|
|
Sitting on my Ars Poetica
I never could read poems by the masters,
They always made me feel inconsequential.
Surely a sunrise, lovers, gory death,
A broken promise, an exotic beast,
Are more important than the little things
My life is made of. Speaking to a child,
The television, blankets, breakfast cereals,
Stopping to pick up gas enroute to work,
Hold no deep meaning, no great higher purpose.
Or is the purpose of great poetry
To make a mountain out of that tired molehill
That is the tedium of one's routine?
Somewhere someone is playing Mortal Kombat
and losing; somewhere someone's busy drinking
Himself to death, and somewhere in Osaka
A drunken man is singing karaoke
Slurring some song from overseas to mush.
A dog is being walked somewhere, I'm sure--
Its owner waiting patiently to scoop up
piles of doggy business from the flowers
In next-door-neighbor's garden. Somewhere someone
Is reading this and finding it absurd;
Somewhere some fool is reading this while stoned
Gleefully hanging on my every word.
What can I write? I never built a bridge,
Never discovered secrets of the kosmos,
I've never eaten Thai food (much too spicy),
I never had the courage to elope.
I never found true love through online want-ads,
Never beat a man for being down,
Never been to Paris in the spring,
Never been to Boston in the fall.
I can't move mountains, and I've never climbed them.
But if that doesn't keep you from deciding
That there is some kind of important meaning
Hidden here-in, by all means, point it out!
I sure as hell can't find it by myself.
|
|
Comments