Gonzo goes out
with a 45 blast.
He was kicking *** in Aspen,
we knew it wouldn't last.
The rambling, gambling
man of journalism
put Fear and Loathing on
the map,
but in the end,
he couldn't stay.
It's bat country.

Some poems don't
work.
No amount of
tweaking will
fix it.
You can't finger it until
it comes.

Push the delete
button and
start over.
You write because
you have to.
It's in your cells.

You're a salmon,
swimming up
stream to stay
alive.
You write because
the nuthouse yawns,
and beckons.
It waits.

The cage door is
open, and the
water is
tainted with
mercury.
Fly away, or die.

If the writing
isn't working,
go fishing,
eat a tangerine or
some brussel sprouts.
Be livid
Be silly.
Study the *****
and the orchid.

Think about what the
color black tastes like, or if
pink whispers or yells.
And write until
the trivialities take
flight from your
life.
In the surrendering,
triumph will come.

I watch the
parade of
trivialities line
up like
hemlock,
like mad dogs
yipping at
my ankles.

I'm too
crafty for them.
I laugh and
yawn
and watch
my cats play with
an electric fish.

I gave her
latitude,
took the higher
road.
Appeasement
never works.
She drank all
my whiskey
and stole my
parakeet.
The Romans bathed
naked in the
Tiber, and she
wins wars with
a smile.
Never mind the
casualties.

It's One a.m. in the psych ward.
Let's just call it 4 North.
On the table that I'm writing at is a plant,
it looks to be a member of the cactus family.
Three nurses sit behind a glass booth
and watch me with curiosity.
One of them looks to be a member of the
cactus family—or is it cacti?
Either way, I don't want her close to me.
Just now, one of the cacti-looking nurses says,
"What are you writing? "
I say, "My escape plan," without looking up.
She says,
"Very interesting."
That's one thing I've noticed in the
psych ward, everything is very interesting.
Just once, I wish they would say,
"That is the most boring load of
**** I've ever heard."
Then, maybe I'd be less inclined
to think they resemble members of the plant life.

She was too drunk.
She had drank a fifth of *****
over the course of four hours.
Oh we tried, but it wasn't happening.
It was sloppy and cumbersome;
we were like two hippos wrestling
in the mud.
I got up and left her to her
impotent dreams.
I made a cup of coffee, and
sat in the dark.
Images ran through my mind.
I turned on a light, and started
writing.At least something was working.

The inner critic
protects me from
reality and success;
It knows best.
It reminds me of
my hopeless plight,
my dark destiny,
my night of a
thousand storms.

Councillors say,
"Examine those thoughts.
Challenge them, are
they rational? "
I nod and smile,
and somewhere there
is a sparrow in me
that wants to sing,
that agrees with
the blue skies, and
the trees, and the wings
that have carried it
away from the pain.

But then the critic
and its minions
chatter away, and
remind me of failures,
they say,
"The play has already been written.
You're just doing your part-
your small walk-on part.
You don't get to rewrite it.
It's been written, it's finished.
You being a writer must appreciate
irony, isn't it ironic;
Thomas, no matter
how bad you want it,
you can't have it.
It's been decided, it's predestined,
long before you were born.
You lose, some win, but not you."

I faintly hear the dying song
of the sparrow, as I rise once again
and stumble towards the abyss.