the man in the office wearing designer glasses gave me steroids to fight the hideous eye parasite that had inflamed my sight related skin modules in the city i was sweating when i got there he asked me if i had been running or if it was another symptom no i said and pointed to the yellow puss oozing out of my arm and asked if this was the problem no he said my skin is weeping the entire appointment took about ten minutes and cost two hundred dollars i have no health insurance anna offered some burnable herbs but it seems like the most intense swelling has gone down turning me from scary looking to looking like i've just been beat up now not entirely healthy but on a fast track to recovery meanwhile the truck with said shipment of goods from brooklyn is approaching fast and i wait on the couch in the late afternoon while the sun begins to go down over the colored houses on top the hill the sounds are few and the air is clean california seems like an easy place to live if your health is not a question usually mine is not though i see doctors throughout the years for various aliments and really some health care would be good for my system the skin begging to dry out and chafe around my eyes large dark spots reminding us what might have been but tonight to go out and see a friend perform with his band twelve dollar tickets the most i've paid to see a friend have a drink and a laugh get back go to sleep wake up take steroids make a pie nothing doing the mojo is nogo nothing much to talk about looking for something to do

from the notebook not too distantly the sixth month called june the thirtyith day of this year

"Southeast". After a night at Pam's in MA somewhere in the corner, the southwest corner of MA. I'm here at the train station waiting to catch a ride and head back into town, the city. Nobody has seen me, under complete camouflage, a desire to wait with an exciting reason to not wait as long, the man gave me two and said you'll have to wait an hour. While the other customers mosey around with no indication of ceasing to mosey. Sentence patterns. Mountain shop, type "A" personality, in the burning like I've found a "newer" and better town, the outskirts extend approximately 120 miles north, at least, or at least as far as I know beyond the eye can see. Red hot skillet. It's not like a cat. White hot. It's not like a hole. Everything you see is the moon shine. Stop to think and touch the pen to your lips. Outside dimensions. A simple work ethic means picking up the wheel barrow and moving it back to the garden.

it has been sort of long but not long enough since we've talked last between us and them the other has landed here in california and though that is a forgone conclusion the purpose of this talk is to bring you up to date on the events that have transpired as thus following the last installment has been a real time buckle down on duties and responsibilities namely the making of a life or a place to go outside of the apartment and wait for mail and or email namely the job the teaching job as of last week has been not found but good progress has been made in the form of cover letters and resumes sent out to all prospective employers in the surrounding area and the hills surrounding these areas to make the update shorter than today say cleaned the garage in preparation for the things from new york to arrive and applied for a couple more teaching jobs but nothing doing yet the labor forces force the market etc but nothing doing no updates the life has most been between the two of us another quiet weekend but oh the rash that i acquired last week is still around and maybe we could call it poison oak or ivy but at this point one and a half weeks later with the symptoms still around and now the eye swelling over we ask for the god of infectious reactions to forgive our bodies and uncles for what can only be described as an unrelenting attack on my skin and now my vision no stories no future plans at this date in history twentyith of november two thousand and six

in one sense liberated and in another not ten thousand years from now dinosaurs now wingless learn again to get smaller than the man eating plants that surround the island a peninsula full of ferns by a lake is a city made of people at the grocery twenty dollars too much too soon a can of olives resting in a plastic bag being carried across stoplightless roads and traffic dont get me started about the traffic it seems as if a single person could roast over our story maybe turn it over as a piece of meat deemed done or a cucumber resting on the chin of a gentle apes potential say theyre just like us a single commander of one particular future meeting your neighbors and being invited to a party but just in case the music will be loud on the step in the late morning again on the step in the late morning notes take place the sounds of a stereo a piece of trash carried to the curb men climbing trees and cutting pieces off behind them with ropes and skill enough to risk ones life meanwhile being watched from quiet houses next door the painters hesitate on the ladder not even twice as high that's right coming to conclusion with the information given dinner at seven people walking through doors and at eight their shows come on at nine go off within the conclusions given in the first place self determination self made millionaires wondering why we just cant get with it an angry face while at work im swamped with deadlines peoples choices and childrens stories mutated into the few chosen film makers rarely visited summer homes a sleeping cat a dream of being licked yours truly couchy

We are pressed, pressed on each other,
We will be told at once
Of anything that happens

And the discovery of fact bursts
In a paroxysm of emotion
Now as always. Crusoe

We say was
'Rescued'.
So we have chosen.


--George Oppen, from "Of Being Numerous"

from the vault again sometime maybe six months ago

last night, yesterday, I took a long nap as my work outside of home had ended early. I was tired and decided to sleep during the late afternoon. After about three hours I woke up, had an evening, made dinner, took a shower, did some submissions, talked on the phone. I went to bed after twelve and woke up at seven. I was dreaming that I was comforting on old friend in a grocery store. All of his closest friends had died (and there's more to that story but I forget). We were checking out of the store, and his father was behind the cash register. My friend was crying and I paid for whatever I was buying, and his father gave me the change. One cent, and I turned and gave the cent to my friend and said it was lucky. I really believed that it was.

from the vault again thursday march sixteenth two thousand and six you see im transcribing a note book and have been coming across these things written while in brooklyn

Thursday, March 16th. I think I felt some vibrations from the train that was passing underneath. Although not exactly warm, the weather is at least sunny. I wanted to get outside after being cooped up in the apartment all day. The job search continues but today was different, researching not jobs but ways to get jobs, applying for temp. agencies and what not. I was gong to go to the museum with a., who happened to be in town, passing through as I might describe it to someone else. Unfortunately though she hadn't finished her work and that effectively put a stop to any plans we might of made this afternoon, and I left slowly thinking of the day and what might become of the day. In the cold it seems that much brighter, and this jacket stops all the wind except of the wind getting on my hands. It feels nice to sit in the sun and as I wait I rot but not in the winter and only as the ground beings to thaw. I keep thinking I hear a rumbling train below me, and I think it is all I hear. No boiling blood or basic instinct, no soluble personal struggle in the hillsover looking the anonymous city. I wonder how ad. made out with the land lord? I wonder how much longer I'll sit here. Am I lonely? Thoughts from above. I don't think so, just tired of being in my apartment. I suppose the elevation of this bench is what's causing the the wind to blow. I suppose.