You’re clearly, clearly not a poet, Frank; More a symptom of modernist sickness. Inflict no further such rambling thickness Upon your readers. Here it is point-blank: Beat-up prose scribblers’ quaint observations May charm their author—but bore us to tears. Dull poems age poorly. The passing years Condemn them as quirky obfuscations.
Your buddy Ashbery: another dud, Remembered by Department Heads, at best: Abstract expressions that fall with a thud. Bury them in a chap-book with the rest Of the beatnik bards, whose typing careers Only confirm our worst poetic fears.
NaPoWriMo PROMPT #3: write a poem that obliquely explains why you are a poet and not some other kind of artist – explain why you are that and not something else!