Maggot Brain

It’s like riding a bike,
they said.

Keep doing it and it will come
easier,
they said.

It’s like working out. Stick with
the page,
they said.

Truth is it’s been a couple of weeks.

This month only has a couple of days
crossed off.

So now it’s time to play catch up
on what we have missed
in the lost time:

throwing stones at the bats flying
overhead,
throwing hundreds of stones,
only hitting one;

building a campfire and staying up
late to watch the lunar eclipse
one night too early,
so watching the moon stand still
instead, and the next night
sleeping through the real thing;

mailing a poem written in sharpie marker
on the back of an eighteen-pack
to a cousin in the south, feeling proud and
like a hack for creating garbage on garbage;

looking at the tattoos on my arm and realizing
they are brighter than anything else
on my body, wishing
my heart could shine the same colors, because
“BOLD WILL HOLD”;

new car… one a poet should not drive;

this girl,
that girl,
the other
girl,
another girl,
a good girl,

(girls are more aggressive these days);

RETURNING TO THE PAGE NOW AND IT FEELS
SO GOOD;

the nightmares about dying in a maze of apartment buildings
the nightmares about dying in a field, with bears in cornstalks
the nightmares about dying in a hail of bullets from cops, smiling
the nightmares about dying and having the whole thing be one big
dream;

re-reading writing from the last six months
and feeling
strange;

rejection letters & more rejection letters;
a few small victories, people reading;

picking pimples,
making good soup,
fucking up brussels sprouts,
eating lots of berries & eggs;

driving through a bad part of town in a convertible,
people trying to hop in the back seat at 4AM, seeing ghosts
hitchhiking, almost hitting deer and drunks and prostitutes;

building a fire and adjusting the logs
supported by paper and kindling,
waiting for the flame to take over
from the spark of a single match.