The Trouble With Poets
is that they never tell the truth,
and if by accident, they occasionally
come near to any kind of truth
they tend to get hives,
or shake uncontrollably.
We shouldn’t expect them to be truthful,
it’s asking too much.
Would we demand a dog
cook its own dinner,
or a pickpocket play a glockenspiel
while lifting a wallet?
We who collect words like seashells
must turn them over
and listen to see if they are hollow
or really full of oceanic whispers.
The shell of course, (being an almost
too perfect poetic metaphor),
will then lie to our ear.
Mostly and quite contrarily,
we condemn the author
for having lied
a whole lot better
than we ever could have.
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