Garbage Poetry
Garbage poetry,
that’s why they make you pay—
a toll booth on the road to nowhere,
ink-stained palms held out
by men who couldn’t read a pulse
if it bit them.
Poets strutting like roosters
on borrowed dawns,
calling vanity “vision,”
calling noise “truth,”
calling themselves necessary.
Christ, the hubris
could pave a parking lot.
They workshop the life out of it,
sand down the blood,
polish the scream
until it sounds like a brochure.
Then they wonder why
no one listens.
I’ve seen better lines
scratched on barroom mirrors
by men who knew
they were already lost.
Those men didn’t pay to publish—
they paid with their teeth,
their livers,
their nights.
It’s hard to work
when everyone’s busy applauding themselves,
hard to write
when the room smells like resumes.
The real poem
is hunched in the corner,
drinking cheap beer,
waiting for everyone to shut up.
Most never do.
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