If you feel the truth and live it
there will always be someone
who will make you explain
so you feel stupid or insane.
You were secure in your honesty
and it even brought you joy,
but along comes an honest anarchist
presenting forbidden chaos:
“what do think of your “truth,” now, truth-boy?”
And yet you can always fix the problem,
shooting accurately, with abandon, as it gets dark
in an unlikely performance in a pick-up game:
“swish, swish, swish! I’ll show you who’s insane”
and from there to opening night
where you’re playing the Professor in Ionesco
(“The Lesson”) and emotionally you triumph;
these things shape you, make your truth insane,
the poet you are, the one who doesn’t need to explain.