While driving the back roads to Sag Harbor ... and stopped at a traffic light, the driver directly behind us in a fabulous new Mercedes Benz convertible blows his horn and seeks an alternate route on the impassable shoulder and the opposing lane with its unending line of opposing traffic all to indicate his displeasure that we are not moving despite the fact that the light has clearly turned green and the long line of traffic should be proceeding through the intersection in a perfect and orderly fashion and Agnes says what a freaking idiot, blowing the horn does not make thick, backed up summer traffic move any faster there is nowhere to go much less go faster and it just aggravates people. You will have to write a poem about that yoyo in his flashy imported small penis mobile. Fuck the poem...what I really want to do is drag him from the car beat him one centimeter from death, but that would later involve cross country flight, law enforcement, the purchase of assault weapons and a final stand at a seedy no tell motel just outside of Bakersfield where I would be mortally wounded in a shootout, my final words would not be meaningful or poetic, but something like a blood choked gurgling, Fuck...this really sucks, while a 250 pound ATF agent stands on my head with his size twelve booted left foot and damn it if somewhere during the chase he has stepped in fresh dog shit. But I have never liked assault weapons or final stands in seedy motels or Bakersfield for that matter and I do not want to ruin a beautiful Saturday afternoon by being baited into violence, so I instead make a note that I SHOULD write a poem about the asshole behind us. He deserves a well worded slaying retort that he will never read or hear ever and will never change who or what he is or has become. But I decided last night that I am not going to write a poem about him. I decided that I am not a poem machine that just whips up a little batch of creativity when someone throws a switch and tosses a few life experiential ingredients into a large hopper with some wood flour and recycled plastic. I am not a machine with on demand capabilities. I am a delicate, creative, flower of a human being. I am a poet, not a piece of unthinking whirring metal wired to high voltage. However, this morning, upon a lengthy, thoughtful review during my shower, I concluded that I actually am a poem machine. I am a poem machine housed in a nondescript concrete building at the industrial park out by the interstate. I am a poem machine and not one of those high tech German MFA machines that manufacture poems to exacting tolerances, an eye trained toward perfection. Nor am I an exquisite loom, designed for silk and thin delicacy. I am an old poem machine that squeals and whines and goes clunk. Listen, you can hear metal on metal contact, gears grinding, belts slipping. I have never been properly maintained. I have never had my fluids topped off or my bearings greased. And as a result, my poems are flawed, oblong when they should be round, rough when they should be smooth, square when seeking cool. They are never within spec. They drive the quality control people insane with their inconsistency and left turns and protruding parts where nothing is supposed to stick out. But eyeing a sort of redemption, my poems are common and made from easily obtained ingredients. If so inclined or required by law, you could probably whip up a batch of your own. My poems are indeed industrial, working class even. They drink beer, drive the big rigs and have a fondness for meat cooked rough and rare. They do not spin in fancy pirouettes, they speak plain, with a certain pained, painful and withering honesty. So...after all is said and things done, I am a poem machine and I am here to tell you that that yoyo in Mercedes was an uptight, me first, fuck everyone else in the world asshole that bought a flashy imported, convertible as compensation for a small penis and unwillingness to lick pussy and I really should have dragged his ass from his small penis mobile and beaten the shit out of him because he stands for everything that is rotten, wretched, vile and disgusting in this world and trust me, I damn well would have kicked the shit out of him if I did not hate assault weapons, final stands in seedy motels, dog shatted ATF jackboots standing on my skull and Bakersfield, California.