The thing about life and poetry, is that one
Is a horror—if the other one is to be great.
Examine these poets whose war their nation won
And you’ll find the life the verse can barely indicate.
Laughter upon suffering is the greatest stupidity.
The amused are willfully ignorant, so they can be amused;
Hiding behind their joking verse, great gobs of self-pity.
Banks of wet fireworks, deferred policy, holidays defused,
In a bookstore, bored, you don’t really enjoy this poetry at all—
In the victorious country grownups leave early, protests dissolve early, birth rates fall.
Rosalinda knew this. She guessed great poetry meant loss and suffering.
Rosalinda had had enough of loss and suffering.
I once made it clear to her, “You can’t imagine
The murderous suffering this great poet suffered!”
Because I loved Rosalinda, my poetry was great.
I smiled. Rosalinda smiled. But it was too late.