poem in a notebook found under a seat in a trailways bus, january 4, 1974

i'm special i'm not like other people i'm different i can feel it they walk around waiting to die but they don't know it they say they do but they don't really if they did why would they care about nixon or agnew or mick jagger or sonny and cher or hitler or napoleon or jefferson davis as for me i've always known i am going to live forever because life is an illusion and nothing really happens except in the eternal brain and i am the eternal brain me that's right - me i used to go to the library and read all the books when i didn't have money for the movies one day i was sitting at a table in the library reading the doctor by robert southey because it was the biggest ugliest book with the smallest print in the whole library it was raining outside it wouldn't stop i was in the mood for a little panhandling but somehow i couldn't get up i just sat there i needed the money it was time rain didn't bother me wind either so why didn't i get up? suddenly a great light flashed (it's always a great light, isn't it?) nobody else saw it because they were just people just folks but i was the eternal brain i had another book on the table my favorite astrology book, astrology and you by sydney omarr and in the sudden flash of light i realized i wasn't really a leo i was the whole zodiac i was the universe everything happens in my brain where else would it happen? joshua and the battle of jericho christopher columbus and robert e lee davy crockett and the alamo and wilbur and orville wright and al capone they all never happened except in my brain - the universal brain i'll get up and go back out in the rain i'll keep on walking and everybody else will die off one by one and then whole cities i'll walk though the old and new deserts until there is nobody left but me and i won't have my hand out i'll have it raised to the sky it's always a great light, isn't it?