A MAN ON FIRE
at 71 years old, there is no light burning brighter, shining stronger than this poet, essayist, novelist, howler in the midnight blue. he is a shouter of the individual, the outcast, the renegade, the desperado, the down and out blues monger, the assassin on your tv screen, the peckinpah killers, the [...]
i don’t know what it was
either
the crowd was wrong,
or
i was wrong…
or both.
but,
it just
wasn’t working.
i read
poem after poem.
nobody laughed…
nobody clapped…
and i couldn’t blame them.
i was shit,
they were shit,
and it was all
falling apart.
the walls stunk
and the floor was cracked.
when it was over
i sold some books,
grabbed my coat
and ran.
i got in the car
and put in a cd
of me [...]
I’ve never really been absolutely sure how a poem starts with me. Sometimes it begins with a line, sometimes an image, something that takes me so far out of myself I can’t help but write the poem down. The true beginning of DILLINGER started out with a name and then a name under [...]
i left this turd
in the toilet
today…
a real
record breaker.
it must have been
a foot long.
i wanted to
call somebody
and
show it off.
i wanted to
take pictures
and send them
to the papers.
at the very least
i wanted to call Kathy
and show her
what i‘d done.
but,
i didn’t
i only
flushed
and
it was gone.
lost
forever.
and all i’m left with
is this poem…
this other
piece of crap.
and
what
do you [...]
In
February, I’ll turn 50. And like so many of my generation, I’m stunned that I’m still alive; stunned because there was a time in my early years when I didn’t think I’d see 25. And yet here I am, very much breathing and doing what I’ve always wanted to do: writing, teaching and [...]
