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.