Young Poet

by Chris Butler

Young poet
doesn’t write poetry.

Young poet
hasn’t written a word.

Young poet
hasn’t written anything
worth reading.

Young poet
has created
nothing out of
something.

Young poet
writes only
what is known.

Young poet
knows everything.

Young poet
doesn’t know
anything.

Young poet
confuses information
with truth.

Young poet
blows his own
mind without a gun.

Young poet
is enlightened
under the fluorescent
dark ages.

Young poet
employs old English,
even though
Shakespeare is for queers.

Young poet
recites sonnets
through a
megaphone
on the
corner.

Young poet
will never stamp
his letters on a
typewriter.

Young poet
hasn’t found
inspiration
from inhaling
white-out.

Young poet
sniffs lines that
are pasted.

Young poet
snorts lines that
are cut.

Young poet
is illiterate.

Young poet
doesn’t carry a
library card.

Young poet
blogs non-thoughts.

Young poet
hasn’t lived life.

Young poet
isn’t scarred.

Young poet
plans for old age,
although writers
never retire.

Young poet
stretches and exercises
to prevent the
development
of
carpel tunnel
syndrome
and
crippling
depression.

Young poet
kills himself
across a canvas
in order to
create a
Jackson
Pollock
blood
splattered
immortal
work of art.

Young poet
hasn’t tried to die.

Young poet
isn’t old enough.