By the second verse I had the noticeable feeling of not wanting to continue. By the middle, I just kept writing because I was in a channeling flow with that knowing, otherly voice, but was keenly aware this “poem” was not at all poetic:

I'm in a room
My stomach is full
and I'm not cold

I don't have enough money
for a new timing chain for my truck
My doctor can't tell me
what the pit
in my stomach is
the pain in my heart
or why my genitals hurt

Henry’s Sky, like most poems, I vaguely remember writing because of my altered state—and being driven by a force deep inside me or far, far away—or both.

The writing of this poem is emblematic of how I write 99% of my poetry. I woke up in the 2 o’clock hour with 3-5 dream sequences fresh on my mind that were lucid and memorable, poignant and movie-like. Out of the norm, I did not have a first line or verse present itself, but it was the dream sequences that impelled me to rise.

I wrote this poem in my head, upon waking, in bed, while on retreat at The Whidbey Institute. It began with what I thought at first was a 1970s rock song verse.