I guess this poem is me in conversation with myself as a writer in the (pretentiously named) format of expository prose. I reread pieces long after the fact. At the time of their writing, they seemed persuasive; they could have moved people to see the world as I do. But now they seem clunky. I want to cut the facets of a diamond with my prose, but my only tool is a sledgehammer. Also, this poem is an example of my quietly-held conviction that no poet writing in the twenty-first century is allowed to craft anything without sometimes mentioning Facebook. Also, also, an alternate title for this poem is “Starsky and Hutch”. Read on …
Why the fuck did I ever write that thing?
Doesn’t exactly make the heart sing:
da-dump, da-dump, it waddles down the hill
and plop-farts on its ass. Middle-aged, and still
I think I can persuade someone like you
to trudge up the slope and share my view
of a half-mown lawn and gap-toothed hedge
and, expansive from my narrow ledge,
I keep declaring universal themes
with all the grace of viral Facebook memes,
yet when I’m done, and still your eyes
glaze over, it does not surprise
me one iota. My sledgehammer prose
keeps bashing away at the nose
of the point—the point? What’s his
point but the poking jabbing klutz’s
grab at something bigger than himself?
Watch a David soul, an Israeli elf,
put on Goliath’s coat for all to see,
shouting: Look at me. Look at me.
while disappearing in the sumptuous folds
of Palestinian reds and golds,
choking on the hairy armpit stink
of a greater man’s more fetid ink.
