Published Poems 1993

poem: “Fireplace”

first line: “pops / three sparks”

written: TBD

publication: Citi Voice: a free poetry magazine, vol. 5, winter 1993

PO Box 640552

San Francisco CA 94109

editor: Mel C. Thompson

some other contributors: Michael McClure, Frank’s Depression Poetry, Maura O’Connor, Catherine Lehane

poem: “A War”

first line: “How cold is the war these days, she’s asking.”

written: TBD

publication: The Sins of Poetry: CitiVoice Anthology Series, issue 1, winter 1993

PO Box 640552

San Francisco CA 94109

editor: Mel C. Thompson

some other contributors: Dale Jensen, Amy Kashiwabara, klipschutz, Eli Coppola

[This post will be continuously updated until I have organized my archives and the list is complete. I will be creating a separate blog post for each year. Contact information for publications is for historical purposes only.]

Published Poems 1992

poem one: “These Notes Know: lines from Miller”

first line: “the seam that joined them”

written: TBD

poem two: “Stood in Places: lines from Harrach”

first line: “They chew gum”

written: TBD

poem three: “Mr. Miserable comes back”

first line: “The door keeps not wanting to return the key: it has it”

written: TBD

publication:Tight Magazine, vol. 3 no. 4, Aug 1992

PO Box 1591

Guerneville CA 95446

editor: Ann Erickson

some other contributors: Jerry Ratch, Alan Catlin, Jim Gove, Gloria Potter

[This post will be continuously updated until I have organized my archives and the list is complete. I will be creating a separate blog post for each year. Contact information for publications is for historical purposes only.]

Published Poems 1991

poem: “He hears a ringing”

first line: “Bert likes the blind- / ness of the telephone”

written: TBD

publication: Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, vol. 5 no. 1, 1991

558 Joost Ave

San Francisco CA 94127

editors: Joanne Hotchkiss, Alice Rogoff, Will Walker

some other contributors: Geri Digiorno, Jay Griswold, lyn lifshin, A. D. Winans

poem one: “mr. miserable”

first line: “I love you, mr. miserable”

written: TBD

poem two: “singed whiskers”

first line: “in night dresses we play in the park”

written: TBD

poem three: “Apparition in an Off-white Angel’s Suit”

first line: “Mrs. Joe leaves her body”

written: TBD

poem four: “hot ears”

first line: “hot ears / welcome to the cinema”

written: TBD

publication: Tight, vol. 2 no. 4, Nov 1991

PO Box 1591

Guerneville CA 95446

editor: Ann Erickson

some other contributors: Ann Erickson, Leland Stoney, Robert T. Marcacci Jr., Jake Berry

[This post will be continuously updated until I have organized my archives and the list is complete. I will be creating a separate blog post for each year. Contact information for publications is for historical purposes only.]

Published Poems 1990

poem: “35 mph”

first line: “I fed him one grape”

written: TBD

publication: Tight, (issue 1?), Jan 1990

PO Box 1591

Guerneville CA 95446

editor: A. Erickson

some other contributors: Mark Neville, Ralph Smith, Hunce Voelker, Michelena Wilson

poem: “You Choose the Most Inconvenient Times to Leave Me”

first line: “When I’m half-dressed on the”

written: TBD

publication: Sonoma Mandala: literary review, vol. 16, 1989/1990

Department of English

Sonoma State University

Rohnert Park CA 94928

senior editors: Jayne McPherson, Douglas A. Powell 

some other contributors: Mimi Albert, Jerry Ratch, Janine Canan, Amy Trussell

poem: “To the Away”

first line: “The walls, bookshelves still dim,”

written: TBD

contest winners: Glenn Ingersoll, first; Mimi Albert, second; Darin DeStefano, third

contest judges: Elizabeth Herron, Paul Mariah

publication: A Stone’s Throw: a literary review of Sonoma County’s Russian River Writers’ Guild, 1990

Russian River Writers’ Guild

PO Box 1123 

Sebastopol CA 95473

managing editor: D. Jayne McPherson; associate editors: Richard Benbrook, Carol Ciavonne, Glenn Ingersoll, Don McQueen, William R. Snow

some other contributors: Zara Altair, David Bromige, Geri Digiorno, Jim McCrary

[This post will be continuously updated until I have organized my archives and the list is complete. I will be creating a separate blog post for each year. Contact information for publications is for historical purposes only.]

Published Poems 1989

poem: “Not Just the Color of Your Cheeks”

first line: “When I dug my teeth into the peel of the orange,”

written: TBD

publication: First Leaves: Santa Rosa Junior College’s Literary and Art Review, no. 49, 1989

Santa Rosa Junior College

1501 Mendocino Ave

Santa Rosa CA 95401

editors: D. Charlene Wilson, Richard Speakes, Andrea Neptune, Glenn Ingersoll, Andrew Haas, Chandra Bell, Susan Angolani

some other contributors: Maureen Hurley, D. Jayne McPherson, Gerrye Payne, Laurie Posner

[This post will be continuously updated until I have organized my archives and the list is complete. I will be creating a separate blog post for each year. Contact information for publications is for historical purposes only.]

Raise your fist, girl!

eight of nine

Since the post at the end of January I have received notification from all of ONE of the NINE magazines to which I sent work. That's just shy of eight weeks so far for eight of them. Huh. Based on the old days when I was sending work out regularly I expected to have heard from, oh, three or even five by now.

The single response was the sad but popular "these don't meet our needs."

One should not really count the days like this. The goal of the professional is to keep work circulating, to put poems out there without fretting over the fate of any particular batch. You hear when you hear, or you make up a cut-off date and figure any batch that's been out past that date is effectively rejected and you move on.

So I'm not a professional? Yeah, no.

Sending out work for me is emotionally fraught and it's not easy to face that kind of inner turmoil. The world is the world, of course, and goes on about its business without taking an individual's feelings into account. No editor should be worrying about my feelings; they should be doing what they do as best they can, putting in an interesting order work they think of value.

I won't make any money out of this. That's not what's going to happen, not even if I suddenly start getting a zillion acceptances. And the people who make magazines are barely getting by so they can't afford to pay contributors anything, except rarely. It's not about the money.

What is it about? Being part of the conversation? If current literature is a conversation, both with readers and with other writers, then, yes, I want my voice a thread in the weave. I read my contemporaries and it seems to me my work is not out of place. Even if it were, or when it is, I would still want to be noticed. That's ego, isn't it? Yes. But if you think what you say is worthless, you hold your tongue.

the envelope of love

I just walked nine batches of poems over to the post office. Last time I did a serious mailing only a handful of literary magazines were reading email submissions and they were snarky about it. Today I found in my research most have ceased reading work received in physical form. The old self-addressed stamped envelope is looking endangered.

Yay!

Online submissions are easier and cheaper for writers. I look forward to sending more work out that way.

