Acknowledgements

I have outlived Ernest Hemingway

and Kurt Cobain,

two of my heroes.

I never tried sleeping my way

to the top of the literary heap.

I've won no prizes.

My work goes unrecognized, and

more often than not

unpublished.

Am I sure I have even lived?

 

I tried to just keep writing,

but to what end?

Who am I? What am I?

Am I delusional?

Who really knows?

I tried teaching once

but was not very good at it.

Who is, really,

when it comes to writing?

 

Kurt and Ernie and put a gun in their mouths

and shot out the light.

With Bukowski, it was a bottle.

I've already tried that.

No good at that either.

 

I sit in a café

and watch the near palms of summer

swaying against the far ridge of hills

and young girls walking along

in their sleeveless summer dresses.

Their shoulders speaking their

long history of sex

and future children,

old age and death.

Nothing stirs inside

except the old longings

that go unanswered.

 

Some great sponge in the sky

will soak up my lifeblood and soul.

 

Do you intend to keep on writing

to the bitter end?

Who knows? Any day

it could end.

Then the great silence

that ensues.