Rant of the 21st Century Blog Poet

Forgive me for not wanting to be more
properly, postmodernly, publishably
obscure, but, enough already,
proud, paper poets, clutching your journals
and precious books, peddling bitter art syrup
and sorrow for next to nothing! for tree killers!

Words are free!

Forgive me, I am weak. Living is maze and flame
enough without our random word strings. Yes,
there is chaos. There are black holes
in train station eyes. Even mine.
But there is also pattern and, unfortunately, rhyme.

Go ahead, call me trite, or better yet: Poetaster.
The art of posing isn’t hard to master.

How do I want to see?
I want to glue all the broken cups
together and offer them,
leaking, to you. Drink!

Take it from a bumper sticker:
Don’t believe everything you think.

This place is not so fractured
as our blinking rootless lines.
We all hold our own things
in a certain fractal order. Just because
our order shrinks doesn’t mean
expansion doesn’t sing!

And I’m going to say it: I can’t pretend
postmodern poetry doesn’t stink,
even if we like to sniff our own reeking pits!

It’s ok to get clean once in a while, kids,
wash off the crowded street.

Say something sweet, for gods’ sake,
for Nietzsche’s! Do you really want
only pale academe to read you, Übermenschen?
Pile you dusty on their shelves next to Keats?

Bright stars, admit it! That is our wet dream.
But let’s get with it, Marxist wannabes:
words aren’t some commodity!
Anyway, they pay us beans.
Whose whore are we?

Haven’t you noticed? Words are finally free!

(for a modest monthly wireless fee, of course,
or a quick trip to the library.)

Even if no one remembers me
after the Mother of All Solar Flare Catastrophes
licks my words right off this screen,
that’s fine. I’ll either be dead, or still writing.

Maybe then I’ll more readily seek
your perfect bound postmodern ranks.
Like Stanley and Blanche, we could bury
the hatchet and make it a loving cup.

At least until the network
is back up.

2011