~ Dedicated to A. D. Jameson
When I was young, I used to think
I would one day write a novel,
or just a book of poetry,
my ambition was grandiose,
I wrote and wrote, mostly journal
entries without focus or style,
my poems were full of ideas,
without the ground under my feet,
my ideas blew about like leaves
in the fall winds, many colors,
lacking details of description,
the bullshit line of show don't tell
writing teachers went on and on
about writing in the present,
always using the present tense,
as if that brought readers closer
to the moment, to the events
of narrative, like the past tense
couldn't draw you in like a fish
caught on a hook being drawn in
by the author's fishing pole line,
the fish jerking, pulling away,
as if readers would just get bored
and get unhooked from the poem,
or the story, and they struggle,
as any fish outside water
obviously wriggles and flaps
as its strong tail flails helplessly
on wooden slats atop the pier
lost in the throes of death, as air
and land are not the domain
where fish survive to live long lives,
no, the reader begins to learn
the writer's art, a foreign world
full of techniques, to draw you in
hook, line and sinker, a guitarist
too, knows this art, the medium
is different yet similar,
alike and yet not so alike,
for hooks are hooks, an audience
in a dark club, with stage lighting,
but nothing more, just the ripples
of sound, of notes played to affect
audiophiles in such a way
that like readers, they become fish
and learn to like certain noises,
chord progressions, effects boxes,
(chorus, wah-wah, fuzz, distortion),
pedals to drive audiophiles
to the metal, not unlike fish
caught on the hooks of electric
guitar players, or bass players,
live in concert send listeners
into rapture, deliverance,
moksha, release from suffering,
as a Christian, or a Buddhist
learn from sermons why we enjoy
stories and tales, these parables
teach us lessons experience
unreflected upon cannot
and now I am much, much older
than when I wrote for the first time
writing lyrics for the singer
of our punk band back in the day,
where I played drums, like Animal
on the Muppets, wild and crazy
out of control as was my life
as was my mind, I went crazy
bat-shit crazy, guano-wanu,
for my lyrics were just poems
unusable for the singer,
I made mistakes, I lost my mind
when I lost touch with what I felt
towards others, I got mixed-up,
my consciouness covered over
with drink and drugs, off the radar,
I lost my friends, my band, my girl,
hospitalized, for a short stint,
two weeks at most, an asylum,
state-run, the worst, perfunctory,
the minimum necessary
to keep the peace, but lunatics
follow the moon in its progress
from new to full and back to new,
my mother came to get me out,
the only one who gave a shit
in my family, father, brother
just let me rot in piss and shit,
a violent alcoholic
and his first-born son, a sadist,
the second-born younger brother
doesn't matter to patriarchs,
I switched from low to a high gear
after a few years, my ideals shot,
my dream drifted out of my grasp,
a musician, percussionist,
I'd sold my drums, credit card bills
demanded cash, fucking racket,
a pound of flesh for poor Shylock,
so I took up pen and paper
and thirty years later, I write
with a clear mind, lucid with light,
touched with spirit, clarity came
after I cleaned the jewel buried
not in the earth, but in the filth,
the refuse dump, the septic tank,
of illogic, where reason cuts
like a dull blade, old samurai,
to the blacksmith you must enter
to hone the sword, a deadly sharp
edge to sever mind from body,
so you may act without thinking,
as if you were to play tennis,
the muscles know how the racket
must hit the ball to win the match,
and so I learned to type the words
to clean the dirt off iConscience.
