When taunt in this kind of fury
I don’t want to write pretty poems
with the soft lead of a #2
pencil on lined paper
I want to spray the verse on
an unlined wall
so the letter tails drip paint
like blood from a cut lip,
Let me invade a classroom and scratch
a stanza with white chalk
on the blackboard while children
watch and cover their ears,
I want to carve the words in the flesh
of an oak on a downward slope of hill
with branches so far from the trunk
they’ll never find their way home.
I ache to etch something in rock I
can’t say aloud in present company,
maybe tattoo a verse the length of
my forearm which is a probably just
a piece of driftwood in your eyes.
Give me a sheet of sandpaper
and a nail and I’ll wax eloquently
in the grit,
and then I’ll wipe
the sweat of my brow with it,
breathe deep, shower, and
get back to writing pretty poetry
on lined paper.
-- rLp --
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