if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah

These are all just bad beginnings
in my search for a show-stopper,
a jaw-dropper,
trying to be just the right balance
of sarcastic and lovely,
the right balance of writer
that I idealize and am not,
of course,
what am I, a narcissist?

I'm trying to put into words
the feelings I told you I danced
because they are wordless (spaceful)
and because of you
I have to say them with voice;
what a dilemma is this--

That when I tell you with movement
what I can't say
you put me in the place
of having to voice it and now
I have no words
other than bad beginnings.

So is that it?
When I word to you
instead of dance for you (for me?)
what you have to return is a nothing,
a less-than-nothing saying,
saying nothing, leaving me

hurt and confused because
maybe there was a something
in all your nothing that I can't find--
because we are dealing in words now,
and I'm a movement reader.

And I know I will forgive you for this
but I won't forgive me for knowing that.

Even while I'm still so angry, it just reveals
my pathetic (patient?) desperation for your love,

But I didn't say this right.
I need to move (dance) this.

Restless hungry, found a tiny scrap of a brownie in the back of the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic about the size of a large 35 cent quarter.  
Gobbled up and gone.

Eye had purchased it a week ago, maybe more.  
Actually it was more like eye was held up at gunpoint by a sad young face for a large and green single dollar Bill.
In return, was bequeathed said brownie eye dropper-ful.

The  apartment I live in a big city, many apartments were recession empty for a long time.  But in the last few years, the empty apartments in the building were almost all sold to foreigners.  
Now the bldg is an amulet melted of the lucky overseas fortunate, those overseers overseas seizers, who come to reside in the most fabulous site in these United States...and buy a piece of the dream away from the be-headers, secret police or governments that decide you are now an enemy of the state, as of this morning. No judgement.

anyway, this doe eyed child of estimated six or eight years of age accosts me in our large lobby, proffers me the brownie scrap for a Bill.

me a sucker of a salesman myself, and an eye affician-doe, well those doefuls, those eyes, no one could resist!

so eye asked her name,
but all she could say in
Anglais was...

"Brownie One Dollar?"

laughing out loud for no apparent cause,
the hanging about lobbyists looked at me staring...
Why was eye laughing?

laughing cause eye realized
this elfin child had become
fitfully but fully Americanized.

and I loved her eyes in mine, and when I see her periodically, I say:

"Hey! Brownie One Dollar, How are ya!"

and everyone snicker smiles at the old man with the even stupider grin upon his eyes.

That would be eye.

I'm a bald man now. Ever read the Book of Job? I like how he copes. The change is not purely aesthetic. That bothers me. When people cut their hair, tan their bodies, or lose weight for the sole purpose of hearing blinking friends and distant cousins say you've changed.

I'm sorry to hear about Tim's dad. I'm sure he'll get better. I'd say, I'm glad you two are getting back to normal, but I don't feel optimistic enough to lie. Tonight, I'm tending to a toothache. Covering one end of a cocktail stirrer, dipping it in scotch, and using it as a medicinal dropper. After typing that sentence, I realized the absurdity of this situation. Trading surgical for savage pulls from the bottle.

Heather came over on Halloween. I ran a bath for her. She nursed a fading cigarette while sitting on the edge of the sink and with a wet paper towel wiped off her stage makeup. She told me she had twelve piercings. Then she said people usually ask her where they're at. Some information reveals itself.

I could hear hummed melodies through the wall as she bathed, as I made my bed. Lit three candles. Sprayed some Febreze to cover the stench of my existence. She came in wearing my robe. Without makeup, she looked boyish. Lost, angry.

Her breathing didn't comfort me. She drifted to sleep quickly. As bizarre as it sounds, I could feel Karen in the room. She was the moving shadows. She was the branches scraping against the house. She was the light I left on in the closet. To spite her, I woke Heather up.

I traced her piercings like a holy diary pressed in brail. I sank teeth into hipbone. Sharpened. The *** was short. To be expected, I suppose. Three years of celibacy. She told me it surprised her that it took me this long to sleep with her.

