Poems of the Day 02.03.09

resigned to paper

resigned to paper
as the overture to the
marriage of figaro plays
on mozart’s birthday
resigned to paper
six o’clock in the morning
plotting a novel
i’ll probably never write
waiting on the sun
resigned to paper
with hardly any sleep
with a sick wife passed out
in the bedroom
and me in the living room
trying to remember how to write
on paper
resigned to paper and mozart
a book of yellow sheets
with blue lines
just waiting for me
to assault them
with the fire
with the nerve
with everything that i got
as the sports and weather come
on the radio
resigned to paper
resigned to it, to you
married to this life
of shitting out words and ideas
like a madman
like some kind of houdini
like some kind of fool
resigned to paper
choking on the pulp
of another poem laid to rest
in a pauper’s grave
before the amber of the next
streetlight fades
to ozone and the day.


an answer to li po

li po wrote
we bustle around,
looking for what?
so i answered
why, for a way out.
always for a way out