Poem a Day December #14

Sorry for failing you yesterday. What can I say? I reckon it’s not the first time a poet has left you hanging. And knowing myself as I do, I reckon it won’t be the last.

Here is one taken from last year’s Southampton Writers Conference. As you will see, it stems not so much from something Billy Collins said as from something I thought he said.

Fish Cock

A fellow poet once suggested that poetry

heals all ills, which got me thinking—

wouldn’t it be nice if one of the benefits

of growing old as a poet, was that,

simply by writing of what ails you,

the symptoms would disappear?

And, let’s throw in for good measure,

the added benefit of the healing power

of poetry applying to the work itself,

taking mere doggerel

and turning it into

true art.

Pulled up lame legging out