Today I’m Going To Make an Effort
Early this morning I woke up
With a feeling of dread…
I’m supposed to perform
I’m supposed to write a poem
I’m supposed to perform.
I’m not a poet.
I love words
I love poetry
I love to perform
But I’m not a poet.
I like to think I have
Some poetic sense
Some poetic sensibility
Some poetic imagination.
But if that were enough to make a poet
Then we’d all of us be poets.
Poetaster, philosophaster
(I!)
But not a poet.
Besides, I have to rehearse for a play
My friends and I are mounting
(For some start-up company we’re building)
And I have to attend a meeting
For updates on the collaboration
My other friends and I are doing
With Indonesian artists
(For some art project for Hongkong and Liverpool).
And last night, I kept drinking,
Imagining that the intoxication would help me,
Would loosen up my tangled state of mind
And transport me to some dreamed-of realm
Of Dionysian ecstasy and inspiration.
But all I ever did bring about is just,
Well, intoxication, no, make that plain,
Simple drunkenness.
And so I just watched TV
Hoping that some lucky lurking serendipity
Would jump on me and knock my head
And make me see poetry in some inane, late night movie
With Patrick Swayze as a bouncer with a philosophy degree.
And somehow (I noted with a bit of glee), I felt
I was on the edge, on the verge
Of some wondrous breakthrough.
But I just remained
Suspended, on the verge,
Without the breakthrough.
I fell asleep with a feeling of dread.
I woke up with that same feeling of dread
Compunded with a nasty headache
From the drinking and the lack of sleep.
I didn’t want to get up
I didn’t want to commute
I didn’t want to take a bath.
I just want to lie on my bed.
I just want to lie, sleep…
“To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay! There’s the rub
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause…”
Still, I got up.
Today, I’m going to make an effort.
One step, two steps
One little step, one baby step
One foot in front of the other,
The other foot in front of the one.
Today I’m going to make an effort.
I took a bath
I hailed an FX
I hailed a taxi
And was late for rehearsals.
During rehearsals, I began writing this shit.
Then it was my turn to rehearse.
I’m this lawyer who got his MA in Harvard,
His Ph.D. in Yale, and who’s supreme ambition
Is to become a magistrate in the supreme court.
Today I’m going to make an effort.
And maybe someday
Maybe one day,
I’m gonna break
Walls, break
Through!
To the other side.