poem of the day 08.26.14

the caged blur

back then

i was going mad in my loneliness

i was without love

because i didn’t want

the kind of love that was coming my way

i couldn’t write

because i had nothing to write about

but sitting in bars with half-friends

trying to pick up women out of my league

wasting weekend nights on my own fear and failures

vomiting it all up on sunday mornings

i decided that pittsburgh was too small

i told everyone that i was going to join the merchant marine

although i had no clue how to do it

the internet was new at that time

so i’d look up the merchant marine online

and print up a bunch of shit like i was serious about it

no one cared

it wouldn’t have made a dent in their lives

if i was gone

i’d be one less obstruction toward getting

to the end of their day

i used to sit alone on the steps of the carnegie library

looking at those merchant marine papers

chain smoking cigarettes

and not touching my lunch

wondering what in the hell i was going to do now

that i was out of college with no job prospects and no ambition

i made it a harder time than it had to be

because i took america much more seriously then

it all seemed so serious and heavy sitting there

underneath that waving flag

i felt like a scared mouse

waiting for my turn to get on the wheel

and spin and spin and spin

around and around

this fabulously, dizzy, mendacious

caged blur that we have the audacity

to try and call a life

too confused to even try to look

for a simple and glorious way out.