Worst Mistake

say no more than possible wilting if appropriate will avoid rejection first balk your worst mistake as if meaning hides in rules of sport they make the game that's all I need to know who is accepted and whether fellowship repeats the best or worst thing about us no one is talking imagine what else goes on when no one hears more clearly than well-trained bears hang on the wrong word

Singing Light

clouds decorate the sky little puffs scattered about bigger clumps thicker dark underneath the sun shines around and between them so beautiful day perfect for anything valley spread out below Coast Range beyond forest road too rough turn back burnt fields black set off green brown earth tone luminous in singing light

Book of Guinness: Michele Santelia

I began at the end toward the beginning. Disrupted the sacred order one backward letter at a time, made ancient muses incoherent with the clack of hollow keystrokes on multiple blank boards. Noon to morning unraveled text rolled— eb ot ton ro eb ot— over an unseen screen. Scrolls, sea dead amass in stacks, an odyssey mired in transposing contents with emptiness— something into nothing. Day out, day in, diligent and precise, finally I make myself as something in the book of nothing. —Margie Doolan

Among Men

seriousness of purpose matched by humility, warmth, and good cheer says Obama of Kennedy admirable among men good among Senators

Other Games

once you win stop playing is the rule for solitaire you know other games but no go ahead waste more time reading goes right through like food water nourishing Beatles war suffering films too long or take you away try to remember it's easy to forget like a dream on waking things happen it's gone your'e not the same

No Excuse

phone in my pocket no one calls boo hoo poor me not like Soren who feels wronged I've merely miscalculated never too late to do something different though actually I have few complaints the tractor rumbles past in the twilight give nothing up add on productive action further others beyond comfort rises adventure fear is no excuse for selfishness I give myself a good talking to

Ideal Idea

I have to get out of here but I can't drive down a vertical incline! Typical—what anyone would say in the same circumstances! Anything but obvious. Pathetic, emphatic, empathetic, soft as a ripe banana, turning into slime. Ideal idea: another magazine! Who will my partner be? I move to the salsa rhythm, can't help it, why try? Fish with friends, a walk through the neighborhood, poems, poets, Paulann's pots de crème!

Any House

if not this which then what will enable an adequate cat any house can grow flowers tell me everything you have forgotten and I will prove it I will reprove extra-diagetic words which can't be found within other rooms wherein I will not be surprised again that is the question I want to ask when I look at views how to explore boredom without making worse no how display how profound the gulf while bridging it

Bad Reasons

then ask or not or anything go ahead the wait is worth it like Italian cheese vino rosso lago piazza palazzo what beautiful words for beautiful life women never forget sad eyes smiling spices in exotic climes where parrots monkeys scream like demented divas embroidering all the bad reasons for drama

Why Wait

say something will you what are you waiting for me to call you well I will eventually but why delay pick up the phone or a pen knock off an email what does it cost you really nothing oh never mind I know you are busy isn't everyone I'm not or rather I'm just busy as I want to be something to do every day not too much cards books movies etc. a little interaction

Distant Woes

we who pass neglect our duty to record days vanish unremarked as if no means I may try not hard enough I'm easy but it comes back to haunt us as forgotten wisps of second-hand experience who was there when we were thinking of it blame the would-be dream of history the distant woes postponed someone else screams in agony hear it's fading miles to sleep then we wake up dead this American alive with contradictory sentiment unexcused however mellow

Parts Unknown

everything is the same I think about what is forgotten does it matter if it is bed-making dreaming of urgently departing for private parts unknown matter is being of course don't ask what I choose to tell the text I make do more including what is required as in total freedom ruling every day

Forever Mine

stop think what went down how did it feel what can it even mean another movie book play music conversation act self consumed and go on leaving it undigested think about it so we don't forget write and it has to be read just think it is all there forever mine

Little Business

time to stay home and do something beyond watering picking preserving and taking care of my little business too boring not to good enough aim oriented toward present laughter is part of tears now mercifully spared which book shall I read write when ripe time rebuts distracted whimsy could be better than anything else

Narrow Passages

when people are driving in a car zipping around Paris for example in a movie I keep expecting them to crash you can't see much why not it's supposed to be dramatic mostly they don't like real life we usually get to where we're going and come back safe knock wood but isn't it surprising such speed narrow passages close escapes

Wet Trail

night rain spares watering again wet trail slippery always opposite consider this words need subject can be any obsessed with reality wondering as opposed to what something is always happening inside digestion requires eating requires a life patterned regular action has consequences daily rising itchings to scratch hellos in sum a couplet denies unitary consequent form newly arrived

Bronze Head

unreflective enthusiasm vs. unexpressed insight achingly personal vs. pathetically self-absorbed naked groping before breakfast imposing form musical literary organic structural think about it okay class it's like ringing a bell that is my head bronze from an earlier age strangely susceptible to others' initiatives what do they imagine doing echoes overlap an impossible Midwestern rondo

Feel Better

no unnecessary suffering sounds good to me lying in sun hoping it makes me feel better one aspirin sagging tired I slept nine hours we did justice to the plums read Mankell thought about mowing

Jerky Steps

deer don't laugh or have a choice of attitude or engineer the planet they only eat walk about in jerky steps run swift suddenly graceful leaps or devastate the hollyhocks wary all the time awake asleep is this how it used to be for humans now lulled soft indulging in easy pleasure self-consideration taking good care of ourselves each other

Negative Nostalgia

I am in New York if I am when I am not where am I reading walking standing streets repelled negative nostalgia enough to feel I am leaving this time not alone as if knowing home satisfied within imagined forces replicating younger errors redeemed correctly if I not who being present beside an other then began a plan reactive as unlikely residue of innocence looking on irrelevant admiring gone