Tuesday, February 22, 2005

predictions

his voice drawls across the lines of verse
smearing metaphors and symbols off of
their pages and into his neat, labeled
& organized boxes where they drop down dully,
stripped of life and beauty. venerated authors
have their words amputated from their poems
[i shudder to imagine Plath's consternation at
his butchery of "Mirror."]
seeing this ripping,
tearing, ignorance of the meaning and truths
behind mere words - do i really want the
cutthroat treachery of fame?
for the priviledge of watching teachers rip apart
my heart and soul, watch the fragments
of meaning twitch and jerk, dissected,
devoid of the emotion i have invested so carefully,
trembling upon the cold steel of a critic's surgery table.