the U.S. mail is a mixed bag
of bills, phony contests
and a mag or two.
all predictable attempts to
make my boring life even more desolate
which I find is the most important
quality for me to write poetry.

the women in my past
give me the grist for my poems
but I have to come up with the inspiration
which is difficult since I no longer find them either
interesting or inspiring
and my hands are frozen at the typewriter.

given this block I welcome the opportunity to get the mail
so I do something today
other than drinking beer and lying in bed.

a coed from Michigan State writes me a letter
she wants to know how to be a creative writer.
I tell her she must be a bullshitter
like the seediest politician in Ann Arbor.
then take a creative writing class where the professors
creativity never goes beyond such assignments as
observing nature and then writing about the experience.

I tell her to stay in her apartment all weekend
smoke some weed and then read
that famous hermit Henry David Thoreau
who loved trees more than people.

that is the way I discovered
I was a creative writer I tell the coed
I was always a good bullshitter and a lazy son of a
bitch so I never left my apartment when
I was given that creative writing assignment in college.

when the Guggenheim Professor praised my keen powers
of observation I knew I could be a writer without having to
leave my apartment except when I needed to go outside
to release the demons in my head.

the coed from Michigan State
is disappointed by my anti-intellectual approach
and wonders how I could teach in a college
with such a bad attitude about creative writing.

I tell her that is what makes America great
my teaching in a college is the essence of democracy.
it is proof that the common man
can get paid to
teach intellectuals like her.
the coed does not respond.