Myself

We are doomed to act our self out in the physical world at all times and especially when alone. Other people will readily project some existing meme onto you, which you are free to inhabit and interpret without adding any particular content of your own. It is easy to make this comfortable bargain, hard and risky to break out of it, although we all have selves distinct from this sociability, if we haven't denied, distorted, neglected, or forgotten them. The dining room is full of memes at tables of four. You watch yourself from the inside while maintaining a suitable outside, in company and by yourself, beside yourself. You project perhaps an idiosyncratic idea of the prototype but not an entirely separate existence. One other person can make you feel objective. It may be counterfactual, but solitude feels like being more authentically yourself, more "real," existing in time alone. That isn't the whole story though. With luck you are also othered, part of a larger reality, connected on the soul level with in a circle of love, if you have sensibly made yourself lovable and given others the love and attention we all need

Revision

 such a special private pleasure
changing one word to another
slightly better more particular exact
meaning elusively in flight
 
anything is game you win
or lose the knotted thread
balks at the needle stuck
with what you started with
 
becoming alien diversity
yourself in lieu of anyone
other actually present
in the all-white dining room
 
the poem never ends you
wander into another dream
where no words rule or care
what you wanted to intend

The Chair

powerful gravity in this ugly chair
bought in Santa Barbara decades ago
for a play I produced at the Lobero
I finally escaped from happiness into this funky

void it must be adding several stone 
I wish my penis was interested in masturbation
idly fondled between my thinning thighs
it lengthens in my fond familiar other hand
I slide loose skin up and down the shaft
how long has it been a week at least
on a day like this  what else is there to do
it feels good if I let it and why should I not
no love sex left so I'm on my own

sultry air smoky sky no one here I'm so bored I
almost fall asleep dick shriveling in my hand
what little lust remains has waned

the chair still holds me in its vinyl grip 

gravity never sleeps
 
8/20/23 4:30 p.m. (revised) 

 

 

Do Something

how he feels in the
in-between time when
nothing is happening
causes him some alarm
is it enough to remember
or anticipate something
interesting when he was
more alive less formed
for the last time weak
with age and completion
is anything wrong
do something he thinks
anything better than this
creeping homegrown
inertia and remorse

still there and so is he

A Reminder

 (for Julian)
 
though sounds like snow
not like cow which is thou
and plough and bough
or off as in cough
or puff as in rough and tough
and enough
though is like dough
and so is although

Nothing Changed

a huge fire on the other side of the mountains
smoke looms like a giant cloud
we go on living well
presuming to be happy
wind blowing the other way
nothing changed
not burned up yet

Not Writing

writing about not writing
not being the good man
accomplishing more
laughing loving sharing wise
instead of not writing
not knowing how
or who I am

Going Abroad

how's what going abroad again
old stonemasons built what we
could never imagine doing
 
that going requires less years
ago I tried to be obscure how can
you not grasp what I'm thinking
 
clarity first faces against light
can't be unseen by switching off
you need key strip for action
 
honey what's going on about now
threatened arrival expires date
of death is always a surprise
 
like candles on a cake whose
birthday this time remembered
in time for a virtual exchange

Morning Nap

 "their wings rag out with age"
could be a poem in itself a line
ringing with profound renown
 
I have to look it up again to
spell it right for our little time
where no one knows anymore
 
my wings fold for a morning
nap what else are shoulder
blades made to cut but time
 
a crow in the corner of my
eye refers to memories of
honeyed pleasure climes
 
flies away beyond the 
momentary frame green
with the rain so it be
 
the words give the wit you
give the falling full length
on the sofa of your youth

What We Do

 I summon her to dinner when it is on the table.
I throw out the empty milk containers she leaves on the counter.
I wash, dry, and fold our laundry and put it away.
I put the new roll of toilet paper on the spindle before she runs out.
I take out the trash and recycling.
I close the curtains in the evening and open them in the morning.
I converse.
I pay bills, manage the help, and keep it all going.
We do jigsaw puzzles together.
I buy more puzzles online.
I join her in the bedroom to read for a while before she goes to sleep.
I make the bed in the morning.
I cut our hair.
I put down the seat and the lid of the toilet.
I close the powder room door.
I turn off the light in her office when she isn't there.
I call the plumber.
I get things fixed.
I am ready on time. 
I wipe the kitchen and bathroom counters after use.
I wipe the table.
I make the shopping lists and try not to run out of anything.
I coil the hoses.
I sweep the porch.
I kiss her good night and we share a tender moment.
I say I love you.