i never imagined i'd be a poet, not
even likened to frank o'hara's
reminiscent astonishment back
when he played in the school play-ground,
i never intended to be a poet,
although i did write ****** poetry
on the sly, in books, in between
exams and lectures, but i came to poetry
in all earnest when everything else was
impossible, and because of the virtues i had
amassed prior, it became a "drug addiction;"
to state my virtues that precipitated into
poetry i'd choose three at the most:
compulsiveness for a need of repetition
(day by day, a day without a poem
makes me sick, to think of such days
as if i never made a step, made a footprint,
peered into my shadow),
love of music as greater than any kind
of diet - like a wild animal in reverse,
indeed stressed by the need for the daily
breadcrumbs, but soothed by music to
the extent of a satiated gut;
finally? i loved thinking, i don't know why,
not the sort of thinking that might exploit
others or give you things... the sort of
thinking that made my company acceptably
bearable, my own, the sort of thinking
that doesn't deserve company, friendship,
but deserves itself, to be staged for others
as if on the command of its own fleetingness,
scarcity, and perhaps qualified to be
given the adjective identifier of fulfilment,
as once noted: what's the meaning of life?
live it. in revision? what's the meaning of life?
your self. i don't mind rejections and upheavals
sycophants and lost ideals... but i'll tell you
what i mind:*
on such a dreary day as this one,
where a wintry shadow lost torso head and toe,
and settled in the air like a diluted
smoke of a fire, with auburn scents and
cinnamon mingling with ashes,
while i picked up the sunday newspaper
for the style, news review, culture and
magazine sections (the best day to read a
newspaper) - i took to sitting in the park,
bench, alone, looking south across the bulging
depths of seen but never travelled to
distances of my clever myopia,
i smoked two cigarettes, and felt the london
gloom rise, rise rise rise, above all expectation,
only because i had sunshine in a bottle
for company from dutch bavaria.