poem of the day 09.29.14

the ghost of bugs bunny

he had two rabbit teeth

carried a tattered suitcase

and hung around the reading room

in the library with the other bums

we saw each other on my smoke breaks

occasionally i’d let him bum one

one afternoon i was outside playing at writer

with all of these poems scattered on the pavement

putting together a manuscript that no one

but one friend and my girlfriend would ever read

when he said, is that your life’s work?

sorta, i said

bugs bunny tapped his tattered suitcase

this is my life’s work, he said

poems, novels, short stories

thirty-six years of hard work

shit, i thought

there’s my future if i keep

at this grand larceny of my life and time

i started gathering the poems up off of the ground

i wondered if the banks were hiring

he said, never give up

never give up is my motto

okay, i said

because quit and quit hard was mine

i put all of the poems in my bag

i planned on the ritual burning at midnight

you gotta have a dream, he said

he tapped his suitcase again

and i thought about

the thousands upon thousands

of unread words farted

on all of that yellow paper

i gave him a smoke

without his even asking

then i went back inside the library

intent on finding something else to kill the hours with

but i never did

and i never saw

that old word slinger again.