Why Bother?

I write poetry, if you can call it that,

because I fell in love with it in high school,

and that continued on. Back then, colleges

educated people in culture, not like now.

I continue to write because I can’t help it,

the way an alcoholic can’t help drinking,

the way a dancer can’t help dancing,

the way most people can’t help thinking.

Sometimes my blog gets a lot of hits,

which could be a glitch in software, or,

someones read me. 

Still, I don’t really know how popular I am.

Younger people don’t even read books anymore.

A patron is what I need, an anachronistic term

for those in olden days that had “fuck you “ money,

and could easily afford to patronize the arts.

I don’t mind being patronized: “There, there, poor man…

here’s your hundred bucks.” if it gave me an hundred bucks.

But, I’ll keep writing anyway, Fool that I am, though there

may not be Royalty of any ilk that could appreciate what I am.

The desperation of iambic verse,

no more no less, 

no one likes to be a wolf howling at the moon.

“For what it’s worth…buy my album” 

the musician said, as art is bought and sold,

tailored to Consumer’s Mind. (Suzuki Roshi

would have been proud of that). I give myself,

my poetry, to all the beasts that eat me.

And that’s that.