Triptych

I - Try to remember...

If you're going to write
     wildly unstructured
prose poems
influenced by
City Lights
and
Rimbaud
and
all that jazz
be conscious of the fact
that alternative perspectives may
experience it
unaware
of the 'references'
and may thus interpret this
mess
with the belief that this is not actually
poetry
and TRY TO REMEMBER
that from time to time
you need to do
the basics


II - ...that cancer is awful...

I saw a tumour

high on the mesa

I heard a rumour

low on the vine

I heard you dying

while we were sleeping

I heard us crying

where we remain

III - ...but people like cats


Cat
establishes camp and
with the skills honed by millions of years of evolution
sleeps