mild surprise in These titles mean nothing.

Christmas was two months ago.
Christmas will be in ten months.
Hard to remember.
Time to prepare?
I hope so.

Does it matter?
Heck to know for sure
What to buy for who?
How much to spend?
May as well forget it like usual.

Having removed that piece of concern
From my sense of here and now
I can come up with something
Different to think of
Different to type.

Winona, Miami of Minnesota
Historic, on the river
Porn is what?
Burt’s butt?
Probably
Not.

Pleasant
Though, pattable.
When you buy a book
You purchase possibility
And it’s up to you to unlock
Whatever’s inside - ya think that’s so?

I do
I think
That’s so.
In fact
I base
My life
On it.

I let today go
Whereever it went
Whereever it wanted
To go.

And now I sit in
The wreckage
Of whatever
Today was.

Apple cores
Peanut butter
Cold water now warm
Mourn the losses
Celebrate the gains
That will do it.

Was there a plan?
Did I have one?
Good one?
Detailed?
Not at all.

Ladybug crawls over my screen
Pale now that they come from Asia
Still reliably spotted though

I am close to two hundred.

I think I think I’m writing this for Prosebox.
And I’m writing this for sure for 750
I am not good at either place
Or and then Substack
for my friends and neighbors and relatives
Impossible to do them all.
Unlikely to do some.

It’s night. Early night
Today wasn’t all that great
I read my German soldier book
I peeked at Nabokov
and read a bit of Hell of a Book
And there’s still time left.

I made a frying pan of ground beef
Cheap seasoning
Carrots
Potato
Onion
And ate a lot of it.

Wait! Three more.

And now we begin again
Repeat what we have done again
Rent a BnB, tour the fancy bank
Visit the Polish basilica
You don’t have to have money
You don’t have to pray.

Any thing is enough
Jeanette Walls
Meredith Hall
Books the Maine guy reads
He asks for endorsement
I refuse
But should I?

There are only too many
Too much
It doesn’t hurt
Much at all

Another trip
To Cedar Falls this time
I get to stay home
Which is ok

It’s always ok
Whatever happens
And then there is time.

Seven is a funny word
Why’s it not sevin?

Let’s try for a couple long balanced lines; one with a semi-colon
And one with no punctuation at all, except for one two three commas , , ,
spaces before and between them, spaciously stretching across the page
If it were a page, of course, it isn’t.
It’s a dirty white display.
Inviting, but puzzling.

I have to go on, marching across the Russian winter
On Napoleon’s post road that really belonged to the tsar
The Siberian dog didn’t get a walk today
The Germans took horses.

I had things to write down, things to remember
And I didn’t.
Instead I made three stars with colored pencils
With fresh sharp points.

How high the moon?
I trust it
To be there
Except it changes
Shape and light
And goes away
Completely
Unworthy of my trust.

Guess that’s the point
Nothing’s worthy of my trust
Or of most of my other emotions
We drag along, skeptics in snowshoes

Let’s start again, over again,
Triple time, this time.
It’s dark and there is weather
Or for sure there will be.

I would be willing to eat cheesecake
You pick the flavor
I would pour you a glass of cold water
Ice or not

What won’t I do?
More of the same?
Or less?
Either one, or neither.

This life we choose
The one that chooses us
Is perverse and inverse
And poppy inside out.

Red and intoxicating
No worth jail
Hardly worth a fine
Do you remember me?

Well, don’t bother
We don’t count for much
Those love letters
Were really jokes.

And the diamond was fake
And stolen to boot.

The library at Guttenberg
Has an open mic.
Bless them.

Now I take off for the finish
Quick and silly
None of it matters
All of it matters
How many contradictions
Does it take
To add up to a certainty.

More than I know.
More than the words
Carved into the sidewal
Of all the rivertowns
I know

More and at the same time
Less
Still probably enough
Often things that lack
Are still
Enough.

I told you so.

752
9:09pm