resumAY partAY

ok so we're all in a room

and some of us are SO OLD

and we have a lot of advice to give

and it's a party, but a party with advice

and multiple generations

and all of us at different ages

it's a resume party

it's the WORST

but our whole lives have lead to it

to this party where we can still get young people to come

but we also have a lot of practical knowledge

it's a total nightmare

it's a job?

jobbing for jobs?

resumes in the fruit bowl

car keys in bags

and pockets

who related to my resume?

who wants to come home with me?

who has a cracked copy of powerpoint?

i want to present you

with my presentation

resume party

resume the party.

-A Collaboration

I'm Not a Librarian, But I Wrote This at Work

I.) Librarians burst into song

every day

desperation and cosmic peace come together as

self-assurance via self-awareness of a joke of who you are;

last night I slept on the floor for no reason.

And today everyone is singing all the hits.

I woke up at 6:30 am hallucinating Alexandra

Alexandra you were so happy I was up so early!

I felt I’d failed you when I awoke again at 9:30, on the floor

bathed in light.

II.) Madeleine met her husband at a conference;

You can’t even say “conference” around her; she blushes!

When librarians go to conferences they doubt they’ll find love but

Librarians can find love anywhere else just by saying they’re librarians

Anyone can find love that way, it’s ok, you have permission -

not from me, but you have it.

III.) I feel close to my mother lately.

She can pee in front of everyone.

It seems normal to her but terrifies me

knowing how she used to live, who and what she used to do;

like a librarian who goes on dates -

and

talks about them!!!

I worry that I, too, would bear a child

Who is so prim, who must be trained to accept nakedness

to unlearn her inborn manners

in order to be happy.

Fantasie

Don't you know my throw-away fantasy?

You can see it in my glinting eyes.

I fantasize about throwing things away.

Armloads of clothes evaporate

I carry light bags, vulnerable to breezes

I seem easy to handle, low stress.

Three people with short hair and hats

who are my friends, who have it

all figured out

invite me to stay with them for a while.

They have a dog and are always in and out of love.

While I'm there I get smart to my potential.

I finish every book I've ever started

and when I manifest a thing it is just myself

I manifest myself over and over

I count the days like 7,9,10

and never wonder what went wrong

where the time went

Finding our way at night

Remember Byrdcliffe?

There are raccoons, raccoons in the dressing rooms

(On the way I panicked, nearly crashed a car

I never drive anymore

Once there I calmed down and

I never do that anymore, either)

all the wood sweats and smells like something that is like something

and all the asphalt is soft and safe to change

and all of us go out to begin a task and end in a crouch

down low whispering laying down laughing

I don't know how to describe it.

People look older and some of us forget how to walk in the dark

pick pick and stay upright, stay upright

we forget; others seem to sacrifice by having but pick pick

they stay upright, pick pick, we stay upright

blue stone shifts uneasily and my ankles are the weakest

part, which comforts me.

STRONG BACK BUG BACK

Always I'm going to the doctor

Always I'm "I can't remember"

Can't remember what happened the last time

I went I

am always saying "what's WRONG with me

am I filled with

fungus or

flowers or

both?

I'm so drunk!

The doctor, a woman, always staring off

remembering

her mother's sacrifices

her old friends, long estranged

taking slower paths and

sleeping on rocks

bathing suits untied and oh!

I am always saying

"I'm a good girl"

my mother always in the room...

(my favorite book of poems

was written in the winter:

she goes to the herbal doctor;

new england is awful)

I am always

wondering about phantom bugs

and my mother and

what would happen if you

ignored them and

what if bugs gave up and

I am always

going to the doctor and

shielding myself from bugs

joking with my mother

asleep on rocks with

bathing suit untied I'm

slower and slower like a cave

inside I'm

filled with flowers and fungus I'm

going nowhere, going to the doctor

looking at her diploma her

faraway gaze she's so drunk!

her long nights, her mother

my long nights, my mother

the herbal doctor

the stalagmites inside me

the sudden flash of bugs

the absence of bugs

I am always

forgetting where my body is

in time always

draped over rocks, aging

inside alone

all the stalactites inside

centuries and

centuries and

centuries

unfinished

No not last for in not finishing one is always relevant, always loved, always a glittering beast at the edge of a velvet curtain at the dawn of a new era amongst the dregs of humanity in the heart of the sort of figure who records uninteresting things in a compelling way.

