dysfunction poétique

day breaks and i'm still up

i sip the too white coffee and nod

in the dawning i attempt to write a poem

i must work i desperately tell myself

i must try to put it all down to words

in case i'm gone by nightfall

but nothing comes of my spinning wheels

they say nothing comes from nothing

and they do seem to be right

as i mute the tele and light another butt

think about all the stories i have outlived

yet comes no description no color no passion

no crisis no denouement no brave ending

i give up quickly and succomb

i search the channel guide for another film

but realize that at last i've seen them all

there's nothing new under the moon

and then i hear the rain begin to fall

hard against my windows and doors

softening the dirt under my reddest roses

the winter daphne lays wrapped in morning glory

and i can smell that fresh earth through

the open door that stays perpetually open

like an open invitation to the world

yet goes unnoticed as i'm a voluntary guest

the primadonna in this nuthouse

filthy and cluttered from years of illness

i light another cigarette and sigh

and type a few more bandied-up words

pretend that a poem has come to form

then read it several times over

make the necessary corrections

then publish it like manna from heaven

with every trial the desire is stoked

the way the clouds just opened on the earth

there's alliteration and near rhyme

because i was brought up on nonsense

i'm egging and hamming myself up

to life to death to transcendence

i'm writing the comic strip of poetics

a façade to carry me through another day

for without that charade what's left of me

do i think i'm kidding myself

or my audience if and when they come

looking for material to assuage their pain

uplift their souls or confess their sins

am i writing the rough draft of consciousness

something to hang on to like a thread

a dirge for the half-living and dispossessed

the invisible ones stretched out on couches

dipping salty crackers into peanut butter

mentally keeping up the plunging blood

yes we're all hanging on a twiglet

cluttered with angst and self-pity

beyond formation in the nothingness

the sad poetry of illness

i'll be satisfied with this poem in the end

i'll lay back down and begin to sleep

i may weep in my dreams when they taunt me

but i'll wake up knowing it was only a dream