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Page 135

Writing poetry is not necessarily heroic --
not mythically speaking. We like to view ourselves
as Promethean -- agonizing to bring the forbidden
divine fire to mankind.

The difference is, the poet tries to fill in the blank,
while Prometheus gets a bill in the flank (the bill --
hard to pay -- of a vulture eating P's liver)
until he's unbound. Prometheus is a liver pate
(pronounced pahtay, which means -- in Boston --
to get drunk and screw, as in "Let's pahtay!").
The poet, unheard, must live in his pate
(rhymes with fate).

The poet has a culture (rhymes with vulture)
refusing him a living, though his books be
perfectly bound. Poor martyr, or so he persuades
himself, because no one is paying him for his playing,
for the joy of creating (as the commercial says,
"Priceless!"). It takes money to write poetry,

for the poet must eat and have a place to sleep,
needs paper to write on, pens, etc. Therefore, says poet,
"I must make money from my poems." (Birds are
opening up space-safe-for-me-to-wake-up-in right now
with their morning songs. I owe them.)

The poet eats. It's not just the cost of food. There's also
silverware, a place to eat, a place to store food...),
Therefore the poet must make money from his
eating? Who will pay him to eat, to breathe, to
screw (paid to screw? Whore!), to write poems?

How about I make some money any way I can
to pay for my poetry habit? How about I repay the Gods
for the borrowed fire? Or, better, I make my own,
I burn and burn and am not consumed (one reason,
purely aesthetic, to hope President Bush goes to hell --
where he'd become the Bush that burns and burns
and is not consumed -- from the center of which, however,
comes a small still voice; from the center, a nucyular voice,
but I digress...).

Haven't we been bound to this rock (Oh! It's a planet!)
before? I think I'll keep my day job. Vous?

[Nothing in the above lines shall be construed to condone
the cheapness of assholes who think you shouldn't have to pay
for poetry. BUY THESE POEMS! But, poets,
let's not let the bastards get us down. After all,
look at all the fun we're having.]

Note: "Perfectly bound" – a "perfect bound" book – the type of binding used for most paperbacks. "Nucyular" is our president's pronunciation of "nuclear". "...day job. Vous?" plays on "deja vous."

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