I shared this with Cassie after we talked about youthful woes on chat; she encouraged me to share further. I wrote this in my early 30s, thinking about all those younger selves...
The Poet At Eighteen
had answers.
he itched to rip
the plastic wrap
from red meaty life,
to wear out patience,
to rub smug faces
in the nothing ahead,
the nothing behind,
to catch god's eye
and not look down--
to be alive was fire,
to be young
was very heavy.
the poet at eighteen
would not have liked
the poet at 25,
who sold his hands to make trucks,
wrapped himself in gray canvas armor
to wrestle with steel,
wrapped himself in drugs to survive.
who escaped.
the poet at present
keeps them in flesh:
though every cell that made them is dead,
these bodies of poets
like beads on a string
slip and collide,
warm to the touch.
Thats a good one, spacey-bro. Real accessible, too.
lw
Thanks, lw--my way earlier stuff was complex, difficult, imagistic, larded with obscure allusions, symbols, adjectives, adverbs...when I realized what I wanted most was to communicate, I became addicted to plain talk.