by David A. Kirschenbaum and Sean Cole

David's poem is first each day, Sean's second.

Dec. 1

i'm supposed to be seeing my psychiatrist right now,

but i couldn't get out of the house to get there,

i'm supposed to be going to my sister's tomorrow for chanukah,

but i know there's going to be some sort of grief there from her,

it's a little after four in the afternoon 
and my parents just interrupted my nap to say they're driving into the city 
to pick me up to go to my sister's tomorrow because they like keeping the family together.

my mother gave me you know we're not going to be here soon 
and 83 and 88 for her and my dad respectively she's right.

*

I suppose outrunning the bus then having

half a cigarette while it snails up to the Bergen

Street stop is the best of all possible worlds.

It’s raining in Crown Heights. One light

still glows uselessly in my empty apartment  

I was that rushed. I huff, and I puff, and I

blow a deformed smoke ring -- part Christmas

wreath part signal you see out the chimney    

when they choose a new pope. It’s a noose

this dependence. One day I’ll stop sucking  

clouds of shredded money down my talk pipe.

The woman in the bus seat behind mine is trying

to chisel the back of my skull open with her

phone call. She has no -- what’s the word for it? --

compunction. Yes that hospital is where

I went when assaulted in August two years back.

It rained that night too. I stood unspectacled

under the shuttered drug store awning.

This night’s better, if slower. Garbage men

hurl clear bags of cardboard and office

paper into metal elephant.    

Dec. 2

a few weeks beard on me,

mom likes it when i’m clean-shaven

says to me before she goes to the beauty parlor,

“do me a favor, can you shave?”

so i decided to shave,

because i'm not really married to my beard anymore,

and if i can make my mom happy by just shaving my face why not.

whenever i shave i think if i can go back to a van dyke, shaving to longest sideburns,

and today same thing,

but this time i think why don't i shave down to a mustache,

something my dad's rocked since the fifties,

so i trim a mustache out of my beard with the clippers,

then the regular razor,

to cleaning my face off with a hot washcloth,

and lo and behold,

for the first time in over 30 years it's just a mustache and me.

*

Such maintenance!

You buy a vial of beard oil and watch

a web video on how to apply it.

I grew mine to luxuriate in sloth  

and nab escapee alphabet soup characters --

was I moronic! I’d have zuzzed

it off my face by now but keep

getting great reviews. My boss said it’s

“so working” with the same voice

he uses on the radio. You grow

a beard and learn the whole

world of platonic women friends

for whom its some cross between

a puppy and an orgasm. Had I known

I’d be 10% more popular with

a population I shall never romance

I’d have done this beards ago.

Can you hear a beard?

Open-faced sandwiches are

most likely the beards of cuisine.

These days I end every letter with

“Bearded now” yet no one notices.

Come June I have a feeling I will

take a blade the size of Moses

and scrape these fuzz-budgets

off my tear shores.

Dec. 3

first rule about getting a new roommate, get all of the money up front.

second rule, see the first rule.

*

Low today. Though I rode my bike in.

Its name is Roamin’. R-O-A-M-I-N

apostrophe, that’s right, that’ll get me laid.

Drew once wrote he believes his bicycle

is a human being, I’ve never forgotten it.

I forget so many things now, they

fail through me like defenseless meteors.

I had other comparisons piled up behind

that one including “like closets of wind,”

“like unconscious skydiving instructors,”

“like the disuse of old train cars,” “like elderly

mayflies.”    Look at that.

The calendar still says “September.”

No wonder everything seems so

much less than kringle.

Dec. 4

i picked up blueberries

from the fruit stand by my corner

three large packages of them

and so today i had store-brand cheerios with fresh blueberries,

it was a pretty good day.

*

I’m standing outside, by garbage,

in the cold, having just talked to Richard    

Brautigan’s daughter which was

a completely opposite kind of experience.

We talked for two hours, longer than

we’d bargained, about her dad.

I called him “your dad” when I referred

to him which felt funny and she called    

him “dad” which, I’m sure, did not.

She has dreams. He’s alive in them. She tells him,

“You’re alive! I don’t have to do this anymore!”

meaning have a dead father and he says “I know!”

When we got off the phone I needed a smoke

which is why I’m out here. I also need food. Soon,       

I’ll go in and warm up old Chinese food, and after

eating it will sit and crave those mini, “fun size”

Milky Ways that sometimes surprise you by the printer.

I’ll read the part in Brautigan’s book where he hands his

new love interest a candy bar to make her feel better.

Irresponsibly, I’ll doze, and in the limial poppy

field between waking and sleep I’ll “remember”

there being a tray of golden wrappered Halloween

candy action someone forgot about.

Outrageously this will be a dream.

Upon waking I’ll stand up, walk

to the printer and discover a round tin with

red plastic top. Enraptured, I’ll open it up.

Nuts. That’s what I’ll say.

“Aw nuts.”

Dec. 5

i think i'm getting baked tortellini delivered tonight

it never quite lives up to the best tortellini that i've had

but i keep getting it over and over again because i'm hopeful and kind of stupid.