I created a physical mailing because that’s the way you were taken seriously. Up to now. And because I wanted to take the process seriously. It’s been ages since I really committed to sending work out. Assembling the whole package — addressing the envelopes, the SASE, the stamps, the cover letter — it’s dispiriting. Especially, of course, when the hope and eagerness is bitten away at by the fat SASE of rejection. The times I have sent out work in the few last years I asked in my cover letter that the manuscript be recycled and NOT returned. The pages were often not something that could be sent out again anyway, what with editors’ pencilings or the puncture marks of staples or just the wear of handling. And if the submission came back pristine, that was its own kind of discouragement. Better the slim envelope of rejection than the fat.

Here’s hoping for the svelte envelope of love.

really, truly

My last post - May of this year - reproduced the last rejection I received. I had sent a batch of poems to the magazine 6 X 6, published by Ugly Ducking Presse in Brooklyn.

Yesterday that batch of poems got rejected again. This is what the editors said this time:

Thank you for your recent submission. We truly enjoyed reading your work. Unfortunately, we didn’t find it to be a good fit for 6 X 6. We wish you the best with your future writing.

I included a SASE, but asked them to recycle the manuscript rather than return it. I’m guessing whoever was in charge of throwing stuff out either forgot to or was reluctant to. When it came time to review poems for a new issue my poems were still lying around and got included in the considerations. Since there was no SASE the editors spent their own money on a stamp and envelope to send me the bad news. Nice of them, eh?

In the first rejection they “really enjoyed … some truly amazing moments.” This rejection they “truly enjoyed [the] reading.” Considering the silence that’s the usual response even to published work, I got a pretty good deal. Two letters claiming to have gotten pleasure from my poems.

“I think you’re a really great guy, but I’m just not that into you.”

A few months ago I sent poems to 6 X 6, a poetry magazine published by Ugly Duckling Presse in Brooklyn. Today came this:

Thank you so much for your submission! We really enjoyed your work - it had some truly amazing moments; however, we did not find it a good fit for 6 X 6. We wish you all the best - happy writing!

Glenn Ingersoll - January 5 reading at Redwood Cafe, Cotati

Glenn Ingersoll will be reading poetry with Alan Bern in Cotati at the Redwood Cafe on January 5, 5-7pm.

musical guests: Steve Shain, bass; Nick Alvan; songs, bass/guitar

Redwood Cafe First Sundays Series
at Redwood Cafe
8240 Old Redwood Hwy, Cotati

Glenn Ingersoll has had work in magazines (Exquisite Corpse, Carolina Quarterly) and ezines (Cortland Review, Shampoo), and has published two chapbooks, "City Walks" (1999) and "Fact" (2013). He was one of the coordinators of Poetry & Pizza in San Francisco, a reading series benefiting nonprofits. He works for the Berkeley Public Library. erkeley Public Library.

Alan Bern has published two volumes of poetry with Fithian Press: No no the saddest (2004) and Waterwalking in Berkeley (2007). He is currently at work on two books: one based on the theme of Sacred Mountains and the other dedicated to his parents. Alan is a storyteller and performer working with the dancer, Lucinda Weaver, as PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space. PACES has performed stage-piece collaborations in Italy and Switzerland; and they have performed as well in local libraries, museums, and bookstores. Alan is also a printer and designer, and collaborates with the artist Robert Woods: they work together under the imprint of Lines & Faces, http://linesandfaces.com/. They produce illustrated broadsides and in 2014 will be printing and publishing the book dedicated to his parents, even greater distances. Alan has worked in public libraries in the East Bay Area for 20 years in a variety of jobs and is currently a Children’s Librarian at Berkeley Public’s Central Library.

Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest in San Francisco, Nov 24

Glenn Ingersoll will be reading as part of the Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest in San Francisco, Sunday, November 24, 2-4pm at the AWE Gallery, 678 Portola. No admission fee.

The Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest was founded by Ron Alexander and happens each spring in Santa Barbara. Sunday's Whitman-Stein is a reunion of Bay Area poets who have read down south.

Ron Alexander created the event to bring poetry to the contemporary LGBT community so named it after two famous American poets, one gay and one lesbian. We're here already, we've been queer a long time, get with it.

To help connect us to our history, poets & listeners alike, Ron asked the poets to read at least one poem by an older gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual poet before reading their own poems. When I read in Santa Barbara in the spring I read a poem by my mentor the pioneering gay publisher, Paul Mariah. I will be reading the same poem in San Francisco.

The other poets:

Nixson Borah (Atascadero) reads Robert Peters

Giovanna Capone (Oakland) reads Pamela Sneed

Marc Hofstadter (Walnut Creek) reads James Schuyler

Tobey Kaplan (Oakland) reads Djuna Barnes

Kit Kennedy (San Francisco) reads Sappho

Jan Steckel (Oakland) reads Gabriela Mistral

more about the venue:
AWE: A Woman’s Eye Gallery
678 Portola Drive
San Francisco, CA
across from Tower Market
in Miraloma Park
free parking at the adjacent Ebenezer/herchurch Lutheran - PURPLE church
(415) 265-8237
http://www.awegallery.com/

more about the Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest:
http://whitman-stein.org

help from mother earth

1:10 a.m., in bed, tired of having Sundy, the shorthair, stomp over my pillow, I'm staring at the ceiling, hand on Sutra, the fat fluffy cat who snores, when there's a thump and a ripple passes under the bed. The cats tore outta there. Hm, earthquake, I said to myself. Now maybe I can get to sleep cat-free.

Glenn Ingersoll - September 2013 readings

Sept 13, Friday, 7pm
with Rebecca Radner
and an open mic
at Caffe Nefeli
1854 Euclid Ave, Berkeley
between Hearst and Ridge, at UCB's Northgate

Sept 15, Sunday, 12noon
with Jamie Asaye FitzGerald and Kathleen Winter
part of the Petaluma Poetry Walk
at Riverfront Art Gallery
132 Petaluma Blvd N, Petaluma
between Western and Washington, downtown

blue sky and gentle breezes

A comfortable day in Berkeley. I'm in flip-flops. Just finished a tuna sandwich here at Bel Forno, where I'm using the wifi, a few sips to go on my mocha.

I wrote in my diary. I have some books to read, will probably get thru a few pages.

Browsing accommodations on Oahu as Kent & I are thinking of visiting his nephew who has a boat there. Randall and his biz partner are running scuba and snorkel trips under the name Hawaiian Diving Adventures. I've never worn a scuba mask and I'd like to give it a go.

K & I prefer a walk in the woods to a walk in the mall and Waikiki, as a seething mass of bodies, does not appeal, so we've never thought much of Honolulu as a destination. But the more I read about the island the more it seems a lot of it is rural. Plus it's not big. From one end of the island to the other travel takes about an hour, according to Google maps.

I'd be fine with a day at museums.

FACT, a book of poems by Glenn Ingersoll

FACT

50 short poem poems

by Glenn Ingersoll

The poems are philosophical, humorous, and often conscious of themselves. The book is small enough to slip into a pocket, handy for those moments stolen for contemplation or distraction.

sample poem:

I am trying to think up
a good poem. I would like it to be good
to make up for all the offenses
of bad poems. Though I suspect that's
too much to demand from my simple skills.
Even a really good poem would be able to atone
for little of the intolerance, torture, and warfare
conducted in the name of poetry.

poems from Fact have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Lilliput Review, Shampoo, Fish Drum, and Fish Dance, and other places.

