bathed in a beam of distant light, i'm
dangling from the mouth of
the sun today. it won't come like
Fante. it won't come like Bukowski.
it won't come at all. it's rusted
chunked blood calving off from
graveled glaciers onto dead sea beds.
it's a joke, it's far away, it's not
meant for me. and so it seems...yet
there still exists a tiny heart somewhere
under all that pumping away almost
imperceptibly.  funneling what blood
is there to send life to these
fingertips. i don't know if it will
ever reach the page though. odds
are good that death will take me
before those veins reach any words
with weight.
but in the writing they have a
chance to stretch and feel and
find their way through the
labyrinth of time and being
human. they have a chance to
beat the odds. a trickle becomes
a stream. a stream becomes a
river. and a river becomes an
ocean. these dead seas will fill
once more whether i am: the glacier,
the trickle, the stream or the
river. my blood runs to that future
ocean...one way or another.