The Art of Knowing Numb

The Art of Knowing Numb
(For a friend who neither understood nor liked my poems)

Allow me, at the very least, to be
honest. I haven’t written
in a long while.
And if you query me for the reasons
as to why, maybe
I can propose
pretexts
I must believe in
for them to be true.

It could have been
the hesitation to commit
mistakes, the trepidation
involved in stark-naked
exposure to criticisms,
or even
something simple
like the absence
of a purpose
to write.

(god, it felt empty
like a word
that does not refer
to anything existent.
Is nothingness even a word?)

I recall when
there was still Magic
rather than conjuring tricks
and sleight-of-hand techniques
in my use of language, it was
easier for us to commune in unison
with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Then, in my travels beyond
the dead end,
I found myself stumped
in a Limbo
of inebriated writers and failures, where
Jack Duluoz and Henry Chinaski
(both drowning in a cesspool of alcohol,
spit, punctured condoms, and vomit)
offered wise words of counsel
like a fictional Virgil’s verses to Dante.
But i was no journeyer,
just lost.


You never approved of my wordplay, tropes
and schemes. You thought
they were useless means
to express
what I should have whispered
in your ear
when we were both younger.