What no one else is thinking fails to interest us, in poem or speech.
There are geniuses like stars who are simply out of reach.
What everyone is thinking, like sunlight in the day,
also condemns the poem. There is only one way
to keep the poem in the pond from sinking:
What no one else thinks about what everyone is thinking.
If you are a member of the crowd
at a sporting event. If you are loud,
sure, every poem you write will suck
The same as if you were a mournful, isolated cuck,
slinking apart from the crowd in self-pity;
oh there is a chance your poem will be strange, even pretty;
I might read your poem. But no one else will.
Readers don’t like the beautiful. They like swill.
The crowd crowds in with the crowd. It has no will.
There is only one way the crowd will like your poetry.
Observe. Observe. Notice the contestant winking at the referee…