Templates

This is what you shall do;
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches,
give alms to every one that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others,
hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people,
take off your hat to nothing known
or unknown
or to any man or number of men,
go freely with powerful uneducated persons
and with the young
and with the mothers of families,
read these leaves in the open air every season
of every year of your life,
re-examine all you have been told
at school or church or in any book,
dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem
and have the richest fluency not only in its words
but in the silent lines of its lips and face
and between the lashes of your eyes
and in every motion and joint of your body.

The night my father died
I sat in my office
And looked at the stack
Of books
I had authored, which I had poured
My life’s spirit into, but which
Would mean little to me during
My last hours

Just a stack of objects, one on top
Of another, easily removed

Biodegradable

Family was the one thing you could
Leave behind, which would grow
And prosper without you,
Not the thoughts
You had once, the stories you
Told, your particular point of view

Still, once my father
Was buried, I did not seek out a wife and
Produce the children who would save
Me from oblivion, I kept
Scribbling and typing and building small
Worlds in my mind
Which brought me
Momentary peace, it was all
I was capable of, by habit, by inclination

Now I suspect that either way, the result is
The same, you come into the world
And then pass out again, does the world need
More books or does it need more children?
The turning earth remains neutral
On the question

they called Céline a Nazi
they called Pound a fascist
they called Hamsun a Nazi and a fascist
they put Dostoevsky in front of a firing
squad
and they shot Lorca
gave Hemingway electric shock treatments
(and you know he shot himself)
and they ran Villon out of town (Paris)
and Mayakovsky
disillusioned with the regime
and after a lover’s quarrel,
well,
he shot himself too.

Chatterton took rat poison
and it worked.
and some say Malcom Lowry died
choking on his own vomit
while drunk.
Crane went the way of the boat
propellor or the sharks.

Harry Crosby’s sun was black.
Berryman preferred the bridge.
Plath didnt light the oven.

Seneca cut his wrists in the
bathtub (it’s best that way:
in warm water).
Thomas and Behan drank themselves
to death and
there are many others.
and you want to be a
writer?

it’s that kind of war:
creation kills,
many go mad,
some lose their way and
can’t do it
anymore.
a few make it to old age.
a few make money.
some starve (like Vallejo).
it’s that kind of war:
casualties everywhere.

all right, go ahead
do it
but when they sandbag you
from the blind side
don’t come to me with your
regrets.

now I’m going to smoke a cigarette
in the bathtub
and then I’m going to
sleep.

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by pain and moaning for release
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.