This is a time for walking without coats, but keeping them still near. I sense new patterns in traffic, and so am trying to dress accordingly. We love Benjamin as directed. We love these small detours to the sun. Once again I have drunk too much and so the rain is driving. This is what makes me an accurate motorologist. Gas is a matter of days, and that is an interesting revelation regardless of our cycling. I have cans for this. I also keep some for dew. The rest I sit out back on my porch as a thank you gift to everyone who walks by. There are, in fact, many ways you can go, so I'm grateful you came this way.

I'm from Iowa. So, winter is a weird time to feel warm. But here we are with all these things; Iowa, warmness, winter, weirdness. On the upside? Walking. I'm walking a lot more. And bumping into people I know, and giving away more donuts than I ever have. I only really mean one of those things.

Do you have a dog? I want a dog. My landlord, though, he doesn't think I should have a dog. My landlord isn't going to get a donut. Do you remember when we were kids and we used to find dogs and make them come home with us? How it worried our mothers? How it worried the dogs? We, though, for those glorious few hours, owned our own dogs. But then our dads would come home and untie them and let our dogs run back to where ever it was they came from. And that night, after our baths, we would dream about what kind of dog we would own tomorrow. Mine was medium-sized with brown hair just like mine. Yours you kept a secret, like some kind of birthday wish that had a real chance of coming true if it was only you who knew about it.

The sun is setting and, in a too-long parade of cars, drivers and passengers are either singing or fighting. I've never been too good at telling those things apart. I mean, the orange helps me with the sunset, but the rest is just faces gathered clumsily around some feelings. They are like apples to me, these faces; without the proper labeling, anyone could be sweet and crunchy, or mealy and full of regret.

New York City is a good city to go to when you love someone who loves New York City. I'm relatively certain that's a song lyric, so there's no sense dwelling on it. In it. Though 8,008,278 do. And they all know where the light needs to be in order to walk around naked. I had hoped they would include that in the dweller's welcome packet. You see, my knowledge of your runofthemill city nudity is extremely limited. Or maybe you don't. Are you indoors too? I think that makes a difference.

There was a time when I was looking for a job. Then there was a time when I had a job. But this was to be a temporary situation. For I am looking for a job again. Looking for a job is like being the world's worst treasure hunter. I'm relatively certain that goes for anyone looking for a job, so I try not to worry too much over all the X's. Besides, I've seen the Goonies enough times to know how this all works out.

I have things you can buy if you are into buying things. First, a collection of dinosaur related poems written in collaboration with Friedrich Kerksieck and called, "FOSSIL," is available here. Second, a chapbook called, "BASTARDS," edited by Aaron McNally, is available here. I like these things very much, I hope you like them too.

Have you ever listened to Lou Reed's "Live in Italy?" Even though he sings, "and the colored girls go..." Nobody goes. I mean, Lou Reed goes a little bit, but for the most part...nothing.

Winter is approaching. We know this because the turkeys are desiring community. We know this because of our new methods for reaching into the sky. There was a time for tweezers. There was a time for forks as well. These are no longer those times. Our skies are testing our grasp on skies. How we are able to get a hold. Be gotten a hold. Turkeys increase their tail size. You see they want to be held. Even that way.

We have reached our dream center. Our ability to question our abilities. What lights do we look best under? Do we look best under anything at all? I don't know.

The turkeys are swarming now and we are beginning to feel a part of something bigger. We may not look best under these lights, but we do believe we look warm. We look warm and therefore have something to offer. To proffer. Turkeys, we say, our arms are long and appropriately hinged. We can hold all sorts of things, even if the sky escapes us.

The turkeys look at us queerly. They warble a few pleasantries and like you opening the jar I've struggled with for so long, they take the sky. We are intrigued and incapable of hiding and realizing it's time to edit that page in Wikipedia. The one that says nothing about what has just happened. This is stuff, we agree, the world needs to know.

Our eyes can distinguish 2.3 million different shades of color. We've only named a handful of these. There is red in the sun and red in the shade. They are different reds, but we don't bother to name them differently. That's just how we are.

When you have red cheeks I like you. When you have red cheeks that you let me kiss I like you more.

Let us leave here and be healthy. Let us leave here and get some color. Leave the bulk of the 2.3 million for everyone else. My eyes are busy taking in so much that I'm afraid I don't have the time for every purple.

I'm sorry, purple. If it makes you feel better.

Orleans is a city in north-central France, about 81 miles southwest of Paris. I'm sure it's a lovely place, but I'm not going to old crappy Orleans. No. I'm going to New Orleans.

I went to New Orleans, I mean. This is what I get for not paying attention. A lack of retention. Some slack in the tension. Tense Ions. Tense I am. I am making logical leaps. Do you follow?

I've involved myself in a fantasy. There are rainbows there. In fact, there are multiple kinds of water, all reflecting multiple kinds of multiplicity. This leads to a multitude of hard but ultimately satisfying lessons. I'm told there are numerous methods of counting. Of places we can put our numerals. Of how this fortifies us.