No, not last, not finished for the sake of aesthetic continuity, for the sake of always having a reason for everything, always justifying terrible situations, always describing one's self as such on first dates which one never thinks of as first dates because one never goes on dates because one is secretly the reincarnation of an ancient warlord who, of course, would never go on dates or finish anything that isn't a battle but now nothing is a battle, Thank God.

Parties! Parties! Parties!

I'll go ahead and wait for the pot to boil.
I [ ]
returned, velour on velour, to dream of orange tiles
wooden cabinetry and nonspecific age groups
in ten minutes I'll get up, and I'll sit down, and I'll get up again.

I'll just go ahead and rest here for a while.
I haven't [ ]
and I just want to go to parties and sit down
my motivations are relate-able and all-wrong are
unsavory and unavoidable and I apologize in advance to
everyone I'll ever meet.

I'll just wait here, then, for that, and I hope no one minds.

Trouble

plain straight table straight weary old legs
old plain young woman straight sweet chin old
chair slats slump back dear Doris Day lump rise well eye and
Volkswagen packed and ready to go go go go go go go go go go

Some Day it Will be Summer Again. Not Today, Though

Unhelpful as I am,
hands that don't hold,
reasoning wrong and driven so badly,
a small-eyed jockey saddled in my mind,
still in the round I join in the round
the water still and night as I never see it
dark, I never see the dark, never have seen the dark
so still the water and to trust my twisting feet
to walk so slowly, singing, past the different darknesses
the day's failures
by the water, towards rest

My fEeLiNgS!!!!

Here we have a play.
An honor to speak, an honor
to live in a small house near
the cemetary an honor
to receive the news, an honor
to be well met, the company all
of us in the company and associates, I am
honored.

I have a family that expands and contracts and
I am a member of the King Arthur Book Club.
I love lots of people sincerely and easily and
I do not know how to run.

The King Arthur Book Club never has a meeting
and shall never meet an end.

And here a play is fitted.

kitchen creep

waffle iron blues crash down cast iron, places to stick when I am unprepared for reshaping via heat
oh,
oh
pat my head, please, look:
In every part of the room, every part of the everywhere I ever go red lights say "I am hot" and "I am on" or "I am not ready, you have done something wrong" or "I am ready, now do something" or "Now you will be immortalized" and they are so small, I don't know
what to do, I need help oh
waffle iron come down from heaven look up a checkerboard of heat, grid of butter, I hate to cook
oh,
oh
Somebody tell me and then do it for me if I do it I might do it wrong and if I do it wrong then I'll have been right about what I thought might be wrong with me when I thought about it, years ago
oh,
I don't know, I need, maybe, a wife?
Who does these things, not me, I can't.
I can't do anything.

Private Property, No Hunting or Fishing

through rock wall BAM or step over, either
down foot, down shin, down knee to newt valley
newt city, newt highway, newtopia, newtropolis
until newt means naught its deal forgot;
that's the ideal day.

So there I am, there you are.
Fallen in the forest, the damp forest
the forest where I learned to fish,
for I am the type to fish in a forest.
But you are fake and I am listless; alone
covered in mud and disappointed

Trying to Forgive, January 21st

Walked in wide circles
becoming smaller
and smaller

settled to the floor
smooth, harmless

There, unable to topple
I thought of Sanctuary Lake,
the John Burroughs Estate
Esopus, New York.

I used to walk in wide circles
saying "and electricity flows
over Sanctuary Lake"
but this did not
a poem make

But I tried. And tried.
And then stopped.
And stopped for four years
until last year
which was the last year
to try.

