we are not allowed to talk about religion in school so i can not talk about poetry –

how i sniff the yellowed pages

and lick the ink with watered eyes.

i do not mention plath

and her romanticization of death;

how i thought maybe one day i’d stick my head in an oven, too and be able to write like a godly figure

because one day i will be buried

in yorkshire or in jordan

or maybe in tel aviv

and it’s not like i’ll be able to do any living after im gone.

i do not mention ginsberg –

how he is angry and obscene.

he prefers sex with men

marijuana and pale liquor.

he grew out his hair and stopped writing about howls

instead about sex

piss, vomit.

he stopped writing about beautiful things

or maybe he began to see

the clever serenity of madness,

and how it is so much more divine

when it becomes a paradise.

i do not mention o’hara

because nobody would understand

a published rambler

who loved new york

so much that he wrote entire poems about it. but then wrote

about lana turner

the blonde bombshell who

nobody can remember.

or celebrities.

instead i talk about last weekend’s hook-up (ill lie and say i enjoyed it)

but i was really just wondering

how a poet would feel

about it.

i would much rather go to temple in my bookshelf.