Why I write poetry

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I write poetry and, perhaps just as importantly, why I choose to share it online. If you're going to read my poetry, please read this: hopefully it will allow you to look at my poetry through the right lens.

The Three Reasons Why I Write Poetry

1. To work out my own thoughts and emotions

I see things in the world, things that make sense and other things that, well, don't. The combination of the two is always difficult to comprehend. Also, I believe that there is beauty in simple things. Those things are worth discovering and writing about. Sometimes it feels like I have to write, to explore new concepts, to understand better.

My poems are not about me. Hopefully, they are about the commonalities of the human experience. But they are also inherently personal in nature, since I can't help but see the world only as I have seen it. This can expose me, or appear to expose me. You might read my poetry and come to conclusions about who I am or what I've done. Try and remember though that the poetry is less about specific actions than about deeper truths and thoughts. So just because I write in a poem, "I am drunk," it doesn't mean I am drunk or even have ever been drunk. It is a poem. The narrative is not always my own and even if it is, it may have been expanded or fictionalized to fit within the context of the poem.

So disclaimer: If I write something in my poetry, it does not mean it has ever been or will ever be true in reality.

2. To take snapshots

I am selfish. I want to one day remember what I did and what I felt. Some people take photographs to do this. These are my mental photographs. The beautiful thing is that over the years as I've written this blog, I've always been able to look at my past poems and instantly remember where I was emotionally and where I was in my life. My mom used to scrapbook. It's pretty darn similar.

3. To communicate

I'm reminded of Plato's Cave, where the philosopher, having gone out into the world and learned new things, was required to return to inform his fellow man of the things he had learned.

Alright, so I am no philosopher and I am no prophet. But I do have words and thoughts to share, desires yet to be fulfilled and lessons still to be learned. In that, I have a common trait with everyone who reads this blog. If it allows you to take any deeper understanding, or even just a laugh, than I am communicating.

I am a shy kid at heart. I'm not great at small talk. I enjoy hearing what people really think and really care about. I am open with myself, possibly because I trust easily. That has the chance to backfire from time to time, but it's not enough to stop me. I am sharing something with you, thoughts that I may have thought, may still think, may have only toyed with. Thank you for extending the same courtesy by being mindful that what you see is not always reality. I've been posting my poetry more lately because I have been writing more, so I thought it was important to let you know my thoughts about this.

Letter to a lover

Not sure if I want to leave this one as it is, or include it as the ending to some larger poem. We'll see.
-------------

You will never be my happily ever after,

You will always be my for better or for worse

And I know it doesn’t sound that romantic,

But the thing about pedestals is that they only keep us apart,

The higher I raise you, the harder it is to see you

and I already had pretty terrible eyesight

let me carry you down, step by step

let me lower you from your tower and

hold your hands in mine.

Only here, on even ground,

 can I feel your breath against my chest

Only here, face to face,

Can I see all that you are and all that you aren’t

Because you are enough,

You have always been enough.

Friendship

I am sorry that I hurt you.

After all of these years, I realize

that we never talked about the things that bothered us

and now, I suppose, we don’t really talk at all

I've swiped my phone calls and text messages like

my most cherished credit card, only to come up with “Reader Error,”

again and again, or maybe it was more like “My Error,” because I

sent you a letter trying to tell you everything

I was sorry for, and somehow missed

the mark, because I haven’t heard from you since.

I’d say what I did wrong, but I still don’t know, and

I’d ask again, but you're only a voice mail.

If you were standing here in front of me,

I would say that I am sorry because I

wasn't always the best friend, I

am reminded that I am a great, goofy greyhound,

who after years of being trained still doesn't know how to stay home,

I chase after every backyard squirrel and bright headlight,

and come back two weeks later, my paws torn,

my eyes like drooping “I owe you’s”

and settle again by your side,

man’s worst friend,

because this whole time I've ignored the shock collar,

tracked mud into the living room,

and brought back only fleas.

Grammatically Incorrect

she was always better than me,

when it came to language,

she knew phrases like past imperfect,

she could turn adjectives into anagrams,

she was allergic to the passive tense,

when it came to words, I was a poet,

but she was a tactician, I was in love with

self-indulgent phrases and modifiers, words

that meant nothing, like wonderfully, and beautifully

and lovingly, she

eliminated adverbs with the red slash of her pen,

she was in love with fixing, give her a rough draft and

she would turn it into a masterpiece, her masterpiece,

and hand it back to me and wonder how I didn’t

see it in the first place. She knew

grammar books like the back of the universe, she

thought she knew everything because, if

she ever didn’t, she could look it up, she

was a walking red pen on the

world and I, I was just a poet,

still in love with the world’s words.

