I Am My Own Personal Saviour

I've been chased by wild street dogs in Thailand,
been on Hawaii's sands luxuriously tanned,
driven lonely on many icy highways,
also through the arid but fertile sagelands of Eastern Oregon
and California and was amazed by the lush, pictograph-filled Fern Cave,
also gazed at the bright night sky in this region,
basked in the sun of some women's admiration,
have done way more drugs,
drank more whisky than any man should,
loved and hated myself more than is good,
read Robert Frost, Socrates and Shakespeare and half understood

Never could learn to whistle or chop wood
but sing or write a song,
do quick math in my head, or learn Spanish
(to me amazingly) I could.

I oft didn't understand that I was
as often as not misunderstood:
though not by my few but over-generous admirers
(lost and gained and lost over the years) :
what they liked and like was authentic,
but they didn't know I was in some ways sick
and at times even psychotic
(and those are sometimes two different things
having known cheerful lunatics and heart-sick sages.)

but then many are troubled in this troubled nation and age,
where news magazinesoft mean nothing
and when they do it's too depressing
and bling-bling or rock and roll fools crowd the artistic stage
and few leaders or professors understand
that much or nothing can be said in a single page

But for it all there's little good in bitterness or rage:
too often it's made me a rat in cage,
but someday I've pipe dreams to be
like Splinter to be a real sage.

I know first I must turn a new leafy page,
because I've some messed-up habits at this strange stage,
in my mind I cuss bluntly but rarely speak candidly,
I often drink what's first offered though it's not my cup of tea,
or lash out with cowardly savagery:
but I don't think history will blame me
(in the case it has for me a page)
after the way police and society dishonorably treated me
(at least I'm for FOX's "fairness and honesty" trying
in a society where music is oft thought as easy as lying)
at least I'm for my sins sometimes anguished and crying

Besides,
when my ship was sinking amid illness and poverty:
American society provided provisions but not a lifeboat:
they sedated me but offered too little counseling,
housed me but offered little opportunity or meaning,
and now that I'm stronger many
presume to judge me without even glancing
at the trees in their own eyes

It's not that I hate religion
(though I prefer philosophy) :
and I don't despise science
(though I prefer poetry)
but I'm interested in a relationship with not God but society:
I mean to have treasures not in heaven but on this earth,

See I actually NEED to make it
because if not I know I'll break
or fall into crime or insanity:
see, I've lived in metaphorical
and real, dirty, barbaric jails
and neither Jesus, Mohammed, nor Gautama
set me free

for society I am a iconoclastic doctor,
to young Bohemians I am a blown-mind tutor,
but I'm trying to look inward for more
of my own cure:

after all,
I am my own personal saviour