Love poems are easy.
Hate poems even more so.
An intellectual screed
can make a poet believe in his truth
without even a spot of evidence.
Nature poetry is hardly ever
about nature,
it's more the observed
seen through a personal filter,
never much deeper.
People want poetry to move them,
but a poet in not a 'moving' company,
simply shuffling emotional content
from here to there.
Too easy.
Weird, strange, impossibly
enigmatic, wildly abstract
is often better
than a recycled copy
of the time worn and predictable.
Replication is easy.
Never claim to be a poet
or you might be guilty of all of the above
as at times we all are.
The orchards were replaced by rows of streets.
Which were named after its fruitful history,
Grape-orange -lemon and peach.
I worked for a moving company back in the day.
Long after the slum lords took hold of the reigns.
We dreaded going to the "fruit belt"
as did the police and firemen.
Our white faces sharply contrasting with the soot of poverty...
One time from a second-floor balcony.
A cluster of black kids spit on us and laughed.
Maybe they thought we were stealing furniture their neighbors.
Brave little Mutts we just shrugged it off-and quickly packed up the truck.
That was four decades past.
I have a much softer job now.
A few lessons removed from the minor horrors of:
grape-orange-lemon and peach street.