i approach things and think about them.
then i do things to them.
then i'm tired, it gets dark; and then i go away.

ann beattie eats an apple.
she puts a spoonful of almond butter in her mouth.
she chases the almond butter with lemon snapple.

i'm awake, i do laundry, and
the stupid yellow thing comes up.

okay, this poem is not about a relationship.
i have a journal filled with faded words in pencil.

i'm in a box.
my brain releases something into my flesh.
a dog comb floats.

i think my art is bad. i write a poem with the word teacup in it. i thought teacup was a good word.

my cheek just shrunk a little. i'm very depressed. i almost had crippling depression today. i thought crippling depression was funny when i thought about it as two words connected. i'm really sad, but i want to be different so i can make you happy or excited, less bored, more. . . just better or something. i feel stupid i tried to write a poem with teacup in it. i feel stupid for everything i ever did. i just want to see you and feel better.

obama talks in the background. i slump in the chair. i am slumped in the chair. i failed at everything. failing is good. i feel smarter when i fail because i have to justify my failing to myself inorder to keep living. i tilt my head and think 'something else now'. my head rolls backwards not a little. i think it rolled inside my head. it did a backwards summersault.

yesterday i watched a man cross the street and felt really good about everything. yesterday i felt good all day about everything. now i feel bad. i think i know why i feel bad. maybe it's the wrong reason. should i be concentrating something else than what i'm concentrating on? i have to stop writing. someone is putting bags in the garbage pales. the applause for obama sounds low, like they are booing beneath the congress.

are you watching/listening to obama? i want to hold you, please.

i'm holding a chicken pot pie
steam rises from a hole in the crust
i look out the back door window
my head is level with the backyard
a baby deer lays curled up in the middle

when we walked down the cobblestone street
holding hands with parents that weren't ours
the crowd broke and a small child stood alone crying

maybe there are parent's somewhere
who lost their sons in car accidents

the words float off the page
like cars parked along the side of a street
miles ross stares at the blog page
the blog is blue

miles ross hears iko iko by a 'new orleans band'
coming out of the computer
he forgets putting his head down
miles ross thinks something is happening, something 'big'
he thinks 'it's moving slowly, big, people pushing the big blue thing'

he looks into the blue light
miles ross puts his head down in the fold of his arm
miles ross hears analog boy by 'rx bandits' coming out of the itunes

the blog thinks about miles ross
it comes at miles ross, holding something
miles ross will never be miles ross
miles ross will be many times stupid
miles ross is a notion
he thinks about people on the internet

miles ross hears 'you know i'm no good' by
amy winehouse coming out of the computer

it's bread wrapped in a paper bag
that is blue, glowing and fury
the bread moves, falls to the floor
and crawls to a perverse area of brown wood floor
it stops
broccoli floats towards it
the broccoli floats away

ellen kennedy signs online
kenneth anger looks at her screenname
it's floating a little, like a tree
kenneth anger clicks on her name and a message box comes up
kenneth anger types 'hey'
my finger rests on the enter key
kenneth anger feels nervous
his finger pushes the enter key a little
then it pushes it more, but kenneth anger doesn't feel like he controls his finger anymore

five minutes later ellen kennedy hasn't responded to 'hey'
kenneth anger waits three more minutes
kenneth anger signs off
kenneth anger signs back online
ellen kennedy is still signed on
kenneth anger puts up an away message
kenneth anger changes the message
kenneth anger takes the message down and makes himself 'available'
ellen kennedy's screenname goes idle
but kenneth anger doesn't see it. kenneth anger thinks she signed off.
then kenneth anger sees she just went idle.
then she goes un-idle.
ellen kennedy's screenname just stares at kenneth anger.

kenneth anger thinks about typing 'hey' again or an evasive statement like 'so you're writing a book' or 'you're working on poetry?' or 'do you go to the gym?' kenneth anger is not thinking 'kenneth anger has limited time to talk to ellen. kenneth anger thinks kenneth anger somehow knows that the time will end and either not talking to her or talking to her will be a better situation than having to make the decision to type a message again.

a different person messages kenneth anger
they talk about basketball

before stutter-stepping in the hallway we were like two salmon on a date.

while crossing the stream we were two salmon going through a divorce.

don't judge me by the color of my skin. i've put my mouth on every pine branch
in yosemite national park.

we're it's oldest species of mammal. we're antique mammals, part of the 1/5th of the endangered mammals.

before inhaling the psycho-active cannabis we unroll all of the tape in the house.

the baby begins talking too early. we put the tape in a circle around the baby to curb the extinction of our species.

before we curb the extinction we didn't question our dependence on psycho-active cannabis.

before the baby talked grandma hung jack hammers on the wall and petted them with a pashmina.

before the jack hammers i fight grandma over all the take-out i eat. i put a bacon cheeseburger deluxe on the formica table. grandma jackhammers the cheeseburger into a slushy.

before i eat cheeseburgers i examine my emotional status and think ---- it, i'm a man.

before i become a man i bring a notebook and a deck of batman the movie trading cards in a backpack up a mountain in the adirondacks.

lightning strikes my grandfather and he screams 'JOKERRRRRRRRRRRR SUCKS!'

my grandfather loves mushrooms. some people think psycho-active people are stupid and they laugh at them.

i read two news stories on a seattle news site; one about jimi hendrix's estate winning a lawsuit against a vodka maker; one about the stryker brigade being sent to afganastan (3,900 troops).

i read two articles in the nation by justin taylor; one about nimrod workman, a coal miner/singer who lived to 99; one a review of a Lovecraft collection, a man who was contradictary in his philosophies and his work. i read a post by noah cicero on his blog about him being in a computer lab with headphones. i read CAVES by matthew simmons. the story is about a man who dates caves.

on another note:

my cell phone is in my pocket. i'm wearing a sweatshirt over a collared shirt, over a blue t-shirt. i drank one can of pepsi.

a bottle of lens cleaner and a good quality cloth for lens cleaning are next to me. they are gentle, i feel.

i am going to drink coffee maybe. i want to take notes as i read Yeats.

i download albums

i do my downloading when i drink organic beer

i lie on my side and type

with a calm facial expression, i think about dogs biting my calf muscles

i should get a steak with cheese sandwich tomorrow

the presence of my new video game distracts me, being my reward for typing

the notes i took earlier are scribbled poorly

i felt unfocused for an hour

trying to fit two vague things into a logical flow of ideas,

i feel, i don't know, stupid

the mongols throat sing when drunk.

the people i see's emotions are like knotted in their faces.

every night of our lives we're losing parts of ourselves into our mattresses and pillows.

i have the blurry feeling that my tendencies effect my skin's elasticity.

the woodswoman still washes in the lake.

the environmentalist has the cabin, the developer wants it.

i thought about you on the beach thinking about me.

last night the pigs freaked out and went wild.
i slept calmly in my bed.