It is not enough

When is enough, enough?

I have never understood this expression, probably never will, but I imagine it like I imagine a geographical plane, a line of best fit, where it shrinks and expands to mean anytime that you feel ready to stop what you’re doing. It sounds like the footnote of the book “Getting through the American Dream,” it feels like a limp handshake, a little bit fishy.

I might never understand, but I can tell you what is not enough.

It is not enough to wake up. It is not enough to roll out of bed like you’re risen from the grave but prefer to be dead. It is not enough to brush your teeth, put your clothes on, eat the same meal you’ve eaten the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. It’s not enough to float, bleary-eyed, through your family’s life. Pull your window blinds up. Let the sunlight in at 7 when you don’t have to wake up until 10:30, even on a Saturday. Remind yourself how blessed you are to see another day. Remember those who haven’t.

It is not enough to wake up. You must also rise.

It is not enough to work, ‘work will save you, work will carry you from this urban Gehenna, will turn your rags into riches, will give you purpose’. Maybe. But though we measure our work in hourly rates – from $7 worthlessness to $1 million royalty – remember that our true work is measured in hands. The hands that we touch and our own hands, bruised, broken, worn. You can lie to your boss about how hard you worked today, but you cannot lie to yourself, when you look at the mirror at night, and turn your hands upward, and see skin as soft as the day you were born.

It is not enough to work. You must also give.

It is not enough to be religious. Throughout the centuries, faith has guided us, its internal rhyme borne deep into our hearts, like scar tissue, it never leaves us. Follow that faith. But remember that faith is about opening your eyes even when you’d rather close them, that the hardest thing to do is reach out without knowing what you will receive. Reach anyway.

It is not enough to be religious. You must also understand.

It is not enough to live. Anyone can make it through another day. Anyone can force themselves to breathe in and then remind themselves to breathe out. Anyone can wander from their cold bed to their comatose job to their cumbersome sleep.

No, it is not enough to live. You must also love.

I know that I will die young

I know that I will die young

because I always eat like I’ve never heard of a tomorrow.

when we were younger and we sat at the dinner table, together,

my sisters and my brothers would finish their meals, and

I would take what was left and finish it for them, they

called me the disposal, I just wanted to

make sure nothing went to waste.

I know that I will die young

because I read the crime reports every day, I

see randomness claim its victims in the oddest ways, I

know that no amount of reasoning can ever explain

the laundry list of anonymous names,

that passed through the newspaper today.

I know that I will die young

because there is already this pain in my chest, and

I feel it tighten, clenched, like the saddest fist,
it's hard to breathe like this, when I sigh
people assume that there is something wrong,
I have to assure them otherwise, and

a young heart, like mine, should not feel this way.

I know that I will die young

because I’ve always felt this way, the day

my mother dropped me off at school and I told her

that I was sad, because I imagined death was

a lot like nothingness, and blackness, and sadness,

and for days I could not sleep, I tasted

only loneliness.

I know that I will die young because

I have lived longer than you, when you count the

hours I’ve spent awake, as opposed to sleeping.

I’ve never slept very well and, if you add it up, 
I’ve spent weeks, months, maybe even years, awake.

I know that I will die young because

I never met my grandfather, my namesake, he died

from a heart attack, and my Pede, my other grandfather, died

from cancer, and in a family of 10, I know

that the odds are against us all making it,

and I would rather have it be me.

I know that I will die young because I

have always had old eyes, 
and for those of us

who see life as a smoldering sun,

who see beauty in a dewdrop, 
or a sand crab, or a held hand, 
every heart break is a thousand times worse,

and it whittles away at us, and

a young heart, like mine, should not feel this way.

Love is another restless night

I want you to know

that just because I can never fall asleep with you

it doesn’t mean I love you any less.

You see, every time I step up into my bed

I pull another Russian gun to my head and

sleep, honest-to-goodness sleep, is

only one bullet out of six shots,

I’ve had this problem since middle school,

It was born from late nights reading in my bed

Until 3 a.m., because night time was the time

for traveling with Elvin kings and

fantastical, magic wings, and

reading under thin,

white sheets.

I want you to know

that I love you so much
that I’ve tried to sleep in other positions,

you know by now

that I can only sleep in one position,

arms crossed, stomach down, forming

a perfect frame to rest my head and cradle it

toward the dream of sleep.

