cool and bearded(carpet-bred) The ravens ate your bread, set outside to cool the crust and you are hungry. Ravenous; you roll your eyes. It is approaching October and now you ogle the spot of your stolen supper, the afternoon's only achievement, this mixture of yeast and milk, meant to be served warm and unbuttered, with yams. You live here now, in these far off fields of farms and barley among, of course, the barley-bred. You have traveled, you. You had packed your bags and told no one, forsaking your given name (common and without song) you journeyed to this foreign soil longing to hold a foreign hoe, groaning as you unbury bulbous potatoes (the soil on your overalls stuck and staining). Honestly, you were worthless so Mr. So&so of the post-office (who, lamentably, dressed not unlike a bureaucrat than a starved and mustached laborer) got you as his sort of secretary and you do not displease him because you type fast and your fingers file like magic. It is sort of disappointing that you cannot wear intrepid overalls, groaning against callous sun. As it turns out, you are instead kept desked, cool, corporate like. You remain carpet-bred (a term you deftly invented to identify yourself in those days of "quite desperation" spent in your dorm or parent's apartment). Here you have met real men and as a sort of bonus this town does not grow tobacco. Although you remain unforgiven in your father’s eyes, your mother kindly continues to correspond, sending you sometimes a single paperback. You have rented this cabin, this shamble castle, a lump of lumber and stone: a single room with your stove (and oven) and countless essays, poems, songs. You wonder and wonder often if the farmers and their wives live in awe of your greatness, your sense of purpos...you're special. (but no they do not and you will not know this) You have observed your neighbor's horses. Brutish things, one step closer and they could break your neck and this terrifies you so you return daily to observe your neighbor's horses. Unsuppered, you sit on this porch, starving and perhaps not particularly handsome because it does not interest you -- no, it angers you to conform to socially prescribed standards. You laugh and scorn the fools that continue to shave and spend their money on moisturizer. You laugh and miss only your dog, Fiber. For two months now you have caught your own fish and have washed your own clothes so you do not deserve to be so alone right now without a morsel, or even a book or a beer. With your wages you have even bought your own oven mitts and string for your guitar. When you traveled, you sang at crowded train stations, cross-legged, hoping your humble hymn would ease the souls of the working masses as coffee-clad, they commuted cramped, sardine-like. Slumped, you moaned a song: "I drank all night and I drank alone/brother, my soul got broke/but strangely though...the trees still grow." Now, you have eaten those yams and, desperately sweatered, settled into bed with your pen to write your mother another letter. | 