THE DREAM OF BEING ALIVE

 

Over the past ten years or so

with the help of great writers like

Ray Carver, Fernando Pessoa

And the later works of Kavanagh

Keats and Lowell, I have learned

to accept my essential loneliness.

 

I have learned to struggle with life

and death and stare death straight

in the eye deal with suicidal tendencies.

 

 

It has been a long hard road but

It feels just like day one of recovery

From stroke, as if I have been reborn

Like Ray Carver did after alcoholism or

Like Pessoa dreamed himself alive

In the body of another poet.

 

What did I want from life, nothing.

I must give because I got, a lot.

This is my canal bank walk

A waking dream.