would

he was a great writer

embedded into the mill

a voice gurgling over the radio

that all there

was to writing was to write

but my hands were busy scalping trees

with words at the wood

cut from lovers long lost and

a drunk who pissed his name into the roots

hoping it would flower to the night

as one of the few that grow in the darkness

like a star or the infinite thing of the great writer

licking lightness

and black tea as he sips a thought

over the dull saws and beaten hammers

and static

soon suckling the air the gods created

as if only to say

again

the only

technique there is to writing

is to write

one word by one word by one word

and the flies agree in universal unison

buzzing a sonnet

landing on blank pages

which could weep manifestos

but instead hold retired taxes and my birth certificate

somewhere there in a cabinet raised from a different forest

that still screams the same

with its paint scabbing and indigestion

of the tongues of socks

which i will shed after axing

through a whore who says again

that she is no whore

and i’ll agree but ask if that means

i must pay less

and she’ll say i am a prick

a real fucker

and i’ll pad only if you want

and she’ll step close

ass as the moon

pulling me into her white wetness

that’ll crest on her curves

until we crash down into the howl of a water bed

i installed

because i was told it was what

the great writer slept on

proud of my masterpiece

content with the tale told

and yet

breathing heavy now

uneven

snoring like those biting bugs

who must dream

of more than meat

not

$22

no more than a submission

to a journal that no one

would read anyways