Am I a poet? A writer? A reader?
A dawdler and doodler
Weed identifier and ripper-outer
water watcher
lie about
sucked into the freecell vortex
there's gotta be something about a something cortex
I'm reading aloud WHITE TIGER
and silently I'm reading THE LACUNA
each is about a boy
and I get the boys confabulated
imagining the Mexican/American boy
swimming past the lotus eating water buffalo
or the Indian boy mixing frescoe plaster
for Diego Rivera
a double helix of coming of age stories
coming apart

I don't have the pulse
don't feel the zeitgeist of my age
am not any sort of genius
I so hoped I would be some sort of genius
could read the work of genius
ride it like a wave
feel the pulse of its purpose
like my own
I thought it was my own
parrot, mimic,
oh I can fling the epithets
punish myself daily
refuse me pleasures
for all my shortcomings
if you ask me to do something
I will do that something
no matter what it costs me
if I ask it
I spit on the task
sit around with protest signs
half painted
the great are better to themselves
they believe in their work anyway
even if they don't love themselves
they believe in their work
they do their work
I lose my work
file it in the drawer of lost things
or let it blow away down the road
sunder it between my teeth
am loathe to love it
unless someone publishes it
if a poem has seen print
has my name on it
I might deign to read it again
muttering