My poems change
their shirts in the
middle of a stanza,
they stand up
by themselves
as they rise from
old chairs with
sagging seats,
my verses leap
tall buildings
in a single bound
just to look at
ball games in the
arena for free,
my poems
talk about you
when you’re not
reading them,
these stanzas
say my name in
punctuation marks only,
these line breaks
are as jagged as
any razor you use
after retrieving it
from a dented trash can,
great cultures have
gone to war
for a lack of
what my poems fail
to talk about,
my poetry craps
all over your yard
and calls it a picnic,
the couplets are drunk
and the tropes are
tacky like the
wine-red bed sheets
and orange pile carpet
that still haunts you
from the night
in motel just
outside the Modesto city limits,
these odes do not
stop bullets
but they definitely
kill conversation,
my poems are
a series of pick-up lines
that never work
like they do in the movies,
my poems are mysteries
about who loves you
baby,
my poems remember
Kojack’s first name
was Theo,
these poems
have left your apartment
and you find your wallet missing
and the refrigerator door open
and the shelves empty,
oh yes, my poems
gave you everything
they had and your pockets
are still empty,
these cadences
are a metal ring
full of untagged keys,
these poems leave you
on the front lawns
of strange houses
in countries
you can’t find
on a plastic globe,
my poems
have their
hands in your
pocket while you’re awake
asking for more
steak sauce
and a mop,
after reading,
my poems will
send you home
without car keys
or cab fare,
my poems are
tennis without the net,
they are useless things
no one can live without.
.
Ted Burke
.