photo (detail) by Tony O’Hara
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No Prisoners
What can I say?
We met in Santa Fe.
She’s got everything she needs,
She’s an artist
And she knew John Berryman.
Poets
are worse
than lawyers
she said
worse
than mosquitoes
Like those big flying cucarachas
down south
they get in your hair
Poets!
Poets tell you stories!
Stories about
anarchist painters
who won’t take cash
from the cruel corporate state
so
they live in boxes
made of cardboard
under bridges
without berets
without brushes
without canvas stretchers
without grants
without patrons
without brushes
Poets
she said
are like syrup
on a pancake
they soak in
until they wipe out all the taste
of the pancake itself
and fill it in with words
words
words
sweet, sticky
words!
Poets make everybody else
taste
what they taste
she sighed.
I
hate
fucking
poets
she said
First,
she hissed,
after the revolution
we’ll kill
all the poets!
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Bill Nevins has two books of poetry from Swimming With Elephants Publications: Heartbreak Ridge and AWE. Bill is an Iona College graduate who has lived in New Mexico since 1996. He is profiled in the 2007 film Committing Poetry in Times of War. He is also a widely published cultural journalist. He may be reached at [email protected].