*

On the notebook page opposite

this one is the complete set of notes

I took at the shrink's office this morning. It says:

"Think about Gumby."

Dec. 6

i like

hearing

my mother

talk

*

Told Ianthe —
my mom appeared in a dream too
alive. “But... but,” I said.
“I know,” she said.
I said, “But...
you’re alive!
You’re alive but...
but what...”
She said, “I know.
I’ll explain everything.
But first I need to take a shower.”

Dec. 7

i do need to shower,

but when you know you're not going outside much

there's no real need to.

i have an event next week,

maybe shower then,

maybe.

*

The building they're building out my office window

keeps getting higher and higher and higher. Soon    

it’ll obscure the other building they’re building.

My ex works on the same block now and has

Empire State views. I’ve been up her fifth

floor only once -- bump into her more

than any friend consoled me would happen.

Always know when I will. I told her once.

I was walking to the coffee shop and heard

“Sean!” from behind.

“I need a cigarette!” she said.

“I knew I would see you,” I said. “I always do.”

Today walked to the coffee shop,

ordered a small at the counter, moseyed

toward the lid station and there she was.

I knew it.

Dec. 8

once you're in my development for three years you're able to move from a studio to a one-bedroom apartment,

when i filed the paperwork to do so i put a bunch of different preferences upon the kind of one-bedroom i would take,

certain buildings within the development,

high floors only, and it must have a terrace.

that first year i got no referrals to possible one bedrooms,

so i went back to the office

and changed my preferences

any floor was okay now, all the buildings were okay, but i still wanted a terrace.

within a few weeks i got multiple invitations to look at one-bedroom apartments,

i looked at one on a high floor on 24th and 8th,

but it had a view of a tennis bubble,

then i looked at one on 28th Street that was only on the 6th floor,

but it had these beautiful empire state views,

which i can see from my bed where i'm finishing this poem right now,

almost 17 years later.

*

I can sleep anywhere except bed.

Right now fighting to scrawl this

at Two Saints between sips

of liquid bruise. Last night I

caroused then wound up late

at Pizza Prince. They had to jiggle

me awake after two slices. Days

I spend at my desk fist-fighting

Morpheus roll into nightfall. 9 PM

sees nothing much accomplished,

nothing doing. Night zeros out

to one-handed numbers. Finally

rise. Roll home. Lie down. No dreams.

Dec. 9

winding down a phone conversation with my mom,
she asked where i was when they tried to reach me a couple of times a little while ago.
in the bathroom i tell her.
from now on i'll call you before i go.
okay.

*

“Neo-Nazis Have Declared New Balance

the Official Shoes of White People.”

“What?!” says the bartender. “That’s bullshit!”

“It’s the Wall Street Journal,” says the woman

who read it to him, cradling her phone like

it contains a single, disturbing commandment.

“It’s still bullshit,” he says.

“Why is it bullshit?” she says.

“‘Cause just ‘cause they say something’s

theirs doesn’t make it theirs,” he says.

She reads further: “‘The Obama administration turned

a deaf ear to us and frankly,

with president-elect Trump, we feel

things are going to move in the right

direction,’ Matthew LeBretton

New Balance’s Vice President of Public

Affairs, told The Wall Street Journal.

“Oh,” I say, “That must be old.

If it’s ‘president-elect.’”

“It is old,” she says, “But still.”

Dec. 10

i only wear black new balance,

and i don't know where to go from there,

and if i want to.

*

In my mind

I'm not going to Carolina. But it's May

and I'm on the patio of The Drifter Hotel

in New Orleans. The sun's glaring and you

hardly need the pool to be heated, but it is

and locals and tourists alike lounge around it

sipping desiccants. The thing about The Drifter

though is the dress code. This isn't why

I booked it but for the women, and I guess

the men too, it's "clothing toptional."

I've always loved a good portmanteau.

Dec. 11

woke at 5:30 to pee

rested until the alarm for 7:38

finished packing for trip to folks

out the door by nine

walked down 8th avenue half a mile

until at doctor's 15 minutes early for 9:50 appointment,

defying some expectations.

*

I won’t get out of bed

even when my bladder’s

urging me. It’s cold

in the apartment and I’m

one of the yet-to-be-unpacked

packages jumbled

randomly and full of

stuff that surely ought

to be disposed with.

Dec. 12

option for two free movies today,

one at queens museum whose name escapes me,

second at hewlett-woodmere library,

documentary jane about jane goodall and her chimps,

i've had a huge crush on jane goodall since freshman year at hofstra,

so no brainer.

*

The categories of The Mayonnaise System are:

Meaning of Life

Adventure

Youth

Onanism

Nightmares

Nylon

Asymptomatic Diseases

Israel

Singularity, The        and

Everything Else

All the volumes are organized

according to category and none are

expected to be read in entire nor necessarily

disturbed from their final resting position in

the stacks which is their rightful

position. This has been determined

by committee vote which was zero

noes and one in the affirmative.

Questions may be submitted

to the committee only in person

and will be dispatched with in the order

received unless decided otherwise by

silent quorum. Any unsettling sensation

is regretted in advance. We are a small

body and have but four limbs and ten

fingers with which to execute our manifold

obligations. Sincerely,

-- The Library.   

