with Christina Strong

2008-03-06T17:24:00.001-08:00

I wrote the first poem each day, Christina the second

02.01.08—10:52 a.m.

one thing about smoking on the terrace
don’t let the squirrels scare you
seems that they’ve made a nest
in the lower left-hand corner

he’s having trouble
unlocking the door
he said his building entry key’d been sticking
so i gave him one of my spare sets
after i tested it up here

but now it’s been a while
and it’s one in the morning
though that isn’t late for me
and i’m working on a classic album show

so i go to the door
unlock it for him
hoping to avoid one of those lunges from him
as he tries to put keys into
the pulling back door

and she says thank you
says he’s parking the car on the east side
at the avis rent-a-car
and will cab back shortly
says she can never figure out which key which way
her breath smells nice and drunk
making her the prettiest drunk girl
to enter my apartment that way

can i show her,
which key goes in the top lock
and it takes a second
as we stand there in the hall

she’s a bit more talkative than usual
and we just stand there and keep on
talking
before she says she has to pee

and i walk back to my futon
and she comes inside to find me
i invite her to sit down
on my mets-cushioned grade school classroom chair

and she says come inside
pointing to his bedroom
you know, the room is empty,
there’s hardly any furniture

and then she motions me
to where to sit on the open queen-size futon
she is on my left
i’m much better when they’re on my right

it’s this combination
of her real life beauty
and her being a bit exotic,
and her Indian accent,
and her legs through that long slit in her mid-calf black skirt
and the way that when you’re talking she looks into you and hears

she feels her cell phone ringing
he doesn’t have his key, i do,
i have to let him in downstairs

and as she walks to the apartment door she says
that we three should hang out tonight,
it’s early she says

but he’s moving in a few days
and she said she’s not sure what will happen,
that the distance between ithaca and maryland
is not like ithaca to new york.

so i’m back on my futon
and they’re back in the apartment
and i talk into the hallway
as they walk into the room
and she asks if she can go and smoke on the terrace.

sure, but
one thing about smoking on the terrace
don’t let the squirrels scare you
seems that they’ve made a nest
in the lower left-hand corner

02.01.08
Sat, 02 Feb 2008 01:25:44 -0500 [01:25:44 AM EST]

not to indulge in my own public making of my own suicide
bc as you know, my persona is to tell all to suck it
bc I'm rich and or I think you all suck and I'm
the prettiest girl on the planet, how tv flattens my intel
how violence against women is a spook, it's how to caress
rodents, how to embrace the worst...

Lost, modern scowl, faux queer: suffering, who introduced
Smoking, wait your, vehement dirty parked car, banging
on gongs: do you want to get...? New chivalry marches now

From the bling of bling there's no where to hide
The lower left hand corner is wearing an awp badge...

Gawd, it's curfew!

02.02.08—12:18 p.m.

dad picks me up from the lirr station
he’s always waiting for me when i arrive
it’s a nice feeling, dad being there , not having to wait

he said mommy had no eggs to make the meatloaf
and we checked in with her
as we headed toward waldbaum’s
to see if she wanted anything else from there
“some strawberries, apples, tomatoes, milk, puffed cereal, and the eggs”
i didn’t feel like writing it down as we drove,
so i told dad you get the strawberries, apples, and tomatoes,
and i’ll get the milk, puffed cereal, and the eggs”

in the corner by the kitchen table
were a whole bunch of clothes my folks had bought for me
through mail order
i told my mom i didn’t need anything
but last time i was here she had me go through the mailing with her
i told her all i want are five different solid-color polo shirts, size 5X
and i’d be good,
maybe some more socks, too.

after dinner i go to try on the first polo shirt.
“This is long sleeves and it’s 4X.”
“Yeah, they didn’t have any larger sizes,” she said.
and i had a little baby bump in it.
so i went to try on another shirt.
different style, same size.
and it didn’t fit either.
eight shirts, three different styles,
and none of them fit
(and neither did a pair of pajamas)

“I told you I needed 5X.”
“They didn’t have 5X.”
“Then you shouldn’t have bought them.”
after a few minutes of this oh-so-merry-go-round
she says they did have 5X,
but that she couldn’t bring herself to buy them for me,
that since i was watching my diet after a diabetes scare
she figured another 10 pounds and i’d be a 4X.

i didn’t want you to get anything,
you insisted,
i told you what i wanted,
and you didn’t listen,
i was expecting these shirts,
and now i don’t have enough shirts at home,
they’re old, and worn, and falling apart,
some have stains on them,
this really sucks.