Go to Alba for four Fact poems.
Go to Shampoo for seven Fact poems.

You can read Steve Masover's response to Fact at his One Finger Typing.

Jim McCrary says, "Glenn Ingersoll is a big poet. It is always good to see what he has to say." Read more at Galatea Resurrects.

As well as a review, the poet Jim Murdoch conducted an interview with me on his blog, The Truth About Lies. Roughly summing up, Jim says, "As a body of work [Fact is] thought-provoking and deals with many aspects of the nature of poetry." In the interview Jim asked about the title; I responded: "The poems did not think of themselves as fiction." Check out the post.

The poet Jan Steckel created a Fact page at Goodreads.com. Jan says, "I loved this little chapbook ... My husband and I cracked up reading its little masterpieces to each other."

price: $5 from the publisher
$6 from me - it's signed & includes a thank you card (while supplies last)
[Fact is currently out of print; neither the author nor Avantacular has copies for sale.]

Avantacular Press
Andrew Topel, publisher
1239 6th St
Orange City FL 32763

you may also direct inquiries to the author
lovesettlement@yahoo.com

Glenn Ingersoll
2015 Cedar St
Berkeley CA 94709

[updated 20 June 2019]

Thousand: Thousand

thou. Sand castle, sandpaper. Let me find you, says the wind. The dog lifts her head, ears pricked, nostrils twitching. What did she hear? Something transdimensional? A worm turning? At one end of the world a bell rings; at the other someone waits, listening for an answer. We made it to the top of the mountain. To get any higher, hail an angel. Or a cyclone. Thank you, days, months, years, for counting. There’s not a minute to lose, yet here they are, all over the ground. How many have you squirreled away? Three two-minute segments, one five-minute, one one.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine

body is waiting, no one in it. Will it let the breath in? The body’s not sure. Sometimes you have to say no. The breath could go back to searching. It’s always been a seeker, anyway. There are grains of sand to check under again. The telephone rings in the house. The only guest picks it up. “No,” he says. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” When he hangs up the phone he feels bad. He goes back to his room. “You and me,” thinks the woman standing over the dog. She’s not intending to take the dog in. I and

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety-Eight

knack. You know how you can be so good at something it doesn’t take any thought? Typing, playing the piano, executing somersaults. When you started working on the task it was difficult, maybe seemed impossible, but you kept at it. At some point it became effortless. Your body no longer needed you to think out each step in the process. Perhaps her husband got lost. Finding a good night’s sleep had been impossible. He took a wrong turn. His breath returns to his body having not found him in the dust and ash, having searched the sands without luck. The

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety-Seven

goat stew. The woman smiles at the dignified swing of the dog’s approving tail. The scrapings drop out of the pot into a washtub that long ago split down one side, some of the stew in burnt chunks and two bones thick as a fist. The pup ducks under his mother’s chin to snatch one and lope off for a lone and satisfying gnaw. The dog pretends she didn’t notice. The woman laughs. It’s her first laugh of the day. Earlier she was listening to her husband breathe. Breath didn’t seem at home in him anymore. Or he’d lost the

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety-Six

If the dog knew she was really a princess, having been enchanted into this form by a vindictive fairy, she betrayed no hint of it. Her second litter was weaned by this time, though the most teat-addled of her sons still had to be bitten once or twice a day. He didn’t hold it against her and would curl up at her feet while she slept. This sunny but chilly afternoon the dog trots around to the back of the guesthouse, and finds the proprietress, serving spoon in one hand, pot to be scraped out in the other. Smells like

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety-Five

When a car or a donkey cart needed by, the dog would get to her feet, yawn, and move aside, doing this favor purely, you could tell, out of the goodness of her heart. With the traveler past she would return to the otherwise restful spot as it made sense to. She kept up daily rounds, reviewing the usual dumping places, keeping tabs on the comings and goings of other dogs and engaging in the occasional exchange over hierarchy, enjoying the infrequent scratch behind the ear by a friendly hand or dodging the less pleasant boot. She didn’t bark much.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety-Four

I can only reply: You have beautiful lips. I love to see them move. They open, they close, they purse, they spread. You make fine noises. Such a variety of noises! I can feel their atmosphere, the conforming of air to your purpose. It’s a local, ephemeral sculpture. Paint it. Make a mold. Let it go. Once upon a time there was a dog. The dog had no name. None had been given to her. Other dogs recognized her by her smell, by the way she moved, the sounds she made, her shape and attitude. She slept in the street.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety-Three

to let that good go. It’s built into you. It’s not like ungrasping something. More like taking your bones out and laying them on the table then loving the wondrous sensation of being boneless. You never knew you could relax so much. It’s not easy, that’s what I’m saying. To stop meaning. How can I express it in words? Words are meaning objects. They aren’t anything but meaning. Except noise. Some music maybe. The bodies making them. Squiggles on the page. So go with noise, bodies, traces left on surfaces. But can’t those be read, too? you protest. To which

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety-Two

which the received version is surely garbled. You look it over. You think to yourself, I can fix it. The muffler, for example, it means that I was always a quiet baby. My mother’s smile symbolizes creative potential and it takes two to create. Stuff like that, you know. A dream doesn’t mean what it presents as, nonsense. It really means really profound shit. There’s a good reason you dreamed that. Right? Well, that’s your mind. Working away. Coming up with gods and symbols and finding faces in burnt tortillas. That’s your mind. It can be good. But it’s time

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety-One

with that, that’s unnatural. Surely an abomination. Like shellfish, like little piggies. Like aeroplanes and choo-choo trains and mechanical lambs eating plastic ivy. God isn’t dead. God was never alive so death had no opportunity to be involved. God is one of the many manifestations of non-life. Like a star, like a cold little comet whose gravity is just enough to keep its icy heart from breaking up. If I have a meaning I’m ignorant of it. I suppose I could be like a dream where the dream isn’t the answer but provides the opportunity to retell a tale of

Thousand: Nine Hundred Ninety

car, whispered conspiratorially, you’re convinced, hatching a plan to boost your Cadillac. This is the sort of entrée your mind serves up when your eyes are shut and your breathing steady and it’s dark and it’s only you in there, only you and your meaning-making mind which is ever working, ever fiddling. Maybe you just want to rest. But that’s not the way it works. You’re a meaning-making animal. Letting that go, taking your hand off the wheel of the relentless inner drive and shedding the fear that meaninglessness will hurt you, living instead in meaninglessness’s inscrutable purposes and fine

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty-Nine

Indeed, sometimes you need to let go the frenzied grasping after meaning. Take pleasure in mystery. Live in it undispelled. Ignorance as sensuous experience. Your mind may thwart your intentions and present a meaning on a platter. That is its nightly habit. Every dream threads random objects into a vital narrative: your mother’s conniving smile, a rusty muffler, the aftertaste of carpet slippers. The mind tells you you took your mother to dinner and proudly asked for two orders of carpet slippers, the house specialty, but all during the meal she whispered to the rusty muffler from your dad’s first

