Thursday, March 20, 2025





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

 

For Hank who is too dead to argue.

10.21.18

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