They say I’m past my prime, driving up a one way street with
my three wheeler words, spinning the same rhythms and
stealing the same styles. “You will never learn or change”, she says,
filling page after page with frivolous letters that flirt with each other.

People glance through and whisper, “There is nothing new here.”
A judgment by the jury of anonymity. They move on to greener pastures.

Should I write like Stearns? Mix Sanskrit and surrealism in
the same sentence. Or should I sample Sylvia? A dread
of approaching doom in the shape of father figures. Or
perhaps, I should stick to Allen? An abstraction of decay.

The tyrannies of age wait at the end of this page.
There will be no mercy at the hands of mortality.

Who will help me fight the dearth of density?
Who will correct my comedy of construction?

Eins, zwei and drei. The dates determine the
order of death. Words walk tall and stand before
a firing squad of gun toting, bare chested editors.

BOOM!

Afterwards, they bury them in an unmarked grave,
safe from history, safe from the preserving power
of posterity. I weep many more words and waste
my breath on redemption and instant resolution.

The parallel nature of ambition and stagnation.
The terrible twins listen to the same music,
walk the same tight rope. A fall on either
side leads to the same outcome: moral decay.

The tension of a troubled conscience clouds
a poetic sensibility. The pursuit of absolute truth
renders her mute. And the willful murder of life
leads her to slit her wrists in the bathtub of boredom.

May thunder whisper in my ears and lightning
carve a new path in this darkness of destiny.