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    above me a painted waterfall
    and stars on the ceiling
    all this peace

    makes me feel queer
    the mysteries
    the mysteries

    we could never have predicted
    they become our lives
    and less confused

    calmly in them
    we rotate not psychotic or tragic.
    I have lived in the black crater

    of feeling every moment
    is the moment just after
    one has chosen forever

    to live in the black crater
    of having chosen to live in the black crater
    and therefore I know

    exactly why David Foster Wallace
    took his life away from himself
    even though he was also taking it away

    from everyone he knew.
    This morning I was woken
    by soft sour breath

    a slight fleck of metal
    in the organic
    like a field of titanium gravestones

    growing warmer in the sun.
    I could breathe it for hours
    but now it is gone

    which is ok as long as long as the exhaling
    somewhere else continues.
    Her job is to incrementally

    regulate the conduct
    of those who regulate
    the city and mine is to be

    happy for a few moments thinking
    I could actually be
    one who is happy watching

    afternoon fog pour
    predictably down
    into sunny Noe Valley

    from cold Twin Peaks.

    3

    If you know
    the story of Marco Polo
    you know after a long journey he came

    upon the Mongol armies sleeping
    and wisely turned back
    already composing

    a much more fabulous story
    than not being able
    to report being torn

    apart by four horses
    attached to his limbs.
    From then on wherever

    he went or did not he brought back
    wondrous marvels and lies.
    In this poem

    every word means exactly
    what it means
    when we use it in every day life.

    So when I say I went
    to the grocery store
    and felt too ashamed

    to ask where are the eggs
    only a very small part of me means
    I have returned to report

    we have by our mothers
    been permanently destroyed.
    When the president

    opens his hands
    a door knob
    made of an unnaturally

    heavy substance
    floats up to the blue
    door to the worry factory.

    Open it and down
    drift all the 21st century
    problems, stick out

    your tongue and maybe
    you will taste sunlight
    and maybe ash.

    Go little president!
    We are all blowing
    into your wings!

    We promise to no longer
    be transactional
    in our personal dealings!

    We promise no longer
    to know some things
    are important but one

    does not need to know why.
    If the heart makes
    the sound of two violins

    sleeping in a baby carriage,
    then new technologies
    cannot make us

    both more loyal and free.
    Wayward free radical dreams,
    I want to be loyal,

    I say it once into the darkness.
    Come on all you ghosts,
    try to make me forget you.

    4

    Come with me
    and I will show you
    terrible marvels.

    The little cough I heard in my mind
    was one I remembered
    my father made just as he died,

    we weren’t sure
    if it was his last breath
    or just some air left in his lungs,

    not that it matters.
    Please don’t feel the least bit sorry
    for me or yourself,

    everyone you have ever seen
    has a dead father,
    some are just walking around alive

    but it’s temporary,
    so bring your sorrow
    for everyone out into the street,

    in the sun. If a nation
    can fall asleep
    it can wake up not

    exactly angry but a little dizzy
    with pleasant hunger.
    A glass of juice.

    A melancholy. Then remember
    we all have something important
    to do today in the sun.

    Come on all you ghosts,
    all you young holding hands
    or alone, all you older

    people and people of middle
    indeterminate age,
    we need you, winter is not

    through with us.
    The sea seems more
    than a little angry,

    and over it blows
    a very cold breeze
    that is also the color grey.

    In this room with its black desk
    sometimes I hear
    the crystal factory whirring

    under a sky
    the color of black
    tabletops entranceways

    and dead light bulbs.
    Are those your hands
    on the switches

    ghosts? All day I have been
    feeling blind, dizzy and enclosed,
    as if I were being carried

    in the hand of a great being
    who insisted he was still
    but I could feel the