ON WRITING GOOD POETRY

a lack of angst
is death to poetry, baby

remember that

kill the terror
and the poetry dries up

one needs to lay his poor bare ass
on a hot grease grill to write good poetry
needs to feel the heat
right up through the neck of the spine

needs to want to die the hard way
blue fingered and alone
in a dumpster full of meat on the hottest
goddamn day of the year
and every bleak word
the product of a long, hard adolescence
that lasted well into one's sixties
and ended just like you thought it would

a poet needs a bottle
hugged close
and a dirty needle
hidden in a run down sock
in the cabinet
behind the moldy mayonnaise

and a smoker's cough

and to not give a rat's ass
or so he says
but goddamn if everything doesn't matter --
every nuance of expression
every wink and roll of a pretty eye
of every woman who left
or stayed
and every time his mama
swatted him or didn't
and whether god
blessed him with the genes of an angel
or a demon from the depths of hottest hell
and why oh why oh me oh my
hold the Xanax, honey,
i think i wanna type this morning