Dec. 13

my old diabetes nutritionist,

the beautiful one who came to my festival one time in brooklyn,

said cutting down on fat would help me with my diabetes,

i cut the fat in my cottage cheese from 4% to 1%,

i switched from skim milk to soy milk,

and from regular mayonnaise to light mayo,

i switched back from soy to skim because soy costs way too much,

and back from the light mayonnaise to the regular because the light is just horrible,

i'm still with my 1% cottage cheese,

because it treats me swell.

*

Probably the only spot at the bar where

the air blows down your collar from the wall

component and I picked it. I’d’ve moved

to the corner seat but it’s more like me

to just suffer. Refused to send my beer

back at Selamat Pagi the other evening ‘til Jer

and Amy embarrassed me with the server

“That is flat and it’s warm,” they said.

“We want feedback like that,” she said.

Or when a date and I flipped a coin to see

who would bother the in-love couple about moving

one seat over. They couldn’t have been better

about it. Good things evolve when you intervene.

Or bad things. 9 years back trying to stop myself

from writing Rivkah how what she’d said had hurt.

At my desk chair, in the malfurnished, Bushwick living

room, bent over, just before responding.

Saying to myself “Just suffer. Just suffer. Just suffer.”

Dec. 14

problems with being kosher, #7

i love gummy bears,

but none of the ones on the supermarket and drugstore shelves are kosher

because of the gelatin,

if i'm going to a really good supermarket,

i might be lucky enough to find kosher ones on the shelf,

but most of the time no go.

i’ve taken to ordering them online from simcha sweets,

located in baltimore,

to get here, the cheapest shipping is about $13,

so i don't just order a pound of gummy bears,

i order four pounds to make it worthwhile,

and this time around a pound of candy corn,

which i'm never able to find kosher either.

so we saw the jane goodall documentary at the hewlett-woodmere library on wednesday,

and i pack a bag of gummy bears for us to snack on, really for me to snack on,

and then i wanted to have packed a larger bag of gummy bears to snack on as we went to my parents’ cat scans.

when we were finished with the cat scans i drove home because i drive at night cuz dad has trouble seeing then.

we were headed to nathan's for dinner,

and as we were around the corner i started to feel nauseous,

pulled over to the side of the road,

opened my door, and threw up once, twice, three times,

composed myself and went to nathan's.

i ordered my arthur treacher's fish and chips,

and i just eat the fries because they wouldn't aggravate my stomach as much,

in the middle of eating i take my dabbed into the ketchup frie, started to feel nauseous again,

walked quickly to the bathroom,

threw up into my mouth,

just made it to the toilet,

threw up once, twice, thrice,

cleaned myself up,

drank some more diet coke to settle my stomach,

finished my fries,

and packed my fish to go.

watched a hallmark movie with my folks,

went to bed early,

woke up around 1:30 to pee,

and felt like i needed to throw up again,

grabbed a bridge chair,

satt down alongside the toilet,

and threw up not once, not twice, but thrice.

went to the den to watch shows i watch without my parents,

tmz, mets hot stove, baseball night in new york,

while drinking more diet coke to settle my stomach,

which starts to feel unsettled again,

so i sit on the the bridge chair by the toilet and throw up three more times,

before i end up back in bed with some more diet coke by the bedside,

and a bag of tums and tylenol at the ready.

*

Two mornings in a row

four tourists on the corner of 28th

and 7th, stand around

astounded. The worst place to

cluster as it’s a subway

entrance. That’s why they’re

astounded, staring

at the red circle with a 1

in the middle like children

discovering a green dime

on the street, their eyes

damp and frog-frightened.

You can easily tell them

here from the dwellers.

The dwellers stare, astounded

at the tourists, banking

sideways past them as we would

a deep, disappointing

construction ditch, dwelling

for hours on how anyone could

be so motionless.

Dec. 15

saturday errands with (and without) my folks

drop mom (& dad) off at beauty parlor,

for blowout and manicure

go the post office to mail a letter to mike wendt

costco

-large package of decaf keurig cups.

they're out at store,

they suggest we order online,

we order two packages to save on shipping

cvs-pick up prescriptions

visionhealth 50 and older eye vitamins

fill Hyundai's tank

trader joe's-

bags of salad if romaine okay,

one container of plum tomatoes

three tomatoes

one large storebrand cheerios

blueberries

strawberries

bananas

oranges

apples-4

ace hardware

make 5 copies of my bottom lock key

stop & shop

-one large container of ground coffee

fluorescent 60 watt bulbs, one package

one jar orange marmalade

one jar light strawberry jam

one jar teddie’s peanut butter no salt

*

Didn’t depart the bed ‘til 1:30

puttered the apartment ‘til

time to change into new Canada

Air Force suitcoat and bow tie

and glide over bridge to office

holiday party at a place with all

capital letters in its name where

I meet someone whose television

show I adore and who is exactly

my height and no taller. Life

is not always very disappointing.

