truth

Be strong, swanhead.

Appropriate the greatness of your youth

and twiddle the lens until your trouble is out of focus.

Do not sit in a fogged-out room

Rolling your legs and arms in anguish.

Do not so soon seize the blossoms of your youth

until their ripe flavor is everywhere you cannot taste it,

nor should you plant them with too fearless a thumb

they become like kudzu and take over your world.

Do not be like the Donkey

who pulls carts all day with a tarnished face.

Do not be like the Dog

who comes when he is called by the human race.

Do not be like the Wasp

who stings in a frenzy with no regrets.

Be human kind

You are not pests

You are not pets.

Do not seek for yourself a bad reputation

Among the denizens of the iron-grey underworld

Nor seek for yourself a good reputation

Among those who wish to do you harm.

For just the other day

I had a vision of my friend drizzling his teeth

and charging at me with lumps of muscled heartache.

And if you destroy people

Black or Asian or White or Jew

Or anything else under the sun

Remember, they have friends too.

Even I who have few friends

Can seek solace in a wise word

Or in a wise person.

And though for now you can afford to be absurd

Do not believe everything you have heard.

Peace.