We despise our poets.
Nothing has changed since the days described here, except that the poet doesn’t have a garret any more.
She lives in her van, and the enemies of beauty surrounding her follow her wherever she goes ~ releasing poison gas, conducting audial harassment and surrounding her with litter, crime and mayhem.
*****
Recorded Reading (2:47):
*****
Outside the Garret Door
Ah, look! The quintessential image
We’ve all seen before
Yet have not found a way to change
No matter how much it abhor
(Because we really, truly don’t
Object to it so very much
In fact, we tend to see in it
Misshapen justice’ touch)
A lone purveyor of the arts
Sits her tiny garret in
Her few possessions there arranged
Neat as any pin
Naught but a crust of bread we find
On her bare truckle board
She’s wearing the entire lot
Of her small clothing’s horde
One candle gives both heat and light
One inkwell holds the pen
To write on foolscap paper
She dips it in again
(But she is lithe and fair, we sniff,
Heart-tugging beauty she produce
Something must to a less lofty
Level her reduce)
If these were all her hardships
She’d make them function well
It’s what’s outside that garret
That the picture doesn’t tell
The jealous, spiteful spinster
Living cross the hall
Who doesn’t welcome love and light
Into her world at all
And knowing that the poet works
At night the quiet for,
Makes sure that many times each day
She slams her own front door
The alcoholic down the hall
Between hers and main entranceway
Accosting her each time she leaves
With something threatening to say
The lady of the evening
Who displays a heart of gold,
Then turns her confidences to
Small sufferings untold
The street which she, perforce, must walk
Every time she comes and goes
Seeps every kind of ordure through
Her shoes, right to her toes
Nor water is available
To remedy the stain
Except each drop she carries up
In frailty and pain
Desperate people waiting round
Each corner she pass by
Longing for the dim relief of
Making somebody else cry
And if she take her grubby self
Into the better parts of town
Knows surely she’ll receive unkindness
Here a sneer, and there a frown
(So what if she dies early?
So very oversensitive
Unrealistic seems to us —
Doesn’t deserve to live!)
*****
This poet/editor is physically disabled, and lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.
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