I have been thinking about things,
about things I shouldn’t:
Like not watching the news
because dead babies and
brutalized animals make
me suicidal, or murderous
-really.
Like poems I can’t write
because the genius is
not there…about the
sacrilegious wish to
write like someone else.
…or homeless people who
scare me back to the day
I became one of them – to
days of butts from the street,
and money from strangers
more frightened than me.
…and then there is suicide – that
most personal of murders; about
being saved because some women,
children and a dog made room
in a lifeboat…
well, that last part – I think of
them everyday, and always
remember to put flowers
on the dog’s grave.
about things I shouldn’t:
Like not watching the news
because dead babies and
brutalized animals make
me suicidal, or murderous
-really.
Like poems I can’t write
because the genius is
not there…about the
sacrilegious wish to
write like someone else.
…or homeless people who
scare me back to the day
I became one of them – to
days of butts from the street,
and money from strangers
more frightened than me.
…and then there is suicide – that
most personal of murders; about
being saved because some women,
children and a dog made room
in a lifeboat…
well, that last part – I think of
them everyday, and always
remember to put flowers
on the dog’s grave.