But with you, I’ve tried anyway,

I’ve placed my right arm through the gateway of your two hands,

Which accept it, thank you,
and up to your chest and

I hold you there,

as if to say, ‘One day, you might leave me

but it ain’t happenin tonight. I’ve got you

right where I want you.’

Or maybe I put my hands around your waist,

they rest easy there, I can feel

your breathing, traveling

down your spine, I

relish these moments, my hands

around your waist, as if to say,

‘One day, you might leave me,

but if you do, I’ll be able to tickle you on the way out,’

because I love tickling,

and you hate being tickled.

Night after night, I try these positions

they almost never work

but I try these positions anyway

because I know you like them, they

make you feel safe, secure,

even loved.

Most of the time, when I actually do want to fall asleep,

I pull myself out and I turn away,

and I lay my head down

between my arms.

But still I don’t sleep, my thoughts are racing

I think about everything that makes up nothing,

I think of euphemisms for thought, for sex, for melancholy

I think of Elvin kings and other long-lost dreams,

I’ve tried thinking of sheep, but once, around

Sheep 2,436, I realized that it was all a lot of crap.

I think of when the universe was created, and

every atom exploded with every other atom,

like a giant fireworks display that finally

settled, one day, and became the stars,

that beautiful creation, that one

day created…you.

I want you to know

that I love you so much,

that at night I stare at your silhouette,

it’s not rude if you don’t catch me,

and think of all the moments

that are worth not sleeping for.

In Memoriam, St. Augustine - Aug. 31, 2013

I will miss you, St. Augustine.

I will miss your barefoot, sandy retreats, swallowed in heat despite all the air conditioning my empty pockets could buy, your window wake-up call at 7 a.m. that I never figured out how to avoid, your insistence that I never fell asleep before 4 a.m., three days straight, eyes wide open.

I will miss your guilty pleasure in yourself, your narcissistic nose buried deep in your own history books, your boastful ads on my imaginary TV screen, your drone, your buzz, your jubilee, your flatulence, your sweaty promise that you were the oldest and that would never change, even if there was a town in Maine that challenged your claims.

I will miss your caffeine rush, your cold coffee – black, nonetheless – that entered my bloodstream once, every day, between the hours of 11 and 12, because I had just discovered you, Hyppo, and you were new and you were fresh and exciting despite my perspiring wallet.

I will miss your empty wine glasses that I left hanging on windowsills and doorstops like bread crumbs to follow back into safety, your little lies whispered to me as I sat and stared at the moon and the stars and believed that this was adequate for grief, this was adequate for peace.

I will miss walking on your naked shores with only my boxers on and a sleeveless T-shirt that my sister would have yelled at me if she had seen me in, miss your breezy spray, miss your sudden tidal wave, miss your moon that hung bright for three days and then turned off, miss your footsteps laid after I ran every night by that same very light.

I will miss your lesson in loneliness, your year-long breakup, your inevitable crash, your reminder that you are truly alone because you are the only one on this beach and there is an endless ocean ahead of you and no one for miles, except for the blinking green light, a warning for those who might have lost their way (and a hope for those who haven’t).

I will miss your alcoholic dreams, your tobacco lips, your pigeon streets, your ambling gaze, your callous drip, your naval-gazing wit, your spite, your terror, your bug spray, your arrogance, your silliness, your White Lion, your Local Heroes, your A1A, your homeless, your crazies, your cathedrals.

I will miss the idea of your Friday art walks, though I never went to one, and your Rembradtz and your Galeria Del Mar, and hours spent walking along St. George Street and then drifting between artistic ecstasy and inarticulate despair, staring from outside the window and then walking inside, staring into the fiery shadow of a girl who I have never met.

I will miss you, Ginsberg, and your self-indulgent ways and your conversations with yourself.

I will miss your 2 a.m. and still wandering, your Bridge of Lions, your fort, your shell-rock, brittle and cutting your feet, and the one night when I went running into your sea, with all my clothes, and my friend in her dress, and my other friend who lost his keys and his cell phone and we had to drive him back, soaking wet.

I will miss your excess and your tragedy, your beauty wrapped in every bitter drop of salt and sweat (it burned my eyes, but that is kind of the point), your hipster jeans and cheap cigars, your conversations with Meg Ryan, late at night, pointless, but made all the same.

I will miss you, but maybe

I won’t forget you.

