Epitaph For A Self-Proclaimed Self-Made Man

For one who 

Never tired of saying I got this 
Far with nothing but hard work, 

You must be dead 
Tired by now. 

Higher Love

One comes to love the impossible because 
One does not want to find himself 
Feeling low loving just anything. 

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. 

Now Or Never: The Next Life

The next time you feel that dark 
Urge to curse the incorrigible 
Adamantine white page lying so 

Smugly before you, cast your sights 
On to when you imagine 
It will pay you back 

Tenfold with nothing 
Save hard, brilliant flashes 
Of blinding light— 

But (and this is all it asks of you)— 
Only if you serve it right 
Here, never in that other life. 

Brief Elegy For A Lyric Poetess, Passing At 58

In your short, bittersweet stroll through 
Life’s unavoidable highs and lows, 

You were as full of life as your poems were 
Touchingly sorrowful.