How can we ever truly know our own pleasantries? you ask. You must watch the exchange program, I say. Yes, I am going away soon, but until then there are many good nights to bid you on. Good night, I say. Night, you answer.

There is spite. There is despite. There is respite. There is also in spite, but that's just where our questions begin. It's a locator, you see, and I'm actually looking for something more in the interlocutor market. We should talk soon, you and I. Of course, this will all depend on where we finally decide to place our vowels. What's really worrisome though, is my inferior design of our interiors...but I'm reading up on the internet.

Do you remember that time in 1987 when you held soul music up to your ear and heard Billy Ocean? Do you remember a few years later when you held Billy Ocean to your ear and heard the Fresh Prince? Do you remember how this is really how you got into hip-hop? Do you want to come over to my house and say marina to each other again and again until we do?

Marina. Now you go. Marina. My turn. Marina.

Yesterday I went the broken bird zoo. Do you know what happens when birds who eat flesh break? They keep trying to eat your face and you get real glad there are signs that say "Do NOT Put Hands and Face Into Cages." You normally aren't that good with signs, but the weather was just right today and so your face was always safe. Still, you can't help but be startled.

Startled. Try that one. Startled. Today you startled me. She has a startling present. She startles with presents. But you can never promise to startle. I will startle you. Being startled comes from a lack of expectations. If you expect a startling, it will never come.

They have no starlings at the broken bird zoo. Because they are passerines and have strong feet. Eagles eat passerines. I eat nectarines, but not like an eagle eating a passerine because I don't eat anything the way an eagle eats passerines.

Do you remember when I was looking for a job? Turns out I was really good at that. I have two jobs now.

I like that...

Jobs are busy things. I'm new to this bustling and I like it. Sometimes I try to be cute when I should be more smart. My body is frequently more busy because of it. There is much to be doing, but I'm still waiting for paychecks. In the meantime, I busy myself with bike riding.

Last week was pleasant in all the best lunarways. The moon was almost full. The moon was full. The moon rose and I smelled the best apple smells ever. I had a birthday party and the moon waned the whole time. It was still a very good party.

Right now, I kind of want to go to bed, but that is an involved process and so, it seems, I am not going to bed just yet.

These are things I ate at the State Fair: a turkey leg, a funnel cake, fried Oreo cookies, fried pickle spears, more turkey that had a stick added to it after the fact, a few bites of ice cream and a gross slushy that didn't taste like what I thought strawberry lemonade should taste like. There were many other things I was going to try, but instead, I didn't. I feel good about a lot of decisions. That remains one of them.

The most important question you may ever face: Why not get an airbrushed tattoo of 2pac? As in, congratulations, Poet, here is your airbrushed tattoo of 2pac! Or, if that doesn't tickle you, what about 2pocahontas? That tickles me. Also, saying the word, Okoboji. It's like saying, Okay BJ, but different.

I started a new job today. Actually, if you ask the federal government, I started a job today, having had no former job (in the last 18 months). You can't be unemployed if you are believed to have never been employed to begin with. I wasn't unemployed, no, I was simply not employed. But that's over now. I'm totally ambient.

Today I cut myself twice on the same door. There is less of me now than there once was. I have less Benjamin to speak of. However, the door has a tiny bit more. Or, I guess, since it didn't have any before, it has some. Some Benjamin. The door, it seems, is basking in my newly found ambiance.

Ohio is the worst. I've said it before, but feel a more permanent record is needed. Anyway, as I've said before, Ohio is the worst. Driving through Ohio is like driving through a Larry The Cable Guy album. You don't mind it at first, but by track 2, man, you can't wait for this shit to be over. That's when you realize you're only in Cleveland and the CD player is broke and the only way to get to the next disc to let it play. But then, just before the last track is over, it stops and charges you $20 for having listened to the CD all the way through. Ohio...you're the worst.

Of all the problems we deal with, I can't believe we so readily overlook "places to keep our dog while we shower at the rec center." It's also easy to forget that sometimes the best possible solution to this problem is a combination of solutions...like an I.V. drip or a bombpop. The dog goes on the clothes on top of the locker next to the backpack just below the sign that says no camera phones. This is a perfect solution. I think we can all agree.

Have you noticed how every time "Kung Fu Fighting" comes on, it always seems to be the perfect time for "Kung Fu Fighting" to be on? Phenomenology, maybe, but I have to believe in something more sound. Something like, "Kung Fu Fighting."

When I was a kid I loved the Foucault pendulum at the science center. As I grew up, it never occurred to me that Pendulum Foucault wasn't Phenomenology Foucault. How great was this guy, I'd say to myself, with all his ways of existing. But I know a lot more now than I did this morning. Leon Foucault was not Michel Foucault and was pretty rad in his own right. Eddy currents, gyroscopes, pendulums and light speeds. He did those things! I often wish I lived in world where swinging weights and playing with tops were still science experiments. Alas, they are nothing more now than office decoration and bad birthday presents.

It's hot. I wish it were less hot. But then I think of how wishes are usually limited in quantity and I take it back. I'm saving my wishes for something better.

But I do kind of wish it were less hot.