Best Editor Poems

"Dark-heaving . . . boundless, endless,  and sublime . . ."
Lord Byron 1788-1824
_____________________

I am the wordsmith, guide and editor of this narrative,
this epic chronicle and story of abysmal dream love;
my fingers are ink-stained and worn from writing,
this account of my journey is both tragic...

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             Your judgments have me grinning.
Don't pretend you were immune 
from the Avarice of Pride.

Which you delved past cover packet 
into the gutworm of stardoms naked lunch?

Unfolding the artwork of your Deathsnake Bands-...

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THE TOKEN POETRY EDITOR

Sexless, unloved, this poem tycoon
Reads the heart’s treasures as the brain's boon,
And riven with erudition, explores the spaces
Where uninvited couplets kill the places

With talk of probity and probability.
This mortgaged toad of honesty gives glee
To those who find in truth a rash offence
And...

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The Editor

I see all you have written,
Every word on the page.
Each note in the score,
Every dancer on the stage.

I notice matched colors,
In shirts just the same.
I can't stop the patterns,
They're just there in my brain. 

I see numbers as paragraphs,
Their beauty and ease.
If I'm at...

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Dear Mr. G.,
I'm a sloppily manufactured good

the kind of
you don't want it to be
exposed to the view

the kind of
piles up in a humid warehouse

tacitly humiliated
collusively dehumanized

even that feeling of having price attached
was never introduced

and I've heard the story about 20 dollar bill
that doesn't lose its...

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How do you feel about anger?
Does it feel good
like other passions?
Is it a friendly device
like a sharpened axe
to shape the hardwood?

Can one be
forgiven for it?

When I hold
anger in my mind's hand,
I cut through ropes,
jam smooth 
uneven walls.

It vibrates hard
like a rifle butt....

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He publishes poems
by writers who find
no publishers elsewhere.

They suffer rejection
and he gives them hope.
Some improve

and some do not.
But hope isn't always
the best thing.

It’s not hopeful to tell 
a child with clubfoot
to take ballet.


Donal Mahoney...

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Dear Editor or Shreditor
by Michael R. Burch

Dear Ed: I don’t understand why
you will publish this other guy—
when I’m brilliant, devoted,
one hell of a poet!
Yet you publish Anonymous. Fie!

Fie! A pox on your head if you favor
this poet who’s dubious, unsavor-
y, inconsistent in texts,
no address (I...

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These vain attempts at verse could not be droller.
Your stuff is less inviting than ebola
(and not as catchy).  Wordier than Emil Zola,
you haven’t got the steam to be a roller.
I’ve seen more cutting-edge in Pepsi-Cola.
You clearly honed your style in Fuengirola.
About as challenging as...

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I wonder still just what it is that motivates some people;
Is it a talent for illusion or is it perhaps a need to hide?
And it’s illustrated so well with so very many Hughes;
With a picture of ones fruits of labor held in a sieve and...

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I received a cookie cutter form letter of rejection from the editor for someone else's poem in my SASE. That someone else sent me the acceptance letter she received for my poem in her SASE.       

My poetic response: this...

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I shall write while I rest 
amid the faint hues channeled 
by a functioning heart bottled 
to perfection during the tranquil 
lessons a masterpiece unfolds 
the infamous characters bonded 
beyond the galleries of distant carny 
and Gothic folklores tampered above 
a shattered notion of writers...

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An Elegant Editor

We start out with accomplishments and achievements;
When our lives are done we receive bereavements;
Then after we have finally passed away,
We hope to end up in heaven one day.

 

Our souls first started out on earth;
God placed them in bodies at our birth
Which are...

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Submission
By Beverly Stock

I called the editor knowing
That my temper would be showing
And said the following to him:

“I sent a poem here, sir”
(I said growing fiercer,)
“And the subject which
I’d chosen, Sir, was Spring.”

“ I just scanned your paper,
By sunlight, torch and taper,
Of my poem, I do...

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The Poet's Condition
by Michael R. Burch

(for my mother, Christine Ena Burch)

The poet's condition
(bother tradition)
is whining contrition.
Supposedly sage,

his editor knows
his brain's in his toes
though he would suppose
to soon be the rage.

His readers are sure
his work's premature
or merely manure,
insipidly trite.

His mother alone
will answer the phone
(perhaps with a...

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