November 2022
Michael Gessner
mjcg3@aol.com
Author's Note: The following poem is a reaction, I suppose, to poems touted as original—and I am a admirer of originality, or what we may make of that concept—but not when poems are only oddities posing as something they are not. It is a comment on the vagaries of what Poetry Itself attracts, that, or one of Its muses, a capricious vagrant attracted to imposters). I hope it is read less as a poem of complaint and more as a poem of emotional fact.

The New Poetry

The new poetry is like the old poetry;
it is always looking for another dance partner.

This time, it’s different; it has stepped out
of the dance hall and into the street

to wait by the curb for something
to come along and it usually does.

The hustlers are making sport tonight;
anything for amusement, they will

ridicule what they are not, what doesn’t
keep up with their antics, their banter

their taunts, and still they attract others.  
They couple up.  They always do.
Originally published in Nightshades, (2022).
©2022 Michael Gessner
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