I had a lyric poem period down in New Orleans, pounding
out these fat rolling lines and
drinking gallons of beer.
it felt good like screaming in a madhouse, the madhouse of
my world
as the mice scattered among the
empties.
at times I went into the bars
but I couldn’t work it out with those people who sat on the
stools:
men evaded me and the women were terrified of
me.
bartenders asked that I
leave.
I did, struggling back with wondrous six-packs
to the room and the mice and those fat rolling
lines.

that lyric poem period was a raving bitch of a
time
and there was an editor right around the
corner who
fed each page into a waiting press, rejecting
nothing
even though I was unknown
he printed me upon ravenous paper
manufactured to last
2,000 years.

this editor was also the publisher and
the printer
kept a straight face as I handed him the ten to
twenty pages
each morning:
“is that all?’

that crazy son of a bitch, he was a lyric
poem
himself.