Why did you let me? I asked.

Heather smiled a waving tightrope. Confident. Off-balance. She said I was warm. I was predictable. Like a country music song. I gave her my back. Turned on the television.

I haven't talked to her since. The thing about being born again is, sometimes when you've think you've died, you've only had a bad dream. A more final death lurks. Let's hope she killed me. Now, bald like an idiot babe, I'll try to start. No vanity. You were right. The adventure kicks off when I learn to love myself. Looking at the uneven bumps on my shaved head, I've already developed a crush. I'll apologize in my next letter.

this is not a ten stepper essay.  You are, and you admit it, full stop. Addicted to HP.  No help here.

but to answer the question...

the writing of a poem,
no matter what your style,
eye dropper word selection,
slow methodical,
or furious expelling, frying oil
until crescendo is achieved
is clearly a fulfillment of
a ****** type of need.

Afterwards,
after words,
when you repeatedly
check the number of likes,
it is just you asking me

was it as good for you
as it was for me?

Usually, eventually,
the answer is a
quiet, soft spoken,
very few reads version of:

"Uh, just let me sleep"
which means you will try again
in the the morning suncomeforth.

"I don't know just where I'm going"

Arms encircled around porcelain, clean,
wavering strength, and eyes closing feebly

"when I'm rushing on my run, and I feel just like jesus son"

There are many more people than I want to see.
I pull up against the wall and, for balance, I lean

"and I guess that I just don't know, and I guess that I just don't know."

whiskey, for the Father
marijuana, for the Son
prescriptions, just for me

"I have made the big decision, I'm gonna try and nullify my life"

Still though, Lou Reed isn't dead, just clean
and so, this night, just won't bode well for me

"it shoots up the dropper's neck, when I'm closing in on death"

It is hard to remain dignified when in a wasted state, vomiting.

"You can't help me now guys, all you sweet girls with all your sweet talk"

It is hard to remain dignified when someone attacks my integrity.

"And you can all go take a walk"

It is hard to remain dignified when I am acting so senselessly.

"Oh, and I guess that I just don't know,
oh, and I guess that I just don't know "

I try to sleep through,
while foreign fingers swirl softly on my sides, to feel my *******.

"And that blood is in my head,
then thank God that I'm as good as dead"

I try to sleep through,
while a small ring lies atop of a postcard, with an Indian head.

"then thank your God that I'm not aware,
and thank God that I just don't care"

I guess, I just don't know.

"and I guess I just don't know
and I guess I just don't know."*

after the echo, I need to leave.
so I go, again, and press repeat.

it's visual anthropology, I swear.
it's everything can't you see!?
I'm on my bed.

I had a great dream about you,
I'll even say it, you said you'd make love to me,
so I anxiously listened to Pull My Daisy by Allen Ginsberg afterwards, he certainly was mad but was genius but I do care about my health, though.

So, I ordered the speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. Lincoln said a lot, he advanced a conversation but appeared to lord over the common man, the man who works in the field, the man who goes to war to fight. Martin Luther King didn't say much, although Common says freedom is free.

I smoked a cigar and poured some orange juice, too. I can now smell the cigar and enjoy orange juice. I saw a white bug outside and felt deep. The specific kind, unknowable. I'm nervous tho' about today. I have to be up at five AM. I could sleep more but I won't, instead I'll write a clear and coherent prose-poem about the circus because I do care about my health. I will love myself and maybe take a shower because I do care about my health. Molly Casey, who knows, I forgive you if you forgive me, and if whoever said "ugh" apologizes, I'll be happy. But first, or later, we'll have to  accept that life is unfair, and that you have to be professional to make it through.

Here, look it, I'll tell you everything and more, and all the time, if you tell me I'm sane and beautiful.

