To A Young Poet

 

So poetry

aha they go

I write it

I want to publish it

I am the new flock

I have been taught

in school by many

renowned poets

all of them great

mediocrities & now

I want to put my self-

consciousness to use

by you so you can

recommend me for prizes

grants fame & then maybe

you can call my mom

& say yes he made some-

thing of himself he's a poet

& then if you publish a big

book of poems I'll read

one or two & give you my

begrudging approval in the name

of the new flock even though

we are lost & nobody cares

if we live or we die & our

websites go unlogged on

maybe they need more sex

the sex we are not having

much of because your fucking

generation had it all plus

egos to match & we hate you

even those two poems I didn't

quite finish from your big new

book books are dead don't

you know it

 

 

Greeting They Weren't Using Then

 

I walked past jeremy in the park

whassup, J? I said having last

seen him on Castro Street cc. 1976

following some guy 'too busy to

talk right now I'm following some guy

I had sex all night it wasn't enough'

This time he was imaginary

'reaching cruising altitude,' he said,

cruising, he was always cruising,

cruised to venus according to jeff

who kept track of the disappeared

he joined them not long after

and that is a form:

the last time I saw so-and-so

form we are becoming all-too-adept

at practicing these days

all I wanted to say was chartreuse

about being alone or something

or cimmarron or how I met somebody

at ochre & main but jeremy showed up

whassup whassup whassup

 

 

Old Snake Ponders

 

Heavens! What symptoms are these? Unrelenting

Synchronicity followed by sheer idiocy why me?

The serpent swallows his tail or is about to and is

Amazed to find how much older his tail has gotten

But even as he swallows he is not without hope of

Finding his old tail the delyumicious young tail

He used to chew on for hours when he was bored

In class This just can't be the same tail so maybe

He shouldn't swallow it even though he's in a

Swallowing tail kind of mood and he knows only

Too well that there is no more snake afterwards

So this must be a cosmic joke set up by his dead

Friends either that or this kind of thing in subtler

Forms goes on all the time and snakes everywhere

Disappear routinely every day under the pressure

Of synchronicity What makes him such a special snake?

And the sheer idiocy is there to exhaust him

Long enough to consider such matters o snake

You are long silly belt-like greedy and stupid!