You don't give a glass of water
  To a drowning man
And you don't throw a thirsty man  
  Into the deep blue sea

Yet I drank deep of that glass
  Though my lungs were full of water
And thanked you for the refreshing swim
  As I gulped the briny down.

Many years
ago, I went to
this little
Irish bar.
On Sunday nights,
there was a jazz band.
They played
Monk
Mingus
Coltrane
Miles
and the Duke.

I drank gallons of
****** marys on
those hot
summer nights.
Dill pickle spears, and
green olives came up
later on those
hungover, dreamless
mornings.

I was young.
I wasted the days,
lying in the sun,
bayonetted by youth.
Copper colored skin,
tin soul.
I would go thousands
of miles, chasing
that train, before I
would be forgiven.

On the white screen dance the stringed dots
Mind spilled codes of hieroglyphic thoughts
Slowly they emerge handholding lines
Not always yielding intended designs.
Something was brewing inside the head
Coaxing to weave and take it ahead
The drunken horses so wildly gallop
There is no leash to make them stop.
Nerves are taut and they won't relax
Till all is vented they reach the ******
It was thus fated the moment it was sown
What's to be grown could never be known.
As the fever wanes arrives the new child
It may be adored or it may be defiled
The canvas is washed clean as in the rain
Something is brewing to be vented again.