If the poem sees how hard
you are working for it
it will work even harder
for you.
Gears of fire fire the place where
rats go to party with endlessness.
Changing the title twelve times
won’t change the maturity of your soul.
If it’s yet another one diamond
tossed into the bottom
of a 55-gallon barrel
of verbal diarrhea
don’t expect me to dive.
If it’s yet another
Pottery Barn™
sampler
of scented candles
or calculated confession
of sexual repression,
condemnation of humanity,
yet another semi-clever
adolescent word-play
exhibition
yet another cold
cardboard cut-out
comment or elegy
to wistfulness,
emptiness,
longing
and regret
count me out.
Make an effort.
Do the work.
Be an artist.
Be a lover.
A loner.
Care.
You must begin with caring.
A history of starving and early death
will help.
Kiss the page
and don’t give a damn
if no one else
kisses the page.
If it’s been kissed by you
in your shotgun apartment
by your midnight typewriter lips
between alcoholic girlfriends
you’re good to go.
Or not.
An excerpt won’t make the difference.
A blurb won’t make the difference.
An “I am pleased to announce…”
with the implied tightening, loosening
of the light-bulb wave as we
commoners pass below
won’t make the difference.
Even Geno in the sandwich shop
we stumbled into at the age of eighteen
after traveling two thousand miles from Indiana
to New Jersey the morning after sleeping
in the park, dressed in proper suit and tie,
slicing copious amounts of salami, ham
and prosciutto, making the most
glorious sandwich at the most
honest price understood
the value of presentation,
of truth.
He was proud.
His life was a cat
and the sun was shining
on that Tuesday morning
and we were hungry
and we ate
and it fed.
In short:
Make an effort
not to be common.
If not for you, then for it.
__________________________________________________
[This poem is an excerpt from the author’s journal, Jabberloon, which can be viewed in its entirety by members on the Open Arts Forum website.]
