last week’s poems 09
at a café just thinking about James Baldwin sipping a coffee in Paris after slinging his ink and having escaped American racism and finally feeling free
the trauma of brown people makes it harder for them to find love
so be gentle, be kind
want to go home
but don’t know where it is
not enough poems
not enough time
i didn’t even feel anything when
She passed through this life
until a couple of weeks later
i felt it all at once
then it dried up
and i remembered some good times but
nothing felt true anymore
i couldn’t write enough poems
there wasn’t enough time
i was starting to lose the memories
of the stories of Her and i
was it another life?
somewhere along the way, i lost the way, and i’ve been looking for the way back ever since, and finding all these other places instead of what i really missed
why was it so quiet in this café?
maybe because the baristas never looked you in the eye
unless you were white and 6 foot 5
im having a gallery showing someday soon, and i hope you come through, all the art stemmed from you
two and a half hours to burn
but i was in some city in the u.s.a
and the only things to explore were corporations & chains
and all i wanted to visit were mom & pop stores
and art galleries
why was it so hard for me to be
what i wanted to be
free
a poet
and a lover
consistently?
oh, to be a stable poet
wandered down an alley
somewhere in culver city
just to get away
i was hoping to get lost
but i had my phone on me
and a gps
and people texting me
couldn’t put it down long enough
to really stay away
everyone kept handing me their problems
and all i’ve got is empathy
honestly, its killing me
hearing problems and trying to come up with solutions endlessly
but i wandered down an alley
somewhere in culver city
and for a second or three
i was free
daydreaming got me nowhere effortlessly
but my faded dreams were getting me nowhere with much difficulty
time to make some changes
and iterate these dreams so i’m free
too much supremacy all around me
holding me down
holding me back
and too many friends telling me
its all in my head
when it’s weights on my back
daydrinking progressed my career faster than daydreaming. is this what they meant about taking action leads to momentum?
its a crazy thing what a song can do to a man
dear young artist,
create something every day
and you won’t lose your mind
as often as you do now
and even when you do
it will only help you
had a poem and a pen
so i could maybe make rent
but all my other dollars were spent
give me a good folk song
and a pint
any day of the week
over any of these
things other people
are giving me
that comes included with some drama
and a fee
writing poems at a bar
a good convo is never far
but you and me were long gone
and i was drinking to cope with
the memories
failed at some things i was good at
lost my way on some things i was great at
got stuck on some things i could’ve worked through
and lost my way after me and you
why’d you have to go and pass away
before i could tell you it was all going to be okay?
got lost in a new city or two
came back to a familiar town
where i knew all the roads
but i was lost there
the most
without you
oh he’s got an old honda engine
that goes and goes
at the café that has water for dogs but no restroom for people
at the bar that’s got service for rude people but none for the kind
the daydreams got old
as we got older
but they shouldn’t have
