9:51 AM PDT - Jun. 10, 2004
closet
i look over the list of authors and i'm sickened. jack, stella, mark, all published and red and brown and green and i haven't really done much except work for fifteen years and bleed and get married and become a father. but none of these is written with the black tendril bloom of an ostrich feather and syrupy ink from an octopus, no wrinkled letter from an editor inside a urine envelope with my address scribbled by me, nothing called unworthy or confessional or political or a stack of sun-burned yellow that gather dust in a Xerox box because for some reason i like to be reminded when i look deep within the purple black of my closet of all my failures because i want something on paper that shows my life is a poem that someone can buy and read and know and say yes i too have pondered the yellow of a hummingbird and what i have is a finger that goes into the dark of my right nostril each morning and the red fire of 4AM and a voice that cries no go bye-bye
