SOMETIMES RULES...

The black notebook

I could have got

with no 

lines

is always tempting

but you might 

write artsy or

crooked or loopy or 

even sideways in that one

when the reason you

went out to get a black notebook

was to write straight on the line

to yourself at least.

PARTIES DIDN’T INTEREST ME

In boarding school 

—no not one of those, it was

a boys Catholic one—

I used to write letters.

I had a girlfriend

back home. 

The other boarders would go

to day-students’ parties

on Saturday night

or to mixers with Catholic girls schools.

I didn’t go. My roommate always went.

I stayed in by myself

and listened to records or

the radio

or read or

wrote at my desk. 

The lamp on the desk

was very bright. Too bright.

I can still see how it made things look.

My hand on a magazine, 

or holding a pen, 

or a cigarette.

 

A framed cover of the first issue of a weekly free paper I started in 1984. It had a good run. Not long enough. My fault. I’d still like to be doing it. 

 

YOU COULD SEE THE BREAD WAS SOGGY

You will buy

sometimes

some thing

you could do better 

at home just

to make the everyday 

different

special maybe

an impulse

a treat it seems. 

This morning at the

coffee shop I

bought a peanut butter

with banana

little sandwich 

that maybe had been 

wrapped and

put in the 

display cooler

last Friday. 

ROYAL

‘Four Liverpool lads

it was’

said Paul after

they were honored by 

the Queen

in person

which is the best

sentence I’ve read 

on this restless day

so far.