If I Didn't Know Myself

If I didn't know myself as well
as I do,
I'd probably know someone else
half as well,

I'm not a foregone conclusion
in spite of myself, even though the
night speaks wonders and praises
to the moon,

canticles of myself, distances of
water I have traveled, obscured
clouds of restless ink,
written Poems
to no one but the
smoke-feathers of the dawn.

I don't want these fucking words,
i don't want to be a poet
I don't need Advaita to know
no one's home any more,

give to me an honest paintbrush,
elongated shadows of El Creco
emerging from my plaited bones,

give to me the rapid breath of a mantra,
a melody that heals sans useless words,
give to me a ten-gun salute to the weathered
captain of my broken craft,

give to me a rosary carved from pearls,

whilst I throw all prayers to a wasteland chaparral
I need no echoes to remind me that truth
is a hollow reed.

Lord,
why have you cursed me with loneliness?
this god-forsaken
aloneness,
why then,
have you created two?
male and female,
so perfect a fit,

the sea
the pounding surf
the restless shore
to hold one another in
blissful embrace?

why do you leave me with
a ringless finger wed to my
Beloved?

How then do I know of this
unbroken ecstasy, this passion-fruit of Life,
this Soul?

I wish I could...
what?
I don't know...
what do I wish?

what would change
and how would "it" change,
Darling...
 But you see,
you're dead...

and there's nothing
left of you
but your photo, your stories,
and your poems
in unmarked pages
of my fading memory...

and I wish that I could have
saved myself my
sniveling sorrow...

but you're dead,
Epston
Plath
Zimmermann
Bukowski,
and maybe you'll
leave me in peace
on Sundays...

Please,
take this poem with you.