Of Two Kinds

Real poets harvest like

        angry ghosts.

Unreal poets are

Ambassadors of

     China tea cups.

One can’t sip so

Easily from another,

Can’t be lifted or

      sipped. Their

Worlds joined by

      a poorly-lit

Siamese motto:

“The desperate are

       to be trusted,

Seek their counsel.

When asked for an

Opinion, they’ll deliver it

Like fate.”  Since they

Have nothing to lose, they

have nothing to

grieve from giving.

Their indifference a

Kind of intelligence, a salted cliff

Scaled by naked slugs

Entirely beyond their bodies.

Unreal poets invent the rope.

But real ones?

...Die and then don't,

Wriggle invisible, with head, on a filth pin...

        dropped from

Unpublishable heights

Onto someone else's sharp rocks. To

Yank, and shake, then stand,

     and climb again.