It was getting harder
to detect my image in the mirror
as anything recognizably human.
I wasn't disappearing, exactly.
It had been years
since the last attack.
Making matters worse
I came back here to write this
and forced him to drive
to parts unknown.
Do you remember the wreck scene?
I went kind of nuts
and took a baseball bat
to every mailbox on that road.
I still do not have a clue as to what my mission is.
But it was a good thing I wore what I did.
He thinks I'm the bad guy
but I am merely part of the process.
To wit:
we were sitting around
one evening after tea
cutting the air with farts
and exotic bird calls
when suddenly it hit me
that each of us is going to
get his nut in his own way
no matter should
aunt Gertie disapprove
(right, my little droogies?)
The next day I waylaid myself
over the head with a hammer.
How do you think it happened?
I spend a lot of time
on social media...
do the math, dipshit.
One of the nurses banged
on the door.
They ran about a million tests.
You don't want to know.
And then, people started falling,
And then...nothing.
You're fine.
Drink some water.
I transported myself
back to that summer.
I'd stood against the back,
right by the exit.
I'm putting an end to this, I said.
I smelled the smoke.
I thought it was romantic
in a demented sort of way.
You know how the game is played.
Catch me if you can...
but be advised
I've still got that hammer, man.
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads
They said that poetry was dead
because most of its superstars
were similarly indisposed.
But they never figured on you
and they never figured on me
to breathe some life back
into that exquisite corpse.
So fix me a salad, Caesar,
for I come to praise poetry--
not to bury it.
Poetry works for the way we live today.
It's bite-sized and makes for
a handy snack, when even the
Cliff Notes version of War and Peace
is bound to give us indigestion.
Prose stands on the corner
and waits for the bus.
Poetry glides by in a pink Cadillac convertible.
Prose beats around the bush
for chapter upon endless chapter.
Poetry says get to the point, SUCKAH,
I haven't got all day!
(If you hold your breath waiting
for the epiphany in prose,
you WILL turn purple.)
A poem has weight--
either heavy or light--
and a poem has depth,
having welled up from somewhere
deep inside you.
You can tell by the way
a poem sits upon the page
whether it's something you
want to sit with.
Poetry is highly individualistic--
no two snowflakes, and no two poems
about snowflakes are exactly alike.
Failed poetry, at the very least,
assists in perfecting one's
trash basket set shot.
Here is a sure-fire formula
for making a poem...
On a sheet of white paper
place several black dots
at random and varying
lengths from one another.
The dots are now your periods.
Connect the dots with words
and you have a poem.
Many of the world's most treasured
works were created in just this manner!
It is incumbent upon the poet
to tell the truth--even when
his truth never really happened--
and even bad poetry is good
when compared with a political speech.
As Gregory Corso said,
"Poetry is the opposite of hypocrisy."
And that's the truth.
