What I really want to talk about is me

Chicago, after playing like homemade shit in the first half, came back late in the second half of last night’s game and scored two defensive touchdowns and a touchdown on a punt return to beat the Cards 24 to 23.

Winning ugly counts too.

That is not what I really want to talk about though. What I really want to say is that this the third straight morning I have spent looking at a blank sheet of paper with my fingers paralyzed and my mind bereft of thought—except for the poetry of Ray Carver running through it like a river. I should have never spent a few hours reading him Saturday afternoon. All I ever wanted to say is already in those poems. Things such as this.

The Scratch

I woke up with a spot of blood
over my eye. A scratch
halfway across my forehead. But
I’m sleeping alone these days.
Why on earth would a man raise his hand
against himself, even in sleep?
It’s this and similar questions
I’m trying to answer this morning.
As I study my face in the window.

People ask me what I do with my time. I tell them I spend many days looking at a blank sheet of paper or a blank computer screen. This kills further conversation, most of the time.

This Carver poem comes to mind.

Company

This morning I woke up to rain
on the glass. And understood
that for a long time now
I’ve chosen the corrupt when
I had a choice. Or else,
simply, the merely easy.
Over the virtuous. Or the difficult.
This way of thinking happens
when I’ve been alone for days.
Like now. Hours spent
in my own dumb company.
Hours and hours
much like a little room.
With just a strip of carpet to walk on.

I think I will spend the rest of the day pretending I am writing a Ray Carver poem just so I can avoid reality. I cannot think of any other option.