I try not to read

I try not to read

other people’s stuff,

too much.

Cause when I do,

I’m left with

the disquieting feeling

that it’s all been said,

and much better.

That’s why I hate

that damned Bukowski

so much.

For days after,

I am derivative

and imitative,

I can’t live with him,

I can’t live without him,

and I drive him out the door,

and his overdue books are taken

back to the library and paid for

with a vengeance.

But if I can just keep tromping

across this poetic veldt,

recklessly mixing metaphors

and crushing sentences under hoof

like some adolescent rhino,

I might, in my innocence,

of what is proper,

find a clearing by a gentle pool,

where no one’s been before,

and I will sink to my knees

in the mud,

drink deeply of waters

that have never been described,

breathe deeply the scent of flowers,

that no one knows,

and I will tell you about it,

and you will come.