
2023 March 18

Bottom left quadrant, counterclockwise from goatjeff, camel, pennsylvania, owl for Liz, no one who’d know what that means looks here
Second full-body self-portrait glued to the back of and upside-down from the first. Three 6×6 hot-press watercolor paper, gouache, watercolor ink, ballpoint pen ink, sharpie.
A vomit is an extreme burp
I once consoled Billy Wayne
busy extreme burping on my shoe
I need to start a new elephant
note page for March but was
afraid I’d forget this poem’s first
sentence formatting another
month in a platform I’d rather
paint bricks than use. No
abacuses were used in the how
old are you Jeff the gimmick
rictus of this poem. I’m growing
ON MY FIRST CHAPTER
FAULKNER’S *AS I LAY DYING*
INFATUATION
Adze: needed google
preindustrial handheld
tool’s meaning, he types
Heavy glazing with clear elmer’s glue, I know you can’t see it here, I’ve suspended fountain pen ink and chalk from game day roster cause these need be flipped and toggled in light without staining your hand and seen in light and thumbed for glue-braille, I know you can’t feel it here, here, follow the colors, go
Strongest proof of god
is that I can’t sing, second
proof I can’t draw shit
I not only can
nap now I need nap or I’m
feebler than new borns
I lose my balance
opening the dishwasher
Still love steep mountains
up but steep mountains
down now no, fucking hurts, knees
yes, eyes more, can’t see
where feet go, will I
kill myself deliberately
or “stumble” to my
death, a soccer team’s
shirt has joint you can bet my
death over/under
For my sake I need mention I am using three different sized square watercolor blocks, 6×6, 8×8, and 12×12 which I cut to 11.25×11.25 because the scanner I use is 17×11.7. They all appear the same size here. I constantly look through here rather than rifling through the box of abandons when I want to remember a particular square or something new I was working on but got distracted and moved to next, I can remember what media I used and probably remember correctly what size the canvas, but just in case this one 11.25×11.25, the one below 8×8, laugh, starts now, this as far back as I’ll do research on this
To stop myself thinking about it I bought an Arches 12 x 12 hot-press watercolor block which, if I’d thought about it instead of thinking I needed to buy it, is too big for the bed of the scanner I use so I can post the squares here and there and too big for the laminator I use so that the squares can be handled without fountain pen ink staining fingers, the above is the 12 x 12 cropped to 11 x 11, fine metajeffphors abound
The red blue yellow tubes of gouache L bought in Baltimore were in the same paper bag as the watercolor brushes I bought in Baltimore, uh-oh, not that I’m going to give up fountain pen and watercolor ink but maybe I don’t have to stain my hands each and every night with them, I broke my gouache duck, laugh!
Finished my daily two-dimensional box, time to write
my daily two-dimensional poem
Width my dimension lacking, some would argue depth, I say, Death
to the Either/Or, my gag and epitaph.
I divorced the life of juicing stories and limited my experiential interactions unless
I lie, I’ve tried, I try, I can’t, am a ham liar
Worry stone daily, hollowing, not widening, the thumb niche
I am the only Jeff I know.
I meet other Jeffs often
through work or Subaru
service managers who
insist their name is Jeffrey,
please don’t confuse me
with them, I’m not a James
who hates Jim or a Charles
who hates Charlie or a Robert
who hates Bob or a Margaret
who hates Peggy or a William
who hates Billy or a Stephen
Steve or Michael Mike
or David Dave or Edward Ted
or Eddie. Please call me Jeff.
I’m the only one I know.
Should I write about my marriage at some point? Is this
tonight’s poem? It better be. I love her when I’m with her I
love me most when I’m alone. I’ve tried to make that not
true. She is not here with me now while I write this
poem and I will not show her the poem and I’ve never
asked her to read any of my poems. Tomorrow we hike
the Appalachian Trail through blooming mountain laurels