02.02.08
Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:21:14 -0500 [10:21:14 AM EST]

Maggie picks me up in the cat suit
She’s always docile when I arrive
It’s always a warm feeling, dad not making an ass of himself

He said mommy took too much medication
And we tried to check in with her?
But it seems that Medicare likes to shuffle their patience

Fresh strawberries, milking fucking cows, what breakfast cereal do I like
the best

Do apples fuck? I believe they once did
I did hear that sex was better propagating in a field?

I told that bitch who squeezed me out of her legs, I said: Yeah, take on
the master race. They are the fucking winners?
I’m not licking postal stamps again, it’s beneath me, and it is.

I pick incandescent card stock

I try on how much sympathy I would get for a
mastectomy
The pros ethic is nil
It’s a fact fucking breast
It can read thoughts
And minds

It says: I love killing bc I can

It says: I miss the village
nostalgia
Drugs?

It says: get over it

At last, to agree on something

But agreeing on ?

02.03.08—11:00 a.m.

(sing)

something in the way she picks out lifetime movies
attracts me like no other mother
something in the way she can’t hear the moo-oo-oovies

i don't want to tell her what happened now
you know i believe she can hear now

something in the smell she knows
that she cooks like no other mother
something in her style that shows me

i wanna eat meatloaf now
with mashed potatoes, wow!

you’re asking me will my love grow
yes i know, yes i know,
even if 6X i do grow
yes i know, yes i know

02.03.08
Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:25:55 -0500 [12:25:55 PM EST]

(sing)

Astonishing! Riveting! Two thumbs up!
Your skilled performance is
something slightly short of retarded

A bright light shows her vapid lifestyle
The only chick to wear white after

Labor day. She is me after too much
hairspray, too much meat by-products

Too much scrabble, bullets, and cheap
numbers

my love is squandered, fake names pop up
No, I don’t know
And neither do you
why people commit faux pas such as they are

02.04.08—8:03 p.m.

i was gonna tell him
the first time we shook hands
“Don’t fuck with her,”
follow it with a little laugh
but instead I said
“Nice to meet you.”
later we all ate some chicken wings
whose feathers my mom had singed clean.

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:53:31 -0500 [02/04/2008 10:53:31 PM EST]

I wuz gonna refer to boris yeltsin on this issue
But den realized adam sandler, as a man, must
Know more about de signs o life
Life, how oder people lie
All de current candidates lie, like like motherfuckers
Work in a small office situated off the bronx expressway
I lie you, I really do lie you

Prefer the breast, has the most poison and toxins, thanks!

Xoxo

02.05.08
(written 02.06.08—1:12 a.m.)

my mom pronounces diabetes
like wilford brimley on those commercials of his.
“You know, u better watch yourself with your die-a-beet-is.”
dinner ate the half the baked ziti tray
and half of a greek salad,
but one a.m. ate the rest of the ziti
and a can of pineapple in its own juice chaser
and my glucometer 50 points higher in the morning life.

Feb. 5, 2008
(written Wed., Feb. 6, 2008 10:38 PM)

Yesterday, it seemed so far away
I was the last to know it was super Tuesday
Obama's hope showed me the way
Hillary's leadership made me sway
I almost bought baked ziti today
I don't know wilford brim lay
The GOP makes me pray
That a non-fatal heart attack will take them all—
And David A K
Keeps writing, hurray!!

02.06.08--11:37 p.m.

Home,
i've ordered ziti,
but plain, not baked,
it comes with my tray of eggplant parmigiana
i'm wanting to eat all of it
when the delivery arrives
but i ordered a salad, too
i'll eat half of everything,
swear not the rest just afore bed.

(the guy taking my order
knows my old patterns
says "Is that all?
Do you want garlic bread
or garlic knots?"
"No thanks," i say.)

Feb. 06, 2008
(written 02.07.08—2:13 a.m.)

You are the wife of that drooling behavior
The plate of disobedience
Sick people sick like dogs
And yes, bitch, but not afore bed
The last thing heard about bitches breeding
Was some young thing on the bus
Sd everyone was a motherfucker

Expect-ation is still making me wait

02.07.08
(written 02.08.08—1:34 a.m.)

i once lived on west end avenue
in the same building as james taylor
a decade or so after he and carly simon divorced.
(it's the closest i've yet to get to her, still.)

02.07.08
(written 02.08.08—3:07 a.m.)

I once fucked so and so, which led me
to fuck so and so, and so I am impressed
by the lesser of elements my closet
Is the lie of bottom feeders

02.08.08
(written 02.09.08—1:00 a.m.)

if i feed yr bottom
then what would it eat
i’ve nourished myself
so how about wheat

02.08.08
Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:35:52 -0500 [12:35:52 AM EST]

If tv were a god
Would all guests be slaughtered
At the trough
Of disengagement?

