2003Oct12 (Poem+)

High mountain morning sun
Wind swept, textured sky
Aspen chatter, fire crackles
And even coffee can’t break the stillness that is everywhere.

I worry about money, my dogs, my teeth – but I just need someone to love me. This unspoken solitude must be destroyed – if not by God then by a woman – or I’ll drink my last dollar, drag my dogs through the desert and starve my soul of words forever. Without a stable source of inspiration my creativity will certainly dwindle, though my drive surges at this time in life. I may implode or explode, but will never be the same, cannot do much more than survive alone…. No reason, no reward. My spirit is feeble. I need family.

Disjointed, semi-stifled strings of sound –
Instrument without an audience
Sing or scream, it does not matter
Isolation is abandonment of the masses
A lost poet is found dying, not living
Disrupted, then discarded, driven to drink
Because society prefers the value of a bum
Over the threat of a visionary.

[evening]

What passion lies dormant and definable?
A reclusive fire isn’t burning
My heart is an ember too hot for touching
And yet dwindling under pressure
Unquenchable, unstable, liable to explode
There is an inevitable release
Trapped by fear from mind, from thought
It’s as if emotional scar tissue
Must still scab and flake,
Not likely to be graceful – the armor of love –
Light as a warrior in a box becomes a bomb
Coal burning soul, pensive smoke
My body lingers and looks for escape
Yearning intimate and alone