POEM ADDRESSING BABIES

Isn’t this a good poem? O yes, it is a very good, good poem! This poem is a very, very, very good poem! O, yes it is. Yes it is! O, yes it is. What do you think, honey? What are you thinking, baby? O baby sweet baby. Yes, that’s a sweet baby. Are you smiling baby? Yes! O yes you’re smiling, aren’t you? Cutie. You’re such a cutie. My goodness, aren’t you a cutie? Isn’t this a good poem? Yes, it’s a good poem. Yes it is. Whose fat little cheeks or those? Are those your fat little cheeks? Oh, you’re a sweetie. Sweetie pie, sweetie pie. My little cutie, fat cheeks. My little pretty pie. O yes, it is a good poem. O yes it is! It is a good, good poem!

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POEM ADDRESSING PEOPLE WHO ARE TIRED, HUNGRY, OR HORNY

These things can wait. This is a very good poem and you’d be myopic to lose sight of that simply because some of your baser needs are asserting themselves. I’ll keep this short, but you should exercise some control, okay? Stay with me here. Allow this poem to carry you beyond yourself, transcending your silly flesh, wedding you with all the beauty that is just piling up here.  

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POEM ADDRESSING THE POSSIBILITY THAT THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT HAS FORCED YOU TO READ THIS POEM

I’m sorry you’re being forced to read this; on the other hand, I’m glad it’s come to this.

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POEM ADDRESSING PEOPLE WITH CERTAIN EXPECTATIONS ABOUT POETRY THAT ARE NOT FULFILLED IN THIS POEM

Change.

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POEM ADDRESSING PRISONERS

How this found you I don’t know, but, this is a good event, a good omen. Not because it’s mystical or mysterious, but because you’re actually reading this poem and I have actually written it. I know that this poem is a sort of prison too, but it’s a much more beautiful prison.

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POEM ADDRESSING FISH

You’re not going to understand any of this, but know: when I suck in my cheeks in and pucker my lips, I am imitating you as best I can. I will assume that when you’re writing poems to me that you’re imitating me as best you can.

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POEM ADDRESSING ACADEMICS WHO ARE CONSIDERING WRITING A DISSERTATION OR A BOOK ABOUT THIS POEM

I think this is the perfect poem for something like that. I’m sure you get what I’m saying. While this poem doesn’t overtly delve into theory, it certainly can inform that discussion a great deal. Also, it can shed a great deal of light on other issues that are relevant to contemporary poetry and other various germane aspects of human culture.   For instance, you might want to consider this poem and its relationship to: Melville, William Carlos Williams, Emily Dickinson, peace, consciousness, ego, psychology, Freud, Gertrude Stein, happiness, successes, movement, cartoons, Raymond Queneau, Joe Wenderorth, post-pre-post-modernism, aesthetics, surface, resurface, biography, smallness, George Perec, Kenneth Goldsmith, Bob Dylan, Roger Miller, orange, New York City, avant sneakers, peeled stuff, United States history, other colors, world chicken, Aism, Bism, Cism, Dism, Etc.ism, Jazz, other jive, Otherism, speech, talking,  pathology, and pyramids. This poem might also be very relevant to other subjects and disciplines, but these are the only ones that immediately spring to mind.

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POEM ADDRESSING ONE OF MY PRIORITIES AS THE WRITER OF THIS POEM AND EXPRESSING SOME OF THE WAYS SELF-HATRED MANIFESTS ITSELF

I do feel like I have important, beautiful things to say about the world, I just can’t think of them at this particular instant. I don’t see why you should read this poem and expect to find that sort of thing. Even if you’re looking for beauty, or anything. Why look for anything in this poem? This seems like a silly place to find something.

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POEM ADDRESSING POTENTIAL REVIEWERS OF MY WORK                                                               

I would be really honored if you did it but I don’t expect it. I understand that we have obligations and are very busy. I’m very busy writing poems like this. It’s not easy.

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POEM ADDRESSING SIDES OF MYSELF I REALLY DON’T LIKE TO THINK ABOUT

I’m probably envious of you, whoever you are. You probably have something I want. You might live in a beautiful house, or be published by a prestigious press, or might have a sweet teaching position somewhere super cool. I don’t know, sometimes I think I am cooler than everyone. Sometimes I think you’re so lame. I look at myself as special, as something to be reckoned with. Sometimes I can’t believe how little I’m appreciated by you. How could you not notice how cool this is? How couldn’t you see? I don’t know how to feel about you because I don’t know how to feel about myself. Even if you put this poem aside, I think you can sense my conflicted vibes. I have this rage that I can’t explain. It’s sad.

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POEM ADDRESSING HOPE AND PRACTICALITY, WHICH MIGHT BE SAID TO BE THE SAME THING

The idea that you might be reading this poem in the distant future, which I’m mentioning now, is very unlikely. Most poems are hardly read at all, not now, not in the future. Of course, we are already breaking this rule by being here now. So that’s a good sign.

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POEM ADDRESSING BOYS, AGE 5

This poem can turn invisible and it can beat up bad guys! When people read this poem it is like a laser shooting bad guys right in the stomach! This poem knocks bad guys on their bottoms! And if you need a force field you can get one from, Dr. Defense, who lives in this poem and makes a number of bad-guy-fighting tools and weapons. Sometimes giant robot bad guys try to kill this poem by bopping it on the head, but this poem doesn’t allow it and sends ninjas and wizards out to reverse time and destroy robots. Dr. Defense jumps up and kicks everyone in the face and he, like, flies through a window like a poem and then, like, this poem explodes!