HIM by Mike Glover This is how the masters pulled off those classics,In the dark wee hours of the night,
Days fade into a blur of wasted weeks, and months
And years, with the same scotch, the same ashtray,
And the same decrepit cat curled on the same dusty windowsill, at
Four thirty five AM on the same foggy night in a
Haunted Victorian turret on the third floor with a single lamp
Low on oil.You leave the pub,
Grinning from some joke you heard, the pavement
Slick beneath your boots click, click, click
But as the friendly glow recedes you realize all at once
That it is only you again, and him
Him
He has been there brooding all along, in the end,
You never left because you always have to come back.
When you are alone with him the screams and the
Unbearable misery, the hopeless human condition and the agonizing
parade of the ages
Become almost sublime, and the legions of hell
Are panty league wimps next to
Him, who is always there even
When you sleep, but when you see his shadow all the time pasted
Upon the dusty sheen of your scuffed floor and
ancient, guided ceilings, and artfully crafted tiled bath you know
He is with you.
You hate it but you do it anyway,
Day after day you revile your existence, but you write his words
And they seem to flow, click
Click, click, the best ones
Not fit for publication like those moths that give themselves up
In the shower drain, swirling
And swirling they twitch and die by the dozens in toilets and window sills
For no apparent reason.
And in the end the words appear,
There is life in these words but they are written
In dust, in the wreckage, on the mantle, on a napkin, in the dark
All alone, drunk
Despondent, making love with some twisted, psychic codependent thought
In a haunted room with him,
He never leaves,
In my dreams he slams doors shut and throws vases across the room
But in my waking hours he is just here
Always,
Making the words passionate, and classic,
And well chosen
And used.
interviews
editorials
How to Grow Vegetables
