ANDY CLAUSEN

They Are Coming

There are many historical male poet derelicts

but the women all beautiful or well to do

save the obscure few

but when the derelict women

come for the laurel wreath

when the hag haired sots smile

thru rotting mouths with atrophied wombs

eructating abortions & other misfortunes

this scene will change

They'll come from food stamp streets

like everything wrong television

they won't need know the Clorox

test for cocaine

or what myriad undulations of liberation

mean to co-eds masturbating at Bergman movies

they'll come with tired feet

of concrete floors canneries & beaneries

they'll come with bleached eyes & blue lips

they'll come from lost children memories

and pimped gone beauty

they'll come with dignity

they'll come like Mothers

the derelict women poets are coming!

Oakland, 1975