying so, thanking for the thinking blow by scene: even as we mean our answers to be certain, we work in the sense we can’t take out ourselves, our nobler elves and humbler purposes show up to the circuses sitting on the sideline and looking for the clues: the truths that we can use, for when the writing’s done, and when the trip is over, the leaves on all the clovers will have easily turned four but the pages that are left will be right smack down by the door

29 november

Out of the window, it’s dark, so dark, and I’m whirring my brain, and my brain’s whirring me. Neurons: pew! pew! Time? who cares. It’s dark, we’re driving, and all ideas are perfectly sound, bouncing off the sounding board, explosions in the sky, comets in the stars, guitars and anthologies, other sounds smoking in the distance as the paths of greatest resistance open up, drop their draw bridges, place their cloaks in hocus pocus focus merrily down the stream – the boats and their paddles, the babies and their rattles – we are all the answers coming true! Let’s choose wisely because anything is reasonable, negative thoughts are treasonable and there is no why but when –

28 november

In case this isn’t immediately evident to you: Alison and I used to watch a lot of The X-Files on Sunday nights – part of a ritual that involved vague tennis-playing, frozen Pepsis from Sheetz, and X-Files— on these weeks, and we’d switch back and forth from her place to mine. It may be noted that I didn’t start watching this show immediately when it came out – too creepy, and I was too young to do more than peek at it on the downstairs TV as I was walking upstairs to bed. But at a certain point, I decided that the risk of nightmare and freakout would be acceptable in balance with the pleasures of following the developing mythology, discussing this with my friend, and of course, keeping up with David Duchovny. 

On the nights when we watched at my house – especially the single-episode-type shows – it wasn’t too bad to walk my friend upstairs, wave goodbye to her at the front door, and then quickly turn off the porch light and come inside, locking the door securely. On the nights when we watched at Alison’s house – that sweet old farmhouse, creaky and accommodating to every ache of the earth and twist of the wind – it was an act of faith to walk from the back door across the gravel driveway to my car. Sometimes the porch light flickered, and the sky close-dropped, retreated high-black. Into the car. I always re-locked my door after I got in. As if creatures that could travel across space would be stopped by a door lock. You never know. Backing out of the driveway, out of the protective circle of porch light and into the dark of Cedar Lane. No cedars on the lane, but the quiet of cedars lining the space is suggestive enough. The hills and curves indicate it was nobody’s first choice as a road. It’s a third-choice road connecting the homes of quiet people, all of whom know each other, and the only street lights are on the end, where outsiders are coming in. Pulling down the road, the question is whether to floor it and risk surprising anyone or anything up over the next hill, or to ease carefully, and to take forever to get anywhere. There are deer, definitely. There could be people. There could be… anything that appeared on the episode. And else. Going up the steepest hill was the biggest breath-hold. What would be at the top? It was impossible to know. It was like driving into the sky. And on the other side, flat – exposed, in the middle of cornfield, in the right season. Come and get me!

Did we ever talk about this, Alison and I? I’m not sure. Did she think about this, driving home from my house on those alternate weeks? Gosh, I hope I don’t get abducted by aliens on my way home while I’m crossing all this vast empty space! Nobody would even know what happened to me! No, I’d say no. We’re very different people. We loved that show, but we believe different things. In her worldview, I don’t think she’d say god would have such a thing happening. In my worldview, I’m not so sure about anything, especially true when I was in high school, and it was dark, meaning lots of things seemed possible.