There's a unique "Island of Lost
Poems" somewhere in Texas, tucked
away in a corner of an office,
actually on a desk in a poetry
editor's home. They are there: the
casualties...a handful of poems,
a small avalanche of chapbook
contest entries, submissions of
varying lengths from haiku to epic.
They got lost, separated from
their envelopes, no SASEs to
identify them, no names or
addresses on them. They rest
stranded in a topsy-turvy pile,
unread, untraceable, unclaimed.
In a day or two, they will be
tossed in a blue and white
recycling basket, and then
ultimately transported to a
shredder.

A question remains about these
exiled anonymous works as they
languish on the "island."

Who sired them?

One might wonder if there could be
a poem by the next e.e. cummings
or Bukowski or Nikki Giovanni
somewhere in that nameless
shapeless hill of hope, perhaps
a work of passion and politics -
a masterpiece penned in outrage
and alienation, a brave new "HOWL"
just waiting to become the first great
poetic anthem of the twenty-first century.