Writing Day, with Poem

I'm going to post a poem that comes from a suite I'm working on called "How to Be a Writer." This poem originally started with the words "don't be," which tells you how ambivalent I continue to feel about this writing path. Despite ambivalence, I'm looking forward to going to "poetry club" tonight and talking verse, talking writing. It will be an all-around writing day, from bottom to top. Here's the poem ...

iv.

don't lick your pen and fill a blank

with scrap scrap scrap

don't whisper lines of verse

at the grocery store

don't narrate yourself at a quarter to four

don't half-light darkness

with old joy and ruin recast

don't lie don't leech don't bargain thieve and grasp

don't write, small soul

don't pretend or imagine

don't ache for a reader

don't prance for recognition

don't do it, you'll regret it

the black dog will eat you whole

don't do it, amputate, amnesiate, enfold

but you can't?

then it's fatal

but you can't?

then you shall

be a writer

be a writer

be it well