DEAD AGAIN
          Bruce’s Song

Poetry was dead, again.
I made the funeral,
mock-sorry words in hand.
The corpus failed to show.
We milled about, exchanged
our hardly-knew-ye’s.
Reporters misquoted reporters.
Lilacs courtesy of Borders.
Kids built snowmen with imaginary snow.

At home, the news was on,
it’s dead, again, again.
Mock-sorry words in hand,
my mourning face still set,
I had to go.

(Why did they ask me
to identify the body?
We were lovers, true,
but briefly, in the dark.)

THE SECOND COMING OF BROTHER BRUCE

She left me, took the house, turned the kids against me,
and I pulled my Roethke down from the shelf.
He went crazy so I didn’t have to.
Ruined his so I could keep my health.

“I’m Bruce and I’m a prosoholic.”

That was easy enough to say.
When do I start to feel better?

©2003, klipschutz

Back to the article > “Once Again, Poetry Is Dead?” by Victor Infante > page 1, 2

San Francisco-based poet and songwriter klipschutz (aka Kurt Lipschutz) is the author of Twilight of the Male Ego, The Good Neighbor Policy, & “The Charles Potts School of Thought, Action and Poetry,” a feature article here at About Poetry. His poems are available online at Pemmican and Gumball Poetry. He has also written a lengthy critical appreciation of Bill Knott.