They fall like May flies –
and in this heat,
it’s no wonder. Dreams
like half-starved babies
crawl in the streets,
left to languish
in abandoned adolescent journals
filled with badly rhymed
poems and laborious
stories after the styles
of Kerouac and Faulkner.
Just close your book;
put down the pen.
Open a beer and
turn on the TV. Watch
one more rerun
of a western –
like the ones
you made fun of
when you thought
you were something
special.