It is not my job to be a poet,
not my job to spew hopeless clauses
Not my job to weave callous causes
Not my job to print insipid logic
Not my job to parse sight through the darkness.
Not my job to tell souls to behave
Not my job to give credence to knaves
Not my job to sell this gold to the state
Not my job to give words away.
No, it's yours - -
Yours to obey, yours to disdain
Yours to compare, yours to reapir
Yours to create, yours left to fate
Years of the past are not of one date
--
Not my job, not to wish or to pray
Not to shine one's soul with spittle
And lacquer its grain
Not my job to place words, no, merely to give
Not my place to give words that do not serve fit
You all know better, you all say so
And for note, with a sad, careful bow will I go.
