I deserve to die
Who am I to the people I love
Besides a detriment
Someone to be avoided
What arrogance I have
To think I deserve
Love in return

I don't know what to feel
Grief or remorse
What is it to say
Life takes its course
You didn't deserve to die
It's so meaningless
It's all so meaningless
How can things be made right
They can't, so I cry and write
And remember the good nights
I won't meet many, the likes of you
Your spirit was so pure
Your heart was too, so true

There's so many you left
That loved you so deeply
And I feel I have no right to grieve
So I'll just drink

Suppose I was a gardener,
In a field of dreams.
I would **** the earth
And plant innumerable seeds.
Of passion, of faith, hope and belief
To sow happiness, to offer relief.
The corporeal, and the intangible
Working in tandem, coupled together.
The offer of body and soul
With the goal of a
Brighter tomorrow

Cogito, ergo sum
But what do I think?
And what, pray tell,
What effect does this have
On my being?
If what I constitute
Is alone, based on action,
Based on thought
What can we say of man today?

Here, the wind whips
The desert sand
Into a furious haze
That blinds all in
It's vicinity

Here, my neighbor is
Dragged out and ******
And my other neighbor
Is drugged out, ******
Different burden, different labor

I pray,
On my knees
Toward the east.
I pray for change
I beg and plead,
Please

Another night,
Where I feel completely alone
Surrounded by people I care about.
What's the point?
Love coming at the price
Of self-sacrifice,
Break my body
Take control,
But what do you know?

he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,"not much
chance...give him these pills...his backbone
is crushed, but it was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there...also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off..."

I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he
wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn't work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough

one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.

"you can make it," I said to him.

he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.

you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left...

and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look
at this!"

but they don't understand, they say something like,"you
say you've been influenced by Celine?"

"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!"

I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows...

it's then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.

he too knows it's ******* but that somehow it all helps.