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty-Eight

fine. Understanding is overrated. Have you ever watched a foreign film without subtitles? Or read a modern poem? If it really doesn’t matter whether you understand you can appreciate other things. The music in language, say. Birds sing in the trees and we’re told they do it to attract a mate. Is that everything? It’s a lot, sure; everybody knows that who doesn’t have a date for Saturday night. But singing’s probably a pleasure for the singer, too. Maybe birds are sending sophisticated messages, messages we have yet to decode. I’m not saying we shouldn’t bother seeking meaning. Except sometimes.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty-Seven

No doubt we’ll recognize it, having never been there before. I hope there’s a mattress. I don’t know about you but I’m ready for a good lie down. The crocodiles were just the icing on the cake with the cake being death. It isn’t easy to eat. You want to have your cake and eat it, too. You know that saying, right? I’ve never understood it. What’s the point of cake if not eating it? Somebody explained it to me once and I kinda got it. But I forgot. I’m so over cake. If I have to die never understanding,

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty-Six

slip back under. Just as it disappeared, a second fin, slightly farther away, rose, the tip sparkling where the sun caught in the water on the skin. “I see them,” I remember saying and turned to my mother. She didn’t see them. It made me think, if she’s staring right at them and she doesn’t see them, what else doesn’t she see that’s right in front of her face? Only later did I think to wonder that about myself. Now I figure it happens all the time. The dolphins will take us to the place we’re supposed to end up.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty-Five

here. I’ve always loved dolphins. I had a friend once who was an angel or something and he brought me out to the sea he was actually my mother’s friend or he was the son of my mother’s friend and we went out to the sea it was all of us my mother my mother’s friend and my mother’s friend’s son and he showed us you could see the dolphins going by. He pointed out to sea and at first I couldn’t see anything but when my eyes adjusted I saw a fin rise out of the water and then

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty-Four

we are too late for mermaids. You’re always too early or too late for something. What you have to figure out sometimes is what you’re right on time for. Ready? Lead on, Velma! Go! Yes oh close one yip ha missed me oof wet off! ugh! yeep! thanks watch out for no for that yes and that over oops yup whew yipe don’t slip faster good feint watch this! like that? almost there one two another whoops gotta go left no right no left no eek ah dolphins! Boy, are we glad to see you kids! Let’s get out of

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty-Three

a dragonfly in a pond near a monk’s house, as a fairy tale princess, and as, um, was it a dog? A wolf! Of course. Anyway, being as Velma is crocodilian herself she will know best how to navigate this island consisting entirely of crocodiles. She suggests we step primarily upon a crocodile’s shoulders, hips secondarily, and move on as quickly as we are able. As they all are large, being trod upon will rile them less than were they of an average size. On the far side we will meet up with dolphins. Or mermaids, although I rather suspect

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty-Two

keep. Watch out for ferries! Oh the days go by like horses, the days go by like shoes, the meals are all in courses, and which toes that I don’t use I’ll have to put in purses to make sure that they won’t bruise. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it? Lowering clouds, lightning, hail, and sheer. Why, if there were any more sunshine we’d have to pour it in trays and freeze it for later. Ah, we’ve reached the Isle of Crocodiles. This is Velma, our guide. She is a caiman of exceptional grace and gloss who did time as

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty-One

will gobble it up. My penmanship isn’t very good, but what secret is legible? There. Now take my hand. Step slowly, for your opposite below will be placing a foot just so and you must meet it. Just as the foot below will hold you up, your foot holds the other down. The water people would drown in air, as you would drown in water. And we don’t want any drowning. Not in the land of the dead. That would be too ironic! Have you got the rhythm? It’s easy once you’ve got the rhythm. We have an appointment to

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighty

that again. You could kiss your own, so you know what I mean. I like the way the tiny silver and black fish turns behind your brow, like it’s a thought, one you’ve been mulling for some time. It doesn’t look like a dreadful thought, that’s good. But it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. It looks like it’s going in circles, frankly. I am going to write on water. It’s a secret message. But since I’m going to write it on your forehead, the reflection of your forehead, I’m sure it will sink right in. Maybe your little fish

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy-Nine

I would walk all the way around the sun if I could. I would walk deep into the speckled darkness between stars. I would step transdimensionally, one foot alternating with the other until I crossed time in every direction and set foot in every dimension. So let’s see if water will hold us. I like the way, as we look down, we see ourselves looking up. Wave at them! They are so cute! Let us kiss our reflections, you know you want to. I will kiss your reflection, you kiss mine. Your reflection is a good kisser! I could do

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy-Eight

out of fuel. Which of us will be the last one burning? The last to burn out? Cinderella, Cinderella, hurry on home. The coachmen are about to turn back into rats, the horses into toads. What is that I smell? Someone left the home fires burning. We can swim for it. Look there, on the jostling surface, I see a footprint. And another. Glistening like oil, calming what the oars and keels stirred up. Nice long toes on that foot, broad heel, purposeful stride. If you can walk on water, where can’t you get to. I like to walk, too.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy-Seven

there yet, at least we’re here. Wherever we are is here. There’s no getting away from that. You made the coffee just the way I like it. Out of leprechauns. Sweetened with the milk of angels. I’ll be up all night. But in a good way. It will give me time to think. The world will be quiet, all distractions hidden away. The ship is late. Perhaps it is adrift. Can we get the news? Turn up the radio. All I hear is crackle, the crackle of the fire. It’s a very old fire. It will burn until it runs

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy-Six

food on cruise ships. Big name entertainment. Gambling. Beautiful island beaches to visit or historic churches full of unique local touches, stained glass featuring native motifs, for instance, hand carved friezes displaying local gods reimagined as the conqueror’s gods. I look forward to the fresh unnamed fruit, the spices referred to solely in metaphor, the good news on tongues that are warm and tender and different and homely. Smiles. Slowly getting to know another way of life. No tears. No lost reservations. No seasickness or diarrhea. No strangers. Thanks for getting us coffee while I dreamed. We’re here. If not

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy-Five

the paths of riotous footballers, angry drunks, civic protest, and screaming children and among these shall we offer the calming influence of eternally restful words of advice, and we will pass out beads given us by the angels, rare and precious beads of common make. We will kiss cheeks, smooth and rouged, sweaty and bristly. We will pat backs and slap hands. Then, our duties done, we will step onto the down escalator to the dockyards on the river Lethe where we will lounge on benches, waiting for the cruise ship that will take us upriver. I understand there’s great

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy-Four

O heavenly chorus. O hellish choir. What is there for us? To what may we aspire? I want to be a real boy! I want to be destroyed. I want to be adored. I want nor less nor more. Have you put on the octopus gloves? How many lovers can you count as loves? Is this a trick question? Is this a lesson? A lesion? Confusions and contusions, we look after them. Let us go now, you and I, like a patient just a bit too etherized upon the table. The angels will grasp our hands and lead us down

