Thursday, May 19, 2016

New Evidence

I'm sitting in my best friend's dining room
With three bad poets and a publisher
Of coffee table nature books. I stir
My lukewarm coffee and explore the gloom
(Some light bulbs have burned out. It's like a tomb).
The pretty one thinks she could (I concur)
Sell chapbooks with good photographs of her
On the front cover. I think I sense doom.

The food is bad, the company is dull,
The poetry is awful — mine stinks, too —
And every one of us is looking through
The others, hoping some event will cull
The others. There's a pounding in my skull,
New evidence that poetry is true.

Sunday, May 01, 2016

Did We Choose That

Are you as disappointed as we were?
Did you expect the wind to blow away
The cobwebs and the dust? Did that display
Of hubris underneath the juniper
(Or under any other conifer,
Though none of them makes gin) make people say,
"We're tired of this, aren't you?" Is it O.K.
To act the fool the way he did with her?

Are we all sinners now? Did we choose that,
Is that acceptable, a good excuse
For everything? Will anyone induce
Better behaviour than to leave things flat
Where we found natural sharpness? This has sat
Unhappily with me. Our souls are loose.