This poem is Chronic Meanings.
It's for Lee Hickman, who was an editor of Temblor,
one of the best magazines that printed
a wide range of experimental work out of LA in the '80s.
Lee Hickman was an exemplary editor,
hard worker, typesetter, typeset the magazine,
typeset to pay for the magazine.
I heard he had contracted AIDS and wanted
to say something to him, who I didn't know very well,
but who I respected quite a bit.
And so I wrote this and sent it to him, and it actually got--
it was right at the end of the last issue.
So it's sort of in lieu of a letter about the conditions
of mortality.
OK.
That's enough of that, I guess, of an introduction.
It's five word lines.
Chronic Meanings.
The single fact is matter.
Five words can say only.
Black sky at night reasonably.
I am the irrational residue.
Blown up chain link fence.
Next morning, stronger than ever.
Midnight, the pain is almost.
The train seems practically expressive.
A story familiar as a.
Society has broken into bands.
The 19th century was sure.
Characters in the withering capital.
The heroic figure straddled the.
Clouds enveloped the tallest.
Tens of thousands of drops.
The monster struggled with Milton.
On our wedding night I. The sorrow burned deeper than.
Grimly I pursued what violence.
A trap, a catch a.
Fans stand up yelling their.
Lights go off in houses.
A fictional look not quite.
To be able to talk.
The coffee sounds intriguing, but.
She put her cards on.
What had been comfortable subjectivity.
The lesson we can each.
Not enough time to thoroughly.
Structure announces structure and takes.
He caught his breath in.
The vista disclosed no immediate.
Alone with a pun in.
The clock face and the.
Rock of Ages, a modern.
I think I had better.
Now this particular mall seemed.
The bag of groceries had.
Whether a biographical junkheap or.
In no sense do I. These fields make me feel.
Mount Rushmore in a sonnet.
Some in the party tried.
So it's not as if.
That always happened until one.
She spread her arms and.
The sky, if anything, grew.
Which left a lot of.
No one could help it.
I ran farther than I. That wasn't the good one.
Now put down your pencils.
They won't pull that over.
Standing up to the empire.
Stop it screaming in a.
The smell of pine needles.
Economics is not my strong.
Until one of us reads.
I took a breath then.
The singular heroic vision unilaterally.
Voices imitate the very words.
Bed was one place where.
A personal life, a toaster.
Memorized experience can't be completely.
The impossibility of the simplest.
So shut the fucking thing.
Now I've gone and put.
But that makes the world.
The point I am trying.
Like a cartoon worm on.
A physical mouth without speech.
If taken to an extreme.
The phone is for someone.
The next second it seemed.
But did that really mean.
Yeah, Los Angeles is full.
Naturally enough, I turn to.
Some things are reversible, some.
You don't have that choice.
I'm going to Joe's for.
Now I've heard everything he.
One time when I used.
The amount of dissatisfaction involved.
The weather isn't all it's.
You'd think people would have.
Or that they would invent.
At least if the emotional.
The presence of an illusion.
Symbiosis of home and prison.
Then, having become superfluous, time.
One has to give to.
Taste the first and last.
I remember the look in.
It was the first time.
Some gorgeous swelling feeling that.
Success which owes its fortune.
Come what may, it can't.
There are a number of.
But there is only one.
That's why I want to.