The Insides of Flowers

Wet sand in the gravely road

feels like ghosts nipping at my heels.

I wheel around repeatedly

and find last year’s crooked pines

fucking with me –

it must mean something

like that copy of Howl I found at the old bookstore.

Everything means something

the spiritual girls would always assure me

before they left to go and give that good good head to the local drummer.

The bible means slightly more than Moby Dick

but considerably less than a spiritually incited blues man maniac

attacking the strings like stigma of the wildest flower–

I don’t need no promises or paradise

just someone spiritual and connected to the four winds to keep my rhythm

because I have a hard time keeping my own –

it’s why I run

for the rhythm. It’s why everybody runs.