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy-Three

I called in favors. Where it ended it had to begin. A new religion was crafted out of old mysteries. I don’t think there’s anything in that bag of tricks for me. In the empty head a candle is being situated. The flicker illumines the cavern but only a piece of it, a corner. Your mind fills in the body. The trail is cold because the snow covers it with a white blanket. Muddy pawprints decorate the comforter. We will be nice to each other. We will be kind. I can name that song if only the chorus will sing.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy-Two

It would be perfect. It would be the last thing, the latest thing, the very thing. It would be a crime. It would be just fine. I don’t know what to say. What is going to happen next is bad. The destruction of all pleasantness. Poof! That’s how it will go. Quick like that. Or maybe slow, drawn out over eons. The mayor’s appointment secretary flicks the corner of the transcendental butler’s business card with a hard red fingernail. Death has provided a career opportunity. Once I had an education. It held me in good stead. Then I had connections.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy-One

If you listen closely, you can hear gurgles in the earth, rumbles, the scream of things changing shape, the bark and grunt of one kind becoming another, silence that passeth understanding. If you listen closely, you will hear the turning. I don’t want to hear it. There are too many noises, there are voices. Where are you now? Standing in the need of air? Standing in a shaft of light? Standing in the way of control? Pissing, drinking, running, lying? Tell me. Tell me and I promise. I promise. I swear. Cross my heart. It would be nice to hope.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Seventy

A new perseverance will climb onto the bus, work its way to the back, brushing knees and packages and chickens. There won’t be a seat at the table, for every seat will be piled with papers and the numbers track the decline of moralists. Put yourself in place, the long place empty of cats and beer cans. The pigeon understands art. Moths drink the tears of orphan elephants. It is harder being blind, the lame girl says, touching the corn, the corn’s damp beard. The rain lays into the grain, the weight of it pressing toward the common earth. Shh.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Nine

Suffering is part of the process. When you are done you will feel tremendous relief. Death is your friend. Dried seeds. A rope bridge over the gorge. Green meat. The beautiful crystal, the strange beast, the chaise longue, a pyramid of butter. When you awaken, you will be traveling. Rocks and grubs and trees. It was a fanciful glass object. It was a veritable feast of grandeur. It was a pill of salt. Read again the last bit, the part that concerns you more than any other. Don’t be sad. Choose to be hearty. Let the bricks fall in June.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Eight

put up your umbrella against meteors, and retrieve the book of instructions. Put the book on the table on its spine. It should fall open to the page you need. What does it say? Go ahead and read the instructions aloud. Many friends and relations are waiting to hear. Don’t be embarrassed. The instructions may not be immediately easy to understand. You may have to think on it. When others tell you what you should do, listen respectfully. Nod. Thank them for their wisdom. But do not do anything they tell you. This itself may be difficult advice to follow.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Seven

to the rim of the crater, you will get to the foot of the stairs. But will you get all the way? The ball keeps losing air. Smoke tumbles from the bowl. The blue ribbon needs dusting. The dried flowers survived the house fire and now stink of soot and ash. The lake on the other side of the road only ever existed on the map, drawn there for copyright reasons. Auguries and bobcats. A wedding of vomit and paradise. When you are alone, wearing your glittering mask, and a flash for a moment hides the moon, you have to

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Six

the whither, the yawn, the long con, the soft porn, the strong heart and the broken. Where will the bean stalk pierce the clouds and which palace will the ant find pregnable? What will you tell your friends? Is there a vote for character in that calabash? I remember you, the wind says, touching each leaf. I remember you, says the last leaf yanked from the branch, but the memory slips under the surface of the stream which is already icing over. Is it far? No. No, it isn’t far. You’ve gone much greater distances. You will get to the

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Five

The tingling of an art, tuned to a C or to a bow through which water falls, cutting colors from white, villagers standing nearby, one odd one dancing. The four who got cut and felt. Orange houses, the white out, again only in overcoats, dilaudid computed for a full skull. The boy this time in the bath with lace, bubbles confusing black hair. Littler, ever littler and harder to locate. Weather vainly riparian, the shot out of the gun, it was fennel and rocket. If I had to live I would live with candy. A better day scene, chatting about

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Four

impotence, grace exhaling across whales. Sometimes you are able to touch, to reach out and touch. A shadow draws a line down your face. In a formal kilt, a boutonniere of orchid gratitude. Snowflakes catch in the lashes. An otter’s head rises from the green river, a cascade of silver. Between trucks the flight of the fish. Boy and girl at the end of the dock wait for the fact of the eye, a biographical extension into the lie of the moon. Families are fine for afternoons. Where evening was set aside, light accidentally framed a black ear, a braid.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Three

the twist confront amended then, in a bright mews, fendering the small snicker with two loops and a squint. Say you love and with your love conspire. Say you love and dislodge the mud, the reckoning with wit of a piece with a never sampled burden, a light stirring of frank assessment in the wee hours, what a pile of murder weapons in an evidence locker contributes to the human swindle, where the bridge stretches, naked cables and burnished rivets, purchase on a foundation of despair the happy fall. We will not abide, the wharf rat whispered, such signs, such

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Two

Jesus’ insides. It’s a familiar tune. Are there words? What are words for? No one listens anymore. A tiled tightrope wearing fresh across the nucleus draws sighs from the forest soak. Jesus parts his lips. O yea, lions of laughter and salience, come forth, the north-facing slant of the yardarm conspiring in williwaw, a yellow mirror down in arches, the flail of the old grim parent cupped in tutoring, walnuts. The rampant fast well in hand, the purple sang in all wheedle. Rolling over battered red youth, the white weeds bungle the make. Box after box, mild after smiled, mending

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-One

After the passage has curved away from the light on the angel and the shadows deepen until the only illumination is the faint glow from the path, a glow so insignificant it sometimes seems imaginary, the stone wall the left hand touches, touches lightly here and there, has it softened? It’s not just a change in the hardness, a greater smoothness, but there’s a warmth, a friendly warmth, a cozy, welcoming warmth. The wall’s texture has become silky. Could this be fur? The hand is finding much pleasure sliding along, feeling its way. A humming greater than his own tickles

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty

his lips and peers at the page, bringing it closer and closer until it bumps his nose. His mouth begins to form the shapes of words, though silently. Jesus closes the door. The light pouring into the cave is still so bright Jesus can’t really make out the angel’s body, though he can hear sobbing. He turns away. Holding one hand out to the side, his fingers in contact with the wall, Jesus ventures on into the dark. Heaven. It could be worse. Jesus hums to himself as he walks. Wherever the path takes you, that is where you go.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty-Nine

chair beside a round endtable holding a brass lamp with a yellow shade. The lamp stands on a lace doily and casts a warm glow. A merry fire dances in a brick fireplace. On the chair’s seat cushion a blue bound volume has been laid open face down. As Jesus watches, a man in a cardigan sweater hobbles across the room and leans with one hand on an arm of the chair. The other picks up the book which he presses against his chest. Slowly he spins around, and with evident caution lowers himself into the chair. The man smacks

