come down jiffy by shake to the tune

• I'm in a hotel in Chelsea Michigan, home of Jiffy Mixes, the flour company, go look on the shelves of your local grocery, remember seeing it in your grandma's kitchen hoosier?
• Chelsea, according to my daughter Planet, who is why I am in Chelsea Michigan, says people who work but can't afford to live in Ann Arbor live in Chelsea, those who work in Chelsea, like Planet, can't afford to live in Chelsea and live, like Planet, next county west.
• As I type this I could be seeing Guided by Voices at Black Cat in DC but chose to be in Chelsea Michigan instead.
• As I type this I could be seeing Lindsey Buckingham at Warner Theater in DC but would have chose to see Guided by Voices who I chose not to see so I can be in Chelsea Michigan.

• This is my third trip to Michigan, my first since Fall 2015 when Planet worked a year at Adrian College as an Art Dept assistant.
• My first impression of Michigan from the first trip is still true: it's fucking flat.
• Between my second trip to Michigan and this trip to Michigan Planet lived in Baltimore for two years.
• I have no other impression of Michigan since the first trip than flat, though I'm told I'll see pretty this weekend.
• This trip is the first trip of dozens and dozens of trips to Michigan for the foreseeable rest of my life.

• Ten typical days in Trump's America.
• Of course she's running in 2020.
• Motherfucking Democrats.
• This motherfucker.
• Let the walls come twombling down.
• Fucked Up! as in the band! I don't have the new one yet, the old four appeared on shuffle in car yesterday, hopefully today and tomorrow and Monday too.
• The Party of Bone Saw Apologists.
• There is no such thing as an adjunct professor.
• The latest from Mr Alarum.
• I *love* Red Shoes. 
• Old, new at the other place, since today is a Proust day, my days now Proust, next Murnane, next Proust, next Murnane....

SONG OF WEIGHT AND MEASURES

Martha Silano

For there is a dram.

For there is a farthing.

A bushel for your thoughts.

A hand for your withered heights.

  

For I have jouled along attempting

to quire and wisp.

   

For I have sized up a mountain’s meters,

come down jiffy by shake to the tune

of leagues and stones.

   

For once I was your peckish darling.

   

For once there was the measure

of what an ox could plow

in a single morning.

   

For once the fother, the reed, the palm.

   

For one megalithic year I fixed my gaze

on the smiling meniscus, against the gray wall

of graduated cylinder.

     

For once I measured ten out of ten

on the scale of pain.

   

For I knew that soon I’d kiss good-bye

the bovate, the hide and hundredweight.

    

For in each pinch of salt, a whisper of doubt,

for in each medieval moment, emotion,

   

like an unruly cough syrup bottle,

uncapped. For though I dutifully swallowed

     

my banana doses, ascended, from welcome

to lanthorn, three barleycorns at a time,

    

I could not tackle the trudging, trenchant cart.

    

For now I am forty rods from your chain and bolt.

For now I am my six-sacked self.