Read a poem by another poet written
on the same day:

Journal of the Purple Kitchen
          (or dream of the poetry wars)

went to bed w/ paint in my hair
went to paint on 10 hours of sleep
went to sleep w/ a dream of warring poets
went to war           after retaking
          high school math class
went to high school math class
(that God awful recurring dream)
          after realizing i was
                    short some credits
realized i was short credits
          after i went to sleep and
                    began to dream
began to dream after party
          conversation about lucid dreaming
lucid dreamed i was responsible for,
          part of movement behind, truce between
          warring poet factions - real war,
          I mean w/ soldiers and artillery
fighting war so long no one remembered
          why they were fighting in the 1st place
this is a tragic hyperbole
can't sleep tonight too much
          purple, purple and lavender
          (now in hair and
                    cracks of fingers)
Drunks are always asking me for a
          kiss on the street or if I
                    have a boyfriend
Drunks w/ missing teeth sometimes looking
                    for a cigarette          guess a
                         kiss would do but they
                    always ask for a cigarette
                         first
missing teeth and sometimes w/a woman
          usually drunk too
last week:
                    Drunk w/ no front teeth asked
                    for a cigarette, a kiss, and
                    then to pray for his mamma
said    He has so many women after
him he has to hide
broad daylight in front of the newspaper
machines i say - we'll you're not
          trying too hard then,
          to hide
He blinks and thinks about this,
contemplates hiding behind a streetlamp
thinks again
forgets his beer on the sidewalk     says
                              pray for my mamma
                              forget about me

Forgetting about him
i quit smoking
quitting smoking      i pray for
lucid dreams          
Anything to occupy me
          in the morning.
In the morning
                    (write this down)
In the morning
women are beautiful
and me w/out my pen
w/out my lucid dream
just purple kitchens
          poetry wars
          a truce
                              no one even knew
                         how it got started

It was risky crossing
the front line
          everyone wanted someone else
          to do it

                    Casualties of war?  Almost every one
                              of N. America's famous poets

a fly
          to fly
flee