Dostoyevsky went to politics ;
Hemmingway opted for the shotgun ;
Sylvia Plath had style - when she
put her head to the oven - that was style.
Garcia Lorca - charming, dangerous,
Lorca, went to mystery and bullets.

I, well I sit quietly in rooms, smoking cigarettes,
smoking joints, with music going softly -
mostly Yepes or Tarrega, good Tarrega,
or now it's Tchaikovsky.

I can just see it , at the end of one of these,
quiet and terrible days,  me cold and  smokeless;
dead at the edge of some women's bed.

Whiskey, pants, shoes, panties, bullets,
gun laying about .
And my brains like some unfinished Picasso,
on her new walls begging to be
seen.
That's of course if I become rich and famous,
of course thats never gonna happen,
there's only so much I can borrow from
Tchaikovsky,
ambition is a ruse of cemented minds , or perhaps my
laziness disregards my ambition
into quiet submission.

Perhaps this is how I go - quite, smoke,
and Tchaikovsky holding out.
I melt like a slow candle, musing on nothing.
And some poor women in the corner screaming,
Jesus, Jesus, as my dripping brains to the wall are finally receiving
the attention it deserves.





© Orin Patterson