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty-Eight

the light that it seems to be deconstructing him, too, the light peeling away in a shell that splits and and shivers and sunders. Jesus takes another step back, turns his face away, his eyes so overwhelmed they see nothing now but a green panel. Wherever he turns the green panel floats before him. No, he’s not blinded, for a little further down the path Jesus sees another door. Green, of course. Like the first this door has no handle. With a firm push, the door’s latch disengages and the door swings open. Within he sees a wine-red leather-upholstered easy

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty-Seven

Jesus tries to see what he’s uncovered. Light. That seems to be it. White light fills the doorway. The angel crawls forward on his knees, bowing his head, holding the bundle out as though it were an offering. When he gets to the edge, where the gravel of the path gives way to nothing but light, he leans as far forward as he can and the bundle of dead leprechaun seems almost to disappear into the light, seems almost to bleed away in thin hair-like streams into the light. The angel is sobbing, his gold skin reflecting so much of

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty-Six

toward it. A line perpendicular to the ceiling, a line parallel to the first, two more horizontal, one of those above, one low to the floor. As it looks like the outline of a door, Jesus feels for a handle. He finds none. He tries pushing. At first push, nothing moves, but tried at the other side, there’s some give. He pushes until it resists then withdraws his hand. The door swings open, a swath of light falling into the dark cave. Dazzled, Jesus steps back, covering his eyes with his sleeve. “Oh! Oh!” cries the angel. Squinting and blinking

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty-Five

from scratch. There were times he bluffed his way back into an old life, once as a long lost son come to claim his rightful inheritance; once as himself having been lynched, now stalking his killers as vengeful ghost (he smiles at the memory); once as himself having learned the secret of eternal youth. It is damned dim in here. When Jesus looks at his feet they are merely black blobs against the path’s fading glow. The angel is panting. “Is this it? Are we here?” Just ahead Jesus detects a faint line of light. A line? He walks softly

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty-Four

many lives, he has a pretty good sense of what’s going to happen next. He can get blasé about it, thinking he’s seen it all, nothing can surprise because when was he last surprised? He’s seen people behaving badly and heroically, lovingly and cruelly. He’s learned the ways of most every culture, in a few lives while the other sex. Learning to be a woman was tricky, and the process taught him empathy all over again. That was then. You’ve tried human every which human way. What’s next? Another kind of animal? When Jesus opens resurrected eyes, he’s gotta start

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty-Three

his neck. Did it twitch? Did it squirm? The angel’s golden heart beats golder. The corners of his mouth twitch, squirm as though uncertain what to do with a smile. Jesus, meanwhile, rubs his belly which has not yet been filled this lifetime. Is the path getting dimmer? By now, even if stone hasn’t met stone above, they are walking as in a cave, looking up frequently to gauge the height of the ceiling, letting a look linger in shadows where passages or treasures might hide. Jesus likes it when he knows what’s going to happen next. Having lived so

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty-Two

fly,” the angel suggests. “If I fly around and reconnoiter we can see where we’re going.” “You don’t know where we’re going?” “I don’t know where we’re going?” the angel stammers, squeezing one hand in the other. “What do you mean?” As they press on the rock on either side of the path continues to rise and lean inward, closing out light from above. If the path itself were not aglow they would be stepping in darkness. “You don’t know where we’re going?” Jesus repeats. “I know where we’re going,” the angel says mechanically. One hand presses the bundle around

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty-One

path snaking among hills, then back at the angel. “That leprechaun’s only getting deader.” “No! Please!” cries the angel, falling to his knees. “You lead the way! You are the one! You are the one I must follow.” Jesus crosses his arms over his chest. “You dragged me up to heaven.” Jesus nods at the path. Trembling, the angel gets off his knees, bows humbly to the son, and, constantly looking over his shoulder, begins to walk ahead. Gradually the hills rise up around them until they are so hemmed in, it seems they will soon be underground. “I could

Thousand: Nine Hundred Fifty

Don’t let that worry you. God wouldn’t be in heaven otherwise. You ever heard of anybody living allowed into heaven? Deposited on the spongy floor of the divine destination Jesus yanks his hair out of the angel’s mouth. “God will bring the leprechaun back,” the angel hisses, sure Jesus would feel ashamed before his Father. The winding sheet Jesus wore in the desert now shimmers like heavenly robes and a shining path glistens before his naked feet. The angel steps back, alarmed. Jesus shakes his head. “You know heaven so well, lead the way to God.” He glances at the

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty-Nine

I asked for cupcakes,” the angel says, wiping a tear. “I did ask for cupcakes.” Quickly he rewraps the leprechaun, tying the bundle around his neck. Then he spins on Jesus. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for making me do this.” And the angel kisses the Son of God on the head, lipping two hairs in the gesture. The wings swing open and in two beats they are in the air, headed straight up. When you know the way it doesn’t take but a moment to get to heaven. The theatrics of a take-off aren’t necessary. God is dead.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty-Eight

heard mention of cupcakes. Cream cheese frosting? Devil’s food?” The angel grinds his crystalline molars. “I,” says the angel, “I could. Get you. Cup. Get you cup.” “That sounds nice.” The angel steps backward into the campfire and is gone. Jesus looks again at the dead spider. With the now merely glowing stick Jesus pokes the spider’s side. It rocks stiffly, the legs frozen in curl. Jesus grunts dismissively and returns the stick to the flame. Bearing a plastic-wrapped cardboard tray the angel reappears. “Your cupcakes, lord,” he says, dropping them on the ground. “Those are muffins,” Jesus says. “But

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty-Seven

Wait.” Jesus bites his lip. “Explain for me, could you, explain for me my duties in this. Matter. And. No, hang on, before you get started, be sure to include what’s in it for me.” The angel’s scowl darkens. “You’re telling me, even though you are God himself, you haven’t the power to save this creature! You haven’t the grace, the mercy to bring back from the brink of extinction the leprechaun race?” Jesus scratches his bearded cheek. “You’re finished? That’s it? I missed the part where you offer cupcakes?” “You’d do it for cupcakes!” “Cupcakes,” says Jesus, nodding. “I

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty-Six

Jesus scoots over a little so the bundle is no longer between him and the fire. The angel folds his arms across his golden chest; his great white wings spread and rustle. Leaning forward, Jesus snatches up a burning brand and applies the flame to the lower feathers. The angel scowls. “Don’t do that.” “What’s the difference? Looks like you’re good and fire proof.” “The leprechaun,” says the angel. “The leper pawn,” sasses the one newly returned to life. When the angel continues to stand where he’s planted, Jesus shrugs. “What’ve you got for me?” “Your duty.” “My? Uh. Yeah.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty-Five

steps out of the fire, stands over the man sitting cross-legged in the dust. “What do you want?” Jesus says, not looking up. The angel lowers a bundle to the ground and unfolds the cloth. Inside the bundle lies a spider the size of a cooking pot, dead on its back, legs bent in like burnt sticks. “The last leprechaun,” the angel intones, waving a hand over the corpse. “That’s not a leprechaun.” “That’s what a leprechaun looks like when it has starved to death.” “Bullshit.” “I have brought the last leprechaun to you, my lord. You have the power.”

