Coyote, Trickster XII

I think I'm at my best
when I'm my most quixotic,
which might explain
a few things.

Coyote, Trickster XI

When I got into poetry,
back in college,
I wasn't much of a reader.

I wrote because I had
always been interesting
in writing poetry.

But then I got into reading it,
and then I seemed to stumble
into a whole community,
and for a while,
I completely understood
what most people mean these days
when they think of poetry.

But then a lot of that
went away.

When I graduated,
I tried to cling
to that community,
but it resisted
my best efforts.

I kept writing
but I struggled
to keep reading.

Recently,
I got back into
reading.

But I'm still waiting
for the community feel
to come back.

Coyote, Trickster X

I got to read comic books
exactly the way I wanted to
for about five years,
and during that time,
there were three comics shops
that I got to visit
on a regular basis.

By the end of that period,
roughly 1995-1999, each of them
had either closed or moved
to more inconvenient locations.

When I got back into reading them,
I made sure to never let that happen
again; ah, so I cheated,
started shopping
online.

What else do you expect
from a trickster?

Coyote, Trickster IX

After spending my entire
childhood preparing for it,
I finally did a public
comic strip, for the school
paper, and nobody cared.

But hey, it wasn't as if
I was actually doing it
for anyone else.

And I doubt anyone realized
when I satirized the local
weatherman, but that
was the strip's
crowning achievement.

But I only really missed it
myself when I changed its name
after I had stopped making it.

Coyote, Trickster VIII

I was so confusing
in middle school
that even the uncool kids
were telling me
I had to be more cool.

Turns out in high school,
it really didn't matter;
I became more quixotic...

Coyote, Trickster VII

I played violin,
like my grandfather
(sometimes it seemed
because of my
grandfather), but I
was a trickster about that,
too, and maybe that was
by necessity.

I didn't grow up
in a violin town.

Every stroke of the bow
was a rebellion
of some kind.

The strings
were on the prowl.

Coyote, Trickster VI

I became obsessed
at an early age
with John Henry.

I still don't think
I know why.

But I suppose,
it's because he
was a trickster,
someone who defied
all reason,
defied expectations,
and ultimately sacrificed
himself to prove his point.

If that's not a trickster,
I don't know what is.

Coyote, Trickster V

I drew deeper and deeper
into fictional worlds,
which only true tricksters
can comprehend.

I'm not talking about
being lost in fantasy,
but becoming immersed
in my own imagination,
something I grew more
and more reluctant
to leave.

Coyote, Trickster IV

Growing up with four siblings
meant a lot of overlapping
...for a few years, and then
a lot of diverging.

It seems as if I continued
doing a lot of the things
we'd been doing, but in
new and different ways,
like a trickster playing
the same game with
different rules, just
to confuse everyone.

Coyote, Trickster III

In terms of keeping up
with four siblings, hey,
why don't you give it a try?

But I did it mostly
by keeping to myself.

That's the same way
I survived grade school;
I actually started out
as somewhat wildly popular,
but it became a chore
to keep up with everyone else
because I was busy running
my own circles, the mad man
of the playground,
a regular trickster
who could eek out sympathy
even though I gave back
almost nothing in return.

I still don't know how I did it.

Coyote, Trickster II

In my earliest days, family
apparently meant everything,
but I was too young
to appreciate it.

That's when we made the majority
of our most interesting trips
to relatives around Rhode Island
and Massachusetts, some of which
were repeated enough in later years
that I would still recognize
quite well today,
but others, now reduced
to phantoms.

I guess even some of my past
is a trickster.

Coyote, Trickster

I was born to a vocation:
to bear witness.

***

On the night I was born,
strange tricksters were about,
from many cultures, mingling,
maybe placing dibs.

They were trying to decide
what form my mischief
would take.

I'm not sure
I've helped them much
over the past
three decades,
but I've certainly
given it my best shot.

But to be fair,
I haven't made it easy
for just about anyone
much less myself

(which may be
a trickster's greatest secret).