The Mysteries Continue...

A few months back I published two of what I jokingly called "found poems" here that I'd discovered on my computer's Notepad.

This work amounted to a couple of unfinished poems-in-progress. I was confused because I couldn't remember starting the poems.

I printed them here and facetiously asked if anyone knew the work, because they seemed completely alien to my style and voice.

I had, after a few moments studying them, realized they were likely something I'd written while blacked out, or at least mindlessly drunk. The point is they didn't sound like me.  Indeed, the little that was there had something uniquely vital and different than my usual work. They had, while rough, a mysterious energy, a taste of...what...I don't know...drunken grandeur.

I drink.  Not as much as I once did, but I do still drink.  Perhaps you can tell when I have been drinking simply by reading this blog, which I sometimes work on when I'm half in the bag.

Now is not one of those times.  I am stone-cold sober at the moment, and have been for the past two weeks because I'm broke.  I am, at this stage of my disease, the kind of alcoholic who can get along without a drink for long stretches, though I'd rather not.  I drink when I have the funds, otherwise I don't worry about it--well, put it this way, I don't get the DTs, and I don't rob banks and steal stereophonic equipment to coddle my addiction.

(Come to think of it, the reverse happens.  My bank robs me every month--long story.)

So there is one advantage to being a broke writer who hasn't sold much and never will. Death by drink--should that be my fate--will be slower than Dylan Thomas' or Jack Kerouac's, because I can't afford quantity.

I've outlived both of those  punks, by the way. Those moneyed hacks! They couldn't hold their damn liquor or write worth a damn!

Sorry, excuse me...

Anyway, this forgetting is sporadic for me.  It's happened before, but infrequently.  I'm usually pretty good about remembering not only the stuff I'm working on when I'm writing, but everything in general.  In fact, I remember plenty that I wish I could forget--plenty of bad stuff.

Maybe you've confronted some bad stuff of your own.

Anyway, I must have wrote the unrecognizable fragments in that dangerous time between midnight and the dawn, whence the monsters come into your room and feast on your brain.

To the point, then, finally.  Here is something else I don't recall writing and sending to the local newspaper.

However, I can imagine why I was moved to write it in April, 2010.  I was about to become homeless once again.

There's a story about how and why that happened, but I'll spare you for now.

Bad, bad stuff happens sometimes.


TS