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty-Four

about. But, you know, who doesn’t? He stirs the coals with a stick, and a swirl of golden sparks dances up from the circle of stones. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, he thinks irrelevantly. I’ve been a king more than once. I’ve been a mendicant, a pauper, a doctor, a thief, a blacksmith, and a farmer. A slave. More than once. He covers a yawn, then rubs his face. Lots more than once. Some lives I even remember the other lives. That’s nice, he thinks. But there’s something to be said for forgetting. Nearby a camel snorts. An angel

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty-Three

set them on fire. If you don’t, he’ll think you don’t like him. Jesus is sitting by a campfire, recovering from his latest resurrection. He’s been burnt to death several times. The first time he returned to life he would cringe whenever he approached a fire, but then he drowned. After that fire wasn’t a bother. He fingers his neck, which was broken by one of the guards of the ancient city. It’s okay now, he supposes, and turns his head carefully from side to side to make sure. Smooth, not even a crackle. Sometimes he wonders what it’s all

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty-Two

done, who haven’t walked a mile in your moccasins, who haven’t drunk the milk of your tits, who haven’t swooned appropriately in long dry meetings, well, for them empathy can be a challenge. They just don’t understand. You think you’ve signed the right contracts, kicked back cash money to the right bureaucrat, danced and danced and danced and danced and danced until the convulsions of transcendental exhaustion have you turning jaguar, but it’s a bust. That’s how everything has been constructed. Shoddy solder, weak glue, frayed cord. Your dreams will fall apart on you. If God gives you purple daisies,

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty-One

I tell the angel. “Take it in good health. Go far with it. Do with it exactly what needs doing.” I continue pronouncing these vacuous fragments of advice for several thousand years or whatever, all alone. It’s hard to be alone, even if you contain multitudes. It’s hard to know everything, even if everything was built into you by creation, which took place at the same time. Nothing’s easy. Not even being easy is easy. You have to make it look easy, but that can be tricky, because people can be suspicious, although, for those who haven’t done what you’ve

Thousand: Nine Hundred Forty

were to take a body, where would you go?” “I don’t know,” I say. There are so many places. Places where nobody will pinch your cheek. Places where everybody’s nice. But would any of those places need what I have to teach? What do I have to teach? Give the angel the shift. If you cease to exist, so what? Ceasing to exist is a standard product of existence. Being conscious of existing is what? Unusual? Perhaps I should throw myself into the dream. In the dream bodies are always available, no special arrangements necessary, no permissions. “Take the shift,”

Thousand: Nine Hundred Thirty-Nine

Tears give way to a ferocious grin. Grin gives way to puzzlement. The hands all leave off their distractions and leap to the head, stopping it on a face of inner contemplation and peace. Eyes half-lidded, mild smile, unlined brow, round cheeks. The lips part and in a humble tone the angel says, “Might you allow me to borrow the transdimensional shift?” Oh. “That’s a big favor to ask,” I say. “You know what it means to me?” “I will owe you,” the angel says. “But what do you need it for? There are places barred to you?” “If you

Two 922s

Oops. I seem to have posted two 922s. I wrote while on the road, that’s my excuse. So tomorrow I will post 939. I may renumber the posts. I also note that I ended a recent post with a “the” only to begin the next day’s post with a “the”, thus if one were to read the posts in proper sequence one would read “blah blah blah the the blah blah”. Tsk. It’s been ages since I asked anyone if they had any thoughts they wanted to share. Readers? Two months until the final words. Should we have a wrap party?

Thousand: Nine Hundred Thirty-Seven

The angel’s hands spread fans, blossom full of colors, squeeze down into green stones. A left courts a right with dainty flutters. The right, bashful, dips and hides. Another left pursues a right with hungry fury, catching and gnawing on the frightened wrist. Three rights layer one upon the next, the bottom’s slightest twitch telegraphing up the stack. The head that has swallowed all the other heads now opens to receive an eight-toed food, leg follows up to the knee where the jaws clack shut. The head resumes its slow revolution, the eating face giving way to one dropping tears.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Thirty-Six

ask the angel. “I didn’t pass it, did I?” The last kiss proves to be not just open-mouthed but consuming. The angel swallows the head right up. Then he pops head after head into the open mouth. “I need to tolerate pain. That wasn’t even big pain. Not like getting a leg sawed off or having nails pounded into your hands. If I’m going to be wandering around telling truths I have to be ready to. I have to be. I.” Was I really thinking my teachings would be so easily accepted? I just need to reach the right people.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Thirty-Five

not if I have all time to hide in. You can’t hurt me. That’s not me. That is your own face, angel. Play with it as you wish. The angel yanks the face from the wall by the bit of skin caught in the pinch, gives the face two brisk shakes, then reaffixes it to the blank head on the floor. The eyes blink. The angel picks up the head and raises it to the lips of its other heads, its other faces, each sharing a kiss with the head and its freshly recovered lips. “Was that a test?” I

Thousand: Nine Hundred Thirty-Four

Fuck. Why won’t you listen to me? Why won’t you stop! I know pain is bad. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it being suffered. Stop! Oh oh ooh. A pinch is just a pinch. It’s just a bit of skin. Maybe some muscle’s caught. You can live without a cheek. It’s not even my face then is it it’s just a face a mask nothing behind it the wall that’s all that’s behind it the wall my body but so little of my body spread through ow spread ow through time time I have all time you can’t hurt me

Thousand: Nine Hundred Thirty-Three

clench, I begin to moan. The pinch tightens again. Ah, pain. Yes. This is what pain is like. It’s a valid lesson. If I am to incarnate I need to preview pain as well as pleasure, distress as much as delight. But, you know, angel, you know, uh. Ow. You can stop now. I’ve got the idea. This hurts. You know this hurts, don’t you? Surely if you keep this up, you will do some damage. Ow! Stop it. Stop! You can stop now. Please. Please stop now. Please stop. Oh please. Please stop. Ow. Oh God oh. Stop! Stop!

