My mind is sick, and these poems and rhymes
Are symptoms—of journeys through Keatsian climes
And hills, haunted, worthy of Poe—
That no one needs to read or know.
I should be on the phone with friends
Rather than traveling this landscape which never ends.
Give respect to art, and yet we can tell
These painted figures can’t talk, and their artist isn’t doing well.
People go to the hospital to visit the sick
And suffer from love which murders the will
And suffer because of some stupid prick.
Sure, poets charm—the way we are sometimes charmed by the ill,
Or the very young, and the song
Is beautiful, of course it is beautiful,
Yet we know secretly something is wrong.
All respect to art, but these poems are bad;
Smile at the patient; tell him his poems make you glad,
Because of course they do.
You think: if this is art, your life hasn’t been that bad to you.