FOR HANK who is too dead to argue.

WHO THE HELL IS A POET

the dog with the pen
and the Harvard penis
may or may not be
a start or halfway to finish
empty telephones are poems
for the blind who relish
smoking pupils see fire
in your beer stained breath
fathers raving in alcoholic
splendor have danced
on the typewriter making
poems with their toes
if only someone goddamn
knew they wrote witty prose
the dead are poets they
read for the worms the
living are left with
consonants and vowels and
the sickening job of making
sense
battered children cry with
poetry and flowers can’t
give a fuck because they
themselves are the rhyme
the poet nailed to the
wall with the rose in
his teeth only THINKS he’s
a poet who has bled on time
nails pounded by lovers
are weapons
mistaken for poetry
they come dressed in rhyme
biding their time
in rooms hidden by longing
watch when the dust that
begins to speak with disarming
idiots make lists
fathers are storming
the gate of the poet
what the hell is the warning
who the hell is a poet
my father my longing
who the hell is a poet
the man with the warning