RARA AVIS

Dear C.,

The lifestyle of the urban middle-class dropout art-gypsy makes us both shine like Archie McPhee glow-in-the-dark rubber cephalopods plus the tilted architecture around here turns everything pure as gale and mist washing my skull. I like your cat. Have your people call my people. I offer you, here, now, with love, the Ten Warning Signs of Bohemianism:

1. Odd Dress
2. Long Hair
3. Living For The Moment
4. Sexual Freedom
5. Have No Stable Residence
6. Radical Political Enthusiasms
7. Drink
8. Drugs
9. Irregular Work Patterns
10. Addiction To Nightlife

You are the wonderful. Waves and Blankets of Stars regard your every move. I am entering the earth as a street closes but it's your street and then, as you follow the map with an extended fingernail, tracing its route, our homes in transfigured space, the furniture (surely) like darts scoring triple twenties across the landscapes of our autobiographies. We cohabitate chapters XVII-XXIII. The interesting ones. See footnote 2(a). www.amazon.com gives your review four and a half stars. You are responsible for at least four. Thanks.

With us no other work but the genius of present life.

Best,
D.

I REMEMBER (after Joe Brainard)

I remember my dog Blackie.

I remember jumping off the piano when I was 4 trying to fly & hurt my nose. I thought the cape was what did it.

I remember wanting to be a cowboy when I grew up.

I remember my first girlfriend Kimberly JoAnn Farris, when I was in second grade. She was also my cousin Jeff's girlfriend. She used to hold hands with both of us at the same time.

I remember when cokes were fifteen cents.

I remember three channels on TV.

I remember trips to Indio, California, when I was a kid & how hot the sidewalk was if you went barefoot.

I remember visiting my cousins in Lawrence, Kansas, & a kid on the street out front offered me a Tic-Tac & I thought it was drugs.

I remember the first night I slept in the dorm in college when I was 17. I was scared.

I remember the first time I shaved. I felt very solemn. And chafed.

I remember proposing to my ex-wife. I had to do it twice in a row before she said yes.

I remember walking around Tulsa on my honeymoon holding hands.

I remember doing push-ups in the Army in the rain in the mud.

I remember falling in love with Katie McCauley so hard it gave me a nosebleed.

I remember the first time I saw a girl's breasts for real. I thought they would be like foam rubber or Stretch Armstrong or something.

I remember getting drunk with Tommy Jacques & going to see Katie McCauley at the girls' dorm. She wore a polka dot dress. We sang "Rosalita" to her. Tommy fell down on the lawn.

I remember working as a security guard when I was first married & making contraband sandwiches in the big institutional kitchen at 4 a.m.

I remember when I thought Royal Crown Cola was exotic.

I remember seeing "Raiders of the Lost Ark" thirty-seven times.

I remember my roommate Kevin when he was ten and I went to school with his dad.

I remember Heidi Widder when she was sixteen with braces. She was very beautiful & shy. I sneaked her wine at a party.

I remember when I turned 33 thinking I had outlived Jesus, Alexander the Great, and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.

I remember when my parents put me to bed when I was a kid & how if I needed to get back up for a glass of water or something, how I was always secretly afraid that if I peeked into the 1967 living room where they were watching TV or playing cards with their friends, they would all have giant ant-heads.

WHAT W.W. DENSLOW DID WITH THE MONEY
HE MADE ILLUSTRATING THE ORIGINAL
WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ (1900)

He bought an island off the coast
Of Bermuda and crowned himself
King Denslow the First, with his native
Boatman as the admiral of his fleet
And his Japanese cook as prime minister.

He died on May 27, 1915, of pneumonia.

THINKING OF "THE BLUE ROSE SONNETS"

thinking of "the blue rose sonnets,"
up late, I know how Columbus felt,
a secret route to the Indies, etc.,
the Holy Grail, which is you, the
Plus-Ultra!, & just because it
turns out to be Florida don't mean jack!
I mean, Okefenokee is okay, too,
and if you turn out to be real, too,
get pissed off at times, throw your
stuff all over the place, I can
revel too in flying plates and tearful reconciliations.

REFLECTIONS ON THE SHAGGY MAN OF OZ (1949)

I need the Shaggy Man's
Love magnet, man, magnet,
Mack--ack! Love magnet,
& I could drive up up up
Her street, & all her love would
Flooooooow down my way, down to
My street, flow on down to my neighbor-
Hood

(howls at yellow moon, all full tonight) / exit
stage right

Q & A

Q: I wonder what life was like
a thousand years ago?

A: It was probably a lot like
being in High School--

POEM FOR HEIDI AND HER BABY

zammis watches me
as I leave
he's seeing things
that no one else can see

everything is a-ok:
his mama's very beautiful today

DEVIL GIRL

because of those crazy heels
she was wearing

with her little lace
red devil dress

I carried her all around
outside that night

at the party
with her in my arms

for well over an hour
and her eyes sparkled

when I set her down at last
near the laundry room

EX-WIFE POEM

she disapproves
of the way leaves fall
from the trees
when they fall in my yard

ANSWERING MACHINE POEM

Beep!

David it's Dr. Tim. The eagle has
landed. Capeche?

Beep!

David, it's Lisa. Um...I just wondered
if you had any green paint...

Beep!

Hi, um, this is Chuckie, again, and
I was hoping to get some, some weed...killer...

Beep!

Ay, mate, how's it goin? Just called to
see if you were still holding the kind
stuff, you know what I mean? Ring
us up when you get this.

Beep!

Hi. David. I left my lipstick at your house.
I was hoping to come and pick it up.

Beep!

Hey, I was going skiing this weekend, and I could
really stand to borrow those goggles
from you again, the ones with the half-inch lens?

