no dogs

no dogs, no friends, no air conditioning.
make a note: no friends this season.
they don’t know these closet poems exist,
it is no rhyme, for little reason.

let me cover what i’ve written
with my hand so no stranger sees.
pretending i am - doing this at the library
in air conditioned leather arm chair comfort.

no time for dogs.
no need explain,
had one before,
don’ need one again.

there is heat going on,
and one more thing:
also there is plenty
of no air conditioning.

our unit is down,
away mechanically, and electrically,
imploded, internally squat ,
no boom.

could have gone to air conditioner school
i’ll day dream about that
while i wait in line
to take out a loan for a service call.

now if i were writing this at the library
i’d be in absolute comfort - way!
and maybe that would make all the difference,
words would flow and not stick together either.

sweet corn is very good this year,
thought i’d tell you a good thing.
had more today with plenty of butter.
envy me,

and while your at it
do me a favor - envision me
eating warm fresh sweet corn lightly salted,
seated in cool conditioned air comfort.

another space between

another space between
on a bus way out again,
way up denial, 27 march,
one month into chronic birthday digestion

make a note
sound waves, light waves, ocean waves
slow waves, fast waves, wet waves
more stuff you don’t have to Google

on the bus with folks from Nigeria
the six year old kid was quiet and observant
obviously not a TV junky, make a note -
dots of sun light from a board with holes - do it

not thinking of you, like the two end to end
parking spaces open and a one car pulls in the middle
and essentially takes two
he was not thinking of you either

deep up denial again, but it’s all true
i could tell we were far out of the city
when we saw a guy leading two camels,
at least they were on the sidewalk

sometime notes i make on the bus
can’t be deciphered because of the jiggle
but i know what i saw
about the camels i mean, i do so verify

note: when Italians count on their fingers
unlike America where one is the index finger
here, one is the thumb
just thought i’d let you know

m. just read a news story online
about a man arrested for trying to revive
a road kill possum
with mouth to mouth resuscitation

then TomC writes to say
he couldn’t digest his cornflakes or something
cause i skipped a day
pshaw! maybe when i was ten

i could have skipped all day.
what i did was lose a day just like
Ray Miland in Lost Weekend, Billy Wilder, 1945,
in which he played an alcoholic

and i just saved you more Googling
maybe Google lost some money then
and/or will make it up
somewhere else

note - if i wrote this in paragraph form
and you printed it, it’d waste money
on ink for big letters and periods
or space there of


(reprise from march 2010)