After thirty years of struggle,
I’ve penned my masterpiece.
It’s the poem I can gloat is perfect:
funny, heart-wrenching, born of
blood and sweat
with not a hackneyed phrase
to be found.
I call it my magnum opus,
think I’ve reached top-
echelon, that I’ll have to
conjure up a way to make my
humble brag sincere.
It’s flawless in its cadence,
accent after accent,
but to attract the avant-garde,
I’ve thrown in extra lines
that look
look l
o
o
k
like
this
knowing it’s innovative,
that if everyone’s being innovative
it’s still called innovative,
and to fail to see my genius
means you’re clearly just jejune.
I refuse to send it to a journal
unless they publish it right away,
allow me to pick the font
and put my face upon the cover—
filtered, the one that sweeps the
crow’s feet from my eyes,
masks the freckles that haven’t faded,
turns my grey to lightning blond.
I post it in a hurry to my accounts,
wish the Facebook, Twitter crowds
could have seen it in the making,
like watching Rodin sculpt his Thinker,
that I should have up-
loaded the entire process,
let them see the brandy
that I guzzled,
as if I were drinking
Dylan Thomas under the table.
After half-an-hour, I wonder why
it’s still without a like,
that it probably isn’t showing
in the feed,
that it’s all a conspiracy,
between Musk and Zuckerberg,
that what Penelope put
on her fucking toast
is considered more important;
that they’re the lowest, common
denominator, the plebeians, who
wouldn’t know a chef-d'oeuvre
if they stopped and sat on it;
that all the other poets are simply
jealous, afraid I’ll show them up,
that they’ll look like grade-school
jinglers compared to me,
that I’ll crash their open mic,
say to hell with allotted time;
that Auden is put to shame,
that I’ve trumped his Icarus,
that no one will give a shit
about his wings from here on in;
that the ship will thumb its nose
instead of sailing calmly on.
Andreas Gripp
March 22, 2023
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