Only a fool would say that:
a fool, or a writer trying
to make you notice them.
To make you think
they were deep,
or at least that the work
was deep. Something
the writer could claim was
channeled from a deep source,
not entirely their own. 
That it was nonsense,
but contrary nonsense, 
something the world
had forgotten. Selling
bullshit as wisdom is
the perfect skill, after all.
Anyone can go far in any field
with that, not just writers.
You can eat and drink for free
damn near forever on one
foolish bit everyone thinks
is brilliant. That you longed
for brilliance is immaterial.
That you struggled and failed
for brilliance is of no consequence
to anyone but you, if you are
so inclined to care, once you are done
eating and drinking off your failure.
Are you done?

Remarkable —
the sunflower leaf 
holding water
after a night
without rain.

Remarkable — 
all I need to do
is describe it this simply

and someone
will call this description
art, someone
who never notices
remarkable things
happening so routinely,

who might have been
profoundly changed
if they had just looked up
from a book
and seen it for themselves.

up by five am daily unless there’s
illness or rare refusal. the Work begins 
before coffee, breakfast, or inspiration.

first it’s just me and a shimmer, a pang.
then it’s just me, my pang and/or shimmer,
and blank space, waiting.

inspiration is for amateurs.
the pang is the pain of not writing,
the shimmer? anticipation, joy.

then the poem comes up out of the Work.
no effort is needed until it shows up.
our work only begins after the words punch in.

we wrestle and chip. we form and reform,
seeking the poem the poem insists
on becoming. seeking the writer the poem demands.

do this long enough, often enough, and you become 
immeasurable to others unless you are measured
against your last poem. it has not been long enough

for me. tomorrow it’s back to sunrise
and no inspiration; just
shimmer, pang, and blank space. 

as for satisfaction in the Work? an artist’s statement?
ask me later. ask me later tomorrow, in fact.
prepare yourself for a lie. assume everything said

that is not in the Work
is somehow a lie, just one of those things
left behind after the Work is done.

this is a collection of words
with broken hips.

it sits in front of you
squirming.

it is trying to rise and greet
you and the day but has been stuck

waiting for revisions
for what has felt like forever.

it is uncomfortable with how much
you expect it to fly

when it eventually does rise,
changed, to its feet.

you are eager for it to take flight,
but that is not its nature.

it would prefer to stay close
to the ground. it longs for you

to stay with it and peer into
the dirt around the roots of grasses,

all the kinds of grasses. it wants to
be anything but one of those poems

that soars high above all.
its bones have been unknit for so long

it has learned to just be here,
close to the ground.

all it wants is to get out of the chair
and take a knee and stare into the earth

around grass roots, learn the names
of what grows there, and help you do the same.

I’m up at four-thirty
cracked like dawn
trying to write
but there are cats here
and they want food and
a clean shitter and above all
for me to stop using them
as a source of excuses
for not writing
I have to go bathe my father
which is no excuse
I have to go feed my mother
which is no excuse
My feet on fire and
my left hand frozen numb
with neuropathy
Pain that goes from
nagging to screaming
that it’s not an excuse
The drugs that ease the pain
slow me and dull me at the same time
but that is no excuse
My broke timid ass overwhelmed
with all the doom within and around me
to the point of disgust and saturation
with my lack of excuses
The siren songs of bullshit self-care
are no excuse to step away
from the cliff
I need to fall over to land on
an enemy below
and even as I burn out
and fall dead while crushing them
snuffing them out
they look up saying
You are killing me and killing yourself
and those are not excuses
for not writing a poem today
Feed the cats shithead
Take the drugs shithead
Kill the billionaires shithead
Whether you live miserably or die happy
you truly have just one real job
Write that goddamn poem
shithead
or all this will be worth
exactly as much
as you are
which is
vessel
conduit
gutter
that’s all

Chastened thus
I suffer and bend to
the task

My last great literary act
is to admit out loud that
I’ve always been repeating myself
and it’s no longer enough.

It used to be enough.
I would tell myself
in response to writing a bad poem
I was at least being original.
Then came the moment when
I saw I was not, but kept trying.
Today I can see
the whole point of me: there’s been
just one, there’s been
only one poem I’ve ever written, I’ve been
endlessly rocking the same poem
with different words; I have repeated it
only out of desperation, then walked up to you
and shook you
over and over with the same motion
and glazed sensibility,
wanting to be
owed something
I fooled myself into thinking
I deserve from you.

Anyway,

here’s a new book for your consideration
called “I Repeat Myself: The Villanelles.”
I know it’s the same as my last book,
“Once Again: The Sonnets.”

I see you already looking away.

Bear with me, give it a read, give it a listen,
give it the old college try. Give it
your full attention, even if only briefly.
You won’t have to read it more than once.

Stop. Stop this.
You sang the corners and more.
I heard you. Everyone did.
We know who you are.

Stop. Stop this.
We saw you watching, listening,
writing. The backs of keno tickets
know who you are.

Stop. Stop this.
That you say you never this
is proof. We all say this. The “why you start”
stops mattering once it’s who you are.

Stop this, start that,
continue or not. Being is being.
A fist, a pen, a handful of snakes and roses.
You see them the same. It’s who you are.

This work is not for the cowardly.
Everything in a room or yard could be
weaponized upon first glance;

if not, it could be a key to a room
where land mines are stored, left
carelessly armed and all over the floor

the last time you were in there.
You’ve lost limbs over this before.
It takes time to grow them back.

The growth hurts like hell itself.
Nonetheless you forget all this
the second you begin to write.