Before The Month Is Out...

It's been a crazy month, this April. Natural disasters, royal weddings, birth certificate furors. Unfortunately, with all this hubbub, April's annual celebration, National Poetry Month, has been kind of pushed away from everybody's consciousness, I'm afraid. Whereas usually the month is filled with poesy-spouting kids, strangers pulling you aside to recite an octave or two, and politicians vociferously demanding more tax dollars being diverted to poets, this April has been overwhelmed too much by talk of what a particular dress is going to look like (am I the only one who thinks all wedding dresses look the same?), the squeal of weather sirens, and the dementia of a big-haired demagogue. My fear is that some budding young poet, all excited by the promise of a month devoted to his or her would-be passion, will see a dream crushed and be pulled into the mundane life because proper attention has not been paid. Well, just as the month is about to end and that tyro rhymester is about to burn up his or her first notebook of poetic scribbles, I'm here to pay attention and to do my part to inspire. If just one novice bard is saved from a practical, sensible life and is nudged slightly closer to a wonderfully poetic life of poverty, obscurity, and counting syllables on his or her fingers by my words here, I will feel a deep, Trump-like pride in myself. I wrote the following poem last year when I heard that another of the poets I was scheduled to read with one night was bringing his teenage son to read a few of his own poems. And a fine poet he turned out to be. So folks, take the opportunity to turn off the TV and write or read a poem before it's too late (or at least re-contemplate the results of the American Revolution in light of the fact that in a couple years we might be living in a flooded country ruled by President Trump instead of King William).



To A Young Poet


Psst. Hey kid,
Wanna be a poet?
Well, you don't need
a goatee, so
there's no waiting.
Get to it, now.
Disarm yourself and
leap heedlessly into
the whirl of words
with all your
stunning hormones amok.

Look the other way
kick over rocks
ignite all tethers
insist on gray
see the space
displaced by mere things
push away all pull signs
read to write
and cry out to laugh
drink lots of water
don't smoke
and always carry a pen
(paper is superfluous;
you can always write
on hands
walls
clouds
and the eyes of others).
Believe or not
in whatever
but trust that
the next poem
will always be your best.