some advice for aspiring poets

by paul harrison

ride around the wrong way, lights off, with a bottle of scotch of between your legs, a loaded gun in your lap, safety off, singing Peat Bog Soldiers and of course if you don’t know the words and the lights are whooping behind you,

even better

cultivate a daily regime of derangement and despair. if you have a shower, use it wisely. ignore your dreams. god has just spilled another jigsaw. now pick up the pieces. there is no collective unconscious. and of course if you can Walk the line and get back in the car singing Happy days are here again,

even better

or maybe you can stand around a trivia machine with a real poet who reads his thoughts in converted cathedrals and provincial towns singing Hallelujah, i’m a bum, and of course if he's the published bi-polar, Asperger type,

even better

or maybe get sexy tender with a hippy chick and fuck your beautiful brains out forever then watch it all slip away as easy as you entered and as hard as you fell. obviously this defining ecstasy must be repeated, over and over, and of course if you’re incompatible,

even better

and another thing, never worry about what is never achieved or started or finished or really important things like money. stand around with the alkies and buckfast, listening to the sparrows get torn asunder, God’s smile gracing the vast grey skies, and of course if they piss on your shoes,

even better

stand up for the little guy, the disinherited, the disembodied, the disenchanted. stand up for yourself. stand up with nothing to say and say it anyway, everyone else does and of course if you know all the words and your fly is undone and you're slurring your words,

even better

finally, before standing up in a car going 120 down the freeway and adjusting your poem read Bill and Bob and all the beautiful, talented east and west coast lesbian poets. they started this thing. then, when your poem is sufficiently adjusted pull up your fly and sing. sing it man. like the fat lady sings, and of course if the ladies and cops dig your stuff,

even better

and remember all this really happened. poets going from place to place. bed to bed. bar to bar. getting lost, getting punched, crashing cars. weeping. cradle to grave. asylums and jails. advice to page. and of course if you know the words for, To the Barricades

and can’t even read or write or sing,

even better.