i used to feel like his creator
but now i’m living like henry chinaski
beer bottles littering the desk
cigarette butts in the ashtray
there is a towel that hasn’t been
washed in a month
hanging on the doorknob
i spend all day at a soul sucking job
and every night in front of my
typing machine
while amateurs and pros
(in every sense of the word)
take my portrait
mentally, photographic, by the pen
some in the throes of passion
others in the thrill of conquering
me, life, art
i am becoming a satire
somewhere my namesake
is having geriatric lesbian sex
and that seems oddly appropriate
as i swear the next time
those will be the circumstances
of me getting laid again
i’m listening to songs from the year
of my golden birthday
what a glorious year
on the bus yesterday
i heard myself saying that my publisher
would be sorry that he took so long
to publish me
because i would be a laureate
the next ee cummings
a rock and roll rimbaud
the buk in female form
and it makes me cringe
my deluded dreams of grandeur
when all i’m really left with
is failed marriages and
ringworm
