happy

5 in the morning
in a dark basement
and it’s my birthday

40 years old today

Leonard Cohen just came up
on shuffle with ‘Chelsea Hotel’

I first heard it when john fullbright
played it for me
around the time I was trying
to figure out who ‘TEETH” was

I’m going to turn it down just
a little bit

“I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel…”

I got a bukowski book from amazon
the other day and on the back
was a quote from Leonard Cohen

“bukowski brought us all down to earth. even the angels.”

I was noticing this quote when I heard
my oldest daughter below me
trying to learn how to play Cohen’s “Hallelujah”
on the piano

took a minute for all of it to
come together in my head

all of that and I played
along while skiner sang it
in Louisiana…

he’s all over the house
today and yesterday
and last week

music is brilliant like that

forty years behind me

it feels o.k.

glad I stopped drinking when I did.

not sure if I would even be here
had I kept on

maybe on my 80^th birthday
I’ll throw a party and just get
drunker than a monkey

I’ve got 40 years to talk myself
out of that one