"madness"

 

madness slow eludes men

anger slow delays me

and time is swift as micro chips

and love and luck and ugliness

screw each other in my soul

and infect themselves with jealousy

 

I remember, I remember

not so long ago

when the pages flew with genius wings

and the gin was good

and the gin was tequila

and the door was just a door

and it gladly let me out

and the poems flowed and rhymed

like a roaring mountain stream

 

I don't wear my cowboy boots anymore

and the bears in Lincoln Park

never catch salmon

the concrete is worn like a grave

before the bars of the wild things cage

and the steel is infused with rage

but our spirits

our eagle winged spirits

have been broken

like a whiskey bottle

like a drunken indian