You'll be a lousy, solitary, misunderstood poet
Someone told me as they buttered my fresh baked bread.
Time slowed
The winds stopped moving
And the afternoon sun shifted its path
To follow those words instead.
The knife made its way
Still slippery and warm
Back to the butter dish
You'll become a coarse and crummy poet, they said
you're tailor-made for it,
you're ugly and skinny,
quiet, dull and dreary.
You'll write in small rooms with low light, pensive and poor
you'll write, they said
as the butter now soft
soaked into the bread
in front of a screen on cold nights drinking wine
tainted with scorn
weeping with sorrow,
and rage, and dread
The knife had by then sunk into the butter
the butter my poem,
the knife the life I have led.