02.09.08
(written 02.10.08--1:11 a.m.)

how can anyone not like keanu reeves
he's like a god up there
always
even in a slight film like this one
the replacements,
which spins itself as about players getting second chances
but is really about a players' strike
and all of these swell replacement players
who are, well, scabs.

02.09.08
Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:20:52 -0500 [02/10/2008 08:20:52 PM EST]

How can anyone not like Curtis Mayfield
A god in a wheelchair
I don't remember any silent films about him
And yet
He had a groove that signified
A multinational standpoint
Those that can dance, should dance

02.10.08
(written 02.11.08--12:21 a.m.)

(sing)

may i go and
look at her that a way
i'm not supposed to
but i'll do it anyway

she's so young
so, so impressionable
she's so right
so, so unforgettable

song she sings
i look don't hear
far she is
yet so, so near

don't i know
what should i say
i think that i
should turn away

i think that i
should turn away

02.10.08
Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:44:59 -0500 [12:44:59 AM EST]

(paint)

Is it true?
The distortion of the body
Means the artist loathes
The corporeal?

That blue means
Surrendering to
So called bliss
And serenity

A video cannot
Make a mark on skin
True or not true
Right answer need not apply

Housed in a tunnel
A warehouse
A funeral home with
The rest of the

Mild mannered corpses
With makeup and stuffing

02.11.08
(written 02.12.08--12:08 a.m.)

the skin on the back of my hands is chapped and red
and bleeding and scabbing and bleeding
because i wash my hands too much
(not ocd too much, but too much too much)
i put on hydrophor ointment from the doctor at bedtime,
and cover them with charcoal gray dress socks
(they're fancy like that)

02.11.08
(written 02.12.08--11:56 p.m.)

The number crunchers vibrating
An office cubicle in India
Where one does not use
And has never heard of purell
Hunched, nearly beaten
And the nearest sex change
Establishment is 1000's of miles away

02.12.08
(written 02.13.08--1:23 a.m.)

(sing)

i think they're screening my calls at the office
where i've been freelancing for awhile
i think they're screening my calls at the office
always to voicemail while they smile

it seems they like me in doses at the office
a few hours there and here
it seems they like me in doses at the office
but fulltime hours aren't near.

i'll star 67 call the office
block my name see if they say hello
i'll star 67 call the office
about that fulltime job, can i know?

i think they're screening my calls at the office
where i've been freelancing for awhile
i think they're screening my calls at the office
always to voicemail while they smile

02.12.08
(written 02.13.08--2:44 a.m.)

(fucking pray you useless bastards)

Your writ of privacy was evoked
1/20/2001

So in the meantime, I'll post an embarrassing incident
On You tube

I'll talk on length on the mobile as I'm walking down the street

Fuck yeah, I'll take a fucking picture of my mate swapping piss
With some FID student bc as we know

Bodily functions are the best revenge...

Sometimes I think entire Manhattan should be ground zero

But if someone wants to be, then someone is left to be

I'm hoping for brain in head

Dogs bark bc They are thirsty, an insastifactional need for...

Blunt thirst trauma

02.13.08
(written 02.14.08-11:15 p.m.)

No sleep call everyone who’s awake.
6:30 a.m. happy birthday my mom,
then a few minutes later my brother
to remind him to call our mother.
“Yeah, 2.13, double bad luck,” his wife talks.
“Yes,” I say, “that’s what he always says,
but will he remember it before the day’s up?”
Call my musical theater niece
and see if she’d like to see Cry-Baby on Broadway for her birthday,
see if she knows what Cry-Baby is,
as the film came out three years before she did.
Tell her it’s from the Hairspray guy,
she liked Hairspray.

02.13.08
Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:08:26 -0500

When my mother calls I cringe

For those ten people left on the planet
For those who celebrate birth and death
For those people not on the radar
Have carpel tunnel, still use hairspray
And walk under ladders, who has brothers
Serving in the navy, who still chew gum
And can still walk at the same time
It's not luck but fortitude, I have a whip
8 minutes long, it distracts us,
Clips of the future, the sidewalk
Is gum stained. Will you remember
What you said to your third therapist?
Branch will laugh but will not break

02.14.08
(written 02.16.08—1:21 a.m.)

