for Hunter Thompson

I propose that what is behind writing is fifty years of
toilet training. It's that simple and, at the same time,
that technical. Read through the pages of any book.
Cut right and then go into the line. Place lines together
like the columns of your own self. Do it for the newly
constituted Iraq. Do it because you've taken your own
words, or your own ideas and decided that living wasn't
worth it. The very words, the very worms. I say that it
is worse to be dead but I don't belong to anyone's words.
Your words have a vitriol to them that is permutating
and now spinning and now permutating and spinning,
like William Shatner on a 3-day bender with Tiger Woods.
The trick is can you make the gun go off on its own? Guns
live in a world of their own, spinning chambers, rippling
barrels like permutated introductions to Brigitte Nielsen.
Where do you go from there? All the Hong Kong Phooey you
could ask for is contained in the phrase: "Poets were sup-
posed to have minds of their own". Poets were supposed to
have minds of their own, not worms. Words are what stick
to the worms. That is projectile indeed! Anybody can write
worms.

Max December 1991

Jordan Davis reading at UCSD

The University of Redlands Mens Soccer Team