Uncle, you are more like my father than I am,
And they say you seem more like me than him.
They say we are just holograms of projected embarrassment.
None of this is real. I was going to write a poem
But then started to read and got distracted.
Who knows where this poem is now, uncle.
No one likes you, uncle, but I do.
You manage to embarrass everyone and I see
How we all have our pitiful illusions
And yet we can’t help what we are. Like you, uncle.
You are an uncle, and you can’t help that.
We are what the world creates of us. You write poems
In all different styles that wreak havoc among poets
Who stick to their chosen styles and low key rhetoric
Because they don’t want to embarrass anyone!
Humiliation is suicide! Puncturing others’ illusions,
With your immense talent, uncle, you see through
What others see and do, and you do, you do, naked shoe.
But you can’t do that, you mustn’t do that, uncle.
You have children. You say things. Your poems
Make fun of poems others write, which others take seriously,
And the horror is, your poems are much, much better than theirs.
You are going to destroy the world, uncle, with your wit,
And your everything! But I’ve seen you weep, I’ve seen you suffer,
Uncle, I know how on so many levels you think further than the rest.
Now where was that poem I was going to write?
It was going to be great, like you. It was going to be the best.
