Everybody wants to be your Jesus Christ
and kick over your tables,
telling you this ain’t it,
drop that drink,
smoke this joint,
write this way
through the Pearly Gates
and on to success.
But you gotta say fuck all that.
You ain’t religious,
and nothing is gospel,
not even poetry.
The struggle to remain alive
beats the hell out of a person,
leaves ‘em bruised
like the burnt end of a cigarette.
There’s nothing in the fridge,
but a man needs more than rice—
the worst thing
is choosing between eating and life.
Early morning—building creaking, alarm
in hallway, broken, going off.
Winter whispers through a slice of unclosing
window and goosebumps respond to its call.
Cars honk, angry men honk louder,
voices rumble and blend together,
an ambiance that says “alive.”
Morning has arrived,
though some are no longer here to greet it,
some have faded with the prior night—
it’s all bullet shells and rockets blazing,
fangs tearing and beaks breaking;
it’s all an ecstasy of perfumed sighs,
a veiny gripping explosion of cries.
Moons go down and ignite horizons
all over the great body,
while buses nearby trace it
like geese in the distance.
The body stretches, creaks, and yawns.
I fell, but then I was standing. How many falls have you taken? Really, how many? And you’re still here? Upright and alive? Notice that when a tree collapses it actually rises, it becomes a towering castle for chipmunks, a mountain peak for fungi, a floating planet for ants, and a universe for poets searching to transcend the gravity of their lives. Falling is a change of form, but not substance.