bullet for the mourning dove

I’ve got a new pain
it’s just behind the shoulder blade
it could be worse but it makes writing even harder
I haven’t had a hangover in 70 days
and most days I make it past noon without a cigarette
I have breakfast now, I juice, before coffee
I go on break from the shift, from noon-3 everyday
and just before break I make the preparations
for a writing session like a kamikaze pilot
earplugs in, black shades on, curtains drawn
I fire up the coffee, dick around with my nicotine vaporizers
I ring the bell on my altar and say my silent prayers
then I take a toke of black hash, sit down
and get to it.
life is good, it’s easy and that’s so very hard to deal with
and there are certainly worse problems to have
I’ve got some hangups, some character defects
but nothing dire, the result of living like a drunk poet
for 20 years
and living under the heavy certainty that something heavy
is always waiting, and will come crashing
it’s hard not to consider those years as silly
and so regretfully wasteful
but what can you do but keep at it? so I do,
I keep at it, the clacking of keys into the afternoon
with a pain under my left shoulder blade
the worst most certainly behind me
savage in memory only
poetry was with me in the dire and air raid days
may as well bring it with me into this new age
days of typing quietly, with nothing being wrong
no real problems to speak of
except for one and he’ll be dead by dawn.

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NO MOURNING DOVE OUT HERE TODAY. THE POEM MUST'VE WORKED. NOW IF I COULD JUST COOK UP SOMETHING FOR THE CONSTRUCTION CREW. LINK IN COMMENTS. #voodoo #writing #troubleinparadise #selfie

A post shared by Jim Trainer (@goingforthethroat) on Jun 1, 2015 at 12:57pm PDT