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with raggedy old words, this is how I write,
in a raggedy old navy t-shirt,
upon a ragged edged old chair,
whose splinters will soon enough,
seed themselves in poet's unreceptive,
but just asking-to-be-barbed
flesh bared
splinters asking with the phony politeness ,
in the manner of a steady, but minor irritating
would-be-a-friend, annoyingly, but cloyingly
"am I not a poem, yet Father?"
Poet has no answer,
mixed words
deemed satisfying suitable but unusable,
unconvicted upon the hard hearted
mixed wood
poet waits for the ragged clotted cumulus
of old grey ladies shaped clouds
to dissipate
clouds shaped like the
puffed up shopping bags
that the old ladies clutch
while crossing mid-street
making the traffic play
"dodge'r the codgers"
bags fill with the odd things
that old ladies treasure,
objet d'art of empty
Oil of Olay Ole! and mindless dribble,
mementoes of completed containers
of emptied out hopes
expired coupons,
that they refuse to surrender
even under threat
by sour faced bossy
supermarket manager dictators,
who hate their lives and
in the deepening creases
of the elderly clientele,
foresee their own fate inevitable
poet's waits for them,
these images,
these clotted bursts of sourpuss,
to depart his skin, sky's.
yes, his sky's
wits and wilts while he waits,
for he always has much to say,
of what lies above,
the unseen,
hid behind the bland uniform of the overhanging
one-no-color sky
of blanched meh and feh crinolines
thinking to no one now,
this is how I write, this is who I am,
waiting for insight inspiration foam to form,
from the multi-variable model that predicts
with a high degree of confidence,
failure with tainted certainty,
even as clouds are shuffled along,
a new poem will pass
that haha, no one will read
but nonetheless, arguing among his several selves,
better to be more fulfilled by the emptying of himself
upon padded cell of paper, of his staining,
the piece of him now
un-chambered & un-containered
thru magma fissures, steaming & cleaning,
providing a penny's penance
for his disparate gloomy idiocies
the gray ladies always smile at him,
always so nice and gentlemanly like, that poet,
underneath his cowardly disdain,
against his pretense's grain,
contempt for old grey ladies
with old lady odors emanating
is this who you are, is this how you write?
*with raggedy old words, that splinter our delight?
