No. 222 - The Power of Obscurity

Why am I so lonely?

Why do I sleep in old motels

With real keys

and plastic fobs

with return addresses?

Why do I cry when I hear my poets

sing of being a rock … an island

My cheek bones ache

I have my books ... and my poetry to protect me

Pain in my sinuses

Chest reverberates

longing

for a life I was never meant to have

A life that was modeled as inevitable

But I live in campgrounds

In hammocks in Texas

Coffee shops in San Francisco

Libraries in New York

I love my books

more than people

My poets

    All dead

         My closest friends

              We’ve never met

My cowboy boots are companions

So are antique shops

And musty bookstores

     in remote towns

         where the power of obscurity protects me

Evenings with Dylan

And Frost, Bukowski

Bach

Kerouac

Van Zandt

Rothko in Houston

And then

Texas found me

Showed me freedom

    in its Hills

         in a dirty denim shirt

Gave me identity

I wasn’t looking for

Didn’t know I needed

But I am lonely

Peripatetic

   with only the company of poets

       and Texas

In a few days I’ll be in New York

Dining at the Yale Club

Fresh squeezed orange juice at the R&T

Suit and tie

    Fedora

20,000

Maybe 30,000 steps a day

    By myself

         Past Lennons home

               in the Village

And my cowboy boots will be a thousand miles away

*Composed, Edited, and Published in Atlanta, GA