Each death of another year
Brings lives lived in higher resolutions
This next year I promise to
Finally embrace my dreaming madman
Let my ears ringing be a sign that I need to listen up and maybe even calm my mind more
Stop expecting some grand vision to reveal itself and to keep reminding myself that hallucinations are not something I really want
I promise to sit my *** down and write when a poem comes to mind
Not days after where my mind turns to a rusty endless machine of impossible gears that serve no purpose but to clank together and make useless sparks
I will nevermore worry myself that what I have to say doesn't matter in the long run and that my speaking up doesn't always take the spotlight from those who deserve and need it
I will continue to resist being some tragic Faustian punk
I will remember that some things I can not ever begin to understand and just because I love someone that doesn't mean they have any obligation to love me back and that's ok
I will acknowledge that not everyone "gets" what I'm trying to get at and that's fine too
I will write some poems that rhyme ******
And I will probably  cut down on swearing
And I may even cut down on soda or whatever you want to call it, but I won't tell anyone whether that is followed or not
I resolve in the coming year to breathe in and breathe out the beauty of the world around me and surround myself with whoever cares enough to ask me who I really am
I am going to let everyone know who I am respectfully regardless etc etc
I will be honest with my shortcomings, my defeats, my family, and anyone else who asks
I will finally learn the names of all my coworkers
And in this coming year I will finally tap into the holy poet Saint Daniel Robinson that I know lives and sleeps deep down in the disaffected hermit *** Daniel I feel I am today

I am thankful for the mountains
I am thankful for the music that comes from the mountains
I am thankful for every fire that is lit by nothing more than the embers of a fire that raged before it
Only these fires can truly comprehend what it is like to suffer and be born again
I am thankful for the knowledge that every human being has in them a true spark
Only some don't care or are too busy
Or let their dreams be squashed or didn't have the fuel to burn in the first place
I am thankful for the holy beat poets
Kerouac and Ginsberg
I am thankful for the poet saints
Rimbaud and Lorca
And I am thankful for my saints of folk music
Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie shaped me long before any of this
But all in all I am thankful for the holy ghost of Carl Sandburg
Without him I would not be writing this poem or any
I am thankful that these poems allow me to say what I need to
I don't expect my words to be recited at weddings or funerals
But I don't mind because both atmospheres depress me just the same
I am thankful for every trail I have walked
I am thankful for every breath of Rocky or Appalachian air ever to enter my tragic lungs
I am thankful for the bonfires I have lit
I am thankful for the sticks that snap in my hands and leave scrapes that bleed only enough to remind me that I'm alive
I do not need such reminders but it's always a nice thing to have
I am thankful for every lost love
Whether I disappointed them or ****** them off is no matter
All that matters is that there is humility
I am thankful for the fact that these lost loves are leading
Completely happy lives with or without me
Knowing someone's happiness is dependent on me is a responsibility I cannot bear
I am thankful for this typewriter
It was my grandfather's when he was my age
He passed away two years ago on the week of Thanksgiving
He was born that week too
And it isn't pilgrims or stuffing that help me to feel thankful
It's the people like him

What melancholy nights
We experience in the towns we call home
Kerouac's Holy October is over
And November hangs on the lips and minds
Of the denizens of
Autumn Earth

And when will I become the
Angel-Headed Hipster
I convinced myself
I was prophesied to be
Hipsters who bury themselves in the acoustic blues
Of coffee shops
Or are baptized by words
In bars on Sunday nights

Why would Carl Solomon
Ever leave Rockland
If he's promised never to be alone there?
And they say Neal Cassady died counting railroad tracks
And did he want to die counting railroad tracks?
And will I die counting railroad tracks too?

I so much want to emulate my heroes
I fear it will **** me
And if not a death of physicality
Then a death of mentality
Where I will cease to be
Me

But who wouldn't love of life
Of holy restlessness
Who wants to limit their scope to
A town
A city
A state
And when the only state I feel I can truly call home
Is Confusion
I want it to be for a good enough reason

And if I am to die in a state like this
Let me die counting railroad tracks
As melancholy days
Turn to melancholy nights

"Overlook San Antonio Riverwalk"
A line I wrote
In quiet inspiration.
Now memories flood through
In a dreary Ohio night

I see the winding Riverwalk
In the corners of my mind
These memories are quick & scarce
Unable to reach full maturation

Young notebook in which I write
I trust in you to allow my
Thoughts to flow
And I will overlook
San Antonio Riverwalks
Of the mind
Till I return again

Poetry is not the most holy art
No art is holier than another
I tried to write songs
But no tune could come to me
And before that I tried to write stories
But they lacked filling
And the shells succumbed to their own emptiness
Yet all the while
Words remained

I tried to ensnare such words and trap them
But always they escaped
Slithering through the grooves and cracks of my conscious
Finally one day I laid my body on the ground
And let the words come as free as they liked
And only on that day
Did I begin to become a poet

Whether I achieve fame is meaningless
How many more true souls have come before me and have been ignored by the cold world?
I want to write not to be famous
But to know my voice is heard
And that I'm remembered
For to be remembered
Is to be eternal

Do I become a slave to my poetics?
Never
My poetic thought is a chunk of my self, bled out onto a page and then taken from the page by threads of voice to be dispersed into the air for the ears and hearts and minds
You can't be a slave to yourself, if the poetics are yours
And if the poetics are yours you will never betray yourself

If the pen is mightier than the sword, is this mic stronger than the gun?
Will the shouts of truth be stronger than the pierce of the bullet?
Because you better ******* believe that if I have breath in my lungs to spare I will shout these truths until the well runs dry and my voice shatters and my mind and heart rot

Poetry is no more holy than any other art
But poetry is going to shake this earth before I am gone and you better believe it

99% of Americans don't know
That penguins run the world
That's why they all wear suits
Because world *******
Requires a dress code
Yeah it may look silly
To see a penguin waddle around
But have you ever seen
Black Friday stampedes
And midnight premiere lines

Our penguin overlords are benevolent
If they wanted we'd all be gone
Or forced to work in their egg warming factories
And they keep operations where it's cold
Because they know we like where it's warm
And they keep an eye on us from our zoos

I've been to the zoo in Columbus
I've seen how those penguins watch us
I know they are in control
1% of Americans know
That penguins rule the world
And now that you've read this,
That makes 2%

It's a chilly October  morning
As I sit down and reflect
On this summer
I can see my breath
And my sleeves are long

Soon it will have been a year
Since this whole mess started
I'm not entirely sure
About how I've grown
Or the lesson I needed to learn
I don't even know what I want to write
But thank God for this music I'm playing  
Focusing my mind
I sit on a ledge in the Quad
Blasting this music from a small black box

If I learned a single thing from
The summer of my "discontent"
Is that there were parts of this world
And parts of myself
I was missing when I was with you
I am more whole without you

This notebook is filling up
Notebook I brought to Montana
Notebook I had in Yellowstone
Notebook I had in San Antonio
Where I tried to write
Woody Guthrie folk songs
And I first started
My Ginsberg-Kerouac-Sandburg
Poetics
I am not ready for this chapter to close
But like all things
It must
And I will love it always
Like every other chapter
I've lived
Even the one with her