by D. Beveridge
A vending machine stashing “Plan B,” Narcan, etc.
It’s only missing a cure for Rock’n’roll, which I’m guessing is
the learning supposed to be.
One gets the sense from the sterilized air one shouldn’t smoke here.
I.
Pessoa’s camping
in my bag the leather
Kenneth
my father gave me for Christmas
years ago, his up — up?
he’s unhappy staying closed up
in there calling
me to pick him out to finish
that I could do, finish
the Selected of the heteronyms
and the “himself” part behind the mask —
I could finish this week
I could finish “I” if I tried
but then it would be over and reading
outdoors is also not my thing
though with all these students
around and the fountain and the first
day of cloud cover wearing my
TJ’s hoodie checking out at TJ’s
“not a transfer” —
I record these things for you,
departed.
II.
Seidel was a bust and
I had him on a good recommendation,
which the source of now I must question,
which I am loathe to do
trusting everything I hear
from people I hold in high regard
though not always because they are trustworthy,
but rather they are cool,
which does bear on Pessoa
hollering silently from his crypt
in my bag I put on the ground then
picked up wary of the once “public sphere.”
III.
if any of life matters
it would be on account of
the balancing act the subject of data does
creating.
a flash point.
a trash system called “USC Sustainability.”
a water mover.
a brick square.
a security check.
the line at Dulce out the door.
an island vibe in the heart of poverty.
a nagging sense of... of...
the Harvard “implicit bias” test.
a school year sandwiched between summers at Spoon Lake.
a hundred miserable details short of coherence
— Ryan said also “cogent,” and “concise,”
which I must have misunderstood if not willingly ignored.
and all the apologies at the eventual end of my career
(why wouldn’t you just say life?)
IV.
I took myself to, “I have to see
some art.” if I texted her —
if I open up that worm again
we’ll surely get to the place where one
or both of us want to fuck, so
I can’t do it. I’ll take myself
to see art. And meanwhile, sneaking
glances at College girls give a n—a
head in my Rafs.
but she’s wearing too much make up I don’t
know what “Rafs” is a man just
sat down. Is a twenty year old a man?
I’m guessing at all of this, but I don’t
know anything about word choice how
that happens and to whom. Certainly it’s not
a me in any real sense. He’s talking
to Alice again, he’s talking to the most
important voice of 21st century poetry and
he’s fumbling hard, she’s going to see
right through it very soon
move on to a better receiver
dialing again and again and he’s trying—
trying right earnestly to pick it up—
“The Black Phone 2”
the dial tone drops on every first call—
he knows he has to click the name
again.
Where g— do the revisions.
V.
“Locked in." “Angle.” She’s devouring
him. Hand shakes. “Thank you.”
What is business? Five means nothing
as far as I know. Some
older man slinking into the chair
across from her he doesn’t
obviously know or care about what
everyone else does here reserves an
entire table for their singleton-ness. I
can’t gauge how uncomfortable she is.
Should I ask her her name? For
the sake of the work for archives —
Spoiled Children. She’s packing up
quick great ass but like weirdly young
I don’t get it. What does the youth do?
Like I mean, what are all these
people doing?
Now a job interview in the other
direction TJ’s? I don’t know what
IRANI RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE means in this
context. Did they build this ‘village’ then sell out
the first floor? That’s not meant as
a pointed question but right now Bezos
has an entry level at the source of USC
public life — is that what this is?
If I wrote BOMB! here...
Smiles and smiles.
Trying to work at Target.
Please help me understand
“I’m the type of person who...”
the most absurd bank of words
I may have ever and cannot unhear.
****
D. Beveridge writes in Los Angeles where everything is concrete. He is an editor at American Ontology. Twenty-two a day.