If I were a paid poet,
I want to travel across the country every couple of weeks.
It’s a waste of fuel, but you spend so much time runnin’,
you lose yourself to that need for tomorrow’s horizon,
that need to hear that highway song,
those too-bright days in the middle of nowhere.
If I could drive the oceans, I’d always drive west,
towards that first American Dream, that first beautiful lie.
You’ve got to love the fictions.
If I were a paid poet,
I’d fly into town, and prowl for someone to fall in love with,
to find that reason the world is better for them,
to know them like third grade teachers must know their time-tables,
repetitiously, constantly, with perpetual, endless, refrain,
and necessary for the profession.
Write each love poem after love poem,
with the understanding that they are not the last, or the first,
but that tonight is ours,
and ours alone,
until I share it with the world.
If I were a paid poet,
I’d ride the money to the sunset,
and beg for more when it ran out,
because this book about life is only half written,
and the pages, the pages are gold.
I don’t mean good,
I mean the printer thinks they’ll look better in gold.
If I could do his for a living,
I would travel perpetually,
because I am drawn to place, to place,
but the highway sings that aching song,
‘n I’ve got that harmony bone deep,
‘n the show, the show must go on.
if I were a paid poet,
if I were a paid poet,
a dream,
a dream,
a dream,
let me,
let me please get pay for this thing I’ll do ’til I’m old ‘n decay.
