Let me come to the point:
I can’t remember the name
of the particular door I open
whenever I step through into this

from that 
where I daily make a cup of coffee
and scratch my various itches
before sitting down to this Work. 

If I ever knew the name
I have forgotten it, or 
let me say instead I feel
more often than not 

that whenever I walk through,
coming or going, the name of the door
changes. I’ll puzzle over this
each time. What is the name

of the boundary between where the Work is
and where living happens? I pass
back and forth wondering
about such foolish things. 

Please contact me
that you may at least understand
where I’m at.  

I can’t describe
the landscape well enough
for you to come find me

but you might find yourself enlightened
and informed by the view.  I hope
I can do it justice — really that’s

the only hope I have now: 
that by you being in touch I might
be able to warn others who might come.

Please contact me, reach out
that you may understand
that I was never comfortable among you,

even if you still cannot see why;
and even if I am somehow at home here
it is not any place most would want to live. 

I get up
Write a poem
Make some coffee
Have some food
Put another round into the clip

I get up
Make some coffee
Write a poem
Make some food
Count some pills into a plastic cup

I get up
Have some water
Make some coffee
Fix a poem
Sharpen the edge of the big knife

I dream a poem
Get up and write it down
Delete it when I read it back
Make some coffee
Eat a food that one day will do me in

One day I’ll change it up
One day I won’t think about poems
One day the coffee will be left unmade
One day I’ll won’t get up
One day the Tool will be set aside

the form I see before me
is not the true form.

do you see what I do not?
it is possible my eyes deceive me.

it would not be the first time for those little liars,
those deceitful balls playing with tricky light. 

if you say my true name I’ll change
into my true form, if the tales are to be believed,

but why should they be? the writers
have eyes which may be just as dishonest

as my own. they might have no backstory
to support the legend. so the legendary true form

may be not a true form at all but simply that
which kills the perceiver before they solve the mystery. 

never trust a writer to give you all you need 
to seize control of the world. they’re a posse of deadly clowns

riding out in search of illusions they’ll tell you are true,
and they may be right but they don’t know and won’t know

until you are staring into the mirror they’ve given you. 
they wait to see what happens.

no matter what happens,
they try again.

Last night
I dreamed
that there
in my hand
I had conjured
a gnome
in a red hat,
something
from a book
I’d read long ago. 
He began to spin
there on my palm 
and when he at last 
spun away it was as
a dervish born
in a handful
of fire.

Last night 
I remembered writing
this poem once before
when I was no more than
18.  Back then I thought 
I was something,
didn’t I — back then I thought
I too had been 
formed in a hand
to be a dervish
in a handful
of fire and that I had 
a fire hand of my own making
and I spawned poems in it,
fast red, and long burning hot,
and I spun them into the world
to ignite anything
other than myself, but still
I burned, almost, to ash.

I soak my wounds these days
in any running stream
I find
and think of how
I am no longer what I was,
am I — no dervish,
no wick, no kindling
in this poor hand,
and I am grateful
for how final and good
it feels to stop short of a full life
of poems romancing the mythology
of scorched earth.

I’ve written a book I now pray
will never be published
Working title “Goddamn”
Subtitle “Fuck”

You think I’m joking 
but in fact the profanity
is the least offensive thing
about that book

I thought I was sweet 
until I wrote it
but the brain of one
who could write such a thing

(where the title and subtitle
were the least deadly words
the cleanest and sweetest
I could use to proclaim the rest) 

that brain grows from
a bitter root and I’m sitting
with all that means
in my little room

The air reeks from it
Disturbance on paper
Common vulgarity
announcing common dirt

I wanted more of my work
I demanded less of me than I was
What have I got to show for it
when “Goddamn: FUCK”

is likely to be my legacy
unless I burn it and start again
Unless I burn myself down while 
praying I’ll have time to start again