Not Knowing is a State of Wisdom

There are many things I struggle to say
Cough, stammer and stutter
I’m daily looking for a way
To communicate
I want, I need, this I believe
; A verbal outlet
; A window to take my bet
If there were only meaningful risks
Long shots are still shots
I wouldn’t be so stiff
with unreleased need.
Life is far too easy.
Survival is free.
Relevance has been re-keyed,
And no one really knows what to do
; With themselves
; Their lives
; Their resources
; Their will
The bookshelves are full
of pages and ineffective answers.
The podiums are manned
with gurus, holy men, and handsome faces
none of which can stand on their own.
They need our need to lean on.
It answers questions for them,
but not us.
I keep coming back to a single purpose
that I never regret:
struggling to say.

some people are meant to be the drunks. they give the occasional drunk so much more pleasure. Michael Sutton, he was meant to be a drunk. i don’t care what you say, that was when he was alive -- when he knew his fix was coming, imminent. “i’m going to introduce you to . . . “ whatever, he might say about some wine i’ve never tried before, he’d give me a description, like just before meeting some attractive college girl or boy full of talent.
these days i miss him. thinking of our last visit. how could i be honest? he mentions plans for moving up to the northwest, how can i tell him that my wife shudders at the idea of him living near us? you creep her out, i might say, but never do. i never know how to read Beth, he tells me many times. Beth is always an enigma to him. She doesn’t say enough to clue him in, yet she is alert & not much escapes her & he sees that. but i can’t explain her, i’m her husband. ah, it’s fine, fine.
tonight i drink a bottle of wine, el gato negro, which mike introduces me to probably in the boise days, in our depressive 4-plex living, yet wine & pills get us so elevated & numb to the problems of tomorrow, it’s all tonight. tonight, things are truly what they are, & we are truly who we are, we feel this good, just as warm & feeling as now. pain, well, pain is manageable, tonight. this is who we are.
tonight i drink alone B passed out during our movie, i finish the bottle of wine, take the trash & recycling out to the curb, go back out to the back porch, pull a few times on a tobacco pipe, missing the company of Mike – these were his kind of nights – gut full of wine muting a morning full of responsibilities.
when i see him in heaven, i hope to God that the two of us can sneak off for a drunk, for an evening, we can talk about the saints, he can tell me who he must introduce me to -- who will blow my mind. & i’ll agree, fuck right, man. & hopefully my life won’t be all piss & shit & he can be impressed by some little token of mine, some badge that is a precursor to me, this is my brother Duane, he . . . & he’ll make whatever i’ve done sound better than it actually is. but before all that we’ll have another glass since we’re just getting started,