There are days when you break the time up into small pockets & allocate a task to each of them. It’s not done through any sense of efficiency; rather, it provides something to move on to, or move away from.

It doesn’t always work, & what was intended doesn’t always work out. This half hour has been allocated for spending at the computer. You stick at it, even though the reality is 30 minutes staring at a blank screen waiting for words to come.

The block is almost finished. Time to move on. The clowns arrive at 4.01.

People say completely unrelated
things in order to continue the small
talk. Emotional trauma is a normal
response to a disturbing event. No

good comes from crying. Find some
calm, give silence a chance. There’s
no real protocol; but certain things
can gift you some breathing space.

Alarm. Light.
Piss. Make coffee.
Teeth. Half a
grapefruit. Drink
coffee. Turn on
the computer.
Cigarette. Toast.
Turn off the
computer. Teeth.
Shower. Light. Dark.

death(my favorite flower gladiolus)poem

an internal
rhyme with

there in
side a
side

of
out
side

the
weather
being

a
mood

We found the Hittite storm god: an old squatter
in an abandoned lot of steppe

still not up for sale yet

nor built on
& fitted

w/ any light-

ning rod.

a fly’s buzzing deflecting a night full of winter

between growing fingernails and a whiff of spine

holding on too tight a piece of paper come flying from a window

leg dangling from over a clock,
riding a rose-bush to dawn

a strum of the string
of waiting deep
into the winter air

eyes on a branch
trying to get on a branch
chasing each other

suddenly the skyline or any reasonable offer