Poem for Monday, June 29, 2009

The Other Poets

When I gaze up I see the other

poets watching me between the

vaporous lining of clouds

              sitting on

thrones no beneath trees and

Dionysus gave them his

best wine (squeezed each

              grape with his hellenic fingers)

look in the corner over there:

Ginsberg and Kerouac are sauced

writing another song about

               pulling their daisies to the

beat-beat-beat of their bongos (Bukowski

watches them in his underwear with

               a cheap cigar, jealous)

Williams, Eliot, Plath and the like

are up there, too, waiting for

me challenging me even daring me

               (me, a random fart in

the universe)

to wad my brilliance into a ball

spit it at them through a straw

with beautiful velocity

"So, young poet, aspiring writer,

random fart in the universe, what

will you write about today?" they

               inquire in my day-

dreams (when I'm not dreaming

of rainbows or one-night stands)

"I don't know," I tell them

and I smoke a cigarette

and it's always good