History remembers
certain artists,
who many of us
know about,
and it considers them
the Great Heroes
of art, poetry and music,
but I think
that the true heroes
are the artists
who painted every day
for their entire lives,
and created
great works,
and yet,
had no shows,
and didn't get
into the museums,
and whose great work
was thrown away
at the end of their lives,
so that nothing
is remembered of these artist's work
at all,
and all of their names
are forgotten,
and the true heroes
of poetry
are the poets
who wrote every day
for their entire lives,
and never got published
and never got a book out,
and whose poetry
was ditched in the dumpster
at the end of their lives,
forgotten,
and the true heroes of music
played and practiced and wrote
for their entire lives,
every day,
for nobody
and nothing of their work
remains,
so this night,
I payed homage
to these true heroes,
and felt better
about art,
poetry,
and music.

I have heard
some people say
that they feel
terrible
when they wake up
in the morning,
and I used to think
that I did too,
so I put
a little Zen spin
on it,
and realized
that the feeling
in the morning
is not terrible,
it is like
being on a lot of
hard-core street drugs,
and I feel
higher than
a kite,
so now,
in the morning,
when I am drinking
my coffee,
I feel ******
out of my gourd,
so that's much better,
don't you think?

The first problem
that I remember encountering
in life
was restlessness,
and later on the path,
I have learned
that there are two ends
to the problem,
and that
the one that I usually have
is restlessness
when sitting
doing nothing,
but wanting
to do something,
and the problem is
that I don't have good thought,
an inspirational thought,
which will get me out
of my chair
to go and do something,
and we all know
what the other end
of restlessness is,
and that is
when you can't sit still,
you just keep going,
like a chicken
with his head cut off,
and that kind
of restlessness
leads to mania,
while my kind of restlessness
leads to depression,
so the trick is
to control the tempo
of rest and action,
so that you're not
a chicken running wildly,
or you're not
a bump on a log.

When I was about
five years old,
I was sitting
on a swing,
depressed,
because there
was nothing fun
to do,
so I asked my mom,
"Mom, what's there to do?"
and she said back,
"Go clean your room."
but I didn't want to do that
because that was no fun
so I just sat there longer,
depressed and restless,
and so begins
a lifetime
of low restlessness,
until tonight
when I have uncovered
the secret answer,

and that is
that when I don't feel
like I know what to do
and it seems like
there's nothing to do,
I sit down
in a chair
and in my case,
I think and smoke,
to entertain myself,
and then
I wait
until the one right special thought
occurs to me
about the one right fun thing
to do,
and then I go do it,
and this seems like an obvious simple understanding
but there really is something deeper to it,
like that it is the cure
for my entire problem,
and maybe other's problems,
too.

It is the waiting which
makes people so vaguely uncomfortable.
So much so that
I think we all start to pretend
(as hard as we can)
that we are the only ones.

Or perhaps not the waiting.
But the lack of control it conveys
ushered in like a grey balloon  swathed in ugly red wool
and there is nothing I can do except to stare at the ceiling paint
peeling faintly slowly carelessly
to wherever old ceiling paint goes

Because after this layer there is another:
white like bones.
Next is red like candy,
then green like plastic trees,
until after ten inches of blue
you reach stone-cold metal, so ancient and unused to the air
that it might crumble if you sneezed too enthusiastically.