Hamstrung in the Winter
of my Pathless Wood

Colorless and vain I stretch
my legs into the horizon of
mistakes.

Gentle is the calling, hard the path
to ignore, “least resistance”
appealing to the Dude in me,
could I have a steak sandwich
without all the stringy fat and
upset stomachs?

The beer was bullshit, it turns out,
every bit of the olden days
looking up at lies and rays, adults
with their God-given right
to ignore paths and children,
ignore words, traps spiritual argument,
mixing not politics and religion,

just God with all the toxins I drank
to make fun of loss.

Doesn’t excuse breaking my computer
yesterday, typing this on a new
one, going further into debt,
that Frostian pathless wood all
bashing at my face.

To let go the adult, be the infant—
to remember to forget, to play
the game of surrender, to accept
loss in stride, to climb
up again like spring itself,
clawing into cold tearing sunlight
from rain, unless in Los Angeles,
torn already, all winter a
fake.

I am therefore I think, must
feel before I write, why
nothing good comes of good,
the woodless path, or pathless
wood—it all remembers.

Cut into the summer