*****

Recorded Reading (2:11): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/00qde5bqdougqufoq4tbi/Living-With-a-Poet.mp3?rlkey=5uburhl66vbzupnc0lxdxhsfd&dl=0

*****

Living With a Poet

It sure isn’t easy
To with a poet live
And find that you along with them
Your entire life must give

To focus of posterity
Accountable for each
Awful, awkward lesson
Which time will have to teach

It doesn’t really help to know
That they are going through it too
When history’s damn spotlight
Is a-focusin’ on you

You haven’t combed your hair or
Brushed your teeth, your slippers in
Wishing you might just rewind
That tape, erase, and rebegin

The good news is it seems to be
The most painful of throes
Which with redemption’s gratitude
The readers’ comment glows

And we know that triumphant day
We deal death our own demons to
Our poet will it celebrate
The same, and gladly too

It isn’t any kind of even close
To easy, no it’s not,
To find ourselves accountable
For every word and thought

Because in our back room
The essence of accuracy
Conscientious correctness
And accountability

Must shine its light, however
Accommodating it be
In such a way that the entire
Galaxy has got to see

That in this place we harbor
Willingly and lovingly
Such an aberrant, obvious
And outrageous entity

Yes, sometimes, true, it is
In our posteriors a pain
To have to normal neighbors
Such an entity explain

Like having Ernest Hemingway
Camped out in the back yard —
But ‘spite the inconvenience
We have our just reward

For every piece that poet write
While riding on our bus
And on our watch, is really one
Written by all of us

So if it does some good
As it is intended to
In someone’s world that poem
Offers itself in to view

And bouncing back there comes
A happy wave gratitude of
You bet we each get to collect
Some of that karmic love!

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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