I’m not stupid,
but I have it from reliable sources
that I’m nothing like the two or three
mad geniuses who mean so much to me.

I’ve seen them at work, half-asleep,
standing amongst the applause
in just such a way that no one
can successfully make eye-contact.

They kick the cement until there’s too many
roses for such a dismal stretch of restaurants and churches.
They never get sick and have been known
to start forest fires in Central Park
with nothing better than a burnt-out match.

Something tell me they have better things to do
than fall in love. Hopefuls and youngsters with ulcers
cling to them like the children who used to want
to join those circuses that only came around at night.

It happens
all the time,
but those brilliant rarities never seem to be interested.

Midnight hangs over them, but not one second has the guts
to touch them without permission. Their work stays published,
and the money is never too much or too little.

The stories come easy and are never repeated.

No one knows how they do it,
since they never seem to go home.

I think it’s funny. Every last bit of it is hilarious.
Funniest of all is the way I’m pretty sure
none of them have ever met.

They just exist,
one or two during the first part of the year
and then one or the other for the summer and fall.

I can’t say I’m close to them. I’ve just been lucky
to be in the room when the tables flip over but still
land on their legs as though it never happened.

A few crumpled pieces of paper
have happened to hit me in the head
as I move from one busy room to the next.

I’m nothing like them. I kick around
the same six ideas and try to have a better
vocabulary when I step outside the skyscraper party
during the fever-pitch at one of the floors near the middle.

Falling at violent speeds has never been one of my strengths,
and I can rarely concentrate on the directions to get back home
that I’ve written along my arm.

I get irritable and whiny when I drink.
I usually have to approach people first
and very rarely do well with even that.

They make it look so easy,
and I’m amazed that each day
ends more or less in the same fashion.

01/30/2010

Posted on 01/30/2010
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