Beep!

Hey, it's ELMO! and I am in need of your LOVE! Call me!

Beep!

Hey, Captain, whazzup? You around? Hello. Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello.
Alright, check it out, I'm thinking about taking out an ad in your publication,
a quarter page ad, wanna know your rates, right on? Call me
back. Bye-bye.

Beep!

(tape ends)

DRINK ME

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice
(She was so much surprised, that
For the moment she quite forgot how
To speak good English). "Now I'm
Opening out like the largest telescope
That ever was! Good-bye, feet!"

DJANGOLOGY

django reinhardt & cokes
& comicbooks at 2:35 a.m.
are a great pleasure, at the
tattered end of the day

partly because of the secrecy
of our smiles, the pure
open gladness of seeing you
(& to be seen with those dark eyes!)

even now, you asleep far away,
awash in dream, makes poverty
almost fun, makes little
things big & beautifully true

gypsy guitar I hear
chords like my thought,
resonant, picking its way
across the open field that's you

CHRISTIANITY TOO

There was one black
Person in the church.
She was standing in
The front row of the
Choir, right next to the
Oriental woman.

A CATALOGUE OF YOUR CHARMS

You are the brightest apple of my afternoon--
green, blue, some kind of, like, burgandy birdsong.
You are more important than sleep.
(You like different drugs than I do,
and the same ones, too!)

You are a small song in the wilderness
You are a dovetail joint,
You are the honeybee mouth I coil'd my tongue around.
Ass of Venus! (the first champagne goblet
was molded from the breast of Helen of Troy;
the second one was you)

"Sorry I can't be more help in--not solving the
mystery of woman--but what? helping you
find a woman who allows you to look at her clues"
--letter from Cone Turner

"You are a Major-General in the marching band
of the Heroes of the Republic".

Someday you will be on a coin.

You are the chocolate-covered raisin of my morning,
the hottest band this side of the iron curtain,
a blue train ride, a stroll in the rain, the silence
of ten thousand crickets:

A halo of moon-rays, rolling downhill,
bright as day at 4 a.m.

AMBIVALENCE

I feel caught
Between two things

Wish I knew
What they are

Tangled star

DREAM-POEM

I dreamt I was taken
Within sight of a lighthouse
On a beach--in the dream
I remembered a trip to Florida
I took, that I never took.
What can this mean?

Tomorrow is easy, really really easy,
But tonight I am curious about the light-
House, what does it signify there
Just within sight? They are having
An awfully great time there on the other side,
I can hear the sound of the music
Beyond the big dunes.

OOMPA LOOMPA

The overpowering day hits
Like a circus midget! like a
Monkey in a cowboy suit!
Like a chocolate-covered raisin!

All its entanglements like
The threat of a hummingbird:
Lemonheads! Junior Mints!
Red licorice handcuffs!

I gnaw my way to freedom--
Willie Wonka, watch yr
Back, Jack!

EUREKA SPRINGS IN SNOW

this is where I live
I knew it would be like this
still, with the trees moving
seven a.m.
crystal
water trickle on
windowpane
air hurts
small town
shut down
glaciation

I'D LOVE TO BE YOU

September rolls like a wave over
Our cuffs, strains of Tchaikovsky
Hanging in the air. The word is not
The thing. Countries get crazy &
Go to war all week long.

Despair of hangdog love, her sunny
Lust buoys me up & then I go
Crashing down. Boom. Legs broken,
Collarbone, dying in a hail of
Gunfire in front of the Biograph.

Form dictates content. I'd love
A day in bed with her form.
Maybe next week. Roper of stars,
To be joyous is to be a madman
In a world of sad ghosts. Ha!

OCTOBER POEM

Red Bud Inn, Mountain View, Ark.
Rain tonight, out,
Silent sidewalk town
Who knows solitude
Of the polar night
In this dank burg?
The girl at Hardee's sweeping
Glad to see my ass go out the door.

I don't want to take a walk
Or read someone else's book,
I want to make love to you
In a field of wild flowers,
But you aren't here.

Something in the delirium
Of the night hours,
I am a universe etc.
I'm happy with our hermetic games--
(Do you love me
Despite prevailing conditions?)

Rough, beautiful intoxication of you,
Poetickal,--Breakfasting on rain,
I think of your eyes.

ANN POEM

Ann is sad today,
Or seems so,
Cheek pillowed in hand
And hair all willow'd
Down, sipping her straw
Cigarette idly smoking
In her palm and
That's all I know.

SHORT ODE #2

rose candle
heavy bass
John Q. Citizen
rolls a joint
on a kitchen plate
outside it is
getting late

SHORT ODE

smoke on the
new wooden
window casement
next door
Christmas
holly wreath
kiss me Kate!

"Whosoever shall encounter him by chance shall read to him
this poem. Who gives a damn about the bathroom door
rotting off its hinges & who gives a damn about a toehold
on a crowded ladder. Francois does not pity my delusions
nor those of the monks & black-winged demons painted
in gold & tempera onto the panels of my face. "
--Anselm Berrigan

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I am harmed by those strikes
a that just happened to us one
of the depart. though it pains
me to all of the ocean is now
beneath our feet. as I watch the
sun go down I can be seen in
heaven's keep.

angels live they never
die, apart from us beyond the
sky, faded souls who've turned to
ice, so ashen white in paradise.
angelic arms spreading 'round,
protecting us without a sound.

I will see you I want is a good
I love you no longer felt like it
on a dozen, of those prickly
hedgehogs. life goes on. my day she is
my night she's my half that
makes me wonder; why? why?

the bees are truly amazing, but what
can I compare? then I told you
to know we've been through it
is and I smile I haven't
anything to reach for I see the
traumas of an eye.