I realize where I am
Choices I've made
Artist over American
Poet over drone
It's not that I look down on them
I mourn the lost Poems
Eaten by that ugly monster responsibility
Aborted, ripped out of their bodies
Kept in line by
Watchdog time clock & security cameras
They killed the fucking Poems
They eat Poems
Breakfast, lunch, & dinner Poems
My father he wanted to be a Poet
He howled with Ginsberg in the sixties
Communist manifesto, & James Kavanagh
He asked me to hold them for him
He may need them back someday
Now they collect dust on my bookshelf
Because he had a family
Once I was gonna be a father
He screamed at me What are you doing
Because they sucked every Poem out of him
Every Poem he would ever write
They took them armed in business suits
Hiding in boardrooms
They live off the anxiety of dead Poems
Unwritten
I understand the choices I've made
& my present condition
I understand I am not the first
& I won’t be the last
To take a stand for what I am
Even if it might mean losing everything
I understand this is an eternal struggle
Playing out over & over
I understand insanity is only
Getting beat down over & over
I forgive you
You can't help the psychosis that was given to you
You could not help the manipulation
Which was survival to you
You could not help it
But it's gone too far
I forgive you
Though you chose to run off with a needle
& my twenty bucks
Because you couldn't take the World
You were too beautiful for it
There were Poems inside you
They killed like babies
But you couldn't take care of your own
& I loved you because I saw Poems in you
I didn't realize they were dead Poems
& you were doin' that dance, that survival shuffle
I forgive you
Layin' in the bed
Sweaty in the summer
Reading about the beats all day
As outside
The sky grows dark & rumbles
Everyone is holy
But they won't be enlightened
They all have dead Poems inside them
Everyone is drug down by the weight of now
& every moment they've lived before now
It accumulates on their backs
Like dead weight
& you can't even save yourself
From the chapbook "Confessions Of An american Outlaw" available on Covert Press
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