"How I Happened to Write," originally, this
was to tell how I happened to write novels
but now I'm writing poetry.
So it's now how I happened to write poetry
or whatever you like.
Make yourselves comfortable with it.
So they come at me like vengeful children toward the drowsy wife
beater father sitting helpless in his favorite chair.
The newspaper dead at his side, his supper
stained shirt miss-buttoned baggy
pants unzipped, his eyes widening
like cracks in yellow plaster.
They come quicker now, I have to stand
on the lid to keep them down.
No longer is it a matter of months, days, hours,
the last one took a minute to write, a second to stop.
It hurts to write like this, with words falling
against my head like steel mallets
and the scrawny fists of starving children
who stare out from eyes at my hands,
asleep and empty pockets.