BONUS poem of the day 10.07.08

what can i say? i'm on a roll this morning.

uncle ray

stuck in a rut
third morning for a rut
which is hard for me.
it doesn’t help that the cat
is vomiting again
or the radio jock
insists on marches
and thunder
at 6:10 in the morning.
i’m just not cooperating
with myself.
there are better things
to do
on the internet
than write a poem
or some fiction
like reading this
wikipedia entry on
raymond carver.
ray was a famous
short story writer
a poet
influenced by hemingway
kafka, babel, o’connor,
pritchett, and most famously
by anton chekhov.
ray was also a famous drunk.
he cleaned himself up
good in 1977,
but the gods only gave him
eleven more years to get
the word down
before cancer came
and ended it all.
i’ve always liked
raymond carver.
he seemed to say it
in a way
that no one ever could.
better than chekhov even
although i doubt he’d
believe it.
i even have a picture
of ray in my living room
a black and white promotional
photo
that came with his last book.
a picture of ray, sober,
piercing,
looking back at me
inside of a silver frame.
and i think of it this morning
i think of raymond carver
this morning
in between another hurl
of vomit
strauss’ sunrise
tchaikovsky’s overture 1812
and me trying to find
my way back
toward the muse.
i think of raymond carver
and i know it’ll be all right
soon.