Is it still considered poetry
if you don’t have a degree
and you can’t see a reason
to edit
even if you know
it could use a fine-tooth
comb
and
what if I say pace here
or paz
but know it might sound better
with salaam
or shalom?
After the pen leaves the paper
I don’t have an eraser
and it feels like I’m cheating
on my soul
if I start to slash x marks
through my chicken scratches,
and after the egg hatches
it’s a chicken
there’s no going back
I can’t turn it into a duck
it was destined to be a chicken
and it’s never going to be a goose
or an ostrich
or an emu,
or a quail
or a pheasant,
it’s a chicken.
It’s like a present from somewhere
deep in my subconscious
and it would be unconscionable
to kill the chicken
if that is in fact what it is
same if it’s a duck
or a quail
or an emu
or an ostrich
or a goose
or even a turtle
or a crocodile.
If you have to edit
in order to be a real poet
well, shit
I guess I’m just a crazy guy
trying to stay sane enough to get by
by writing things down on paper
to try making sense
of such senseless violence
and trying to understand
all the deafening silence…
and maybe I can’t edit out
one single word
because they all represent
the voices never heard,
and these words are stand-ins
for the words of the real poets of the world
who were slaughtered
by weapons engineered
by young men and women
educated at the very same universities
from which you got your MFA.
Do you really have nothing to say?
soitgoes1984 