Tuesday, March 8, 2016

the terrible parable


some espied, some described and some gave out dictates

propaganda poetry is poetry i hate

 

i prefer anne sexton

writing about the torture

that always showed up for tea

the only thing a poem should be

is just a piece of me

 

meter and rhyme keeping time

or disconcerted, disjointed lines

the reader should feel emotion

gain a little insight into your plight

the plight of being you

 

got it all figured out?

rhyme and tout?

is not a poet or a poem

 

people should read you

and not like you

after all it is the real you

you have shared

 

you throw your poem at the world

vomit and hurl

“this is me!

deal with it!”

 

crawl under an open fence

never write recompense

make your words spell out your name

after all your only fame

may be a posthumous biography

about obscurity and poverty

oh yeah

and some sort of substance abuse

 

how obtuse

delineate us by a hero’s standard

poems do not pander

they express your guess

of why you think you’re a mess

 

cause deep down you know

everyone else is right

and you don’t know

if you love poetry

because you can do beautiful things with words

or is it because the beauty of your poems

is that they are always about you

 

let’s face it

i’m lazy

not as smart as i think i am

and very, very defensive

 

with pen i take the offensive

as i write a personal poem

followed by

no praise, no coin

 

my skillful willfulness

is so i can dismiss

you have a why

but so do i

“see?!

new free me

from the confines

of your considerations”

 

poetry slows the self-destruction

but in the end

anne sexton

took her own life

her audience – her bride, her wife

shake heads and wag tongues

but the poet understands

 

and knows

poetry doesn’t accomplish anything

it’s just words we write down

because no one will ever understand us

like the empty, desolate page

 

***

 

 

  

 

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