18 May 2008

Dead poet (rev)



I’m sure it would be easier to survive
as a dead poet; I mean it in the surmise
that I wouldn’t be tempted to revise
or rewrite the poem I wrote last night.

Or the poems I wrote last week which
make me cringe when I read them again,
or when I read the poems of a pimply boy
wracked in the paroxysms of youth –

I will not be seized by mortification, savaged
by towering rage or patronymic patronism,
or simply devastated by how far I’ve come
without apparently moving an inch.

All the while I thought I was improving, faster
to the interior rhyme, quicker to the slick
rhythmic change of pace, the clever about face
in the turning of a line, the sublime ending.

In the final rendering I am still
the same stationary survivor,
alive because I never really
learned how to die.
© 1 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

1 comment:

  1. this is so true
    w/ me
    i'm june bug
    pushing the ball of shit
    down the path
    & it's just shit
    but it's nutrient
    & worth something
    for someone
    or some/it
    right
    at least i hope it is
    anyway
    i'm glad i found this place
    will be back

    later brother

    power to the poet

    peace
    este

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