(title courtesy of John Wieners)
Yeah, that’s me. Here I am,
up before dawn, ready to
decipher souls. Scratch that,
it’ll just be an attempt to
decipher one soul. Work
with what you’ve got. Be
who you are. It is what it
is. Here sits the king of
solitude. But who’s com
plaining? Besides the king
himself, that is? He’ll get
what’s coming to him. And
soon enough. But is it all
really that bad? This, thinks
the man who thinks he’s king
of something, his pasty face
a bit shy with age. And if one
were to have the opportunity
(not that I’m recommending)
to look a bit more closely, one’d
find rivulets digging further
into those crevasses, at least
on occasion. Were there any
to speak of. Occasions. And
who’s going to be looking
closely at the face of such
isolation? I didn’t say rarity,
though if I did, it wouldn’t
flatter the fellow who’d spent
days on end making sonnets out
of nothing but love. No one’s here
to know, though. This king of no
thing is a love poet no more.
Now he’s but a simpleton in love.
