A Big Emptiness

[theirishsea]

writing about writing isn't right
and the critics would chop you up
for being too cute and using the word "and"

also I've learned you can't be negative
have to offer an incense to or of illusion

oh "to" or "of" are prepositions
critics eschew prepositions
too wordy, too connective like gristle
too much to chew on
just stick to straight ass-kicking sentences
that move you on out of the public square
into a well-lit phone booth where you can talk
to yourself, to them, to writing seminar 436

and you can't be negative
too much self-pity, too much self
that doesn't promote a career
and you can't rant on about
a stupid society or even on being stupid
yourself you have to write metaphoric porcelain
put it on the mantle with a mirror
behind it but

you have no rhythm, your words are dull prose
lines too fractal, dreams too forgotten
you are lamenting and that is not
American unless you are from a sanctioned group
and resenting that old boy white male

oh unforgivable
keep your Irish to itself
you aren't legit just a working
writer of long verbose poems
that aren't really poems
too much wallowing in your own failures
and failures they are
but unlike Bukowski they are too polite
to frighten audiences in paying attention
and so egotistic self-centered alley cat meowing
in the middle of the night
hair missing
wounds on the back
whiskers whisked away by critical claws
and so

but you write nonetheless
a big emptiness attaches itself
to the letters in the words of a poem
and that part of your personality
that never parties
with anybody

[revolutionrabbit]

i get it...forge on even if your nouns are blown off.

[dadio]

Good points raised in a fine poem

[saw]

a great ride through the tortured mind of the writer desperate to be fresh, and aren't we always amazed when he hear a great new song ?....shouldn't every combination of lyric and melody and instrumentation have already been used up.....yet it sounds pretty damn good....like your poem

[Arcadia]

ohhh, the sea of expectations & the communicational conondrum ... & poetry!

your poem reminded me to a half-read book that I have in my half-read books pile: Edgardo Dobry´s "Orfeo en el quiosco de diarios" ... (& take it not as a critic! ). Gracias for sharing it!