poem of the day 07.17.09

i think

about van gogh in his last field
with syphilis and a revolver
because gerald locklin wrote
forty poems about his life
and work

i think
about the next meal the moment
that i finish the last, still that
lonely fat kid mistaking sustenance
for comfort and love

i think
about baseball and my pirates
on the way to seventeen straight losing seasons
and it makes me think about Pittsburgh
old friends
my family
and how there is really nothing left
in that city for me

i think
about guts and glory
and cowardice in a poet’s eyes
and about words like obdurate
and sanguine, and egalitarian,
and others that i’ll no longer need
to look up

i think
about how i am rarely sanguine
but often times obdurate over the dumbest things
and what effect that has
on those around me

i think
about the past a lot
old homes and pets that are gone,
the girls that i swooned over on school buses
or in my hot bedroom listening
to sad or romantic r&b music

i think
about how pretty and untouchable
they were back then

i think
about hemingway in idaho
with his breakfast and his gun
or hamsun being tossed in with the nazis
because he liked to work the land
or kerouac spitting up dark blood in florida,
brautigan with another gun looking
over the pacific ocean before he pulled the trigger
or the way bukowski’s wife
described his last breaths as tiny little puffs

i think
about the way i might go out
one of these days
and i hope it isn’t painful
then i think about my wife
and i hope that i don’t make her a widow too soon

i think
about taxes and politics and popular culture
all those people trying to find the next big thing
the madness of the work week
and the folly of humanity
and they make me laugh for a moment
and then i don’t think about them anymore

i think
about the future
you’re damned right i do
about the tech savvy kids who still can’t read
the teachers who still can’t teach
the leaders who can never lead
and how the world will never see another mozart

the world doesn’t need another mozart

i think
about how this poem has gone on too long
and i think about how to end it
because i could go on forever thinking
about things
because
i think therefore i…well,
you know the rest.