A summer in the old city

The pidgeons were too friendly, they

would come up to me even when I was in one of my moods

and try to talk to me, and I

would say to them, “Why, I’ve

got nothing to say to you. You shouldn’t be here, you

could be anywhere else, but here, and

just cuz others feed you

doesn’t mean I will,

you sellouts, you

who can

fly!”

I knew a place where you could get

a beer and a cigar for 4.99 in the old city, and

on my days off I would wander between the tabby

bricks and drink in the courtyard and try

to keep the smoke from the

playing kids.

Done, I would

Float down the street in my hipster slacks,

and think in verse, walking

past the fort and into the art galleries,

dotting in and out, timid, feeling

like I shouldn’t be in such

reverent spaces,

turning away,

dull ache.

There was one artist who only painted

wine. I think we would have
gotten along, you see, I am Catholic. wine

bottles in stacks, with fading light, with

illuminate corks, with fat, thin, long

snouts, barreling upwards,

engorged. He said he

used to paint only reds,

would paint apples, wagons, but

discovered that every time

he painted wine, he

sold out.

Cathedral bells extolled the hour.

Dehydrated and buzzed, I

always stopped at the gallery del Mar.

There was a painting there, of

a girl – cliché! – of vibrant color and red hair,

she had no eyes, covered in bangs, but she always

looked straight through me and I shied away, she

was too real, all-knowing, her violent strokes

slashing at my vision, but peace, and

infatuation, so I

asked how to pronounce the artist’s name:

“Josef Kote” (as in coat).

Funny that I had expected something else, something

sublime, something French.

“She was his daughter, beautiful

Isn’t she?”

I would say thanks, then

stumble into the day – 5 p.m. – my

buttoned shirt soaked with sweat, the

remnants of tobacco still bitter on my lips, I

would walk to my sauna car and drive home, 

and wade into the water, asleep.

Sensibilities

Musing life, wanton mind
waxing tipsy at every empty
doorstep, dreaming mutes marching
endlessly on a sidewalk full
of cracks and broken backs, starved
for poetics, breathless in a stream of
seamless prophets, gasping, wheezing, breeding,
raising hell, razing heaven,
sacrificial lambs consumed by words,
my own parched tongue, my tail
wagging for one more bone of
poetry hung up on an easel like the
promise of beauty, of apparitions, of
derivatives, equations becoming real,
contextual, consubstantial, ecstasy
wrapped in a lettuce sandwich and
broadcast over a megaphone.
Aching for inspiration, wandering the
same haunts, dipping my chest in
water, baptized for the sixth time
today, sticking my tongue in the air
during a hailstorm, cooking
concoctions of sweat and stars in
my backyard grill, cackling like a
madman gone streaking through an
empty parking lot, is this passion, is
this tomfoolery? I demand ecstasy, I
long for it, I dream of it, I sleep in its
dirty sheets, I fall into it, I capsize
and remain dunked beneath it like that
first communal wafer.

Where are you agony? this
masochistic taste for pleasure will
carry me into the gorgeous, pulsing,
visceral, setting, torrid sun.

A shadow on the beach

Yes, it is night,

but there is enough light 
to make a shadow on the beach, and I 
wonder what would happen if it were mine, and 
it was taken out to sea 
by a tidal wave that 
only grew with the waning moon?

What would happen if it stayed there,

as dawn broke day and it baked

under the half-cracked sun? I imagine it

building a raft of saccharine sweat,

floating and hallucinating, communing

with dolphin shamans and hypocritical sharks

who floss their teeth, white as

mint. I see the shadow wilting and

proselytizing, shouting and pleading to an

unseen host, capsized by a sweaty bow

and entering the trough, filling its

lungs with hollow sounds,

and a seagull waits

to fill its

beak.

It's a recurrent dream, this insomniac theme

Another sleepless night, lying in my head as I think of a bed from the corner of this motel parking lot.

Racing thoughts like these offer neither rest, nor dreams, nor pocket-sized belief, neither solace, nor wisdom, nor soul-searching relief, neither shelter, nor inspiration, nor cataract motifs.

Another sleepless night promises no peace for me.

The Awakening

Now I understand.

I will join you some day,

and enter that deepening dark,

but for now I must stay,

and listen on from afar.

