Wading Across the River Styx

When I was nineteen    
I thought I was brilliant    
That each scribbled word    
Was a poem coruscating  
Rhinestone truths.    
    
Not so long after    
I took a formal poetry class    
And was told my efforts    
Were garbage. Caca. Shite.    
     
Sentimental, mawkish, kitsch,    
While those I had scorned    
Assembled words even I could recognize    
As poetic fluttering of magic wings.    
     
Now there are sixty-plus years    
Of broken bloody experience    
Wherein the schmaltz bled out    
And flowed from  razor wire      
     
And now the occasional sculpted thing    
Of barbed wire, blows and kicks    
Arises from the retching earth, and sings,    
Like an axe-murderer with harp    
Wading across the river Styx.    
     
Began late January 2023