BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
(after Dan)

Please allow me to introduce myself:
I’m a man of stealth and waste.
I have sought eternity
at the bottom of a bag of bacon rinds.
It hasn’t worked
– yet, but
perseverance will pay off,
I know it.

This is me:
I am a cynical optimist
or a cyclic pessimist
or a patronizing cyclist
or something.
I say things
more than I do them.
I say that I’m mean
and I’m mean when I say
you’re short.
This is the way I am
or have been
or used to be
or something.
I repeat phrases sometimes, too.

And sometimes I rhyme,
like here:
Whenever I think I might win the race
the blues up and comes on my face.
Just when I think I’m done paying my dues,
what happens? I get reamed by the blues.
I don’t really know what to do with those lines yet.

I’m lazy,
but I’m all right with it.
I was a loser, but I left it behind.
I’m something else
and I’m something else again.

I am me
as you are he
and you are she
– and we are all together
and that’s all right
and that’s about it
by way of introduction.