Bloody Getaway

 

A very good poet didn’t think so, 

But there’s nothing really 

 

Dangerous about poetry— 

It’s just too bad 

 

Too many poets think 

They can get away 

 

With murder—see, 

There’s another one right 

 

Over there already revving up 

His "menacing" poetic 

 

Vehicle of destruction, 

Heading your way and looking 

 

Too much like me.

 

Poetry Is A Destructive Force, Dude

But bloody murder? Surely
Wallace, you knew more

Than most of us, that more
Or less, we all have something

To say, and by coming
Back to the scene

Of that unspeakable
Crime day after day,

And by saying only
What has to be

Said and nothing
More, it’s the poet,

That unsung serial killer
Of silence that more

Or less paradoxically
Always gets away

With-it to his dying day.

Now You Think You See It, Know You Don't

Do not kid yourself 
Do not waste your time 
Do not write 

Poetry if you think 
Poetry’s a cheap trick 
And you a sleight of hand 

Man fobbing your audience 
In wonderland with a rabbit pulled up- 
Side down from a top hat—there’s more 

To poetry than that, so stop 
Your monkey business, get back 
To catching tigers in red weather, 

And leave it at that. 

Exhibitionists on Display at Annual Mount Parnassus Poetry Competition

“Poetry is a revelation in words by means of the words.” 
—Wallace Stevens 


MC: (through a bullhorn, bucolically) 

All right, you noble riders of the purple page, kindly listen up— 
Would the next round of supplicants willing and able 
To step out of line and sacrifice everything 
Save their skins please come forward and begin

Jockeying for positions to reveal themselves? 

Of Being Struck Dead

Corazon, lovesick old dog 
On your last legs, 
If only you could talk, 
You would tell us 
Whether the heart 
Shot through in youth 
By that piercing, fatal
Arrow still quivers
At the thought.

Right As Rain till Kingdom Come and Still No Sign of Wear and Tear

Isn’t it terrible about metaphors? 

Folks have been trying 

To pin them down for ages 

And they’re still tearing about, 

Catching clichés in red weather. 

The Sleight-Of-Hand Man

It doesn’t make sense—

We had almost no light left,

So this guy runs out and flies

Back into twilight before

We knew he had left.