On this date.

So, now a nameless lake
with electric canopy
is all I will ask of you,
is all I will remember.

No one is angry forever.

glue goo

to bind a thing to a thing is a thing I cannot do
I'm surrounded by things that exist because smaller things stick together to form them
and if there's one thing I can't do it's stick things to things to make things that are stronger for their stuck-together-ness
I feel insane and bad at sticking things together and even worse at using nouns
I'm so bad at attaching things in either a sticky or a less sticky way that I actually don't understand what things are, because they are either the composite of things that have been attached or they are the components of things that either later are or even potentially could be stuck together and therefore are inherently mysterious and out of my reach.

I'm sorry, they're just out of my reach.

I know that in addition to the things that stick there are also the things that do the sticking, which semantically seems like a subtle difference to me right now but probably mainly because I'm having difficulty attaching thoughts to other thoughts which is usually easier for me than attaching objects to objects precisely because that process does not involve the things that do the sticking, which are sometimes dangerous gooey things and sometimes awful metal things with a lot of unmentionable potentials that cause me to shudder and keep me from advancing in this particular area of sticking things together which is actually sort of important in my life because it involves both producing things and understanding things, which is sort of a quality-of-life issue, if you ask me.

But I just can't do it. At least, I can't do it well. But I'm going to try, I guess.

Winter in the Country

Its grainy hugeness poses questions
its bright striations lull.

Huge, aged television, guard my mother.
Lullaby her, light her lids.
Bright TV flesh,
warm and wash her own.

Its convex brooding weights the room
its static ululations soothe -

Let winter's isolation blur
towards soft blue angel light;
shield her from waning incandescence and
Let us know loneliness as peace

How Many Hats?

the loss of hat after hat
the suffering that follows
weakened scalp, stony stomach
well, items hold a person back

blessed be their disappearance,
bless our long walks, our spaceheater
bless absences of all sorts; may they be brief and fruitful

or long and meandering, according to our holy indecisions

how to understand feeling versus choosing
losing versus setting aside
how to have so many hats
and then so few

Homebody

Squeaky chair, crows
shoe-bitten, tired
we are forever indoor/outdoor
screen people, you and I
metal mesh and permeability
uninhabitable but
suitable for a long linger

walk to the bank/avoid
walking to the bank
with all the ways to access the bank
without accessing/or rather walking to
the bank
can't decide/overdraw
inside and outside

Wheeling on heels, back and forth
crows above, where to go
and when
and why bother

Standing Still for Just a Moment in the Cold

edge of falling off angle
with snow and black wool
I'm interested in endings

and epilogues

I HATE THIS FUCKING FIRE-PROOF FAKE SPANDEX BULLSHIT!

Lycra?
You cannot imagine
how I love
Lycra

Pushing through, the stretch, the scrunch;
my sweateriness dissipates for once
I am smooth

a manipulable mass finally a
solution

Do you KNOW
what it is to want lycra so badly
but have only this
thing
lycra-like
save foolish fibers
and addled memory

Where is the monster in that? Where the shadowy dwelling?
oh pale replacement, how you feed my yearning
Lord give me Lycra, the glue-gun of fabrics

houseguests in a blizzard

A year ago I had to pee
some things never change

a year ago I had to pee
but paused
my cave door half open

A year ago, though I had to pee
I paused,
hands on my stifling door
at the sight of snow in sick yellow light

A year ago, uncomfortable,
held in limbo,
half beyond my room
I watched as he watched, the snow, the yellow light, the iron bars
Our broken lute beside him at the window, a lovesick stranger

How could that happen
in our home, our squealing squalor, our dusty hospitality
his hoped-for one asleep and unwelcoming, full of secret ridicule
his stillness didn't fit us
his sadness made no sense to me
I went to the bathroom, I went back to bed.

The next day I had a cold.

Tonight, it is snowing and a year has passed. I have to pee. Nothing ever changes, no lessons ever learned.