Dec. 16

share tilapia dinner with my mom the other day after free movie at elmont library,

today after big band at elmont library,

mix it up with salmon,

both times with a mixed greens salad, blue cheese dressing, baked potato, sour cream, and broccoli.

*

The 15 best food-related poems of 2018, as deemed by the International Gustatory Poets’ Academy of Culinary Science and Letters, are as follows:

“Angel Day Bait Fish” by Petra Van Stellman

“Gamey Artichoke” by Eamon King

“A Dollop of Safety” by R. Milk Artaud

“Carve Me Each Evening” by Lorne Chang

“Tears of Lard” by June Orcutt

“Thumbarb” by Amy Fay Grayson

“Woven in the Bones is Your Nut Collector” by Israel Tayt-Harness

“milk this” by ail vai

“Do Your Worst, Gordon Ramsay” by Gordon Ramsay

“That Plums Poem by What’s His Name” by Cloud Arena Fein

“What Do You Say to a Starving Child?” by Elephant Roberts

“These Berries Elude Me” by Kalisha Rand

“Open Season on Beak Penis” by Sukya Cornfield

“I Open, Sweating, the Oven Every Time It’s On” by Shannon L. Hamczek

and

“Oats Oats Oats” by Quaker Ray Davidson

Dec. 17

my dad and i were cleaning out the apartment in my parents' house,

it's going to be a long job,

and we've only just gotten started,

when we finished this first shift

we left some scraps on the floor,

blocking the route to the spare refrigerator where i store my drinks near my bedroom downstairs,

i was barefoot,

which as a diabetic i'm never supposed to be,

my feet might not feel something that cuts into them and then bleeds and then gets infected,

so i went for a jug of turkey hill diet green tea,

i did my best to step over the dirt and scraps,

i felt the pain in the bottom of my right foot,

it's good cuz i can feel pain in the bottom of my feet,

and i sat down on one of the couches in the den,

and pulled a staple out of my right foot.

later in the morning,

my podiatrist gave it a look-see

said all was okay.

*

Few things are funner

when you’re by yourself

than popcorn.

I’m by myself.

I’m at work.

It’s 11 PM and my nose

is wrong. I have a new

box of Kleenex and a now

hours old bag of popcorn which is

two thirds gone. They say

there’s 4.5 servings at 40 calories per

quarter serving whom are they kidding

(I said “whom”) it’s popcorn.

I pluck one kernel from

the Pyrex bowl at a time like

a tumored jewel. I can pretend

my shit’s together, aping daintiness

like this.     When you have popcorn

everywhere is the movies, which is to say

engrossing and rolling downhill

toward some cute conclusion. When you

listen to recorded voices you’re

technically hearing things that aren’t

there. When you do so with popcorn

you’re at a horribly shot movie

with excellent sound.

As the story gets engrosser

I comb my fingers through

open snow globe and shove

handfuls in my corn hole.
Soon I’m drinking elven

thought balloons from a vast

chalice.     O popcorn.

Crack rock of theatrical release.

You bring our Dietrich fantasies

to work. O tender, fibrous dwarf

coral. Lo-cal and purely

driven. I want to be alone.

Dec. 18

i don't know that i want to be alone,

i just am, most of the time,

except when i go off to my parents’ house,

and hang with them,

enjoying breakfast,

honey nut cheerios for dad, regular cheerios for my mom and me,

with bananas and strawberries cut up by my mom,

and blueberries tossed into the whole pile,

tv time,

which now is holiday movie time,

mainly hallmark movie after halllmark movie,

with the occasional lifetime or ion film tossed in,

i'm helping my parents get through the backlog so that their dvr always has room to fit new recordings.

*

My friend Jim said, of himself, "food is my sex."

I'm trying to figure out what my sex is. Normally,

it's sex. But right now I'm not not having any.

Maybe work is my sex in which case I'm

a lethargic, unlibidnal lover. Passionate

only in spurts. I fear booze is my sex or

I'm replacing sex with it. That's a vicious

cycle that will sink plans for future sex and lo

you've replaced boning with drink permanently,  

sucks to be you, kid. I wish poems were my sex

I'd be better at them. I think your "sex" is

anything you'd do anyway whether required

or no and is a relief. In which case

visiting my step-father is, technically, my "sex"

which is a horrifying thought. He's 88, the most

brilliant man I've met, and has taken to watching

the burgeoning sex excursions of young white

couples in Hallmark movies since mom died.

"They always have happy endings," he said.

Life does not have happy endings. Unless

you go to the dodgy massage parlor on

27th which might be your sex! I'm not here

to asperszh. Dreams are a kind of sex as they

balance out the mind the way that sex does

the body and the mind. You feel grounded after

a hard dream. A sex dream is cream cheese

on gravy. Poutine was my sex in Canada.

I had sex with one human being

while living there who was elegant

and loved cheese and taught school.

She swore she had to go home because

Toronto will never call a snow day, not ever

no matter how heavy it falls. She was wrong.

Dec. 19

i hugh granted right before he did,

forgiven over a forced first indian dinner (matar paneer),

followed by a final few months keep away from her friends.

