I was teaching myself to play guitar, and decided to try my hand at writing my own songs. I wrote the words to ``All Purpose Generic Blues'', but couldn't find a melody I liked. (It ended up taking me about three years to find one that sufficed.) Then I found out about this coffeehouse with an open mike poetry night, figured ``hell, lyrics are poetry,'' and the rest will live in infamy.
A few other pieces deserve a word or two as well:
``A Bizarre Act of Kindness'' is a true story. Or, as true as any story ever is.
``The man who owns nothing'': ``If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him,'' said some Zen master or another.
``I'm sitting in the rain waiting for you'' was created in under five minutes while walking one block along Route 1 in College Park in the rain. It might have taken another five to locate notebook and pencil and write it down.
``The phone awakened me at 4 a.m.'' was also written in a manner of minutes, but only after weeks of thought. It is quite possibly the first poem ever to bring together early morning phone calls, Olympus, crazy-straws, dynamite, and Leyden jars.
``Proofs of Love'' is for Kathy. Which is enough said about that.
``Happy Earth Day!'' was written for the 1995 Earth Day celebration at the University of Maryland, College Park.
``The Second Coming: Tuesday, August 22, 1995'' wrote itself when I picked up the paper. It got me censored from one poetry reading where the hostess found it too disturbing.
It should be noted that ``Eight-Ball With the Devil'' is not a true story. I did not lose my soul to the devil playing pool. I've just temporarily misplaced it.
``Fossils'': I think there should be more poetry about major scientific discoveries. Don't you?
Thanks for listening. Be seeing you.