I Might Not Be Enough

Last night, in my winter sleep, I dreamt
I was on stage and a few hundred
teachers were looking at me,
I was told to go on stage and
present to them regarding
what their students need
(What do you need?),
and I scuttled and fluttered
and danced about, filibustering,
however, it never really came
to me; I wanted to say to them:

"Tell your kids to work harder,
because no one cares about a smart
person who is lazy" or "The only
thing that you can do is accept the
present moment, as past and future are
sand beyond the temperance of the
hour-glass" or even "Brush your teeth,
wear deodorant and show up on time!"

But the smart stuff, the pulp and guts,
the bliss and spark and sublimation into
the ether was surrounded by stutters and
fumbles and lop-sided prose with "Ums"

-

my biggest fear,
 in my dream,
was
that they would
turn off
my microphone
and that is
exactly
what they

For All The Poets, Never Published

Friends, we are gathered here today
to remember all of our peers whom were never published

The junkie who found Jesus and, 10 years ago,
drove a "Cloud 9" shuttle and carried his moleskin notebook

Or the cousin with more literary talent than you
and me and the rest of them, working at a summer camp

Or the woman, from Vietnam, who once cut my hair,
while cutting, she would sing whispers of her work into my ear

Even still, the children, the Keats, the cancer, the war,
the loves that never ended in heart-break, the winners;

they, too, are poets that you will never hear from, and
maybe, so am I.

The Pain of the Unknown Soldier

A headache moves mountains

in the mind, but no one

not nothing know what's there

the obese walrus moving

circles on a rusted tricycles

in the three-ringed circus of mine

my mind that won't quit; 

I saw his leg like carnitas

pulled from his hip, shredded meat

I saw the heavy-browed children 

screaming, I mean scr-e-e-eaming 

for their mothers, for their lives

I held the knives and the guns and

the bombs and I won, but now, these

headaches out live them all and I 

may live to see 60 years old, but 

as long as I feel this way, I'm one 

screwdriver closer to making the pain,

this revolving, pumping pain, this hell-

beat of a drum from beyond the grave, 

die, dead and die with me.