So many poems in shallow graves lay,
unremarked, disfigured by inattention,
undistinguished, death by ignorance,
yet all distinguishable,
in merited manner
and winsome way

numerical weight of observations
marks only quantity,
nor is it a critical mass
connoting value, criticality
only idol worship, pop rock popularity

are you genuine,
do you value place
on any handworked lettered trace,
its silver hallmark
even ever,
ever even,
magnifying glass faint?

does the fear, the knowing,
that the greatest poem
ever penned and ever posted,
has escape your inward glance,
laying stillborn and yet
just a click away?

are you truthful poet,
do you imbibe
from the word~waterfall,
poems sky-endless falling,
within which,
by their virtue,
you, too,
permissioned to
survive and be nurtured?

if you drink and think of but
the issue of your own spawn,
see in a one way mirror,
a contained reflection,
see then a limited version of one self,
a half-formed wordsmithy,
incapable of healthy mutation,
a child, unfully grown,
poisoned by reaching for only
only one's self from the bookshelf of
this miracle,
called poetry

integrate your integrity
with integers and alphabets,
from spice islands and faraway places
infect yourself
with dots and dashes
of other's mind,
thus your own composings,
healed, improved with injected
doses of vive la différence!
a verbal literary interferon

are we all laureates? no
are we all kith and kin?
assuredly yes,
assuredly no

Vive la Différence,
the only commandment,
the ruling motto,
sup with me

once I was a young man,
a younger man than now,
unaware the road less traveled
the veritable choice of the chosen few,
vanity from the page
reflected falsely upon me

I learned to be not~me~poet,
in the company of
scribblers and scribes,
who strove and tried,
some better, some for worse,
all enshrined

once he wrote:
***** your courage to the sticking point,
Begin to write then with reckless courage,
Unfettered abandon, make a fool of yourself!
Scout the competition.
Weep, for you and I will never surpass
The giants who preceeded us, and yet,
Laugh, cause they thought
the same thing as well...^

so these souls
to thee I do commend,
it is just the first snowfall,
I am buried neath drifts Minneapolis deep,
so help me,
lend me thy scalpel eyes,
thy tiny toy shovel,
six feet ain't much,
dig we must,
alert me to the names of
those who
must be uncovered, discovered,
rightfully celebrated