I sit here on the 2nd floor
hunched over in yellow
pajamas
still pretending to be
a writer.
some ****** gall,
at 71,
my brain cells eaten
away by
life.
rows of books
behind me,
I scratch my thinning
hair
and search for the
word.
for decades now
I have infuriated the
ladies,
the critics,
the university
****-toads.
they all will soon have
their time to
celebrate.
"terribly overrated..."
"gross..."
"an aberration..."
my hands sink into the
keyboard
of my
Macintosh,
it's the same old
con
that scraped me
off the streets and
park benches,
the same simple
line
I learned in those
cheap rooms,
I can't let
go,
sitting here
on this 2nd floor
hunched over in yellow
pajamas
still pretending to be
a writer.
the gods smile down,
the gods smile down,
the gods smile down.
Black Sparrow "New Year's Greeting" 1992

I caught my mother crying once,
at the kitchen table, face in one hand
dishtowel in the other,
real crying, out loud crying;

I wanted to be anywhere else,
and would have run
had she not heard me,
had she not pressed the dishtowel to her eyes
and said

“I'm just so tired of walking on eggshells.”
like an eight year old would understand,
but I did,
kind of.