Two Poems

On the Road

I've never done
the buddy thing,
the booze thing,
or the car thing,

though my mind
has room for all
that those entail,
which might be

why every time
I read it, I think
it the only thing
between me and

feeling pointless,
unlocking a part
of my life there's
no evidence for.

 

Talk

Even omitting the overly personal,
censoring the cruel or obnoxious,
and filtering the rest
through the strain of shyness,
there ought to be an ample flow.
I mean, I never stop thinking,
mind like a daylong blaring waiting room TV,

so why am I struck mute so much of the time,
a husk of a person
silent over his peas,
unable to get an idea
up from the well of its making
into the spill of its saying,
a goddamn word out edgewise.