Saturday, November 17, 2018

Tactful Boy

It’s not a compliment when people call your poems masturbatory.
But aren't all of the bodily organs blessed of God?
Literary strategies are at best compensatory.
All I want to do is tell the sultry
truth. Sure, I could project it into some persona-Nimrod,
because it's not a compliment when people call your poems masturbatory.
Nimrod built the Tower of Babel—million-story!
It ascended all the way to heaven, like Jack’s beanstalk, so, of course, God
had to smite it. But that was at best a compensatory
act, because the damage had already been done—the motor lorry
had already crashed through the crepe facade—
all possible allegations of your poems being masturbatory
proved beyond doubt, to their not-small glory!
You’re proud of yourself. You put your skinny or broad
butt in a chair and penned a few compensatory
songs that any Jane, Dick, or Harry
can identify with, and maybe they’ll applaud!
It’s not a compliment when people call your poems masturbatory,
but literary strategies are at best compensatory.