You can’t write
Beautiful poems
About love, nature,
Or friendship
When you’re under
An endless barrage of
Of deceit, disaster, and
Disappointment
If you’re trying to
Sit quietly
Under a bridge
And, everyone up top
Is chucking rocks at your head,
Hurling insults at you, and
Some things that are even worse
It’s going to break your concentration
You’re going to get shit
All over the pages
Of your notebook
It just doesn’t work;
You can’t do it
You can’t do it,
Anymore than a painter
Can put the finishing touches
On a huge, oil-on-canvas piece,
While sitting beneath
A flock of seagulls
The dammed birds
Are just going to keep
Shitting
All over that artist’s head
Shitting
All over the painting,
All over the palette
It’s pretty goddamned difficult
To write sweet, starry-eyed,
Optimistic poetry
When gut-wrenching
Distress and betrayal
Keeps falling all over you,
Getting all stuck to the pages
Poetry is flypaper
Whether hits your life,
Whatever hits you
Right in your gut,
It stains the work
It’s probably more accurate
To say that
All the bullshit,
The lies and
The letdowns,
Really,
It stains
You
It’s all over your face,
The dust of it is
In your eyes
The hunger of all those
Empty calories
Is in your belly
The holes, from all the
Drudgery and false promises,
Have punctured your heart,
Your lungs, and your veins
The greasy, foul-smelling
Residue of
All of it
It’s all over your hands,
And so,
You can’t set pen to paper,
Or touch your keyboard
Not without
Getting that shit
All over your writing
©2023 Kevin Trent Boswell
Kevin Trent Boswell 