Alone in the night, I erase my thoughts
although maybe it's only eighty times
using an old old washcloth or
one of his paint splattered t-shirts
or a white board dry marker eraser
Don't tell me you've never
done the exact same things
seventy times seven or seventy
or is that the forgiveness lesson
like the teachings of Jesus
Alone in the night, I wipe clear
the worries of the day's doom
the mindless doodles and
dipsy dreams of the earlier
distant conversations and decaf
coffee or tea I pour for
my mother and sister, a young person
whose mother had a brain tumor
removed, the medication which
makes things much worse before
better, can you hear me?
Hazarding a guess, I'd say
barely sixty thoughts turned
into words of wonder and might
never alone, we walk in and
out, some of us never saying
the least hello, thank you
for fifty nothings, you got
my message forty-nine times
motherfucker, I'm not sorry
the emphasis was necessary
on the right or left syllables
Put that in your collective
pipes and don't ever smoke
because even thirty times per
day is excessive and bad for
your health and unborn babies
Twenty years ago, this was
known as well as how sugar
consumption can cause health
problems, seriously, read
all about it, erased, extant
even ten years alone in the
night thoughts, night horses
wild couldn't drag me here
but for screaming rules and
your poems with enticing
everything must die, excuse me
but that's common knowledge I
didn't make that up although
sometimes I stretch the truth
like a rubber band about to break
IN