She spoke spanish poorly... well, she wrote it poorly. Words like, "no tiende hoy quien Pedro, buene suerte con eso." She was a riddle. None of it made sense to him.

He thought about her brow constantly. They had a flame out. She was drunk, he was awkward and insecure, unable to read signals, he had a beard and hated himself. She was young. He was older and started remembering every small gift he had bestowed upon her.

It was a disastrous office party. He was swingin' hard and she was dodging, skirting, with a feminine guile the likes of which he missed in his own youth. The whole thing was spirited, easy and innocent. This went on for about three years.

She would tell him about the time she did that, and he told her things about things and stuff. They were both working each other from the very beginning.

And then it happened. He went back into the loud German restaurant to use the bathroom, she waited and Sydney took off.

"I ordered more tequila."

"Really? Uh oh..."

"No, it's water." She laughed at his look, she had tricked him again.

They made it about as far as the parking garage.

She gave in.
He gave in.
It all caved in.

Nothing was the same.

It's finally Halloween and my mother's home was selected as the meeting place for Parents Against Pedophiles, Predators And Proselytizers. There were about 70 people in our house, walking around, talking, planning, drinking punch that my Uncle Deet had made. Our cat, Sprinkle was under a bed or maybe up a tree in the backyard. I wished I was there too. I recognized Mr. Glosser right away. Glosser was my principal when I attended St. Mary's three years ago. I had to drop out because of my illness. I was still quite weak and no longer attended school of any kind and my mother didn't care. She saw that I was reading Will & Ariel Durant history books. She saw my initiative and didn't want to stand in the way. I followed Mr. Glosser around our house. He never saw me. But I saw him. He did something unusual. Unusual in a way that I've always remembered it. I carry it around with me like a locket. He would pick up little cheese squares from the dining table which was littered with pot-luck plates and smell each one, walk away, with a square still in between his fingers, walk out onto the back porch, check to see if anyone was watching and then move his hand down the back of his trousers and lodge the piece of cheese somewhere down there...presumably holding it there somehow. I watched his wingtips and the bottoms of his trouser legs and I never saw them fall out.

And again there came a thunderous applause. His teeth! -The ubiquity of his teeth had commanded them all to clap wildly. All but one. Caroline was raised to distrust everything. Her father reminded her at the breakfast table each morning, after she and her brothers and sisters had completed reading both the Le Monde and the Wall Street Journal, that "one of the great paradoxes of the human physical senses is that your eyes actually show you what you believe, not what you see." Dorothy Parker taught her, "Any story twice is Fiction." And it was Ben Franklin who wrote, "Half the truth is often a great lie." The charismatic row of teeth now stepped to her. The door was closed. He didn't look at her but stayed focused on the pad of paper and asked directly what she thought of his new reality show... "Stuck In A Tube?" "No," she said. How about, "Eat This?" "Brain Slam?" "Put Some Cheese On It?" "Tokyo Back Bend?" "Ass Faced?" "Your Mom Sucks?" "Stick it in my Eye?" "My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad?" "Whip Lash?" "Pole Pirate?" "Squished?" "Steal This?" -Steal This is very popular in Russia. She sort of sighed.

I'm about done picking up your things......Haiku #4340

the messes you make
become bigger and bigger
they are your messes

buried cake

Funneled whispers of fennel through the open sore
Called upon the scent again of that Little Tokyo store
Strolling aimlessly with mighty aim
Upon close inspection, methinks it needs salt.

Dirt park gifts, hills with stop sign secrets, wrist o tenders, creams, unguents and ointments, bathtubs, fogs, heads held so high, sharpened words, fighting sticks, dirt people dirt people, shellfish cactus, normandie normalcies, waitings, wonderthings, wonderings, wanderings...

Put on the ol' delusion disc and let it spin...

...at red lights, into the mirror of bits, past that one place and that other restaurant, that alley, that Ivar sidewalk- back to me...covet runneth over.

Saw it all come up in the reflection of the forlorn for lease carpet storefront, the one on Franklin just east of some other street.

Funny how it never goes the way the imagination makes it go
know'd tat, druid tat
too much time wasted on the ponder.
I'm a pander ponderer.
tre small thoughts that are best left to the past ether.

criss crossings, what if's, how 'bouts and contractions, up and dislikes; music, art, what is right, wrong, giggled and fat, none of it fits.

Shaking it, pick axing it through the bled blood. Scab upon scab bored scab...ooze still punches into the soup.

Fridee - Redwood Bar

This Started Out Originally As A Jacket

Anthony Lister in Berlin from rodgezooi on Vimeo.