I am the child, I am the man
I am the lover, I am the friend
I am the palm of the lending hand
I am the point where we've already been

I am the far next door to the near
I am the calm mixed in with the fear
I am the all in all that's held dear
The very moment when all is made clear

I am the young, I am the old
I am the secret that's been left untold
I am the price of silver and gold
The heat taken from the center of cold

I am the now before its too late
I am the dawn that comes with the break
I am the last of the last give away
I am what you wish you could say

Of course I am you and of course I am me
I am the captive on the brink of being set free
I am all this as well as all these
I am all that I claim to be

Walking past businesses with their doors wide open
letting the spring air permeate the room and vanquish
the lingering taste of winter
I’ll have what I always have - only make it iced
an ice cream cone is melting in the gutter
and I can almost hear the five year old girl crying for another
all of the colors of this worldly palette now so vibrant
take the blinders off of my eyes
and let my heart dance to rythym of far off shores
I’m smiling because the birds stopped shrieking and started singing
I write the same five or six poems over and over and over again
but I dress them up in different costumes
I’ve always loved acting the noble fool of endearment
I have to move my car in 40 to avoid the ticket
but I might just see how far that ***** little hatchback can take me
to avoid my roots going so deep they dry up
listen to love
listen to rage
listen to petulant cries for warped justice
listen to lust
and listen to depressed realizations
listen to all of the ******* we can come up with
we love to talk but not to listen
blah blah blah
shut up
it’s sunny outside
so take of all of your clothes
and dance in your nakedness
in the middle of midday broad street
unlock all the cages
let the light in
it’s a great day for living
so quit your death march

When one poet in plaintive wail, bemoans his certain knowledge,
his efforts paled and pallored by compare to giants long immortalized,
and yet provokes a third, yet another to compose,
pledged has it that the grayed ashen bones
of Shakespeare, Marlowe and his ilk and crew,
neath sod and sand, and English loam and land,
but for an instant, a tradition says,
their remains glow and gleam,
a poet dead centuries, yet for a few seconds risen,
lighting and lifting, not just him, but those who
surround themselves with cherished words spent freely

On the first Friday of every month
the Arts District of Richmond VA
becomes alive at night with the buzz of artists
local artists of almost every medium
galleries which are only open for ten hours a month
suddenly filled with leather shoes
plaid shirts, skinny jeans, beards, and holes in earlobes
they walk around crowding the streets
coaxing families who made the trip from all the way uptown
to listen to the poets and painters and photographers and sculptors
prattle on about what sets them apart
they all clap each other on the back for being so **** original
I’m walking through the parted sepia sea
avoiding gazes of strangers cast in iron
I marvel at their work
which for this one night is the subject of a city
more or less, anyways
we were high on life. We were high off of too much ***
and all of the local talent
high on validation and pretension
the Mormons accosted us
their attempts to save our souls from damnation
really geeked us out
we took their lemonade, but not their word
“Incarceration: the art of captivity”
an installation by some kid who has never seen a shade of true blue
through the lens of his iPhone
if we all believe really hard -
then maybe when the sky opens up
to **** us all into the hungry sky -
all of this art will save us

Give me **** kicking string pickers
give me harmonica headgear
and bluegrass heroines
Give me the Southeastern porch nights
beneath stars which flicker like wind burdened candles
Give me you - swaying lazily to the rhythm of cicadas
toss me to Atlantic shores
the geography of this passion knows no borders
Give me your flaws to toss as skipping stones
the sun outside bears down on us like
infinite overzealous mothers
but the ground is nothing but black ice
slowly melting into midday
by this time tomorrow the trees will dance with life
rainbows spouting from lonely buds clinging to long dead limbs
Give me the picturesque green lawns of academia
reaching out to caress the breeze
Give me overcrowded coffee tables
and long talks about nothing with good friends
Just know - that if you could give me Christmas
I’d spend 12 days writing you 12 thank you notes
each one more genuine than the last
Give me all of this
Give me none of this
either way I will give you
as much of myself as I can

The excerpt below is from an interview Philip Roth gave to Daniel Sandstrom, the cultural editor at Svenska Dagbladet, for publication in Swedish translation in that newspaper, and in its original English in the Book Review of the New York Times (March 1, 2014).

It was laid out in normal article (paragraph) form, but I chose to re-present here, line by line, sentence by sentence, for it struck me as I first read it, as a prose poem, and a source of inspiration for me.  But then I realized, I could not improve upon his words, just risk diminishing them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The struggle with writing is over” is a recent quote. Could you describe that struggle, and also, tell us something about your life now when you are not writing?

Everybody has a hard job.
All real work is hard.
My work happened also to be undoable.
Morning after morning for 50 years,
I faced the next page
defenseless and unprepared.
Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation.
If I did not do it, I would die.

So I did it.
Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
It was also my good luck that
happiness didn’t matter to me
and I had no compassion for myself.
Though why such a task
should have fallen to me I have no idea.
Maybe writing protected me
against even worse menace.

Now?
Now I am a bird sprung from a cage
instead of (to reverse Kafka’s famous conundrum)
a bird in search of a cage.
The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.
It is now truly a great relief,
something close to a sublime experience,
to have nothing more
to worry about than death.
-------------------------------------------------------------­--­---

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/books/review/my-life-as-a-writer.html?_r=0

He fiddled with the buckle on his belt
it was just a set of strings strapped to his spine
smeared with sunburnt wax
but he didn’t know any better
it was just a set of strings strapped to his spine
fashioned by his father’s fears
but he didn’t know any better
exodus was upon them
fashioned by his father’s fears
gravity pulled him down
exodus was upon them
his feet were like anchors
gravity pulled him down
down to the trident’s tides
his feet were like anchors
his wings were heavy
down to the trident’s tides
smeared with sunburnt wax
his wings were heavy
He fiddled with the buckle on his belt

© Matthew Harlovic

if i'm being honest with myself,
i am always scared

i am scared that someday i will trip in the
school hallway with everyone around, and
i am scared that my family will stop being able
to take care of ourselves. i am
scared that a third world war will erupt and
it will start two streets down the road from me
and end in my front yard

i am scared that one day i'll convince myself
that nobody really loves me, and, even worse, that
nobody will be around to tell me otherwise. and
i am scared that i'll drown at camp this summer
and i'm scared that if i don't, i will want to

i'm scared of needles and feet and airplanes
and on especially bad nights, i am afraid of the dark.

mostly i'm afraid that i will never stop living my
life on the brink of a panic attack, that i will always
back down from a fight, that i will never learn
to speak for myself, and i am scared that i will never
become anything more than this

My fiercest desire.
Is to get lost in your sapphire eyes,
Exult in your flowing golden hair,
until I'm breathless with longing.

Your smell.
That speaks of sage-filled plains,
scorching suns,
and quenching rains.

Rugged arms around me,
hearts synchronized in beating.
The female weakness,
that yearns for the virile touch
of that chosen one.

Two lost souls,
that have finally found each other,
following a trail of silver tears
and shattered illusions...