31 march

another plan another day
iterations
of course you can walk away
the difference it makes to wear a new green sweater
daisy earrings
expectation of follow-through
someone else is also waiting for you (not so together either)
the pride of keeping cool
the freeze of rising above feeling
professionalism, broken heart
out for lunch, defeat disconnect
small bricks build big bridges
listen more, always, do more
coffee shop a novel idea i spent years writing and still find myself drafting from cup to time
she's crossed her fingers i'll be accepted - my letters have helped her take her pick
pretty soon it will be time to BLANK

30 march

keeping aligned
keeping in line
skating by
skating along
the long road to nowhere
nowhere to go in a hurry
curry in a hurry
worry in a basket
counting all the eggs
hatching too soon to be so old
colder than welldigger
well-spoken hocus pocus
poke around to see what's there
ready made and ready to where
where we're going is anyone's guess
guests at the table means dinner is served
nobody's coming but more is deserved
choose from no menu and mind all the nerves

29 march

and by the time i have cleared the space the pen is wrong and also the words - better for tomorrow to add its best chances - bean bags tossed through calendar - each line too dry for sauce to save - don't blame the ink, the pen, the late page in the notebook and the awkward margins - excuses are the only space between now and progress or death - as if dramatic was the only tone to take - monochromatic

28 march

to braven into building the better conversations - to avoid the rub where raw turns friction to pain at the least pass - too sensitive for words or glance or sound - turn a different page - bridge - even a some other path appears - has always been there - now there seems no other way - grow a different metaphor free verse without metered matters

27 march

again i imagine city living - a leaf floating between buildings - practicing smiling and reflecting positive energy on the metro on the sidewalk in the species closer together - here the energy is different and the sparks charge and change with different volts - wondering how long the power would last or if it would drain would draw out all that's left - being the better neighbor is sometimes easier when there's looking when there's so much stage but still we must go home turn out the light

26 march

and when i catch my breath i will put all the pieces together - craft layouts and language through genre and meaning and send my voice from new to the else - and yet somehow still only these notes these scattered pieces -

• from dream: i want desperately to mind-populate with you
• intro versions: a solo collective
• meditations in a fitting room
• page covered in bricks but in pencil so that within is all that copies forming classified style content format
• podcast integrated with blog

even as full novels await revision and pages meet each other up close for long and considered private consultation - why else were they created? we all ask

25 march

even as the cherry blossoms/too windy the sky presses back against/white tulips heavied by the week/stubbornly carried into weekend/petals torn popcornquick by the open door/never mind and any way/cannot hold close enough

24 march

by the time that conversation starts i am all the cousins so many times removed i am a gone tongue and the words besides i am empty of the want to lash out and i am blank of the flush the rush the want for more i am waiting for the over for the leaving even as i am wondering if i wish for neverwas

23 march

falling out of the sky i am scrambling for my script even as i tighten my lips/fervently watching mysteries in hopes of sharpening my solving/i am uncertain of where the map gave out for good but there is no more hourglass and the dawntreader is a voyage is a chronicle is a missing volume and i am imagining narnia or wonderland or psychology or some other plausible nevermind but in the meantime quite unclear

22 march

i am the only author whose work appears in this issue as you may have noticed and the hocus pocuses out of focus if you zoom in too close so nobody does but there's a blank in the tank with a tiger by the tail if we can keep the house in order at least until the cards are cut and it's time at last to hit the deck and cover

21 march

up can float but down pulls hard a weight tight and fast plus sometime pricks of less of deflecting of slightly downer than before less strong less solid and the warm that was built up seems a little not to so seems cooler even though mostly it's okay and i will keep on because what else is there and it's pretty tiresome to read about how everyone has it so hard i know right i mean really get out of and over yourself am i right

20 march

don't make a list means it's okay if you don't finish it - crossing it all off / stepping down from the stage after the part you were born to play curtain closes - what else is there? for now, at least, nothing on the mind of tomorrow to bother about - no reason to waste the space by chasing away the present by wondering why the past passed so messily - breathe out the doubts and wash the dirty dishes away - reclaim calm of so many better angles trying for badges and collecting meaning - the law of conservation of energy - making it all matter

19 march

a museum that makes you imagine the museum you'd like your life to be - the creation of rather than what is left behind - and still i would rather sit by myself - there is no one else - building projects about community and these are for other people - here are the words and here are the steeples - chase the clouds for some-other-time coffee and gather olive branches instead for makebelieve place and rathernotgoback mondays - these are the days to skip past instead - build bright from lap desks and sprawled across floors - on the other side of traffic there is room for something more

18 march

impressed, i told her: not everyone
could pull off hair like that
flattered, she tipped her wig

mommy!
the girl has
a skirt like you!

are you in
the same room
we are?

the calm
before the storm
on the eighth floor

the man who
wouldn't
climb stairs

in every moment
the miraculous
waiting to be
observed

every newborn
welcomed into the world
with joy
checking back in today

stories in the key of now

17 march

and i'm sorry but i'm not sure how to escape the flare-up that scares off the even and measured sense of self i was thinking of building out of soft and delicious colors and flavors but when those sharp edges come on i hear see catch the knowing too quickly to be able to release, i am tangled in the anxious wrangle of wishing i could escape but clenching tighter as the only strategy as if closing my eyes and teeth to focus in on the sharper would set straight the record and break the bank to top off the tank: register and be counted for the amounts are overdrawn and some dog must have some day or no one will walk in the sun (light too sharp breaks hard on bones and again apologies for unable to escape)

