My Teachers

I remember when I was a kid at school,
I really suffered from the hatreds.
I hated everyone and everything,
But most of all, I hated myself.
My ginger hair, my glasses, my acne,
And most of all, my shyness.
Nothing seemed to ever go my way.
The only things that gave me pleasure
Were records, and more importantly, books.
Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan, Henry Miller
These glimpses of life
Helped to save mine.
Now here I am over 30
Years later and still it’s
Books that keep me going,
Dostoyevsky, Bukowski,
Raymond Carver, Knut
Hamsun, Philip Larkin.
Helping to explain this life
That makes no sense at all
To me.