*

I slept with my Listeners t-shirt on last night.

I fear that now I am a God.

Dec. 20

tasting my stomach,

tastes like throw up,

try to throw up,

can't.

drink some diet ginger ale to calm stomach,

tastes like i have to throw up,

comes out ginger ale with chunks.

*

I didn’t think

when the scantily-toothed drunk

got on the 2 train, with cammo

trousers and a cane, that he’d

play so flawless a rendition  

of “Jingle Bells”

on the harmonica.

Over his shoulder we  

zoomed past Franklin.

The signs are still up from

the week Aretha died. They say

“Respect.”

Dec. 21

sleepy, all day,
heavy-headed, sleepy,
out of emergency room at 3 a.m.,
cat scan shows i'm constipated,
take grit free laxative,
hailee steinfeld true grit,
still constipated,
woke from a two-hour nap,
miss end of hallmark movie,
i mean i've seen it already,
but still, miss the end of a hallmark movie.

*

They’ve got me on the most interesting

drugs. Benzonatate 3 times daily

for cough. It weakens the reflex

in your lungs so they won’t react

as much. Same congestion, less

being stared at on the train. Has

“benzo” in the name but different class.

Will drowse you for sure, though, don’t

drive a backhoe on it. Okay, 2

Prednisone a day which, get this,

lowers your immune response.

Your body lays down its arms a bit, like

troop removal. They treat arthritis

with it -- also rash, anemia, cancer

and gout. That’s what I’m about.

It’s a Corticosteroid don’t

take it and drive period. At night

1 teaspoon of Promethazine before

bed. Two red half-filled bottles

marked 1/2 and 2/2 like poorly

circulated chapbooks. Why not

one full one? Who cares. I don’t know

what it does but, in last night’s dream,

I passed beyond all sensory limit

into intolerable union with matter writ

full, and a final knowledge that would

render any portionate existence

unliveable. My belly was a black

bowl indistinguishable from night.

Language dissolved. No distance

held sway. No “I” anymore. A meld

and melting of abominable usurp.

Then I dreamt my ex and I were back

together. She had short hair.

This morning I went to work early.  

Dec. 22

i'm still drained from the day of throwing up,

i think that's how i'm going to refer to it from now on,

the day of throwing up,

and i've discovered the secret of throwing up,

have a small chair in the bathroom,

because it's better to throw down from a chair then throw up from the floor.

*

Cement mixer putti putti

I remember in the kitchen

Cement mixer putti putti

Asking mom if she knew the song

Cement mixer putti putti

“Slim Gaillard. Do you know that one?”

Cement mixer. “Oh yeah,” she said,

“A puddle o’voot! A puddle o’voot!”

Dec. 23

i'm not the best person to be going through my parents’ stuff

to decide what goes and what stays,

i'm a perennial keeper,

boxes piled up behind my headboard since my move 16-plus years ago,

most unopened,

in the apartment in my folks' high-ranch house

there's an unused pair of my dad's winter gloves,

keep,

dad's matchbook from the mid-sixties

with his name and title on it,

2nd vice president, 7-up,

keep,

old bills, toss,

unused greeting cards, toss,

three different adding machines,

toss,

an assortment of old, received greeting cards,

keep,

four contractor bags filled with garbage,

toss.

*

Jim and Maggie pick me up

in Providence, "None of this

was here" he says "when I stahted

in the coahthouse 30 yeeas ago."

Drive down 15 roads to Old

Jail Lane, Barnstable. Liz meets

us at the door in her red vestments.

Mike lumbers downstairs from game

watching, sticks a hand out. I force

a hug as always, same with Bill. Ask

Bill how he is. He says "I'm getting

old." Walk into living room. Amy

and her little daughter whose name

escapes me are a yuletide type of

barefoot. Doug and Nina curl on

couch with "new" dog they "kidnapped"

from a neglectful friend. (Consensually.)

Mariya and Nina come walloping in still

bundled, hair still wet from pool. Their

mom Anya and I hug. Her husband/

my cousin/Mike's son, Brendan, comes

in we both look like quadragenarian

versions of our Lou-Reed-acolyte teen

selves. Janice, Bill's wife, wisps in

from nowhere, red-clad also, I hug

her more tightly than I'd planned,

thinking of her dead dad, my dead mom,

their communicating with each other

somehow, maybe through us. Ed

arrives with presents, treats Mike

to Trappist beer and books, a scarf

for Liz. Liz says "I think it's time for drinks!"

It's 2pm. She's right. After first glass

of red I enter kitchen. Judy's there.

Her hair shorter. Sheila poofs into

existence like Nightcrawler in Xmen

except dressed in red. She's my baby

cousin. We use the same dating apps

now. It's weird. I wish Mom were here.

Rebecca appears from downstairs

with new boyfriend Garrett. He has

a friendly beard. Clearly adores her.

Bells ring in the sundown for no reason.

We eat 5 types of cheese then launch

half-lit into Italian feed. Too few places

to sit and no room in my stomach for

most of dinner forget about dessert.

