T. sit down and have a smoke
on the porch
and don’t think.
Watch Friday turn into nothing
but Saturday.
Relax, don’t philosophize.
Don’t philosophize!
Wander around the Immovable Object.
Dam the Great Stream, man.
Nothing fucks a fallen tree!
T., that which does not kill you
will…. eventually.
So stop worrying about
chlorine radicals,
mercury poisoning,
inferior knishes, bagels, pizza —
Whether nothing can exist in a vacuum…
Instead T., fill you Zippo;
piss in the bushes.
Because, you’re the Jack of Diamonds.
You’re an inverted ninth ringing
in an alley even the rats
have abandoned.
Talk is a thing.
Not to talk, the proverbial tree.
So, relax, don’t stare,
because nothing is worth the nothing
you can’t have.
—————————————————–
Written in the Spring of 1991 for the last poetry workshop I took at UF. It was the only thing I produced that semester that Debra Gregor liked.
I wrote it to tick her off. Shows you how in tune I was with that class.
I don’t like angry poetry. I especially don’t like my angry poetry. There’s a ton of it on the ‘cutting room floor.’
Only this and one other have survived my final cut. I remember that the class (and Ms. Gregor) gushed over this while I sat nervously waiting to get shit-hammered. My ‘good and dear friend’ Mr. Rojas was the lone dissenting voice.
In the end, I think I agree with him.