America, I can't stand my own mind.

10 points to the first to correctly identify the author of the above in my guestbook. 15 points if you've never signed the guestbook before.

Ugh. But it's true. I am frustrated and sick of everything that is coming out of my head. Every word, every line, every attempt at a poem. I need a brain cleansing, a mind enema. Flush out the old words, the old way of putting the words together, the old syntax, the old tired ideas.

Goo! Ba! Flam! Draaacma!

Ah fuck it. You know what? Today I say to hell with the fair use copyright boogidy boo. Here, in its entirety, is William Matthews's "Another Beer." I feel exactly like this poem.

Another Beer

The first one was for the clock
and its one song
which is the song's name.

Then a beer for the scars in the table,
all healed in the shape of initials.

Then a beer for the thirst
and its one song we keep forgetting.

And a beer for the hands
we are keeping to ourselves.
The body's dogs, they lie
by the ashtray and thump
suddenly in their sleep.

And a beer for our reticence,
the true tongue, the one song,
the fire made of air.

Then a beer for the juke box.
I wish it had the recording
of a Marcel Marceau mime performance:
28 minutes of silence,
2 of applause.

And a beer for the phone booth.
In this confessional you can sit.
You sing it your one song.

And let's have a beer for whoever goes home
and sprawls, like the remaining sock,
in the drawer of his bed and repeats
the funny joke and pulls it
shut and sleeps.

And a beer for anyone
who can't tell the difference between
death and a good cry
with its one song.
None of us will rest enough.

The last beer is always for the road.
The road is what the car drinks
travelling on its tongue of light
all the way home.

Dear William Matthews. Dear dead William Matthews. I love you so. As penance for posting your whole poem even though it's against the law I command those with the means and inclination to go here and buy your Selected Poems & Translations, one of the best damned books in the world, I imagine.