I wish mom were here and we adhere

to the accidental tradition after dinner

of sitting around and telling one story

about her after another. Later I'm alone

in the garage smoking when I hear

everyone sing "Happy Birthday"

to Rebecca through the walls.

"Shit!" I say. I'm sorry to miss it.

Dec. 24

(sung to the tune of the replacements' unsatisfied)

look me in the eye

then, tell me that i'm constipated, please,

was you constipated?

look me in the eye

then, tell me that i'm constipated, please,

hey, are you constipated?

can i not be constipated please.

*  

I need nips for the flight to Egypt.

No booze on Egypt Air. Borrow Ed’s

red car. He takes too long teaching me

how to get to liquor store. Right on 6A,

left on Union, Union becomes Station

Ave., left into parking lot, right past front

of Stop and Shop. Tells me this part

twice, we're looking at Google Earth.

The hearth is cold. It's electric anyway.

Judy hands me shopping list with four

cheeses, two kinds of sausage on it, boxes

and boxes of crackers. I need batteries.

I need to forgive myself for breaking K.'s heart

yet again in March. I need hair product

in a daringly small container that'll make

the X-ray shrug "okay" at Logan Airport.

I need six nip bottles of bourbon for

the flights there and back. I wonder

if they'll be fine with it. I don't care.

I told Ed I'd met these brothers en route

to Alaska who'd ziplocked all kinds of nips

up in their backpack, pulled them out once

we'd reached altitude. I said "I thought

you weren't allowed to bring your own booze

on flights." They said "So long as it's below

3 ounces." I said, "But..." They said "Trust us.

Old drinking family." That girl in Alaska, things

didn't go much better. I think I know what I want

until I'm offered it and then I'm not so sure.

I want to be the one who has to forgive.

I think I could do that. People are flawed.

They deserve absolution often. But somehow

this is less true when "people" = oneself. So

not sure. It's a "This Old House" with no Bob.

Right now I'm on a couch and it's Christmas

and I'm a bowl with lots of booze and cheese

in it and salt, falling asleep and fighting

an inner know-it-all whose too scared

to leave questions begging at the edge

of the Hansel forest. I'd love to hear

those explanations eventually but right

now Mr. Collapse wants to delve you

the simple syrup of sudden neck release.

Dec. 25

dad woke me with a call downstairs,

mom has a z-pack at the cvs for her cold,

the doctor just called it in,

you need to pick it up for her,

so half-asleep i dress,

head upstairs to get my dad's credit card,

hey, my dad says to me,

you want a cup of tea before you go?

*

Last night’s Hallmark movie ended with no boning.

Anne Heche and that hot doctor may be in danger of it

but really the only physical love swooped between two dogs,

Ilgar and Ellen. They smelt each other’s rectums and bit

tails by the tree. It is me, tonight, sitting L-shaped

full of drink in front of the e-hearth burning under the TV.

Judy, Ed and I watch the ultimate rom-com of Basil

Rathbone and Nigel Bruce flying a plane. There’s so

much homoeroticism in Holmes they even sound

the same. You can say “Good night, doctor,” as many

times as you want, it doesn’t mean you know everyone’s

motives. The doctor draws doodle dancers across

a sketchbook -- his girlfriend wonders what he’s doing.

“All work and no play makes Doc a dull foil,” he explains.

It’s simply too late to lay blame on his cudgel handsomeness.

So many questions. Loud questioning! Lots of smoke

bleeding under the door margin. All our problems

are kept within the gem box of of this slim quote

from Sherlock: “A thing of little consequence to you

might mean a great deal to me.”

Dec. 26

i'm about to make whole wheat penne and marinara sauce,

it's what accounts for cooking for me nowadays, all the days,

and i'm really looking forward to it.

*

I just boarded a plane to Egypt.

The people all flit like moths around

the luggage bins, rugbying for space.

A young dad just pressed his thigh

in my arm, shoving up his suitcase.

Most action I’ve had in weeks. There’s

much more to tell you, David, but I’m

all hopped up on Malbec, roast beef

and nicotine tablets. Feeling the woo-

woo in the center of my face here in 29C

Egypt Air. We’ll all be fine. Still half

a sandwich left in my bag and a new

carton of duty-free smokes and a love

of poems. God bless this bird about

to send us ten hours to a newly felt

Cairo. I smell coffee. I heart little Jim

Beam bottles. The girl who just took a full

Xanax next to me asks her boyfriend, also

named Sean, “What should the subject be

of this email I’m sending? ‘Resignation?’”

Dec. 27

we're going out for our much-delayed birthday dinner tonight,

me and my big redacted,

i was told that i was redacteds redacteds birthday present,

redacted and redacted's friends using me like a real-life doll,

dressing me up in outfit after outfit

*

Mostafa says if anyone tries to charge me twenty

dollars American again for the ride from Cairo Airport

downtown to report them to the Tourism Police.

