this morning

I awoke
about 4:30

read an hour of Graves
liked it and him

now it's still dark
but the sunrise
will be in
about a half an hour

I've a huge tumba drum
and if I'm lucky
I'll take it out on the jetty
1 mile south on the
beach

and beat to the
sun rising

I've done it
more than 150 mornings
always a high
great exercise
pelicans come listen
seagulls circle
the pacific beats up on the rocks
on both sides of my perch

I love it
several times a woman has appeared
danced to my rhythm



Well


you gotta go against the best
and you might as well write it
than mumble it to yourself
vocally

I go against the best
for me
I go against Bukowski
it's what I measure my work against
and his always comes out better
no one else
comes even close to me
and sometimes I'm dishonest enough
with myself
to believe that I come close
to him

Maybe I do now and then
you gotta go against the best



the frustration


grows - a thousand poems
without a home

tears well
up

I hear a bird chirping
the 
3rd movement of shostakovich's 5th

I am beginning to feel like an old pro at this

poem writing
it is all I do now
seriously
not too serious
but
I'm sure you know exactly what I mean
you are my eye

was well as my own eye
how my eye can differ so much from my own eye
is why 
a thousand poems need a 
home

always getting kicked out
kicked back in the
mail

but
but but
that is the way of nature
I was in the copy store and 5 or 6
of us waited for our poems and our scripts and
our novels and our
novellas to be

xeroxed
and I knew then for sure there is more art being created
than there is room for in all the publications
      on earth

and I felt like one of the
crowd
      nothing special