steal this poem

My friend The Mad Poet aka KE aka Kevin Eberhardt commented that I seem to be especially poetically verbose these days since I’m blogging all these poems.

Actually I just alphabetically collected 325 of my poems from 1964 thru last week into a single master file and noticed quite a few that had never or seldom seen light so decided to blog a poem a day for a couple weeks — each week will likely be 5-6 old poems and 1-2 new poems.

325 poems isn’t a lot of product for 46 years, but most years I only wrote half a dozen poems, and from 1975 through 1985 didn’t write any at all. Then of course last year I wrote 77 new ones, so go figure. I also threw away at least 100 theoretically inferior poems over the years, which I now regret.

Anyway, here’s a new old poem from 2004.

Steal This Poem

Could I steal
I’d take ‘until things move according to themselves’
By Amy Bracken Sparks

Or Jim Lang’s
‘Ice melts in only one direction’
Though I’d lift the whole poem if he didn’t watch that way

I’d glom Steve Melton’s Steve E Gloom
He’s dead and would like that
Having deeded me ‘Cleveland in Cambodia ’
Before he downsized

I’d steal most of Major Ragain’s work
As life lesson plan

Hack Jack Kerouac’s strife and times
Borrow Burroughs’ drugs
Swallow Stevens’ Eliot

When I recite
I’ll use Bob Dylan’s words
Sing Leonard Cohen’s ‘Everybody Knows’
In Tom Waits’ voice
With Willie Nelson
For backup stash and harmony

(I’d steal from Daniel Thompson
But he’s the laureate poet
And people would know it).

Oh, I’m good at taking things
I have a sense of taste