I was a college gonzo

Hemingway used to say if he couldn't think of anything to write, he always knew he could begin by writing "one true thing." If Hunter S. Thompson ever brought anything to the table of the way we document people, places, events et cetera it was a penchant for telling the most outrageous truth in the most outrageous way. Nonetheless, he was telling us the truth.


17 true haiku

... for Hunter



all you can do, Bub
fenced in by terrible lies:
hold fast to that truth

in the first person
interspersing opinion
subtly into it.

The goal: to stay true;
to make a clown of oneself
& call it “gonzo.”

Entertainment, Bub,
is merely a side result
of the getting there

the countless pieces
of himself the reporter
decides to reveal.



*



I, too, was a failed
politician w/a taste
for controversy

Drugs. Bombast. The road.
A disdain for self-import
& pragmatism

w/penchant for foot
in my or any other
hack-throated shit-mouth

in place of that truth.
The universal given:
politicians lie.

Does the journalist
embellish to remove self
for story’s angle.

Does the candidate.
Do our heads & heels of state.
Does everyone, but

to opt for the truth.
To stare, unafraid, into
hwys less driven.



*



I could praise you, Bub.
I could sing this elegie
simply as waking

easy enough to
account for the substances
ingested myself

in my stupid youth
w/both feet inside my mouth
vivid now as then.

I could, but I won’t
describe you as god-like, or
even as hero.

Just another dead
disheartened by that true, blue
American Dream.