The Dead are Not Good Unless They Are Grateful

Why not call them the belligerent dead?
Or the hedonistic dead?

Secret Dead
Lying Dead

Spooky Dead
Old Dead

Selfish Dead
Self Pity Dead

Druggie Dead

Wheelchair Dead
Cane Dead
Homeless Dead
Broken Dead



Painting to soul music, worried about car inspection.
Thinking about my poet friends and carpal tunnel syndrome, other syndromes.

I know about different tunnels.
Gotta open them up in the basement.

Damn Cats brought the Morgellons Disease!
Watched A Scanner Darkly.

Freak out on that for a while.

That's all I got today.
For now.

Bum Chasing: The Maniacal Karate Runner Strategy

Would we call it bum rushing?
Or is it whispering, like Sasha did outside of the Dunkin Donuts the night
before his wedding
on a downtown late-night convergence on the last evening of bachelorhood?

Johnny on the Spot
Highly caffeinated
I

ran into Mike Agape
walking his dog downtown

ran into my best friend from Junior year of high school, Little Joe

and ran around the corner of Preston Street to where the car was parked
and where we were,
earlier,
aggressively
questioned by a bum

there are different types of bums

this particular bum was of the variety
whom needed
a tangible ether

this guy needed to hold it in his hand

'can i ask you a question?'

no.
simultaneous, unison, 'no' declarative.

Johnny on the Spot and Meghanomics are not the ones to ask.

bum #1 circled his own grief in his footsteps as he careened eastward toward transvestite corner.
i could see him racking his brain with ideas that might change our minds.

this was when we exited large green car, hoping a resentment would not burn too long and cause a brick to crash through windshield or side window from
drug addicted grief stricken bum #1

enter stage east, 1.5 hours later, bum #2, fat and deceptive

Meghanomics, the Super Junkie Side Kick, friend of Brown Girl and Brown Girl Press, has ideas that work. She has solutions.

Cornering the corner at high speeds after a lovely rendezvous with Little Joe in his near-leotard and sparkly headband, and after being dismissed so that he could 'talk to those hot guys'

Meghanomics tightened her toes around the thong of her pink flip flops and raised her knees to run, motioning to Johnny on the Spot to follow, and do so quickly,

she motioned martial arts-types of moves with her arms, and ran full speed ahead toward the bum in the Nautica shirt. he smiled, like no one should when a girl in pink flip flops is sprinting toward them motioning with arm movements.

she cleared the danger zone, as a car-full of youngsters smiled, thoroughly amused, as if they understood the strategy.

maniacal karate runner. ( jos )

bum #2 was looking for something like money for a canceled train and had the ticket in his hand, a strategy that is clearly diffused by the Maniacal Karate Runner Strategy

More later, if you please, a continuation of the skateboarding night--
the mugging part of the evening,

and in between, the stabbing part of the evening.

Color Water Tiny Flower Ink

Gentian Violet
List of Things
To recognize.

The scarf hanging over the kitchen window was dyed by a woman who fell on some rocks and died.
She was part of an influential family of America.

She is the muse to invoke today.
My fingers were purple last night from my art project.
It is for my lover.

Past. Phone calls, to check up on the status.
The horoscope says there would be 'dangerous sex games.'

Wow. That's intrigue.

For sure.
Really?
The full moon was last week. Liz Phair says it best. I guess.

La. la. la. Fa la la.

Watermelon Tom

Edit Funeral March--- Poem While Listening to Band of Horses

Walk out of the bathroom with towel on your head,

out of the shower,

with wet hair,

and say it like it is not a racial slur.

Just like the time I told my friend about the man I saw at the laundr-o-mat

with a truck full of watermelons, his name was Tom.

She called me a racist.

I can't help it if I give people nick names.

Fucking bitch.

I am in college because I don't read between the lines.

I read the black parts on the page.

( what are you gonna say about that? )

For Grace and Mercy It Passes On

I log in.

I take the medicine.

I feel full and want nothing.

Thirst leaves no room for anything,
and lying down leads to wanting to run.

I pass the baton.

I run ahead and look back at the same time with a synchronization

of accidental grace.

Meta-Metropolitan San Fransisco Baltimore Conduit Vibration

Last week, she lugged hundreds of cassettes
up the stairs from the basement,
and
down to the alley for the trash.

She is reading a novel about the Visceral Realists,

they are artists who have telekinesis.

They are poets with a sexual appetite for revolution.

She crouched in the alley way to find

( 2 ) two cassette tapes

as a memento for herself before walking back inside,
and forgetting the whole thing.

She thought about attachment and how it is not good for her health.


The two mementos:

"Whatta Man," by Salt 'N' Pepa
"Into the Great Wide Open" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.



She put the tapes in their cardboard sleeves

onto the lazy Susan spice rack in the

cupboard.

It means nothing.

Unless she would like to believe

that the drawings

and the invisible (power) lines among artists

carry the power of metaphysics.

Never Underestimate

the power of fuck you.

i am SPAGHETTI

She eats Kosher candy because it was half price at the grocery store.

She wishes there was one cylinder made of fire retardant paper filled with tobacco stashed
somewhere in the drawer. She saw married men looking at her when she walked briskly, alone into the store. The fast pace would not be kept if there were someone attached to her hip, like those two skinny kids at school. Every time she sees them she is certain the little scrap of a boy must be strangling her during sex or something like that and Must be checking her phone for unfamiliar text messages from unfamiliar numbers. Just an observation, but, it makes her glad not to be in either of these two types of relationships.

Fucking husbands looking longingly at the first woman who walks by.
( not fucking wife enough... if he fucked his wife more times per day... she wouldn't be so fat )
Yes, your wife is fat.
Because you let her get that way.
You bored her to death so she started eating too much.

It's not a big mystery. She wears your mental illness like a fat suit.

It is a pretend-conversation with the men who look at her. She really doesn't say these cruel things, although she knows there is truth to it. There is nothing wrong with any of those people, probably. Everything is fine, maybe. She judges them and makes pretend-speeches in her mind, on her pretend-soap box where someone who cares is listening. She wonders if the speeches might start slipping out as she gets older because she already mumbles to herself and it may only be a matter of time.

She buys a red bra with cherries on it and pink panties to match.

She goes home after making fruitful demands for perfume samples at the mall.


She sits in the bathtub, after putting olive oil into the water.
The water is hot enough that her first thought upon sitting in it is,


" I AM SPAGHETTI "

She says it out loud. She yells it as an immediate reaction to the temperature.

What do the neighbors think?


The neighbors don't matter to her, but sometimes she is curious about their perspective.

She talks a lot for someone who lives alone.


to be continued...
Motive is not important. Finding the truth is not important.

Being the truth is what she stands for.

And if truth is spaghetti, so be it.