“They’re like the F.B.I. here,” he says “But 10 times

stronger.” I sort of felt for the fat taxi driver in his

brown zip-up. Even though his standard transmission

Hyundai kept stalling and he nearly cracked into two

other vehicles before we’d left the parking lot and he

insisted, insisted, on forging a third lane between

the two sanctioned ones, rolling over the dotted

white paint like it was the brick road to Oz. It was not

the brick road to Oz. It was the 6th of October Bridge

named for the date of Operation Badr when Egyptian

forces swamped the Suez and severed the Bar-Lev

line Israel had drawn in the sand along the canal.

The driver kept trying to forge ties with me.

“You have little girl little boy,” he asked.

“Nothing like that,” I said, “You?”

“Seven,” he said -- using everyone of them as a cudgel

when pay time came. “You tipsy,” he said, “Tipsy?”

Felt like a funny word for him to be so fluid in. Plus

the car hadn’t come to a complete stop yet. “Baksheesh,”

he said. I tipped 5 more. Mostafa’s son Omar would

cry tears of rage if he knew that part. In the end

it’s 25 bucks. That and a poem and 20 other bucks

won’t get you from Crown Heights to Laguardia.

Dec. 28

david kirschenbaum's rule of etiquette number 2

when invited to dinner by someone else

do not order a drink.

david kirschenbaum's rule of etiquette number 2.2

when invited to dinner by someone else

do not order a second drink.

*

Today I ran along the Nile.

It took a while. People wondered what was wrong

while I hoofed it down El Gabalaya Street, what the hurry

was about. A carriage horse hauling a man in its carriage

passed by as if to say, “Buddy, I get paid for this shit

what’s your excuse?” It’s Friday meaning Saturday here,

half the stores were quiet. “Breakage” is the word

for “sidewalk” in Cairo. There’s a way to climb down

to the plastic tables that punctuate the slate paving

along the Nile but I don’t know it. A pertinent amount

of trash lines the dirt hips of the river – bottles and wrappers

and cans and a dead motorboat filled with brown leaves. It’s

like autumn in a Cape Cod graveyard. “Oh well” said

the gang of ducks and their rooster sidekick seeking shelter

from the din of music coming from the manly morning outing

on a white felouka on the Nile.

One thing about running the Nile’s west bank is ultimately

you curve east around the other side. When you start to curve

you’ll know it – a great, gold bride of a building sits astride

the itty trees, reflected like a godly “H” in the water. A pretty guy

with a camera photographs his prettier boyfriend. The “H”

frames him. They’re both out on a Friday discovering

what mornings on the Nile will do for your togetherhood.

You’ll catch a mood at this point that is neither good

nor bleak. You’ll turn around. Trying ever

to climb down to the dirt hips of the Nile and run

or at least walk as mile of it as you can, but you’ll only

sum out to a few meters. The metric system’s

what the Nile is measured in. Converting

to imperialism goes too slowly. You go slowly too

in spots, those jutting round bricks just aching

to be sprained upon. You’ll stop and dip ideas

by their left heel into the Nile.

A crowd of bicyclists appeared on Abou El Feda. Conspicuously

all aimed at the same thing, I couldn’t name what.

An open air truck rolled beside them. Grown men

in the truck cheering and photographing. Lay people

stood in the crotch between two merging roads directing traffic

which unnerves me in the best of circumstances.

You should need a license to tell someone how not to collide

with someone else. Two other runners approached on the sidewalk.

I wave as though “I know, see? It’s the thing all three

of us are doing.” They were gone before I could feel sad

for their imminent departure. Six other runners

shuffed along the opposite side of the whiz-way.

For half a second I contemplated joining them; they were  

going the same speed and we’re in Cairo, by the Nile,

where running is a lonely neé misunderstood endeavor

reserved for aspiring bus passengers.

I’m tired but I’m doing all right here by the Nile.

Occasionally find myself on a dirt path obscured by the overpass.

“I could die back here,” I think “And no one would know.”

But they’d find out eventually. Everyone lives and dies

by the Nile eventually, and strives by trial and error

to find the hotel again, to tell oneself “Good job. You survived.

Okay that was never really in question but one more day

above ground and spent on a run along the river no less.

You should put your feet up and think about it.”  

Dec. 29

my mouth tasted bad,

like i was going to throw up,

peed first,

washed hands,

got a bridge chair,

positioned it a little bit away from the toilet,

tried to throw up,

nothing happening,

so i put my right index finger down my throat,

get to my uvula and gag,

still nothing,

try it again and again, and still nothing,

get a tums from dad to calm it all down a bit.

*

If you need me I’ll be at the pyramids.

There are three of them. Plus, I didn’t know this three

baby pyramids to the side, one more rounded than pyramid.

These are for the queen. But let’s start with the Great Pyramid.

It’s great. The granite at the bottom’s still polished like they wanted

47-fucking-hundred years ago. It costs more to go inside of it. To which,

my friend Zack responded, “I’m pretty sure you should go into a pyramid.”

So I did. Thing one you learn is it’s empty.

They warn you beforehand but it’s the oddest emptiness.

People teeming in and out its one mouth and up and down a rail

esophagus, like a mail chute. A place no people should be and yet

they pay to. Snaking up and up into the burial chamber, which is a box

with nothing in it but a brick tub and a dude saying “No photos! No photos!”

