Poet for hire:
has a year-and-a-half’s full-on experience
likes metaphors
and similes that don’t make sense.
Will probably write poems about
weird things like grass, glasses
and corn.
Can write rhyming or non-rhyming
structured or not structured.
Will happily spend hours writing
and work overtime.

For more information, please call,
or send a note by
carrier pigeon.

(chocolate will suffice as payment)

Into my heart’s treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin, —
Oh better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.

Waves of the ocean
Waves of the brain
Waves of the air rush
Over wires in the rain.

Does that book still burn on your shelf?
Or have you stuffed it under your bed,
its pages torn, still smelling of cigarette smoke
with a few coffee stains.
(Mine rests next to Tolkien).

Do you flip through it once in a while?
Noting the words you marked,
once full of meaning.
Are they empty now?
(I found empty words in my copy).

Do you take care to avoid
the covert letter under the jacket flap?
Or maybe read it, and wonder
(I regret writing it.)