JIM TRAINER'S POEM OF THE WEEK, I'm Shootin Pool Fat Man
I'M SHOOTIN POOL FAT MAN
Up at 5:30 (thanks Hank)
he wants the wet
you don't come up a
street-fighting tom
w/o yelling into the dawn
you're hungry
I can't blame him
and anyway I’m due at the desk
and to do
more by 10 than you do all day
there's no money in poetry
but if Guy Clark's right
it ain't because you won't pay
it's a narrow track being a writer
buckling in to a
wild gamble of words
in arenas of destitution
and romance
if you knew the bodies I have in here
you'd call the cops
and if you knew how long I been
holding vigil
you'd buy a book
or throw me some dollars and anyway
enough
to keep pecking away at these keys
your happy replica
and call your secret name
writing into the mid-morning
until I hit the streets
cross by the firehouse
and stare down those smoke jockeys
pumping iron under
an American flag.
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