Thousand: Nine Hundred Thirty-Two

had a face before. Of all the parts that make me up, across billions of alternate planes, has there never been a face? Two eyes, a nose, a mouth? Does it matter? Let me enjoy this one. I like to smile. I like to scowl. I blow out the lips, I suck them in. I like rolling these eyes, flaring these nostrils, raising these eyebrows. The angel tickles my nose with a pink feather and I sneeze. The angel scratches my chin and I purr. The angel pinches my cheek. Ow! The pinch tightens. My brow draws in, my teeth

Thousand: Nine Hundred Thirty-One

all scowl. On the face the angel pressed to the wall I create a scowl. The angel’s head turns and the next face looks sullen. With this new face I go sullen. The angel presents a soft smile. I feel it, a soft smile. It feels like my smile. It’s nice. I like it. The angel laughs. I laugh. Hilarious! The angel put up a face on my wall, in the chamber carved within the body of this comet I ride, I am. The angel put up a face. Is it mine? The angel gave me a face. I’ve never

Thousand: Nine Hundred Thirty

hand. One bald head, crown down, spins on a middle finger. Another rolls chin over peak up an arm to the shoulder. When it rolls back down, the hand cradles it. Another hand swings in and unfastens the face from the head, presses it to the wall like a suction cup. “Open these eyes,” the angel says. So I blink them. The angel looks like a lump of coal. I blink again. The angel looks like a diamond screaming. I blink again. The head on top of the angel’s single neck turns like a carousel. The face passing now is

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty-Nine

are ready to tell all. To whom?” “To everybody,” I say, hearing how impossible that is. “Maybe,” I try again, “maybe just to the right person. Or people.” “The right person or the right people,” the angel echoes and I hear how ridiculous that sounds, too. Everybody has something to learn. “I still think it’s a good idea. If I try. If I had a body, one that could talk. One that.” I don’t know. “One that could show. One that could.” I don’t know what to say next. The angel is juggling its heads, passing them from hand to

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty-Eight

the hand a small fire flickers. Dipping a finger from the fourth right hand into the flame the angel ignites it, then presses it between the eyebrows. The eyebrows catch flame, and the fingerprint glows like molten glass. Two other hands continue to knit at a purple scarf. Another flips a coin, catches it, flips it again. “What you propose, it has never been done before?” I ought to know the answer. “There have always been teachers,” I equivocate, “some surprisingly wise, considering their limited perspective.” “Limited,” says the angel, tasting the word. “You see all, you know all, you

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty-Seven

me one, he says. "There are things you would like to discuss." "Hello, angel. I need to intervene in history in order to improve life for all sentient beings." "I see. Please continue." "I need a body. With this body I could travel around teaching best practices. Everybody has something to learn. And I, for whom world after world and time after time has been a fountain of info and in whom knowledge has pooled, would make this great stuff available to all." "Your plan has potential." The angel raises one of its seventeen arms. In the palm of the

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty-Six

large swaths of all that will ever remain irrelevant, I can bring my findings to reality and by presenting end them. End the mistakes, that is. It's only logical. It's not like anyone willfully chooses to do wrong. Who does not go forth intending to do right by the universe? If you just lay out the facts, show those who are performing suboptimally the simple behaviors that, once made part of daily routine, will improve conditions for all, they will. They really will. Change their ways? I am placing a call to my angel. I have an angel. He owes

Nine Hundred Twenty-Five

heliosphere? Voyeurs? Narrators? Transdimensional omniminds? I realized, the only limitation to my information gathering activities was my lack of awareness of the places I haven't been looking. So I've been looking for solutions, and, you know, I think I've found them. As one who's been spying on billions of dimensions, I can see what works and what doesn't. Every alternative is not as good as the best choice. With wisdom gained from reading the texts of everywhere and the calendars of everywhen, the faults in everything and the flaws in everybody, and the other stuff that's relevant next to the

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty-Four

of their atoms yanked apart and scattered? Suppose they slipped into a dreamscape. How accessible those are varies tremendously. Most earth-based originals are confined to a narrow range, but it's not like I know precisely how many range further afield or how far that is or in what field. My own range is limited by something, I know. By what? That, I don't know. Must the realms into which I peer all be friendly to my kind? I thought so at first. But then I started to wonder. What is my kind? Icy chunks of rock drifting through the

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty-Three

by a few months and the tired attendant sodas and the stacks of plastic cups upside down? Not even a leprechaun. You'd think there'd be a leprechaun somewhere. Tossed up among the tide wrack. Not that I've looked everywhere. But how could you? You look in a few familiar places because they've been productive, they've rewarded your attention. You know the land. But whatever. Find them or not, what's it matter? Is what happens next vital information? What will be will be, regardless of what I think about it. Suppose they were obliterated? Dropped into an antithetical universe, the quarks

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty-Two

the one that wanders nervously through the Valley of Death, the one fourth from the left that passes under the derelict railway bridge. Bernie, where are you? I am switching channels. I don't see him in the early solar system. Back then there were many small worlds of ice and iron. I feel at home. But I search on. At the end of the world snack bar two young women nurse watery yellow glasses of lemonade. But I don't see Bernie. In the meeting room with the dusty tables and unopened tortilla chip bags which have exceeded their expiration dates

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty-Two

already were. Passing through. Maybe that's all it takes, one wave will rise and carry you over. Maybe you make the crossing to escape the wave because, really, being run over by a wave could have consequences. Better to make the jump first, make the decision yourself, not kowtow to the force of no-mind, refusing to allow the way of the world be your way, your true and only way, stepping of your own volition to the other path, the one the forced marches beat into the earth, the one the gnomes paved by the patter of leathery feet

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty-One

wishes his mind was less open to kitsch. He opens his eyes. The elevator hasn't disappeared. Nor has Sir. Nor has the bent little creature who is looking up with a hungry lear. Nor has the Olmec head, although its expression does seem to be making room for a less imperious certainty over the world's turns. When another ripple hurries toward them, this one larger than any other, Bernie feels this dimension stretching out toward it, thinning, thinning and becoming permeable, as though any move any one of them made would snap them through to elsewhere. Or maybe that they

Thousand: Nine Hundred Twenty

of big-eyed kittens hung on a wall papered with blue and white stripes. A hundred crepe paper spiders skitter over webs of dental floss in a closet built solely to provide spiders corners. A monolith of blue velvet sinks into a mound of freeze-dried tears. A matching monolith knotted into itchy red macramé looms over a base of crystalline fear. Jack Lightning waves from the end of a hall of dusty mirrors. He’s holding a tourguide’s flag, which, it might be noted, matches the flag that snaps in the breeze over the boardwalk at the end of the world. Bernie

Thousand: Nine Hundred Nineteen

feels his mind expand. Yes, all sorts of things fit in it all of a sudden, all sorts of things that could never have gotten in up to now have room to roam. That giant head, for instance. It’s an Olmec head. The Olmec, like the Greeks in Europe, were a foundational civilization. A thousand years after their empire was consumed by the swamps of Veracruz aspects of Olmec culture persisted in Mesoamerica among the Aztecs, among the Maya. And now, up to its lower lip in a quicksilver puddle, the Olmec head glares in consternation at the pretty paintings

Thousand: Nine Hundred Eighteen

through them. Is that nausea? dizziness? or is it the world? Again a ripple rolls through, and, as the metal deforms, the little black creature slips into the elevator and crouches panting beside the dog. Is that a crack in the stone head’s brow, just under the helmet? Was it always there? Bernie holds his hand out and a new ripple bends his fingers, bends his wrist, bends his forearm. He takes a breath as it hits his face. What does it feel like? He closes his eyes. Maybe if he’s not watching, it won’t actually feel like anything. Bernie