i have a normal life now. and i'm not keening.
not crazy.
anymore.
either that, or which ever world this one was.
and the other
got all mixed up.

look. writing isn’t some process like digital upgrades. or fusing the swampable switch. you can’t just take a paper and pen or some g.d. word processor and purr the whirr. you can’t ka-bang-yourself into poem. nice and neat like some city-slicker clicking himself down the downtown concrete streets to home. no, it isn’t like that. at all. poems aren’t some things we let out late at night after we’ve had too much to drink and the world has gone all blurred and we think we might have turned ourselves into bukowski’s underground-coyote brother. you can’t draw yourself into some dramatic competition with shakespeare or those brutal romantic poets. (or their dramatic goddamned daffodils.) if you see a poem, pick it up. and all day long you’ll have good luck. but do me this one favor. don’t do it quickly. oh, my poets, oh! like Walt Whitman and lucille clifton and all the great Americans before you, let your words be your spies and never be afraid! be meticulous and strange. be eccentric and extraordinary. and always, let your poem be you.

i am trying to write
14 words into a poem
not just any words
but some that someone else gave me
it isn't easy
this
and when i try to fit them into some form
when i try to find the rhythm of this wrong way me
nothing comes out
nothing about coyotes
or being meticulous
comes

so i wait