By Red Hawk

As I am pulling into the gas station
a woman roars out from behind a pump
and cuts right in front of me.
I slam on the brakes, lay on the horn

and she stops just long enough to
lean out her window and scream at me,
You know what you are, buddy!
Yeah, I do.

I am a sorry little loser who
doesn’t know his ass from a gas pump;
I am an arrogant educated screed who
will show you everything I know for a dollar;

I am a scared tense lonely humbug
willing to sell myself to the first woman
who shows me a grain of kindness;
I am a dazed and and hopeless idiot

wondering how I got here and what
I am going to do next; I am a third-rate poet,
a broken and ruined lover of God,
a spiritual derelict hooked on Dharma,

a bum for truth, a pimp
for the teachings of Masters, but
what I want to know is,
how could she tell?

–Red Hawk , The Way of Power