The palm at the end of a cheese rind

Two years ago
When you remember things you wonder
How could I ever forget ?
So I was thinking of D-- and how --A's leaving now after
Less than two years and of the people that were ther
E when she came and who left after she came and who replaced
Who and who got rid of who and who stayed but spent the day(
S) browsing the online want ads, jobsDB, karir.com, whatever
Wherever she could click her eyes into (did that work ?).
So I was thinking of N-- and her bloated water-balloon
Belly and her lieutenants, --I, yes I remembered her though
She, by all accounts, is totally, absolutely, forgettable,
And the other girl, The Beauty Editor, and I couldn't remem-
Ber her name, for the life of everyone in the universe !,
But then I remembered ! She sent me a text message re:Subject
:Re and my mind went off course, of course and I was more
Interested in the content of that message, what she said, ho-
W she phrased it, did she use emoticons ? and I could only
Remember the sky blue of my cheap, cheapest on the market,
Motor Ola casing, and the two-line breadth of the screen
(Don't worry, your boyhood lyricism will come back (to haunt you))
And I remembered nothing but that the tone was angry and
The message cryptic like everything else everyone else in
This cuntree and I gave up, not wanting to think about
That whole period of my life anymore but knowing that
Deep deep down East 17 and I had worked out, pieced
Together the broken jigsaw pieces of me memory, she said
Something like: Some people know some thongs [sic, yeah !] about other peo-
Ple and keep them to themselves, and some people choose
To write a fucking book. I remembered, and I didn't want
Not to.
It comes from not having done enough thinking.
(Whatever 'It' is was will be.)
So many things have happened and I've only taken notes of so
Few.
O there is time/are times: between phone calls, late at
Night when you know, even she won't call.
But then she does and you forget things.
You blame her for forgetting things.
The Thing Things.
And in your saner moments you blame yourself for not taking
Better care of your brain. Your mental health. Your Self.
Your metal health. Will Self.
But you don't know what that Self is anymore.
Mind.
It used to be so clear.
You write long letters to that Self.
Disguised as A-- or --N or any name of friends you can conjure up
Out of the smell of loneliness.
But that ended up badly, didn't it ? Very.
So you decided to become, try to become a better person,
One who thinks first before he acts.
And you promptly act before you have done enough thinking.
Because thinking hurts.
Thinking is lonely.
Think lonely.
If I promise myself this, a page-between attempt at redress-
Ing the problems of my life by reading good books I buy
Second-hand, I'm sure I'll break it again, The Way I Have Br-
Oken So Many Promises To Myself In The Past Which If Ke-
Pt Would Have Made Me A Happier Person.
I Promise.
Why don't you begin at the start ?
Only never is too late. Never.
Alright.
A 2.5-storey house in Pejompongan.
Newly renovated in the current [circa 2006--ed.] fad style of steel frames,
Dove-grey paint job, polished wood everything, stairs sa-
Ns railings, a verandah on the 1.5 level, thin bars of the sa-
Me wood, unpolished, stacked together as fences, a gate,
In lieu of solid walls.
-- I had stopped writing two years ago to read some more
Of the New York poets in my Anthology of New York Poets
Vintage Classics edition of 1973 that I bought post-loved
Of course--who shares the knowledge of your of courses, pray, deary me ?--
The year was 2006, Anno Domini, from Jose Rizal's
Shop, that's the Indonesian Jose Rizal, the poet who wears
His hair in a greasy pony tail, not the dead Pinoy doctor,
(Maybe he wore his hair in a greasy pony tale)
And I read some Ashbery, Koch and read the biography at
The back of someone I can't remember his name--I remember no-
Thing these days--who cut&pasted Elvis's bio for his own.
I like funny things like that.
Funny men like that.
Funny, irresponsible men like that.
When I was reading Koch's 'Leaving Hydra' or something like
That, the poem was about this guy Peter who wanted to
Go for a walk with his homo friend Norris who'd decided
He wasn't homo after all and wanted to just cross the Eng-
Lish Channel hetero-like with a girl, Margaret, and why woul-
D anyone have ideas like that, going for a walk on an isl-
And they hardly know with a new friend you'd just met
Hours ago, and Koch said that was because we hardly ever hav-
E clear objectives in our lives, that
Two Days Later, 10 PM, or a few minutes after
You on the radio
Burning your way into the hard disk
Of my (he)art.
Yeah, I'd've written that.
No compunction.
No no no.