When They Exhume My Poems
When I die
I give the Pulitzer Board
Permission
To exhume my lyrics
And some overweight ME
Will put my verses on a slab
Going thru my stanzas for tone
looking for assonance and
Consonance in my bones
As my family waits around to see
If i really was a great poet
And they will probe my lines
for cadence
Meter and Trochee
Taking notes
As they dissect
My poetry
They will say I was anemic
On my tercets
And many of my quatrains were forced
As they search for the source
One of the examiners
will write on his tablet
That I never wrote
A Sestina or villanelle
They will note, He was good.
But his books didn't really sell.
The NAACP will close that he didn’t
Represent the Black community
Like King or Rosa Parks
Leaving my legacy a question mark
And no one will be specifically sure
If I advanced the Black Race
Leaving the matter a Cold Case
My kids will ask
But what does all this mean?
Was he really a great poet?
Was he as good as Frost or Hughes
The examiner will stare confused
The autopsy will be intrusive
And they will say:
REPORT INCONCLUSIVE!!
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