Once around the block. Humidity is not humidity. A petite, young, attractive woman asks, "How would I get to the Metropolitan Opera House?" This train, that direction, a sign will say Lincoln. I lost sight of her. A drunk man would not give up. Do you want to fight? The handy proprietors and I thought of how weird it was for Wool or New York to say geography. Bull true pull fa ta la comedy.

In the distance, holding up the horizon, was the skyline of Manhattan. I could clearly see it. I stood in a clean field, perhaps Wisconsin in the early afternoon. There were no paved roads. At first I only noticed one house, something that might have come from the Garden District of New Orleans, except ten times larger. Then there were five other mansions. Everything seemed perfect, until I was attacked by genetically modified deer. They had long teeth like leopards, lions, tigers.

transitional

While I'm in the city I sometimes think nowhere is an actual place. Maybe in the lower seventies or a stone's throw from Bryant Park or Union Square.

started 99: The New Meaning Walter Abish (Burning Deck 1990). The texts in this book first appeared in Conjunctions, Personal Injury and Renegade.

A random entry from Camus' Carnets, "Le coeur sec du créateur ."

Hocquard writes, "On my left, this light. On my right, my library of / American poetry," and I imagine titles and names to fill in the empty spaces. Just as I greedily omit titles from this journal. Yes, and all those writers with their trusty organizations and public information. The next stone is target and pronunciation. Full stop. . .I'll write letters to my friends and post them while I'm gone to make things even more trivial. I've already decided, it's too late. That's what I'll do.

The introduction's final line is an internet address.

started Emmanuel Hocquard A Test of Solitude -- translated by Rosmarie Waldrop (Burning Deck 2000).

ghost

form

gesture

hesitation

Third party evaluations. I've been away from the desk for days. Your boss is pretty. I do not work for bread. A four course meal, a shank of silence.

collapsible

Career. More means more. Motion sickness. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Metropolis. Jean Arp was there too. Journals of masturbatory proportion. Perhaps I should use more contemporary words and embrace obsolescence. Friends gave me a house in the country for free. Not really. Two huge apartment buildings, construction. I'll move to San Quentin or Angola or Leavenworth. And this too will never pass. A poetry newspaper. How can such riches be piss poor? And that evokes further hatred, another round of puke for everyone. I've been whiling away the hours

I thought of a thousand punch lines.

hesitation

justification

IN . ON . OR ABOUT THE PREMISES by Paul Blackburn (1968)

The Collected Books of Jack Spicer (Black Sparrow 1975)

The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

I walked by the Margaret Mead Green beside The American Museum of Natural History. In your way is the Alfred Nobel Monument.

I learned that one vagrant died by falling into a fire, and another died by having her throat slit.

I received a gift. A flask with words on it: "He did ten years in Attica reading Nietzsche and Wilhelm Reich." After the wedding, I dumped a bag of birdseed on my brother's head.

I learned that a recording artist used to have an expensive drug habit

I learned where to pick up a train in a specific European airport.

I watched a member of the Academy of American Poets read words to an audience on satellite television.