Still dark.
Cobalt-blue dawn anxiously waits.
The first disjointed thoughts take shape.
My small black cat, Bukowski, paws at my arm.
I pull her close.
Talk to her about imagery
and symbolism.
She jumps up.
So do I—only much slower.
The lights respond.
Coffee *** hisses, strong and dark.
I grab one of the six notebooks on the desk,
write a line,
then misplace it for another month.
The computer yawns to life.
Analytics. Numbers.
Lists of poems to post.
Where the hell’s my to-do list?
Sites to visit. Poems to upload.
Comments to make.
I sip the coffee,
already growing cold,
but I keep going.
There is order here
I never knew
under the bridge.
I remember mornings
I woke up on park benches,
on concrete,
under bridges.
If I was lucky,
there was ***** for breakfast.
If I wasn’t,
I roamed alleys and streets
for the next drink
to knock the shakes off the dawn,
always thinking about poetry,
hoping someday
I’d stay alive long enough
to get some writing done.
A poet needs four walls.
He can go days without food,
but he needs those walls.
There were intervals of reprieve.
A kind woman would take me in.
One composition book.
I’d write poems
and **** and drink and smoke—
then I was back on the streets
with no notebook,
no pen.
Years later,
here I sit
at this beautiful maple antique desk.
Poems staged
for books.
Drafts saved.
Numbers tell me something
I could never see before.
Progress. Growth.
Long shots still come in once in a while.
Miracles still thunder down the homestretch.
Kind comments
from people who have never met me—
lying, maybe.
Proof that life has changed,
even when the night swore
it wouldn’t.
I reach for the coffee cup.
Take a sip.
It’s cold.
Cold because I’m too busy
working to drink it quickly.
Sometimes
you gotta just slow down.
Look around.
And drink it while it’s hot.