I Try Not To Read

I try not to read other people's stuff, too much. Cause when I do, I'm left with this disquieting feeling that it's all been said, and much better. That's why I hate that damned Bukowski so much. For days after I am derivative and imitative. I can't live with him. I can't live without him, and I drive him out the door, and his overdue books are taken back to the library and paid for with a vengence. But if I can just keep tromping across this poetic veldt, recklessly mixing metaphors and crushing sentences underhoof like some adolescent rhino, I might, in my innocence of what is proper, find a clearing by a gentle pool, where no one's been before, and I will sink to my knees in the mud, drink deeply of waters that have never been described, breathe deeply the scent of flowers, that no one knows, and I will tell you about it, and you will come