Final Poem

In the backyard
my legacy:  a bonfire
of all the books
that explain me,

that made me
and that I then made.

In the house, empty shelves.

My directories and address books
torn apart on the floor.

Where are the pages and pages
of friends and family and contacts
and brownnosers and suckups
and slavish touchers and holders
of hem and knee?  Where are
the pages and pages of those 
I’ve groupied and touched?

Outside in the flames,
all the unwarranted names.

No scene, no family.
No crowdsourced art.
No more of this.

It’s going to be much easier now,
I tell myself. No more fires,
no more poems.  

I tell myself a lot of things.
One day I will in fact do something
to make what I say true.  
Today, I feel it’s closer
than it was yesterday.  That

will pull me through.