deepundergroundpoetry.com

if poets die young...chapbook of poems, spring, 2012

 
Note:  With this chapbook, I was partly responding to a negative review of my previous chapbook, Shoulder.  Shrug.", and partly contemplating on a line in a book of poems I'd read, that said, "Poets die young".  (I am not trying to put myself up here.  It's simply that I've often been either quiet or drunk here in the past, and I feel like being more soberly open right now.)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Copyright
 
2012
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
if poets die young…

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
patrick birdener
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
if poets die young…

an old poet is one who knows
it doesn’t matter much,
has a life,
and more important things to do before he
shoves off this mortal coil,
 
one who
lets his ghost
play a little.
 
*
 
an old poet doesn’t fish

for poems out of the sky.
they glide and fall like feathers on his head.
he feels a serene joy,
and says,
“Hello, old friend,” to his muse.
well, that or,
 
“Oh, You again,”
 
and sets out on the road
called Poem.
 
it is a scenic, circular path through forest fashioned from
moments taken from days or daydreams,
 
a long, slow walk, recording sensations and figments of fancy.
 
then the old poet sets upon the game
called Poem,
arranging sensations and fancies in fashions
to suit his sense of serenity,
throwing caution to the dogs,
and poems to the readers, who are
themselves poets,
and if they do not catch his drift,
if they do not fetch the bone,
well,
the wind will bring it back.
 
*
 
(Yes, I am aware that last piece may end up seeming a bit offensive.  I really didn't mean it to be offensive.)
 
i gave the ghost some play today,
because you came and called me rushing.
but the spaces between each final line
of “poem”
were like my silences have been.
 
and so i thank you, dear reviewer,
for your disenfranchised spew.
it woke the passion from its sleep,
cracked open the egg i slumbered in,
singing of canned hash and mayonnaise.
 
but shame on Me—
i gave no warning,
or perhaps it wasn’t true—
“there was Method to the Madness,”
a man behind the curtain you considered so dull,
a wizard behind the wall.
 
*
 
i did not drown the page with words.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
i loaded it with bullets.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*
 
--and i’d been playing with the thing for quite some time i mean i
didn’t just pick it up and shoot it off and say it’s done.  i dropped the bullets
in their chambers, one by one.      i lifted the gun,      pressed the trigger,
blew a hole that sorely missed.  i missed the first six, seven shots,
the eighth shot even wider still.  these first eight shots
i fired blind, and felt a pride i did not know
i felt until i opened my eyes,
and found that aiming helped.
 
*
 
i guess you thought they were pills, though.
 
you swallowed them all at once,
hoping to get high or low or gone.
 
and barely waiting for the effect,
you turned to me and demanded a refund.
 
i had none to give.
 
you shivered.  said it was cold.
 
and then you gently went to sleep.
i slipped away for another year.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Written by patrickbirdener (Patrick Birdener)
Published
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