#title O (poem)
#author J. M. White
#SORTauthors J. M. White;
#date 2010
#source [[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/383-summer-2010/o-poem]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2014-01-25
#notes Fifth Estate #383, Summer, 2010


<quote>
“A way that is laid out, is not the way.”

--Tao Te Ching
</quote>

O

life is a journey

fraught with peril

the way is never clear

naive faith

and sarcastic doubt

circle aimlessly

resolving nothing

pay attention

your time is short

the way long

there are people watching television

while the house is on fire

J.M. White is a dues paying member of the underground, a literary outlaw with jail time to prove that he is not as smart as he thinks, a multiple divorcee, hard-headed, incorrigible, contentious, cantankerous, guilty of everything; he is a patently anti-authoritarian, anti-religious, anti-establishment, immoralist currently hiding out on the back roads of middle-Tennessee.