I can see why they want no photos.

If people knew the lengths they’d need to go

to see an almost empty room they’d think twice.

It’s fitting it’s a tomb. You feel buried alive a little

stooped impossibly low in the chute yet climbing. Not

easy on the glutes. I’m not complaining though because

the pyramids are my new boyfriend and my apartment and I live there now.

They are buildings you can’t mentally take in.  

They are buildings as shocking as mountains and more

mysterious. We pretty much know how mountains were made.

We’re still figuring out the pyramids. This ia how one guy wanted

to be buried and his sons. And everyone else wanted it too. The pyramids

were a national effort. The WPA of their day. You hear slaves built them but

apparently folks were paid. Men, women, kids built them. Farmers in the off

season. Me in a previous life, floating a stone from a local quarry and hauling

it up the sand. It’s how I wanted the king to be buried too. In opulence with all

his organs and jewelry and junk in bottles around him. He needed that stuff for

the afterlife. He made reincarnation look like a night at the bar. They were serious

about reincarnation and that is how I’m here to tell you. I wanted to be closer to the

king then and I still do. There’s nothing disappointing about the pyramids.   

Dec. 30

"I need you to get a job, and a girlfriend" my mom told me. "before i die i need you to get a job and a girlfriend and that means soon."

this has been her constant refrain, while i've stayed at their house during the holidays.

i'm lucky if i can leave my apartment,

no less work or date,

but (sing)

it's something i talk to my therapist about,

it's something i need to change (i guess),

it's something i'd like to effort about,

it's something i don't know where to anywhere.

*

I had a fold-up knife in my backpack on the way through Egypt Air security.

Had forgotten it on the way here -- it sailed through TSA at Logan

and JFK, only found it when I unpacked at the Cairo Marriott.  So I thought

“Eh -- maybe they won’t find it or won’t mind.”

This was not the case.  

“Sir, do you have a knife?” was their first question.

“Oh I forgot,” I said and dug it out for them.

Made a flicking motion with my hand like, “Halas.

Enough with knife.” The burly one holding my passport

pulled the knife open and studied its blade.

“Please have a seat,” he said and walked away. I waited.

The burlier one with the moustache and mullet said to

get up and sit at the table near where they were swabbing

people’s laptops and iPads. When I got there

the first burly one was photographing my knife with his phone

then studying the pictures as though they’d offer more answers

than the knife itself lying there. I wasn’t too concerned until

the burlier one came over too and then three others including

a dude in a black beret who looked straight up like the captain

of some strongman’s personal police detail. He wore what

Kent Johnson calls a “Ba’ath mustache” and he did not

look pleased. The Baathist Captain took my passport and they all

spoke in Arabic. I think to decide if the knife was large enough

to merited a full cavity search. The Captain took a hard line.

The others tried to talk him down. The mulleted one seemed to say,

“You can’t pick and choose which knife is a federal offense by

eyeballing it. The Captain seemed unmoved. The burly one

leaned and asked me, “Did no one tell you this wasn’t okay?

To have a knife like this with you?”

“I forgot it was in there,” I said, “I just forgot.”

The Captain made some calls. He sait in a chair

and waited. He studied pictures of the knife.

He conferred with others in a gun-lipped,

punctuated intensity. Over and over we locked eyes.

He looked away first almost always.

The first burly one came over with a blank, white

sheet of paper. “Do you wish to travel today?” he asked.

I said yeah. He put the blank page down and told me

to write a letter explaining the situation and that I was sorry.

I’m never good on a deadline, but this is what I came up with:

“To whom it may concern:

I am flying today from Cairo to New York, JFK, on Egypt Air

flight 985. I forgot that I had a swiss army knife in my bag as

I passed through security. I deeply regret this mistake. I simply

didn’t remember that it was there and I apologize.”  

“To Egypt Air security,” said the first burly one, leaning over my shoulder.

“I apologize to Egypt Air security,” I wrote, “No malice was intended.”

I looked at the first burly one.

“And also thank you to Egypt Air security” he said.

“Thank you,” I wrote, “to Egypt Air security for your understanding

in this matter. Yours sincerely,

  Sean Cole.”

The first burly one folded my note and walked away with it.

The Captain sat and took close-up flash photos of my

passport with his phone. He looked at me and looked away.

Looked at me and looked away. Three other officials arrived.

One in a plain gray suit. The Captain embraced and kissed

them on both cheeks and explained the severity of the situation.

I think everyone else thinks the Captain is nuts.

The man in the gray flannel suit caught my eye and gave me

the thumbs up. One of the lower minions marched over and thrust

my passport toward me. “Please,” he said, offering the air with his

hand as though nothing had happened. As if to say,

“Halas. Enough with knife.”

Dec. 31

watching last hallmark movie

before trip back to my apartment

was going to say home

but after all these years i still consider my folks’ place home.

*

Home now.

Napped 8:30 to midnight last night then

6AM to noon. Left clothes in suitcase

and trawled the Met Foods aisles past

people singing softly to themselves.

Little do they know     two days ago

I was in the Great Pyramid of Giza.