Unsolicited
Paul Mariani
Poem after poem keeps tumbling in,
Most computer-spawned, and in different fonts,
Some typed on onionskin, the odd one
Scrawled in pencil, erased, redone. One wants
To respond, if not in kind, then—better—
Kindly, to each and every one: the earnest ones,
The ones accompanied with the proper letter
Like a doting mother, the witty ones (with puns),
The ten-page epic, the tanka & the haiku (lopped),
The yellowed odes to butterflies & sad elm trees,
The mythy sequence on awkward stilts that flopped,
The embalmed canary elegy, decked out with fleas.
Week after week, the poems get WRITTEN, mailed
To, yes, yours truly, with such high hopes in each one
It hurts to stamp them failed & failed & failed
For the odd one among the rest that sings. Ain’t we got fun.
