Not Part of the Stir Fry

I had went to sleep with a pleasant buzz.

The pint of vodka did well. It mellowed me out, calmed me down. I wrote a sonnet with it and then settled off into a deep, black dream. When I awoke I was cloudy but no headache, no hangover. I saved a little vodka just in case I needed the 'hair of the dog', but I didn't. I finished it off anyway for a morning glow.

I sit down and write a few Haiku, work on some email and listen to music. It was fucking hot in my room, and opening the window all the way did little to help. I sat and worked online until the early afternoon where I start nodding off in my chair. It was time to get up and head to Madison Avenue Starbucks. I got dressed and hit the Way downtown. The minute that I hit the stairs at 96th street my knee starts to act up again. It was stronger than before, but still too weak to take on a flight of stairs. Once again I play the invalid on my way downtown and soon, with great difficulty I make it to the Madison Avenue Starbucks and set up to get online.

I call my mother and listen to her chide me for half an hour. It's interesting to get your weekly list of things you fall short in doing cheerfully. Once a parent, always a parent. And when you're struggling out of homelessness you are indeed lacking in many things. I listen dutifully and promise to call again.

Soon, my brother arrives and I pack up my shit and off we head downtown to the Bengal Curry. OBSIDIAN is the feature there tonight with another reader, and he does a very good job at his turn. There are some other, surprisingly good readers present and I had to come on behind one of the better ones. I hate when that shit happens. Everyone is regaled by a better poet, and then they have to listen to my swill. Yeah, that's right, swill. I don't make fine wine here. Some poets make beautiful prosaic merlot, wistful verbiage chardonnay, playful literary pinot noir... and I make word vinegar. I know it. I'm not fooling anyone. But reading it aloud makes me feel good, and writing them down makes me feel better. I struggle too hard to be a poet. I believe that it's in the genes, but in me, it's a recessive gene. That's why I read this:

BROKEN DREAMS

Smashed is my heart
Tears well in my eyes
My bones ache in misery
Skin dries like drum skin

I fall to my knees
landing on the bitter
dust of the
Earth

The skies crack
A torrential downpour
God feeds the land
But condemns me

Every thing is broken
Everybody is in tears
Women wail
Children cry

I howl into the sky
Clench my fists
until they tremble
in fury

I am truly
the bearer of all
of the world's
Broken dreams

I have truly shattered
the hopes of the heart

It is over now.

And so it goes boys and girls. I was in a great mood following that better poet. It fell on the audience like a corpse falling from a closet. There was pause when I finished. They didn't know how to proceed. Then the applause came, disjointed, confused, but it came. I wonder what people must think of the hobo now? Not a very jolly character, huh? Afterward, I didn't mingle with the poets like OBSIDIAN did. One or two of them came up to me to thank me for the poem, with one even saying that the ending of it was very apropos.

My brother and I slipped out into the night and took the Way back uptown to 96th street where we part and I walk the rest of the way home. I can walk now, but climbing up stairs is still a bit of a chore. My knee is not in the agony that it was in before, but it is still weak. I ask for my mail at the front guard station. They hand over two envelopes. One tells me that I have a 'residence counselor' or whatever that is. I'm supposed to go and see her once a month with my residence questions. Whose to say that I'm supposed to have questions once a month? I know what she is: she's the new resident headshrink. It's time to meet the new boss...same as the old boss. The other letter is a card from my mother. The card said hello. Inside was a newspaper clipping of the Holy Scriptures, quoting the birth of Christ. Go figure.

I get home, get naked and work on my laptop. I eat and grow tired and soon crawl into bed. It's time to call it a night.

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