I am alone. I stand alone. I achieved it. I am excellent.
But poets, what do you believe in? There are days when
I am not myself. When I speak terrible Czech. Mouthing,
‘I need you’. The trajectory shifts. I find arrows in
my right hand. My sister is not here. I testify my heart out
but nothing clicks. I adjust the turning point of my behaviour
accordingly. The day is bitter. I wish to gather branch
to me, to find ample loyalty in Christian fellowship and
do you still have faith, poet? You see teeth, I am not
young anymore. People have left me. I am undone. Radical
achievement is a mountain, but I am standing in the
strategy of the valley not caring about my pain. Milan
Kundera is bemused; I am the outsider frightened of
my future. I need help. Feel around. Find the words.
but the poets here are social animals. Spiritual warriors
with a key in their left hand that will unlock creativity.
The party has left. I am a dying poet, but you are alive.
You are the exit out of this planet. I have been betrayed
by non-meaning. The goal tangles. Look for the specific
yonder. Life is an imperfect funk sprawled across the
landscape of wilful ingenuity calculating potential. Thrive!
But only if you dare to find the truth. Cowardly deceit is
staring at me, communicating its progress but the apt
rubbish, its captain, the morality of the community’s aims,
responsible sharks in a flock of suits can be found there.
There is a coral bead in my mouth, grief in my head, tragic
basics that keep me up at night, but I keep walking
ahead of time, mall rats, crowds of people carrying birds.
You are not me. I don’t write as you do. I am critic.
You are wise. I am undergraduate and apprentice. You are
masterful. I am green shoot, Canadian prairie, rural and
jungle, Alberta, the mighty river fixed up with stars. My light
is growing dim and I no longer have the capacity to speak
happy. I want nothing to do with gravity. I can’t get a
firm grip of it. Into the river. Into the narrative glut. I am
fish. You are genius. Nihilism corrupts me. I know of
malevolence, brutal natures, and the clouds are ignorant
of bliss. Look at where I am standing solitude. I am a
school of bright volunteers making headway. I know what
torments female poets. We want meaning, calling. Poet you
feel the joy, you pursue deeds, tidings manifest beneath
your pen while I cut away sustenance with unformed
loneliness. It doesn’t matter what I believe, there’s choice.
I am severely depressed, in pain but understand the aim
of life, making stupid plans, implementing fixed success.
There’s a poetic choice in ceremonial life, in modal suffering.
