So You Want to be a Poet

So you want to be a poet and build sculptures in the sky,
Want to feed the people beauty like some kitchen from on high?
Want to make the make them all hear music when there’s really not a band,
Want to offer them your words when you should give them your hand?
Go ahead.

So you want to be a poet want to suffer, starve and die,
Want to tell them all your stories? Well, I think that’s a lie.
Are you in it for the women, for the glory, for the art,
Are you in it for the hunger and the pain that fills your heart?
Answer me.

So you want to be a poet, but not be glum like old Jack Keats,
Want to sing of lover’s loves and want to tell of heroes’ feats?
What is it that you want then, what is it that you need?
Do you want to be a hero? In words, friend or in deeds?
Good for you.

So you want to be a poet, want to make the people great,
Want to take on extra burden and then take from them their weight?
Want to suffer for the masses ‘til you draw your final breath,
Want to heal the people’s souls just like that man from Nazareth?
I hope you do.

So you want to be a poet, mr. Eliot manque,
Want to show the Nihilists just why they don’t wake up each day?
Keep your metaphors quite deep, and keep your references arcane,
And just write for intellectuals, since the peasantry’s so plain.
Sure, why not?

So you want to be a poet, getting high and sniffing glue,
Just make sure you don’t forget the fact that poets write things too,
So if Kerouac’s your idol, let your addled mind roam free,
Are there Tic Tacs in your pocket? Sounds like a poem to me.
Applesauce.

So you want to be a poet, ‘cause we all know chicks dig scars
And you want things to be easy but you can’t play the guitar,
Do you think that they’re all gasping at the lovely things you say?
Do you think that they’re all gawking at your fancy new beret?
That sounds right.

So you want to be a poet and be Faust without the shame,
Want to run through fields of razors when they’ll still forget your name?
Want to break the people’s shackles so you’ll lead them someplace new?
Want to elevate the earthbound? It’s the only thing to do.
So do I.

Garrett Cook is a small press novelist and poet in the Bizarro movement. His latest book is Jimmy Plush, Teddy Bear Detective from Eraserhead Press. When he is not writing Bizarro, he can be found editing Imperial Youth Review, a magazine from Dog Horn Publishing in the UK and singing in the band Mayonnaise Jenkins and the Former Kings of the Delta Blues.
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He is also author of Murderland part 1:h8, Murderland 2:Life During Wartime, and Archelon Ranch. Find out more at : http://thegarrettcook.blogspot.com