12 years back wrote:

in 12 adult valentine’s days
i’ve had a lover 5 times.
a .417 average
if love were baseball,
i’d have been the first man to break .400
since ted williams hit .406 in 1941,
but love ain’t baseball
and the last time up i went down swinging.
*
i’ve gone 0 for 12 since,
dropping me down to a pedestrian .208
if love were baseball.
i’d have been glued to the bench,
if i could field something special, that is,
but more than likely be on my way back down to the minors,
looking to find my future.

02.14.08

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:58:44 -0500

happy fucking valentines day

I'm at home eating crackers
Mom is eating hemp bread
I don't know what the fuck
MY brother eats, nothing
I'm guessing, the rockettes
Are doing their ghastly
Boom boom number, tired of their
Routine I watch a movie
Iraq for sale
I deserve a pagrenty and popcorn
And those people who whine:
Dish detergent has a longer life span

02.15.08
(written 02.16.08—1:47 a.m.)

(sing)

at least you’re honest
you didn’t have to be
you coulda grayed
but you black and whited all over me

but you were honest
though you were wrong
at least you were honest
like this song
like a bunch of the stuff I say
like almost all of it
really

and now I’m poorer than before
could you just lie next time
my head unfucked a lil bit longer
is that such a crime

02.15.08
(written 02.19.08—12:10 a.m.)

Unfucked

Little girls in pinafores
Embroidered by little girls
In Burma, now myanmar
Who don't even know
Where their local post office is
Never mind where daddy went
Circa march 2003
Should not throw
Mommy's soccer balls at
The guy driving the Lincoln
Continental at 55 mph
In a school zone
For fear of killing
The fluffy white terrier

02.16.08
(written 02.19.08—12:13 a.m.)

mommy’s not feeling well today
not gonna fly to las vegas, no way
dad can’t find the right inhaler for her asthma attack
i think she’s ok she just needs to relax

02.16.08
(written 02.19.08—7:26 a.m.)

When I pawned my mother's wedding ring in reno
The guy said it was only thirty bucks
So I keep it on a chain around my neck
And keep gambling, I'm down to my socks,
Suspenders, and boxers.

02.17.08
(written 02.19.08—6:34 p.m.)

sis said take the jeep to the city
after i jfk dropped my folks off to vegas
i was holding my cell phone on the belt parkway
had it turned on to speaker
sis said fold it over the seatbelt
as close to your neck as you can get it
and as i drove to the city
i did this for each phone call
marveling.

02.17.08
(written 02.20.08—7:46 a.m.)

Sd to my butler, on that long awaited
Cruise to the country where little
People come from: ordinary people drive
And cook their own food! I marvel
At modern technology, how people
Press buttons for me, freedom
Is money, just wave at the
Natives for me

02.18.08
(written 02.20.08—1146 a.m.)

three-hour sleep headache day
tape shows that won’t be repeated
in case i sleep through them
catch first minutes of wildfire
wake up 45 minutes later
to last minutes of wildfire
plan to watch it’s repeat tomorrow midnight
which is really wednesday midnight

02.18.08
(written 02.20.08—12:09 p.m.)

Sun torque, draining the blood
Hatches and spreads, thump
Needle skidding off record,
Landing from speed, foreign
Characters, the multi
Latitude of phone lines,
This filthy disaster

02.19.08
(written 02.20.08—12:16 p.m.)

i stopped pronouncing spaghetti p-sghetti a long time ago,
but i still pronounce filthy thilfy most of the time.

02.19.08
(written 02.20.08—12:43 p.m.)

Directive, derivative, dungeon, dirify, diffuse,
Disaster, draining, devolve, dismay

02.20.08—11:05 p.m.

the salmon tasted good
at dinner with riz and rusha
in the diner
my diner
though I didn’t have anything to do with that shooting of the patron who came from a nearby club and then was shot and killed upon leaving
my diner

02.20.08
(written 02.23.08—12:23 a.m.)

Please kill me
With six day old
Salmon and cream cheese
Encrusted with black
Flecks of what
Used to be food
And the poor pheasant
How They do suffer-
Falling from the sky like that

02.21.08
(written 02.23.08—12:37 a.m.)

i can’t kill you
though it’s getting old
but i would cream myself
all over my black jeans
and oh yeah what else?
so take the food i used to simulate
how poor you say you are
suffer, suffer, suffer
that’s like just how you are.

02.21.08
(written 02.23.08—9:50 a.m.)

'I heard the terrible sound of someone being choked' Guardian, UK 2.23.08

Or should we all be put down
Down on the sidewalk licking up
10 year old gum, the many
Footprints of soldiers en masse,
Those that grow wheat, drive taxis,
A half hour of electricity left
Some fear is healthy, some say,
Or warding ourselves against ourselves
A limbo, an anechoic seal

02.22.08
(written 02.23.08—11:22 a.m.)

