JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

When in distress with poetry and my muse

I all alone some scholarly journal choose

where ancient soul foods are bandied back and forth

by modern mimickers and plundered for their worth

 

Of lush originality, then dissected and repackaged

in fashionable guise as some stringy stew that cabbaged

and flavored with dubitable new ingredients

are dished up with simulated cordon bleu expedience

 

Delighted, all the epicures then smack their lips

and taste and chew the pot du jour and quip

and quote from Greek and Latin through implanted teeth

each in his own pomposity, striving to bequeath

 

Some long lost meaning, shed a new found light,

disclose the author’s real intention, set the record right;

revealing that Jack and Jill or Ipsy Wipsy Spider

had some politician dictating nuances beside her

 

My head all spinning, I put these tomes away

return them to the library, ignore what those scholars say,

their words of wisdom I place back on the shelf

then rumble round my kitchen mind and re-invent myself