We need to talk

We need to talk
----

What's that?
We need to talk?
Oh, sure thing, babe, but
first let me finish the dishes they've
been left out for quite some time now, sorry,
I know it was my turn to clean them, I
was just so busy and you know how it goes,
but I picked up some fruit at the
market today -
what, you were trying to say something?
Of course, of course I can put it down but
first let me dry my hands and turn out the faucet,
there, now we can talk, so let me start by
saying you look lovely today, I
don't say that enough, you
know? But
you do and I've been thinking about it and we
should go out on a real nice date, like last June when
we went to the Wailers concert and smoked a bowl with
Marley's ghosts, wasn't
that fun? Wait
let me finish, see, I'm a changed man, look
I've got two quarters and a dime, and my spirits are
much more congenial now that I only sip them
twice a day. I've
even started writing like I used to, you remember
the poem with the lilac letters and the icy eyes, didn't
you like that, back when we laid out on purple blankets with
our backs on the beach and the tide rising up over
 our feet? Hah, that
was really funny because you almost wet yourself and
no, no, of course that wasn't, just a bit amusing, or
maybe not really at all, sorry, I get talking like this and my toes get
all tingly and I start to blush, you know how
hot I get, because
your Aunt Ruth saw me do it last Thanksgiving and called
me rooster and you laughed and kept calling me it until you
said it during sex that one time and suddenly it wasn't funny any -
more, would you like more ice cream, I know Neapolitan is
not your favorite, so I bought you Rocky Road instead, is
that alright? I
know you best you know and -
What's that you say?
Oh.

You want to break up?

Well, uh, sure, I mean,
why put it off?

A faulty spigot in Africa

Sorry.
That's as cold as it gets.
As much relief as you will get
in this here desert place.

Red wine aspiring

I know I can’t mention red wine in this poem

without conveying blood, so forgive this lie

when I say that red wine means summer nights

                forgetting the hot summer sun under

a dark blue night, while stars

                collect dust on this un-swept patio

and I too, gathering courage and must

                as a cooling breeze sweeps within

my shallow mind.

Short Story: Survivor's Guilt

     In front of me, my mom’s pushing the grocery cart, two kids – twins – in the seat, yelling and giggling and drooling over each other. I’m older, better than that, having reached double digits last month. It’s something I’m proud of and mom bought me a batman cake and all four of us blew it out. I let the twins have the first bite because they probably would have taken it anyway when mom turned around to get the forks. They’re worse than I was at that age. Mom doesn’t believe me, but I swear they are.

     The cake was ice cream cake, my favorite, because what could be better than getting two desserts in one? Somewhere between blowing out the candles and me taking my first bite, we heard the phone ring in the kitchen. It was the home phone, which people don’t call all that often. The twins didn’t notice, but mom grimaced. That’s when I knew who it was and I remembered that he was the only one who called the home phone.

     I put my head down and pretended not to look. Mom was having trouble deciding whether to pick up the phone or not. I don’t understand why. If dad wanted to call me, I’d answer every time.

     “One second, sweetie,” she said, patting me on the hand. “You eat your cake, okay?”

     She skirted the island and picked up the phone.

     “Hey Rick.”

     “I have caller ID, remember?”

     “Yeah.”

     “No.”

     “No, I understand, I just can’t let you.”

     “You don’t deserve it.”

     “I’m glad you’ve worked so hard.”

     “No, it doesn’t change anything.”

     “Why?”

     She looked back at me. I snapped my head back down to my cake and hoped she hadn’t seen me watching.

     “I can’t talk about this right now.”

     “You aren’t supposed to contact me. You’re lucky I’m not calling them now.”

     “I’m too tired for this.”

     “You would be able to tell the kids yourself, if you hadn’t done this to yourself.”

     “No.”

     “Alright, bye.”

     The phone dead, mom stayed at the kitchen counter. She was shaking, but not crying. Her arms were pushed up, her elbows jutting out. Her wedding ring with the little diamond tapped against the granite countertop. I don’t know why she still wore it. My parents weren’t married. Married parents live together and take their kids to the park and fight over the remote. When they were married, mom would fuss over dad’s tie when he left for work, and when he got back, he would cuss if dinner wasn’t ready. Now they weren’t supposed to talk at all. Married parents are allowed to get within 100 yards of each other.

     The twins were making a mess again. I sighed and grabbed one flailing arm filled with cake. I couldn’t catch the other one though and the ice cream hit the other twin straight on. Melting, it slithered down the table and dripped onto the floor.

     “I’ll get it,” I said, before mom even noticed. She was still in the kitchen, staring at the counter.

     “No more,” I said to the twins, sternly, hoping it would be enough. Sometimes they didn’t listen.

