This is Why I'm No Poet, But for Some Reason Keep Trying.

People like Hunter S. Thompson are monuments

are the ideal

the James Dean that lives

to old(er) age

we hardly ever get to witness

they burn themselves out

so recklessly that they fulfill that

'live fast die young' prophecy,

combust long before they get to 67.

Maybe '68 or '71 would have been more

appropriate.

He was out of His mind,

crazy because He lived past the point of excess,

those numerous points,

when He should have died.

 Those who cheat death have no other option but madness.

And the crowd will be there to cheer Him on all along the way.

He has the fortitude;

that of a junkyard cat born in a pool of gasoline,

most do not.

We live vicariously, because if we ourselves went past that point,

we WOULD die.

The most accurate

and the least factual accounts of campaign trail coverage

People interviewed have said that

it was hard to tell what was factual

and what was His fantastical spin,

those things blurred constantly,

though seemed truthful in all its fabrication.

They say that He was so wacked and spastic that He seemed impervious to any high, because His behavior never altered.

He was born altered.

He became something of a superhero.

But maybe

because we don't know fabrication from reality,

persona from person

maybe He'd been moderate this whole time,

pulling back like a tide when necessary

careful and calculated

and when He lit up,

maybe it was just tobacco,

and maybe that brown water on ice was tea instead of Wild Turkey,

maybe that pill was a breath mint,

and maybe that drop of a book in the next room

rang out as the only escape of a tired, tapped out man--

but that doesn't much matter.

Perception is everything.

Believe what you want,

but question everything first--

Then decide which reality works for you.

I think we, the gen pop,

are just dullards,

husks just waiting to be swayed by an inspirational wind.

We are born believing we could be that.

We grow,

begin to think we have potential.

Could we be that forceful wind? Maybe

 if we try hard enough?

The American Dream is imprinted upon us

in our baby skull soft spots,

we are coddled by it

like it was the stuffing in our mothers' viscera.

Could we be the right person

born at the right time?

Meant to chronicle the campaign trail

the era

the absurdity and despair,

of all the crookedness that hid in Nixon's eyebrows and squints.

Or was He just pretending?

Those jerky hands,

that meanness and matter-of-factness in His voice,

the recklessness

that fascination with guns,

all 22 of them fired

with abandon

when the mood was right

at His typewriter forlorn in Colorado snow

at bats.

Was He that animated from birth? And if so,

what chance do the rest of us have?

Once you realize you weren't the one

born with a charisma

and importance that was meant to excel the doldrums,

when you ARE the doldrums,

what else is left but to just give up?

Because to be amongst the crowd waiting for that person to come along

whose birth actually means something

is torturous,

and when that person actually emerges, and you have

to watch them perform,

watch everyone love them, follow them, praise them,

watch them be what you could never be

even with a lifetime's worth of effort,

that much resentment and humiliation

might as well be a loaded gun in your mouth.

A .45.

Bitterly peppered with silt and warm.

Football Season is Over.

GIVE UP.

Let's plan out our finales.

Do everyone a favor and know when your time is right.

Take your ticket and adhere to it.

And keep fantasizing

that one day You could have Your ashes blaze up into the sky

from the lit fuses of fireworks, leaping out

from a red double-thumbed fist

holding a peyote button.