1. January 15, 1991. Only $1.09

Sold at the checkout, with your
Trident, your razor blades.

Outside, the rain unfolds
its distances and pastel car hoods

melt like snocones
in the dazed half-light

of the half-empty parking lot.
On the black cover a blue

dutch oven circles the ruddy
stew you think you want.



2. Be Safe in a Recession

Imagine the sun in Teotihuatl.
Imagine the frilled shields
of an ornamental January
cabbage flailing outward

like skirts of an upside-down
dancer. She’s safe, though
receding, receding head first
into the pit of a redwood planter.



3. When Cheaper is Better--28 Ideas

Attempt a lunar cycle.
Each day is an idea--viz,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
etcetera. If you can, ovulate.
Then menstruate. If you can’t,
dream about what it might be like
if you could, or about what it was
like when you did.
Then try to find a moon--any moon--
and bleed. Pad yourself with catskins, dog
pelts, thorn lashes, roothairs.
And bleed.

4. 7 Money Mistakes to Avoid

See above. Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday,

and etcetera.
Each named for a god you’ve forgotten.

5. How to Survive a Crisis

Simmer gently for as long
as necessary, as long

as you keep on wanting.

6. Doctor’s Tips for Younger Skin

Imagine shadows.
Imagine shadows and coffins.
Touch the dreadfully soft

flattened leaves of the frozen
passion vine that lies in a
heap of itself

on your shimmering deck.
And get younger. You’ll get
younger right away.



7. Free l99l Bible Calendar


365 Wise Men marching
toward a moon, a star, a desert.

Staggering under signs that say
This time it’s you we love.

Thor’s day, Freya’s day, Saturn’s day
shadow them on the highway.

The atomic head of John the Baptist flares,
explodes, splotches the Sanitas.

8. Mary Ellen’s Household Hints to Help the Earth

She recommends
SOS and cleansing salt. But if
pressed she babbles
air, fire, water.

Dead leaves flip fretful
archaic pages
around her pointy shoes.
Her broom points north.

Get out your ironing board.
Put in a call to Teotihuatl.
Or a prayer to Freya.
Ovulate. Right away.

9. Give Yourself the Best Body of Your Life: Easy Diet and
Workout Plan

For example, admire the trivial
hairs of your arms. Thorn lashes, sperm
tails. Whipping in the wind.

And the great flat leaves
of the epidermis you call your own
and how they gather around a thin invisible core.

Think: I am and am not a body.



10. Contest! Win a $15,000 Bedroom


Forget about thistles and kitchens!
The long flat mattress
will be azure--azul--
to float on like a gull, scattering
cries of pride to those below, scattering

distances like rains of bad
dead leaves to those
who still stew under you.
And there’ll be sheets of fire,
pillows of light.

But remember, you must fight for this.
The others are ardent, and the coins
will melt in your hands
the minute you draw them
from the aching oven.

11. How To Keep Your Kids Well This Winter


First, watch out for those distances
that hover like frozen leaves drifting

over the deck or thistle lashes
tempting a touch. Then maybe
you might try stories.
Tales of blue and mattresses or even

blood and stew are often
effective with children.



12. The Problem People Won’t Admit: Like 28 million other
Americans you might have a serious hearing problem--and not
even know it. Don’t suffer in silence! See page 32.


If you have to see page 32, probably
you aren’t hearing right. Right?

So I’ll write it down for you in plain
American black and white: if you

haven’t read what I’ve said so far,
you’ll go no further, you

with your swollen creamy youthful
hands, you with your serious

suffering in a silence
you can’t even hear!

13. Meat Meals to Fix in Minutes


January 15, 1991. Only $1.09.
Won’t you listen to the mushrooms
complaining, the meat
muttering that it’s too late
for Mary Ellen, your body,
your bed? Your kids skid

through winter, your doctor tips
into easy blood, Jeremiah
moans--the madman!--as he marches

toward a March when the passion
vine might silently
resume its long crawl

up the walls of your house.
Light the oven. Fast.
Note this minute’s

recession of darkness.
Avoid money mistakes.
Hurry up. Unfold

your flat pale leaves
like the skirts of a dancer.

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