JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

his greatest creations
were written in violet ink
on a page of flattened spaghetti

so that when the rains came
like tears falling from heaven
in great invisible blobs 

the words melted
became pale worms
hurrying away to find shelter

from the flood of forgetfulness
as his pen squirmed away
fell to the ground, scurried off

sky darkening now
a gray soup filtering down
washing away the last fragments

his world now a cage
of uniform metallic holes
a sieve!

around which a thin strand
of lost inspiration danced
like St. Elmo’s fire

or the rasping legs of crickets
and the taunts of other inmates
as they stuck thumbs in their ears

pulled tongues at him