Scratch Paper

Often my life is just a bunch of
scribbles on pieces of scratch paper,
numbers, names, appointments,
would-be lovers, everyday resolutions.
On any given day, I wonder how
my life could have
resolved itself into just these scattered
notes, these lonely scratchings out of hope.
Often I worry a given memo
will be my last, by chance, and all
anyone who cares will have to remember
me by will be that one final glimpse
of my uncertain maps-for-self.
I am not a person who creates
anything tangible. Dreams, fictions,
grooves, melodies, yes.
Staplers, video games,
bigger bank accounts,
a ravaged earth, no, most definitely
not. Some would say my life suffers
for that fact, and since I have nothing
concrete to show for myself,
save some images in ether space
and some musings in verse and prose,
I'm nothing more than
a man who lives with his head
in the clouds while others toil
for his comfort.
The poems and music I've made
may not be as concrete as a living wage
or a new car but the fact that they
have indeed moved people
is one of very few facts that
keeps me getting out of bed
each morning. If it takes all the scratch
paper I can possibly gather to touch
even just one person for even just one
moment then scratch paper is,
to me, pretty much,
the meaning of life.

(2006)