How badly do you want bad? I want bad, sometimes. I want good more often that's why I do this dear Molly Casey. And when you said you'd sleep with me, did you think? No, I don't think you thought and I don't think you mean it. No, when you said you'd make love to me, in my dream, did you think? No, I don't think you did. But know, you inspired me. As a conciliation for my inability to be profound, or for being too profound, or too much of a thinker, or for being overly cautious, I want you to know that biology is interesting and that when I write several words down in my poem book and in my phone to use later, I think I'm working.

Here are those words:

1. faced
2. changed
3. is
4. cognitive
5. multiple
6. vision
6. droplet
7. positive everyday experience
8. I lie
9. ought to listen to that song
9. cause
10. zeal
11. prudence
12. in the dust
13. self-criticism
14. work
15. chill Castro
16. not SA - SF although SA isn't bad
17. me
18. my friends
19. All encompass dropper
20. Only human
21. All too human

2:38 AM December 12th 2018

i saw the little bird flutter
dance from dropper to dropper
and the image fades in the clouds of smoke.

Nay, the lines show on my worked hands,
the trouble in life,
where i stand...
this line i drew in the sand is nothing like the life in lines
read in palmistry
or the scars emotionally
those that developed, enveloped and disappeared
as a decade passed into another year.

my reflection in the mirror changed,
the migraines are no longer the inspiration that drives me.
on auto pilot, driven by fire, flames were fanned and told to flourish.

now there will be a change in the line up
because ****-up-to-****-up there is no other way
i could say how much more in less than the 8 hours a day--
of work, of solitude, once i which came of use to?

well life, if you are a mirror,
then *******! i was told i was done too...

with the ashes settled, i'm at home.
he is still a little wobbly, a little toddly, and oh the  "NO!"
into the cabinets i find, a flicker of life,
desire,
****-- i am sold.
i found out what in the world...
i am here for.

Sixty, ***-ti.... i cannot form a single thought,
a heartfelt thought and ones of revenge
as the heater went out, and it being colder than the fridge--
i saw that little bird, fluttering,
Still

life seemed to start again,
with a push of a button
go
with all the carnival rides
flavors, and gimmicks.
i cant quit.

I think I just needed
some Space to myself
so I snatched up the Telescope
off of the shelf

Fogbound, an Envelope
Packed with Parched Paper
Periwinkle Periscope
Crepuscular Vapor

permanent figures
a vial and dropper
kaleidoscope lens
a beaker and stopper

Hvis du dropper
historien om,
at noget er svagt,
og noget andet er stærkt,
så er der ikke noget,
der er bedre end andet,
og du kan være dig selv
- ligesom du er -
hver eneste gang.

we’ll start here, turtle.

this is what I say to the grey thing I’ve been talking to.

the only buffer between engagement & constant engagement
is life
during wartime.

I conceive of a dropper
but hold it empty
above my eye.

because it is the one word without a beginning

suffering
because it is the one word without a beginning
is not limited
by its
vocabulary.

we wanted a sophisticated god
but in immediate
unison
called it
god.

this is the grey cream  
that gives her privacy.

I am drawn to a sort of journalism
by association, a campestral formlessness
attached
for example
to the term

carpet bombing.  

how is death, here?  in an orange ball of yarn

she is not ahead of?

she has to stop, turtle.

to declaw an electrocuted kitten
she didn’t
electrocute.

He had to get it anyhow
But the sleepy Sunday afternoon
Found all the shutters down

He had to get it anyhow
But a sad figure on the empty street
His sighs in himself drowned

He needed to get it anyhow
But it seemed fortune didn’t care
It couldn’t be ever found

He needed to get it anyhow
But his tries ended in despair
A life could bow out

If only he could get it anyhow
That small thing now priceless
He would forever treasure

If only he could get it anyhow
It would prolong a heartbeat
Reviving drops he could measure

On the sleepy Sunday afternoon
In search of a one penny dropper
A man a poet a philosopher
Was thwarted came a cropper!

As Sunday wakes, I watch the sunrise
Peaking over the yawning Sawtooth Range.

Idaho's Rocky Mountain loving arms wide open
Stretch to embrace the East fork of the Salmon

It’s at this bend I feel the need to take in
All the wonderment, that emerges to take my breath away.

