Ray Sweatman

I squat now in an abandoned shack. Once the B-52s played there. Michael Stipe came by and Zevon asked him if he could borrow his band a little while. I can�t believe he�s dead. I guess he will sleep, find things to do in Denver. I wrote a tribute to him. It wasn�t very good. I�m sure it put him to sleep.

I live with a couple of cats. Well, sometimes. One of the exes took them (all possible progeny had been aborted. Beats the old coathanger days, though). She could be bringin� them back any day. We had them neutered, spayed and declawed. There�s some kind of connection there. We both wept. Well, maybe it was just me at the neutering part. I can�t remember exactly which ex she is. She has to go back to Bulgaria. She does that every 6 months.

I listen to the polluted river flow. It flows just like a clean one. It flows by with more Wilsons than even Hanks Williams knew. I like to steal lines from all the bad poems I did. Some of them don�t even have one line worth stealing. One day I�d like to put together a long poem like T.S. Eliot, full of all the crap that didn�t work. There might be fog. There would be no Latin. There would be plenty of allusions. I like allusions. Though they all come back to that picture of Farrah Fawcett in her bathing suit on my teenage wall. Google it. I thank God for Google. Actually, I think God is Google. In fact, I know he is. Every time I send a G-mail, he tells me in the margins everything I need. He knows every word I type.

I teach ESL. Have for a while. That�s English as a Second Language. I teach it to adults. I like it. They believe every word I say. I�ve even convinced some that the erect middle finger means Have a Nice Day. Poetry�s like that, too.