when we were at lunch today these two people came in and had a conversation. some of it went like this:

--what made you sit outside that place?

--you, maybe, i've been praying to meet someone.

--when i came to denver i started doing heroin and coke. 

--what's heroin like? i've never done it.

--you take your soul out and watch it for a minute and you put it back in.

--you can't take your soul out.

--really, you're an alcoholic?

--unfortunately.

--i am too to be honest with you.

--you've got to get over that whole dead thing.

--i've overdosed six times in my life.

--when later comes i'm sick from what i've done to my body.

--13 years old-he drank a bottle of whiskey and took 13 percocets and died two days ago. when she tried to wake him up he was dead. the whole town thinks that she killed him. i got this news yesterday. 

for my bday, we went bowling and then played jenga and skee ball and video games at the arcade bar.

tonight i have been making vegetable soup and reading brian foley's going attractions:

i thought
i had traveled far
but concussion depends on
how tall the grass is

over the weekend this incredible thing happened. j had to go to the planetarium for the sound artists so i went too. i watched the sound artist movie okay but then there was a sound cave we had to go into with blindfolds and i became afraid. mostly because of my experience in delores park with the vibrational alchemist. i left the planetarium and walked through the museum which was empty and closed. i evaded all of the security men. i went into the diorama hall and stood by the animals. no one was there and it was quiet.

i wanted to stay the night but i thought i might get nervous in the dark and be locked in so i left. guess what was outside of the animals. a prom. i stood in front of the prom. there were many people in prom outfits.

after the prom i filmed a sound that was out in a grove of trees. i couldn't see what was making it but it was a loud and beautiful sound. then j came out and felt crazy from being in the sound cave. he said it was like being in a machine for 45 minutes. the next day we went to the park to meet julia's parents who were in town. many people came to the park.

after the park, s, a & i went to play shuffle board (that is my toss below--sometimes i can be good at shuffle board) and skee ball and then j had to grade but i was trying to ask him interview questions instead.

i love this song very much

pigeons' brains

hi. i have been feeling a little sad lately. i don't know why. tomorrow i will be half of 70. maybe that's why. and i've been wanting to live in a place. like if i'm at the grocery store and i start a conversation with a neighbor that i run into there and we start talking about 1985 and we're talking and we say yeah, that was the year of all those flies, or something like that. i want to know a place. and remember what happens to it.

for poeminyourpocket day, i printed out 23 poems from andrea rexilius's book half of what they carried flew away and gave them to my students. and then i told them magic security men were walking the campus and if they were approached and had a poem in their pocket, they would get $5. they believed me. one of the poems from this incredible book goes:

i am a construction worker.
i am a home.
i am abroad.
i am nervous.
i am being proposed to by this essay.
i am a variant of the semantic difference-within-sameness.
i am tilting against the windmills.
i establish a continuity.
i cannot pin down one side of the territory.
i am an open mouth and a factory.
i am yellow, or red.
i was asked if i am myself.
i am myself.

you should get it. also, the hlr is out! and includes work by these fine ladies and gentleman: Paige Taggart, Jess Rowan, kathryn l. pringle, Curtis Perdue, Jesse Morse, Rob MacDonald, Valerie Loveland, Mike Gross, Kit Frick, Megan Burns, Maurice Burford, Ark Codex, Stephanie Anderson, Kimberly Alidio, and Kristin Abraham. Cover art by Dagan McClure-Sikkema.


one poem by j.m.:



Dear Jet Plane, 


Fly. That flies. Last in a generation’s method of achievement. To underwrite the future’s ill logic. All the dolphins flown in saltwater crafts. To where? Where does fever go? Enclosed by cumbrance. The wheezing olla brain. Or leans. Brain-lean. Like a root vegetable, mashed for soup. Anaplastic hum. The air there. The practical act of looking back. Time’s slipstream. Dear slipstream, I’ll call you come what may. No matter the expectations, loss lingers. Like retrieval. How presence gets felt in memory shards. Ice picks. Drinks. At play in epistemology. Moving back to front. Up above and going over. Desalted by spheres and freezing wind.  


and don't forget: horse less is accepting full-length manuscripts right now.


and look! we almost have enough money--just a little more is all we need.