today i was walking along, crossing the street, when the driver of a USPS delivery truck started honking his horn at me. i looked up and he was pointing at me, gesticulating, and i thought he was trying to tell me i‘d lost my pants or stepped on a corpse or something. i stepped around to the passenger side open door and asked wtf, and he said “i got a package for you.“ i said “really?“ he sid “yeah your address is ____, right?“ he actually had it slightly wrong but it was close enough and i corrected him and said yeah, that‘s me, oh and that‘s you, i recognized him then. so he says “you want it?“ i said sure, and he got up and went to the back of the truck, which was still idling at a red light, and within seconds he handed me a box, and we both laughed and said “see ya next time.“
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i felt thunderous about the poetry i wrote over the last few days. this morning i attmepted to continue to the job but i fell short. i find thatg writing at my desk is a losing battle against habit and environment. that is a place for work, porn, and not much else. still, the previous stuff from the previous few days is good, i think. i mean, i like it. i like reading it. it‘s not easy-going, and on revision ifind myself explicating some of the allusiveness that only i would understand. some, not all. 3 sections: storm, chaos, and comprehendible. not easy, so much, as comprehendible. i have not yet matured enough for line breaks, though.
does your age punctuate your days as it does mine? my age has always announced itself throughout my days, sometimes when my eyes first open but at arbitrary-seeming times. in remembering a recent conversation i mumbled to myself a question i asked someone else: “i am 42 years old and both my parents are gone. is that early?“ some would say it is but i don‘t know. age is a matter of luck in so many instances. i have long found morbid the ritual of giving a round of applause to someone who is, simply, old. i understand the spirit of the gesture but i can not help but feel that applauding the living is the same as booing the dead, booing those who were outlived by Mabel, who is 102!
i woke uprepeatedly last night, after a midnight shower with wine and this cell phone to amuse me. i wake up screaming about once a month, and this time i woke up bleating “how did you get in here?“ at some phantom intruders who stood in my hallway. someone else opened the door to reveal them but i don‘t remember who that was. i had trouble falling asleep as memories of my mother‘s corpse rose up from the veins of my brain. her hands clasped, her hair a bizarre mop, her face nowhere near at peace, and a comment from a friend who said he had never seen his relatives in the casket and he has no regrets about it. when i placed my hand on the coffin i expected it to pop open, the inanimate body jumping out of the uncomfortable cushioned tube. but instead the body rots. i imagined last night what stage the body is at tonight. the day of the funeral i texted my then-gf “she is in the ground“. i may have added “she‘s gone“,which is the signature pair of words used by my sister to report the news. “she‘s gone.““gone“. i think about it when i cross 5th avenue, for that is where i was in the moments during which the news arrived and established its permanency.
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hokay, that was cheerful.
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actually, it was, for a while, last night. memories of the conventions we had in our minds.
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steak for dinner tonight. i went to costco. and returned a conquerer. foraging in the meat and pork aisles i found my prey, and i attacked. i should bring a spear to costco next time. i should mercilessly attack a package of prime rib until it can not escape, until it cowers in hopeless defeat. then i shall throw the slabs of living speared meat onto my back and i shall parade through new york with my conquest. “i killed a costco steak!“ i shall proclaim, and there will be much rejoicing. “going to sleep with a red meat hard-on!“ thunderous applause. “costco hard-on!“ bravos and scenes of orgiastic appreciation.