     I didn’t like seeing mom like this. She once told me how, when she was in college – school for big kids – she traveled across Europe with a single backpack. All by herself, whenever she didn’t have a place she would find a park or a mountain and set up a tent. She said it was the best time of her life and that one day she hoped I would take a trip like that. Mom wanted to be a map-maker and explore the world. She was much braver than I was. I just wanted to be a teacher one day. But she wanted to be a map-maker and she would have adventures and maybe she would have taken me along.

     The tile floor was dirty. I knew because I could feel the crumbs sticking to the bottoms of my toes and I felt like I had walked through a cloud of dust. I reminded myself to help mom clean that later. I probably couldn’t do it myself, but if I offered to help, it would get done quicker. Then mom would be happy.

     I reached for the roll of paper towels but before I could grab it, mom took my hand. I looked up.

     “You don’t have to worry about it,” she said. “I’ll clean it up.”

     “But I want to.”

     “No, please. Let me. It’s your birthday. Finish your cake.”

     I nodded and turned around.

     “Sweetie, you know it’ll get better, right?”

     I didn’t answer but I looked back and I smiled and she smiled and I was happy.

     One of these days, I imagine mom will tell me what happened and it will be like when she told me Santa Claus wasn’t real last year. She’ll make a big deal of it and she’ll sit me down on the couch and I’ll wait and my heart will be pounding because I won’t know what she’s about to say. She’ll hold my hands and tell me not to worry and that sometimes the things we believe in aren’t what we always thought they were. She’ll say that the toys were really from her and that the cookies were just for show. She’ll say she couldn’t sleep at night because she was so worried about what we would think. She’ll tell me everything and make it seem like it’s so bad, only it won’t be so bad and it won’t be such a big deal and she’ll ask me if I’m upset, and I’ll say no, because I always knew he wasn’t real anyway.

     Mom once told me about my Aunt Ruth and how, when my Uncle Dan died in a car accident, she felt so guilty. I asked her why Aunt Ruth felt guilty and she said that the morning that Uncle Dan died, Aunt Ruth asked him to drive the small car instead of their pickup truck. Aunt Ruth felt guilty because she thought that if Uncle Dan had been in the truck, he might have lived.

     “That’s not her fault though!”

     “I know,” Mom said. “But she still felt guilty.”

     “Why?”

     “It’s just how people feel sometimes.”

     “That’s not fair.”

     “I know,” Mom said. “It’s called survivor’s guilt. When one person loves someone so much, they sometimes think crazy things. She felt guilty because he died and maybe she thought she should have been the one who died instead.”

      Now I’m back in the grocery store again and the twins are fighting and I see my mom’s face and I’m worried. The shopping cart is rocking back and forth. The twins are so noisy. A mean lady gives us a dirty look and scuttles past us. As she does, she knocks over a cereal box and I put it back up and I look at my mom again.

     She is so tired and she works so hard and she’ll never be a map-maker. That’s the only thing she wanted and she’s not going to get it.

     I think I’m feeling survivor’s guilt.

     Because there’s some part of me that knows that if it weren't for me and the twins, mom could go and be whoever she wanted to be. She could be a map-maker and she could travel the world and she could marry a man who loved her. She was beautiful and she could dance again and she could buy groceries just for herself and she wouldn't have to pretend to be Santa Claus or pretend like everything is always okay, and she wouldn't have to pretend at all. 

I never should have listened to Hemingway

I never should have listened to Hemingway

The old man said to write while drunk,

Edit sober.

But he must have held his liquor better than me,

I’m drunk.

He drank while he edited, I’m sure,

He was a master drunkard:

Why let writing get in the way of his true art?

Fuck me, I’m rambling again.

Ramblings a lost art, you know?

I’m a romantic for thinking so…

But seriously, we’re a lost generation of

Soul-searching addicts.

We bask in the moonlight of our own naivety,

Remember: the true art is not knowing anything

At all.

That’s the promise, that’s the lie

Man, I need a drink.

Do I seem a bit preoccupied?

Sorry I’m a master of multi-tasking,

A jack of no trades, so to speak.

Mumbling with a bottle of wine and

A girl texting me but

She isn’t here,

Which makes the drinking easier and

The thinking

cheap.

About the only thing cheap in this

Inflation of dreams.

It’s not an American thing, it’s

Bigger than that.

My bucks gone to shit and my drinks

Are less than they used to be

My pitchers are smaller, my

hopes – shit, hops – as well.

Freudian slip,

What a dick, exposing us all

like that.

Couldn’t accept that we say things

we don’t mean.