but, please, not the old.

in the next war the old should fight the old

while the young drink and dream and

laugh.

these old fucks

betting two dollars to show

at the racetrack.

it’s like being dead and rolling over

in the grave to find a more

comfortable

position.

the young poets

the young comfortable poets send their work to

me,

usually 3 or 4 very short

poems.

some are fairly able,

but they lack the

texture of madness and

gamble,

the inventiveness of the

wild and the

trapped.

there is a comfort there

which

disconcerts.

then there is the work

of the Street Poets.

being on the skids, they

should have some

life advantages, they

should not be debilitated

by

pretense.

but they are full of

it.

most of their output is

about how they are

not

recognized, that the

game is

fixed,

that they are truly

the great

ones

and they go on

about

that, while writing

little of anything

else.

each week

one or two little

packets arrive

from either the

Street Poets or

the comfortable

poets.

kindness does not

work with either

group.

any response to

their work

begets more

work

plus their

long letters

expounding

against the

fates

as if nobody

but themselves

ever had to

deal with

them.

and if you fail to

respond to

that, in most cases,

there will be

subsequent

letters

which rail against

your

inhumanity:

you too are

against them,

and, fuck you,

buddy,

you’ve lost

it,

you never had

it,

fuck you!

I am not an

editor.

I never mailed my

work to anybody

but an

editor.

I never read my

work to wives or

girlfriends.

these poets apparently

believe it’s all

politics, an in-game,

that some word

from you

will enable them

to become

renowned and

famous.

and that’s what

they

want.

that.

and only

that.

the packets of

poems keep

arriving.

if I were an editor

I’d have to

reject most of

them.

but I’m not.

I write poems

too.

and when some of

them come back

and I reread them

I usually feel that

they should have

come back.

what you have to do is

dig

in,

beat that keyboard

so that it yells and

sings and laughs so

hard

that the fix gets

unfixed, that the god-damned

miracle

arrives

splashed across the

paper as you get up

and walk across the

room, your head

buzzing, your heart

wanting to fly

through the

ceiling.

it’s the best

fight, the last

fight, the only

fight.

Belfast

writing a letter to Belfast

to somebody who reads my

books.

somehow it seems odd to

write a letter to

Belfast

but everything is odd

these days

very

like writing books

or sitting here

in striped pants and

slippers at

12:30 a.m.

without even

thinking

as my young wife is

out somewhere

enjoying herself

as young wives

should

do.

the dream

I continually have dreams of being lost, of asking

directions