(sing)

or should we be put down
down on the sidewalk
licking up
10 year old gum

or should we be put down
down on the sidewalk
a soldier’s footprints
“where is my mum?”

drive a taxi
grow some wheat
look for the army
you can defeat

it’s a short fare
just ’cross town
when you find them
beat them down

this is just what
some do say
that healthy fear
it is the way

but i don’t know
just what i’ve done
steer away queers
from killing fun

or should we be put down
down on the sidewalk
licking up
10 year old gum

or should we be put down
down on the sidewalk
a soldier’s footprints
“where is my mum?”

02.22.08
(written 02.24.08—12:11 a.m.)

10 journalists speak to each other
Of murder, but only one speaks
To the outside world

02.23.08
(written 02.24.08—12:15 a.m.)

outside today
to meet youngest niece
at end of her first solo train ride
she text messages more than anyone I’ve ever seen
but she’s 14
and I don’t know many 14 year olds.

02.23.08
(written 02.24.08—10:32 p.m.)

ATAB CID DYOFDW

ESO
GOI
IBGYBG
IME
JK
KIA
LJBF

Celebration, rush, pour, lights I am told

02.24.08
(written 02.25.08-2:55 a.m.)

i am told
during our drive
through the city where you were born,
that you weren't born here
you were born in a city hospital,
but then i tell you
i wasn't born in
where i grew up
but if you ask me
that's where i was born,
you say you were born in the hospital
raised in your old town,
before i ask you what radio station you like.

02.24.08
(written 02.26.08-12:28 a.m.)

White noise is asked
A question as if
The call letters
Could bounce ideals
Off water

02.25.08
(written 02.26.08-1:18 a.m.)

as if listing it
one more time
will garner respondents
who can combat crime

answer me once
that’s enough
I’ll clue you in
help with your stuff

02.25.08
(written 02.26.08-3:57 a.m.)

Ideals, transparency, current
Identification, control, safety
Security, silence, total information
Banks, stuffed in a vault

The voice said it was coming,
technology, transformation, silence
Awareness kiss futile, dumb down
Elements to t barely respondent

Dove audio presents the art of war narrated by mr ed

02.26.08-11:53 p.m.

bring yr checkbook
to seal it
if you want to
you do, right?
still looking,
barely.

02.26.08
(written 02.27.08-12:35 a.m.)

For my checkbook

rarely seen
In the rent offices
Of the Jordan
Or the Tigris
Or hope, once bountiful
Now a handful
Of leaves at the bottom
Of, let's say, a well,
Or my stomach
Ping! It bounced!
That's amazing!
I think I could use
Some ginger ale.

02.27.08
(written 02.28.08-2:33 a.m.)

yes you are
you are the one right now
check with me
it feels right

but when you come
come over right to me
don’t sidestep
that’s oh so wrong

sit across
the table that is round
let’s take a walk
hear every sound.

02.27.08
(written 02.28.08-3:22 p.m.)

That superficial regard
That stuffed animal
Same bump in the sidewalk
One rides over
only two things: square and round
Black and white
Is a situation that happens
only bt 2 and 3 pm
The rest is hardwired
Statis, a tumor to cut

02.28.08
(written 02.29.08-1:24 a.m.)

it’s the same situation
every time
look out for 5-0
there’s no 5-0 to find

the worry’s still present
all of these days
it’s not needed, again,
all is okay.

02.28.08
(written 02.29.08-8:47 a.m.)

5-0

Guarding the gates
To the palace
Sez to the other
guy in the stuffy hat
Queen dead yet?

02.29.08-10:13 a.m.

my queen leaped all around the board
methodically
while we played and 14-year-old me kinda talked,
barely listened to dr. weisberger
(i’ve always called any therapist or social worker
i’ve seen for counseling doctor,
officialing them to make it more palatable i guess)

02.29.08-10:39 a.m.

I'm lucky

When a therapist grants you
Six hours of "letting it all
Hang out there" time, then
You know you're fucked.
They recently let me out
Of the blue padded room
With bars on the window.
I am now down to two shots
Of thorazine a day.
I am making progress, my
Therapist says and I believe
Her. I have gotten up to
Page 6 of Old Man and the Sea
And page 247 of the DSM III.
They say my diagnosis is all
Over the map. The cuisine is
Bland; I am not supposed to
Eat anything I can choke on.
I never thought I'd love
Mashed potatoes so much
In my whole life.

The February Project 2008

with Christina Strong