glints cleanly.

how long have I lived and looked

upon them.

do you know what death really is?

it’s one of these clever

cocksuckers

shaking your hand and

embracing

you.

you know what death really

is?

come see me

as I slip the Gold Card

to the waiter

while

disliking

you. or

worse.

the poem

they all keep publishing poems

but it’s doubtful what a

poem can really accomplish.

centuries of poems

and we’re back to the

starting point.

like philosophy, history,

medicine, science, poems seem to

alter things,

seem to lead toward a way

out

then falter against the

changing currents and increasing

odds.

a poem is no better than a

good can opener,

a spare tire,

or

aspirin for a

headache.

the poem isn’t much

but let me tell you

if I hadn’t discovered

it

I would be dead

or

you would be dead

or many people

would be

dead

or

if not dead

then horribly

mutilated

in one sense or

another.

still, a poem can only

be a poem.

lines like these

floating on a page

burning holes in the face of

death

twisting the cap off the tube

of

night

following the dog of summer

to the end of his

rope.

huh?

my mail

keeps evolving and there is more

of it.

in the old days

many letters were from ladies,

often with photos.

I’d tell them to come visit

and I met them at the airport

and drove them

home.

then there was drinking and

sex.

most stayed two or three days,

then left.

there were also letters from

men in jail, some as far away as

Australia.

I answered these letters.

there were also letters from

poets, known and

unknown.

then there were a few mental

cases.

I answered these as well.

the problem was that they all

wanted continual

response,

a life-long correspondence.

when I would inform them

that this couldn’t be done

I received some irrational

and foul responses

in return.

I found myself writing dozens

of letters a

month.

and my intention

as a writer had not been to

correspond with

any and

all.

I finally gave up

babying my

mailbox.

I read my mail but in

90 percent of the cases

I didn’t

respond.

I heard a story about

Faulkner.

when he got a letter

he held it up to the

light.

if he didn’t see a check

in there

he threw it away

unopened.

I read my mail

then threw it

away.

now much of my mail

is from college

professors.

some of them are

precise and pleasant

enough

but few are worthy

of response.

and there are a couple of

self-published books of poetry

a week,

few worthy of

response.

the ladies and the

convicts and the madmen

have dropped

away.

I still get letters from

people who announce they will

soon be in town to

“drink 8 or ten beers” with

me…

my job

as a writer

is to write.