deep thought

deep thought was
the name of an ibm
chess playing computer
program, but it does nothing
to rival the deep thoughts of a
poet and even johnny depp couldn't
portray (in a million dollar blockbuster
movie even) the pains a poet goes through
living in modern america and yet maybe
it doesn't really matter. maybe no-
one really cares.

and that one that
does care is the
one that matters
if i can forget
all the other
moments and
live in the
reality of
unspoken
words i'm
sure i'd
be okay,
okay?

i come from the
big city but
in this small
town that means
nothing - they don't
know how big cities op-
erate and maybe that's
better than berating
the batterbatterbatter
call of the pitcher in
the stands taking a pic-
ture and i'm sure these
lines will make no sense
in the morning and yet i
still write them.

WHY?!

rimbaud was *DONE*
w/poetry at sixteen?
and what have i managed
to accomplish? \"the drunken
boat\" w/out writing it down
? what
good is
that to
someone
living in
the twenty
first century
where poetry isn't
against the law but it
might as well be and i
can't name the colors
of the vowels, but i
can assign them
numb-
ers
per
-haps
but is
that e-
nough to
survive in
the 21st cent-
ury with usury
not given to poets
on the street - looked
down at for feeling things,
for seeing beyond the material-
ism thing - ism ism ism chasm
that we all fall into, but a
poet feels it more deeply
perhaps and even in love
the words appear and
seem trite to some
except the poet
accepts the
feelings
as real
so real
am real
an reel

and i forced
that last one
but sometimes
poets have to
take a chance
and put it al
-l on the lin
-e.

le fish story.
my poem was el
-even inches
but i let
it go
back
into
the deep
murky waters
of my mind and
now no one believes
me or sees that the poem
i caught was real and
i tried to reel it
in and it seems
so fake and
phony now
that the
phonetics
must stop
or my mind
will simply
ex-
plode
ex-
plore
im-
plore
im-
plode.

plodding along
line after line
that makes no sense
and doesn't tie even
to the title of the poem.
what good is that for the
poet let alone the reader?

sleep soon.

please.

sleep,
soon.