I’ve been told to never use heart
in a poem.
It’s worn, archaic, schmaltzy—
used by all the doggerelists
this workshop leader
has warned us about.
It’s right up there with soul, love,
yearning.
If it’s in the poem you’re working on,
she begins to thunder, cut it out!—
using the image of a paring knife
which seems a tad cliché
(if I do say so myself),
wondering how much rent she pays
atop Mount Hypocrite.
I check her curriculum vitae
at the break—stealthily,
like a covert anti-lyrist
attempting infiltration,
masking the use of my smartphone
as if I’m an iambic James Bond,
praying she doesn’t suspect a thing
while the others are out for coffee,
a smoke, obvious signs of stress
while interacting with a demi-
god: one who judges, demeans
your silly muse, encourages your
toil at a day job that’s been dull,
monotonous, sucks your spirit
to the bone.
She’s also wise to the way
we would-be bards cloak banality,
catches my synonym for my psyche
masquerading as my soul—
which, by the way, is counting down
the hours till this hellish experience
is done, wondering if I can duck
out for an afternoon root canal.
When we finally reconvene, she rails
against the light, how every single poet
and their grandmother’s fucking dog
keeps spouting its tired truth,
and if she hears the word shard
just one more time,
she’ll break the user’s neck
like it’s a fragment of fragile glass.
I wonder who it was
that broke her heart
(sorry, I mean vascular organ);
if she’s ever been kissed under the
shine of a faithful moon;
if she’d know what it’s like to have
a mother die in her arms when she’s
only seventeen, and a father who’d
fled at five.
At the close, I’m the first to offer what’s
written, wanting to get it over with,
my teeth chattering like a typewriter
on speed, my hands quaking
as if all the tectonic plates
were having sex,
the birdie in my treetop
fleeing at that moment—
terrified, vaporous, out an open window
with several cracks all down the middle,
believing it was to break
into a million little pieces,
unable to reflect
a summer sun
that’s no longer welcome here.
Andreas Gripp
March 21, 2023 (World Poetry Day)
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