Was inspiration my sole need tonight

I would find a coffee house, where poets

Ply their woeful trade with three-stringed guitars

Playing in the background, and willowy blondes

Recite their verse in low, breathy mantras

And the air is filled with smoke, some of it

Legal, and the coffee is bitter and black

And served in tiny cups where the help

Doesn’t rush you, but doesn’t rush to help you

Either, believing you are all too enchanted

By metaphysical words spoken the way

You imagine mosquitoes drone when they are angry

At the gods who made, then sprayed DDT,

And you go home and ply through your disks

And disks of poetry and cry out loud, what the hell was

I thinking, I’m no good, and fling them, like Mini-Frisbees,

Across the room, only to remember all criticism is subjective

And that if Ms. Ditzy with the guitar were any good

She’d have her own volumes published and be on Oprah and even

PBS, if the sponsors could find enough money to have people on

Who only recited poetry. But of course, not during pledge week

Because the people with the bucks don’t read poetry, which we

Already know when we mail them into to obscure journals

Who offer us but subscriptions to their own magazines for the trouble

We went through just sending them in, so, no – sigh - I don’t need inspiration

Tonight. But what the hell, could we just make love?

11/25/2002

Author's Note: Happy Thanksgiving, all..:)

Posted on 11/25/2002
Copyright © 2024 Ken Harnisch