[New-Poetry] mo natterin' bout po no matterin'

[Anny Ballardini]

fucking 
chockfull of books
the libraries!

no google, and still how much 
You see, we wrote for keeps

and also worked,
something like eating to live

_
What a great poem!

  From: JforJames at aol.com 
  Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 8:53 PM



  Cant Poetry Mutter

       Sonny, I knew Jack Kerouac,
       and you’re no Jack Kerouac.

  In my day we had none 
  of those stinking MFA programs.
  We wrote in holds of tramp freighters off Madagascar, 
  on barstools boring into winter nights in Fairbanks 
  and in boxcars strumming the rails of Andalusia.
  We made our own paper, too. From lint 
  picked from our navels or by unraveling 
  the butts collected along the sidewalk. 
  There was no Google, the libraries were fucking 
  chockfull of books, and you had to read ‘em all, 
  and none of ‘em had any pictures. Our words 
  weren’t processed like bad cheese. And le’me tell you, 
  when we gave readings it was always a full house…
  it was like Pasternak in the old Soviet Union, 
  if you lost your place in the poem, the audience 
  could finish the line. The clapping came up 
  like a thousand pigeon wings over 
  a loaf of day-old bread in the park. 
  And the people bought our books. 
  We’d sign title pages till our hands cramped. 
  Of course we wrote about real things then 
  and our lines could really sing.  Our rhythms 
  were like making love, fierce and with staying power, 
  until the last line crested like a tongue 
  in the throat of a lover coming. For a poet 
  even sleep is work, but we had day jobs as well, 
  and wouldn’t be caught dead inside ivy-clad walls 
  unless it was an honest-to-god state asylum. 
  You see, we wrote for keeps. For that 
  small print on translucent pages in thick anthologies.
  Believe me, Shakespeare and Milton 
  were watching their backs. 


   
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