sometimes I get anxious over the fact
that I am so ordinary
                       tadeusz rozewicz 

i look forward to becoming
a cranky old man
you know the type
standing before you in the grocery queue
complaining about the length of the line
and shaking his cane
at the hapless store clerks
in the meantime i was looking at photos
of my fellow poets who all pose
heroic/bold/brave/sober/drugged
with wild hair and crazy eyes
and classy or mismatched clothes 
i am so ordinary i feel like i need to take
up some bad habits
like pipe smoking and spitting on the sidewalk
learn to cuss out passing traffic in four languages
and either shave my head or grow my hair
instead i look in to my mirror
i'm surprised to find a face on the other side
that looks like an older me
more like my father than the man who
shares my name
whose poems are printed on pages stuck together
by spit and pipe smoke
macaronic missives of extreme states
who can bang out text after text
that no longer resemble mine