speaking to myself

"You shouldn't talk to yourself.
Well I pictured somebody else, someone who looked like what I look like."
- Elliott Smith

It's not that I can't think quietly
but I find hearing
the sound of my spirit
and the lyrical intonation of my mind's bent
helps me to guide my inner conversation
with greater speed and precision...
besides, when in pain from being
a sensitive and compassionate soul
in this insane modern age,
I soothe bleeding terror
and smooth out the rage...
I give myself the gift of my own thoughts
set in free and friendly baritone;
I practice the conversational tango
required by the tricky personalities
that fill my experimental life
and support my invalid body
in its struggle to contain and sustain
a mammoth spirit
flickering fiercely with renaissance light

See, I was the high school kid
who ate his lunch alone in the library
and then drank deep, dark, and lonely
in his dusty university apartment...
Essentially,
the many have not rushed
to be part of my long and building conversation,:
so why should I feel guilty
to hold bardic discourse with a friend
who stood by me through thick, manic and thin...
where could I find such a brother
except in my subconscious within?

In fact,
I'm going to let my voice go
and contrary to habit:
I'll fully sing, shout, cajole
and freely howl
the mad euphoria I now feel
building in my veins...
coming to liberate my brain
after the Stalingrad of pancreatitis,
missed morphine doses and surgery incisions...
now I'll give tongue
to these unifying visions...
I will sing my verse onto the page,
I will remind myself to buy milk,
I will talk myself through contorted decisions,
I will look a crazed man by the roadway
as I compliment the grand light of day
peaking its sunny rays over the mountains
flowing through me in rational self-discussion

I will ignore the petty consciousness
of sanity, authority and lunacy
(a concealed trait common in the genius creators
of the art forms that define approved reality,)
and howl forth as an enlightened beast
too busy wrestling the questions of humanity
to pretend to be of one assured mind
and not of inquiring divided many

And so ladies and gentlemen
I wish you a good and blessed day
and also you sir... and you sir...
and you sir... and you sir...
and a fine pleasant day to you all as well