I have written to you again and again
the words not for a letter.
Not to you, have I written, but to the poetry
that wanders away from me, as casually as an unpublished poem.
Anything more formal would probably bring the police.
Poets don’t write to people. They write—of them and for them,
in the way creeps, for themselves, seek fame.
The TV turned down but still heard
in the next room. Poem of sense? Or absurd?
Every poet is crazy
but the poetry of the best: sweet insanity.
Yes, egomaniac, I am, seeking fame.
I have written to myself again and again.
Years back, the police banned me
from a building, not because me, my poetry,
or even one poem, but a line from a poem
I published on the internet with a picture of the building.
Who alerted, or why, the authorities came
is too absurd for me to contemplate. I never asked.
The man who issued the stay
just outside the building as I came to enter
shrugged apologetically. “One line,” he said.
“Word travels fast these days on the internet.”
We stood there, embarrassed. Two Innocent men.
I think this was post-Trump. Trump had just assumed office,
I think, and the FBI was all set with Russia.
I wasn’t thinking of this, then
(my poem wasn’t political, it was pure fiction), but
those were strange days. No more of those paintings for me.
The whole thing, more than anything, makes me laugh.
I never once thought it was you (maybe it was!)
the accusation itself so absurd and shallow.
What would happen to my poetry
if the readers of my poetry knew?
I write poems only for myself.
O poems that cannot be true.