Victoria

Wish

I want to be a poet who is read

And remembered after he is dead.

Not because he spat into a sink

Like Bukowski when he took a drink.

Not for burning temples. But because

He is very good at what he does.

I see two books beside me by the cup

Of coffee, and they lift my spirits up.

I know they're good, although I don't know why.

And who is going to see them when I die?

In youth there were sweet stories to be told.

Now I write with meaning for the old.

The bards of love – beautiful and sage

Died early or died old, but didn't age.

Contrast

Millay made gentle and beautiful things.

Bukowski made a mess.

The guy in Athens

Who torched the temple

So he'd live in fame,

Because in all the realms of art,

He couldn't do anything better.

Misgivings

I will only give away or sell

13 books – the good ones – and the first.

The rest of them – like feces – have a smell.

13 books. The others are the worst.

Even things I'm writing while I sit

At night in Denny's – only pass the hour.

Rimbaud and Keats – one by death – both quit.

I didn't die or cease – I just went sour.

But 13 books. I wrote them. They delight.

Though style and sentiment are both passe.

I don't care what other people write.

If all of them are better than Millay,

I'll trade my books at Denny's for cafe.

Suppose I'm right. And those 13 books

Are excellent, as I suppose them so.

If just the folks at Denny's ever looks

Inside the covers, who will ever know?

 

Victoria

Victoria said to her shrink,

“Doctor, please teach me think!”

But her doctor, half shot,

Was a horrible sot,

So Victoria bought him a drink,

Which he threw up in the sink.

That was a mean thing to say.

And limericks now are passe.

But Victoria's nice.

And flowers and rice

Very soon will be coming her way.

But right here at Denny's she'll stay!

Theories

The foolishness that poems simply come

In one unconscious rush – like sh-t and vomit.

They often do. But sometimes need some thought

Mixed with this to make the poem right.

Revisions in the making. What did Keats

Mean – that if a poem doesn't come

As natural as leaves come to a branch,

It had best not come at all? And now

With industry I'm trying to create

Songs as good as what I wrote before.

Mellow poems filling 13 books.

Now forged upon an anvil with a stone.

Victoria


After working all night for her pay,
It's too early for hitting the hay.
But funny and bright,
In Denny's last night,
She traded me books for cafe.