16 march

bursts of more than semi-occasional hyperbole - the worst of times and also the best - the best case woould be but now - the times that try men's souls and the worries about apostrophes - by which i do not refer to the conversations with those not present or who cannot respond, although those are also present - shy, i sing to thee - and my country, oh beloved, i will find you - weep as the wicked winds rip titles from the stacks and wrap allusions across our backs - saving us from too much self-reflection and blessing us with language

15 march

the kind where i roll over and just keep rolling - but this time the film catches and we try something different - not a rerun but a restrung chord played in an unmined key with major emphasis on the syllables previously neglected: let's negotiate our lines in this scenes and stop marking time (there's no meaner way to play to the end of the deck than to flip your own carts to the floor and fold empty)

14 march

but my taxes tell me i made just about the same this past year as i did the year before even as i was squeezed tighter to draw out more and also again i am eft with a bill to pay - more than a thousand dollars more to pay for the privilege and believe me yes my heart bleeds and i do want social programs and arts councils and grants for deserving non-profits but really i would rather this have been sorted out sooner rather than just being left with the awkward check at the end of a party i didn't attend but just happened by a few months later - hey would you mind? it's the least you can do - social contract - at this late date - etc. -

13 march

the kind of thing where you know you shouldn't peek but you want to know how bad it might be how terrible the pain how gruesome the look how awful the smell - as if the stab will be more slight for the cautiousness of the approach - the stickiness that binds us to our own undoing, temptation to witness the blooming of our own unhappiness into more bountiful array - the words and pictures and all the evidence that says: not yours, not now, not a backward glance -- pity the stuck-behind fools

12 march

the space that seems most clear to me is between the front door and the welcome - the closed eyelids and the uncertainty of awareness before reality - knowing the space to occupy and which to avoid - can make this speech but the rawness is evident even as the cadence is convincing and i do admire that vocabulary despite myself to spite myself it seems i need to find something better to tend to than my future which is ego which is pride is shoes is weather is dancing out of blame and taking on the same

11 march

when the words keep going come out too fast when the soundfeel is too sharp the tone too rough when all i mean is too raw to handle any noise thank you could we keep it simple please and could we keep it down because i would rather not have and if i might excuse myself i'll just wait out around the back while i fade

10 march

who cares and who snares the attention worth mentioning i am leaving myself out and i am doubting the authenticity the duplicity of my role and the trolling of the river to deliver more than a body more than the wattage to light the dark of a parking lot a stalling plot that blows no one any good and i should have something better to say but i'll stay out of it for now and for poorer

9 march

but up i realize my neck is not coming with me - still turned back to look the wrong way around - caring in an illogical direction - spending time i can't get back in a way i'll probably regret - give me better air but no need to pour on sun - i leave myself out and don't need exclusion to make that happen but it's gravy it's cilantro it's all the wrong chemicals it's the incorrect homophones it's blank calendar invitations on top of already plans it's last-minute no-shows or cancellations i mean it's disrespect and you can't take that back i am ready to go but where

8 march

to diagnose oneself and also to see no way to the remedy - a calamity of logic as approached by emotion - the devotion to language and the stranglehold of dysfunction is communication and relationships - the patterns we build to protect ourselves - and here again i tell too much

7 march

feeling of falling i rise with a blue dress friendly conversation but it all falls out fast down stab gasp hurts to see a passby without recognition / what would i say anyway / keep it cold / ice the break until it heals / numb the flame that flares / blot the raw to blot the eye

6 march

feeling raw wide open leaves one susceptible to a torrent of potential suggestions both minor and life-altering, some given and some - most - absorbed from assorted clues and conjectured coincidences -- i should become a massage therapist -- i will write a book in which a character tries on different jobs to figure out how to help people -- i will become a craft sensation -- i will reinvent postcards -- i will get more shoes -- i will get rid of everything i own -- i am ready to leave the country i will get a dog i should train for a marathon i will take regular yoga classes again i will take a few days off thursday friday monday and go on a writing retreat alone with no phone or internet somewhere in the mountains or maybe somewhere i have never been no associations to burn off or look past somewhere where only the static crackles and none of the gettingpast rushingby to turn away from too busy to inventing the new to notie --

5 march

because when the world gets smaller you can close your eyes to keep from falling and also you can sometimes/once you've blinked a few times and come undizzy/see up close a little better - maybe it's colder but also it is clearer and there is so much else to learn/to turn to - as we away from/

4 march

the more feedback i get and also i am wondering when it will be time to wake up this is not all that i had in mind the last time i was drafting and yet at this point i don't seem to have enough plot pieces to pull together to devise anything worth getting out of bed for and if the paper doesn't come mystery isn't solved or it's a rerun and the bread has gone bad too fast for the butter to matter then hopefully tomorrow will be different

3 march

trained to check to seek to crave
that light that flash that buzz
NOTIFICATIONS SAY I'M NOTICED
even if i have nothing to say back
even if i want to scoff, turn away
the flashing light buzz brights me on
dark and quiet otherwise
clock tick head breaks and off
aching into dark

2 march

sometimes while you are in
the hole you think i should
really get a handle on this
and so you stretch out your
hand to see if you can feel one
side of it and sometimes you
can and maybe it is cold and
sometimes even you look up and
see a little light way up above
and you wonder how deep it is
and whether it's night out
and if that's the sky or if
there's some kind of covering
on the hole and then you
hear someone shout down man
that is a deep hole i'm
glad i'm not stuck down
there that would suck
and sometimes they toss down
a pair of sunglasses and
a mirror just to help
things along sometimes it's
a lot like that

1 march

in the short story version
a clever sentence and an
abrupt exit a break of
two lines and a squiggle
and time has passed then
some follow-up twist
whereas the book
version draws it all out into
excruciating detail longer
than reality would seem to
allow -- the true novel
idea is verse: draw it down
to a few key strokes, make
space matter, and leave