The Savage Poet

I address him
as he presented himself,
as the savage poet,
the savage detective,
as Robert Belano,
but of course
he went by another name
as he blazed his trails
through literary history,

and I wish I were him,
as deranged as that sounds,
I wish I were him,
however complicated
and cut short
that savage life of his
proved to be, 

I wish I were him

if only to know

what it was like

to be him,

to be the savage

to howl at the world

to disrupt the mediocrities

of the world

to thumb my nose

and put out my thumb

to the world around me,

to see the world around me

is something other than prose,

than pictures,
to live a life half as impression

as the trail he blazed

so fearlessly,

at least in the words
he left behind.