Within us

I write poems to be something
to be someone
to imitate my way into the truth
to live as some character that is somehow more
myself than now.
This is not immoral, inauthentic or foolish
but the same pattern, lightly altered by time
that every man of words or song has ever sewn.
I drink a beer, a coffee, smoke a cigarette and
drink down their words and notes
hoping to revitalize my own life
to endure the profane as enlightened as they were
To make a dull day shine like a gold coin
or to take tragedy and laugh heartily with
poise and concise construction like
Bukowski, or to make the absurd dance
like Frank, as he whirls molecules enough
to make me smile and clear away the grey
I've tried to splurge my heart into every moment
like a symphony or lymeric
Embrace my joy and my human desires
to become more like Nietzsche
while denying my self like the Easterners
I stare starry eyed at the bookshelves hoping to
be read and be cried over much like I have my saints
to read my own thoughts on aged paper
clearing my conscience and reminding myself
I am not the only madman
and we are all in an asylum

I stay up in bed wishing for longer hours
for better phrases
and kinder words to spill
onto my readers.
I lie until the truth is stumbled over
I have seen beneath my mask
and felt the cool wind sift through my psyche
I wear masks again to preserve this
Forgive my unoriginality
my copycat lines and images.
I have forgiven my idols.
We all speak and live such close lives, so goddamn similar
that we may use any word and feel it penetrate us.
Feel it live within us