Terriers, retrievers, even sour ferrets
tossing rat-ragamuffin garlands of phrase,
tossing praise and damnation before us all;

what’s made them so tenacious
when it comes to the tight chains
they have wrapped around language and tongue?

They spell it all out as if
they have no faith in their listeners
to leap with them and land well.

Beacon, beacon, flare, flash, spotlight — 
give them the time and they’ll show you
what each second means, even if you’re

living through them yourself.  Magic men,
wisdom-drenched women; boys on fire, girls
on fire, and who knows who else coming ablaze;

all that jungle and banquet of breath —
and then from each a quick look over the shoulder,
just a sneak peek to see who’s watching and hearing.

Terriers, ferrets, dogs of word,
beasts of the stage moment; it’s not your roar
we love.  It’s not the music alone that works:

rather, the way the sound carries a thought.
Rather, the thought embedded in the sound.
Rather, the wondering audience going along,

trusting the ride.  The ragged harp
implying melody.  The terrier settling into
good hound, pointer not retriever.  “You get it.

It’s over there.  I’ll be quiet now until you do.”
Not looking back for the result. “Here it is.
Take it, it’s waiting.  Shhhhh…”

I so wanted an emergency
to inspire me this morning
but instead had to make do
with a full night’s sleep
and a good mood upon rising.

If I get hungry I can warm up
last night’s nutritious leftovers —
who cares if I have good pasta
for breakfast?  I could keep it to myself,
I suppose, although we all know

I won’t, seeing that I haven’t yet, ever; 
what did you expect?   I will write on food
for food, love, sustenance;
will write about how
sometimes anger fails me, and how

angry that makes me.  Hell, I can conjure
a crisis out of anything
and make it last long enough
to hang some art on it…puts me
one step away from a politician,

a journalist, a captain of industry.
Better, of course, to sit and be well
with the happiness. To see what comes
from tolerating contentment.  To not have
anything come of it.  Maybe

I won’t be an artist anymore,
or at least not for a bit.  I could learn
how to tolerate that without making it
a crisis and then writing about it, but
seriously, would I still exist?

Tell it
to vomit a little
See where that takes you

Tell it
you can hear music
it needs to describe

Write / discard
paint / discard
sculpt / discard
compose / discard
then smile
when it tells you
to knock that shit off 
and save a little something…then

discard some more

Get with a partner
and ding the paint a little
Got a cliff?  
Jump off
Tell the thing
to fly piss fuck
off

Rename yourself
then remain yourself
with a ream of paper and
blood crayons

Forget about it 
Knuckle drag a week around
Club your foot into submission
Blah Blah Blah a college course
Masticate masturbate 
Make up a word and 
Manchurate then
define it for us

Christ,
if you absolutely have to

Drop a little acid 
if after all that
you still can’t make it work —
I know a guy

Just
for the sake of crisis
stop writing 600 word epic posts
notes and updates
letters to old mentors
and essays
about how you can’t
write
anymore

Because the block
is a ghost
only as strong as 
your belief in it
The truth is
all you’ve got is a bad case
of hating your results

so do the art you are meant to do
toss what you hate

you will get there
and if not?

do the art anyway
for the love of process and 
self

The agents 
on the road I travel
won’t punch my ticket,
though I offer them
the posted fare
of my poems.

What I do
is now, apparently,
invalid.

I’ve done it
all my life and now
I am not good at it,

or I never was
and no one said so,

or all I’ve done
is a mistake.  

It might be true —
I might have lost it —

I don’t match 
the demographics,
says one commenter.
I don’t pursue
the right goals,
says another.  
What I make
is false,
says another,
and does not count.

It’s likely past time
for me to pass, then?  
Time almost
to go and not resist,
gentle, etc., into the night
good or not;
turn off the light
on my writing desk
whether I go easy or hard
because this ain’t,
it just ain’t,
working. 

Ah,
say my poems,
buck up,
they’re looking for
suckups, and all they know
is their own
limitation.  
We can’t even see
a horizon
and we’re still on the hunt, 
are we not?

They’ll go on, my poems,
those cocky bastards,
with or without me,
without or with honors, 
validations, labels;
what I need now
I needed more long ago,
have gotten already,
at least in part.

As for the ticket punchers…

they stand there at a gate
that isn’t on a road
and there are broad open plains
on all sides…

I think I’ll just
go around. 

used to be
I could treat the poems
like puppies — trained them
to sit up and beg
for your favor

pathetic 
those little shining eyes
turning over time
rock hard and obvious
in their need

now
I treat them
like search dogs

they track on their own
I follow
they’re lean
if they find you
good 
if not
I trust
they’ll find someone else

If it comes
from a poet’s mouth
it is probably a lie,
unless it’s completely factual —

or unless it’s in between,
one of those stupid things
artists do all the time:
putting a bent frame
on a picture,
deliberately scarring themselves
just to fit in. 

Facts, lies,
damn lies,
statistics,
poetry:  every one
a method of dissembling
and all of them
sometimes used
to get at the truth.

What I mean to say:  
don’t trust any of us
unless the earth nods
at what we’re saying.
 
It may take a day or two
but you’ll know if and when
your old things settle into new places
after we’re done.