Living Rough
Oct 26 2008


A poet travels light.
He walks on gravel shoulders
veering heedless into traffic,
distracted
by the unbidden words
rattling around inside.

He lives rough,
memorizing lines
fiercely revising.
And needs just a few blank pages
a well-chewed pencil,
nibbled down to the nub.

He loses touch
immersed
in his solo journey,
sending unmarked postcards home.

He leaves himself wide open,
receptive
to smothered sounds and concealed motion.
Then zeros-in with white-hot intensity
on found poems
and suspended moments,
closely observing his idiosyncratic world
— the cosmos
in every grain of sand.

Cars flash past in a blast of air,
horns honking
and cold hard lights,
brushing him back as he walks;
oblivious to traffic
taking his time.
And living rough
he has all the time in the world
— his one and only extravagance.