Don't Call Me a Poet

 Another poem I wrote last semester. Topic: shadow

Don't Call Me a Poet


Call me distracted.
Call me a college student.
Call me the negligent mother
of a blank Word document.
Just don’t call me a poet.

I’ll never be as demented as Poe,
as high as Allen Ginsberg,
or as depressed as Plath--
Maybe if you take away my rights
I could produce something
half as good as Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

What the hell is a paradelle?

I’ve been clicking Stumble for 2 hours
hoping to find a fleck of poetic inspiration.
“Deep Thoughts from Hot Guys with Baby Animals”
and Designer High’s “The Best of Kravin Glass Pipes”
didn’t exactly break open the sluice gates
for creative thought.

I tried calling the Muses,
just to find out that eight of them are dead,
and the ninth one’s number
has been disconnected.
I’m sure they would have convinced me
that everything’s been said,
better and wiser.
Why don’t you try blogging?
Poetry’s been dead, dear.
Twitter is the new poetry.

Call me a copycat.
Call me a bad impersonation.
Call me dripping with envy.
Just don’t call me a poet.




If Faulkner was alive
he’d ask “What the hell is ADD?”
and I’m sure “Solitude” would
have went over a little
differently if Thoreau would have had a Mac
with him at Walden.
Want to take a walk in the woods?
There’s an app for that.

Transcendentalism--shmansendentalism.

Whitman’s thoughts on the internet:
What a succulent evening it is to be on Youtube!
The small richly color’d videos, stack'd neatly in rows,
Waiting to burst forth as soon as I click
Those familiar red and black words nestled
Tender and noiseless in the upper left corner.
Oh, dear friends, how ample the comedy section!
I dare to click this one--
92 million views!
What unfathomable mirth fills me--
The marvelous world of the web! 

Call me overstimulated.
Call me your Facebook friend.
Call me a component of Generation Y.
Definitely don’t call me a poet.
Poetry is dead.