Don't Date a Poet

Don’t date a poet

We’ll write you a hundred sappy sonnets

only three of which will ever be any good

all because William-fucking-Shakespeare

wrote 154 and bard is still a title we respect.

We’ll quote Pablo Neruda and Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

and eroticize you in ways you didn’t think possible

until you realize that innovative turn of phrase

is still a respected part of the craft

and all of us have this egotistical desire

to create something original.

The worst part though, is you’ll never see them,

because poets are hoarders of words

so… where’s our reality tv show?

Our documents folder and notebooks overflow with you

but you’ll only see a fraction. At least until

we’re up on stage shaking free psalms

like children under a cherry tree in July.

Dirty laundry is a synonym for inspiration,

because it’s an integral part of our truth.

We’re storytellers of the worst kind

lovers of the slant rhyme

perpetually unsatisfied because everything

is always still a work in progress.

And if half of us can’t even commit to writing in pen

because erasing makes editing easier,

what does that say about our human interactions?

Our text messages may be garbled

like a William S. Burroughs cut-up

or crafted like the haiku of Basho.

There’s very little in-between

unless it’s between the lines.

Don’t date a poet unless you can

put up with puns and keep

a thesaurus by the bed.

Our foot fetish is with a meter --

counting syllables to shoe them into neatly ordered lines.

Do you want to be another title in my next chapbook?

how about a thinly veiled metaphor for everything that makes me sad?

Seriously?! You - you don’t mind?

Then let’s get coffee sometime.

I know this great place down the street…

they host poetry readings every week.