“What do you think
The bravest drink
Under the sky?”
“Strong beer,” said I.

“There’s a place for everything,
Everything, anything,
There’s a place for everything
Where it ought to be:
For a chicken, the hen’s wing;
For poison, the bee’s sting;
For almond-blossom, Spring;
A beerhouse for me.”

“There’s a prize for every one
Every one, any one,
There’s a prize for every one,
Whoever he may be:
Crags for the mountaineer,
Flags for the Fusilier,
For English poets, beer!
Strong beer for me!”

“Tell us, now, how and when
We may find the bravest men?”
“A sure test, an easy test:
Those that drink beer are the best,
Brown beer strongly brewed,
English drink and English food.”

Oh, never choose as Gideon chose
By the cold well, but rather those
Who look on beer when it is brown,
Smack their lips and gulp it down.
Leave the lads who tamely drink
With Gideon by the water brink,
But search the benches of the Plough,
The Tun, the Sun, the Spotted Cow,
For jolly rascal lads who pray,
Pewter in hand, at close of day,
“Teach me to live that I may fear
The grave as little as my beer.”

It is not even half way through the year yet, and their words have already began to morph into knives.
the words come flying out so fast, it takes some time to realize, what just took place.
what was just taken.
his stares have already become dreaded.
and his face has already become loved.
yet his intentions are all just one big blur.
and his sentences, all for me, have become bullets, aimed for my heart,
just the spot to ****.
destroy.
end.
and yet his smile, all for me, has become thy sanctuary.

Doesn't it **** when your mind goes numb?
When all you can do is twiddle your thumbs?
A blank page before you has infinite plans
And all you can do is fold your hands.

To write such a sweet and lustrous tune
Sometimes it takes the entire of June!
And sometimes it never leaves your head
And it keeps you awake while lying in bed.

It tears at your talent and races your heart
That suddenly you've truly forgotten your art.
That after the years of praise and shower
You can't even recite portray a flower.

It's petals are but some weeping hands
That fall upon such tiny lands
Which bees and such take a tiny hit
Of pollen so rich and....um.....****!

You tear up the pages and throw them away
This is the last time, on the same day.
It's finally done, you sit and you cry
The day that your lustrous talent has died.

So pain and sorrow consume your hour
All is thanks to that ****** old flower.
And your life has turned against the tides
And you life has become a puddle of lies.

To write a poem, a story, a book
To have a knack, a nitch, a nook.
You never give up and never retire
Until you pass your final hour.

My wife, a psychiatrist, sleeps
through my reading and writing in bed,
the half-whispered lines,
manuscripts piled between us,

but in the deep part of night
when her beeper sounds
she bolts awake to return the page
of a patient afraid he'll **** himself.

She sits in her robe in the kitchen,
listening to the anguished voice
on the phone. She becomes
the vessel that contains his fear,

someone he can trust to tell
things I would tell to a poem.

So,
I put my life out on the line and
time after time
people say,'for what?'and
I say,'why not? it's who I am and what I've got
and if you don't like it don't read
my life will still bleed
and I,
(though it's hard to admit)
still need
validation'

Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touched it?
Have you marked but the fall of snow
Before the soil hath smutched it?
Have you felt the wool of ******,
Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!

Poetry is sometimes easy like the wind rushing
to where there is not much wind, caressing in waves,
invisible and pliant like the air, as effortless as
breathing it. Poetry is sometimes impossible,
like turning the tumbler of a lock with your fingertip,
like climbing a mountain barefoot in a blizzard
of screaming, sliding sleet, like a tearing cry
that dies into a whimper in your throat as you
realize the futility of that which you do,
the implacability of the beast you fight.

Sometimes, there are no words that can describe
the machinations and the subtle ticking of a clock
that beats in time to the human soul. Not hearing
the rhythm, you forget the music until your heart
sings again and you dance free like a young ballerina
cutting ballet. No poem is a picture that captures
the fluttering, soaring and sinking in the heart’s chambers.
You choose a word that fits, discard ten of its brothers,
yet feel surprise when your sentences have no answers
for the questions in your chest. You mourn every phrase
you have lost as you fell asleep. Knowing not
what you forgot, you move on to new questions.

You cannot miss what you’ve never felt, but you can yearn for
something you’ve forgotten. What is the difference to you
if you cannot remember the difference? The embryos of
the heart and mind are fragile. Your heart sings of a country
it cannot see anymore now that your back is turned,
you cast fishing nets behind you into the past blindly.
You remember that you have forgotten, and you forget
what bears remembering. You remember a day long past
not as the day that passed but as the memory of its passing,
yet feel surprise when years later and many forgettings hence,
it happened to someone else altogether.