I load my rod and chart a path for my line,
As I spot two survivors, drifting in and out of the undercut.

Feeling good about this, I offer up a clodhopper,
It drifts by unacknowledged, not even a balk.

WTH I think to myself, as I tie on a dropper,
And make one last presentation…………….

“Well I’ll be ******, never seen a trout yawn.”


- K.E. Carman 2017

I will do my best to remember in order these the prayers satan has returned to the adult me...

(please help me to absorb the paranoia of my uncle who
after putting a clear piece of tape on his belly button

drinks
too much)

(please make her hair fall out)

(invisibility)

(tell god but take your time)

(a secret brother.  a brother I can beat on.)

(power over girls I want nothing to do with)

(a job my mom can turn down)

(muscles that make me high)

(pain in the useless privates of my guardian angel)

(the best birdhouse)

(a grandfather or a frog, or both, with teeth)

(a nativity scene built around a piece of spat out gum)

(comic book with ******* scarecrow)

(a baby sister
to radio
my mother’s
coma)

(messenger stones)

(a double
where my hands
can sleep)

(the last dropper
of dinosaur
woe)

(Eve whose ears have amnesia)

(you, from my past)

Rainy days and Mondays
Piloting my car like a
river boat captain
on a shiny Mississippi
It is morning but still dark
an eye dropper of blue has
been added to the sky
and what was once black
has now slowly spread to purple
A purple macchiato in the atmosphere

I pass by a convenient store
It looks like an oasis in the dark rain
Soft blue lights reflecting on wet asphalt, illuminated marquee
an old cinematographer trick  

This is my time
This is where I live
This is me.
My true self
before,
I am stained by work

You marmalade dropper, you.
You cause an enfilade with the briefest of your words, my love.
You cislunar beauty.
Let me watch you. Make me your auspex.
Stravaig through my heart.
Be your flagitious best with me.
Noctivagants, you and I.
Steal a pimpmobile. Let's run away.

there's a syringe filled to the dropper with ******

and a blackened spoon on the kitchen counter.

he was in the bathroom shooting up and left this one for later
but in a daze
forgot to consider
that others would be home early.

i didn't care.

i've stepped on many ***** syringes before
and as a child
poked myself by accident
a few times as well.

i don't have hepatitis luckily
but to me
it was just an annoying prickly receptacle

full of enough intoxicant to be
lethal to any person
without a tolerance.

i just banged on the door.

''hey if i see this ****
again
i'll break your arm''.

i heard faint mumble from within
and left him to get high.

he was going to leave within the next day or two any way.

must be fun,
and millions are having fun,


why bother them?

they know what they're doing
it's just
the lack of respect i don't appreciate.

and the fact that they get to **** themselves in plain view
while
we die
oftentimes in slower subtler ways

"Turn around,
Shut your mouth,
Sit up straight,
Don't look around.
Be a lady,
That's not ladylike,
Don't dress that way,
You look like a ****.
Hold your chin up,
That's not high enough,
Now that's too high,
Don't make this tough.
Just do things right,
Won't you learn,
Do it perfect,
Or you shall burn.
Don't let this scare you,
Just be proper,
If your eyes get red,
Use the eye dropper.
Brush your teeth,
And brush them well,
If they aren't white enough,
You'll go to hell.
Comb your hair,
Get all the knots out,
Just listen to me,
And I won't have to shout.
Just be pretty,
Just be perfect,
It's not that hard,
And it's definitely worth it.
No one likes,
Girls with braids,
Or buns, or ponytails,
Those aren't cool these days.
Powder your face,
Oily skin is a no-no,
Leave your face bare,
And you'll look like a hobo.
Stay in fashion,
And in style,
And you'll fit in,
For a while.
Until they notice your personality,
Sad as it may be,
You need to be different than yourself,
Heck, be more like me.
The more alike we all are,
The better it will be,
Because we'll stop being, him and her,
And we'll start being we."