#3

As an exercise to start this month of poetry, which I'm trying to take more seriously than last year's, though I'm not editing any of these past first writings still, I'm going to print a poem and follow it's pattern. I've chosen a poem which struck me recently. I was thumbing through my Contemporary Poetry textbook and found this poem by Charles Simic which simply bares his name as a title. It really hit me, though I know nothing of Simic at all. I thought it might be fun and interesting, and most definitely a good way to frame the experiment, to try to copy the poem's form. Copy in this way, I mean: I will name a poem after myself and start the poem with my name. Whatever comes after will be my own ideas about how a poem so lofty might go. Here's the original:

Charles Simic

Charles Simic is a sentence.
A sentence has a beginning and an end.

Is he a simple or a compound sentence?
It depends on the weather,
It depends on the stars above.

What is the subject of the sentence?
The subject is your beloved Charles Simic.

How many verbs are there in the sentence?
Eating, sleeping and fucking are some of its verbs.

What is the object of the sentence?
The object, my little ones,
Is not yet in sight.

And who is writing this awkward sentence?
A blackmailer, a girl in love,
And an applicant for a job.

Will they end with a period or a question mark?
They'll end with an exclamation point and an ink spot.

Benjamin Morgan

Benjamin Morgan is an asshole.
Charles Simic was probably one too.
I don't know him though,
he certainly doesn't need to be lower than me.

Charles Simic is/was an asshole.
Benjamin Morgan is the biggest asshole.
He jumps into puddles of your intentions,
weighing into them, hoping for permanent stains.

He hates the sound of your voice,
when it is amplified as art.
He absolutely hates,
and cannot create for himself.

Benjamin Morgan has only one use.
As a writer of metaphors.
To create a scene vile enough
to describe himself.
Because he is not just an asshole.
No one is.

Benjamin Morgan is a hot dog
redder than an angry man's face
surrounded by peeling cornmeal.