"Poetry is Dead"

he says, he says.
he says.

like the squirrel is dead on the lawn,
interrupting my walk on this day
(thrown there), (died there),
red blood matted to its hair
head crushed against the ground;
stop talking about death, the dead
the dying, stop talking about that.

if you're there i don't want
to be there.

there you are walking down the street,
with your iridescence hanging capaciously behind you
like the flag of a foreign place
i need to go to.

look at you looking at
your incompetent admirers.

he says it,
stares strangely around the room
(strange is a beautiful word, but does not count
near manifestos, new moves, romance is dying);
the irony in the classroom is stupid,
hangs heavy like the blood in the fur,
we're all here to be different,
and come out all the same

- with some exceptions, romance.

a dead squirrel does nothing to impede
these thoughts of you
and or
these thoughts of stability
(as i have been on a downslope lately
thinking about the dead, dying, etc).

poetry is dead, and or dying,
and along with it,
the lot of us who give a damn about the words
not worth a damn in themselves.