on writing

every poet needs a poem about writer's block.

I'm just sitting here with my smokes and my tea
and my pen, complete with blank
lined page, intercepting some
across-the-bar conversation,
a diversion from the flipping
spiral sheets of memory.

And the truth is, maybe,
that I think best when I don't
think clearly, at the height
of my youth with the chairs all in squares
around empty tables,
making me lonely.

And maybe the people I love so fiercely
are just lines in my stories,
possibilities for mentioning in the
Way That I See Things,
and the way that I see things,
the ink on my hands is just
evidence in my crime scene, and I'm waiting
to finally come up
clean.