Do not listen to hunting dogs
baying in dark woods, or the black
flies buzzing around in your head
remembering long dead friends
Poets have done this before
and they’ve wandered off
alone and unheard of to bury
the caul of their own stillborn
Every time I open a bottle
of red wine, the bad Moon
dowses blood from the ******’s
stone thighs and I think I am
handsome, young and drunk
again, eternal as a ****
Poets have made love and gathered
at the cheap joints, cutting their fingers
toasting one another, curse words
hidden deep beneath low breaths
and the noise of a singer’s raspy voice
They’ve gotten cold feet
at the crucial moments when
left alone with the student
that had the saddest blue eyes
Poets have done this before,
I assure you, my friends
Every time I see a young man
tucking a gun in the back of his pants
I want to say forget it and drink
or have a seat, my brother, let’s rap
Poets have done this before,
I seen it behind dark eyes at night
We are but dust under the hooves
of horses running side by side
with the fog, thinking all that moves
us to write is something new, like light
that shines for the lonely bone moth
Poets have done this before
I know it like the cigarette holes
she burned through my tablecloth
on those cold nights she spent writing,
like her cough I could hear, so long
a time ago, I’d rather not remember.
interesting. Those disappearing downward thumbs skurrying away like rats.
