The Perfect Poem
I wish I could write
the perfect poem–
one that would make
beautiful chaste maidens
suddenly surge with libido
and engage in risky behaviors
with men that have no
obvious futures, no doubt forcing their
parents to ponder:
what went wrong?
or saucy tramps
suddenly succumb to abstinence,
devoting their lives to being
Prudential role models
to licentious reprobates
penning their iteration
of Chicken Soup for the Soul
or–
becoming vegans,
thus saving chickens’ souls
the kind of poem that prompts
aspiring astrophysicists
to ditch their cold calculus
in favor of
a steady diet of Dickinson
Baudelaire and Shelley
(with Bukowski
to coarsen things up nicely)
changing forever their orbits
as Mars and Neptune
become
gods again
the kind of poem
that inspires the ego-bound
high school jock
to have a shocking
epiphany in English class,
trading titillating sideways glances
at the bookish girl
whose love was merely
an unrequited fever dream
until my poetic intercession
she would undoubtedly share
her new-found passion
in locker/hallway chatter
setting in motion
a chain of pubescent
hope and redemption
but alas
I write poems that
friends and family members
say:
• that’s really cool
• I thought poems were supposed to rhyme
• it’s kinda long
• . . . what’s it mean?
Or a poetry professor:
you write well, but you are not well written
Such is the curse of a slightly
above average person
