I often write my poems too fast
And the emotion gets passed by
In a rush to be finished
I gotta remember
I'm not Jack
I can't write on a continuous scroll
In a Benzedrine blur

I wish I could read my poems
With a jazz backing band
I keep a terrible rhythm alone
And when I'm in my car
Listening to Thelonious Monk,
The Jazz King of my heart,
My voice has this growl of feeling
But when I'm on that stage
With the mic staring back at me
I hesitate
It doesn't come out right
It doesn't sound like I rehearsed it
In my bed late at night
Or on those countless car trips

Oh I wish I could take that car
Gun it down an empty highway
Windows down
Air rushing in
And the Miles Davis trumpet
Screaming for me to go
Go
Go

I want to write about more
Than just how I'm feeling
My hero Woody Guthrie said
"All you can write
Is what you see"
But I've spent too much time
Looking in the mirror
When I should be looking out the window
But the window reveals my reflection all the same
I can never truly escape my self
But still I write

I know they are in me
The true holy poems
And maybe they won't be howling
And maybe they will never have been to Chicago
And maybe they don't know any Rimbaud or Garcia Lorca
And maybe they can't sing the blues
But when it is all said and done
No matter what they are
They're all I've got
And you can never hate something like that

And tonight I name myself
Misery
Something very fleeting
Only when thoughts of you
Bombard their way to the top of my mind
"What a tragedy"
I cry out to myself
Expecting someone to hear me
And take pity
But this room is empty
And my voice echoes and burrows itself
Into painted corners
Of gray or black
Tonight I feel misery
But it won't be long
Until the cool September air
Trapped in this room
Listens and feels the emotions in my words
And wraps itself around me
As I sleep

I waited today for a freight train to pass.
Cattle cars with steers butting their horns against the
     bars, went by.
And a half a dozen hoboes stood on bumpers between
     cars.
Well, the cattle are respectable, I thought.
Every steer has its transportation paid for by the farmer
     sending it to market,
While the hoboes are law-breakers in riding a railroad
     train without a ticket.
It reminded me of ten days I spent in the Allegheny
     County jail in Pittsburgh.
I got ten days even though I was a veteran of the
     Spanish-American war.
Cooped in the same cell with me was an old man, a
     bricklayer and a *****-fighter.
But it just happened he, too, was a veteran soldier, and
     he had fought to preserve the Union and free the
     *******.
We were three in all, the other being a Lithuanian who
     got drunk on pay day at the steel works and got to
     fighting a policeman;
All the clothes he had was a shirt, pants and shoes--
     somebody got his hat and coat and what money he
     had left over when he got drunk.

Whether we like it or not
We are a product of our memories
Our past
But the memories only have the power
That we give them
This poem would have been about
Desperation
Disappointment
Fear
Loathing
But as I sat and looked at the words already birthed unto the page
I didn't know where I wanted to take it
And in that moment of blessed and holy realization I knew immediately that wasn't the poem I wanted to write
Loathing had its time
Fear was an anchor only attached by a narrow thread
Disappointment was a lie to myself
And I felt no more desperate at this moment than I did when a million other horrible moments were conceived by my mind and cemented in my heart and ultimately made me
I am the direct consequence of my circumstance
And I wish it to be no other way
Failure is only but a new way of finding a path
The true path
I do not walk blindly
My stumbles are a part of my stride
This poem would have been about sadness
But I realized the sadness wasn't me after all

I can promise you that
I rarely cry at photographs
This is very new to me
But these tears are true
Just as your photos are true
Your photos are the true America
Thousands of photos
Of lives you only knew
I want to cover my house with your work
I want to imprint your photos inside my eyelids
So my dreams are filled with
The magnificent contrast
Beautiful simplicity
The truth shown through your eyes and the eyes of your camera, held at navel level, as you look into the eyes of your subject
What true art you have made!
Art rarely seen
Until after you passed
I wished I could meet you
A true beautiful soul
Why do all the beautiful souls leave me here?
Your pictures of the poor enlighten me
Your scenery inspires me
I can almost hear your faux French accent

You worked as a nanny
And you hid yourself
With fake names
Always a secret
You locked the doors behind you
For years your art was locked in boxes
Boxes and boxes
And photos of dead horses
Crying children
Extreme human conditions
Photos of trashcans
All was art
You could truly see it couldn't you?
You could see the truth
Of which I wish to write

I hope you were happy
Or at least content
I hope the nights weren't too dark
I hope you are glad to hear
The world loves what you have done
I thank you
We all thank you
And I wish you well

He travels after a winter sun,
Urging the cattle along a cold red road,
Calling to them, a voice they know,
He drives his beasts above Cabra.

The voice tells them home is warm.
They moo and make brute music with their hoofs.
He drives them with a flowering branch before him,
Smoke pluming their foreheads.

Boor, bond of the herd,
Tonight stretch full by the fire!
I bleed by the black stream
For my torn bough!

I’m leaving today
On this San Antonio Highway
While San Antonio jazz
Oozes through the speakers
Of this big blue Subaru

I-35 N to Austin
Destination Texarkana
And in two days’ time
July 15th 2015
I will be back home
To the humid Ohio weather

Ohio is covered in rain
But on this San Antonio Highway
The sky is dark and the ground is dry
And Louis Armstrong sings away