a poem a day is no easy thing, nothing to order up quick like a cheeseburger and fries (which i haven't eaten in maybe two decades), but maybe i'm reading the wrong poets for this. i've been reading a.r. ammons and a little philip levine and a bit of mary oliver. these last two bob calls kind of depressing. well, i can see it a bit for levine, but oliver? well, maybe, though she can write: "But the seed/ has been planted, and when has happiness ever/ required much evidence to begin/ its leaf-green breathing?" and she has written: "In the book of the earth it is written:/ nothing can die."

but when a fellow like me is bothered by his own stupid density, when its so hard just to wake up in the morning, how can i be expected to wake up enough for a poem to arrive. and no dreams come to help the sleeping earn its keep. so i dream all day in front of a page or a bright screen and think thoughts that keep me thinking. and then i run three miles and hope i don't get beaned into eternity by some kid's foul ball - one zipped three inches from my head the other day, and today if i'd been stretching where i usually stretch, it would have happened again. the universe is speaking to me around the edges. and i learned today that after a lifetime of ignoring all of this astrology crap that everybody cares about so much, after this long stretch of self-imposed ignorance - not being able to tell my Taurus from my Capricorn - i discover that John Gardner used the zodiac to structure his damned and beautiful book.

then i get this copy of spin magazine that says in big obnoxious letters: this is yr second to last issue. but i have already decided to let it lapse. it will end in the month i turn fifty so let's call it my farewell to youth. i don't know what they're talking about half the time anyway. and their commercials are all about sex and skateboards and being cooler than anything else on the planet...which are not my concerns, i don't think.

my concerns are: how can i be a better person even at my age because i've been a lousy person lately - don't ask how, i won't tell - my concerns are how can i write a simple poem-a-day when i can't even get a half-assed dream out of too much sleep. maybe i should be reading more james schuyler who wrote: "A shopping list:/ watermelon wedge/ blueberries (2 boxes)/ (In a far recess of summer/ monks are playing soccer)/ Bread (Arnold sandwich)/ yogurt (plain)/ Taster's Choice" well you get the picture. he can throw a shopping list into the middle of a big poem like The Morning of the Poem and he gets a (well-deserved) pulitzer prize or something for it. and by the way where is all the good james schuyler stuff on the internet? nowhere. that's where. somebody ought to fix that, but i don't know if a good brother like me is the one to do it.

see? this is what you get when i can't write a poem in the morning. you better hope something shows up tomorrow.