from
Miscellaneous Shit I Thought Wasn't Too Bad,
So I Typed It
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    These are poems from my first collection, the shit that is and always will serve as a humbling reminder that everyone has to start somewhere.  And way
back in 1995-1997, this was my somewhere: my literary consciousness had just been aroused by my senior-year English teacher, Harry Schultz, and before I
knew it, the school year - my high-school career actually - was over.  I was taking a year off between high school and college, floating around aimlessly and
working 3 part-time jobs.  The poems I wrote came out of loneliness, lust, or the ever-challenging - but very rare - "I wonder if I could do that."  Everything
written was gold, and nothing was edited, but I continued bringing pieces back to my mentor to see what he thought, if I improved, etc.  While I never
changed poems, I did incorporate lessons and warnings into new poems...so in that way, both my collection, and my mind began to grow.  Poems from this
collection were later integrated into my first and second books.
  Since the love/lust/lonliness poems are too embarrassingly awful to share with anyone except my own shame, those below are of the "I wonder if I could
do that" variety.  His Makeover was written in response to seeing an MTV makeover program where a Latino guy named Jesus was getting his look
re-vamped...which got me thinking.  Standing Man was an underage, never-had-a-drink-in-his-life kid trying to write a poem about a drunkard.  
Stained Glass Christ (which was actually my first published poem) came from the early anti-Christian days, and has actually been revised a couple
times now; the version that appears here is the 2nd or 3rd generation).  Strange Rain was created while walking my dog and carried home by memory.
Spawning incident was an on/off rain that made me scratch my head, which evidently opened a scab. When I looked at my hand after scratching, I saw
blood and started thinking about the falling rain.