Fifteen Hundred Poems

I’ve written fifteen hundred poems
in thirty nine months.  In that time

all the sun has done
is shine on me, lighting the world

in the process.  All the sky has done
is hover above me, umbrella

to the art.  All the sea has done
is wash and rage upon and generally applaud

my work.  It has been a fine ride
from the before to the now, I confess.

The ephemeral nature of it all
notwithstanding, I am that fucking special:

The Machine Poet!  
El Prolifico, 

though I was a poet before all this 
calculation.  Used to be

I always counted the pieces
but I never raced myself to more.

Fifteen hundred poems in these last
thirty-nine months, averaging a little over

one a day, and each was a vitamin 
I made you swallow — I made me swallow —

oh, does anyone feel better 
for all this?  Am I not still as weary of 

who I am as when I started — 
have I not yet lost enough of myself

in all those words
to stop counting?  To admit how lovely

the sun, sky and sea are
without roping them to my service?

To just sit down
and be?