Apparently I was having a self-pity fest when I wrote this.
The Crab Nebula in Taurus, courtesy ESO
Stardust
JCD Kerwin
sometimes i find myself
standing waist-deep
in linguistic shit.
i never said i wanted to be like Kerouac,
or Ginsberg reading Eliot and
cracking jokes to a strung-out William Lee.
i just wanted to hold something up to glass eyes
worth more than dilapidated statues
torched and tagged in my mind.
i saw my whole future once
in a pocketful of sand,
but i let it blow away in words
i heard when i was young:
You’ll never be a wordsmith star.
And Bradbury wouldn’t care how far
You want to go.
i can’t form any semblance of sentences
when my mind’s an opium den
of ego-hipster’s ten-dollar words
i don’t fucking recognize.
the stuff i spew must only equal
a pot of verbal diarrhea no one
wants to hear.
i write the shit i know
and that’s the law i live by.
but that ain’t gonna do
when no one cares for
the dream i stupidly built in play-doh
when i was nine.
city lights can’t give
hope to a broken country kid
with nothing worth to give.
or at least that’s what the corporate jokes say
when i let them tear my heart and say
“no thanks.”
and you know, i think they’re right—
i’m an idiot to think
my scribbles will save the world.
(‘cause words are the only thing
that defines our world and
tie us to each other;
but words can break you
and make you feel
like you are nothing.)
it’s damn hard to be strong
when the person you’re afraid of
is yourself.
i’m the only one
who hates and loves
what literary vomit
scratches paper from my pocket
full of stars.
i’d suck a stick and sit
with left-over writers
wreaking of bourbon and cigarettes
if it meant
i’d get
some reaction to the pity
i give myself.
(it makes me want to shove
a pen into my eye.)
but i’m on autopilot;
i still try.
i follow heroes in my mind,
even though i know
they’re made of stardust i captured
when i thought i caught my wish
somewhere back in time.
(Spring?, 2011)
J.C.D. KERWIN 