The Poet At Eighteen

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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.

[laughingwillow]

Thats a good one, spacey-bro. Real accessible, too.

lw

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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.