AUTOBIOGRAPHY AT 34

I was born with a Guilt-edged sword.
Everywhere I swung it, people fell.
They even became unconscious from my smell.

I dramatized my crises highly:
At 20, I was going to commit suicide
Over whether my poems should rhyme or not.
At Famous-Barr department store's restaurant
On the night of July 31, 1969,
I had a nervous breakdown over whether
I should have french fries or a baked potato
                                   with my steak.
Another time I got thorazine shots over
"Oil and vinegar or blue cheese dressing?"

Most of these crises involved food.
As though an army of red ants fed from within
My body, like Greeks in the Trojan Horse,
I ate my way through my first 25 years.
I couldn't pass a sign saying "SALAD BAR"
Without stopping to get salad-drunk.
I couldn't keep a job: one boss fired me
By actually setting fire to me!

I told him he was a poet,
Putting new life in old phrases,
And he booted me out on the street
By the seat
Of my pants.
I told him with a kick like that
He should play professional football.
(It is my ability to see people's strengths
regardless of my personal circumstances
that has earned me my lofty station in life
today, $38 a week hotel room and all.)

Watch for Volume II of my autobiography,
Where I will discuss my eccentricities!

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