certain writers
speak to a part of
your sleeping mind
in a profound
whisper that awakens
ideas you never
stumbled upon
on your own

hank taught me
not to manufacture
beauty but to
find it in the
filthiest places

sylvia taught me
to strain the aching
into metaphor
and to say everything
in a panorama of
eloquent dismay

kafka taught me
strange is not limited
to the fantastical
but pervades every
normal moment

and hunter taught me
if you can’t be
constrained by
the polite society
then scream until
your tribe finds you
and the linework of
ralph steadman
reaffirmed this
aesthetic perfectly

i will never be
a billionth the poet
ny heroes were
but i have stolen
every bit of
inspiration from
their books
my feeble skill allows
slowly dissassembled
who i thought i was
until i discovered
who the words
allowed me to be

yet i still seek
the graffiti scrawled
along the prose
r crumb doodles
lending a dirty
coating to the lines

i have tricked
my artist friends into
creating author pics
to adorn the books
no one reads
the latest portrait
is coming along now
and to get into
ny head she asked
what my favorite
piece i had written was

i went blank
the last seven thousand
poems have been
one long diatribe
spread out chaotically
grains of sand
spilling freeform
each piece forming
the mosaic of who
the fool really is
blurry snapshots of
teary catastrophes
beholden to the
lessons learned by
the sharp knives of
frustrating bipolarism
and strained through
the lenses of the
deftly wielded quills
of actual artists

i told her it
was persephone
because i know
it is all shit
my favorite poetry
is wildflower smiles
on the tender edge
of dreamdander sighs
only to feel
the cold pain
filling the cracks
of my soulshatter

no matter how many
lessons the greats
have left behind
fancy author portraits
cannot make up
for the difference
in raw ability and
gumption spiked with
an inability to
read the room does
little to balance
the ledgers of time

certain authors
speak to a part of
your sleeping mind
in a profound
whisper you can chase
but never quite
manage to attain
and still we persist
scrawling doodles
in the margins of
true masterpieces