JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Some of these word-warbling wonders

are born with Webster or Oxford

embedded in their genes

 

They blow politically correct spittle bubbles

that burst with perfect pentametered plops

and in their diapers they deposit

fragrant replications of Wordsworth, Gray or Keats

 

Infant prodigies, their innocent hiccups

are careless gems flung into the air of

hamburger and limp French fry preschool lunches

 

At colleges sonnets that they toss off while

solving crossword puzzles are published

in anthologies, compared by lecturers

in literature to bards of bygone days

 

How I detest these effortless syllable-crunchers

literati, pushcart nominees, poet laureates

of geese-honking provincial hamlets

 

When all I have to decorate tradition’s walls

is a bunch of graffiti and expletives

with which to eulogize

this motherfucking world