I play the guitar and write poetry because I
have to , it's something I work my way through
each night , emptying my mind on paper , a few thoughts
committed to music , score books penciled in , erased ,
odd collaborations reaching logical conclusions , the first note
becoming the last , a forest fire of a past out of control ,
easing the conflagration with timely prose , ascending , descending
scale combinations , every memory both good and bad streaking
past , the mad writer with his muse on his lap , disclosing his
theory , some nights writing his own obituary , as if anyone understood ,
melody is chopping wood for the instrumentally inclined , something
to chip away the night , something to help you turn off the lights ,
to dream , revisit , reinvent , work your way through to write again* ...